Week 3: Evangelism Isn’t for Experts
Zach Broom
Evangelism: How the Church Speaks of Jesus • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 40:57
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We are asking the question: Who’s job is it to evangelize?
“I couldn’t do what you just did,” the man said.
“What do you mean?” the pastor responded.
He nodded toward the person he had just spoken with.
“That. Just striking up a gospel conversation out of nowhere.”
His words were honest.
No attitude, no shame.
Just a quiet admission.
He was a solid Christian, growing like a weed.
But he was newer in the faith,
But he had a reserved, quiet personality.
The pastor, on the other hand, was a walking firehose.
He never met a stranger he wouldn’t talk to.
So whenever he saw a full room he felt like it was an open invitation.
That’s just how he was wired.
But it made the first man feel like maybe he wasn’t cut out for evangelism.
This interaction shows us that many believe that that evangelism is something best left to the professionals.
We don’t say it that way, of course.
But the tone, the platform, the polish can make it seem like evangelism is a specialist skill.
Like surgery.
You wouldn’t want your neighbor with a pair of scissors doing a heart bypass.
And you wouldn’t ask your toddler to do your taxes.
So naturally, people start thinking,
“Well, I’m not that guy. I’m not eloquent. I can’t answer every question.”
“I haven’t read five apologetics books.”
“I didn’t go to seminary.”
“So I guess I should just stick to being a nice Christian.”
And if the perfect moment comes, maybe I’ll say something. But only if they ask first.”
And only if I’ve had my quiet time.
And only if I’m feeling bold.
And only if…”
That’s how evangelism dies by a thousand qualifications.
But the truth is simpler than that.
Whose job is it to share the gospel?
The Bible does mention people with the gift of evangelism.
Paul lists evangelists among the leaders given to the church in Ephesians 4:11.
We also see Philip called “the evangelist” in Acts 21:8.
And yes, there are still people today with that gift.
Some have a public calling.
Some lead ministries or speak to stadiums.
But here’s the key: a gift does not erase a calling.
Just because some are especially gifted for evangelism
does not mean they are the only ones called to it.
Evangelism isn’t reserved for extroverts.
It’s not limited to the stage.
It’s not something you outsource to missionaries and guest speakers.
Evangelism is part of discipleship.
It’s part of what it means to follow Jesus.
The Great Commission wasn’t given only to the apostles or to pastors.
It was given to every believer.
When Jesus said, “Go and make disciples,”
He was speaking to His followers as a whole.
That means evangelism is for the quiet believer who works in accounting.
It’s for the stay-at-home mom juggling kids and errands.
It’s for the high schooler in the lunchroom.
It’s for the retiree chatting with a neighbor over the fence.
Evangelism is for you,
not just the person you think is better at talking.
We’ll talk more about how to share the gospel in upcoming sessions.
But here,
at the start,
we need to nail down this truth:
Evangelism isn’t about personality; it’s about faithfulness.
God doesn’t ask you to be someone else.
He asks you to be faithful with what He’s given you.
And He’s placed you in a network of relationships, workplaces, and moments that no pastor will ever step foot into.
Your voice matters.
Your story matters.
You don’t need a stage.
You need eyes to see the people in front of you
and a heart that trusts God to use you,
even in weakness.
In fact, that’s the point.
1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Paul told the corinthians that he didn’t come to them with “eloquence or human wisdom”
but with simple message of the gospel that rested on God’s power,
not his skill
If the success of evangelism rested on talent or personality,
none of us would be qualified.
But if it rests on God,
then no one is disqualified.
In Acts 4:29, Peter prays,
29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,
That prayer wasn’t limited to preachers.
Evangelism is not just the work of pastors.
It’s true that Paul told Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist” in 2 Timothy 4:5.
but that command didn’t mean evangelism should be left to the trained, the eloquent, or the professional.
Still, many Christians fall into that trap.
They assume their job is only to bring people to hear the pastor,
not to speak the gospel themselves.
We easily think,
“I’m not as skilled as that guy up front. I wouldn’t know what to say. What if they ask a hard question?”
And before long, we tell ourselves we’re off the hook.
“I’ll share Christ when I really know them, or when they ask first,”
We keep shrinking the window until it closes.
But Scripture does not let us off the hook.
Yes, there were evangelists in the early church (Ephesians 4:11, Acts 21:8).
Yes, some are uniquely gifted for it.
But the call to make disciples was never limited to a few.
Jesus gave the Great Commission to all his disciples, saying:
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
That command wasn’t only for the apostles.
It still applies to every believer today.
John Stott once wrote that this commission
“is binding upon every member of the whole Church.”
Every Christian is called to be a witness to Christ in the place God has put them.
And in some ways, personal evangelism is even more powerful than preaching.
A sermon may reach a crowd,
but a personal conversation adapts the message to the individual.
The early church understood that.
After Jesus sent them, they went.
and the book of Acts shows the apostles evangelizing constantly (Acts 5:42; 8:25; 13:32; 14:7, 15, 21; 15:35; 16:10; 17:18).
But it wasn’t just the apostles.
Everyday believers carried the message with them.
Wherever they went, they spoke about Jesus.
So, who should evangelize?
Every believer.
Not all of us are pastors, and not all of us are called to stand on a stage.
But all of us are called to speak.
Evangelism isn’t reserved for the trained or the talented.
It is the ordinary work of ordinary Christians who know an extraordinary Savior.
In Acts 2, when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost,
it fell on all the believers.
In the Old Testament,
that kind of outpouring prepared someone to speak God’s Word.
And sure enough, that’s what we see.
As Acts unfolds, ordinary Christians start spreading the gospel.
Acts 8 tells us that after Stephen’s death, persecution broke out in Jerusalem.
The apostles stayed put,
but the rest of the church scattered.
And as they went, they spoke.
4 Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
These weren’t trained evangelists or full-time missionaries.
These were regular believers carrying Jesus with them.
Later in that same chapter, Philip,
one of the deacons, who wasn’t an apostle,
is found preaching in Samaria and then leading a stranger to Christ on a desert road.
And in Acts 11, some unnamed believers from Cyprus and Cyrene began telling Gentiles about Jesus in Antioch.
Luke says:
21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
No titles.
No platforms.
Just faithful followers of Christ, opening their mouths.
That’s evangelism.
And that’s our example we must follow.
It’s obvious from the New Testament that early Christians didn’t keep quiet about their faith,
even when it cost them.
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about their “severe suffering,” saying:
6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,
In Paul’s second letter, he spoke of those who were causing them trouble (2 Thessalonians 2:5–7).
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
Still, they didn’t hide.
They kept speaking.
Their lives had changed,
and they wanted others to know why.
Peter urged believers to be ready.
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
That wasn’t advice for pastors.
Luke 19, it was a call to every Christian.
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus says:
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
In saving us, He alone is Savior.
But in seeking the lost, He is our example.
How can we say we are following Jesus if we don’t do what He did?
If He told stories about lost sheep, coins, and sons,
then we should be the kind of people who care about finding them too.
Throughout Acts,
we see believers sharing their faith.
Some are named.
Many are not.
But they all knew Christ was worth sharing.
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
James called that the “royal law”
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
But if you truly love someone, how could you not want them to know Christ?
If you are pursuing Jesus as the greatest joy of your life, how could you not want that same joy for them?
Real love points people to what matters most.
And nothing matters more than being reconciled to God.
If you love your neighbor, you will speak.
Because love speaks.
Love invites.
Love shares the gospel.
Every Christian plays a part in sharing the gospel,
not just with words but with how we live together.
In John 13, Jesus says our love for one another will show the world that we are His.
That kind of love isn’t just for leaders.
It’s the church’s everyday witness, and it involves all of us.
Paul tells the Philippians to keep:
16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
In Ephesians, Paul says we do this:
10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
That means local churches,
filled with ordinary believers,
is how the gospel becomes visible.
It means that God’s love, made known in Christ, is to be seen in us.
John Stott put it this way:
“The invisibility of God is a great problem. It was already a problem to God’s people in Old Testament days. Their pagan neighbors would taunt them, saying, ‘Where is now your God?’ Their gods were visible and tangible, but Israel’s God was neither. Today in our scientific culture young people are taught not to believe in anything which is not open to empirical investigation. How then has God solved the problem of his own invisibility? The first answer is of course ‘in Christ.’ Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. John 1:18: ‘
No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son has made him known.’ ‘That’s wonderful,’ people say, ‘but it was 2,000 years ago. Is there no way by which the invisible God makes himself visible today?’ There is. We return to 1 John 4:12: ‘No one has ever seen God.’ It is precisely the same introductory statement. But instead of continuing with reference to the Son of God, it continues: ‘If we love one another, God dwells in us.’ In other words, the invisible God, who once made himself visible in Christ, now makes himself visible in Christians, if we love one another. It is a breathtaking claim.”
Evangelism is more than just a message.
It’s a shared life.
Our hospitality, service, mercy, encouragement, and prayer all play a role in making Christ known.
And when we speak of the hope we have,
inside and outside the church,
we show that love with our words too.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said that evangelism depends on the quality of life in the church.
And John Bunyan saw that firsthand.
Long before he became a preacher,
he overheard a few poor women sitting in the sun, talking about the things of God.
They spoke with joy and honesty about their sin,
their new birth,
and how God had comforted them.
They talked like people who had found another world.
Bunyan was convicted.
Their words stuck with him.
God used their simple conversation to stir his heart.
They weren’t preachers.
Just faithful women sharing life and Scripture.
And God used them to reach a man who would one day write Pilgrim’s Progress.
Evangelism is not a modern strategy
or a job for professionals.
It is the natural outflow of a church living in love and truth.
The world sometimes listens to sermons,
but it watches how we live.
Let me end with one more story:
this time about James Smith, a Christian slave near Richmond, Virginia.
Smith was separated from his wife, Fanny, and their children for decades.
The cruelty he endured is hard to imagine.
But his faith in Christ held him.
Night after night, after long days of forced labor,
Smith would gather with fellow slaves and preach the gospel.
and even when his master whipped him for it,
he kept on preaching.
Later, Smith was sold to a plantation in Georgia.
His new owner wanted to stamp out his worship and prayer,
so he ordered the overseer to beat Smith until he stopped.
That man gave Smith one hundred lashes.
And still, Smith prayed.
One day, the overseer overheard him.
But Smith wasn’t praying for freedom or revenge.
He was praying for the overseer’s soul.
That broke him.
He went to Smith in tears, asked for forgiveness, and helped him escape.
That is evangelism.
Not from a pulpit,
but from a life so shaped by Jesus that even suffering became a platform for grace.
God calls all of us to share the good news.
And churches should help each believer know that gospel,
live it clearly,
and speak it plainly.
Question:
1. What fears or assumptions make us feel like evangelism is only for pastors or “gifted” people?
Question:
2. Who in your life helped you understand the gospel clearly, and what stood out about how they shared it?
Question:
3. In what ways can our habits, our words, and our love for each other make the gospel visible to the people around us this week?
