Tenchi
Member
Acts 4:12
12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under
heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
A fellow in a discipleship course I teach on Sunday evenings was sharing how he had confronted a neighbor with a question about her knowledge of the Gospel. "Have you heard the Gospel?," he asked her, bluntly. He meant well, wanting to evangelize the lost as Scripture commands the born-again to do. But his approach was telling. It spoke volumes about his experience of God, you see - as it does for many Christians who take the same tack in sharing the Gospel with the lost. The fellow's approach actually suggested an absence of a personal, direct experience of God.12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under
heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
Consider the following conversation:
Bob: Hey, have you heard the Gospel?
Nancy: No. What's the Gospel?
Bob: It's the Good News of salvation!
Nancy: Salvation? What do you mean?
Bob: The Gospel is the Good News that you can be saved from your sin and know God personally!
Nancy: You know God personally?
Bob: Well...yes...I'm a Christian.
Nancy: Do you see God?
Bob: No...
Nancy: Do you hear God?
Bob: Sort of, yes...
Nancy: Oh? Do you hear a voice in your head?
Bob: Not exactly...maybe, sometimes?
Nancy: Don't crazy people hear voices in their heads?
Bob: Uh...I'm not crazy...
Nancy: How do you know the voice in your head is God?
Bob: Umm...I just know, I guess. His voice is different...
Nancy: Uh huh. So, you don't see God and you - maybe - "hear" Him in your head. Do you ever feel Him, or smell Him?
Bob: Smell God? I don't think God has a smell...
Nancy: And He doesn't hold your hand, or pat you on the back, or give you a hug, does He?
Bob: No...
Nancy: So, you have an "invisible friend" who wants to save me from my sin?
Bob: God's real. He's not my "invisible friend."
Nancy: Well, you can't see Him; you can't touch Him; He doesn't speak to you out loud; you can't perceive Him with any of your physical senses. How do you know He's real?
Bob: God's a Spirit but He's real. I walk with Him every day!
Nancy: Oh? How? What does your invisible friend do that is "real"?
Bob: Well, I go to church. I don't do bad things. I pray and read my Bible. I even play guitar for the Worship band. I've...felt things.
Nancy: Uh huh. So, what about God? What does He do that makes Him "real" to you?
Bob: I just told you...
Nancy: No, you told me what you do for God. What does He do for you? And how do you know for sure it's God and not just your imagination, or peer pressure?
Bob: Uh...well...He helps me to live better.
Nancy: What does that mean? Better than what? How do you know it's God helping you?
Bob: I...uh...Hey, look at the time! I gotta go! Here's a Gospel tract. It'll explain better than I can about God. My pastor's phone number's on the back. Bye!
What's Bob's basic problem in sharing the Gospel in this scenario? He doesn't know what it is to experience God personally and directly. If God convicts me every day, as the Bible says His Spirit will do (John 16:8); if God teaches me His truth every day, as the Bible says His Spirit will do (John 14:26; John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2;10-16); if God strengthens me daily in moments of testing and temptation, as the Bible says His Spirit will do (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 2:13); if God, by the work of His Spirit, is changing me, day by day, into the "image of Christ" (Romans 8:29; Galatians 5:22-23; 2 Corinthians 3:18), and if I know what distinguishes these things in my life as His work, then I can easily answer Nancy's questions above, telling her, not about propositions of truth, but about my real, life-changing experience of a Person.
How about you? Are you like Bob, willing to share the Gospel with folks but able only to do so from a propositional position rather than from a concrete, personal, daily experience of the Person revealed in the Gospel? If you're like Bob, don't let this fact keep you from evangelizing the lost. Instead, begin to submit to God, to His Spirit, all throughout each day, giving him opportunity to teach you by being in God's word daily and extensively, remaining yielded to Him in moments of temptation, moving in God's direction as the Spirit enables you to do, by faith standing on the truth of who you are in Jesus Christ, refusing to be moved from the promises of God to you. (Romans 6; Romans 12:1; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Romans 13:14; Matthew 4:4; Psalms 1; Galatians 5:16, 25)
It's the Person revealed in the Gospel, our Savior, Jesus Christ people need to know personally and intimately, not mere propositions of Truth about him.