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Sharing Our Faith in an Antagonistic Culture

By September 6, 2016No Comments

Skeptic_inlineBy Jeff Burr

We live in a time of unique opportunity when it comes to sharing our faith. The wide reach of the internet and the migration of people groups are just two factors that bring people into proximity with the gospel message. But there are other factors that make this a challenging time for evangelism. People are often increasingly isolated in our western culture and there is a growing skepticism toward “organized religion.” There are a couple of things that we should remember as we share the gospel.

First, God is at work in doing what we cannot do. God’s Word is inherently powerful. We don’t need to add to it or develop clever or manipulative techniques. And Jesus has promised His presence with us as we carry out this task. We are His spokesmen, but He alone can change the human heart. So we should not give ourselves too much credit or shy away from sharing our faith because we feel personally inadequate.

On the other hand, we bear a responsibility before God to present the gospel in all of its beauty and wonder. God is doing the heavy lifting. But we still have a significant role to play. We are to adorn the gospel (Titus 2:10). We are to live in such a way that we don’t discredit the gospel or cause people to avoid it.

And we also give careful attention to our presentation of the gospel. There is a tendency in our time to standardize the gospel. We value efficiency and we are taught to think in terms of systems and repeatable processes. So we have a stock script that we use to describe the gospel. But Jesus never presented the gospel the same way twice. The content didn’t change. But Jesus understood the uniqueness of each human heart and He crafted His words for greatest impact. When we present the gospel, we don’t simply cover facts on a page. We passionately and persuasively call people to recognize their sin and look to Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Jeff Burr is lead pastor of Forest Hills Baptist Church, Grand Rapids, Mich. This article was first posted at FHBC’s website and is reposted here by permission.