2/5/2014 12:06:53 PM
Our Evangelism Plan: Message, Not Messengers
When it comes to sharing the message of Christ, sometimes we put so much emphasis on the messengers and then we think, “Well, I could never be like that! I could never preach the gospel like so-and-so.” And that’s exactly what happens—we never do. We forget that it’s not the messengers, it’s the message. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise…Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
God works in ways we never think. Think about how God brought Jesus into the world: a baby boy born to a relatively poor family from the backwater hick town of Nazareth. Not exactly how we would have imagined the Messiah, the Savior of the world, to come. And so it is with each of us. Most of us probably wouldn’t be considered too wise and influential in the world. We aren’t very wealthy, very well-known or very powerful. Yet God uses people like us to share his message? Why? “So that no one may boast before God.” God does this so that we wouldn’t brag about our ability or our strength.
Do you want to be better at sharing your faith? Then stop putting so much emphasis on your abilities. Stop thinking of yourself so much. Evangelism is about being weak. It’s about sharing God’s strength. It’s about sharing God’s ability to change sinners into saints. When it comes to sharing the gospel, we’ve got to get ourselves out of the picture and point people to Christ instead.
In the end, why is it that we belong to Christ? Because of God! Because he chose you to believe! Because he gave you faith. He gave you his Son which made you wise in God’s eyes, righteous in God’s eyes and holy in God’s eyes. All of it is God’s work. So if we’re going to brag about anything, let’s brag about what God has done for us. So when we stop worrying about how well we speak, how much we know about God’s word and just tell people what God has done for us, then God can do his work of making people into believers.