Show Me How to Share Christ in the Workplace

R. Larry Moyer

• Publisher: Kregel Publications
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780825442698
• eBook ISBN: 9780825488535
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Whether they know it or not, every Christian is in fulltime ministry—at home, at school, at recreation, and at work. Colossians 4: 5–6 says "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time, Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (nkjv).Continuing his popular Show Me How series, expert evangelist R. Larry Moyer has written a practical guide for sharing Christ in the workplace. Step by step, Moyer shows what it really means to pray, live, and speak as God directs. He then outlines how to apply each at work and shows how to take advantage of public speaking opportunities that Christians may not even know are available to them. Whether they are turning workplace conversations to spiritual matters, answering questions of unbelieving co-workers, or just performing their jobs as a representative of Christ, readers will be encouraged and equipped to present the gospel with clarity and simplicity.Written to encourage those in the workplace to see their jobs as their calling, How to Share Christ in the Workplace offers practical help and inspiration to influence non-Christians for Christ.

Part 1

Pray as You Should

Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.

—COLOSSIANS 4:2

Chapter One

What Does That Mean?

Prayer is not where you end your ministry in the workplace. It’s where your ministry begins. If anything of a spiritual nature is going to happen, God has to do it. Ministry in the workplace is God-sized. Christ’s words in John 15:5 dare not be forgotten: “Without Me you can do nothing.” Two things are essential.

Pray, and keep on praying.

Notice how Paul began his exhortation in Colossians 4:2: “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.” The idea behind words like “continue earnestly” and “being vigilant” is that prayer ought to come from our lips like water comes from a dripping faucet. Pray when you get up and pray an hour after you’re up. Pray before breakfast and pray after breakfast. Pray on your way to work and pray on your way home. Pray before your sales appointment and pray afterward. Pray as you leave the warehouse and pray as you return. Pray as you open up your e-mails and pray as you press “send.” Bottom line: make it a habit to engage in consistent prayer.

Paul’s emphasis on prayer is like the boy who always wanted a baby brother. His dad told him, “The only way you can get anything is to ask God for it—so if you want a baby brother, you’ll have to ask God for one.” So morning, noon, and night the boy prayed. He prayed before breakfast and after breakfast; on his way to school and on his way home; before soccer practice and after soccer practice. There was never an hour he didn’t pray. After several weeks of praying, he still did not have a baby brother. So he thought, This isn’t doing any good, and he stopped praying. Nine months later his father said, “Son, your mother is going to the hospital and I think when she comes home, she’ll have God’s answer to your prayers in her arms.” Sure enough, when the mother came home, she not only had one new little brother in her arms, but two, beautiful twin boys. The father, wanting to drive his lesson home, said, “Son, aren’t you glad you prayed the way you did?” To which the son answered, “I sure am, Dad, but aren’t you glad I stopped when I did?”

Like that little boy, we should pray daily and hourly. But unlike him, our commitment to prayer shouldn’t end after a few weeks of effort. Every day and every situation of that day presents us with opportunities to stay in communication with our Lord.

How does one pray as he sends an invoice, drives to his next sales job, or greets his next client? The answer is to live in an atmosphere of prayer. God hears the whispers of the heart, and a person can pray just as earnestly while changing the sparkplugs of a car as one does when participating in a prayer group at church. This doesn’t mean that having a time and place each day when we regularly meet with the Lord isn’t important. The point is, God is never more than a prayer breath away. We can bring everything to Him in prayer as it comes to us in life.

I’ve often been asked how a busy person keeps from being distracted as he prays. It’s hard to pause and pray when you’re facing a deadline on a project, or there’s an appointment you have yet to prepare for. You may feel overwhelmed by concerns on the home front that you carry with you to work, or your work schedule seems to master you instead of you mastering it. What do we do to work effectively without losing focus?

The answer is twofold. First, speak to God about the distractions. God has no limits on what we can bring before Him. That means we can come to Him and say, “Help me when I talk to you not to get distracted.” This is another one of those areas in our lives where He can do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20). Second, putting Him where He needs to be has a way of putting everything else where it needs to be. A businessman friend of mine said to me, “I’ve found something very interesting. When I take the time I need to spend with the Lord, everything I was concerned about getting done somehow gets done.”

That’s right—it’s a God thing! Putting Him in His rightful place in our priorities has a way of helping us get everything else in order. We can get done whatever needs to be done as He shows what is necessary and what can wait until another day. Perhaps that is what made Martin Luther say, “I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”¹

Accompany prayer with thanks.

Prayer is not merely talking to God about doing something, but also thanking Him for what He’s already done. It should not surprise anyone that Paul also said, “with thanksgiving.”

“Thanksgiving” is not a P.S. attached to the end of a prayer. It’s a spirit in which our requests are made. We pray to a God of grace, One from whose hand we deserve nothing but the just punishment for our sins. Instead, He holds back from us what we rightly deserve so He might give us what we don’t deserve.

We’re thankful for who He is. The psalmist said, “Praise the LORD! Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Ps. 106:1). We’re thankful for who we are in Him. Paul exhorted the Colossians, “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:12–14).

We’re thankful for everything good that comes from His hand—the physical as well as the spiritual. Paul made that clear by rebuking those who set up rigid rules about the physical as if spiritual things were all that mattered. He wrote to his young protégé Timothy:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. (1 Tim. 4:1–5)

Prayer is all-inclusive. As Paul told the Thessalonians, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18).

KEY POINTS

Two essentials that dare not be neglected are:

• Pray, and keep on praying.

• Accompany prayer with thanks.

These two alone can make a phenomenal difference as you begin ministry each day in the workplace. You’ll soon realize that what has happened through your nine-to-five day can only be attributed to the supernatural.

Chapter Two

What Do We Pray For?

Prayer is not mouthing words; it’s speaking to God. It’s talking to Him in such a way that a load that was pressing on your shoulders has now been transferred to His. What do you transfer to His shoulders? What do you ask God for?

Whatever our job or career, we can be engaged in evangelism in the workplace. That does not mean, however, that the responsibility for results depends entirely upon us. It doesn’t. There are five things God provides. They aren’t natural provisions—they are supernatural ones.

Opportunity

As I will keep emphasizing throughout this book—your job is your ministry, your ministry is your job. Any worker yielded to God can walk through an open door, but the open door is a God thing. Lewis Sperry Chafer said it well: “The divine order is to talk to God about men, until the door is definitely open to talk to men about God.”¹ No one recognized that any better than the apostle Paul. What he said about an open door for his ministry applies just as well for open doors for your ministry. As I will keep emphasizing throughout this book—your job is your ministry, your ministry is your job.

Does the Bible encourage us to pray for such opportunities? Definitely! Colossians 4:3 is a clear affirmation of this. As Paul was under house arrest, he undoubtedly had opportunities to share the gospel. Had I been a non-Christian Roman guard, it could have been exhausting to be chained (which often was the practice) to Paul for twenty-four hours a day! His desire was that he not be limited by his confinement. So, on behalf of himself and all of his associates, he requested prayer that “God would open to us a door for the word.” Acts 28:30–31 relates how God answered those prayers. If Paul couldn’t go out to reach the citizens of Rome, then God would send Romans to Paul! For two years, a continual stream of visitors came to Paul’s rented quarters and heard the gospel. And so did the Roman guards who constantly stood on duty!

Lydia is another exciting example of what God can do to open doors in the workplace. She was a businesswoman in the Greek city of Philippi and the first Christian convert in Europe. Luke relates the story of her conversion in Acts 16:11–15:

Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.

Lydia came from a region in Asia Minor called by the same name. Apparently, she was so closely tied to that region that her personal name was the name of her native province. Five large cities comprise that part of Asia Minor—Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Thyatira. All five cities were near chief rivers and had good roads connecting them. The “Lydian Market” was known for generations throughout the Graeco-Roman world for its wide and valuable trade.

Lydia, a native of Thyatira of western Asia Minor, conducted her business at Philippi, a city of eastern Macedonia on the east-west Egnatia Highway between Rome and Asia. She walked the streets of Philippi as a “seller of purple [goods].” This “purple” was either purple-dyed textiles or a secretion of a species of murex or mollusk from which a purple dye was made. The juice of the shellfish was white while still in its veins, but once it was exposed to the sun, it could range from a purplish blue to a crimson color. No doubt she wore purple herself, which would have been in keeping with a merchant selling this expensive product. Her customers probably included Babylonian buyers who bought their purple to use in making temple curtains or making costumes for their idols. Some costumes were probably purchased for the Roman Imperial family, who wore the imperial purple on state occasions.

Lydia was part of a group of worshipers that met on the bank of the Gangites River. Ten Jewish men were required to form a synagogue, so the fact that these women were meeting by the river meant that there were very few Jewish men in the city. Getting away from the city offered them the solitude (and perhaps safety) needed to worship. Lydia, the successful businesswoman, was a Gentile, but she worshiped the one God of the Jews and longing to know God better, she was at the place of prayer and worship on the Sabbath.

Religious people are sometimes the hardest to reach. Note what the text tells us: “The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.” Paul proclaimed the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection—the gospel that was now speeding west into Macedonia. Paul proclaimed the gospel and Lydia, whose heart had been opened by God, responded in faith. As a testimony to her faith, she and her household were baptized. Her hunger for truth was such that she invited Paul and Silas to come to her house. Although reluctant to impose upon her, Paul explains, “She persuaded us.” One can only imagine how many hours Paul spent teaching these new converts in the warmth of her home.

Lydia appears unashamed of her newfound faith, so much so that she opened her doors to Paul when he was supernaturally delivered from prison (Acts 16:40). No doubt she was foremost on his mind when he wrote his letter to the Philippians and addressed the group Lydia had helped assemble. He said, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now” (Phil. 1:3–5).

What’s the point of all of these details? First, so that you can see that Lydia was someone prominent in the workplace of her day. Second, so that you see clearly that she responded to the gospel because the Lord opened her heart. Paul and Silas walked through the door that God opened.

God is more concerned about the lost people we work with than we are. Therefore, we should pray with expectation for a door of opportunity. As we do so, we should recognize that a door of opportunity may come much faster than we ever anticipated.

While speaking in Missouri, a businessman excitedly told me that while on a recent business trip, he sat next to an elderly woman on the plane. As soon as he sat down, the woman asked him if he believed in Satan. That immediately began a discussion of spiritual things. He found the woman to be most receptive and attentive. After he explained the gospel to h...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Welcome to Your Ministry
• Part 1: Pray as You Should
• Part 2: Live as You Should
• Part 3: Speak as You Should
• Part 4: Know What’s Essential
• Part 5: Share What You Know
• Part 6: Use Public Speaking Opportunities
• Part 7: Resources for Workplace Leaders
• Appendix: “May I Ask You a Question” Booklet
• Notes
• Back Cover