By Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh, Ph.D.
Professor of Religion, Samford University
Share Christ
John 1:35–49
D.T. Niles, an evangelist from Sri Lanka, wrote a book on evangelism called “That They May Have Life” and suggested that, “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.”
John 1 tells the story of early evangelism as people who had encountered Jesus Christ for themselves began to tell others about Him. We sometimes fool ourselves into thinking the Church will just grow automatically. This can be a particular problem in the Bible Belt where it is culturally acceptable to attend church. We assume everybody knows the message of the gospel, but the majority of people in Alabama do not attend church. God’s hand of blessing comes in a sovereign way, but it comes upon churches who go out and tell others about Christ.
Seek a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. (35–39)
The first thing we must discover is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ for ourselves. John the Baptist preached a very simple message: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (v. 29). It was a message that would make perfect sense to Jewish people who remembered the saving action of God every year at Passover, when they ate the Passover lamb and gave thanks to God for grace, mercy and love in providing deliverance from slavery in Egypt. John is now telling them of a far greater deliverance, a more revolutionary freedom from sin which comes through Jesus Christ.
We cannot share an encounter with Jesus unless we have met Him and experienced His love in our lives. We need to know His grace in forgiveness, His mercy in meeting us and His peace within our hearts. Our experience must have an effect on our lives.
Tell others of your experience with Jesus. (40–45)
It would be easy to enjoy the grace of God and not tell others. This would be an act of selfishness on our part. In John 1 we find three people who share their encounter with Jesus with others. The first is John the Baptist in his preaching. The second is Andrew who goes immediately to find his brother and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (v. 41). Sometimes the hardest people to speak to about our faith are family members. They know us well and we cannot pretend to have encountered Jesus if it doesn’t make a difference in our daily lives. We start in our families before we tell others. Then in John 1 we discovered Philip who went to tell his friend, Nathanael, “We have found him” (v. 45). Don’t be guilty of the sin of silence. We don’t want people to say to us, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Invite others to know Jesus for themselves. (46–49)
William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, once said, “The Church is the only institution in the world that exists for the benefit of those who are not yet its members.”
Jim Graham, the British pastor who conducted my marriage service, once gave me his definition of the grace of God as “the beauty of God and the bounty of God.” Grace is the sheer undeserved generosity of the heart of our Father in heaven who delights to “pour out His love into our hearts through the gift of His Spirit.” This message is not something that human beings have devised — it comes as a revelation of God, not to be tampered with but shared with others. Why would we ever want to keep that message to ourselves?
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