Finding the Words // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 7

One of the things that stops a lot of people from sharing Jesus with others is a fear that they don’t know what to say.  And yet they manage to communicate okay in every other part of their lives.  So what exactly is going on here?

Well ... you know ... one of the hardest things I've found about sharing Jesus with other people is, well ... finding the right words. What do you say? Where do you start? Now that's really weird because I'm a prolific writer and speaker, it's what I do for a living. But all of a sudden, stick me one on one with someone and say, "Okay Berni, tell them about Jesus" and I tell you, I used to be petrified.

And so for a large part of my walk with Jesus I just didn't do it. Have you ever felt like that? I know I'm supposed to tell people about Jesus but I'm just not up to it. I'm not good with words. They'll never listen to me. I can't do this. I'll just embarrass myself and I'll embarrass them. No, not me.

And so we clam up. We don't share Jesus without ever thinking that that decision can have devastating eternal ramifications. It's not an unusual phenomenon. You think about the sales person, they do sales, they maybe doing cold calling. They have to pick up the phone and go and see people they don't know and try and convince them to buy their product.

Maybe the products a car or a house or an insurance policy. Could be anything. I don't think there's a single sales person on planet earth who's never felt that unique sense of trepidation of making the cold call. Picking up the phone, of going to see that person that they don't know.

Now, let’s unpack that for a minute. What's it all about? Why is it that sometimes we're afraid to tell people about some stuff?

Well, when you think about it that sales person dynamic, success equals they buy my product and failure equals they don't. It's as simple as that. There's no in between ground. And my hunch is that a lot of the trepidation is about the fear of rejection and the fear of failure. My hunch is that this salesmen sense of trepidation is at the heart of our dilemma in sharing Jesus with other people.

Think about it. We have friends. We go and have coffee or a drink with them. We have no problem sitting and talking about our issues in our lives and all the stuff that's going on. We have dinner at their home, we have dinner at home with our family, we all sit around the table, we tell what's gone on in our lives that day.

And at work we have to deal with this person about that issue, and that person about this issue. We do it all the time. By and large we do all of those things, well ... pretty naturally. Maybe we're not all public speakers "par excellence" but it's just as well. The world would be really boring if we were.

But we are able to find the words when we need to. To do things everyday, day by day. So in a sense it's not really about finding the words or not finding the words, it's not words. I think it's the fear of failure and rejection. It's the fear that they'll think that we're strange because we believe in Jesus and that we're weird because we're telling them about Jesus.

Let me set you free from this. Telling about Jesus isn't being a salesman doing a sell job. It's about listening and learning. You see it's not my job, it's not your job to give them a brochure to answer all their product queries, to close the sale and seal the deal. If we think that sharing Jesus is a sales transaction, I think we've got it wrong.

What an arrogant notion that it's our job to represent God and close the deal on His behalf. What do we think? We're going to get paid commission, we're going to get sacked if we don't sell. No, my job and your job is to peer into their faces.

To look at them, to know that here is a person made in the image of God, to hear their hopes and their joys and their motivations and their hurts and their losses and their failures. To laugh, to experience their triumphs, to cry with them, to feel their pain.

And in the middle of all of that, to see them reach out for a spiritual answer. For a spiritual experience with that deep need that God has placed inside each one of us to know what life's all about. To know the news, the good news about Jesus. My job and your job is to believe that God is already at work.

In one of our earlier programs in this series we talked about the fact that once Jesus walked into an area around a pool where there were lots of sick people who needed healing. A lot of sick people and He went in and He healed just one. And when they asked Him why He did that, He said:

I tell you the truth, the Son can only do what He sees the Father doing.

In other words, do what Dad's doing. Believe that God is already at work in this persons life or that persons life and then we're just there to listen. Do you know how hard it is to get someone just to listen to you these days? Even when they are families, even with friends, even at work. It seems that nobody has time to listen.

If we take the time to listen to people, to hear what's going on in their lives, to learn and to touch. To see this person as one of those lost sheep reaching our for his saviour, his shepherd, and to share, right at that point, our Jesus with them through our lives and through our touch and yes, through our words that Jesus lays on our hearts just at the right time for them.

What an awesome thing it is to be used by God in that way. Not my job to close the sale. We're not doing a sell job or a snow job and we're not doing the deal. If we approach it that way that attitude says to this person that they're an object of our evangelistic effort. "When I get them into the Kingdom of God I'll just cut another notch in my rifle butt."

Come on, seeing what God's doing, being there in the middle of all that, in someone’s life, is such an incredible privilege. Being the word of God as they look at our lives, as they see Jesus shining out through our touch and through our smile. Through our word of encouragement and when we need words God promises us that those words will come.  He says:

Don't worry about what you'll say. Right at that moment as you're standing there my Spirit will give you the word. Just be you. Just be you.

You know something, people are so tired of words. They want authenticity, they want care in a cruel world. They want love in a lost world. They want authentic spiritual realities in a world where so much is sham. Where do they see that? Where do they find that?

I'll tell you something, it's at looking at my life and looking at your life. They'll either discover Jesus is awesome or they'll look at us and think, "Jesus is a hypocrite." I can't remember who said it, they said, "Tell people about Jesus and when all else fails, use words."

Sure we have to use words sometimes but what a privilege to walk into a place where God is already doing stuff in someone's life and He's just put you or me into that place to love this person into the Kingdom of God.

Father, I pray that each person that's with us right now will just know that it's not about finding the right words or being a theologian or having text books under our arms.

Father, Teach us, through Your word, through Your grace, through Your Spirit, through looking at Jesus. That sharing our Lord is about living a life that reflects Your glory into the lives of other people.

Father, Take away any fear that we have of failure, any fear we have of rejection, any fear that we might have that people would think that we're loopy and set us free to be Jesus. The hands and the feet of our saviour in this lost and hurting world.

Lord, We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Isn't it awesome? You and I, if we believe in Jesus, God calls us to touch people with our lives. He doesn't call us to be salesmen, He doesn't call us to be great evangelists. You know what, He just calls you to be you and me to be me and for us to be there when He taps us on the shoulder.