In my life, sometimes I find myself too comfortable in my faith. That comfortableness, if you will, is almost always associated with a lack or fear of sharing the good news of Christ. I will admit, it is scary to share Christ with a complete stranger. But, I will also admit, it is NOT hard to do so. Wait, but it IS hard if it is scary, right? No. Those two things can be in the same boat, but are not limited to always being together. Fear and Difficulty have a Biblical relationship, pertaining to who that fear is directed towards. Proverbs 1:7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge..." We know that the pursuit of knowledge is difficult, but with the fear of the Lord, difficulty becomes do-ability. We also know that a good and growing fear of the Lord makes other "fears" seem like mice: Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
Because fear of rejection drives our ability to evangelize and tell the good news of Christ, it makes the simple and easy thing of sharing, hard. The truth is, the message that we are sharing, if done right, is one that the world rejects, and those drawn by the Holy Spirit receives. If we more and more grow our fear of the Lord, we will realize that God does the work of Salvation, not us, but he allows us to play a part by offering His gift that people can receive freely. If they reject it, they aren't rejecting you, they are rejecting the Lord. Our fear is that this complete stranger will think mean things about us! My response to this, which is still a work in progress in my own life, but there by the grace of God I can say, "who cares, no big deal, I don't seek their approval, I just honored the Lord by sharing His good news..."
Soon, I believe, fear of rejection will actually be fear of persecution. We are nearing more and more a world that has, in the name of tolerance, NO tolerance for the message of the cross, because it is exclusive and doesn't allow for other religions to be recognized as truth as well. Here is a video of a great friend of mine and now my senior pastor David Wisen on national television defending this very point:
The thing that makes David compelling in his defense of the cross is something called boldness. There was no sense of "well, to me I think the cross..." or "It is my understanding..." There was the sense that David knew with confidence what TRUTH is (God's Word) and the other guy, unfortunately not only doesn't know the truth, ISN'T EVEN PURSUING the truth! He, in the way he is running his universalist church, is saying, "there is no truth" and by doing so, no one is convicted of sin, no one is lead to think deeper about reality of falleness, and the "worship" service is focused around worshiping one's ability of loving themselves more and apparently "being a better human, relating to other humans." By saying that I believe a Buddhist or a Muslim needs to repent and come to Christ otherwise facing certain damnation is not being a good human because I'm causing another human offense by saying, "I'm right, and sorry, you're wrong."
But our message does not end there. The message of the cross does not end at "I'm right and you're wrong..." It ends with, "repent and receive this free gift of eternal life and truth upon faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of our sin!" See, the message of the cross is actually the ONLY true INCLUSIVE message, because ALL can accept and believe and confess in it.
So when an opportunity arises to share your faith with a complete stranger, so far for me some of the best opportunities have been at the oil change place sitting in a lobby with strangers, share the message of the cross boldly and with no fear about what they think of you or if they reject you.
If you look at every instance in the book of Acts where the apostles are sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, notice on if they were trying to be shallow with it or not. In fact, knowing that they faced certain persecution, they were more bold all the more! But even in their boldness they were convicted and prayed for more. I want to close with this prayer that they prayed:
Acts 4:23-31 says:
23 When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, 25 who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, [1] said by the Holy Spirit,
“‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’ [2]—
27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants [3] to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 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.
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