How do we begin to talk to someone about the gospel of Jesus Christ? Where do we find the courage to do this? How do we overcome the fear of being ridiculed when we do this? What do we do when people are immediately “turned off when we begin to talk about Christianity? Let’s try to answer some of these ques­tions.

In the first place, we have to begin with ourselves. The inspired apostle Peter speaks of this in a significant passage in his first epistle. “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” I Peter 3:15. We are always to be ready to give an answer to every man that asks us concerning the reason of our hope. We can do that only by paying attention to what Peter says in the first part of this verse. “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.” The Lord God in Christ Jesus lives in the heart of those who are truly His. The hearts of God’s people must be consecrated to Him. Through faith we have communion with God in our hearts. This is a wonderful thing. He is our strength, our hope, our joy, our salva­tion.

Only as we live consciously by grace and through faith in the way of sanctification can and do we have daily communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. By faith we know that the Lord is our God and that He is ever with us. In order for us to give a personal testimony of our faith and of the truth of the gospel, Christ Jesus must fill our hearts. Our hearts must be filled with the knowledge of God and the love of His truth. Our hearts must be filled with the desire to keep His command­ments and to glorify Him in our lives. This is the begin­ning of genuine sincere personal evangelism. This is not easy. Our sins often separate us from God. We are often far from God in our life. How little of our life is lived consciously walking with God and thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ and His great salvation. We can only be zealous and sincere in our witness to the Lord and His truth if He lives in our hearts and we walk with Him in our daily lives.

Are we ashamed of the Lord and of speaking of His truth before men? This is a great sin. We need to realize and acknowledge this. Are we afraid what others will say and of being ridiculed for openly speaking about the Lord? This is wrong. Our Lord commands us to openly confess His name before men and to declare that He is our God and Savior. We are called to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. We are not to be afraid of what men may say or do unto us. Yes, if we are faithful in personal evangelism we will be mocked. Some may even show their contempt and hatred for us. Some may even threaten us. But the Bible tells us that this is exactly what we must expect in our Christian life. If we never talk about our faith no one will ever know that we are Christians, and we will avoid persecution. But if we talk about our faith as the Lord gives us opportunity then we must also expect ridicule and opposition and persecution from men.

But the Lord will give us His grace to walk with Him and to testify of Him. He has promised that over and over again in His Word. We receive that grace of God through a life of prayer and the study of His Word. We ought to pray specifically for grace and courage to testify of Him in our life. When we make it our real and concrete desire to be a witness unto the Lord we will be drawn to pray for this. We may even pray for a certain person or a situation in that person’s life. Then we may pray for courage, grace and wisdom to give a faithful testimony concerning the truth to this person in con­nection with the circumstance they are in.

In order to be a daily witness in our life we need to have a constant and lively interest in the Word of God. Most of us as Protestant Reformed young people have a pretty good foundation in the doctrines of scripture. We have had years of catechism training. We have listened to many sermons in church. Yet sometimes the ques­tion has to be asked, have we really made these doc­trines our own? Do these doctrines live in our hearts? Do we love the truth of Christ Jesus? Do we have a live­ly interest in the truth, or is our interest in doctrine merely abstract and formal? Is our knowledge of the doctrine of the gospel static? Is it something that we learned in the past in catechism which we now just take all for granted and hardly think about any more? Do we have a growing interest in the Word of God or do we imagine that we have learned all that there really is to know so that there is no further need of study on our part? If we have a lively interest in God’s Word we will want to understand it more and more. The truth will be precious to us. It will live in our minds and hearts. The foremost thing that will make this a reality in us is of course the regular personal study of the Word of God and prayer. There can be no personal evangelism with­out that

Besides the study of the Word of God we maintain a lively interest in the Word of God by reading good Christian books. We live in a day when there is a wealth of good Christian books available. But who among us does any reading of these many Christian books? A very good means of personal evangelism is sharing a good book with someone, and encouraging others to read good Christian books. But you and I will never be able to do that if we do not read these books ourselves. Regular reading and study of good Christian books will keep the issues of the truth lively issues in our own mind and heart.

In order to be active in personal evangelism we need to be able to relate the truth of God to our daily lives. There are hundreds of moral spiritual issues that arise in the course of our daily life. We must have truly Christian convictions about these issues. We need to be sure that these convictions are truly based on the Word of God. We need to be found by the grace and Spirit of God living according to those convictions. Our lives must be distinctively Christian so that those who know us will begin to wonder why we live the way we do and why we are so different from the rest of the world. We need to be able to show others directly and simply from the Word of God the reason of our faith. Even the most holy of Christians has but a small beginning of the new obedience unto the Lord. Nevertheless, the Christian must in his life be seen striving humbly by the grace of God to be living a distinctive Christian life. All of this is absolutely necessary if we are to be faithful witnesses unto our Lord and for His truth. This is basic for the doing of personal evangelism.

If the above is by the grace of God true in our life we will be able to answer the question how do I begin to talk about Christianity with my fellow man? We do not do that by a canned superficial presentation of the fun­damentals of Christianity. Our witness will flow forth naturally from our life. In the natural course of our life and conversation with our fellow man we will be faced with the great moral spiritual questions of life. Our call­ing in personal evangelism is simply to present the truth of God’s Word as it relates to daily life. We begin genuine personal evangelism by directing conversations with our fellow man to spiritual perspectives. We need to talk to our fellow man about our great responsibility before God, about the seriousness of sin in man’s life and about the only hope of salvation through repen­tance and faith in Christ Jesus. We need to speak of the evil of this present world and of the judgment that is to come. We need to testily of the absolute truth of God over against the lies and corruptions of men. We begin a spiritual conversation by focusing on the moral spiritual questions of life and giving the distinctively Christian answer to them. Our calling is to show to our fellow man the perspective of the Word of God on all the many different issues of life that we face and talk about.

Often our conversation will be about our lives in this world and the misery and wretchedness of this life. Many of the people we talk to will have broken and wretched lives because of sin. We need to show com­passion and concern about this and speak to them of the Word of God in connection with their life, of the need for repentance and of the hope of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. We will only be good wit­nesses of the truth if we show in our speaking the truth a genuine love and concern for our fellow man. This is especially true if we have to carefully point out faults and errors in his life and thinking. It takes a lot of meekness, patience and love to try to lead a person out of a sinful way of life back to the Lord.

When we speak to others who confess themselves to be Christians and who have different convictions we need to learn to speak with humility and fear and care­fulness. The truth of God when faithfully declared will offend some. On the other hand, we need to do all in our power to avoid offending because of our own person or because of any arrogant or otherwise sinful attitude we reveal. We must remember that we have the knowledge of the truth for no other reason than the grace of God. This conviction must be conveyed in the very spirit and manner in which we present the truth to others.

To be faithful in personal evangelism we need to rely upon the power of the Word of God and not on the power of our own argumentation and persuasion. Our purpose in personal evangelism is not merely to win an argument or debate on Christian doctrine. Our calling is to humbly present the truth of God and to rely on His grace and Holy Spirit to apply it to the hearts and lives of men.

On rare occasions the Lord will give us opportunity to talk extensively concerning the truth with someone. To do this will require that we have a thorough knowl­edge of the Bible and an ability to show others simply and plainly what the Bible has to say. We must have a growing knowledge of the truth of the Word of God. This will usually require that we ourselves in the priva­cy of our own homes spend time searching the Bible anew as we proceed in a discussion about certain areas of the truth with our fellow man. This takes a lot of effort, a lot of love for the truth of God and a lot of con­cern for the person we are dealing with.

Let us pray that the Lord will use us in our everyday life to testify to His truth. Let us pray that the Lord will give us opportunity to speak to others about the glorious gospel of Christ Jesus. May it be our great desire as the catechism says in Lord’s Day 32 that oth­ers may be gained to Christ by our good works. Let us pray that the Lord may use us to bring someone else to a deeper and more perfect understanding of His Word. God is glorified when we seek to do this, His people are blessed and our own Christian life is enriched.