Evangelism Follow-Up

For most of us, evangelism is scary. You get nervous. You feel ill-equipped and poorly prepared. You fear you’ll say the wrong thing, give unnecessary offense, or worst of all, you’ll seem weird. You feel like a brand-new teacher in front of a whole class of teenage kids, telling yourself, “Don’t mess up. Please, be cool.”
Repent of your need to be cool. It’s one of the idols of our day, and it won’t help you. Divest yourself of the idea that you only get one shot at this, and you’d better make it count. Like that teacher with all those kids, this is a long-term proposition. It calls for love and patience. It’s also a proposition in which you’re not the saving one—God is.
What’s more, you have the words. You’ve learned them in worship and prayer. You’re more prepared than you think. Think instead about the soul to whom you reach out. Scripture says: The man without the Spirit cannot accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. They’re foolishness to him. He cannot understand them. They’re spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Like a kid with ear buds, he cannot hear you. Also, like a kid dressed in the style of the day, his pants are down. It doesn’t matter that he may be older, smarter, or more successful than you. He’s not properly dressed, not ready to be seen in public when the Lord appears in the glory of the Father with all His angels.
He does know there is a God. (Everyone knows this from creation and from conscience, whether they admit it or not.) He knows there is a difference between right and wrong. Along with his conscience, he is either uneasy, hoping that someday he will be good enough, or he is self-righteous, belligerently adhering to his belief, so to speak, that flying his pants at half-mast is good enough already.
Gently, from your own experience, you make yourself like him, because you are and you have been just like him. “I’m a Lutheran because first I’m a sinner. I know what’s wrong and yet I do it anyway. If I do what’s right, pride ruins it for me. Sin is right there in everything I do. I can’t escape it. If I live to be a hundred, I’m never going to be pure the way God expects. That’s why I worship this way: ‘Lord, have mercy upon us!’ If you’re anything like me, I have good news for you.
“God our Father in heaven has been merciful to us. He has given His only Son to die for us, and for His sake forgives us all our sins. Now I don’t believe in me anymore. I have Jesus to believe in. Jesus is my innocence. Jesus is my perfection. Jesus suffered because I deserved to be punished. Jesus died because I was dying and He took my place. If my sin were too much for Him, He would still be dead, but now that He is risen, I know who the winner is, and I know who stands to benefit from it! I do. And so do you. But don’t believe just because I say so. Come see for yourself.”
Do you believe all this? Pray for the opportunity and the words to say it. Say it like you mean it, because you do. Pray that God would work faith in this person’s heart, and let you say it to him again. In the end, whatever your sins in this work of His, your Lord forgives. Lift up your heart! God will fill it with His love for you.
Aaron Hamilton is pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in West Jordan, Utah.