So I read through John 1:35-42 last night. One of the amazing things that stood out to me was the character of Andrew. Even though Andrew is one of the 12 chosen by Jesus he never goes on to be a great evangelist, we never hear about the ALTAR CALLS where he leads thousands of people to receive Christ like Peter did in Acts chapter 2.
We never read about Andrew going on to have great evangelistic success like Paul the Apostle, or Peter but in this portion of scripture we really see him prominently displayed.Yet Andrew, by bringing Peter to Jesus, is indirectly responsible for all the ministry that Peter would go on to do because ANDREW WAS FAITHFUL TO BRING ONE TO JESUS! Who knows, maybe the one person you bring to Jesus could make ALL the difference concerning expanding the kingdom of heaven.
FOR EXAMPLE: Have you ever heard the name Edward Kimball? It may not ring a bell to you but in 1856 he was a Sunday school teacher. You might be thinking, “So what? WHO CARES!”
Well, in that year Edward Kimball was walking outside a shoe store and felt the Holy Spirit impress upon his heart POWERFULLY that he needed to go inside and share the gospel with somebody. Edward felt the whole thing was silly and thought, “That’s odd, you buy shoes in a shoe store, you don’t go to a shoe store to evangelize to people or preach the gospel.”
After pacing back and forth and fighting with God for a while, he decided that he should go into the shoe store. Immediately he started sharing the gospel with the shoe salesman, and the shoe salesman gave his life to Christ, and his name was…D.L. Moody.
Yes, D.L. Moody gave his life to Christ working as a shoe salesman. A few years later Moody started preaching the gospel and GOD USED HIM POWERFULLY. A guy by the name of F.B. Myer was stirred by D.L. Moody’s messages, and because of Moody’s preaching F.B. Myer went into a preaching ministry very similar to D.L. Moodys.
After many years F.B. Myer was preaching and a college student named Wilbur Chapman gave his life to Jesus Christ while hearing F.B Myer preach. Wilbur Chapman worked for the YMCA and decided to hire a former baseball player named Billy Sunday to become an evangelist for the YMCA to start preaching the gospel there. Billy Sunday came to Charlotte North Carolina and began preaching and a bunch of excited businessmen heard him and thought, “This is great! We need to put on a series of gospel revival meetings.” So they did just that, they sponsored a crusade and hired a guy by the name of Mordecai Hamm to preach.
In the first night Mordecai Hamm was teaching and a tall, lengthy young man came forward and gave his heart to Christ. Do you know what his name was? BILLY GRAHAM! You see that man, EDWARD KIMBALL, like Andrew in the Bible, isn’t someone we hear about as the one responsible for the thousands, if not millions of people giving there life to Lord.
But because of that Sunday School teachers faithfulness to go into that shoe shop, it lead to a series of events that allowed SO MUCH FRUIT to take place. And for all of you that are not familiar with Billy Graham, this man has preached the gospel to more people than anyone in human history! We’ve heard about Peter walking on water and leading thousands of people to the Lord, and it’s because of the faithfulness of Andrew. And I love that about Andrew because if you read the gospel of John you’ll often see Andrew pop in and out, and every time you read about him, HE’S BRINGING SOMEONE TO JESUS.
I pray that you allow the Lord to lead you in everything you do. Who knows, maybe the next person you lead to Jesus will become the next Billy Graham, or Chuck Smith, or D.L. Moody. But we have to be faithful to Christ for the little things.
