STARTER: How do you think we can prepare ourselves for God to use us? What kind of – normal – people do you feel He will use?
OK. Here are some things for us to prayerfully consider:
1. God uses people who are serious about learning to know and love Him.
This was what Christ wanted most for his apostles (Mark 3:14). When He chose His disciples, it wasn’t, first of all, that they should serve Him. It was so that they should ‘be with Him`, and then go forth and witness. God genuinely loves our company, and our service flows out of our commitment to that relationship!
Time and again, this `being with Him` and grasping what He is like is how God prepares people He wants to use. He plans to send Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, but first He takes him to the burning bush for that enormous revelation of His nature expressed in His Name I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3). He plans to send Isaiah on a career of being perhaps the foremost Old Testament prophet, but first He brings him into a devastating vision of His majesty and holiness; only then can Isaiah be ready to say, ‘Here am I, send me’ (Isaiah 6).
So the vision of God’s glory gained during our time spent ‘with Him’ comes first; if we’re to be used by God to bring His gospel, we too need to be people who have seen the glory of God. There’s no replacement for time spent with God in prayerful, worshipful Bible study.
Learning this daily habit may be a lifelong battle: the enemy will try to see to that, because he knows how vital it is. But this above all is how we’ll come to know God. And when we are full of His Word, it will leak relevantly into our conversations. Also, our enthusiasm about our latest discovery from God may well be what has most impact on a friend. If we give ourselves to worshipful Bible study, God’s Holy Spirit will dazzle us periodically with the glory of God, the wonder of Christ. And then, when we speak, people will listen: they will know that, with all our oddities, we have glimpsed the glory; we actually know the living God…
2. God uses people who are seeking to be continually filled with His Spirit
‘You will have power’, said Jesus, ‘when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be My witnesses’ (Acts 1:8, ESV as usual). We need that power; so we need to keep on asking for it, daily! Ephesians 5:18 is in fact continuous – ‘Keep on being filled with the Spirit!’ ‘Are you filled with the Spirit?’, someone once asked the evangelist D L Moody. ‘Yes’, he replied, ‘but I leak!’ We’re called to a passionate yearning for more of God’s power in our lives: `Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled!` (Matt 5:6).
Like we’ve said last time, Jesus promises us that, for anyone who believes in Him, the Spirit will be like a river of living water flowing out from within them (John 7:38). But rivers aren’t always living, fresh, powerful. Many British rivers are filled with garbage, rubbish bags, shopping trolleys…. and amidst all that trash a dirty little stream goes trickling down. Our lives can be like that. So day by day we must search our hearts, repent before Him of what is wrong today, and claim again His fullness of power. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to give us a passion for holiness (James 4:8-10). Then in repentance we can claim Christ’s promise: ‘What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent?… How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!’ (Luke 11:13).
He will fill us. We may not know it ‑ we have no dial on our shoulders to tell us we are full of the Spirit’s power and ready for impact. But let’s live by faith, trusting Jesus’ promise! Paul found it was when he felt weakest that he was most strong (2 Cor 12:9‑10); we may, like Paul, feel weak, but we’re called to live in repentance and faith, claiming God’s promise that because we have His Spirit we have His almighty power to make a real impact by our lives and words.
3. God uses people who have taken the trouble to prepare themselves. How? In four simple ways…
As we encounter God in His Word, day by day, we come to know Him more deeply, we have something to say; and as we claim by faith the daily filling of the Holy Spirit, He gives us power. Yet still, sometimes, we find ourselves afraid to speak of Jesus. What can we do about this lack of confidence?
A. One common cause may be that we know we’ve never really worked out what we want to say to our friends. We need to know and understand the central fundamentals of the Gospel.
What are these? God’s Word is clear: objectively, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, `We preach Christ crucified` (ch1); what is `of first importance` is `that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures` (ch15). And subjectively, the response God is calling for is that we `turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus` (Acts 20) – or, as Jesus puts it in Mark 1, `Repent, and believe [that is, set your whole life’s trust on] in the gospel!`
Our confidence will grow if we know we can communicate this. It can be good to learn to use a gospel outline that we can share; Agape’s Knowing God Personally, for example. We will need to adapt any such outline to suit our own personality, and also the specific situation we’re using it in; we don’t just pour it all out when we talk with somebody! But these outlines can really help us present the gospel clearly. Another approach is to learn a gospel outline based around our 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 – coming in Christ 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 Spirit’s presence;
- the thumb, up or down: the decision by which we must enter into that new life: by true heart-repentance, and faith in Jesus and His death for us.
Often people who have rejected “religion” will listen – if only out of puzzlement – when they hear that we too aren’t “religious”, instead we’re followers of Jesus… but then we’ve got two minutes to explain the difference! Learning a gospel outline (and perhaps making a note to repeat these things worshipfully every four months!) can take away fear of not knowing what to say – fear that might cripple us at such a time, and cause us to waste the opportunity God has provided.
B. Stories are powerful! Your story of how you came to meet Jesus is as powerful a tool as you have for pointing others towards him. Sometime this week write just a sentence or two in brief answer to each of the questions below:
1. BEFORE JESUS:
Looking back, how was your life different without Jesus? What made you start looking towards Him as the One who was missing from your life?
2. MEETING JESUS:
What finally caused you to follow Jesus? And specifically (if you can remember a specific moment), how did you receive Him into your life?
3. YOUR LIFE SINCE RECEIVING JESUS:
What has it meant for your life that you have Christ as your Saviour, Shepherd and Lord? What’s changed?
And then tell your story, on paper to yourself or face to face with a good friend, with a little more detail!
C. A third thing that can destroy our confidence is if we feel we don’t know the reasons for our faith, and how to handle the questions we may possibly be asked.
Peter tells us we should ‘always be prepared to give… the reason for the hope that you have’ (1 Peter 3:15). Now: We can never argue anyone into God’s kingdom; we aren’t called to win heavyweight intellectual wrestling‑bouts! It’s a supernatural battle; we come with our weak human words, crying to God to turn them into his penetrating Word that will shine through into the mind of our friend.
But then on that basis we share the ‘reasons for the hope we have’. Time and again in Acts we find Paul ‘reasoning… explaining and proving'(17:2‑3), ‘reasoning and persuading’ (19:8). The glory of the Gospel is that it’s genuinely, historically, true! So in our next posts we’ll briefly explore these vital certainties, because they can really help us with the confidence – and desire – to help people see why they need to meet our Lord!
And on the other side, sometimes we’re nervous about witnessing for Christ because we’re afraid we might perhaps be asked questions we can’t answer. There are a few questions that people ask over and over again, for example:
How could Christ be the only way to God? Aren’t all religions true?
What about science? Hasn’t it disproved Christianity?
How could God allow so much suffering?
God willing we’ll look briefly at some starter answers to these and other questions in future posts, praying that they may give the Holy Spirit something to pull out of our memories! But we can’t carry all the answers in our heads; and it’s because we know our faith is true that we can happily say, ‘No, I can’t answer that ‑ let’s talk again next week!’, and then ask around! Many of us find our fears disappearing as we realize we need not worry about the questions we’ll get asked; they’ve been asked hundreds of times before!
(And a hint: The best answers to these questions are those that point us to the Cross. We don’t want to waste time on abstract ideas if we don’t have to! Our aim is – lovingly and prayerfully – to get the problems out of the way, so that together we can share about what really matters; Christ, crucified for us, and how we respond…)
D. One last thing can cripple our confidence. Some of us face an emotional barrier: we’ve never ‘jumped in the deep end’, never faced the experience of standing up for Christ. Ask God to give you the opportunity to work with him on this!
Think where you’ll be during the coming week. Pray that this week God will give you a chance to start a friendship where eventually you’ll be able to share Jesus; and then look out for the moment when He answers, and starts to use you to point people towards Himself…
If we’re prayerfully expectant, this motivates us to live hour by hour on the basis that God’s presence is with us; to expect Him to lead us into situations where we can share a little of his truth; to carry always a gospel or a booklet to give to the people God brings us into contact with.
God is here, and this is His passion; He longs to partner with us! Let’s go out and do it! We have no idea of the potential of what God can achieve through us. There is nothing more exhilarating than being in the centre of God’s gospel purposes! `He who goes out weeping’ (like Jesus wept over His lost city), ‘bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him’ (Psalm 126:8)! The good seed undoubtedly produces a crop, says Jesus ‑ thirty, sixty or a hundredfold what was sown (Matt 13:23). A thirtyfold return is not a bad minimum! If we’ve really enabled someone to grasp the gospel, that’s enough to bring them into the kingdom many years hence! God calls us to ‘dream big dreams’ of what he can do through us. Paul says near the end of 1 Corinthians…
‘Be steadfast… always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain!’
ABSORB TIME IF YOU’RE DOING THIS AS A GROUP: Let’s divide now into groups of 2-3 and pray for five minutes for each other’s closest not-yet-Christian friends. Tell your partners who the two or three non-Christians are who you’re going to pray to get to know better and share with in the coming months. And then pray together for your friends and theirs!
