Clayton King, the pastor
of New Spring Church in SC, tells the story in one of his books about how he
had been preaching at youth camp one week and at the end of the trip he became
sick with the flu. He could not wait to get home because he felt so rotten. But
as he was waiting in the airport terminal to board the plane he saw a young man
in a blue sweatshirt and at that moment the Spirit spoke to Clayton, “I want
you to talk to that man about Christ.”
Clayton resisted saying,
“I made every excuse for why I could not witness to him. After all I was sick
and didn’t want him to catch the flu.” Clayton said he got on the plane, took
his seat, pulled his hat down over his head so he wouldn’t be bothered. But the
Spirit wouldn’t stop badgering him. He said, “I made a bargain with God,
‘Alright Lord, I will witness to him if his seat is beside me on the plane.”
A few minutes passed, and
Clayton said, “I felt someone plop down in the seat beside me. I opened one eye
and peered out from under my baseball cap, only to see, you guessed it, the man
in the blue sweatshirt. OK, God wins! I give up.”
Clayton King
Clayton said he struck up
a conversation with the man and he asked, “So what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a preacher,” Clayton replied. The man asked, “Wow! This is amazing. I’ve
been looking for someone who understands the Bible and can tell me if there
really is a heaven and hell and how I can be saved.”
Clayton explained the
Gospel and asked the man if he wanted to receive Christ. To which he replied,
“Heck yeah! This plane might crash and I might die. It would be a tragedy to
come this close and then not get saved.” After they prayed, Clayton said, “We
both started crying. He was crying because He’d just met Jesus and I was crying
because I had been such an unwilling, ungrateful disciple that I didn’t deserve
the privilege I had just enjoyed.”[1]
Clayton’s story is so
relatable because many of us at times are reluctant evangelists. We hem and haw
around with God making excuses for why we can’t share Christ. Evangelism like so many other disciplines in the Christian life boils down to
simple obedience.
The truth is that if we
are keeping silent about Christ then we are being disobedient to the Great
Commission. I often hear the excuse, “Evangelism isn’t my spiritual gift.” That
sounds spiritual, but it’s a poor copout because evangelism isn’t a gift. It’s
obedience. Here's how Paul explained it to Timothy, "As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." (2 Tim. 4:5).
The Gospel is simply
glorious and gloriously simple. You don’t need a seminary degree to explain the
Good News. If you have trouble memorizing Scripture then you can never go wrong
just telling them about what Jesus did for you. Tell them who you were before
Christ, how you met Him, who you are now after Christ and how they can make the
same decision by believing and receiving Christ. Think of it this way—if you’re
a Christian, it’s because somebody told you how to be one. -DM
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