A young woman was riding a train. She was reading as the train moved along. As she read it was clear that she was enjoying what she read. She smiled frequently and laughed hilariously at times. Before the train had gone far, someone in a nearby seat asked the title of the book she was reading.
Does anyone ever ask us the reason for the hope within us? (I Pet 3:15)
We must realize that to praise the Lord is a form of pre-evangelism. The Orthodox Churches do not understand evangelism as we do.They see worship itself as evangelism enough.That is an extreme, one that is clearly wrong. Yet we should recognize that proper worship will always serve as a pre-evangelistic activity at least.
Notice the parallelism of verses one and two.To “give thanks” is paralleled with to “make known” (1).”Sing to him” is paralleled to “tell” (2).
Some things will have to change to allow worship to serve this pre-evangelistic function.
To serve a pre-evangelistic function, worship must be freely and exuberantly given. “I do not have to go to worship”, my grandfather would sometimes say, “I want to go to worship.”Even our choice of terms reveals something of our attitude. Are we going to church (misuse of the term ‘church’), or are we going to the church building (focus on correctness of terminology), or are we going to worship?
Worship must not be of the formal type only.Very few outsiders will wander in to see our worship at the church building.Home worship is more likely to attract, but even that is likely to be misunderstood.It is a joyful, thankful daily attitude that will attract people.
We must also seek the Lord (3).
There is a difference between praising the Lord and seeking the Lord. Seekers will always praise, but not all who praise remember to seek.We need to be people who make our decisions based on the Lord’s will.We need to be people who get to know him better as the years go by.Seeking God’s blessings is not always seeking him.To learn the Bible better is not necessarily the same as knowing him better. Seekers of God will be Bible students, but not all Bible students are seekers of God.
We must remember his past deeds. We must remember and repeat the mighty acts of God.
5 Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered, 6 O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!
Very few people are ever argued out of Christianity. They simply drift away. They stop remembering.
Remembering has always been a key first step toward evangelism (Dt. 4:6-8, 9).Christians also have their command to remember, and it has an aspect of proclamation in it. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).
Joyful remembrance of God’s past action is critical to faithful proclamation.They needed to remember his mighty faithfulness (7-11).We also need to remember that God is faithful. We can count on his promises.That is what Romans 8 is all about. Remembering his faithfulness is key to resisting temptation. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
Let us joyfully serve the Lord. It will be good for us. It will attract others.
Let us seek the Lord, to want to be near him.
The key to is to remember the great things he has done and will do.
Eswatini