The Battle Plan: Evangelism Series

The Battle Plan - Evangelism

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 4/10/2016

Last Sunday I started a short, two-part series I’m calling The Battle Plan. If we want to be successful in whatever we do, we need to have a plan. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “When you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

That’s true as much in our spiritual lives as it is in the classroom or boardroom. In Colossians 4, Paul provides us with a clear, concise strategy for developing our prayer life, which we looked at last week. He tells us to be persistent in prayer, perceptive in prayer, and praiseful in prayer. But, like I said last week, prayer is only half the battle.

After giving the Colossian Christians a three-point plan for prayer, he asks them to pray specifically for him, saying, “And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.” (Colossians 4:3-4 NIV).

Paul’s mind is obviously on sharing the gospel, sharing Christ, with the world. After asking them to pray for him to have opportunities to witness, he then turns it around and reminds them that sharing Christ is everyone’s responsibility. He writes: “Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.” (Colossians 4:5-6 NLT).

Just as he did for prayer, Paul outlines a three-point battle plan for sharing our faith and spreading the Gospel of Jesus. Amazingly, God calls us—ordinary Christians—to be contagious with our faith—spreading it to as many others as possible. He wants to use every one of us to lead others into a relationship with him that will last throughout their lives and into eternity.

Unfortunately, some people hear the word evangelism or evangelist and have an immediate negative reaction. Maybe you envision hokey TV evangelists or the pushy, annoying salesmen-type who show up at your door with religious literature, or sign-wielding, bullhorn blaring street evangelists. Or maybe you imagine guys like Billy Graham or Kirk Cameron who just seem so gifted at sharing Christ and you just think, “Well that’s not for me, I just couldn’t do that.”

No wonder many of us get nervous when we hear the word evangelism! I hope you’ll be relieved to know that you don’t have to be any of those things in order to share your faith in Jesus effectively. Rather, we can be ourselves! God knew what he was doing when he made you! And if we put his plan into practice, then God can use us to spiritually impact our friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors for his glory.

So what’s the plan? First, Paul instructs us to be wise about witnessing.

• BE WISE

Paul starts off his battle plan for evangelism by saying, “Live wisely among those who are not believers” (Colossians 4:5 NLT). Often living wisely simply means that we need to remember that those who don’t yet know Christ are watching us.

This reminds me of a woman who was in real rush to get to an important meeting. Speeding through town, she got stuck behind a slow moving truck. When the truck driver stopped at a red light, she pounded on her horn and leaned out the window, screaming at him for not going through the light. Still in mid-rant, she heard footsteps and looked up to see a very serious looking police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up, took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, and put in a jail cell. After a few hours, she was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer apologized to her. He said, “I’m so sorry for the mistake. You see, I pulled up behind you and saw you honking and swearing at the man in front of you. And then I saw your What Would Jesus Do? license plate holder and your I Love My Church bumper sticker. Naturally, I assumed you stole the car.”

According to a study conducted by LifeWay Research 72% of people surveyed agreed with the statement “the church is full of hypocrites.” If you are a Christian, you ought to know that your neighbors and co-workers have their “hypocrisy-radar” scanning your lives 24/7. We need to live wisely among unbelievers because people are making decisions about the validity of Christianity based upon how we’re living. When we pray, God will give us open doors. Let’s not shut them by our behavior.

Now, being wise doesn’t mean we have to be perfect, but we must genuinely seek to follow and honor God in our daily lives. Jesus said, “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:16 NLT). Joe Aldrich, in his book Lifestyle Evangelism, put it this way: “Christians are to be good news before they share the good news.”