Evangelize Like Jesus

“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.” (John 4:28-30, NIV)

From a very young age, I was exposed to evangelism in practice. My childhood church used to do outreach events during summers in highly trafficked places, like the beach or public parks. They’d rent the big town pop-up stage and stand out from early in the morning to after the sun had set cycling through worship teams, street preaching, and people sharing their testimonies. 

All the while, there were people walking through the crowds, asking people if they needed prayer or sharing Jesus with others. Occasionally, there were people who were led to believe in God, or wanted to be baptized.

For many, when I say “evangelism,” they clam up. Evangelism is probably one of the most nerve-wracking aspects of the Christian walk for the majority of Christians, and yet, it is the primary thing we are commanded by God to do: Go and make disciples. People will info gather on evangelism, study methods, and pray for God to make opportunities for it, and still struggle to actually do it. 

For me, the only way to really learn to do it is to do it, which is hard. You want to represent Jesus right. You want to share Him well. You so badly want someone to respond, and yet, many times they don’t. But we have to do it all the same. You may not be the one to lead that person to salvation, but you may be one of many that push that God uses to draw that person to Himself little by little.

Despite the many books written on the subject, Jesus is our best example. In John 4, Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman, someone who by all intents and purposes, is unsaved. The Samaritan faith was an off-shoot of the Jewish faith, but the result of inter-marrying with the Assyrian culture during the eras when Israel was occupied and in exile. The distinction is that Samaritans only observed the Torah as scripture, and adopted some falsities from Assyrian religions, thus clouding the truth of scripture– the scripture that Jesus came to uphold and fulfill.

When Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman, there are many different theological hurdles Jesus must lead her over before she can believe and be changed. One thing that is plainly seen is that Jesus treats this woman with kindness and in love. The conversation strikes up by Him asking for a drink from the well using her jar. He grabs her attention with other conversation, but after a few moments, He confronts her sin.

It’s important to note that He doesn’t do that in a condescending manner. “‘Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” (verses 16-18, NIV)

This woman actively is living in sin. She has been married and divorced several times, and even if she was repentant about that, the current relationship she is in is outside of wedlock. Her shame is so great that she goes to the well to draw water in the heat of the day, after she knows all the other women in town have gone so as not to run into them.

But because Jesus has treated her with sincerity and care to this moment, the exposure of her sin doesn’t run her off. Instead she is amazed, marveling at the fact that this Jesus must be a prophet. 

When we evangelize and share Christ, we must be bold enough to push others to confront their sin. This is a tricky and precarious thing, because if you push too hard, you cause that person to shut down and drive them away. If you don’t talk about it enough, you mislead a person into thinking that they don’t have to renounce their corrupt and immoral ways in order to be saved. 

The point is, only the Holy Spirit can help you discern when a situation is right to do this, which is why we must be prayerful in our endeavors to share Christ. We must be deep in our Bibles to know what it says and we can be equipped with God’s breathed Words to help us maneuver those conversations.

But Jesus’ exposing of this Samaritan woman’s sins is the primary thing that sticks with her when she believes and is saved. Him telling her “all that she had ever done” is the testimony that she ultimately shares with her village to lead them all to Jesus and believe.

The extraordinary part of this is that Jesus created a safe space with this woman in conversation that when her sin is exposed, she is comfortable to have her deepest shames in the open with this stranger. Jesus has met her with such radical kindness that her darkest moments are not humiliations, but testimonies to God’s saving grace. 

What a thing to ask God to give us discernment for: the words to share with someone that will be so tangibly Jesus to them, that their sin could be confronted and not be used as an embarrassing deterrent, but a way to be drawn to the Lord. To pray that the Holy Spirit would be so present in those conversations, that someone would feel safe enough to bear themselves before you and God, confess that sin, and believe. 

Too often, we think of evangelism as an argument that must be won, or equate it to beating someone over the head with our Bibles– wrestling them to the floor to make them believe.

Jesus Himself shows us that this is not the case. Instead, the focus of all these conversations is not solely on the potential convert, but on Christ Himself. The primary objective is not to win a theological argument to prove God’s realness or a certain position on doctrine, but to see the soul needing grace and leading them to the only One who can save. 

The best way we can do this is to be knowledgeable, yet deeply gracious. Equipped in prayer and empathetic to the fact that we were once sinners all the same. If we can share Jesus in love and understanding, we just might find that being representatives of the One who shows lost souls everything they ever did and still gives them grace is the most effective and enriching evangelistic effort we can be a part of.