Reaching Family Members at Thanksgiving

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS
volume 22, number 46, November 16, 2023

“. . . be filled with the Holy Spirit.” -Ephesians 5:18

With our American holiday of Thanksgiving only one week away, perhaps you could use some advice on how to engage your family members who seem to have a strong aversion to Christianity. Maybe they grew up in the church and for whatever reason left it long ago. Maybe you have tried to get into the gospel with them before and they shut you down pretty quickly. Perhaps you have a homosexual family member who will bring his “partner” to dinner. Maybe you have a cousin or nephew who is dabbling in transgenderism. What can you do without causing a scene at the dinner table?

May I briefly suggest four things? Perhaps I can enlarge on them later. First, remember who you were before you received God’s mercy in Christ (Eph.2:1-13). You were dead in your sins. You were under the control of the devil. You were controlled by your lusts in mind and body. You were without hope and without God. You were a child of wrath, just like your lost family members are, but God had mercy on you. He may have mercy on them too. Ask God to give you a heart of love and compassion for these folks and to take away any vestige of self-righteousness or feeling of moral superiority. If God had not shown you mercy then you could be right where they are at this present time. 

Secondly, begin praying now for them. And what should you pray? I suggest three things. First of all, ask God to give you an open door to speak to them. Paul asked both the Colossians and Ephesians to pray for an open door to preach Christ with boldness (Eph.6:19,20, Col.4:3,4). You don’t have to knock the door down and cause a disruption. How might you engage your nephew or cousin? Ask questions. Take a genuine interest in his life, his job, his hobbies. Ask him what he is thankful for and then ask him about any challenges he might have in his life, offering to pray for him. If he opens up with specifics then you have an open door. 

The second thing you should pray for is an open heart. In Acts 16 Luke tells us that God opened Lydia’s heart to receive the things spoken to her by Paul the apostle. Remember, all people who are not yet united to Christ are dead in their sins. They have no interest whatsoever in the things of God and Christ. They often are exceedingly hostile to them. Only God can begin to draw them by the Spirit. Pray for God to do so. How will you know He has done so? More about that shortly. 

And the third thing to pray for is power, Holy Spirit power in your speech. In Acts 4 we are told that those who were gathered together had prayed and then they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31). Boldness of speech is not harshness. It is straightforward. It is speaking the truth in love (Eph.4:15). Paul says that when the Thessalonians received the word from him, they accepted it not as the word of men but for what it really is, the word of God which also performs its work in those who believe (1 Thess.2:13). May I state the obvious? You have no power in yourself to cause your cousin to receive the word which is able to save his soul. You must have the Holy Spirit working through your words of gospel truth. 

Thirdly, pray daily for the filling and fullness of the Holy Spirit. I have much I want to say on this topic and will try further to develop this later. Jesus said, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me,” (John 15:4). What kind of fruit can you bear? The fruit of the Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal.5:22,23). Ask God to produce in you the fruit of the Spirit in greater measure. And you can also bring forth fruit in the lives of other people, spurring fellow believers to be more faithful disciples of Jesus and to be an instrument in the conversion of sinners. 

Paul told the Ephesians to be constantly filled (present tense verb as a command) with the Holy Spirit. How are we to be filled with the Spirit? First, surrender yourself wholeheartedly to God the first thing every morning. Cultivate your love relationship with Jesus. Spend time, if only for a few minutes, in His presence. Gaze into heaven, putting your elbows, as it were, on the window sill of heaven and look into the face of Jesus. Gain a vision of His glory and majesty and then go forth in the day on the experience you had with Him that morning. And then ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of any sin you have not already confessed (Is.59:1,2). Be ruthless, be honest with God. He sees it all anyway—your thoughts, idle words, your harsh or lascivious speech, what you watch, what you read. Confess it as sin and repent. Just stop it, right then and there. Then ask for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). Yes it is true that at your conversion you were indwelt by the Spirit, but you must be filled, controlled by the Spirit if you are to have any power at all to effect change in anyone. Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty let Him come to Me and drink and from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” (John 7:37,38). The key is to be thirsty for His power in your life. Are you thirsty? In the next verse John makes clear that this living water is the Holy Spirit. And then believe, as a little child, that you will be filled with the Spirit. When you sin, and you of course will sin, repeat these steps—surrender to God, confess your sin, ask for the Holy Spirit, and then believe God will give Him to you. 

Okay, so your nephew has expressed a trial or two in his life. What can you say? The goal is to get him to read the Bible with you on Zoom or FaceTime. Remember, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul,” (Ps.19:7). You can say something like this, “I am sorry to hear of this trial in your life. Would it be okay for me to pray for you about this need?” If he says “Yes” then you could pray a brief prayer at the table or tell him you promise to pray for him later that day. Then you could say, “You know, God really cares about you and everything in your life. God loves His people. I like reading stories about Jesus with people and I am wondering if you think that is something you might like to do? We could meet for three or four weeks, about thirty minutes at a time, and see if these stories might help you.”

If he says “Yes” then God has opened his heart to at least consider the Scriptures. If he says “No” then don’t worry about it. He is not yet open and that is not your fault. If he says “Yes” then set up a time to meet as soon as possible. I suggest you read the stories in Mark’s gospel because these are short and quick hitting, portraying Jesus’ authority and power as well as His death and resurrection. Your time together could go something like this. Begin by asking him one thing he is thankful for in the past week and one thing which is a challenge. Listen. Then get into your reading of the Bible. Have him read the text. Ask him to paraphrase it to make sure he understands it. And then ask three questions. First, what does this passage tell us about Jesus? Secondly, what does this passage tell us about people? And thirdly, what is one thing in this passage you believe God wants you to do? 

Give him time to answer the questions. Don’t give him the answers. Let him grapple with the text of Scripture, and then watch how God before your very eyes, in succeeding weeks, begins to transform him. If he sticks with it over several weeks God very well might save him. 

Expect God to save him. You can do this. You don’t have to be an evangelist to be used of God in leading people to Christ. What will you do with what you just read?