Why Do We Need to Evangelize If God Is the One Who Saves?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week we picked back up our Romans series, which we started in the spring and took a break from over the summer. And we looked at the second half of Romans 15, which details some of Paul’s missionary efforts, shows the faith that we have in Christ is big enough really to alter the course of all of history, and then our desire, one, to be a part of something so transformative, but also how we share that with others, that we express it everywhere we go. And Paul was expressing it everywhere he would go by word and deed and signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit.

But the question this week is, if God is the one who saves, if God is the one who’s bringing people into his kingdom through the work of Christ by the power of the Spirit, why then do we need to evangelize? Why would we need to share our faith if God is the one saving? Like Jesus said, if you keep quiet, the rocks are going to cry out. So can’t we just let the rocks cry out instead of us doing it?

Well, to this we would say a couple of things. One, if we remember back when we studied Romans 10, Paul makes the rhetorical point, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. How will they hear unless there’s a preacher? How will someone preach unless that preacher is sent? And it seems to be God’s plan, the means through which he saves is by Christians sharing what they have with others. That is the designed way in which people will be saved, other people will be brought into the kingdom.

However, we can look more deeply than that to the heart of God. Before there was creation, before anything happened, God existed as Father, Son, Holy Spirit since eternity past. Father, Son, Holy Spirit loved each other in perfect union and harmony, melody, with one another. Everything was great. God would not have needed to create anyone or anything in order to experience love. He already had that within himself.

But God chose to make creation and then bring others into the love that he already had within himself. Not because he needed to be loved, not because he was lonely. Again, he already had all the love that he would ever want within himself. But part of his heart was, let’s bring other people into this. And so he created.

This is Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Jesus wants us to have the love that existed between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before the world began. He wants us to be completely one all together. As the Father’s in him, he’s in us, he’s in the Father, he wants us all to be completely one as one.

It seems to be the very heart of God to share the goodness that is within God. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have created us. And so if we are now part of that eternal love that existed from before creation, if we are now part of that, if we share God’s heart, then we will also want to bring other people into what we have experienced and found. If it was so good that God wanted to bring others into it, if we experience that, we will want to do the same.

So that is a deeper reason why we share our faith. It’s not just a command, it’s not just the logistics that God has planned, that faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, word of God comes by a preacher who was sent. It’s not just the orchestrated plan, it is also God’s very heart to share the love that is within himself. And so that’s why we participate in evangelism.

We hope that’s helpful. We’ll see you next time.