What has Christmas to do with Evangelism?

So often, when we think of the gospel we contemplate 'what's in it for me'. In a sense this is natural. How amazing it is that God chose us individually from 'every tribe [people group] and language and people and nation' (Rev. 5:9), and that He sent His Son to earth to save us! How moving it is to ponder that our names were on His mind as He went through hell for us on the cross, and that He was raised again for the sake of our justification (Rom. 4:25)! How comforting it is to know that, since His ascension, Christ has poured out the Holy Spirit in His fullness on the church, and that He intercedes for us incessantly before His Father! Moreover, He comes to indwell us by His Spirit the moment we come to faith in Him. Certain is His promise that He will one day come again for us. Only then shall we see the grandeur of what it means to be redeemed, when each of us who trust Christ in this life for deliverance (i.e. liberation) from sin, will, in the next, know that redemption in our bodies as much as in our souls (Job 19:25-27).

And yet, for all the personal relevance of these great once-for-all redemptive acts of God ~ namely the incarnation, atonement, resurrection, ascension, outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the second coming ~ we ought not to forget the lost who presently remain blind to these things. One way to remember our evangelistic responsibilities is to recall the lessons of God's historic redemptive acts. Let's look, for instance, at the incarnation.

The Principle of Evangelism

The incarnation demonstrates the main principle of evangelism; namely, that we go to where the people are. God, it is worth noting, did not send His Son to any of the other planets, He sent Him to earth. For whatever the conjecture about life on other planets, it is undeniable that God came in Christ to where there certainly are folk who need saving ~ masses of them!

The incarnation speaks to us, then, of initiative. God did not leave us groping in the dark ~ sensing Him but unable to reach out to Him or to come to Him ~ He took action. Entailed in it was the Father's preparation of a body for Christ (Heb. 10:5) and the Spirit's conception of Him in the womb of the virgin Mary (Matt. 1:18, 20). The result was Emmanuel ~ that is, 'God with us' (Matt. 1:23). From this name we learn that God did not simply come within our orbit ~ that is, within touching distance of us (with the emphasis on distance) ~ He was actually 'with us' in the fallen context of life on this planet. Here He mingled without sin among the human populous, rolling up His sleeves as it were in order to get to work saving us ~ His Father's wayward and disobedient 'offspring' (Acts 17:28-31).

God has called His people to function likewise. Our evangelism must be incarnational. We are to go to where the people are. The words of the Great Commission were not given, we recall, to the unconverted, telling them to 'come' to God through Christ. It was given to the church, telling her to 'Go' ~ that is, to approach the lost, to be 'with' them ~ in order to share more effectively the good news of Jesus. Only as we do so shall our invitations to them to return to God through Jesus carry greater weight and actually reach their hearing.

As Christians we too often fall into one of two extremes. Some are very outgoing and are often found 'with' the unconverted, but rarely say anything to them about the gospel. In the worst cases, the uncoverted may go for decades and barely know anything about Christ. What they see is 'Churchianity' not Christianity. Others, are so purist about their Christian testimony that they fail to reach out to the lost as God did at the incarnation. They may succeed in avoiding many an awkward conversation or situation, but they are of little use in winning the lost. Their gospel invitations remain out of earshot of those who need them most. They are ineffective.

The Manner of Evangelism

Secondly, the incarnation reminds us to balance in our evangelism both action and word, for in it we see God actively seeking the lost by sending His Word (Jn. 1:1).

Focal to our action is the building of bridges as at, for example, the Country Fair and Auction. Bridge-building is important for securing the trust of the unconverted. To use Paul's words, we must 'become all things to all men so that by all possible means [we] might save some' (1 Cor. 9:22). Yet, note how, in the incarnation, God became man without ceasing to be God. So it must be with our evangelism. In seeking to get alongside the unconverted, we must never cease to be Christian. To compromise what we are ruins the whole purpose of our engagement, for glaring inconsistencies invalidate our witness, and undermine our effectiveness.

Evangelism proper, however, is mediated verbally. Our social activities are intended to prepare for ~ and not to replace ~ the clear oral presentation of the gospel. Jesus, we recall, became flesh as 'the Word [Logos]' (Jn. 1:14). Following His example, we cross bridges precisely so that our preaching, personal witness, Scripture and tract distribution etc. reaches the ears of those who otherwise would not hear the gospel. Central is strong on action, but how are we going to develop our verbal testimony to our community in 2007?