Some Ideas, Tips, and Helps for Sharing Your Faith
Telling others about Jesus is something we all know we should be doing. Why, then, are so few of us actually doing it? Well, there are many reasons. Let’s look at a few.
First, there is the issue of fear. What if I am not received well? How will this affect my relationship with this person? Will they think I am a nut? These questions, and worse, cross our minds every time we consider sharing our faith. So, our first resistance is the fear of rejection.
If something is important to you, isn’t it worth sharing? If your faith is a part of who you are, then wouldn’t your family and friends want to understand it, even if they don’t accept it? We also must ask the question, “Is this person’s eternal salvation worth more to me than my reputation?” I hope that your answers to this second set of questions would all be a resounding, “yes.” Besides, when someone rejects the gospel, they are not rejecting the person who told them. They are rejecting the One who desires to save them.
Often we don’t tell others about the salvation we have found because we are too wrapped up in ourselves and the things we are doing. Could it be that our time and our interests are more important to us than the souls and salvation of the people around us? Too often we let the things of life get in the way of sharing life with the people we know and even the people we love.
The answer here is simple, but difficult. Make time to tell others. Take time to just be present and available. Take advantage of opportunities when they arise. Set aside some of the things you want to do for the things God is calling you to do.
Another reason we don’t share the story of Jesus’ love more is that we are not certain what to say or how to go about it. It is that issue that this pamphlet was written to address. In the following pages you will find tips to help you, suggestions for things to say, and general information to guide you as you seek to guide your family and friends into a relationship with Jesus.
1. Pray, pray, pray! Everything we do needs to be supported by prayer. This is most important for sharing our faith. Pray that God will lead you to the person he has prepared to hear from you. Pray for yourself that God will give you the right words at the right time. Pray for the person with whom you are talking that the Spirit will work in them and help them to be open.
2. Relax. Nobody else’s eternal salvation is up to you. You have a responsibility to tell them about Jesus, but saving them is not your job. Bringing someone to the Father is the Spirit’s work, through Jesus Christ. Be grateful God has invited you to play a part!
3. You don’t have to know everything! You do not have to spend your whole life studying and working to answer all the difficult questions that people ask about God and the Bible. You do not have to have all the answers, nor do you have to understand everything about Christianity. Remember, in the first century, before the New Testament existed and right after the Church was formed, people were being saved by the thousands. The early Christians shared the gospel wherever they went. Here are the three most important points about sharing your faith, even if you have a limited knowledge of the Bible and Christian history.
a. Familiarize yourself with the four things listed in number four in this outline. Memorize a couple of verses for each one.
b. Aside from God’s word, the most powerful thing you can share is the story of what God has done for you. What does He mean to you? How has knowing Him and trusting Him helped your life? Has your faith given you strength in difficult times? Most importantly, how are you different now than before you met Jesus? Your answers to these questions speak beyond “book learning” to how God has impacted you in daily life. Because only you can answer these questions, sharing these things will make a great difference.
c. Questions are good. When someone asks a question about your faith it means they are thinking about God. This is something we want to encourage.
i. Answer the questions you can. If you do not know the answer, promise to find out and get back to them. Then do it! Your pastor probably knows the answer. If not, he/she knows where to find it.
ii. Some “questions” are really excuses to continue to not believe. Try to answer them, but also try not to get stuck on an issue. It is amazing how obstacles melt away when the Holy Spirit moves, and He wants to move through you.
4. Everybody needs to know four things:
a. Everybody has sinned, and because of our sin we do not seek a holy God. (Some people think they are seeking God, but they are really seeking a god in their own image.) Because of our sin, we cannot earn, nor do we deserve, anything good from God.
i. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
ii. “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.” (Romans 3:10)
iii. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6)
b. The result of sin is death–eternal separation from God. Death is what we have earned and what we do deserve.
i. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
ii. “Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished.” (Exodus 34:7)
iii. “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:45,46)
c. The Good News is that God seeks us! Jesus’ crucifixion paid the death penalty of our sin, and His resurrection brought victory over death. Because of these, He offers His righteousness and eternal life as a free gift.
i. “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
ii. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16,17)
iii. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8,9)
iv. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
d. To receive this gift we must make Jesus our Lord, the “boss of our life,” and believe that God raised Him from the dead. This means that we ask God to forgive our sins, that we are sorry for them, and that we will try not to sin in the future.
i. “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10:9,10)
ii. “God raised Him from the dead on the third day and caused Him to be seen. . . . All the prophets testify about Him that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” (Acts 10:40, 43)
5. Here are a few things you can encourage a new believer to do to help them grow in faith.
a. Read the Bible daily. This is where God speaks most clearly. All of life is to be measured against what the Bible teaches. It is in these pages that we learn the principles by which God wants us to live. A good place to start is the Gospel of John.
b. Pray. It is important, now that the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in them, that they learn to talk to Him.
c. Worship. Get them involved in a church. Invite them to go with you. Take them with you to Bible Study, small group, and Sunday School. Help them connect with a local body of believers so they can find out where they fit in the body of Christ and begin to fulfill their function. An early church leader, Cyprian, wrote, “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church.”
d. Tell others. Even though they are new to the faith, it is important to encourage them to tell someone else what they do know and what they have done. It helps them as they explain it, and it spreads the gospel even farther.
6. Invite people to church, but don’t expect the pastor to do all the work. Most people in church (about 80%) are there because somebody they knew cared enough about them to both share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them and invite them to church.
7. Remember, it is not your job to save anyone. That is the job of the Holy Spirit as He works in their hearts. You only need to be faithful to do your part and share the information that the Spirit can use to convict them and bring them to Jesus.
Think about this. If every person in the church, every year, led just one person to Jesus and brought them to church, then every year the church would double in size! If your church has 50 in attendance now, then by this time next year you could have 100. In another year you could have 200. After three years of everybody in your congregation winning one person to the Lord each year, your church could be eight times it’s current size (400 for our example). Let’s get started. Who can you win for the Lord?
