“And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.” -Luke 2: 16-17
My brother Matt once said that the shepherds were the very first evangelist for Christ. An interesting observation, and there’s a lot of truth to it. The shepherds were given a message and then they were the first (outside of Mary and Joseph) to see Jesus Christ. Once they saw, the shepherds immediately began proclaiming it to the world. They went out because they had a message to tell, and a witness to rely on.
I would be the first to admit, in discussing evangelism I am woefully ignorant of many things. May God help me to be and see clearly this mighty task that is set before each sanctified person. Thankfully, God gives grace, and he also gives instruction. My prayer is that we as sanctified people can dig into God’s Word and let that be the motivation to proclaim His name, because before there can be any evangelism, there must first be a message, and before there can be a message there must first be a witness. Jesus told his disciples you shall be witnesses of me in Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. He told them that they will be witnesses of me. This meant that they would be the ones who carried His message and proclaimed His resurrection to the world. They would preach, teach, heal, and help in His place. They would be the “body of Christ and members in particular.” However, before they could do that, he told them they must first have the power. The baptism of the Holy Ghost. They must first have the witness within, in order to be witnesses. This baptism of the Holy Spirit would be received on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost would be a witness to them within their hearts. Affirming and confirming to them that Jesus is alive and living in them, but it would also be something they witnessed. A miracle would be performed that day giving them further confirmation that “this is that.” This Holy Spirit would come in, and he would awaken scriptures and teaching that lay dormant, this dormancy would burst forth in praise and preaching. The result is three thousand souls would be saved in the initial revival there in Jerusalem. With so many external things happening it is easy for us in our day and age to focus on that. One the tongues, the fire, the miracles, etc. Remember, this sometimes accompanied the work of God, it was not the work itself. The work, the witness, the message was the Holy Spirit. Once they had that, they had the: witness, the message, and it produced evangelism. We must follow the same pattern. The witness will awaken the message and produce evangelism. You cannot carry something you don’t have. Evangelism is not born out of strategy, schemes, or man serving dynamics. The early church was not built on systems or processes, but rather a people going forth under the unction of the Holy Spirit to do the work of God. They were a dynamic group wholly given to the direction of the Holy Spirit. The very thing they were given was also the agent to accomplish it. The Holy Ghost. Keeping pace with the Holy Ghost was the strategy, it was the work, it was the direction. The witness was the message, which was the evangelism.
When we talk of evangelism, or should I say when I talk of evangelism, it has often been a subject of activity and not intercession. The shepherds went about carrying what they had seen to the world. They were agents of intercession for the message of Christ. Simply put, they told someone else about Jesus. This is all evangelism is (in my limited judgement anyway). One person who has “seen” Jesus, telling another to come and see. That’s it. This may happen interpersonally, or collectively. In this critical hour that we stand in today, Lord help us to meet it with a critical focus on our experience with the Savior, so that we may obtain a clear vision of Him. A true witness, so that we might be a true witness.
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