Ten Encouragements for Gospel-Telling

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4-6

1) Know This: God Uses Clay Pots

Back in our text, consider 2 Corinthians 4:7. We don’t usually read it in context. So let’s do that this time. Verse 6 has just said that the God who created light does the same kind of thing to bring about in blind sinners like us the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” In verse 4, this light is called the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”

That’s the context. Now we read verse 7: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” We have “this treasure.” What treasure? “The knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Or, “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” In short: We have the gospel with its light-giving power.

Now the encouragement is this: “We have this treasure in jars of clay.” Jars of clay is a reference to us. We are the jars of clay. That is, compared to the treasure that is in us, we are clay. We are not gold. The gospel is gold. We are not silver. The news about Christ is silver. We are not bronze. The power of Christ is bronze.

This means that if you feel average or below average in your fitness to share the gospel treasure, you are closer to the truth that someone who feels powerful and wise and self-sufficient. Paul wants us to realize that we are clay pots. Not gold or silver or crystal. He wants us to realize that from the most sophisticated to the most average, we are all clay pots when it comes to containing and sharing the gospel. It is so valuable and so powerful that any thought of its container being something special is foolish.

How does Paul talk about himself and Apollos, the two most eloquent Christians in the first century? “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:5-7).

So what’s the point of being a clay pot? Back to 2 Corinthians 4:7: “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” God’s aim is that his own power through the gospel be honored, not us. Which means that if you feel average or less than average in your sense of fitness to tell the gospel, you are the person God is looking for—a clay pot, who simply shares the treasure of the gospel, not the glitzy intellect, not the glitzy eloquence, not the glitzy beauty or strength or cultural cleverness. Then God will do his work through the gospel, and the surpassing power will belong to him and not to us.

Be encouraged, ordinary Christian. You are appointed, precisely in your ordinariness, for the greatest work in the world: showing the Treasure of Christ.

2) Get Resources to Share

After these services, there are tables with some evangelistic resources: For Your Joy, Quest for Joy, Quest for Joy CD. These are things we’ve developed here at Bethlehem as a way of extending our personal conversations with people by giving them something to take away—or to read with them. There are many other things equally useful.

The point is: Think this way. Think: Wherever I can I want to commend Christ. I want to tell the story that God uses to give people life. Put them in your pocket, your purse, your briefcase, your car (John Sather said he carries a box of resources in his car). And pray every day, Lord, make me a saving blessing today to someone.

3) Know that God May Use Many Influences

Keep in mind that what you say to someone about Jesus may be supplemented by a half dozen others that God is providentially lining up to speak to this person as God pursues him for salvation. You may feel your word was wasted. It is never wasted (1 Corinthians 15:58). Your word may be the beginning of the influences. Or the final decisive word that God uses to bring a person to faith. Speak your word. The smallest word about Christ is not wasted.

4) Be a Lavish Giver

Be a lavish giver. Be known as a generous person, not a stingy person. Jesus said, “Lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35). Combine this reputation with giving books, if you know someone is a reader. Give a Christian book that cost you seven or ten or fifteen dollars. Tell them what it meant to you and that you would love to talk about it some time. If you don’t know the person, ask for their permission to give them a book that meant a lot to you.

This is what I regularly do on the plane. Sometimes conversations are easy to get into about Christ because I am a pastor. Other times they’re not. But in either case, I often say, “I wrote a book that I would love to give to you. May I give you one?” They almost never say no. I have written two books mainly with unbelievers in mind: Seeing and Savoring Christ and Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. These are the ones I carry in my briefcase on the plane. Develop the habit of thinking this way: How can I commend Christ today? Be lavish in your giving.

And, of course, give away the Bible. I happened to open a biography of the missionary Henry Martyn this afternoon and read this about the author, B. V. Henry. “Henry came to personal faith in Christ at the age of 17 through reading a New Testament given to him by an elderly lady” (B. V. Henry, Forsaking All for Christ: A Biography of Henry Martyn [London: Chapter Two, 2003], p. 167). Be lavish in giving away Bibles and portions of the Bible.

5) Find People Interesting

Be encouraged that simply finding people interesting and caring about them is a beautiful pathway into their heart. Evangelism gets a bad reputation when we are not really interested in people and don’t seem to care about them. People really are interesting. The person you are talking to is an amazing creation of God with a thousand interesting experiences. Very few people are interested in them. If you really find their story interesting, and care about them, they may open up to you and want to hear your story—Christ’s story.

6) Be Encouraged You’re Not Alone

Be encouraged that on Tuesday nights at the Downtown Campus and Thursday nights at the South Campus there is evangelism training and frontline action. Here’s the letter I got from Justin Hoover this week:

Pastor John,

. . . Our mission is to ignite and spread a passion for Jesus Christ through the joy of evangelism. We meet on Tuesday nights, downtown, at 6:30 p.m. in the Commons for worship, Word, and prayer, and on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the South Site, Building 501, Suite 110 with Elijah Layfield.

We will train new evangelists and then team them up with experienced evangelists. This is an excellent opportunity to learn how to better articulate and share the Gospel of Christ.

. . . Our deepest desire and prayer is that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be spread through the lives of the saints at Bethlehem. We’re here to help make that vision and desire of God a reality in the lives of those at Bethlehem. This is an opportunity to be equipped, impassioned, emboldened, and filled with joy for the gospel of Jesus Christ. May many of us come and ignite and spread a passion for Christ’s glory in our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, our nation, and our world.

Again: Tuesday at 6:30 in the Commons and Thursday, South Site, Building 501 Suite 110 at 6:30 p.m.

We’ll be ready and praying for more laborers to ignite and spread a passion for Jesus Christ through the joy of evangelism.

For Christ’s glory and the joy of the saints,
Justin Hoover

7) Invite People to Church

In your relationships, invite people to church even before they are Christians. Some of the sheer strangeness of what it means to be a Christian can be overcome by a growing familiarity with how we sing and talk and relate in church. And the preaching of the word of God has a unique power.

Or, nowadays with the internet, if they are hesitant to come to church, invite them to www.desiringGod.org or www.hopeinGod.org. Tell them you would like to have them hear the five-minute greeting from your pastor at the church website and give them the link.

8) Fill the City with Gospel Teaching

When the apostles were put on trial in Jerusalem the high priest said, “You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching” (Acts 5:28). That is what I dream for the churches of the Twin Cities. If all the Christians were talking about Christ, and giving out literature about Christ, and sending emails about Christ, and inviting people to church for Christ, and being lavishly generous to others for Christ, then someone might say, “Those Christians have filled the Twin Cities with their teaching.” May it be so.

9) Use Your Giftings

Be encouraged that we all have different gifts and should not try to imitate everything about anyone. Every Christian should be a servant (Galatians 5:13), but some have a gift of service (Romans 12:7). Every Christian should have heart of mercy (Luke 6:36), but some have a gift of mercy (Romans 12:8). Every Christian should speak to others about Christ (1 Peter 2:9), but some have a gift of prophecy and exhortation and teaching (Romans 12:7). The point is: We are all in this together, but some are gifted one way and some another. Find where you fit and stoke the flames of your effectiveness there. Grow in every area, but don’t paralyze yourself because you are not like someone else. God made you and means to use you in evangelism.

10) Read Books on Evangelism

Finally (and you would expect this at Bethlehem), here are three books that you can get from the bookstore (or sign up for there) to carry this message on for the rest of your life: Will Metzger, Tell the Truth; Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism; J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

Speaking the Word of God with Boldness

Would you make Acts 4:31 your dream and prayer for all of us at Bethlehem? “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31).

John Piper, Finally Alive