“Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, And he looked at Jesus as He walked along, and said, Look! There is the Lamb of God! The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Him. But Jesus turned, and as He saw them following Him, He said to them, What are you looking for? [And what is it you wish?] And they answered Him, Rabbi —which translated is Teacher —where are You staying? He said to them, Come and see. So they went and saw where He was staying, and they remained with Him that day. It was then about the tenth hour (about four o’clock in the afternoon). One of the two who heard what John said and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first sought out and found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found (discovered) the Messiah! —*which translated is the Christ (the Anointed One).” *—John 1:35-41 (AMPC)
This encounter with Andrew was the first individual encounter in Jesus’ ministry. Notice that Jesus did not begin His ministry with preaching or teaching or performing a miracle. His focus here was not on presenting the Gospel, or on teaching, or even on demonstrating His power, although those would be very important later. It was in this encounter with Andrew that Jesus was establishing essential priorities for successful ministry.
What Jesus is demonstrating to us here is that the first priorities of ministry are to meet needs and build relationships.
In evangelical circles, we sometimes confuse the Great Commission with the greatest commandment. We forget that the greatest commandment is not “Preach the Gospel,” although that is important. The greatest commandment is to love (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:28-31). Jesus demonstrated that if we get our priorities in order and focus on loving our neighbor, salvations will happen, and usually with far less effort and far less resistance and struggle than if we try to preach the Gospel to people without demonstrating God’s love to them first.
Recie, an itinerant minister, received a call one day from his wife, Carolyn.
“What is the Sinner’s Prayer?” she asked him.
Carolyn did not consider herself a minister. She never preached or led church meetings, but she had made a lifestyle of building relationships with other women. As the women learned that they could trust Carolyn, they began to confide in her, sharing their concerns, problems, and needs with her.
On this particular day, one of these friends wanted to know more about the Jesus that Carolyn knew, and she was ready to receive the salvation that Jesus offered. Carolyn called Recie for help, and Recie gave basic guidance as Carolyn led this woman to salvation.
The Blessing Reserved for Those Who Have These Priorities
There is a special blessing that God gives to individuals, and to churches, who give priority to focusing on meeting the needs of others and building healthy relationships. Once He sees that He can trust us to meet the needs of people and build Godly relationships, God begins to bless us by bringing people to us, entrusting them to us for discipleship.
I once had a dream in which my dog was trying to get my attention. As I walked across the yard to him, he turned and motioned to direct my attention to a ragged, dirty dog that looked like he had been mistreated and neglected for a long time. My dog brought this mistreated dog to me so that I could patch up his wounds and care for him.
The Lord is not a dog, of course, but that is what the Lord will do when He knows that He can trust us to demonstrate His love to the people that He died for. This dream was letting me know that someone (symbolized by the neglected dog) would be brought into my life, and that I was to help patch up his wounds and help meet his needs.
Jesus made this observation about the people who were following him in discipleship: “…you have been searching for Me, not because you saw the miracles and signs but because you were fed with the loaves and were filled and satisfied” (John 6:26 AMP). Jesus acknowledged that the reason people were following Him, seeking Him, was because He met their needs. When we begin meeting the needs of people, it draws them to us with a desire for more.
But this becomes really exciting when an entire church comes into one accord with this mindset. When the people of a church come into agreement to focus on meeting the needs of others and building relationships, growth happens almost effortlessly, because when God sees that He can trust the church to focus on meeting needs, He sends more people to that church.
We see this clearly in Acts 2:44-47 (PHILLIPS):
1. Meeting Needs: “All the believers shared everything in common; they sold their possessions and goods and divided the proceeds among the fellowship according to individual need.”
2. Building Relationships: “Day after day they met by common consent in the Temple; they broke bread together in their homes, sharing meals with simple joy. They praised God continually and all the people respected them.”
3. God Brought More People to Them: “Every day the Lord added to their number those who were finding salvation.”
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He didn’t seem to emphasize the salvation message. The message of salvation did not seem to be the main focus, and salvation was almost treated as an afterthought in his ministry encounters. When salvations did occur in Jesus’ ministry, they seemed to occur as a by-product, a secondary result, with the main focus being to meet more pressing needs and to build relationships.
For example, Peter followed Jesus for months before he finally made his confession of faith in the 16th chapter of Matthew. Jesus did not require salvation before Peter was allowed to follow Him as a disciple.
As another example, when Jesus healed the man who was born blind in John 9, He didn’t even tell him Who He was until after the Jews had the man thrown out of the synagogue. Then Jesus went back later, found the man, introduced Himself as the Son of God, and asked if he believed. The subject of salvation wasn’t even brought up in Jesus’ first encounter with him.
