I was thinking this morning about what are some of the most important qualities of a person who seeks to communicate the Christian worldview. There are some obvious necessities, of course, starting with the need to know and understand what the Christian worldview actually is. It’s no good trying to win people to a point of view you don’t understand yourself. Also the more you know about what other people believe and their worldview the better you can interact with them and deal with issues that might be relevant to their particular perspective. Being a good communicator, winsome in speech and just a likeable fellow is always helpful too. And then there is faithfulness. Faithfulness live by the teaching of Jesus and to share the good news of Jesus on a regular basis is key. What good is it to be knowledgeable and winsome if you don’t ever open your mouth? I’d take a faithful evangelist who knows the basic elements of the gospel and tries to obey the Lord any day over a person that is a smooth talking intellectual who rarely shares his faith.
All of those things are really good. If I could get every Christian to be knowledgeable about what they believed and what others believed and to get them to be good communicators who try to follow Jesus and to share regularly that would be awesome, wouldn’t it? I think so. But there is one other quality that would just really tie them all together, namely, humility.
One of the best compliments I ever received from a non-Christian was to have them tell me about someone they are related to whom I had witnessed to. The person said something like “You know you aren’t like other Christians. When you talk about Jesus you don’t make people feel inferior.” Which is to say that other Christians had made them feel that way before. Now, believe me, I have really blown it in witnessing situations before and I have acted high and mighty so don’t think that this is just me tooting my own horn here. But in this particular case, I had done something really right. I communicated the love of Jesus and the gospel in a way that was attractive to this family.
1 Timothy 1:15 is a verse that I have adopted as a motto. “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to saves sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
In reality, this was a motto adopted by the early church. Notice that Paul says “the saying is trustworthy.” It was a saying! It was something that the early church affirmed together that “I am the foremost” sinner there is. I am. Not you, me. I could compete with anyone in this world for the title of worst sinner in existence… and so can you. Each one of us is to adopt the attitude of being the worst sinner there is, no one else comes close.
What happens if when asked “who is the worst sinner in the world?” we as Christians respond in unison “I am!”? I tell you what doesn’t happen, we don’t get proud. If we truly see ourselves in that light it gets pretty hard to witness to an unbeliever with a superior attitude. I don’t always accomplish thinking rightfully about myself in this way, but I have intentionally set out to do so and I believe it is one of the greatest assets to my advantage in sharing the Christian worldview with people. Because when I am talking to a person caught up in sexual sin, who has drug addictions, or who has a different belief system than I do I don’t think they are stupid, I don’t think they are untouchable, I don’t think they’re a horrible person, I think they are just like me, only I am worse.
I’m thankful that, at least in this one instance, that my attempt to own 1 Timothy 1:15 shined through to someone and they felt loved by me and maybe even by the one whom I am representing. When we have this attitude among ourselves then there is no one who is beneath us and unworthy of our time. There is no one unworthy of our love and our laboring to share the gospel with. So say it with me, because it is a saying, that:
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
