Evangelism: Declaration and Demonstration

Recently a few people have asked me questions about how to witness to people of different faiths.  God has graciously given me many opportunities to share the gospel with people from various backgrounds. During the five and a half years I have known Jesus, I’ve had the honor of sharing the gospel with Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Mormons, Atheists, Jews, Christians, mentally handicapped groups, and others.  By God’s grace I’ve been able to evangelize at malls, college campuses, and around churches with a number of pastors and members of other churches in our area.  I’ve even done open air preaching at Sac State and in front of a bar in Old Sac.  I don’t say this to boast (I certainly have done stupid and silly things in evangelizing).  But, I share this with you so you will know I love evangelism and have tried many different ways to share the gospel.

No matter who you want to share the gospel with there are a few things you should know:

1)      Preach the gospel to yourself first.  Learn the gospel, practice the gospel, preach the gospel to yourself in as many ways as you can every day.  The gospel will humble you, break you, and lead you to our rescuer, Jesus.  The gospel will also cultivate patience and longsuffering within your own sinful heart (huge need if you are going to talk to others about their sin).  There are so many sides to the gospel so learn as much as you can so that when you share the gospel it will come from someone who has experience, not from someone who memorized Romans Road.  The more you learn to apply the gospel to yourself the more you will be able to be like Paul and become “all things to all people.”  By God’s providence, I’ve shared the gospel with people who have been drunk, on drugs, experiencing panic attacks while I’m talking to them, schizophrenics, gang members on their way to a funeral, cross dressers, homeless people,  and tons of people who are just plain mad.  If you have experience applying the gospel to your own heart at times when you’ve been mad, anxious, drenched in sin, times of rebellion, etc. then you won’t be so shocked when you meet people stuck in their sin.  Many of them know they are broken and the last thing they need is another religious person telling them what to do.  Instead, they need to be shown the love of Jesus and they need someone who can stoop down and rescue them.  You can’t do this if you too haven’t been broken, humbled, and laid low before Jesus.

2)      Preach the gospel to the people closest to you.  Are you married?  Learn how to preach the gospel to your spouse.  Every marriage is made up of 2 selfish sinners so this is the best platform to learn how to share the gospel.  Learn how your spouse is tempted to sin then learn how to apply the gospel in every situation.  Is your spouse tempted to be worried and anxious?  Is your spouse tempted to be judgmental or proud?  Is your spouse tempted to be angry?  No matter how your spouse is tempted to sin you have plenty of opportunities to declare and demonstrate the gospel in your own home which leads me to the next point.

3)      Declare and demonstrate the gospel to all people.  Not only should you know how to verbalize the gospel (you are a great sinner, Jesus is the Great Savior).  You should also know how to demonstrate the gospel.  Do you have a family member that constantly sins against you?  Does someone in the church frustrate you?  Does your boss provoke you to anger?  I’m sure your answer is yes depending only on the hour of the day.  Colossians 3 gives a great example of how we are to demonstrate the gospel to each other. 

4)      Pray and obey.  The great commission was given for all Christians for all time.  God gives Christians the honor of sharing the gospel with believers and non-believers.  So start with yourself and move outward starting with those closest to you (family and church family). 

Most evangelism programs will attempt to toss you into the lion’s den by guilting you into passing out a gospel tract to scary strangers in Downtown, USA.  Since I have done this hundreds of times in multiple cities I can now look back and see that it’s kind of silly.  I would much rather direct you to share the gospel with yourself, your spouse, your family, your church family, your friends, your neighbors, and if you still have enough time to share the gospel with random vacationers in Old Sac then feel free.  Just make sure that you are not abandoning your spouse, family, church, friends, and neighbors in order to reach “people for Christ.”  Beware that you don’t withhold the gospel from those closest to you only to share it with people whom you will never have the opportunity to demonstrate it with.

Since God is sovereign over salvation (Psalm 3:8) you don’t need a script or bullet points on how to lead sinners to Christ.  Instead, you need to believe the gospel until you are humbled, broken, and dependant on Jesus.  Once you have experience with your own atheistic heart, sharing the gospel with atheists will become all too familiar.  Once you have experience sharing the gospel with your proud, idol-making, self-loving, works righteous heart then it won’t be so scary talking to Buddists, Catholics, Christians, Mormons, etc. because we have all been created with the same anti-gospel heart (Romans 3:23, 7:15). 

For mature Christians that are preaching the gospel to themselves, their family, and their church family, but they don’t know what to say to non-believers let me give you some helpful hints.

1)      Sharing the gospel is counseling not sword fighting.  Don’t rush into battle beating your unbelieving friend with random Scripture verses.  Instead, ask questions about his/her beliefs and apply Scripture verses as needed.  A lot of times unbelievers get won over from your love, care, and concern, and not just your words (1 Peter 3:12).  If you are sharing the gospel with someone close to you then more than likely you will have years to draw alongside your friend or family member so don’t think you have to slay them in a sword fight right now!  Believe me if your friend happens to continuing living and you’ve been preaching like they’re going to die tonight then it will make for an awkward friendship in the morning.

2)      Repentance and Faith: Don’t witness without them.  Every time you share the gospel you need to fall on repentance (from sin) and faith (in Jesus).  I like to explain that we can’t do either of these on our own.  Instead, I like to share with people that they need Jesus to give them faith and repentance.  So they should feel both hopeless (can’t do it on their own) and hopeful (Jesus can save).

Evangelism doesn’t have to be as terrifying as it’s made out to be.  Focus on preaching the gospel to yourself first and then move from there.  When you’re talking with people from different faiths don’t freak yourself out.  Ask questions, be truly interested, learn about your friends beliefs, and then ask them if you can tell them about Jesus according to the Bible.  Weave evangelism into your normal everyday conversations with the people that are closest to you.  Adorn the gospel of Jesus Christ with good works (Titus 2, James 2) so that the people who are closest to you will “see your good deeds and praise your father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Final thought- you can walk the streets and hand out gospel tracts to 20 people this week, or you can pray for the people who are closest to you (believers or not) and commit to declaring and demonstrating the gospel to them for the rest of your life.