Last night a salesman came to my door. As he was talking to me, I started reflecting on the dynamic of ‘evangelism’ and ‘outreach’. You see, I needed to ‘avert’ this guy, to turn him away. I could do it nicely, or not so nicely, but I had to do it. I didn’t need what he was selling, but if I didn’t cut him off, this sales pitch was never going to end…
So why did this encounter have me thinking about evangelism? Well, NOT because we are like ‘salesmen’ when we are bringing the gospel to people. Because we’re not. We are bringing the truth of God and eternal life when we share Jesus with people. We are bringing not just a message but a Spirit of power to forgive, to heal, to save. Not the same as people selling stuff for money for this life! What occurred to me was the nature of ‘reality’ with people, depending on the purpose of your encounter with them. I met this guy in the context of him selling a product to me. He approached me to talk about a product, and because I did not need that product – and that product was the purpose of our encounter – I had to reject the guy (so to speak). Now, if I had walked up to this same guy in the market square, with the purpose of sharing Jesus with him, I would have experienced a very different ‘reality’ with him, and different relationship. In a sense we would have been 2 different people. How? Well, the purpose of an encounter determines who you are in it, and what reality you are in. He would not be a guy trying to sell me something, and me being a defensive consumer – and our reality be one of seller/buyer. Here’s who we would have been: Me, a believer in Jesus Christ, offering him a message of hope and forgiveness, and him, well, whoever he truly is in relation to Jesus Christ, and whoever he chooses to be in that space, that moment, that reality. You see, when you set out with the purpose of ‘outreach’ or ‘evangelism’, you are determining a particular reality in which to encounter and experience people. You are not a consumer or even a citizen of this world, and nor are they. You enter a space – because of the purpose and power of the Gospel – where your citizenship is of heaven (Phil 3:20), and people are negotiating eternity and matters of the soul. We are not always in this space, this reality with people. I wasn’t last night when dealing with the guy on my doorstep selling me something. No, I was very much in temporal life, in the space and reality of this mortal world. And so was he. And there we met, did dealings, and parted. Forever. By God’s grace we can sometimes turn a temporal moment into a doorway to eternal, gospel truth and testimony. But it is interesting that Jesus sent his disciples, and the 72, on specific mission trips. (Luke 10) He did not just give them a message and ask them to incorporate this message into their daily lives and encounters – though we are called to live the Gospel, also. It is interesting that Paul refers to ‘sending’ preachers, or people won’t hear. (Romans 10:14-15,17), and Jesus commanded us to ‘Go to all nations.’ (Matthew 28:19 & Matthew 24:14) In the same way Jesus left there to come here, we’re called to leave here to go out there… (Phil 2:7; Mark 10:28-31) Peace to you – not pressure! This is not a call to ‘action’, but to ‘belief’. We are simply trying to see and understand the ‘flow’ of the Spirit of God, the flow of his River of Life, and jump in!:) How does Jesus work? How does the Spirit of God break in? We want – as a body, not alone as individuals – to see, believe and point our lives in that direction, that purpose. If the Spirit leads you to share Jesus with someone, you can be sure that you are, in that purpose, going to access God’s eternal reality with that person. You may know nothing of their mortal life or history, you may not even know their name, but you will have the privilege of seeing in their eyes where they are in relation to God’s Son, Jesus. ‘Since by God’s mercy we have been given this ministry, we do not lose heart!’ (2 Cor 4:1)
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AuthorPeter Walker. Archives
March 2022
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