My Story

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

So I grew up in Burleson. Anybody else grow up here? Yeah, a couple of us have. I grew up in Burleson, and I was just thinking about this this week. So I'm in elementary school. I leave, I walk home from school. That's kind of what I did through elementary school. And I leave elementary school, and I walk up Ellison Street, if you know where that is, go over to the railroad tracks. Babe's is right there, you know, and it wasn't Babe's then, it was a hardware store. And I go a little farther up, and I pass by where Himes is now. You know what, the food places really seem to be how I map things out. But anyway, I go past where Vera Calvin Plaza, that place is, it was Mercer's grocery store back then. I go on up past the bank. My mom actually worked at that bank for a minute. And a little farther down to First Baptist Church in Burleson, and some of you know where that is,

and you've attended church there. I know Clay has. And my mom is a church secretary there. And you know, I'm in elementary school, so obviously I go in, I sit quietly, I do my homework. And for some reason, during that time period, for whatever reason, my mom decided that it would be better if I went to a babysitter. And so she found this lady that, this lady was a friend of hers, it was because this lady had two daughters, Kathy and Jenny. Kathy and my sister Tony were the same age, and I think that's how the friendship developed, how they got to know each other. But anyway, this lady started keeping me, she picked me up from school and picked my sister and her girls up from school, and we'd all go to her house after school. And here's what began to happen, is I begin to notice that there was just something so different about their family from my own. Now I had this older sister, and I had a younger brother,

and we didn't particularly get along, I didn't really care for them, hard to imagine right in, not just loving your siblings. But anyway, I just noticed they were just different, and they were so kind to me. The dad's name was LD, LD taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow, you know, I was just a little kid. And Billy really took an interest in me, for whatever reason, that was the mom. And she began to work with me, some of y'all may know Awana, it was kind of that approach where she would, I would be given Bible verses, which I didn't look at all week, but I'd be given those, and then on Saturday morning, I would go and I would recite those back to her, and whatever I could recite back, I got prizes for. You know, it's kind of a easy trick. And so I get up early on Saturday morning, boned up on as many of those as I could get done, and go and try to regurgitate enough of it

that she'd give me credit, and she often did. And somehow, obviously a miraculous act of God, I qualified through my immense Bible memorization skills to go to Bible camp. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it really was amazing. I don't know if Billy just paid my way, I don't know how that worked, but anyway, she got me there. This is actually that Bible camp, a picture of that Bible camp, that's me in the yellow shirt, obviously that's Becky Perkins standing next to me. And in the background, you can see my little brother, Stuart, and that lake there was the lake that we got to canoe on at Bible camp. This is pretty heavy stuff when you're like eight years old, nine years old, you know? You get to explore the lake and your canoe, and I don't ever even remember falling out of it, I may just block that out, but at any rate, so we're having all this great fun at Bible camp,

but obviously there's a price to be paid for all that fun, right? You kids know what that is, you have to go to church every night, right? You have to go to this worship service every night, so we did, and then the proverbial Thursday night worship time came, and sure enough, I'm sitting in worship and all of a sudden, something just, God just speaks to me, and I don't think it had ever happened before that, especially not like this, and God just says to me, Steve, I love you. I had probably memorized John 3:16, do y'all know that one? Say it, Ford.

I knew that part, I knew God loved the world, but all of a sudden, here it was, me, emotional even now, just thinking about it. And so obviously, I needed to make a decision about what to do as God showed me his love, as God convicted me about the sin in my life, especially my poor treatment of my siblings and my lying to my parents and all those things that guys do at this age, and I did exactly what you would expect. I reached down and grabbed ahold, and it's funny, as I've thought about this again this week, I remember they were white wooden chairs, do you remember these? And I grabbed ahold of the back of the chair that was in front of me and hung on all through worship service, all through invitation time, I mean. Now, they call that, some of us call that white knuckle disease,

but I was hanging on, because I knew I needed to go down front and I needed to invite Jesus to forgive me of my sins, come into my life and be my master, be my savior, be my boss, my Lord. But somehow, I survived that. Well, worship is over and we had to stack up the white chairs after worship and we'd go and get a snack, we'd go back to our cabin, and I dodged a bullet, right? And then I hear my cabin counselor, and he's talking to one of the other boys, and I realize he's asking that other boy if he's received Jesus in his heart or not. And then he goes to the next boy, and then who's after that? It's my bed, it's my bunk. And he comes to my bed and he says, have you received Jesus in your heart? I said, no, but I need to, I need to.

And this faceless counselor led me to faith in Jesus. Now, this picture is actually, I'm less than a day old spiritually in this picture. This was Friday morning when my mother and Billy Mulder came to pick me up. That was the lady that had miraculously got me to this camp. And I knew things were different because I loved my little brother when he showed up. Now, I know some of that was I just missed him from the week, but it was, things were different. That's one of the ways that God showed me that he had done a work in my life. Now, see, that's my story. And this morning, I want us to consider our story. The title of this message today is My Story, and it's from Acts 22, and we're gonna look at Paul's story, and we're gonna look at it for its content, but also we're gonna look at it for its context. That's how we're gonna look at that. And so if you have your copy of Scripture,

go ahead and turn to Acts 22, and we're gonna look at this testimony that Paul gives. But I wanna get a Bible verse in front of you before we get to that. Romans 1:16. Now, this is Paul saying this, and we're gonna look at Paul's story, but I wanna just get this in front of you right at the get-go. Would y'all mind reading this out loud with me? Is that okay? For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation anyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So what was Paul's attitude about the gospel? Wasn't ashamed, wasn't ashamed. Wasn't ashamed about his own testimony, about what God had done in his life. And I don't know if,

maybe you're familiar with 1 Peter 3:15, always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope within you. You ever heard that verse? Always be ready to give an answer. And I think there's a kind of a, hey, we need to be prayed up and walking close to Jesus. There's that kind of a thing that Peter is talking about. But when you put that with Paul's words here, I think you and I need to know our own testimony. And here's what I mean. And if you wanna play along, if you wanna get serious about this, and one or two of you might, I think an approach to that is to write down three questions. And if you're taking notes, or you wanna pull your phone out, write these down, they're pretty easy. You can just write the word before. And I'm talking about what my life was like, B.C., before Christ, before I invited Christ into my life. And then the event or the encounter.

What happened when I actually met Jesus? And then how's my life different now? Because I think that we can kinda look at Paul's testimony, and it fits that scheme. And I think that you and I need to be willing and ready, be prepared to give an answer about the hope that's within us. Sometimes that might be, not always, but sometimes that might be sharing our personal testimony. How many of y'all have actually shared your personal testimony with someone that wasn't a believer? Yeah, a bunch of you guys have. Yeah, and doesn't God like to fire a loaded gun? You know, as far as your personal testimony, if I asked some of you, share your personal testimony, you'd think, oh, why? I was baptized when I was 12. That's not really your personal testimony. You need to know, because God knows He'll give you an opportunity if you know it, you need to know your testimony.

So if you wanna play along, let's look at this, and then let's think about our own testimony. And we're gonna look at the content first, as I mentioned. So turn to Acts 22, if you haven't already. And well, actually, let's back up just a little bit. This won't be on the screen, but you can look at it if you have your copy of Scripture open. As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, it says in the end of 21, as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the Tribune, may I say something to you? Now, the reason Paul is about to go to jail is because he has been in the temple in Jerusalem, and the Jews there knew that Paul had been talking to Gentiles about faith, and he had not been requiring these Gentiles who trusted in God to keep the Jewish law.

And they were really upset about this, and Drew talked about this if you were here last week, talked about how they probably gave Paul a beat down for about an hour before the troops showed up, and it was a bunch of troops, by the way, it uses the word centurions. Centurion had a cohort of 100 troops under them, so it was at least 200 troops, maybe more. There's no telling how big the mob was at the temple that was literally trying to tear Paul apart. As a matter of fact, they lifted Paul over their heads at one point to keep him from being torn apart. And so all this craziness is going on, and Paul speaks to this guy, this guy named Claudius Lysias, he's the Roman commander of the garrison at Jerusalem, and Paul speaks to him in Greek, which really got this guy's attention, because he thought Paul was somebody else.

And he gets permission, really, to kind of share his testimony. So pick up now in 22, verse one. Brothers and fathers, now who's he talking to here? Who's he talking to? Well, and it's in the trick question. Some of these Jewish people who were just trying to beat the stuffing out of him, he's talking to these Jewish people who were just trying to kill him. And he calls them brothers and fathers. Here's the defense that I now make before you. And he says this in Hebrew, and when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet.

Because he's speaking their language. And he says, I am a Jew born in Tarsus, in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I'm a hometown boy, I'm a Jerusalem guy, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, and we'll talk about him in a minute, at Gamaliel, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, as all of you are today. They thought they were doing the right thing by dealing with Paul in the way they were, all right? They thought they were doing what God wanted them to. Paul says, I persecuted the way, and he's talking about Christianity there. He persecuted Christians. And he says, I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. They know, they're the ones that sent me. They're the ones that backed me up when I was doing this persecuting.

From them I received letters to the brothers and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. He wasn't satisfied just rounding up the Christians the followers of the way there in Jerusalem. He was going to Damascus, round up some more, bring them back to justice, okay? Bring them back to jail. So this is Paul's story. This is Paul talking about his life before Christ. This is Paul's BC.

This is what Paul was about. And I want you to think of this maybe in terms of three ideas. First of all, Paul was credible and he was respectable and he was reliable. And I'm sorry, relatable, thank you, Kerry. He was credible, why? Because he was a Jew from Tarsus, but he grew, he's a hometown boy. And that may cause some traction with some of those guys. This isn't some foreigner, this isn't an Egyptian like they thought he was. This is a hometown boy and he's got something to say to us and he's speaking in our language. He was credible. And he was, he mentions this Gamaliel guy. As you might know about Gamaliel, I know Drew does, some of you, others may as well. Listen, Gamaliel was this amazing rabbi. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even called rabbi anymore. He was the first of only seven in all of rabbinical history to be distinguished as Rabban, R-A-B-B-A-N.

And evidently there was kind of a progression. There was called the R-A-B, the rabbi, R-A-B-B-I. And Jesus was often referred to as a rabbi. But then there were these seven guys that reached this pinnacle called Rabban. And Rabban really means our teacher, not just my teacher, but our teacher, our teacher of Israel. And some say that he may be understood to be the greatest living authority and most revered figure at this time in Jerusalem. And Paul said, I'm his boy. And he's seeking credibility. He's trying to build his case so that he can get a hearing. He's respectable, he's respectable in this. He's known by the highest leaders, by the high priest. He's telling, hey, these guys know me. They supported what I was doing. Ask them about me.

These are fellows that I'm familiar with and are familiar with me. So he has this respectability, but he's trying to be relatable. And he's trying to relate to those that are right now, they're just trying to kill him. And when he says, talks about being zealous for God that he was in persecuting the way of the Christians, he says, man, I'm just like you guys. I'm trying to do what God wants me to do. And that's what you're trying to do today. Now, switch gears a little bit with me and think about your story, especially the BC part of it, okay? Now, if I ask you right now, what was your life like before Christ? What are some things that might come up? I think Drew has mentioned several times that he had a problem telling the truth. Is that accurate? Yeah, that that was one of the things, I had that same problem, and probably most of us did and maybe still do at times,

but that was one of the things that God used. What was your BC experience, your before Christ experience? What was something that you recall from that period? Anything? I can relate. And some of you, by the way, may still be BC. You haven't really invited Christ into your life yet, and that's okay, because everybody in this room was BC at one time. Anything else come to mind? Say it again. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, yeah. Any of y'all feel a need for something more? Just felt a little bit of emptiness inside, some kind of emptiness? Any of y'all just feel sad about the kind of person that you were just realizing, man, I don't even like me. You see, as we try to share our testimony,

it won't be just like Paul's, but we need to be a credible witness, and we need to be people of respect, where we respect others, but where we also engender some respect from them. We need to be able to relate to the people that God calls us to testify to. And maybe I need to shoehorn this in right here at the get-go. When I'm talking about sharing your testimony, I'm not saying that we have to dump the whole load on anybody who will listen to us. I'm not saying that you have to share your whole salvation experience with anybody. I had a couple opportunities this week to talk to some guys in two completely different settings. One of them was in my driveway, I don't get out much. One of them was in my driveway. And the other one was at physical therapy. And the guy that I spoke with in my driveway, I was just able to share with him some of the things that God was doing in my life

and had done in the past. And the guy at PT was talking about this long and deep depression that he had gone through. And I was able to share with him my hope in Christ. You know, sharing our testimony doesn't mean dumping the whole load. It doesn't necessarily mean sharing how you came to Jesus. But you should be able to do that. And I believe if we're loaded, God's gonna fire us. If we have our testimony in a way that'll make a difference, God's gonna give us some opportunities to do that. So what roads have you traveled that have helped you to be credible, respectable, relatable as you share your testimony? Well, let's look at Paul's story now when he encountered Christ. Look at verses six and seven now in chapter 22. You with me? You with me, anybody still awake?

Just checking. So verse six, as I was on my way and Drew near to Damascus. Now, what's he going to Damascus for? Round up some more Christians and get them off to prison where they belong, right? On my way, I drew near to Damascus about noon. So it's middle of the day, but somehow an even greater light from heaven suddenly shone around me. This is kind of sci-fi stuff, isn't it? This is just really weird, all right? And I fell to the ground. It was whatever the shaft of light was, it drove him to the ground. I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? By the way, Saul was Paul's name before he became a follower of Jesus. And I answered, who are you, Lord? Saul or Paul has no idea really what's going on at this point, okay?

And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. Now those who were with me saw the light but they didn't understand the voice. I don't know if Jesus was speaking in Aramaic or Hebrew. I don't know why they, maybe it was just one of those things God didn't want them to understand. But Paul understood this voice that was speaking to him. That's verse eight and nine. And then verse 10. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? What do you want me to do? Why is this happening? And the Lord said to me, rise and go into Damascus and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do. And Paul said, since I could not see because of the brightness of the light, I was led by the hand of those, or the hand, yeah, the hand of those who were with me and came into Damascus. Now I don't know what your encounter with Jesus was like. Probably didn't involve this kind of a dramatic thing.

Paul was a really hard hearted person and God had to do what God did, I think, to break through that hardness and really get to it. Maybe you weren't that hard. Maybe your heart was a little softer toward God, but what happened when you encountered Jesus? Tell you about that for me. Can you remember? What are some words you would use to describe that? For me it was God's love, right? For me all of a sudden it's awareness of God's love. What about you? Felt that conviction, the weight of your sin. I wasn't gonna be able to work myself out of this. You're cleansing, yeah. Lighter than a feather is that one of David's songs or a song we sung before. Again, I don't know what your encounter with Christ was like, but if it was genuine, if it was real, it was enough that it shook up your world to the point that you were willing to say to him, Jesus, help me. That you were willing to say to him,

if you've had a genuine encounter with Christ, that you were willing to say to him, I need you. And I need your forgiveness. And I need your saving, your rescuing. And let me also put this into the picture too. And Paul, you kinda see this in Paul's response. When we have this encounter with Jesus, if we're gonna become Christ followers, we have to make him our Lord.

We have to make him our leader, our boss, our guide. And if that wasn't a part of your experience, when you invited Jesus into your life, you might need to backtrack a little bit and see where you are with Christ. If there's no followship in your life right now, I know you're at church and that's good, and we all need to do that. But if there's no day-to-day following of Jesus, we're studying James right now, and James' big idea is what? Don't be just a hearer of the word, but be a? Dewer. Dewer of the word. If there's no Dewer in your life, if you're not actually following Jesus by doing the things that Jesus is showing you to do, you might wanna talk to Drew after the service and just help him kinda help you define where you are with him. But there's a lordship concept where we're under the authority of Jesus Christ that is a part of, I was ready to do whatever,

whatever God wanted me to do. I've got a friend right now who says he made a decision for Christ sometime back, but he's never been baptized. And he's got a fear of being looked at, of he's got that social anxiety going on. And I don't know if he's got a fear of water and I don't think he does, but there's some other factors that work there. But gang, listen, there are always gonna be other factors. There are always gonna be reasons not to do the things that God wants us to do. And we have to be willing to say, Jesus, I make you my savior, please rescue me from my sin. But also, Jesus, I make you my boss, my leader, my guide. And if I can't do it, I know you're gonna do it through me. I know you're gonna give me what I need to be obedient to the things you're telling me to do. And Paul does that, that's Paul's story, his encounter with Christ. And I'm glad to hear you share some of your story

about your encounter with Jesus. Well, it goes on in verse 17. When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into it, did I skip some verses? I did, didn't I? I'm sorry. Let me back up. Let me back up too, because this is where I think I got off. Verse 12, can we go there, is that okay? One ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there came to me, and standing by me said this to me, "'Brother Saul, receive your sight.'" Now remember Saul's still blinded by this bright light. And this guy shows up, this ananias guy shows up. And if you read Acts nine, it's kind of an interesting story, his story, his part of it, because he didn't wanna go see this Saul guy who was gonna throw him in jail. But anyway, he comes, and these something like scales fall from Paul's eyes. And look at what he says. He said,

"'Our fathers appointed you to know his will "'to see the righteous one,'" which is a name for Jesus, "'and to hear a voice from his mouth,'" from the very mouth of Jesus. And this is well after Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. "'For you will be a witness for him "'to every one of what you have seen and heard.'" And that's what Paul's doing right here, right now, in this story.

And now, why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name. And just one thing there. Do you notice there was a human being involved? Now, for me, it was Billy Moulder who got me to camp, and it was that faceless cabin counselor that came to my bed and helped me come to Christ. And I'll bet, if you think about when you came to Christ, there was some body, there was a human person. And again, you guys, this is why we now need to have a firm grasp of our own testimony. Because this is like being the, what do those ladies call the help birth children? It's like being a midwife. It's like being there when God is doing this extraordinary thing in somebody's life. And certainly, we don't wanna bumble that, right? Now, we don't wanna make it more complicated than it is, but we don't wanna blow that up. We don't wanna mess that up. And so some of that is understanding

what God's done in our own life, what God's done in the lives of people like Paul, and being able to transfer that in the moment to those people that are receiving Christ, that God's called us to bear witness to. So Paul's doing that. And then, 17, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple. So here's Paul, right shortly after his salvation experience. I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, "'Make haste and get out of Jerusalem.'" Now, I find this interesting. Get out of Jerusalem and get out of there quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. It's very early after Paul's, and yet now, here Paul is at the temple, in the temple, doing the exact opposite because he felt like God wanted him to.

Just set that aside for me. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I am prison to beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, y'all know who Stephen is? One of the seven deacons. There's a really bad joke about, in Acts seven, he preaches the longest recorded sermon in the Bible, and what is it getting, Drew? Stoned. Yeah, I told you it's a bad joke. I myself was standing by. Paul says, I was standing there when Stephen was stoned and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him. And he said to me, "'Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'" And when Paul says all this, as soon as he says the word Gentiles, anybody know what happens? Right. The place just erupts. And all of this that Paul has shared, as significant, as important, as helpful as it is for us,

fell on deaf ears, fell on people that responded just the opposite of the way that he hoped, I'm sure. And now they're ready to kill him again. Now we've looked at the content of Paul's testimony, think with me for just a few minutes as we try to wrap this up, about the context and what this might mean for us. These Gentiles raised their voices and said away with him, he shouldn't be allowed to live, and they were shouting, throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air. And this tribune ordered Paul to be brought into the barracks saying that he should be examined by flogging. And Paul dances with that and gets out of that beating, although he took a lot of beatings. But Paul understands his current situation. He understands what's going on here. Open hostility and negativity. He had been warned by Agabus, Drew told us all about this, how this guy comes to him and says,

wraps his hands and feet in a belt and says, this is what's gonna happen to the guy that goes to Jerusalem. He had been tried to, warded off by the believers at Tyre. Drew talked about this last week, I believe. And here he is, he's been attacked, he's been beaten, he's hauled away in chains. So why is Paul sharing his testimony, gang? What in the world was he thinking?

Just as in the side, some of you may feel like it's not really safe to share who you voted for if you voted early. And some of you may not feel safe to share after Tuesday because you're not sure of the kind of response you're gonna get. See, I think Paul was pretty sure of the kind of response he was gonna get. I think he was pretty sure. He had been warned, but why did he share his testimony? I think there's no other explanation than God sent him there to do that very thing.

He had set his face toward Jerusalem and he wasn't gonna be denied. Now that says something to me and maybe it says something to you as well. That when we feel led especially, but when we have opportunities, let me even back up from this, God putting this crushing burden on us, just having the opportunity to share our testimony. Do we read the room first? And maybe if it's not real warm, do we step back, step away from that? See, I'm not sure that's always the course God wants us to take. Listen, brothers and sisters, Christ followers, don't lead with your chin. Don't go in there begging for a fight and just trying to get knocked out.

Okay, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is just because people aren't receptive, you don't feel like they're receptive, don't let that shut you up. When Kyria and I were young, a long time ago obviously, when Kyria and I, we talked about this, we went visiting. That's what churches did back in the Stone Age. They would go and knock on people's doors and say, hey, we want you to come to church with us. And you can imagine, kind of responses you get doing that kind of stuff, but I can take you to the doorstep. This was, it wasn't the very first time we went visiting, but it's one of the first times. It's early on. Over on Renfro Street in Burleson, we can go there now if you like. And same people don't live there. But anyway, we knock on the door, they open the door, hi, we're from X Church, and we like to, bam! Slammed in our face immediately. And you know what, that did something to me.

It was a bit of a shock, but not totally surprising. Let me tell you another story. So we, it's much later, we go to these people's house. Somebody had told us to, a friend of ours, Wayne McDougall had told us to go and visit these people. We go and knock on the door, and it's not that abrupt, but it's kind of the, hey, get off our porch. That's the kind of welcome we got, okay? And maybe if you've done anything like this, you've received that kind of a response. But, and I don't know why, and we didn't talk about this, I don't know why, for some reason we went back there. Now how crazy is that? But we went back to this house. And when we went back the second time,

it was different. And here's the short of it. These people at that house, both that couple ended up becoming members at our church. Their daughter became a member at our church and just rock solid ministry person. Their son-in-law that was married to this daughter who was an alcoholic at the time, came to faith in Christ and was baptized. Their children became members of our church. Their grandchildren, I baptized.

You see, gang, we don't always know what God's gonna do. You remember that parable of the sower, the sloppy farmer? And he's just stowing seed everywhere. And it's going in the rocks, it's going on the hard path. But every once in a while it's gonna hit some good soil. And gang, that needs to be us. That needs to be us stepping into the moment and sharing whatever it is. We can dump the whole load. We're gonna have opportunities. If you have your testimony tuned up, God's gonna give you a chance to share it somewhere. Sometimes it's as little as just putting in a good word for God.

And he'll use that. And he'll bless that. Today, I wanna ask you to respond to this by not being ashamed of the gospel. And I wanna ask you to respond to this in a couple of ways. I wanna ask you first of all, to take seriously tuning up your testimony. And if you need help with that, that's exactly why Drew makes the big bucks, okay? Just go and talk to him and he will help you. Because, and it's good to have somebody else look at it, right Drew? Because they can give you tips and help you understand all of that. Don't state it that way. Here's a little softer way to put it or whatever. But if God lays it on your heart, and I know this is for like two people, but if God lays it on your heart, tune up your testimony. And the second thing is, sometime, ask God sometime in the next, however long you decide. God let me bear witness to your goodness in my life.

Not based on reading the room, not based on how they're gonna respond to me. Help me just be obedient. Now I don't know what you're up against. I don't know what your work situation's like, what your family's like. Sometimes that's the hardest. I don't know who your friends are, but I guarantee you in those categories, there are people that need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you may be the closest chance they ever have of hearing it. So if you wanna make one of those decisions today, tell somebody. Drew's gonna be at the back in our time of invitation as we begin that in just a second. David, you wanna come on up. Tell somebody, tell your spouse, hey, I'm gonna tune up my testimony. Tell your spouse, hey, I'm gonna bear witness sometime in the next, whatever.

Ask God to help me. Ask God to help me see the open door. Ask God to help me see the closed door that I need to push on through. I'm gonna be a witness. I'm gonna speak the truth in love. I'm gonna be who God's called me to be. Pray with me. Father God, we love you. Lord, we thank you that we have a story. Oh my goodness, we have a story of your redemption, of your love, of the way you broke into our lives and changed us, transformed us. Lord, that gives us a hope and a future. Oh God, we're grateful for that. But Lord, would you help us to express our gratefulness?

By being the Billy Moulder or the faceless counselor and by helping others find that precious bread of life that is the Christ. Lord, I don't know what that means to the people in this room. I thank you that it means something to me. And I think you want it to mean to somebody in this room. So bless now this time of invitation. Lord, use it for your glory and your honor. I pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.