Lloyd-Jones

[John Bunyan] began to listen to the conversation of three very poor old women who were talking of the things of God, and the things of Christ and the Christian faith. They hadn’t been in classes on evangelism, they had never stood up and preached, they were functioning as stones of the Building…What was it? Well, these women were Christians and had the Holy Ghost within them, they had a spiritual understanding and they were just talking naturally about the things that were deepest in their minds and in their hearts. That’s the way to evangelise!

The people who have helped me most of all weren’t those who had some superficial slick answer to this and that. But people who seemed to be filled with the love of God, and the grace of Christ, who are interested in me, concerned about me, want to help me, and seem to be drawing on some eternal resources..There is something about their whole life and demeanour that speaks God to me.

Then go on, if you like, to the support and defence of the truth, by learning your Scriptures, by understanding the doctrines of theology, by telling others about it, by defending the faith, perhaps beginning to write an occasional article. You are rendering an immense service, keep on, go on with it!

There are some of the ways in which you can act in the church, and thank God many of you are acting. Keep on, my friends, don’t be discouraged. Don’t listen to the people of ‘the thing to do’ who say that because you are not preaching, or teaching, or rushing hither and thither that you are doing nothing. Act in the capacity to which God has called you. Be concerned about your holiness and your sanctification, and then God will tell you, and do what He tells you.

And of course, you can see what you can do with those who are outside. You’re living in a home, you’re working in an office or a factory, you’re in a profession. That’s a marvellous way of functioning in this wall. Just to let people see to be a Christian means that you are different. Let them feel attracted to you and through you to Christ. Give them a reason for the hope that is in you. …But just go into that room and make everybody feel, without you doing anything, that there is something about you that they don’t understand, but they like it and wish they had it. Let them see Christ in you and you are evangelising in the most efficient manner of all. That is how we function individually in the world.

Let me show you some other ways, and I regard these of great importance. Merely to be pleasant, affable, and to display the spirit of love, is a great work in an age such as this. …Or if you prefer it, put it in terms of sympathy. The world is unhappy, men and women are unhappy, and they need sympathy. I am beginning to think that the biggest virtues of today is the ability to be able to sit and listen. People today are greatly helped by you hearing their troubles. But it is a trouble to find anybody who will listen today.

Don’t think that speaking is the only thing, these are all the activities of Christian people and as they do it they evangelise.

 

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, On Ephesians 2:  20-22