It was going to be a three-hour bus ride. I sat down by myself and honestly, hoped it would stay that way. I was tired and just didn’t have the energy or the desire to talk to anyone.
Just as we were about to leave the bus terminal, one more person got on the bus. Sure enough, he sat down right beside me.
Thankfully, he didn’t even acknowledge me. I was safe.
Most of us have times, like that, when we don’t really feel like engaging with people or even being friendly, let alone sharing our faith.
Of course, we know from Scripture that there are many compelling reasons why we should care about people enough to help them and even tell them about Jesus. Yet, I suspect that we already know those reasons quite well and that there is a whole set of other reasons, reasons for not sharing our faith, that sometimes undermine our Gospel witness.
Reason #1 – I Don’t Really Want to Tell People about Jesus
The first reason, which comes naturally out of my bus story, is that I sometimes don’t want to tell people about Jesus. My concern and even love for them is not enough to move me to reach out to them in a deep and meaningful way. To be honest, all too often, I don’t really care very much for the people around me.
Jesus told us what was most important when he said in Matthew 22:37-39: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love God and love others. I want to focus on the second part for a bit.
I love to jog. One day, I was out jogging in a rainstorm. I was already feeling miserable before the jog and the rainy conditions didn’t help. As I sloshed forward on the trail, I ran past a man walking his two dogs. They kind of got in my way and in a moment of frustration, I swung my fist through the air on the way by.
Well, the guy called me on it. “What was that all about?”
Busted. At that point, I was a bit worried that there might be an altercation, so I just kept running. Not cool! It didn’t take me long to start feeling really guilty about what had happened. I asked God for forgiveness and then prayed, “God. Please allow our paths to cross again.”
Sure enough, a couple weeks later, it happened. I saw the man, stopped, and apologized. I told him that my actions did not reflect the kind of neighbor I wanted to be. Thankfully, he understood and was gracious in his response.
What does it mean to love our neighbors? It certainly doesn’t mean that we’re rude to people. It starts with being friendly and kind. It’s taking time to listen, support, help, and basically do whatever it takes to bless them.
It’s being like a Mamoudou Gassama, the Parisian Spiderman, who was walking along a sidewalk in Paris when he saw a young boy hanging from the railing of a fourth-story balcony. Without a thought, he scaled the outside of the building, rescued the boy, and in the process became an international hero.
Obviously, those kinds of opportunities don’t come along very often. Yet, every time we enter someone else’s space, whether it’s physical or virtual, we can show love.
Father. Help us to grow in our love for people…
Reason #2 – They Don’t Care and Won’t Respond Anyway
Another reason why we might hesitate to share our faith is that we think that they don’t care about spiritual things and won’t respond anyway.
External appearances can be rather deceiving. I remember when our oldest son, Caleb, was about three years old. My wife, Caleb, and I were walking past a coffee shop with tables outside. Suddenly, we realized that Caleb was no longer with us. We looked back and he had crawled into the lap of this tough looking biker kind of guy. They were having a great time. All it took was a friendly little three-year-old to melt this tough guy’s heart.
We don’t know what God is doing beneath the surface in someone’s life.
In Mark 4:1-20, Jesus tells the parable of the farmer who sows seeds. Some fall on the path where hungry birds quickly snatch them away. Some fall on rocky soil. They take root, but there’s not enough soil so they eventually wither and die. Some seeds fall in a patch of thorns. They do alright at first, but it doesn’t take long for the weeds to choke out the good plants. Yet, some of the farmer’s seeds do fall on good soil. They take root. The plant grows and bears much fruit.
We can learn several lessons from this story. The one I want to emphasize is this: We’re simply called to sow Gospel seeds generously and to recognize that some will take root in people’s hearts while many others won’t. It’s really not up to us to determine who’s ready and who’s not. We need to just keep on sowing – sharing the Gospel with those around us.
Jesus, as the Son of God, often went away by himself to pray. Prayer was a vital part of Jesus’ ministry. It’s so important that we follow his prayerful example. We can pray that God would soften people’s hearts, so that they might receive the truth and that the truth would take root and grow in their lives.
During one of our church’s prayer initiatives, God spoke to me about stepping up my prayer life, particularly related to praying throughout the day and praying for people who crossed my path.
Around that time, my youngest son and I flew out to Saskatchewan to celebrate my mom’s birthday. On the way back, we sat next to a friendly, older woman by the name of Lorraine.
We talked about a lot of things including football. Her husband had been a professional football player. Then, she shared about some of the difficulties she had experienced since her husband of 36 years passed away.
I prayed quietly that God would open her heart to spiritual things.
Toward the end of the flight, Lorraine started talking about “new beginnings.” She mentioned how her brother had been confirmed in the Lutheran church as a young boy.
I discovered that her brother lived in the same city where my parents and brother lived. I mentioned that we had attended a particular church on Sunday. With a look of amazement, she said that’s where her brother attended, as well.
Lorraine also shared about a Christian neighbor who had been very kind to her and who had invited her to his church. I was able to encourage her to accept her friend’s offer.
God opened up an amazing opportunity to partner with others in sharing His love with Lorraine and to encourage her to take next steps in her spiritual journey. To modify a saying from the old TV series, A-Team, “I love it when God’s plans come together!”
God truly does move in response to the prayers of His people.
I recognize that some of you may be in a long-term relationship with someone who seems resistant to the Gospel. The person may even appear to be moving further away from following Christ.
I’m reminded of Peter’s words in 1 Peter 3:1-2 where he encourages women with unbelieving husbands: “Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”
Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Keep shining the light of Christ by following his example. Keep on praying that God would soften hearts.
Father. I pray for those in our lives who seem to be far away from you. Draw them closer today.
Reason #3 – I Don’t Really Have Any Unbelieving Friends
The third reason why we might not share our faith is that we don’t have any unbelieving friends. The longer we’re Christians, the more this is likely to happen as we devote more and more time to strengthening our Christian friendships.
I love how Jesus associated with all kinds of people. In Mark 2:15-17, we catch a glimpse of some of those in Jesus’ social network: “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus made time for those who were spiritually unhealthy.
I’ll be honest, as a pastor and now a seminary professor, I’m surrounded by Christians. I must be super intentional about building friendships with unbelievers.
Our kids go to a public school. When my youngest was in Kindergarten, he and another Christian friend starting talking about God with one of their unbelieving buddies, whom I’ll call Jeremy. At the same time, I struck up a friendship with the dad, as both of us would sometimes watch our kids play on the playground after school. Well, apparently, Jeremy kept coming home with all sorts of questions about God coming of his conversations with his Christian friends. The parents didn’t know how to respond, so they figured they’d better start attending church so they could learn the answers.
Developing friendships outside of our normal circle certainly requires extra effort. However, if we can do it naturally within the networks we are already a part of, like our neighborhood, school, sports teams and so on, it definitely makes it more doable.
Father. Open our eyes to the people around us…
Reason #4 – It Might Mess Up Our Friendship
The fourth reason why we might not share our faith sometimes is that we think it might mess up the relationship. And you know what, it might!
In John 13, Jesus did something completely unexpected. He washed the disciple’s feet – a task only a servant would do at that time. The main lesson coming out of the story is to follow Jesus’ example – to humbly serve others.
Yet, how could Jesus do such a lowly task? In the story, we see that Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power. He knew that he had come from God and that he was returning to God. Jesus knew who he was. He could serve humbly and sacrificially because his identity was secure. He had nothing to lose.
As followers of Jesus, we know who we are. Our past is forgiven. Our present is in God’s hands. We have incredible hope for the future. We can serve others. We can share our faith because we have already gained everything in Christ. We have nothing to lose.
Sharing Christ with our unsaved friends and family members might be awkward and might even change the relationship. Yet, in light of our eternal relationship with God, we really have nothing to lose. We’ve already gained everything in Christ.
Father. Grant us courage as we seek to share Christ…
Reason #5 – I Don’t Know What to Say
The fifth reason why sharing our faith can be difficult is that perhaps we don’t know what to say.
I’m encouraged by a statement in Ecclesiastes 3:11: “God has planted eternity in the human heart.”
I think what that means is that God has revealed Himself to people through experiences, encounters, His creation, exposure to faiths and philosophies that contain some truth, and many other ways. Our job, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, is to find those truths in people’s hearts, to nurture them, and to build on them.
Really what we’re doing is looking for what God has done and is doing in the other person’s life and joining Him there.
Let me share an example from when we served as missionaries in Thailand.
When the moon is full during the twelfth month of the traditional Thai lunar calendar (which usually falls in November), most Thais celebrate the loi krathong festival. Krathongs are boats made from banana leaves or bread, decorated with flowers, incense and candles that you “loi” (float) in the “klongs” (canals and rivers). It started out as a Hindu festival celebrating the goddess of water, but evolved into the Buddhist festival where you send your bad luck and bad things away on the boat. If you throw some money onto your boat, you may even get good luck in return. During our time in Thailand, we witnessed one loi krathong festival in a local park.
It’s quite a family affair. The food vendors are out, people are laughing, and everyone seems to be having a good time. From what we could tell, it looked like the festival generated the same kind of warm feelings that many of us experience at Christmas as we celebrate special traditions that bring back great childhood memories.
The sad part of the festival is that we knew that some people believed that their sin would actually float away on their krathong. As we watched the boats sail away, we saw their candles flicker and die within seconds. To us, it seemed symbolic of the futility of their efforts.
Ever since reading Eternity in their Hearts by Don Richardson, I’ve been struck by how God plants truth about Himself in every culture. We can sometimes use certain cultural practices to help people within that culture understand that truth, or at least take steps closer. Our security guard friend at our apartment building brought us a krathong, too. At first, we weren’t sure what to do with it. If we participated in the festival, would we somehow be condoning an evil practice? We ended up taking out the incense, and putting in a cross with the words, “Jesus is the light of the world,” on one side and “Jesus takes away our sin,” on the other side. We didn’t sail the krathong, but simply kept it in a prominent place in our apartment as a witness to our guests.
Jesus truly is the Light of the world who can take away peoples’ sins forever. He is our krathong.
Remember the bus story from the start of this session. Even though I still wanted to be alone, I started feeling guilty about my selfish attitude, so I prayed, “Lord. If you want me to speak to this person, get him to say the first words.”
A few minutes later, the man picked up his book and started reading. I thought, “Thank you Jesus! I’m safe.”
Then, it happened. The man put his book down and looked at me. I started getting a little worried.
His very first words to me were, “So, what do you think about God?”
For the next three hours, I had the opportunity to listen to and share the Gospel with my new, unsaved friend – someone who was obviously seeking truth.
It’s amazing to me how God uses us despite ourselves. We all have reasons why we sometimes hesitate to share our faith. I’m so thankful that God is not limited by our weakness and can take even the little bits that we offer to Him and multiply them many times over.
Now to him who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21).