FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS

volume 11, number 2, January 12, 2012

All authority has been given to Me . . . Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,

- Matthew 28:18-19.

Must You Earn the Right to Be Heard?

In the context of evangelistic work, when people are asked if they are speaking to their friends, neighbors, family members, and work associates about Christ; we often hear them say, “Well, not yet. I am trying to earn the right to be heard. I don’t want them to view me as a religious fanatic. Hopefully very soon I will gain the credibility I need to speak to them. When that happens, I most assuredly will share with them the gospel.”

What shall we say about such things? Is it Biblical to say, “I must earn the right to be heard”? Jesus commissioned His disciples to go with the gospel of the kingdom from city to city and if people failed to listen they were to shake the dust from their feet and go to the next one (Matthew 10:7ff). After His resurrection He told His disciples that by virtue of the state of His exaltation, all authority had been given to Him by His heavenly Father. He promised to be with them as they went forth to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:18-20). He told them to wait in the city until they were clothed with power from on high, and then they were to go to the nations (Luke 24:44-49). He told them that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them and consequently they were to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the utter most parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). Peter, who had been afraid of a teen-aged girl on the night of Jesus’ arrest, fifty days later is a powerful, bold, and courageous preacher (Acts 2-4). In fact Peter and John utterly confounded the Sanhedrin who knew them to be mere fisherman, but who had power in their preaching, having noted that they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

There is no Biblical evidence, whatsoever, that we must earn the right to be heard. We have authority. We have power. We have a divine commission. Now this does not mean that we are to be foolish, caustic, brash, arrogant, or unwise in evangelistic work. Paul allowed himself to be lowered in a basket to escape arrest early in his ministry (Acts 9:23-25). Jesus told His disciples to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). Jesus did not want His identity widely publicized early in His ministry (Mark 1:34), no doubt because early on there was not the ground swell of interest in Him. To die too early would, from an earthly perspective, have marred His work because so few would have believed that He was the Messiah.

But none of this suggests we must earn the right to be heard. Let’s be honest about this issue of evangelism—most of us are very uncomfortable bringing up the subject of people’s sin and their need for Christ; and your friends to whom you ought to be speaking are often as uncomfortable about it as you are. And besides, do you really think you live such an exemplary life that people will eventually say to you, “I have noticed how patient, kind, and loving you are. What makes you tick?” I am not saying that ungodly behavior does not matter, for certainly it does. We are ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20) and we always are to conduct ourselves in a manner that honors our great Savior and King. But on the other hand, you are flawed and others no doubt see those flaws.

Bottom line—if you are in Christ Jesus, then you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and you are therefore commissioned to take the gospel to your spheres of influence! You are to evangelize daily. From all I have read about great Christians from the past, they all have this same characteristic—they are filled up with Jesus and cannot stop speaking to others about what they have seen and heard. It never comes across in a judgmental fashion. It is winsome, sincere, loving, direct, bold, and kind. You cannot miss this in men like Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, Archibald Brown, Eric Liddle, or even in Tim Tebow.

How, then, do we get to the place where we are filled up with Jesus, where we cannot hold in our love for Him? Well, consider your own dating our courting relationship with the one to whom you are now married. You spent so much time together, you were so drawn in love to each other, you so enjoyed each other’s company, that you found yourself thinking of that special one every spare moment of the day, and when given the slightest opportunity, you found a way to bring your loved one into your conversations with others.

My dear friend, when you spend time with Jesus every day in His word and in prayer; when you contemplate deeply the beauty of His holiness; when you think on His glorious, kind, and tender-hearted mercies; when you meditate on His suffering and death on your behalf; then you simply cannot keep your mouth shut. You will talk about Him. You will tell others what he means to you, how He is sustaining you, how He gives you joy and peace, even in the midst of sorrow and tragedy. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then you will do what the Spirit does—testify about Jesus (John 14:16-17, 16:14). You will notice that I am not saying you must always directly engage the person by asking, “Are you saved?” Clearly we want to get to that at some point, but I mean we are to tell others of the mighty deeds of God in our lives (Psalm 2:7ff, 96:1ff). Tell them of answered prayer, of how He has forgiven you all your sins, of how He gives you peace and joy, of your great comfort as you face the prospect of death. Always ground your remarks on the authority of Scripture.