Spiritual Disciplines: Exercising Evangelism

By Solomon White

This is part two of a nine-part series on spiritual disciplines meant to edify the church on disciplining ourselves to fulfill Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Now more than ever, we need to be reminded, challenged, exhorted, and conscious of what we’re doing with our time and how we’re disciplining ourselves according to God and his word. 

Evangelism

Jesus was given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18). This world belongs to him. Our King has won the war and he has gone to prepare a place for us, an eternal kingdom. As Christians, we are participating in the building of this kingdom on earth as it is in heaven by sharing the good news of Christ’s victory over his grave and our sin. Sharing the gospel of Jesus with others is the work of evangelism, a spiritual discipline that we must practice in our life-long pursuit of godliness. And yet, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with someone can feel weird. It’s the most loving thing we can do for someone but yet it’s so hard to speak up and actually share the gospel. 

There is only one true, biblically faithful gospel and so many ways to screw it up. When I was a kid, it was all about getting people to “repeat after me” through the “sinner’s prayer.” I thought if they just say those words and invite Jesus into their heart (whatever that means) then they’re in. And once saved, always saved, right? I thought if they go to just the right church camp, or hear just the right preacher talking over just the right soft music, plucking on just the right heartstrings then they’ll feel emotional enough and guilty enough to “get saved.” Then in high school, as I learned more about apologetics and theology, I thought if they just see the right creation evidence, or hear just the right argument then they’ll be saved. In my youthful zeal and to my eternal embarrassment, I naively tried to convince someone that being a Christian was the way to a great earthly life. Then there’s the atheist I ticked off in debate class (a dangerous place for a Christian). And there’s the Mormons I bullied back onto their bicycles. And then there are the Jehovah’s Witnesses inside a windowless Kingdom Hall who stumped me on the Greek indefinite article in John 1. If there’s a way to screw up sharing the gospel, I’ve done it. 

The truth is, evangelism isn’t about shutting people down with air-tight rational arguments or strumming on emotional heartstrings. It’s about sinners in need of a savior. It’s about sharing the biblical account of Jesus Christ and his forgiveness of our sin. And we should feel right at home telling anyone about our powerful, awesome King.  

Evangelism is a way to conform to Christlikeness. John 20:21 says, “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so, I am sending you.’” As Jesus made it his earthly mission to tell people that he is the savior of sinners, so we must tell others about this good news. When we evangelize, we are growing in our godliness. And it should be understood that this is not merely an option for the gifted “evangelist” or someone who is a “people person.” We are all called to be fishers of men no matter how shy or timid our personalities may be. When we make the excuse that evangelism is only for the outspoken extroverts, we’re disobeying God and withholding the life-saving, soul-redeeming power of Christ’s grace from others. We know this gospel to be the truth and no one will come to God but through Christ. Yet we still do a damning disservice to lost people by not sharing the gospel. To quote Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The gospel is the greatest power ever known to humanity. It is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Rom 1:16). 

Sharing What We Know

A common fear that keeps us from exercising evangelism is that someone would ask us a question about God or the Bible to which we don’t know the answer. What did the crippled man know about Scripture or theology before he went “walking and leaping and praising God” (Acts 3:8)? Or the blind man of John 9 who spoke with the learned Pharisees with nothing but his testimony of how Jesus healed him? These men and many others shared Jesus with the only thing they had, their saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That’s evangelism. 

However, living a life that shines light before all men (Matt 5:16) is not sufficient on its own for actually speaking the gospel to lost people. Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” We have to break out of our comfort zones and tell them. We have to say the words and explicitly point people to the saving Word of God. This involves specifically spelling out the gospel. Do we know how to do that? We call ourselves Christians and claim that the gospel changed our life and brought our spirit from death to life, but if we had a pen and a piece of paper could we articulate the gospel in a clear and faithful message? It’s surprising how difficult this is for most Christians. This is why evangelism is a spiritual discipline. It takes practice. It takes discipline to do it over and over again, like learning how to speak a foreign language, or how to play an instrument. 

How do we share the gospel with others? It doesn’t need to be some mindless memorization drill we have practiced. People don’t want to hear a sales pitch and they don’t want to feel like a project. They want to feel like they’re a real person to you. Lost people are still fellow image-bearers of God worth inherent dignity and respect. Love them like we are commanded to love people. Pray for them. In fact, one of the best ways to lead a conversation towards spiritual matters is to ask someone how you can pray for them. Letting lost people know you’re praying for them takes the conversation from the shallow end to the deep end, and eventually, hopefully, they’ll realize they’re drowning without Christ. We need gospel-ears to hear the ways people are hurting or holding onto idolatry when we talk to them. We need gospel-intentionality to know about someone’s life. This takes practice. We should be in the habit of directing people to see how their pain is healed in Jesus, how their sin is paid for by Jesus, and how no other god or idol can ever fulfill like Jesus.

The power of the Holy Spirit working through us does not depend on our sparkling intellect to bring our lost friends and loved ones to salvation. The weight of evangelism and the weight of conversion falls on the Holy Spirit, not you. Someone knew enough about Christ to share the gospel with you and you became a Christian. That’s as much as you need to know to share the gospel with someone else. If you don’t know how to start, try writing out what the gospel means, and practice summarizing it in 2 mins with those in your community group or discipleship group.

Do it. We cannot fail in this endeavor. The eternal results belong to God, not us. The only failure is to not share. Our goal is to communicate the message faithfully. If we do that, we’ll succeed every time no matter what their response is. This takes practice. Acts 4:20 says, “As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” We become more like Jesus when we evangelize because we imitate him, and do his work, and grow in our own knowledge and understanding. We learn more about Jesus when we are compelled to tell others about Jesus. This should be our attitude towards evangelism. It should pour out of us naturally. We can’t help it. If we start talking about anything it’s eventually going to lead to Christ. He has won the war and all authority on earth has been given to him. This is his world and no one else’s. Let’s act like it and be emboldened to start telling people about their rightful King and the call to faithfully repent and surrender. The spiritual discipline of evangelism is a muscle we must work out and flex, for lost people’s good,  and for our godliness. 

Further Evangelism Resources:

The Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson

The Unsaved Christian by Dean Inserra

The Master Plan for Evangelism by Robert Coleman