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I walked into Walmart the other day and saw a bunch of Halloween candy, so I guess Halloween is coming up again. That seems a little early to me, but maybe it’s a piggy-back on things to stuff in kid’s school lunches – which also starts up soon. These two things, Halloween and starting school have something in common, of course, and that is that they can both be sort of scary. One is scary because of all the strange costumes, dark themes, vampires, zombies, and the pressure to do things that terrify you, while the other is, of course, Halloween.

I went digging around on the internet to learn about some different things that people are afraid of. So what I’m going to do is put some things up on the screen and you tell me if they are scary or not scary, ok? Now, we’re not going to make fun of anyone though because we can’t really pick what we’re scared of, can we?

For example, I’m scared of heights. I don’t like being high up in places, but I don’t know why (Acrophobia). Anyone with me?

Here are some others, so you say scary or not scary.

• Fear of Spiders (Arachnophobia)
• Fear of taking a bath (Ablutophobia).
• Fear of Loud Noises (Acousticophobia).
• Fear of Needles (Trypanophobia).
• Fear of snakes (Ophidiophobia).
• Fear of Chickens (Alektorophobia).
• What about fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth (Arachibutyrophobia).
• Fear of slime (Blennophobia).
• Fear of clocks (Chronomentrophobia)

Today I want to talk about something else that is kind of scary for a lot of people, and that is sharing our faith with others. Even with people we are close to, like our family, friends, and coworkers, it seems like we can talk about any other topic under the sun – even controversial things like politics, climate change, alternative medicine, or genetic engineering, we can talk all day long – even arguing about the existence of God seems to be easier – but when it comes to sharing our own personal faith story, what we believe and why and how it changes our life, many of us lock-up.

A lot of questions go through our minds:

• How do we start talking about Jesus with someone that knows nothing about Him, or is full of misconceptions about Christianity?
• What if they’re an atheist?
• What if they’re part of a different religion?
• How do I bring it up in conversation without sounding like a salesman?
• And how can we tell the whole story without leaving out important parts?

Christians have an understanding that we are supposed to hold each other accountable, but for a lot of friendships, there’s an unwritten rule, especially with non-believers, that we’re always supposed to be nice, funny, only say kind things – and just ignore the bad stuff, right? How do we break that barrier? Maybe in a very, very close friendship, we can say, “Hey, what’s going on?” but it seems awkward to press more than that. And if that’s the case, how can we tell them that Romans 3:23 says “For all have sinned” and that includes them, and that Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death…” and Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment ”, and Matthew 25:41 says that to some Jesus will say, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…” where Revelation 20:10 says “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”. That doesn’t sound very nice. How do you bring that up in conversation? What if we mess it up, or they misunderstand, or they get upset with us, and we lose them as a friend? So we think it’s better to just keep quiet and hope God will do something.

And even if we do get up the courage, when should we do it? When is the right moment? Is there a right moment? Should we just blurt it out whenever we want to? You know… get invited over to their house for dinner and say, “This meal is very nice, please pass the ketchup – oh and by the way you’re all sinners who are doomed and need Jesus.” That’s a little weird, right?

Should we invite them to church first, or tell them about Jesus first? Maybe we should wait for them to ask us. But what if they never ask? Then what?

And say all the stars do align, and it’s the perfect moment, at the perfect time, and they are sitting in rapt attention waiting for us… then what should we say?

Sharing our faith can be a little difficult sometimes, and scary, and sort of complicated when we think about it, so today, in light of the topics we’ve been covering in 1 Corinthians lately, I want to tell you four things to remember when you want to share your faith in Jesus Christ with someone, and then next week, I’ll give you a simple tool to use.

Show Them Love Before You Share the Gospel

The first thing I want you to know about sharing your faith is that you need to show them love before you share the Gospel. This is something that a lot of people get wrong. We all know the Great Commission Jesus gave in Matthew 28:19-20 that says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”. Sometimes we think that means that it’s our job to simply go out and tell the gospel to people wherever they are, even if we don’t know them.

If you walk in downtown Ottawa on any given night you’ll see people handing out tracts, yelling on street corners, or even simply standing there holding a sign with a bible verse on it. I remember one time I was downtown and saw a very surly, unhappy looking man standing on the street holding a sign with John 3:16-18 on it, which says,

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

The happiest message in the world held by the grumpiest person imaginable. Mary Poppins taught us that “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine goes down”, but I don’t think this guy saw that movie. So I started to wave at him. I waved and waved until we locked eyes. And I continued to wave until he waved back at me. I wanted this guy to give some sort of human contact to the message he was trying to spread. Eventually, he begrudgingly raised his hand, to about waist level, and gave me a bit of a wrist twist indicating that he acknowledged my existence. But his face didn’t change.

Certainly, sometimes God calls people to be public preachers and missionaries that speak to strangers. Some people are called to stand before crowds and preach to the masses, but that’s the rare exception and not usually how He works. God is a very personal God, Jesus is a personal saviour, and the Gospel, though universal, is a very personal one. Every individual needs to make a decision for or against Christ. Which means most of the time, like 99.9% of the time, God works through close relationships to spread His message. In fact, those crowd preachers aren’t that effective unless they have spent time preparing some way to personally connect those they speak to to some kind of church group.

God did not write a message in the sky, but sent Jesus to be one of us, to live among us, to tell us the message personally. The disciples were all handpicked to be with Jesus. He physically touched the sick and leprous. Even when Paul went from city to city preaching the gospel, he would sit with people in marketplaces, take time for questions and home meetings, spending hours with people, and then when he left he appointed elders who everyone knew personally.

Jesus says in John 13:35 something that we all need to remember,

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Loving the person comes before we bring them to church or share our story with them. The way that they know that we have Jesus in our hearts, and the way that they will know that Jesus is real to us, is by the love we have for them and others. So that’s where we have to start – loving.

So before you share your faith, ask yourself:

• Do I love this person?
• Do they think I love them?
• Do I want to tell them about Jesus because I love them or for some other reason?
• Have I shown them love by helping them, caring for them, eating with them, telling them the truth, and being their friend?

Remember to Pray

The second thing I want you to remember when you share the gospel with someone, is to pray. I read a great inspirational Instagram quote this week which said, “When prayer becomes your habit, miracles become your lifestyle.” And whole I don’t want to dig into the finer points of that too much, it does make a point. We must pray first and often because we don’t know when these divine appointments will come. God promises in the Bible that He will give us the words we need, the wisdom we need, the timing we need, and the help we need when we come to talk to our friends about Him. But even more important is that the Bible says that the Holy Spirit must do the work in our friend’s heart before they can hear anything we say! Remember 1 Corinthians 3:7, “So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.”

You probably remember the Parable of the Four Soils that Jesus told. It’s the story of a farmer who goes out and spreads seeds on all kinds of different ground – hard ground, rocky ground, thorny ground, and good ground. The seeds represent the Gospel of Jesus and the different grounds represent different types of hearts.

Many people have hard hearts, like the hard ground. The seeds of our message just bounce off and never grow. God says in the Bible that it is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict people of sin (John 16:8) and change their hard heart into a soft one (Eze 36:26-27). We can’t do that. We can’t argue, bribe, or convince anything to give up their sin and believe in Jesus – only the Holy Spirit can do that – which is why we must pray.

So first we show them love, and then pray. Pray God will soften your heart to hear him. Pray that you will feel compassion for the lost, not just judgment. Pray that you will want to witness to them. Pray for the boldness to speak truth. Pray God opens doors of opportunity. Pray God sends more workers to help you. Pray against Satan and the demons who are working against you and the person you are sharing with. And pray that when you present the message that God will make the person’s heart soft so they can hear the words that God gives you.

Tell Them YOUR Story

The third thing to remember about sharing your faith is that you need to start with your story. We sometimes think we need to start with apologetics, which is the defence of the faith. And while apologetics are great, and RightNow media has some excellent training videos that I think everyone should watch, you don’t need to have a perfect defence of the Bible in order to share your story – because it’s your story. They can argue up and down about the existence of God and science vs faith, but they can’t argue about your story – and it is your story that is going to touch them the most.

When you speak, you don’t have to speak in generalities about “God” and “The Bible”, but you can speak very specifically about what you know about God and His Son Jesus and what you know from the Bible. Tell them what it means to know that you that you are a sinner who needs a Saviour. How you went from an unbeliever to a believer. Tell them what it’s like for you to be a Christian. Tell them what God has been doing in your life, what you are learning at church and from the Bible, what miracles you have seen lately.

Which leads to the important point that you need to have an active relationship with God, right? If you don’t know the joy of worshipping the One who saved you from sin, if knowing God doesn’t affect your daily life, if you aren’t learning anything, and you haven’t seen any miracles, then you don’t have much of a story to share, right? That could be a reason you’re not – simply because Jesus doesn’t really matter to you one way or the other. But when you have a growing, dynamic relationship with Him, where your daily devotions have meaning, your prayers are being answered, He is close to you in struggles, you are growing in maturity as God kills more and more sin in your life, and your worship is meaningful and expressive – then you’ve got something to share.

You don’t have to make anything up, or memorize the Billy Graham Four Steps to Peace with God, or tell far flung missionary stories, or try to copy what your pastor or parents said – just tell them what it’s like for you.

• What does it feel like to know you’re forgiven from you’re your sins?
• What’s it like to talk to God in prayer and know He speaks to you personally in the Bible?
• What’s it like to know that you are loved no matter what you do?
• What’s it like to have the Holy Spirit inside of you telling you right from wrong every day?
• What’s it like to be afraid of something, or sad beyond measure, or furious with anger, but then pray and know that God is literally working in your heart at that moment to take care of you?
• What’s it like to know that Jesus has a plan for your life and that even when bad things happen you know they’ll work out for the good?
• What’s it like to be part of His church? What’s it like to sing worship songs?
• What’s it like to memorize Bible verses and have them spring to mind at just the right moment?

This is how evangelism works, and has always worked: individuals sharing what God has done and is doing in their lives. God is writing a story in your life and that’s the one that He wants you to tell.

Be Patient

And the fourth thing I want you to remember is that you need to be patient. The Bible is replete with verses about waiting for God, waiting on God, and being patient as God does His work. So be patient and keep talking to them. Keep serving them. Keep being their friend. Keep praying, but don’t stop sharing your story with them.

Here’s a tip I heard somewhere: When you have coffee or see them at work and they say, “How are things?” You can say, “Well, I’ve had some interesting things going on at work, in my family, and with my faith, which would you like to hear about?”

Think about it this way, if you saw a cool movie or bought an amazing product, you’d tell them, right? Then why not tell them about something cool or amazing that happened in your spiritual life? It’s mostly fear that keeps us from doing that, which is helped by prayer, and when I or others have done it, I can’t remember a single person saying it blew up in their face. Why? Because we’re not forcing it. We’re not making it up. It’s not coming out of nowhere. It’s part of us, and that person cares for us, so it’s natural for them to listen to something like that.

They may not get saved the first time you tell them. They may not be ready to turn from their sin. They might be afraid, or confused, or have more questions, or something else. So be patient with them, keep loving them, keep praying for God to open their hearts, and keep talking to them about what God is doing in your life.

There may come a time when you think that you’ve said it too many times – don’t believe it. I’ve heard of people who were exposed to the gospel the first time and gave their life to Jesus right there – and I know people whose friend or spouse told them about Jesus for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years before their heart was soft enough for the seed of Jesus’ story to take root. So keep on praying for them. God isn’t finished with them yet.

Yes, sharing our faith can be a little scary sometimes, but my message to you today is to keep loving them, keep praying for them, and keep talking to them about Jesus. That’s what God wants us to keep doing, and that’s how people get saved, so that’s what we should do.