The best evangelism?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our sermons. As you know, we’re in a study of the Book of Mark, and this last week we looked at a passage where Jesus sends out his disciples to be his representatives in the community, and they do this same things Jesus had been doing, restoring what was broken in the world, bringing the kingdom of God to earth, calling people to repentance, building Jesus kingdom where there is no sin, no suffering, no evil, pushing all of that away from people who are experiencing them, involved in them. So the question comes in this week about evangelism.

These disciples were going out spreading the message of Jesus, calling people to repentance. But the question is, what is the best way to evangelize?

Which is a fantastic question, and I hope it means that you guys are thinking through how to evangelize. How do I best share the wonderful news of Jesus with those around me? I would always point you back to our series of a better story from over a year ago, which talks about how to enter into conversations that we’re already having with a mindset of sharing Jesus and how to do that in kind of a natural way. So I believe that would still be helpful. But I have recently come across a quote that says, if you’re not constantly amazed or astonished by God’s grace in your solitude, there is no way that it is going to happen in public.

If you’re not constantly astonished by God’s grace in your solitude, there is no way that it is going to happen in public. And so probably for a first step of evangelism is to really sort through how is Jesus and faith in him actually present in your daily personal life? How does it conquer your fears? How does it help you overcome your insecurities? Does it actually give you a sense of safety and stability in the world?

Do you have a sense of worth from Jesus? Are you still fighting for worth and identity out in the world? Are you still looking to others for approval? Or has his approval of you actually filled your heart with immense joy and astonishment that the God of the universe could approve of you, even as undeserving as you are of that approval? Does that astonish you on a daily basis in your solitude?

If it’s not happening in your solitude, it definitely will not happen in public. People will ask you things like, how do you handle criticism? And then you’ll have to answer, right.

Is your faith how you handle criticism? Do you say, well, when I can feel how much Jesus adores me and favors me, it helps me when other people, I mean, but is that actually part of your life? Is that actually part of your heart to begin with? If it’s not happening in your solitude, it will not happen in public. But if you are, in an increasing way astonished by what Jesus has done for you, how God sees you, then it’ll probably come out in your regular conversations.

And that is a very effective way to evangelize, because it’s your testimony, essentially. But it’s not really your testimony of how you initially came to faith. It’s your testimony of how your faith is actually intersecting with your daily life to today. And people listen to that. So we hope that helps.

We hope that you are out there evangelizing, spreading the wonderful news of Jesus and what he has done for us. Thanks for the question, and we will see you next time.