Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age… (Matt 28:18-20, NIV)
…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses (Acts 1:8, NIV)
There wouldn’t be a Christian in the world who has come to know God in a deep and personal way who does not want to share that testimony with other people. It’s about as exciting as telling all your friends that you may have met “the one” when things are going well, or that you’re getting married and that they are invited. I’d even go so far as to say that it would be like hiding the fact that you’re having a baby! Coming to be in a salvific relationship with the creator of the whole universe through his son is an exceptional thing to share. So to hide that kind of news is actually unnatural to the Christian. That said, many of us, though we are in love with God and excited to tell other people about how they might be saved, find it hard to tell others because either we are worried that they will think we are strange, because we are scared that will get the information wrong, or because we are scared that they will reject us. There is a number of reasons why we hold back telling others about the good news of the gospel and that has plagued Christians for thousands of years. But here’s the thing, we have to fight our own natural inclination to tell others about Jesus because ultimately we are letting something else get in the way; namely fear.
Now I can say all of this because I personally experience this when it comes to my own experience of evangelism. In fact some of the best selling books at Koorong are on evangelism because Christians so want to share the good news, but they just don’t know how to go about it. Rico Tice talks about “the pain line”, which is the imaginary line that you need to cross with people so you can talk on eternal things like where you’re personally going to end up. Sam Chan encourages Christians that we don’t all have to go street preaching or set up tent revival’s in order to get peoples attention but that there are many ways in which to engage people. John Chapman points out that because God is so part of our everyday life, just talk about him like you would with anyone as he’s not some distant character in the book, but an ever present personal God that we can share in our everyday life. Brilliant men who have written brilliant books in how to engage people in the gospel. But this is the thing, though what they are saying is true and though we yearn to testify about Jesus, there is still the fear factor in all of this.
And this is the thing that I want to encourage you with this morning. I personally find it rather difficult to fear people when I genuinely love them and that they know I love them. That seems to be the thing that really helps things along when I am wanting to engage with people with such important eternal matters. Now this isn’t the only way or full-proof (sometimes for whatever reason it is impossible to forge friendships), but every time I get the opportunity to engage with people that I have a genuine love for and that they know that I really care about them, I find that witnessing is much easier and fear stays at bay. And that’s where I see love in witnessing and treating people with care is vitally important.
So might encourage you today to pray to our heavenly Father and ask him for a love for neighbours like you have never experienced before and for providential relationships to come about in which you might find yourself sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, it’s the most natural thing for the Christian to do (1 Jn 4:18, 1 Cor 13).