Evangelism begins with God, the Creator of everything. God made man to have a relationship with Him. When man chose to disobey God, sin entered the world. As a result, man’s relationship with God was broken. God initiated the restoration of the relationship with Adam and his wife. God promised One who would come to conquer sin and restore the relationship. Jesus Christ, God’s promised One, restored that relationship through His substitutionary death on the cross and His triumphant resurrection from the dead. When we place our trust in Jesus Christ and His work, our relationship with God is restored. Once we are restored to God, we are to be on mission with God to help others be restored to God.

Believers are to build relationships with unbelievers. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of how to build with unbelievers. In John 1:14 and 17, the Bible states that Jesus was full of grace and truth. As Jesus interacted with lost, He was full of grace. He was loving, compassionate, forgiving, and seeking to extend mercy to undeserving sinners. Jesus was also full of truth. Jesus is the truth and He always speaks the truth. While we may struggle to have the right balance of grace and truth in our relationships, Jesus did it perfectly.

For our evangelism to flourish, we need to imitate Jesus. In Philippians 2:5, we are commanded to have the same mindset of Jesus Christ. In Colossians 4:6, the apostle Paul combined these two qualities of Jesus in our relationship with unbelievers. “Let your speech (truth) be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” Notice that our evangelistic efforts need to be tailored to the individual while maintaining Christ-like qualities.

As believers, we need to build grace and truth relationships with unbelievers. What does that mean? We need to develop trusting friendships with those far from God (grace) and introduce them to the God of the Bible and His Son Jesus Christ (truth).

If we are going to develop grace and truth relationships, then we are going to need to focus on Jesus. Matthew 4:19 Jesus told Peter and Andrew, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The word “follow” literally means to come behind. Jesus invited His disciples to watch, observe His interactions with lost people. He promises to transform their lives. As we focus on the life of Jesus, He promises to make us like Him. One of my professors so wisely stated that "whoever you concentrate on is who you will become like". Let’s concentrate on Jesus and He will make us into His kind of evangelists.

What did Jesus do in building relationships with lost people? In upcoming articles, we will look at key Scripture passages that identify four phases in building grace and truth relationships. For now, let’s ask God to help us develop trusting friendships with those far from God. As we build with them, ask God to help us introduce these unbelievers to the God of the Bible and His Son, Jesus Christ.