Christine Hoover spoke during the National Women’s Evangelism Conference in April 2024. This article summarizes one of her messages.
God has equipped you, just as He equips every believer to go and make disciples. When it comes to being a disciple-maker, we become more intimidated. But why do we get so intimidated? Sometimes, it feels a little too weird and a little too awkward. It’s easy to just say, “I’m just going to focus on being a disciple and not worry so much about being a disciple-maker because I’m not sure that I’m qualified for it.”
When we look at our fears and concerns, it’s easy to think that to share the good news of Jesus, we have to be perfect and have it all together. But that’s not the case. God would not have called us to do this. He knows that we’re not going to be perfect in it, but He equips us to do what He has called us to do.
So, here are two specific ways that God equips us to live as sent people equipped to make disciples.
- God equips us through our own stories.
In Confidence and Comfort
God ministers to each of us a certain way so that we can go with a story and with the confidence to tell it. We see this in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. If we’re looking for mercy or a source, where do we go? Paul said go to God. If we’re looking for comfort, where should we go? The answer is God. We often talk about having the “ministry of presence” with those who are hurting. Paul was describing a perfect ministry of presence that God gives us as the God of all comfort. He walks with us in life, and He comforts us in our afflictions. He alleviates or lessens the grief, sorrow, or disappointment we experience.
When I think about God’s comfort, it’s as though we are enclosed in Christ. He softens the blows of the hurts and disappointments of life. He lessens our grief and gives us hope. The promise of His presence lessens our sense of “No one understands” or “No one sees what I’m experiencing” because God encloses us. In His presence, He lessens the grief. Comfort also means to strengthen and to come alongside. He gives us more force and more fight. We can move forward with power because of the Holy Spirit. The word “comfort” in the New Testament is most associated with the Holy Spirit. He dwells within us and enables us to push, fight, and continue to persevere with strength and with power.
Amidst our Affliction
Affliction gives the idea of inward pressure resulting from difficult circumstances, which means things like anxiety, discouragement, fear, and doubt. When we experience inner despair from our outward circumstances, God lessens our grief, sorrow, and disappointment through His presence. However, we can also think of His strength as pushing from the inside out, empowering and enabling us to do what we cannot do in our own human strength. Through His strength, we are able to forgive our enemies, suffering with hope, and endure our unwanted circumstances.
Sometimes, I wake up and feel overwhelmed and distrusting. Many times, I say to myself, “I can’t do this. I don’t have what it takes. I don’t think I can make it to the end of this in one piece.” But here’s a truth balm for my soul: What I believe has to be practiced because His promise to me is His presence with me. He will see me through any and every situation. I may wake up distressed and burdened. But then I remember that we can find refuge in Him and that He invites me in and reminds me of what is true (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). He lessens my sorrow and strengthens me from the inside out, enabling me to do what is not naturally possible, and He can do the same for you. Whatever you’re facing and whatever your story may be, He can do the same for you.
Through God’s Generosity
God is a God who generously shares with us. There’s no affliction He’s unwilling to enter into. He’s not afraid or impatient with us in the ways we sometimes are with ourselves. He’s not disgusted with or disengaged from our affliction. (In fact, Psalm 34:18 says that God runs and is close to the brokenhearted!) He runs in like a firefighter in our time of need, not away. His presence comforts and strengthens us.
You’re probably wondering, What does this have to do with evangelism? Well, this is it: He gives us a story to tell.
From “Me” to “We”
In 2 Corinthians 1:4-6, Paul says that our affliction can actually benefit someone else. So, what is happening to me is happening for your benefit. And what’s happening to you is for my benefit. Notice the pattern: God first shares Himself with us, so we receive strength, help, truth, wisdom, and knowledge. Our hope is solidified by how He responds to us.
However, God’s sharing with me always turns into a “we.” There’s always a corporate component to God’s ministry of presence to us and through us. We bring the ministry of God’s presence into the lives of those around us, and it’s a tall task. It may seem daunting to us, Paul says, “You don’t go empty-handed. You go with your story.”
To Go and Tell
In verse 4, God gives us a story that we can go and tell: that God is a deliverer, a comforter, and a God who saves and redeems. This intersection of where your affliction and God’s comfort meet quite often becomes your ministry, passion, and calling. Engaging in a ministry of sharing our stories of God’s healing and redemption solidifies our confidence in God and what He can do. Paul describes this later in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10.
The more time that I spend with others, the more I find Paul’s words to be true. My hope is unshakeable in the gospel, and it’s solidified because I’m willing to enter into the stories of others. You can see this pattern coming full circle: God shares with me, “me” becomes “we,” and our attention is turned back to the worship of God and our hope is solidified in Him. We are called to share our stories. They are powerful tools that God can use, and He has equipped us with our stories to go and minister to others.
- God equips us with His Spirit.
Look to the Lord
We’re equipped with our stories, but we must know that none of this is going to be fruitful without the Holy Spirit who undergirds any kind of work that we do in Jesus’ name. And that’s great news: Our spiritual growth and spiritual fruit come from God alone. It has nothing to do with what we can conjure up. If we continue to look to ourselves, we will never follow through on anything. Looking at ourselves does not make us bold because we know ourselves. In fact, it highlights our powerlessness because we do not have the ability to change any spiritual reality. But what if that place of recognizing our inability and our limited resources is the exact starting line where God has us and where He wants us to start from?
Paul also had a “But God, what about…?” issue in his life. He had a physical ailment that plagued him, that he could have easily used as an excuse and said, “I can’t do this because of that!” But he said that weakness was actually the place from which God wanted to release the fragrance of Christ through him. It’s that intersection of affliction and God’s comfort that gave him a specific ministry. We don’t know what that thorn in the flesh was specifically, but it became his ministry. So, we don’t want to simply look at the “but what abouts” and stop there. Let the “but what abouts” come and be a springboard to turn your eyes away from yourself and to look instead at the divine resource that God has given you: the Holy Spirit.
Through the Spirit’s Power
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 says that God makes us confident and sufficient and that He does this through His Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, and He dwells within the believer and is the primary actor now in our lives that saves, calls people to God, convicts us of truth and of sin. He is the One producing spiritual fruit in and through us. To know Him is to know the power of God with us and rely on and trust in that power as we go and serve Him. This passage says that putting our confidence in God requires a steadfast reliance and absolute trust in His divine resources. Our trust is not in ourselves or our own resources. We look with absolute trust to the divine resource, the Holy Spirit within us.
Jesus said, “Hey guys, I’m about to leave, and it’s better for me to go away.” If Jesus were standing here with me, I would be clinging to His leg and saying, “Do not leave!” But He says it’s better for Him to go because the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within us as our helper. Jesus calls him “the Paraclete,” our helper whose calling is to come alongside believers, to strengthen them from the inside out, and to lessen the griefs we experience.
In Full Reliance
The word “Paraclete” is like a family attorney on permanent retainer. He helps us navigate the court system and know what to say. When an attorney is going to fight for us, it means an attorney is going to help us to know what to do. We’re not going to trust ourselves at all; we’re going to follow the lead of our attorney. That’s the word Jesus used for the Holy Spirit. You have this resource—God dwelling in you—that makes you sufficient. He makes you sufficient to be a minister of the gospel. So, are we capable as sharers? Not in and of ourselves. We can’t change hearts, but God makes us confident and sufficient to share. You might be thinking, Well, how do I know how He leads? How does He lead me? How will I know His voice? Well, first and foremost, you know His Word. He speaks to you through His Word. He reminds you of the truth that Jesus has spoken to His followers. He will help you understand and apply that truth so that you will know His voice through His Word.
I have also come to realize that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me when someone comes to mind and keeps coming to mind. You might have a lost person in your life who keeps coming to mind. Pay attention to that. Pray for that person and maybe take some sort of initiative to reach out to that person. If 2 Corinthians 3 tells me to have absolute reliance on the Holy Spirit, then I am constantly praying, “Lord, help me. I can’t do this. I’m going to rely on and trust in You. I may not know the outcome or see a result from this, but I’m leaving it in Your hands.”
Your Great Commission Calling
Paul says to us in these passages that we are not doing the primary work of ministry; it is God who does the work. He leads, strengthens, and spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of His Son. He makes us sufficient. God is the primary worker, and we get to come along for the ride and have our hope made steadfast in Him as we see what He does in the lives of those around us.
Did you know that the Holy Spirit has a favorite word? His favorite word is “Go.” Imagine the Holy Spirit saying that word with excitement and opportunity.
You are being sent out and equipped with a story and with His Holy Spirit within you. So, let’s go.
Learn ways you can share the gospel with confidence by exploring resources at nambevangelism.com/women
Published July 18, 2024