My Pumpkin Life

[As an illustration, have a pumpkin ready to carve with some of the carving already done. Especially have the inside scraped and cleaned out. Be sure to save some of the inner gunk. Have a cross cut out of the front, but display the uncut side of the pumpkin to the audience at the beginning of the message. Inside in the pumpkin, have a small light which can be easily turned on during the message.]

It’s that time of year when pumpkins are all over the place—at the grocery store, on doorsteps, on your table, and more. Of course, pumpkin carving is a yearly tradition, but here are some other uses of pumpkins. (These would be good to have in a slideshow.)

A bowl to bake in and eat out of

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Body Butter

Floating Pumpkin Candles

Pumpkin Facial Mask

Pumpkin Biscuits

Fresh Pumpkin Air Freshener

Slow Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Cake

Pumpkin Pie

I was thinking one day about pumpkins, and I realized that my life is a lot like a pumpkin. Maybe yours is, too. I want to share four things about My Pumpkin Life.

Transition: First, I was minding my own business, when…

[Plunge knife into top of precut pumpkin.]

God pierced my pumpkin life with the knife of the gospel.

No matter how hardened, God can pierce anyone’s heart with the knife of the gospel.

Whether we want to admit it or not, God initiates salvation, and it begins and ends with Him. In God’s sovereignty, He has given mankind the ability to choose to receive the salvation which He offers or to reject it. We believe or reject belief. Still, salvation is all God’s doing.

Ephesians 2:8-9—8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast. (CSB)

Abraham believed God and was declared right with God, so it is with us. When we truly believe the gospel, we’re saved. Now understand that a real saving faith isn’t just some experience. Real saving faith, James tells us, is one that does something. It works out into your life. In other words, there are a lot of “in name only” Christians who won’t be spending time in heaven when their life is done. We’re saved by grace through faith, but a real living faith works. Repentance, or turning from sin, is part of that living faith working in us.

However, salvation doesn’t begin with us. God created us. God sent Christ to provide redemption. God preserved the gospel message for our modern world.

Salvation begins with God. He initiates it. Some people have heard the gospel, but their minds are blinded to it, yet it is God who plunges the knife of the gospel through the hard shell of their heart.

Steinberg & Gypsy Girl Illustration: Chuck Swindoll tells the story of the Middle Ages painter “Steinberg and a gypsy girl. Struck with her beauty, Steinberg took her to his studio and frequently had her sit for him. At that time he was at work on his masterpiece ‘Christ on the Cross.’ The girl used to watch him work on this painting. One day she said to him, ‘He must have been a very wicked man to be nailed to a cross like that.’ ‘No,’ said the painter. ‘On the contrary, he was a very good man. The best man that ever lived. He died for others.’ The…girl looked up at him and asked, ‘Did he die for you?’ Now Steinberg wasn’t a Christian, but the gypsy girl’s question touched his heart and awakened his conscience, and he became a believer in Jesus—the One whose dying passion he had so well portrayed in the painting.”[1]

God was able to use this unbelieving gypsy girl’s “Did He die for you?” question to pierce Steinberg’s heart with the knife of the gospel. It’s as if Steinberg had been painting a work of art on a knife—the knife of the gospel, and then God used that knife to pierce Steinberg’s own heart.

God is able to use whomever and whatever He wants to pierce us with the knife of His gospel. He is the One in control.

Think about it. God used something or someone in your life to provoke you to consider the gospel. Unbelieving Muslims in the Middle East have had dreams of a man who beckons them to follow Him. They sought answers and found that this Man was Jesus. God will make a way for someone who is open to the gospel. In my life, God used my parents, my pastor, Sunday School teachers, and the Bible to pierce my heart with the gospel. Eventually, on the last night of a revival, I gave up the fight and surrendered to His will.

Transition: God pierced my life with the knife of the gospel and did an amazing transformation on the inside which began to work itself onto the outside.

God pulled out the yuck of sin and death and gave me life.

Do you see these scars and warts on the front of this pumpkin? No one is perfect. We all have hang-ups. We all have sin. That sin distorts the image of God in us. I tried to color over those scars and warts, but there is something grosser on the inside.

[Pull out nasty pumpkin junk.]

We can try to hide the scars in our lives, but God sees the yuck of sin and death on the inside.

Romans 6:23—For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (CSB)

Ephesians 2:1-5—1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! (CSB)

2 Corinthians 5:17—Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! (CSB)

Changed Life Illustration: I have a friend in Central Texas. His name is Ty Gallaway. He was gloriously saved one day. He had been hooked on drugs for years since he was a teenager, but God pierced his heart with the knife of the gospel. Ty surrendered his life to God’s control and has never been the same. He devoured the Bible. He couldn’t get enough of it. He was saved in a January and started reading the Bible and then finished it by the end of March. He read when he got up in the morning, during his breaks at work, when he got home, and before going to bed. Before too long, he was leading a recovery ministry at our church. He’s still leading a recovery meeting each week and working in a motorcycle outreach. God delivered him from the yuck of sin and death, gave him life, and something else.

Transition: When God saved me and Ty Gallaway and many of you…

God put His Light inside us to shine to the world.

[Turn on the light and turn the pumpkin’s cross toward the audience.]

If you’ve been saved, you’re a trophy of God’s grace. When you go through your life, you are to shine the light that He placed inside you to show off His grace poured all over your life.

When God saves, He places the light of His Spirit inside believers.

1 Corinthians 2:12—Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. (CSB)

1 Corinthians 6:19-20—19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. (CSB)

2 Corinthians 1:22—He has also put His seal on us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment. (CSB)

Matthew 5:14-16—14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (CSB)

Vance Havner once said, “We do not have a secret to be hidden but a story to be heralded.”[2]

Live honorably for Christ! Joseph Aldrich, author of Lifestyle Evangelism once said, “God’s evangelistic strategy in a nutshell: He desires to build into you and me the beauty of his own character, and then put us on display.”[3]

SONG—“The Light in Me” by Brandon Heath

My life before You—I was a flame burning down I was burning out But You knew me better—For You there was never a doubt Not since You gave me life

Something was different—I knew it the instant You put the light in me

The spark—The shot to the heart You are the hope that leads me out of the dark You let Your love shine down—So that the world can see You put the light in me The light, You put the light in me

You are the Maker—You tell the sun when to rise I'm just a house on a hill But You make me brighter—Than all the stars in the sky Keep me from growing dim

‘Cause in Your perfection—I'm just a reflection So pull me closer to You I'll catch like a fire—And I'll hold You higher ‘Cause You put the light in me

The spark—The shot to the heart You are the hope that leads me out of the dark You let Your love shine down—So that the world can see You put the light in me The light, You put the light in me

I'll raise it high—I'll let it show From the roof tops down to the streets below In day and night, You will be known And all will see—You put the light in me

The spark—The shot to the heart You are the hope that leads me out of the dark You let Your love shine down—So that the world can see You put the light in me The light, You put the light in me

Transition: Let that light shine, believers. Some of you, however, haven’t yet given up your life to Jesus. If you believe the good news of Jesus that He came and lived for you and died for you and came back to life on the third day, then…

Conclusion:

Stop resisting God and surrender your life to Him.

Stop fighting Him.

There is no better day than today to surrender your life to Jesus.

There’s no better time than right now.

You don’t know when your life will end, so stop resisting God. Stop putting Him off.

When your life ends, your opportunities expire, too.

What is keeping you from surrendering your life to Jesus? Whatever it is, it’s small compared to an eternity separated from God in hell.

[1] Swindoll, Illustrations, 501.

[2] Morgan, R. J. (2000). Nelson's Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes (electronic ed.) (777). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[3] Morgan, R. J., 777.

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