“Christians and Their Comfort Zones”

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Categories: Christian Living, Evangelism, Joshuah Ellis, Preacher Life

This past Sunday I preached a lesson on the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31-32). A big portion of the lesson was focused on the potential growth of God’s kingdom in comparison to the tiny mustard seed that grows into a tree large enough for birds to take refuge. As I was preaching, I couldn’t help but realize that this is an area, in my life, that needs some serious improvement. What am I doing, beyond my job, to increase the numbers of God’s kingdom? Later, the Sunday evening exhaustion set in and I didn’t think about it again.

Then Monday rolled around. My wife and I were at Wal-Mart with our youngest son buying supplies so he could paint. In hindsight, we could have picked a less disastrous art project, but more on that later. We happened to run into another mother there who was doing something similar. We started visiting and after a few minutes, I had the urge to invite her to church and I resisted. What in the world is wrong with me? I just preached about this and now, here I am, chickening out when I have the opportunity to LITERALLY practice what I preached. I don’t know why I got so scared ,but I did. Then, I decided to go for it. I invited her to come worship with us, and this lead into a wonderful conversation about her and her family who were new to Lubbock and looking for a place to worship. She gave me her card and I later texted her information about Hub City and now, she and her family are planning to come visit. I. FELT. GREAT!

Then, this morning, I got an email from one of the members here encouraging me for my work and letting me know that she too has struggled with putting herself out there the way she feels she needs to. So all of this got me thinking about our comfort zones and why they can be so tough to break out of. Why are we scared even though we know there is nothing to really be scared of? I don’t have the answer for that, but I do have a few things for us to remember in getting past those invisible barriers that can sometimes keep us from serving God to our full potential.

1. You are not responsible for the soul of every person you approach. It can sometimes be intimidating to approach someone with the Gospel. Especially if we feel that we are now committed to bring them from their introduction to the Gospel to their baptism. We feel ill-equipped for that big of a job. The good news is that evangelism is never a one-person job. Paul shows us this in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:6).

2. Think small at first. This goes along with the previous point. You do not have to have a whole speech memorized or be prepared for every question that might come up during that initial conversation. All you have to do is say, “Hey, I attend _______________ and we would love to have you worship with us some time.” BOOM! That’s it! This is not to say that you should 100% avoid deeper conversations/study, but a simple invitation is still something.

3. Set a goal. Decide on Monday that you are going to approach at least _____ people this week. Maybe that number is 50 and maybe that number is 2. Either way, goals provide intentionality to a task that might otherwise fade into the background with all of the other things you plan to get around to doing.

4.  All you need is God’s Word. You do not have to be persuasive or even articulate. Moses sure wasn’t (Exodus 4:10). Besides, even Jesus relied solely on God’s Word in His responses to the devil when He was being tempted (Matthew 4:1-11). I have said it before and I’ll say it again. The Gospel does not need your talent. It just needs your voice (Romans 10:14).

5. You have not been designed to be afraid. God is with us. He has perfectly created us and empowered us with everything we need to please Him. He has not made us to be afraid. He has made us to win (2 Timothy 1:7). So when you are given the opportunity to talk to someone about God and you feel that twinge of fear, remember, that is the devil trying to mess you up. Then, punch him in the face by pushing through your nerves and proclaim Jesus to someone!

I hope these help, and I hope that you will work hard with me so we can get out of our comfort zones this week.

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