Evangelistic Efforts with C. July 21st, 2018
- hemadeusalive
- Jul 21, 2018
- 6 min read
We are called to share the Gospel– this much is scripturally explicit. Where I find that I differ from a lot of Christians in this age is that they have the mindset of relational evangelism– where you come to know the person very well and then share the Gospel with them. There are several issues with using this “method” only, but perhaps that is for another blog post. These issues aside, I can recognize relational evangelism as very effective in this time. Plus, I came to know the Lord via relational evangelism… so I can’t harp on it completely! It is beautiful, beautiful thing when God saves someone you have come to love and pray for daily.
There is someone in my life who I love and pray for daily. I have known her for about as long as I have been saved, and she is still a professing Christian although she has apostatized and no longer goes to church. I had the most amazing opportunity to witness to her recently, all glory and thanks be given to God. As a bit of a preface, I need to say that I have tried to have many conversations with her before (about the Lord, about her conduct and sin, about her views, etc.), with most of them ending in one of us becoming angry and then acting out in that anger. I am not a perfect speaker, nor am I perfect in my conduct. I can be angry, inconsiderate, and a human bulldozer much of the time. My knowledge puffs me up and I forget graciousness and kindness. My knowledge that I am right trumps my knowledge that we BOTH need Christ in these cases. This sin needs prayer, and I look forward to the Day where I am fully cleansed from this grievous sin.
Because I know that I am innately selfish and think only of my words, not how they impact others, I have great excitement in writing that this conversation was very different than the ones previous. It is only by the Lord’s doing that He made me so bearable and willing to listen to her responses, and it is only by His doing that He allowed her to actually listen. This conversation did not end in her conversion, but the Lord’s work was evident, His will was done, and that is cause to praise Him. My prayer is that He saves her, and that He uses this conversation to bring about the knowledge that He is a righteous judge, that He is just, and our justifier (Romans 3).
While at work on Saturday, I got a text from this person saying “I think I’m going to come back to church tomorrow”. For context, she has been through several phases over the past year and a half where she will come inconsistently. During these times, I and others who care about her have felt the rush of hope that the Lord will make a change in her heart permanently, only to be crushed when He does not. Because of this, I decided that there needed to be further discussion in regards to her visiting church. When pressing her for her motives in doing such, she responded with something along the lines of “I don’t know, there really is no motives, I just want to get back into the routine of going to church, etc.”
I think it is safe to say that she has a large misconception about who the church is for. The church is not for our pleasure or to make us feel good about ourselves; it is a body of believers who come together to worship and serve the King. Having a routine gathering with the purpose of encouraging one another with psalms and teachings is greatly beneficial to us, but the benefit of “feeling good” should not be the sole reason behind going (Heb 10:25, 1 Cor 14:26, Col 1:18). I write this not to discredit her character, but to make myself more aware of how dangerous this type of thinking is and how pervasive it is in my own church.
Upon reading this text message, I decided to call her with the specific intention of sharing the gospel. Over the course of our friendship, my efforts went into emphasizing certain principles that the Bible teaches. In my memory, there was never a time where I shared the gospel with her because I thought she already knew it. I took for granted the fact that she went to church; in my mind that was the mark of a Christian. This, of course, is a laughable thought to me (and should be to you too)! But still, I look back and see my own laziness in regards to sharing the Gospel paralleled with my underlying fear that she wasn’t really saved.
After asking for prayer about this situation and then praying myself, I called her. There was some small talk– updates about our lives, our friends, etc. To be completely honest, I don’t remember much of what was said. I was incredibly nervous. Sharing the Gospel with friends and family is much scarier than sharing with a stranger– there is so much more at stake relationally. However, it is what every one of us is called to do.
And so I told her my intentions of the phone call. Emphasizing that I didn’t want this to be a conversation that ended in one of us hanging up angry, or a conversation that would pass by like nothing ever happened, I told her that the reason why I wanted to share the gospel with her was because I loved her and because I wanted her to know these truths before going back to church.
Then I asked her the question “Do you think you are a good person?”
She said “Yeah. Well, I mean, no one is all good and no one is all bad…. but I think I am generally good.”
I asked “Do you believe there is a standard for what constitutes a good or a bad person?”
She said that there was, but she couldn’t define what that standard was. Thus, God’s Law was brought into the conversation. By going through the Ten Commandments and using myself as the example of the law breaker (seeing as she already has knowledge of many of my own sins), she also came to the agreement that no one is good because we break the Law. Then I asked her if that was cause enough for every person to go to hell.
She said no, not because of the sacrifice that Christ has made for us, but because of the intrinsic worth we have in being created by God, and His knowledge that we will sin (Gen 1, James 3:9, Psalm 139). Citing Psalm 5:4, “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness, the evil may not dwell with you,” I tried to explain that our being created by God does not merit our having eternal life with him, She lamented that she didn’t know that it said that God felt so strongly about sin in the Bible.
It was only then that I brought in the good news of the sacrifice that Christ made for us on the cross. We didn’t spend as much time here, she was pretty quiet. But near the end of this portion of our talk, I did bring up false converts. She came up with an interesting analogy, one that I think even Ray Comfort would be impressed with! She said that when someone is on a diet, there are visible changes in what that person eats and (eventually), how they look, and that should be the same way with Christianity. This was amazing, thanks be to God, because I had the opportunity to talk to her about bearing good and bad fruits, citing Matthew 7.
We ended the conversation with my imploring her to examine herself to see if she was in the faith and if she was indeed bearing good fruits. It is my prayer that she does.
Furthermore, I want to say that God has encouraged me and worked in me immensely through this situation. I have been encouraged in her responses, which were very thoughtful and real, but I was also reminded of the fact that I am a sinner in need of a Savior. God is holy and just, where I am wicked and unrighteous. All of us deserve nothing less than the pit, yet we are given the opportunity to spend eternity with Him. Please join me in prayer for this girl. The Lord gave me an amazing opportunity, and I pray that the conversation we had was glorifying to Him. He answered my prayers, and His work was done on this day. Please pray for her salvation.
Edit: Linked below is an article that Tim Challies posted not too long ago. The content is eerily similar to some of my experiences with this friend (which I have not detailed in this post). Unfortunately, it seems all too common.
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