How to Share Your Faith: Five Simple Strategies from Scripture
You know the feeling. You’re halfway through a project, you’re struggling, you’re wrestling to make the thing work — and then a light bulb comes on. Suddenly you see a different way to do it, and the whole thing changes. It’s easier. It’s clearer. You wonder how you didn’t see it before.
Pastor Keith Roberson opened with that experience because, he said, it’s exactly what Scripture was given to us to do. The Bible in your hands exists so that light bulbs come on — fresh revelation about who this God is and who you are in Him. The light bulb flickers on and you go: wait, what God says about me really is true.
And the light bulb this message wants to switch on is a big one. Picking up from the previous week in the REACH series — where the church sat with Colossians 1 (“Christ in you, the hope of glory”) and Jesus’s words in Matthew 5 (“You are the light of the world”) — Pastor Keith pressed one sentence until everyone was looking at him: in Christ, you are a portable sanctuary that carries healing and hope everywhere you go. Then he spent the rest of the message answering the question that naturally follows. Okay — but how? How do you actually share your faith in everyday life, around everyday people, without a script and without the pressure?
What this sermon is about
The presence of God doesn’t reside in buildings. When Christ returned gloriously to the Father, He sent His Holy Spirit to inhabit everyone who calls on the name of Jesus — which means the presence of God now resides in you. That makes you a portable sanctuary, and it makes blessing the people around you the most natural thing in the world. This sermon hands you five simple, biblical, almost embarrassingly practical strategies for doing it: begin with prayer, listen with care, eat together, serve with love, and share your story.
If evangelism has always sounded terrifying to you, this is the version with the pressure taken off.
You are a portable sanctuary
First, the identity underneath the practice. If you’ve opened your heart and received the radical gift of forgiveness, grace, and mercy, then according to Colossians 1:26-27 you carry “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints… which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You don’t just see this hope or hear about it on Sundays. You carry it internally, into every room you enter.
“In Christ, you are a portable sanctuary that is carrying healing and hope everywhere you go.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
And if your first thought is, “But what if I still need healing? What if I still need hope?” — Pastor Keith’s answer was quick: welcome to the family. Every one of us still needs healing and still needs hope, and yet carries the message of both. On a Monday morning you’ll be tempted not to believe that the presence of God resides in you. Let the light bulb come on anyway. It’s not a small thing. It’s a powerful, supernatural thing — and it means we get to live intentionally, out loud, with the world around us, rather than walled off from it.
The motivation that follows is just as simple, and there’s no shaming word in it: I have been so radically blessed, I want to share this blessing with others. So blessed, so forgiven, so covered, so cared for by this precious King that you can’t help wanting the people in your world to taste it too.
Blessed to be a blessing
This wiring goes all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis 1:28, God looks at the people made in His image, blesses them, and says, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Take what has been imparted to you and live with fruitfulness and multiplication on your life. It’s not only about having children (though, Keith noted, New River’s bustling kids ministry suggests the church does that part very well). There’s a deep hunger in every human heart to have an impact, to create, to bless where we go. We receive the blessing and we give the blessing — and if you want to live a full life, the giving-it-away part isn’t optional.
Philippians 2:1-4 makes the same move: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion… in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” If you’ve received encouragement, comfort, companionship, compassion — give away what’s been given to you. The world’s message is make sure number one gets taken care of. Jesus’s message is: you’ve already been radically covered and cared for by your King, so you have an infinite well to draw from for the people around you.
“How much has it changed your day when you just got one word of encouragement, just one word of blessing? Church, we carry the most radical, powerful encouragement the world could ever possibly know.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Five simple strategies to change the world
Then came the practical heart of the message — five strategies, served with a wink (“Are you ready for this? This is radical.”) because the first one is the least flashy thing imaginable.
1. Begin with prayer. Before anything else, pray — because the real obstacle isn’t out there in the philosophies. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” The wrestle is not against flesh and blood; there are no enemies on this earth, only principalities and blinders. So we ask God to do what only He can do: Father, remove blinders. Open eyes. Tear down strongholds. And — Keith’s favorite — make me a blessing here. Prayer also aligns your heart with God’s and puts the weight where it belongs.
“We are not responsible to change lives. That is God’s job.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
2. Listen with care. Everybody these days has messages to blast out; very few people are willing to listen. Most people just want to know somebody cares — that someone will hear their story. You don’t have to have answers or fix anything. Notice how often Jesus, in a place of ministry, is asking questions: What do you want me to do? Would you give me a cup of water? And James 1:19: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
3. Eat together. Or coffee — “it’s all gloriously harmonious in the kingdom.” For some reason God made food tear down walls. In Matthew 9:10-13, Jesus reclines at a table with tax collectors and sinners — and Keith pointed out those are two different groups: sinners lived visibly broken lives, but tax collectors were a political identity, traitors collaborating with Rome. Jesus is at the table with political opponents and moral outcasts, and when the religious authorities object, He answers: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Keith’s summary became the most repeatable line of the morning:
“You can do debates, but meals are better.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
4. Serve with love. Opportunities to care for people will open up — often not on your schedule — and Matthew 23:11 flips the world’s whole hierarchy upside down: “The greatest among you will be your servant.” It doesn’t have to be big. Just be ready in your heart.
5. Share your story. Every follower of Jesus has one, and it’s structurally simple: what was my life like before Jesus, how did I meet Jesus, and what has my life been like after Jesus? Don’t underestimate what that story is. Pastor Keith took the room all the way to Revelation 12:11, where the accuser is thrown down and the saints conquer him “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”
“Your story tears down strongholds. Your story will touch someone’s life in a way that my story won’t. Your story matters. The world needs it.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Pick one
If five feels like too many, Pastor Keith’s counsel was: pick one. And he pre-answered the objections, because he’s heard them all. I’m weak, I’m a mess, I’m immature — yes, that’s all of us; we’re all on the journey. My faith feels weak — doing this builds faith. I don’t know the Bible well enough — doing this will make you learn it. The next week’s gathering, he added, would be a sit-down Q&A with people who live this out better than anyone he knows.
The closing moments weren’t a guilt trip. They were two quiet minutes of asking: Lord, is there anyone You’re calling me to care for? Someone to invite to coffee, someone to serve, someone far from God (and maybe far from you) that you feel helpless about? Good news — God is not helpless. You can pray and ask God to move, and leave the changing of hearts to the only One whose job it is.
What this means for your week in Franklin
If you take this sermon seriously, four things change about this week.
- Pray the three-line prayer daily. Father, remove blinders and open eyes. Tear down strongholds. Make me a blessing here. Pray it for one specific person before you see them.
- Have one conversation where you only ask questions. No fixing, no advice, no pivot to your own story. Quick to listen, slow to speak — and watch what it does for the other person to simply be heard.
- Put a meal or a coffee on the calendar. Pick someone outside your usual circle — a coworker, a neighbor, a fellow parent from the soccer team — and invite them. Debates are fine; meals are better.
- Write out your story in three sentences. Before Jesus, meeting Jesus, after Jesus. You don’t have to deliver it this week. Just have it ready — your testimony is a weapon that tears down strongholds.
Watch the full message
The full sermon — “A Portable Sanctuary” from the REACH series — is in the video above. We post a new message every Sunday from New River Church in Franklin, TN. Browse our message library for more from the REACH series and other recent teaching.
Coming Sunday at New River Church in Franklin, TN
If this message resonated and you’d like to experience worship and community in person, we’d love to have you with us. New River Church meets Sundays at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM at 1153 Lewisburg Pike in Franklin, TN 37064 — just minutes from downtown Franklin and easy to reach from across Williamson County, Brentwood, and Spring Hill.
You don’t need to dress up. You don’t need a good voice. You don’t need to know much about church or the Bible to come. We’re a community of ordinary people walking through ordinary life, trying to do it together with Jesus at the center. Whether you’ve been a Christian for forty years or you’ve never set foot in a church, you are welcome here.
If you’re new to the area or new to faith, our First Time Guest page walks through everything you need to know before your first visit: parking, what to expect on Sunday morning, what your kids will experience in River Kids, and how to find us when you arrive.
If you’re looking for deeper community beyond Sunday morning, our Community Groups meet across Franklin and the surrounding area throughout the week. Groups are where Sunday morning faith becomes Tuesday afternoon real life.
Whatever you’re carrying right now, you don’t have to carry it alone. There’s a place for you at New River Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Come as you are.
Watch more sermons: newriverfranklin.com/messages Plan your visit: newriverfranklin.com/firsttimeguest Find a group: newriverfranklin.com/groups
📍 New River Church | 1153 Lewisburg Pike, Franklin, TN 37064 | Sundays 9:00 AM & 10:45 AM
