volume 12, number 32, August 8, 2013

Any Old Excuse Will Do

I am not ashamed of the gospel, Romans 1:16.

Perhaps you were like me-when God graciously and sovereignly opened your eyes to see the gospel of grace, giving you a new heart so that you could repent and believe the gospel-you told everyone who would listen about Christ and His salvation. You loved Jesus and you wanted to tell everyone about him. I was like that. Perhaps you were like me too in this regard-after being a Christian for a year or two someone directed me to the teaching of the Five Points of Calvinism. This almost immediately curbed my evangelistic zeal. I am by no means saying this mitigation of zeal was justified. A proper understanding of Total Inability, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perseverance of the Saints ought to evoke profound joy, awe, and motivation for gospel witness. The key phrase here is "proper understanding." Obviously I lacked that for a number of years. So my intentional evangelistic practice slowly began to wane. I justified myself by saying, "What's the hurry? God will save His elect in due time. No need for me to rush matters by hastily sharing Jesus with someone and coaxing him into a spurious conversion experience."

But then, by God's grace, I regained a proper balance regarding evangelism, coming to understand another one of those apparent contradictions, another example of the complementarity of truth-100% God and 100% man. God the Father chooses, God the Son died and rose again, and God the Holy Spirit convicts and regenerates. On the other hand, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Our job is to take the gospel to the world, trusting the Holy Spirit to lead us to people open and receptive to the gospel. However, I still did not intentionally share my faith a whole lot. At first I decided that I should make this discipline part of my weekly regimen. So, I set aside two hours each week to evangelize on a local college campus in New England. The strangest thing happened almost weekly-about thirty minutes before my scheduled and intentional evangelistic work, I would think of more important things to do. All of a sudden I remembered a "very important" e mail that had to be sent that very minute. Then I thought of several phone calls that could not wait. So more times than not I rationalized myself right out of intentional evangelistic activity.

So I am not at all surprised to find that leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in America, and many other denominations are lamenting the lack of intentional evangelistic activity in their churches. When older guys like me lean on the younger men to engage in direct, intentional evangelism they push back by saying, "Your 'Baby Boomer' methodology does not work with the Millennial generation. That kind of evangelism does not work in today's postmodern world. People don't believe in heaven or hell so why lead with the two diagnostic Evangelism Explosion questions? Besides, we should not be confrontational with the gospel. We must earn the right to be heard. It takes time to build relationships with people to share the gospel with them. We need to build community first. Really we ought to start soup kitchens and reading programs for people and then when we have earned their trust, we can share Jesus with them. And there are so many agnostics and atheists today that 'dumping the whole load' on some one just does not make sense."

I know of a college student involved with one of our Reformed college ministries who asked her campus director if she could be taught to share the gospel. She was told, "Well, we don't do that kind of thing around here. We want you students to engage in friendship evangelism and the staff workers will do the actual evangelizing work." The student decided that she would go to CRU where they gladly taught her how to share the gospel.

Let's be honest about this issue of evangelism-it can be pretty intimidating for most of us. Our fleshly pride militates against it. We love fellowship dinners, home shepherding groups, and worship services; but evangelism is another matter. Therefore any excuse not to engage in it will do just fine. It is truly amazing to me to see how easily I can talk myself out of opening my mouth for the gospel. It seems to me that we fear man, that we fear rejection, that we crave acceptance by our peers, that we "fear the sneer of the peer" to borrow a phrase from my evangelist friend Dale Cutlip, that we are guilty of a false dichotomy-to be bold, direct, and intentional with the gospel is harsh, cruel, or judgmental. Not true at all. Any who know my wife know she is very direct with the gospel and shares Jesus very quickly with her friends, many of whom are atheists and agnostics, but who, nonetheless love to spend time with her. We can be bold, direct, and intentional with the gospel and still have a great friendship with unbelievers. It is not "either or." Many times I have said to men after directly sharing Jesus with them, after they have rejected the offer of the gospel, "Hey, we are still friends. Nothing has changed. I will be your friend no matter what, but I also will continue to tell you about what God is doing in my life and how you can know Him too."

Are you ashamed of the gospel? Do you ask God daily for opportunities to share Jesus with people? Do you take them we He gives them to you? Are you afraid of rejection? Do you really believe in the doctrine of hell? Do you believe people without Jesus go to hell when they die?

What is the remedy? Cultivate a growing intimacy with the Lord Jesus. How? Believe in the Holy Spirit. Believe in the power of the good news of Jesus. Cry out to Jesus daily for His glorious, resurrected person to manifest His power in and through you. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more glorious than telling people about Jesus. Seriously, what can top it? And when God gives you the opportunity to see someone call on the name of the Lord to be saved, when you see him grow in grace, turning from his idols to serve the living and true God, nothing can be more rewarding. You are part of God's chosen race, you are a member of His royal priesthood, you are a people for His own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you from darkness to light (1 Peter 2:9). You were created and redeemed for this.