Humbly Walking in Faith

I am introducing our clip for the evening, a clip from the Chosen, the encounter of Jesus and Samaritan woman. Tonight, we are going to be talking about sharing our story and our clip introduces us to an unlikely missionary, that Jesus used to introduce an entire village to Him.

Show clip from the chosen.

The rest of the story tells us this in John 4:39

John 4:39 NIV

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

We serve an amazing God who recognizes that sometimes the physical and the emotional needs of others will need to be met, before they can open up to hear the Spiritual message that we can share.

Sometimes, we will have to slow life down, before we can share our story with others. So, before we talk about anything else, I want to go off on a relevant tangent.

So, before we go further let me share an acronym.

I would love to take credit for this one, but I give credit to Jeff Walling for coming up with it, but it is the SWAT method for sharing your faith.

Stop

Witness

Ask

Tell

Jesus knew that connect people with God we need to be present in the moment. To do that it requires us to STOP and observe the people we come in contact with everyday.

The homeless person on the street corner.

The women at work who is going through some financial hardships and here husband is planning on leaving her.

The co-worker whose wife is dying of cancer.

The kid in your classroom who has not eaten in days.

Satan uses busyness to keep us from sharing Jesus with people around us. So, the first thing I want us to practice as we learn to share our story is commit to once a day, when the world is swarming around you, STOP and look for someone who needs Jesus and go to them.

Without using names, talk about a missed opportunity you had to share your story because you were too busy?

BE PREPARED

Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:15-16

1 Peter 3:15–16 NIV

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Talk in your groups for a few minutes about What hope does Jesus offers the world you live in? Be specific where you can.

Crafting Your Personal Testimony.

So, you should each have a personal testimony worksheet.

Let’s go over the top section and the I am going to let you finish out the night in groups, working as far as you can get in groups.

Again, the goal off doing this in groups is that we learn from each other and our memories can be triggered, in a positive way, to think about details we might have forgotten till we heat the thoughts and experience of others.

Next week, we are going to have you get together in groups and share your own personal testimonies with each other, because it is only through practice that we can be prepared and then we are going to ask the groups to send one representative up to share their testimony with the group.

On thing, I want to say, your story is your story. It doesn’t matter if you grew up in church and have always been faithful. It doesn’t matter if you rebelled and left for awhile and came back, or you didn’t come to know him till after some rough patches. No story is better than another, it is just your story and YOUR STORY matters.