How to Evangelize and How to Share Your Faith
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Hi, friend, my name is Kent Tucker
and you're probably watching
this video because you're looking for information
on how to share the gospel.
And I'm delighted with your response and your interest
It's such a privilege to leave somebody Christ
and help them into a personal growing relationship with Christ
because he will never let go, he will never leave him.
It's such a wonderful thing, and it matters,
It matters for ever. It's so good for you.
I'm a pastor and I have been leading people
to Christ and sharing with others how to do that,
how to lead people to Christ for 45 years
And what I want to do is share with you 5 key
Insights on how to share the gospel
and how to do it with confidence.
these insights will really guide you,
as to how to approach people and what to say how to do it with confidence.
And so the first insight I want to share is
to be sensitive to god's prompting toward other people
Now the reason you want to be sensitive to God's prompting
Or God's nudge or God's whisper toward other people,
Is because God will often bring people across your path
people in who's heart he has already been working
because he wants you to talk to them
First John 4 talks about the fact that God is love
and as we get to know God and grow closer to him
He begins to fill our heart and our lives with his love.
And then that overflows toward other people.
And then we start paying attention to the people around us.
Instead of racing through the day with a
Tunnel-vision to accomplish all of our tasks
we just become self abosrbed
and we miss all the people around us.
What God does when his love fills our heart,
is we begin to slow down, we begin to see other people
and notice other people, and take an interest in them.
That's why you want to be sensitive to God's prompting
Then this will happen all the time
as you just grow on your sensitivity there.
Even on vacation we took a cruise
up the eastern seaboard and
we stopped at a seacoast village
and it was in Portland main and
we were going to all the different shops in that little village
that little town, and I was getting worn out and so I
We went into this pottery store, and my wife and her girlfriend
was looking at all the different stuff and I just
Sat by a chair by the door
And I could look down the Isle and I could see
The employee, the one employee
behind the desk where she checks out people, but nobody's there
but she was busy working on stuff and
after I rested for a while I just felt a nudge to
to go talk to her. And so i went and I said:
What are you working on? And she said:
I'm knitting a scarf for my fiance
And I said: well congratulations!
She said: thank you. I said: When are you getting married? She said: the end of the summer
I said: Where are you getting married?
She said: in my boyfriend
or my fiance's church. I said: what kind of church is that?
She said "protestant" I think.
And i said: well good, what's your church back?
She says: Roman-Catholic. And I said: great
you know, for your marriage to really grow together
and sing, you both want to have a growing relationship with Christ
And I have an app, that explains
how to get closer to God, would you like to see that?
And she said yes. So I showed her the "share your faith"
app, and explained what God has done for her
and offers forgiveness and the prayer to receive Christ
And she really liked it, and i said: you can do this right now
If you'd like, and she said: yes I would. Then she said:
No wait! i want to download the app. She started
downloading it right then, and she said: I want to share
With my fiance tonight so we can both pray together
to receive Christ. And I said:
that's a great idea. And so, i went trough and I showed
her what happened after she received Christ
and then how to star growing, for she and her
boyfriend, and it was a great conversation
and then I said goodbye, but I was
really aware that God was in that experience.
That God had prompted me
And that God had been working in her heart and so
she was very responsive to what I said.
So be sensitive to God's prompting toward other people.
Cause God's gonna bring people
Across your path that he want you to talk to
Now the second insight is
Remember, when you're sharing the gospel remember
you are now alone. Now there's two ways that
you are not alone. number 1: God is working
on their heart and has been working on their heart
before you even start talking to them. For example:
God is working in their minds to help them become aware
that he is there. He's working in their conscience
to help them be sensitive to the fact that they need forgiveness.
He's working in their heart to help them become
aware that something is missing on the inside
He's working in their circumstances to help them become
aware that they do not have the inner resources to cope
with all that life throws at them. And also
God says " I have loved you with an ever lasting love
I have drawn you with loving
kindness. So God does loving and kind things
to draw us to turn to him. See if
people are afraid of God or think God's angry at them
or mad at them, they won't turn to him
And so God does loving and kind
things to break through that
deception, so that they will
realize that there is a God and that he does care
and he does love them to give them the freedom to
turn to him. So god is working
in their heart, in their lives before you talk to them
And so he's already there. He's already
there, you're not the first one to start this process
And the second, the second way God works is
he works in their heart while you are talking to them
And mark chapter 13
verse 11- Jesus says this:
Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial
Do not worry beforehand about what
you are going to say, just say
Whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you
For it is not you speaking, it is the Holy Spirit.
Billy Gram once said that when you are talking to people about
Christ, there are two voices: there's
your voice and the voice of the Holy Spirit.
And that's what Jesus is talking about right there in that verse
When i was at UCLA, I
went there on a football scholarship, I got
Injured earlier on, but the team went on to
win the Rosewall my senior year
And they recently had a reunion
50 years later, the
1966 Rosewall team had a reunion
I got to be part of that, and so
I haven't seen these guys for 50 years. And so we had a great
Conversation, getting caught up with each other
And one of the guys name was Bill
And so I said to Bill, we were in the food line
the last ones in the food line, and I said to him:
what is your church background? and he said: well...
early on, i heard a preacher say
that if you don't follow Christ, you're gonna go to hell
And he said: that launched
me on a study of hell, and I studied
everything that the bible says about hell and
everything played to and Sacred, he said, and I came
to the conclusion that I didn't believe in hell, and
I didn't believe in a God who would send anybody to hell
well at that
what came into my mind right then was:
It's too bad that you didn't start your study on God's love
Because in John 3
its said that God so loved us, that he sent
Christ to die for our sins so he could
offer his forgiveness, so that none of us would
have to go to hell. I said God loves
us. He loves us and he wants a relationship
with us, he wants to bless us in life
He wants to take us with him to be with him an eternity
he doesn't want any of us to go to hell. God
loves you, Bill, and you matter
to him. the next thing that Bill said to me was
I struggle a lot with depression
And I said: Bill, talk to him about that.
Just share it from your heart. Talk
to him and ask him to help you. He loves you
you matter to him, he wants to help you, he's just
waiting for you to turn to him, he's given you
free agency, he's given you a free will, he won't
violate that, but he loves you and he wants to
draw you to himself
Then I showed him the app that explained how to get closer
to God, he really liked that and he thanked
me very much and said he
would think about that. by chance, the next day.
I ran into him, just by chance
and he put his arm on my shoulder and he said:
Last night I prayed and received Jesus
Christ. And he said: and I told God
that I'm gonna start to focus on his love
and on Jesus Christ, and he said: today
I'm experiencing pace for the first time
Oh, I was so excited, I put my hand on his
shoulder and we prayed together
and that was the last time I saw him.
You see, god had just brought him across my path,
And God was speaking to him in the
mists of that whole situation. I was speaking,
he gave me the words but God was speaking to his heart
as well. So... So waht
what happens here is you need to remember that
you are not alone. That God is working in their lives
before you ever start talking to them, and God will
Give you the words while you talk to them and
whisper and talk to his heart at the same time
God is working with you, and it's a wonderful thing
to experience. Now the next insight
is: first find out
Where people are in their spiritual journey.
First find that out. In a football game
There's a long battle for the team with the ball, the offence
to move that ball down the field. And it's a
tough battle, but when they finally get the Ball, so
that's inside the opponents 20 yard line, close to
the goal line, that area right there is called the
Red Zone. In that area they're in the best
position to get that ball across the goal line.
So they learn very specific plays in order
to get the ball across the goal line. Well
also in life, it's often a long journey
for people to come to faith in Christ. People often
struggle with relevance of God, doubting
God, skeptic questions, other religions
Bad experiences, hypocrisy with
others, negative things that had happened to them
personally, they struggle with all those things
but when they finally come to the point where they
They sense something missing in their life, they're
They're open to God, they wonder if Christ can help them
See at that point, they're in the red zone
of their spiritual journey, and what
what God wants is for us to share with him
to help them cross the line of faith.
But you see as you come across people in life they may be
anywhere along this spectrum, they may be far from God
and very hostile, or they may be in the red zone and very
receptive. And so before I ever
start sharing the gospel with somebody, I always ask questions
to find out where they are on their spiritual
journey.
On one occasion, just not too long ago,
I went into the cleaners
And the lady, Lisa, behind the
counter, and she was the only one there
at that time, there was not a lot of people at the front desk,
and so I said, Lisa, when I think
of you, how do you want me to pray for you?
And she said pray for my heart. I said: what's going on?
She said: I have a family
with heart problems and mine
started racing, they couldn't stop it so they took me to the hospital,
did all kinds of tests and they finally said
It's created by stress
The stress related to my business here, whether it's
gonna make it or not. And so I said:
stress? and she said yes, and then I said: Do you
pray? and she said:
Yes... which really meant "No"
And so I said: well, do you read the Bible?
And she said " yes..."
And then she said: well, my
nephew gave me a booklet about the bible and I've been reading that
He is Jehova's witness
Then I said: Jehova's witness? She said: yes, my nephew
my niece, my uncle, my father, and i'm thinking
She's surrounded by them. I was looking for a little hope
So I said: is your husband a Jahova's witness?
She said: no, he's muslim
And I thought, ok I don't want to go down
either one of those roads, and so I said
So I said, I think you would get more help if you read
The gospel of John, so I got a
copy of the new testament, showed her where the Gospel of
John was and I ear-marked it for her and
suggested she read just a little bit every day
And tell a guide she wants to get to know him.
And I gave her a little booklet; Canvas crusade booklet,
on how to know God personally, and it explains
the gospel and there's a prayer in there and I said that to her
a prayer to receive Christ, and so
I gave those two things to her, and then five
days later I came back to pick up my
and I said, i said Lisa did you get a
chance to start reading the Gospel of john?
She said: I finished it, I'm half way through the
gospel of Mathew. I said: you're kidding!
Good for you! I said that book that I gave you, just read that
Yes, the prayer at the and, did you pray that prayer?
She said yes I did, I said: did you
invite Christ to forgive you and come into your life?
She said yes I did. And I was just
thrilled and I gave her a assurance and salvation, talked to her about how she
could grow... How did that happen so easily?
Well it's because she was in the red zone of her
spiritual journey. And I didn't know that
and I wouldn't have known that, except I asked a question
that helped me find out where she was on her
spiritual journey. So that's what you want to do, you
always want to ask questions to find out where they are
so they can respond and help them
at the point where they are in that journey
Now if people are not open when you
nudge a little bit and ask questions if they're not open
Don't push them away. In my home
here in southern California, I had a
big Avocado tree in the back yard. And the way you pick an Avocado
is you put a coffee can in a long
pole, and put that up in the tree
under just around the Avocado and you jiggle it
if the Avocado is ripe it'll come right off
the tree, but if it's not ripe, you don't want to
be like I was at times, where I
bang that Avocado around in that coffee can
because you end up just bruising the fruit and that's
not a good thing to do. Well so is in life
you want to ask questions to find out where
people are, so you're jiggling the fruit
but if the fruit isn't ripe or the person isn't
open and responsive, don't bruise the fruit
don't be pushy and aggressive and
in their face, because what happens
you'll just push them away, push them away from
you, and more importantly, you push them away from Christ
And so you always wan to honor the person.
Honor where the person is in their journey
And honor them
When I was at this reunion
that i was telling you about, at UCLA
last year, another guy that I talked to,
his name is Peter, we'll give him that name,
And we
were reminiscing on quite a few things, and
finally, he was an attorney and i said: now what is your
church background? he said: well
Church is pretty good but you
lose me when it comes to Easter.
And I thought he was making some crack about Easter eggs
or something but I said: what do you mean?
He said: I don't believe in Easter, I said:
what do you mean by that? He said: I don't believe in the resurrection of Christ
I said: ok, I said
let me give you a big picture on that
when I was in
Colorado, I was there for 10 years
I often looked at prairie dogs
and they live in families, and they live in the ground
and they come out of the ground and they play tag
with each other and they run around and they hug each other
and they get on their hind legs and stand up straight
and chirp or bark , is what they call it, they're really
fun to watch, but as I looked I see
a bulldozer coming in
and they're going to put a sub-division in here
and wipe them all out. So how do I
communicate with the prairie dog that
destruction is coming, and a way of escape
well the only way I could do that is if I had the power
to become a prairie dog so I could
talk to them at their level, in their language
So that they could understand, but
if I became a prairie dog, I would be just as
ignorant and oblivious to what's going on as all
the other prairie dogs. So I would need to
retain my nature, my intelligence
my essence as a man, and the get into the body
of a prairie dog. It's like taking the soul of
a man and getting into the body of a prairie dog
so I could talk to them at their level, in their
language but with the wisdom and knowledge of a higher
created being. Well he said:
So? heh. And I
said: well that's what god did, the infinite God of the universe
came down and got into the body of a man
and that man was Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ
said things and did things that only God
could say, and only God could do.
And Jesus said, the ultimate evidence
that he was who he claimed to be was if
three days after he was dead, he was going to rise again
from the grave. And
he said at that point, Peter said at that point:
Not now, tomorrow.
I want you to tell me more about that, but not now
I said: fine
Now, he left, and I don't know if that was
just a professional attorney's blow off
but the next day
he found me. He came up at the
telgate party, and he said: alright,
talk to me about the resurrection. And so it got
put in my mind is to share this. I said: I know two
guys, they're about two decades apart
but they were hardcore atheists
and... and really scholars
one of them was in Yale
grad school student, got his law
degree there in Yale, very sharp, very
intelligent, both these guys were,
And they realized in their commitment, they wanted
to disprove Christianity and so they knew
they had to attack Christ and they realized they
had to disprove the resurrection to do that. So they put all their
energy into looking at the evidence for the
resurrection, the evidence for the resurrection and the
evidence against resurrection, and they began to
weigh the evidence. And both of them
they don't know each other, they didn't know each other
they're like two decades apart, but both of them came to the
conclusion that the evidence for the
resurrection was so overwhelming
that they both committed their lives
to Christ, received Christ and began to follow him
and they became speakers and authors
all across United States and collage
campuses. They've written several books, films
to communicate the reality of
Jesus Christ as God's son the
The infinite God of the universe in the body of a man
proved by the resurrection and a lot of other things
And so the guy then said to me
Peter said, so there is evidence for the
resurrection! And I said: yes there is.
And I said: I can recommend a couple books for you
And he said: no, I know how to do research, you know, he's an attorney
I figured he had lot's of books. He said: I'll just
google it.
Ok that'll work
And so he said: thank you very much
and he was very warm about that
and he left. And so, it was
evident to me that that was genuine
that God had been working in his life
and my just honoring him and accepting him where
he was, and just cooperating with
whatever his level of interest was worked.
And God was working in his heart, god gave me the
words and it was awesome to see
that when you honor a person and
and honor where they are in the journey, God will give you the
wisdom on how to help and encourage them and point them to Christ
wherever they are, but you don't want to be pushy
or in their face, sometimes you just
need to stop talking about Christ at all because that is not
Where they are and they're not open.
Alright now if they are
open, this is the fifth insight
If they are open, you want to help them
cross the line of faith you want to help them to receive
Christ. A person you're talking to may be
ready to receive Christ but that doesn't mean he knows
how to receive Christ. You see, most
people don't understand that coming to Christ
is like taking a shower or taking a bath
you don't clean up in order to take a shower,
you take a shower to get cleaned up well the same goes for
Christ, you don't clean up your life to come to Christ,
You come to Christ just as you are and he will
clean up your life. He will forgive all of your sins
and then he'll begin to make you new on the inside
and start rebuilding with attitudes and
perspective and qualities and the spirit of God comes into your life
and begins the transforming process.
And so, that's why you
you want to make it really clear, you want to help them
to know how to cross the line of faith, because most
of them, even though they want to respond, don't know how to do that.
And so we need to guide them, help them cross
the line of faith. The "Share your Faith" app
is one of the most effective tools
Out in the market for leading people to Christ.
It is a simple,
effective, compelling... It's
captivating for the person you're showing it to
It takes them through the gospel, there's animation
there's voice-over, narration to it,
it's a really clear representation of the gospel, leads them through the
prayer to receive Christ, gives them assurance afterwards
And this is just being used all over the world
And so I want you to take a quick look at this
because it's an effective tool, and I want you to know about it
So you can use it. Here take a quick look, at this video.
The share your faith app
Explains what God has done for us and how we
can get closer to him. If you forget what to say,
The keyword will help you. If you want additional help,
Check out the " more" button, and the "bible" button.
It even asks questions to see if someone is
ready to receive Christ, then it leads him through
a prayer and shows the benefits of a relationship with God
Also, you can have a narrator guide you
or read it in 16 languages. What's not
to love about that?
Friends I trust that these 5 insights will give you a track to run on
So it will help you to share the gospel
with confidence. For more information on this
you can follow us on Facebook,
You can follow us on Twitter, and you can
go to our website, howtoshareyourfaith.com
And there you will find these resources and several others
also I've written a book called "In the Red Zone
a game plan for how to share your faith" and
all these insights will be in there along with several others
and will expand on them again to give you
confidence about sharing the gospel.
and also you learn more about the "share your Faith" app
believers all over the world are using that app to
share with their friends, and leading their friends to Christ.
And we, because of google analytics, know that
people are using it every day around the world
and people are coming to Christ every day, because the app is so
clear and compelling and I want to encourage you
to take a good look at that as well
god bless you for your motivation and desire
to make a difference, an eternal difference in the lives of people you
come across on your journey through life
God bless you