Did you know that it’s possible to live most of your life, including spending years in and out of different churches, without having a LIFE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST ? Well, it is. That’s what I did. That’s my testimony.! ! Oh, I believed in God alright. How could you not, seeing this beautiful world around us? But I never had a personal relationship with His Son Jesus. For most of my life, if I had died and stood before God in judgment, when He asked me if I knew His Son, I would have had to answer “No”.! ! I lived my life this way …. until age 59. I attended church, off & on, from a young age. Most of that time I lived a pretty good life. I thought of myself as a decent guy. But I KNEW, deep down inside, that something was missing. I also knew what that was, but didn’t want to admit it or do anything about it. I was afraid of the changes that might bring to my life.! ! I went on this way for a long time. Too long. Finally, in 2011, I broke down and asked Jesus Christ to forgive my sins and to come into my heart and my life as my Lord & Savior.! ! When I did this it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from me. I felt peace & joy like I had never experienced before. Things in my life that I had been struggling with seemed to not matter so much anymore, once I placed my hope and trust in Jesus.! ! Since asking Jesus into my life things haven’t always been rosy & perfect all the time. Far from it. But now I know where to turn for the strength that sustains me.! ! ! !
! * There! That’s my personal testimony. I timed it. It took me 94 seconds to recite it to you this morning. Remember that, as I’ll bring it up again later in this sermon.!! * The last time I was up here I spoke to you about memorizing scripture, in order to have it available for witnessing to others about your relationship with Jesus, and how they too could have this same relationship. We referred to us having a “tool belt”, or a “tool box” in which we would all have some “tools” ready at our disposal to Win Souls for Christ, as we are instructed to do in Matthew 28:19-20 … The Great Commission.!! “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age”.! ! * The tools we have in this tool belt are:! ! ! ! ! ! ! God’s word - The Bible! ! ! ! ! ! Your own personal testimony! ! ! ! ! ! Prayer! ! ! ! ! ! The Holy Spirit! ! * I challenged you to memorize a few short pieces of scripture. Please write these down if you haven’t done so already. For review, and for those of you that weren’t here, they were:!! Philippians 4:13 - “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.! !!!!!! Romans 3:23 - “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.! !!!!!! Romans 6:23 - “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life! ! ! ! in Christ Jesus, our Lord”.! !!!!!! John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten ! ! ! ! Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but! ! ! ! have everlasting life”.!
!!!!!! John 14:6 - “Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes! ! ! ! to the Father except through me”.! !!!!!! Ephesians 2:8-9 - “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith,! ! ! ! and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by! ! ! ! works, so that no one can boast”.! ! * Philippians 4:13 is there for you, to encourage you. The others are for your use when witnessing.!! * So today I am going to talk to you about the remaining 3 tools in our tool belt, starting with Your Own Personal Testimony, and how to use it, along with Prayer and The Holy Spirit, to win souls for Jesus. Let’s get started.!! * So what is your own personal testimony? To have a better understanding of that, let’s first discuss what your testimony IS NOT.!! * - It is not the story of your whole family’s record of church attendance.! ! * - It has nothing to do with family members that are part of the clergy.! ! * - It has nothing to do with your family at all, unless it was a family member that played a role in bringing you to Jesus. Then it might be important. Maybe.!! * - It is not a lengthy story about your past life and trials. Everybody has that. Don’t make this so much a story about YOU. Make it a story about JESUS, and what He has done in your life.!! * So, how do we do that? What does it look like? What is important to put IN, now that we have some idea of what to leave OUT?!! * Well, for starters, keep it short. Pastor Todd has challenged us in the past to keep our testimony down to under 90 seconds. 90 SECONDS!!! That’s impossible, you say! Really? Have you tried?!!
* I just gave my testimony, and I timed it with the stop watch function on my high tech flip phone here. After working on it for quite some time I was able to get it down to 94 seconds, as I did at the beginning of this sermon.!! * 94 seconds! So I’ve just proven that it is IMPOSSIBLE to give your own personal testimony in 90 seconds or less. Sorry Todd. It can’t be done! But what this does prove is that you CAN, with some work, get your testimony down to nearly 90 seconds. I did. It took some work, but this is the testimony that I use when witnessing to others about my relationship with Jesus and how it came about.!! * It didn’t start out that way, and I’m sure that yours won’t either. The very first time that Pastor Todd asked me to come before the church to give my testimony I was up here about as long as I will be this morning! Oh, it was a great story! Started off when I was young, involved a camping trip to Yellowstone Park, had a bear in it, a mighty storm that broke our tent pole, some tender words from my mother and on & on & on. ….. until I finally got to the part about asking Jesus into my life, like I just told you, and how my life has been changed ever since.!! * Here’s the point of keeping it short, in that 90 second range: Do you really think that someone that you are witnessing to wants to hear all about a camping trip, a storm, a bear and all that other stuff …. when what you are really trying to do is tell them about your relationship with Jesus Christ and how that came about? NO!!! * You are not there to entertain them! You have a very short time frame during which you need to convey to them the importance of having that relationship with Jesus, how you did it and what it means to you. If you drag it out and take too long you will lose their attention. You will possibly lose the only opportunity that they will ever have to hear the words of salvation that will keep them from eternal hell.!! * It is important work.! ! * So what do we put into our testimony? First off, the TRUTH. It needs no embellishment. It is powerful enough, just speaking the truth. Not all of
us have dramatic stories of being saved from a life of drug use, or a life of crime or abuse, or a bear. Just stick to the simple truth. God will bless your testimony if you just use the truth.!! * You need to tell what your life was like before you came to know Jesus, how that conversation with Jesus took place, and what your life is like now. Three short, simple things that it needs to contain. Think of it as BEFORE, HOW IT CAME ABOUT, and AFTER. Keep it short and simple. And truthful. You’ll be amazed at how powerful it can be, with God’s help.!! * OK, so you practice your testimony, write & re-write it, and are successful in getting it down somewhere in that 90 second range. What do you do with it now? How do you use it?!! * Well, when witnessing to others, we will use it in conjunction with God’s Word to win souls for Jesus. The combination of God’s Word and your own personal testimony is powerful. So if you have some scripture memorized, or at least clearly marked in your Bible for quick reference (and have your Bible with you, if that’s the case) plus your own testimony, then you have TWO powerful tools in that tool belt for winning souls.!! * But what if the person you are witnessing to takes away one of these tools from you? What if they tell you that they reject the Bible? That they don’t believe anything in it? Are you all done witnessing to them? Do you just turn and walk away? Or what if they just want to debate with you about what the Bible says? What do you do then?!! * That’s where your OWN PERSONAL TESTIMONY really comes in! Tell them exactly what Jesus has done in your life, how your life has been changed since coming to know Him, how it continues to change each and every day because of having Him in your life.!! * They might be able to reject the Bible, or they might be able to debate what it does or doesn’t say, but they CANNOT reject what you are telling them about your own life unless they call you a liar. They CANNOT debate what Jesus has done in your life, because only you know what that is.!!
* That’s why your testimony, and having it ready at all times, is so important to your witnessing. Your testimony can change lives, it can save the lost, it can WIN SOULS for Jesus!!! * And that’s what we are supposed to be doing. Once we are saved, we are not supposed to keep it to ourselves. We are to share it with others, with the entire world. That can take the form of witnessing to family, friends, strangers, or taking it worldwide by going on a mission trip or dedicating some time to a ministry right here at home.!! * So I urge you ….. spend some time memorizing scripture for use at a moments notice. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Maybe just the 5 short verses that I gave you earlier. And spend some time working on your testimony, getting it down to just the important parts, so that you can give it on short notice, along with that scripture. If you can do these two simple things then you are pretty well equipped to be the disciple Jesus wants you to be. That He has commissioned you to be. You will have two powerful “tools” in your tool belt. !! * And that brings us to the next “tool” in our belt … PRAYER. How do we use prayer for WINNING SOULS?!! * I almost feel silly asking that question. You know why, don’t you? What is there in this life that we come up against that PRAYER isn’t the answer for? In John 15:7-8 Jesus said: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples”. And Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”. And the Bible also tells us in MARK 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”.!! * So it should not be hard to come up with some ways for us to use prayer as a tool for winning souls for Jesus. Let’s look a just a few of them:!! * We can PRAY for God’s help in memorizing scripture, so that we have it available to use at any moment.!
! * We can PRAY for God’s help in working on our testimony, getting it down to that short, concise size that we want it to be.!! * We can PRAY for God to give us the boldness to witness to others.! ! * We can PRAY for God to give us the opportunity to witness to those who need to hear about His Son, Jesus.!! * We can PRAY for exactly the right words to say when the time comes to witness. The words won’t be the same for each and every person we meet. God can give us the right words, at the right time, that the person in front of us needs to hear at that moment.!! * And if that person we are witnessing to is ready, we can PRAY with them to secure their salvation for eternity. What a blessing that is!!! * You can also PRAY, as part of your daily prayers, that God helps you to become the DISCIPLE that He wants you to be. That He gives you all the tools that you need to be that disciple. !! * It CAN happen, but you need to do your part, in study, in preparation, in prayer. Every one of us here can be that disciple that Jesus wants us to be, if we will only take those first steps. We serve an AWESOME God! Do not doubt the changes that he can bring about in your life, if you will do your part and go to Him in prayer. You can do things that you never thought possible, that you never thought you had any talent for, that you never thought you were capable of.!! * Remember PHIL 4:13? “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” You really can!!! * How about the HOLY SPIRIT? How does that come into play as a tool in our “tool belt”?!! * When Jesus left His disciples, He told them that He was not leaving them alone, as orphans. He would send them a helper. We are not alone either. Let me read some verses out of John chapters 14 and 15:!
!!!!!!! John 14:16-17 - “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another ! ! advocate to help you and be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth”.! !!!!!!! John 14:18 - “I will not leave you as orphans”.! !!!!!!! John 14:26 - “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send! ! in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of ! ! everything I have said to you”.! !!!!!!! John 15:26 - “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from! ! the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, he will! ! testify about me”.! ! * We, as believers and followers of Christ, have this same helper in our lives too. It can take the form of a still, small voice that urges us in one direction or another. It can be a feeling that comes over us, convicts us that we need to take a certain action, or avoid a certain action. It can give us direction in our prayers, our studies … and our witnessing.!! * If you are fully prepared to be a disciple for Jesus, as we are commissioned to be, the Holy Spirit can take over when opportunity presents itself to witness to someone about their Salvation.!! * The Holy Spirit can give you the right person to witness to, at the right time, with the right words to say. You can believe that it will happen. But you have to do your part in order to be ready for that moment.!! * It won’t happen if you don’t have any scripture available to use, or have your own personal testimony ready, or you haven’t prayed about it in advance.!! * You would be unprepared for what Jesus wants you to do. You would not be able to take advantage of the “tools” that are available to you for doing the job Jesus wants you to do.!! * It’s not as hard as you think. You just need to take that first step, that first leap of faith, in order to be the disciple that Jesus wants you to be. Give
it a try. Memorize these short verses that I have given you. Work on your testimony to get it down to a useable size. Pray about what you are supposed to do for Jesus. And be open to the Holy Spirit.!! * Learn how to use the tools that you have been given to Win Souls for Jesus Christ!!! * Thank you!!
No comments:
Post a Comment