Our Helper in Evangelism
Experienced Bible sharer Jeremy Marshall reflects on why we need the Holy Spirit to direct us and equip us as we share God’s Word.
Who is the evangelist?
Is it the person who manages to turn every conversation they have towards the good news of Jesus? Is it the professional evangelist, touring the country and telling others about the gospel? Is it the church leader who has been called to teach the good news to anyone who steps through the door?
While all of these people are able to evangelise, they’re not the ultimate evangelist.
That person is God!
God is the One who is ultimately responsible for making His name known. Our role is to be his agents, partnering with Him to bring the good news of His Son to those around us.
As we step out to accomplish this, He gives us the two things we need: His Word, and the Holy Spirit. Just like a powerful boxer, they operate as a ‘one-two’ combination of punches, knocking out the enemy who is guarding these enslaved souls. When we open God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to speak through it, extraordinary transformation begins to happen—even if it isn’t obvious at first.
In John 15, Jesus promises that He will send His Spirit to help us reach the lost:
“When the advocate comes whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you must also testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”
One of the Holy Spirit’s main roles is to testify to the truth that Jesus is Lord—and likewise, this is our role as followers of Jesus. We have been with Him in His Word and by His Spirit, and we are called to use both to go out and testify to others about Him.
“God is the One who is ultimately responsible for making His name known. Our role is to be his agents.”
Often, we focus all our attention on the Word; but it’s vital to recognise the equal importance of the Holy Spirit. We need to consider this question: what does the work of the Holy Spirit look like in our lives?
He directs us
The Holy Spirit directs us on where to go and whom to speak to.
In Acts 8, we see that the Holy Spirit initially tells Philip through an angel to go out to the desert road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza. Then, the Spirit tells him even more specifically, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” The Holy Spirit had already been working in the Ethiopian eunuch’s life—we can tell since he’s reading a scroll about the suffering servant in Isaiah.
However, Philip didn’t know this. In fact, he didn’t even know the man—but this didn’t matter, because the Holy Spirit had already opened the door to this man’s life. We’re often unaware of the fact that the Spirit is constantly at work in the people around us before we even interact with them; so when we get the chance to talk to someone about Jesus, take courage in the fact that He is already at work in their hearts.
“We’re often unaware of the fact that the Spirit is constantly at work in the people around us before we even interact with them.”
What we see in this story is that, while the Ethiopian eunuch was reading God’s Word, he needed someone—in this case, Philip—to explain it to him, and that’s what the Holy Spirit helps us to do as well.
He equips us
The Holy Spirit not only directs us to the right person, but He also gives the right words to say when we start talking to them. This is a powerful promise that we find in the Bible, such as in Luke 12:
“When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
So, not only do we have God’s Word which helps us reveal to others the good news about Jesus, but we have the Holy Spirit who gives us the words we need to explain this good news to them.
That’s been my experience, and I know that it’s been the experience of many others. When I take a tentative and fearful step of faith as I look to share the gospel with someone else, I often find that the Holy Spirit has already been at work in them. Nonetheless, I have to take that first step and ‘gently try the door’, only to find out that God has already opened it from the inside.
Let me give you a few examples of people I believe have come to faith:
The man who started reading the Bible with me stopped for many years and then started again because his plumber told him he should.
The man whom I met in a coffee shop when I was reading the Bible with someone else—he asked me what I was doing, and eventually we started reading the Bible together ourselves.
The man whom I discovered completely by accident many years before had had a deep conversation with a Christian; when I asked him about that, he said, “Oh yes I remember, that conversation definitely got me thinking.”
And here are some other examples from people I know:
A friend who found out that their non-Christian friend had one of their children tell them, “You should listen to what your Dad says about Jesus.”
A friend who felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to go to see a grieving friend mourning his wife, who eagerly accepted his invitation to read the Bible. My friend only discovered years later this man's daughter in the USA had been reached by her roommate who had read some of the Bible with her in her grief, and the daughter has suggested to her Dad to look at the Bible for himself.
When Jacob awoke from his vision of seeing angels ascending and descending the ladder stretching into heaven, and exclaimed: “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Genesis 28:16)—we too might say the same thing as we begin to read God’s Word with others!
When we gently try the doors of our friends’ lives, we will often discover that those doors swing open, since the Holy Spirit has been there before us. God’s responsibility is to unlock the door from the inside; ours is simply to push gently against it and see what happens.
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