(Transcript of the video above, edited for readability)
Christians can best witness to Muslims by being confident in the gospel. Romans 1, "the gospel is the power of God unto salvation." We need to believe that. We need to understand that same message of God's love. That same message about God's son having come into the world, bearing our human likeness, living a perfectly righteous life, and then offering himself as a sacrifice on the cross to atone for sins and to turn away God's wrath against us because of our sin being crucified, buried and resurrected and coming again. That message, that story, is the power of God unto salvation, and everyone who repents and believes shall be saved. So the first thing we need to do is be confident in the gospel itself. That gospel that saves us is powerful enough. It's the power of God to save Jew and Gentile, Muslim and Hindu, and any other religious background.
The second thing we need to do is just be prepared in various ways to share that gospel with our Muslim neighbors and friends. We need to be prepared to be clear about sin because Muslims have a different understanding of the doctrine of sin. We want to press home how serious sin is, and the fact that sin is an offense against the holy God. It's personal, and that unless there's sin is covered and atoned for, then they die in their sins and the wrath of God abides on them. So we need to be prepared to discuss that and to press home and take it really out of the realm of a debate about Jesus and playing Bible ping-pong as though this has no practical relevance.
We need to be prepared to sort of honor the Bible as we share the gospel with Muslims. And really the easiest way to do that is many times Muslims themselves will want to take you to the New Testament and parts of the New Testaments in the hopes of convincing the Christian that what we believe about Jesus and the gospels is in fact not true.
The easiest way to honor the Bible and to help our Muslim friends understand the gospel is usually go right to the text that they take you to and read three or four verses before and three or four verses after. And usually, because we're talking about Jesus, you got the whole gospel there. You got the person in the work of Christ right there in the text. And so let the Bible speak for itself in that way.
The other thing I would say is God's been kind to bring the nations to our doorsteps in the States and in Europe and other places, including our Muslim neighbors and friends. And so the practice of hospitality becomes really important. It becomes a really important evidence of the Gospels outworking in us so that we move toward our neighbors the way Christ has come to us in the gospel, in compassionate and love. So to open our homes, to involve our Muslim neighbors and friends in the routines of our families. And if they have children the same age as your children, invite them to your little boy's baseball game or your little girl's basketball game. If they're relatively new to your neighborhood, they're going to have all the questions that new residents have. What do I find this? What do I get that? Go over, greet them, be a resource to them. Be hospitable. Invite them to your church.
Don't fall for the myth that they'll never come. They will. And in many Muslims, if they're coming from predominantly Muslim backgrounds, if they're here in the States, well, this is the first time they've ever had the opportunity to freely go to a Christian place of worship. Seize that opportunity the Lord has given us with the confidence we ought to have in the gospel, and the Lord will make our witnessing fruitful by His power and grace.
