Through a broad coalition of missions agencies, denominations, and evangelism networks, the second annual Global Outreach Day will take place this Saturday, May 25. Under the theme, “Everyone can reach someone,” local Christians around the world are being urged to step out in faith and use creative ways to reach out with the gospel message (see www.globaloutreachday.com [1] for information, reports, and resources).
By Grant McClung
This opportunity to reach out brings us again to the purpose of Holy Spirit empowerment. “You will receive power,” Jesus promised, “…when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” The resulting effect, he declared, would be that we would be witnesses in our world, “…to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1.8). How did Jesus go into his world and how does that model inform us as His followers today? How can we, how should we personally experience and follow Christ in a way that leads to effective evangelization? There are many ministry examples of Jesus in the Gospels. In the Gospel of Luke, there are at least eight examples of following Christ as we reach out to our world.
Jesus went (and we follow):
1. With God’s favor (Luke 3.22) At his baptism,
“…the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
2. Full of the Holy Spirit/Led by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4.1)
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”
3. Guided by the Word of God (Luke 4.4)
“Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’”
4. With the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4.14; 18-19)
“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
5. With an intercultural focus (Luke 4.25-27)
“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.”
6. With authority in teaching, deliverance, and healing (Luke 4.32, 35-36, 38-39)
“They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority.”
“’Be quiet!’ Jesus said sternly. ‘Come out of him!’ Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What is this teaching?’ With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!’”
“…they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.”
7. With a vision for those who had not heard the good news (Luke 4. 43)
“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”
8. With an interdependent/ cooperative team partnership (Luke 5-6, italics mine)
“When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink” (5.6-7)
“For he (Simon Peter) and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him” (5.9-11).
“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles…” (6.12-13).
As we follow Christ in world evangelization, he reciprocates with his own personal presence and involvement with us. He promises and demonstrates his own continuing, active presence and power to his followers (italics mine):
“And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28.20b).
(The Berkeley Version), “And, mind you, I am alongside you…”
(Weymouth Translation), “…day by day, until the close of the Age”
“After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it” (Mark 16.19).
Models and strategies of evangelization may adapt and change but this will remain the same: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13.8). The continuing, active presence and power of Jesus Christ will be with us daily as he works with us and we follow the Jesus model to reach out into our world.
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Dr. Grant McClung, President of Missions Resource Group, is the author of the missions outreach resource, www.Globalbeliever.com [2]: Connecting to God’s Work in Your World (Free E-book available at www.MissionsResourceGroup.org [3]).