Sharing Your Faith

I am listening to The Village Church podcast (specifically Path Part 11 - The Reign and Rule of God) and Matt Chandler had a great insight into sharing our faith. He asked if anyone had heard the quote, “Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words” and then said “That is a dumb quote…”

He explained, "It is a Bible belt myth that by you not ordering a beer with dinner, someone's gonna go 'I believe you can lead me to eternal life'. It is a Bible belt myth that you not using bad language is gonna make someone go, 'I need Jesus Christ, please explain him to me'. You can live your life in such a way that causes people to ask questions about your faith, you absolutely can...but you're eventually gonna have to open your mouth and talk about sin and the cross and our hope in Jesus Christ."

With Easter approaching, I’m assuming a lot of churches, including my own, are in high gear speaking about sharing our faith and encouraging its congregants to invite people that don’t know Jesus to come to church with them. North has the “100 man challenge” in effect where 100 men from the church has been praying for a couple of months now for 100 people to come to salvation through Jesus and get baptized by Easter. No matter how it’s packaged, the point is:

We are God’s plan to get the Gospel to the world. There’s no back up plan, there’s no plan B, we are the plan.

Matthew 28:16-20 – The Great Commission 16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

We are the plan that God has for the Gospel going forth. The fact is that sharing our faith isn’t a one time thing. We should “preach the Gospel always”….PERIOD. The Gospel is not, “I go to church, I got it all together and you don’t”. If you’re honest with yourself, you know that none of us have it all together. The Gospel is that we have all fallen short and sinned against God, God sent Jesus to die for our sins, after dying, he conquered death through the resurrection, and is now in heaven advocating on our behalf before God. Those that accept this free gift of salvation through Jesus alone are no longer seen as sinners by God, but as holy, perfect, and blameless because of Jesus’ blood that covers us.

I don’t know how to conclude this blog because there’s too many different ways to go. The point is that we, Jesus lovers, are God’s plan. We have to get over ourselves and love people like Jesus loves them through word and deed.