Good morning!
Some of my favorite verses on evangelism are Colossians 4:5-6…
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
I think there are five encouragements here that are extremely helpful in guiding us in giving the Good News of Jesus to those in our daily spheres of life.
1. Be wise toward outsiders. Wisdom basically means knowing how to act in any situation. We need to know how to interact with people who are not yet a part of the Christian faith. We should no longer regard people from a worldly point of view (2 Corinthians 5:16) but rather as God sees them: sinners like us who need to be saved! Part of this wisdom means being proactive. We need a plan of action. We should approach each day asking God to create opportunities for us to share the gospel like Paul prayed just a few verses before (Colossians 4:3). Be intentional about sharing the gospel with those you interact with today.
2. Be a good steward of your time. When these opportunities come (and they will!), use your time well. Whether it is 5 minutes with someone you run into at the store or 5 decades with the person you married, invest your time wisely. If you have one shot, then your conversation will be different than if it is someone you see every day, but use the opportunity well. This is not to put pressure on us, but rather keep us focused on the fact that none of us are guaranteed our tomorrow. We should invest our time wisely. And spending 5 minutes or 5 decades talking about Jesus is a good investment.
3. Be gracious. This line, “Let your speech always be gracious,” is one of my favorites in the Bible. There two things that get my attention immediately. One, this verse is about our speech. We live in a time of the church when “servant evangelism” is all the rage. And while it is very important for us to humbly serve and meet the physical needs of others, it is truly more important that we speak truth to them. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, not from receiving a bottle of water from a smiling person. So, let’s make sure that our actions are accompanied by gracious words of truth. The second thing is “always.” This is an impossibly high standard that we cannot meet. Which is why we need the gospel for ourselves every day! Our speech to others should be gracious, but so should our speech to ourselves! We need to preach the gospel to ourselves everyday and remind ourselves that it is Christ who lives in us to will and to act according to his purpose. Our only hope in obeying is that we faithfully rely on Christ to do it.
4. Be salty. There were a lot of uses for salt that could be in view here: a preservative, a seasoning, for purity. But I think there is something more basic about what salt does that is helpful for us. Salt makes you thirsty! We should be speaking the truth of the gospel in such a passionate, compelling way, that people thirst and long for the Living Water we have in Jesus. People are desperately trying to meet their needs with all the world can offer, and they need to know, see, and hear that Jesus is what they truly need. When we season our speech with the gracious, saltiness of Jesus, they will wonder how we can remain joyful in the midst of trials or why we bless those who curse us.
Which leads us to the last point…
5. Be relevant. Now I do not mean wearing skinny jeans, sculpting your purple hair, and getting a tattoo of some Chinese character. Those things aren’t what make us relevant. What I mean is that we must “know how you ought to answer each person” Make the gospel relevant to each person you are talking to where they are in life. If we are wise and discerning, looking for opportunities, and being graciously salty with the gospel, then people will wonder how this Jesus might help them. And they will have a specific problem in mind. So, be ready (1 Peter 3:15) to tell them about the hope of forgiveness, the comfort of grace, and the acceptance of adoption.
All this means that evangelism has to be more than a church program, more than a memorized presentation. It needs to be relational and conversational. Sharing Jesus needs to be a living part of our faith.
And we Christians need to practice. Practice talking about Jesus with your church friends and family. Then you will be ready to go into the world and have the grace of the gospel flow from you.
Blessings!
Pastor Chris
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