We are presently still on a break from our study in Acts, which we will return to in January. Filling in for me we have had great teachers like Kristi last week and Mickey the week before. Due to the up coming holidays this will be my last week teaching until after the new year starts.
Last week Kristi shared a story as part of her lesson about how she impacted the life of one of our cousins, and how she did it completely unaware. This week I want to look at some practical ways which anyone can share their faith. This might shock you, but a born again Christian you already have all the tools you need.
Most people (Christian or not) that have been in the church for a while have probably heard of and probably have been through training for, one if not more of the more famous methods of personal evangelism. This includes things like The Roman Road, Evangelism Explosion, FAITH, Got LIFE, and ABC.
The point of all these methods is not to show how smart you can sound, but it is to remove your fear in sharing what you believe. They do not to give you new tools and powers you do not already have. That something that seems to be missing in most of the presentations on this topic. As a born again believer you are in-filled with the very presence of God, what more can you need?
If we were good friends sitting around in a coffee shop and talking casually, I could ask you what the basic points of the Gospel message are. You in this setting could easily come up with something along the lines of:
1) Everyone has sin, no one is perfect
2) Sin is a crime, and crime demands punishment
3) Jesus died on the cross to take punishment in our place
4) God loves you, and has offered a way out of that punishment through belief in Jesus.
5) All you have to do is accept this gift from God to be saved.
Guess what? That’s everything you need to cover. There are no scripture quotes to memorize, and there are no fancy-pants acronyms. Instead you merely have the basic content and meaning which you can express in conversational language with ease. All you have to do is stop being afraid.
In addition, if you are alive in the faith you can probably think of some ways that God has recently worked in your life in a tangible way. You can probably tell it with great joy, and if you practice it a few times you can probably keep the story to under a minute. This is a powerful way of showing God is real that is not subject to debate or argument. After all the only way to question your personal testimony would be to call you a liar, and by far most people will not do that.
This is all great and needed information if your looking for a way to do evangelism with strangers during brief meetings that might not be repeated, but that is not the world we live in most of our days. Indeed for most of us we get up each morning and go to a job some place, or head to a store. If the weather is nice enough we probably have yard work to do, or other household maintenance to worry about. If you have children you get to add to that school and activities that would be enough to keep a small army busy for years, and that might just be your Monday. Is this world, this very real world, who has time to sit down and chat with complete strangers? Sure you know it is important, and you will try to do it with your church from time to time, but meanwhile you are bumping shoulders with people all over every day and never once have time to share. You are just too busy.
This is where a different form of evangelism comes in, one that in my experience has been more successful at leading the hardest to reach to Christ then any other method. That is merely letting your light shine before men.
To see this, lets review the story Kristi told. She rarely saw our cousin, and never once shared her faith with her. Yet our cousin credits Kristi with being a key part in her salvation. How could that be? Well our cousin told us that it was because of how Kristi reacted in the very dark world that is our unsaved family. It did not matter how anyone acted around her, Kristi remained a Christian in word and deed. That preached to our cousin.
I have a coworker that tells a similar story about his own salvation. In his case it was his brother and sister in law. My own salvation is partly due to Kristi, and partly due to others that lived out the faith in front of me, all of which lead me on the scientific quest documented elsewhere on this site that lead me to the faith. They had none of the scientific answers, but they did not need them.
Do you see how easy it is? You can reach just about everyone you know with the Gospel merely by intentionally living it out. Sure you will mess up from time to time, and not act perfectly. What matters most is how you recover from that, and the general nature of your life. If you are truly trying to live for God, the lost will notice.
When they notice they will typically start questioning you in hopes of tripping you up and making you fall down to their level with them. It is in their very nature as lost people, they cannot help it and they do it without thought. I am sure you are wondering, what do you do when you get these questions?
Well, it is easy you simply answer them. If you do not know the answer merely say, “I do not know.” Then offer to try and find out for them by talking with a Pastor, or someone else that you respect. You do not need to be able to defend baraminology or be able to explain Dr. Humphrey’s take on relativity as a means of dealing with the age of the universe though the use of time dilation created by massive amounts of gravity. If you are doing your best to fill your time with the things of God, such as reading the Bible, praying, and listening to good Christian radio you will have enough of the basics to answer most of the questions that come up with little to no thought. The ones that you cannot answer are usually only academic exercises that have more do to with ego stroking then anything else. It is your life that will preach to them, so as long as you are not shaken by questions you cannot answer, they will not impact your witness to them.
Spend time getting to know God in your private life, and He will shine through you in your public life. A light in a dark room cannot be hidden. We all live in a dark world, and we merely have to let His light shine forth. The light will convict the lost, and they will have to either accept or reject it and that part is beyond your control, so leave it up to them and God.
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