So the time comes when you’ve shared the gospel with your friend. And now you sense this may be the moment for them to receive Jesus themselves. Perhaps you’ve never helped someone in this situation before. What then?
First, it’s essential that we’ve made the gospel really clear – the place of real repentance, real submission to Christ’s lordship, for example – otherwise there can be problems later. (Eg they may come to feel `I tried accepting Christ and it achieved nothing`.) Objectively, what’s of `first importance` here is `that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures` (cf 1 Cor 15:35); and subjectively, the response God is calling for is that we `turn to God in repentance [that is, turning from our independence, making Jesus 100% our Lord], and have faith in our Lord Jesus` (Acts 20) – or, as Jesus Himself puts it in Mark 1, `Repent, and believe in [that is, set your whole life’s trust on] the gospel!`
As we said in an earlier post, our confidence in sharing our faith will grow if we know that – with God’s help! – we can communicate this aright. It can be good to learn a gospel outline that we can share; Agape’s Knowing God Personally, for example. We’ll need to adapt any such outline to suit our own personality, and also the specific conversational situation we’re in; we don’t just pour it all out whenever we talk with somebody! But these outlines can really help us present the vital things clearly. The Navigators’ Bridge to Life` illustration is another. Or, you can learn a gospel outline based around your hand:
• The biggest (middle) finger: Who God is, His love, glory, holiness;
• The little finger: who we are as people, and where we stand with God – loved, yet lost;
• The finger bridging the two: what God has done – Christ coming to pay for our sins, by His death and resurrection;
• the remaining finger from the middle three – the new life of discipleship and glory that God offers us, with His Holy Spirit’s presence;
• the thumb, up or down: the decision by which we can enter into that new life: by true heart-repentance, and faith in Jesus and His death for us.
So we’ve explained this carefully; perhaps also we’ve told the story of how we ourselves turned to Christ. And we sense the Spirit’s prompting that now, maybe, is the crucial moment. (This is where we ourselves need to be walking with God; we don’t want either to push ahead inappropriately, nor to let the opportunity go. Our personality may decide whether we’re more likely to do the one or the other!)
So now’s the time for a moment’s silent cry to God in your heart, and then to ask…
`Are you ready to ask God to forgive you and be your Leader, or are you still thinking it through?’ (because the latter is totally ok!); or,
`Where do you feel you are right now in this journey?’; or best of all perhaps –
`Is there any reason why you wouldn’t want to receive God’s forgiveness and leadership right now?’
Then you pray together; but first you encourage your friend, in their prayer, to…
Ask for God’s forgiveness, because of Jesus’ death paying for all our sins
Ask God to come into their life as their Lord and 100% Leader
Thank God that He really has forgiven them, and, that He has come into their innermost being!
So then you pray (it’s so good to reaffirm these things for ourselves – we never outgrow them!) ; then your friend actually prays these things now, out loud if possible, silently if not.
(I’m reminded however that Nigel Lee – to whom many of us in the UK owe an enormous amount – would at that point go away (and pray!), so that this is really the not-yet-Christian’s own action. And, of course, would ask when he came back, what they’d done!)
You might want to give them a booklet – a Why Jesus? that you carry with you in faith that sooner or later it will be needed, for example! – that they can read at their leisure to grasp better what’s happened.
But now is the time to celebrate! – the time for you to thank God for the glorious thing that’s happened, that your friend has been `born again` (Jesus` words, John 3:3) into essential everlasting life, and has become part of God’s family forever!
Lastly, explain that this new birth leads to new life, as we would logically expect; including especially
- Hearing from God each day in Bible reading
Responding in worship (thankfulness) and in prayer
Expecting personal growth and lifestyle change through God’s Word to them and God’s Spirit within them
Getting baptized
Sharing their new faith with others, who most surely need it too!
Joining a community of other followers of Jesus
More about all that next week…
May God bless you in this – and soon!
(What’s above owes a lot to the Becoming a Contagious Christian course developed by Willow Creek. There are numerous good evangelism-training packages for churches out there, but this one’s maybe my favourite. It’s available from various sites online.)
