I’ve never been very good at thinking through evangelism. Where do you start, where do you finish, what are the best scripture verses to take someone through…I was pretty well lost, and guys, that’s really sad. I’m not proud of the fact that this can be such a scary topic for me.
I think part of the reason many Christians find evangelism intimidating is the sheer weight of what we have to say. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that salvation isn’t something we can bring about in anyone’s life (including our own!), but it’s still important that we represent Christ and his method of salvation accurately. It’s serious stuff, for sure, but that doesn’t make it impossible to understand or share with others.
Our church recently did a Sunday school series that went through the steps and some relevant verses for evangelism, and I thought it was so well organized and easy to follow that I wanted to share it! It was especially helpful for me to think through these things since I want to be able to present the gospel (evangelize to) my kids. We’ll take a little piece at a time over the next few weeks, and hopefully you’ll find it as helpful as I did!
**Please note: this is not a complete recreation of the material we discussed at my church, but I am including the basic points and some scripture that we covered along with some of the ideas that have inspired my thoughts.
Ok, so, where’s a good place to start when we set out to share the gospel? Well, that will depend largely on the person you’re talking to. Some of us have church backgrounds that go way back. Others haven’t even heard of Jesus. That’s a big spectrum to try to say that one-approach-fits all. Sometimes you may have to stress a certain point with one person that would already be assumed for another.
I think it’s probably best to be thorough. Go ahead and prepare your thoughts as if the next person you talk to will have no idea what God’s salvation plan is. Though if you’re from my part of the world (known as the bible belt), chances are you won’t have to hash things out to this extent. Most people will already be familiar with certain ideas about God and themselves.Of course, familiarity itself doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has a proper understanding of something, but it might help.
That said, let’s look at the first step:
The Holiness of God
This really clicked for me when we covered it in Sunday school. I had thought before that when I talk to my kids about their need for redemption, I’ll have to tell them why they need it in the first place. It’s because God is a holy God. Take a look at what these verses say:
“For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, Lord detest.” Psalm 5:4-6 (NIV 2011, Zondervan)
“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” 1 Peter 1:15-16 (NIV 2011, Zondervan)
The verses from Psalms do a good job of telling us how God feels about sin and there are plenty of other verses in the Bible that do the same thing. It’s kind of a recurring theme, really. God hates sin. He is holy. Do you realize what this means for those of us who aren’t holy? (And by “those of us” I mean mankind, but we’ll get to that next time.) Just look at what this verse says:
“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” Habakuk 1:13a (NIV 2011, Zondervan).
And this verse got me thinking…isn’t this the same idea that Jesus himself expressed on the cross?
“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” Matthew 27:46 (NIV 2011, Zondervan)
God’s holiness goes so far and is such a serious part of his character that he forsook his own son when he was burdened with our sin. We’ll talk more about Christ and his substitution in a later step, so forgive me for seeming to ignore it for now.
This is an important step to cover in our gospel presentation because it sets the stage. Most of the steps set the stage, but each one is equally important. We need to know what standard God requires, and his standard is holiness: perfect, humanly-unattainable holiness.
“Despair” might be a good word to sum up how we should be feeling right about now…BUT, this is only the first step :) Let’s chew on that for this week and let the gravity of God’s holiness really sink in. Next week we’ll look at the second step: The Sinfulness of Man.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, things aren’t going to get any better next week. In fact, they’re going to get a lot worse.
What other verses would you use to communicate the holiness of God to someone? Let me know!
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