evangelism

by

Who is my Neighbor?


This summer I’m adjusting to the self-controlled schedule of online classes. I’m taking Introduction to Evangelism. I know, I’m taking an intro. class my last semester of seminary. To share with you a moment of honest transparency and confession, I put it off until the last minute, praying they might change the core curriculum for my degree program. Alas, they did not and, in the words of that well-known singer/theologian, Garth Brooks, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.”

This class has reminded me of the need to urgently and intentionally share the good news of Jesus Christ with the lost and dying world that surrounds me all of the time. While living in Seminary World I sinfully and selfishly fooled myself into believing that we lived in such a gospel-saturated area that my sharing would only annoy the people around me. I went to three continents in three years to share the Gospel, but never walked across the street to do so. But God even uses our disobedience and fear for His glory. In His perfect timing, I avoided taking Evangelism until I was back in the “Real World” and was forced to once again face head-on the vast lostness present right here in the Bible Belt of America.

While I was watching Doc Reid lecture this morning, he made a statement that I’m sure I’ve heard before, but it resonated in my heart as it shattered my last remaining excuses for not intentionally sharing my faith. His words were simple: “Play to your strengths.” He was discussing the differences between relationship and lifestyle evangelism. For some of us, the idea of going door-to-door, cold calling people or striking up a conversation with the person in line behind us at the store with the intention of sharing the Gospel brings up images of panic attacks and faking illness to avoid the situation. We are not outgoing people with salesman personalities, and the idea of “selling” the Gospel to a complete stranger makes my head explode.

I am much more likely to develop a relationship with someone, get to know them, share my life with them and then, after a connection has been established, confront them with the Gospel. That works for me and my personality and how I live my life. The problem is that when most of us think of evangelism, we only think of visitation with the deacons from church on Tuesday nights. That limited thinking stymies our desire to share our faith.

While Dr. Reid did encourage us to play to our strengths, he also challenged us to develop our weaknesses. I don’t naturally share my faith with strangers, but I also can’t tell you what part of the Christian life comes to me naturally. Naturally I’m selfish and self-centered and a host of other ailments and sinful tendencies. Just like I have to die to self and discipline my fleshly nature in the battle against sin, I must also die to self and discipline myself to practice evangelism. Consider the alternative: I can die to myself for a few moments and risk the possibility of rejection and ridicule before I go along with my day in relative ease. Or I can choose to love myself and my comfort more than that lost soul, essentially telling them that my personal comfort means more to me than their eternal destiny.

So in an attempt to find ways to be more intentional with those I do not know, I began to pray that God would show me things I can do to create opportunities to connect with the lost around me. Connecting with those around us is the key to being able to share the Gospel with them. How do you connect with your neighbors? According to Jesus, who is our neighbor? That’s right, the guy next door AND the lady standing in line behind us at the grocery store and and the Muslim woman in Afghanistan and the gay guy that works in the cubicle next to you and the single mom on welfare shopping next to you at Wal-Mart and everyone in between. Who is your neighbor? Anyone who comes across your path. The common denominator is the image of God found in every human being. Osama bin Laden and your BFF are equally your neighbor when discussing who you should care for in light of the Gospel.

In an answer to my prayer from earlier this morning, Reformissionary blogger Steve McCoy posted some fun and practical ideas on connecting with those around you in a blog entitled Summerbia:Connection Tools. Check it out, then grab a tennis ball and some kids and head to a local park and have some fun and share your faith. It’s guaranteed to be an evening you won’t soon forget.

by

Satisfaction, Security, and Priority


Haggai 1:2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.

3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?

5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.

Reading this passage this morning brought to mind the current economic and spiritual depression that is occurring around us these days. It seemed as if this passage, in which God speaks with the Israelites about their priorities and dissatisfaction, could have been written to me on a lot of days. This message is being delivered to the Israelites who have returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian Captivity, where they had spent 70 years living in relative prosperity. Upon their return to Jerusalem, they did not make God and their relationship with him their first priority. While the Temple laid in ruins, they were focused on building their own homes and securing their own prosperity.

But God observes of them what can be observed in our own time—the more they made their own comfort and security their priority, the less satisfied and secure they actually became. Jesus addressed this very issue in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:19 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

In America today, even in the midst of this current economic crisis, we are more prosperous than any other civilization in history. Our treasure is firmly on this earth, our heart has followed, and our discontent is evident. We pour our time and money into our own personal happiness, security, and satisfaction and then wonder why we are more miserable than ever before. We spend our time and money building our own home while the work of the Lord is left undone. We are expending ourselves on a product that will not last, so are working in vain. Our hearts were created to work for the glory of God, and when we spend our time working for things other than His glory, we will be inherently dissatisfied.

Sometimes, we even do this under the guise of building the Lord’s house. Take a look at your church’s budget: where is the majority of your money spent? Is it on outreach? Evangelism? Church planting? Missions? Take a look at your church’s calendar: how does your congregation spend the majority of its time? Is it in visitation, counseling, evangelism? Don’t misunderstand my point: buildings and technology and discipleship are vital aspects of ministry. But when our focus is self-comfort, self-improvement and self-entertainment, when we spend more time in fellowship than service, then even serving the Lord becomes unsatisfactory. It’s unsatisfactory because we are really serving ourselves instead of truly serving Him.

I have learned the last few months that when I face times of frustration, of dissatisfaction, I can usually trace it back to somehow being disappointed with my circumstances. When I take my focus off of the Lord, when the building of His kingdom is no longer my desire, when I make my treasure here my priority, I work and find no satisfaction. I lay my heart on the alter of worldly prosperity and it is sacrificed there every time.

So what are we to do to rid ourselves of the attitude of discontentment that so easily springs up in all aspects of life? God tells the Israelites to “Consider your ways.” God tells His people that they will work but gain no prosperity, security or satisfaction as long as they work to secure those things for themselves in their own way. He is our portion and our provider. Our contentment and security are found in Him alone.

The Psalmist Asaph wrote of this problem of discontentment in Psalm 73. Asaph quit looking at the goodness of the Lord and began seeing the perceived prosperity of the wicked around him. He viewed them as healthy, happy, successful, prosperous, and this led him to ask of God, “Where’s mine?” Asaph laments that he has kept his way pure for no reason; after all, what good has clean living done for him if it is only the wicked who prosper? He says that he continued in this thinking until, “I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” (v. 17). When Asaph returned his focus to eternal, kingdom matters, he remembered that while the wicked seem to prosper in this life, they will spend an eternity separated from God. Asaph remembered that the treasure that matters is the treasure of a regenerate heart, fully focused on service for God.

I pray that I will remember these instructions from God. The next time I am frustrated with the success of the wicked, when I begin to question the payout for living faithfully before the Father, when I work hard but achieve no satisfaction, I pray that the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit will being this to mind: “Consider your ways.”