The Gospel: Session 8 -- Sharing Your Story

The Power of Personal Testimony

Have you ever had a friend that influenced you to do or buy something based on their own personal experience?

You know, the friend who says about some thing, or some experience: It changed my life!

I can think of a number of times this has happened in my life.

Like the time I went to work at a summer youth camp a thousand miles from home when I didn’t know a soul there, all because a friend said it was life changing for them.

Or like the time I bought my first MacBook because my college roommate said it was the best decision they had ever made, despite the steep price tag.

God used that camp experience to change my life and call me into ministry, and I’ve pretty much been an Apple fanboy ever since that first MacBook!

When people we trust share their own personal experiences with us, it tends to illicit way more receptivity than if they simply started preaching about how good this or that product is.

It literally registers a different part of our brain than propositional arguments do.

As we’ve been discussing in this series, story is powerful — it is transformational.

And that’s why, as we close this teaching series in this final session, we turn to sharing your personal story of being changed by the Gospel of Jesus as one practical application of how you can find your place in God’s story.

Biblical Examples

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There are a number of examples of personal testimonies in the New Testament:

There’s the man born blind in John 9. Jesus heals the man and sends him on his way. The religious leaders can’t believe it because they recognize the man, and want to know how he was healed. They believe Jesus is a sinner, or is conjuring up some evil power to heal the man, so they call on the formerly blind man to share his testimony. It’s where we get these iconic lines: “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).

Paul tells his testimony as a part of his preaching to the Jews in Jerusalem while under arrest in Acts 22, and again while preaching to King Agrippa in Acts 26.

Or one of my personal favorites — the Samaritan woman from John 4. Jesus meets her at the well, crossing all sorts of social and political lines. He tells her all about her hidden sins and relational problems, offers her living water (i.e., salvation), and she believes! Then read what the text says: “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did’” (John 4:39). Later, the townspeople said: “They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world’” (John 4:42). She shared her story. Many take steps towards Jesus. Then, once they encounter Him for themselves, they believe.

There are others. Peter and John in Acts 4. The demon-possessed man Jesus heals in Luke 8.

In each of these cases, people have a personal experience with Jesus, then go on to tell others about that experience.

Their personal stories have significant impact introducing others to Jesus.

We see clearly at this point that the responses were all different:

The religious leaders are thrown into an angry frenzy at the formerly blind man’s story.

The Jewish crowds wanted to kill Paul because of his testimony.

Governor Festus and King Agrippa respond by telling Paul that he was out of his mind.

But the townspeople who hear the Samaritan woman’s story respond differently. They are curious. They go looking into this Jesus character themselves. And, as a result, many of them believe in Jesus.

You never know what impact your story might have on someone.

Here’s the truth: You are not responsible for the results of sharing your testimony, but you are responsible for sharing it.

How to Share Your Story

So how do you practically go about sharing your story?

Cconsider two frameworks.

1. Your conversion experience.

In this type of testimony, you want to primarily share what it was like to express saving faith in Jesus for the first time.

The elements of this type of story are as follows:

You describe your life before Jesus.

You describe how you came to believe in Jesus.

You describe how your life is now different.

Sharing your conversion experience is especially powerful if you’ve experienced a drastic change in your lifestyle from before you came to saving faith in Jesus.

But, don’t be discouraged if you don’t have a conversion experience that awes people.

Every time a person who is spiritually dead comes alive in Christ, it is a miracle!

2. Another type of testimony you can share is what we might call “God Moments”

In this framework, you’ll share:

About a situation that was especially dark or difficult for you.

And how faith in Jesus sustained you and/or grew you through that experience.

I’ve heard people share powerful testimonies about how God carried them through the death of a child, or through infertility, or job loss, or how God rescued them from various addictions, so on and so forth.

These watershed moments in your life — no matter how “insignificant” they may seem compared to others’ stories — demonstrate the power of God to rescue you in the midst of real, concrete life circumstances.

Evaluating Your Story

While preparing your story, regardless of what framework you use, you’ll want to ask yourself the following evaluative questions:

Does my story make Christ the hero?

Does my story glorify a past life of sin, or decry it?

Does my story clearly communicate the gospel and how it has affected my own life?

Does my story connect my life to the story of God: Creation — Fall — Redemption — Restoration?

Is my story clear, compelling, and concise?

Answering these questions while preparing your testimony will help you focus on what’s most important, so that when you share your story, people walk away having heard the Gospel and its impact on your life.

Wrap Session

Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:15 to “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” and to “do it with gentleness and respect.”

Preparing to share your story is a great way to be ready to answer anyone who asks, “How can you be so hopeful? Why are you so joyful all the time? How can you stay at peace with everything going on?”

When asked these questions, you’ll have a clear and Christ-centered way to share your experience with Jesus, and you never know how God might use it.

You might think that preparing your story feels inauthentic or like you’re a salesman memorizing a pitch. This isn’t the case!

I recently had all the guys in my men’s group prepare and share their stories. One of my friends prepared his on a long plane trip back from business on the West Coast. He told me afterwards that he had never intentionally thought through his story before and taken the time to write it out as if he was going to share it. He said the experience of sitting down and writing out the ways God had been faithful to Him throughout his life was so moving, that he fought through tears the entire time.

Writing down what God has done for us not only helps us join God in His mission to share the gospel story with those around us — it also is a powerful way of remembering God’s faithfulness to us in ways that leads us to increased worship and devotion.

Take some time today or later this week to think and pray through your story. Write down the ways God has been faithful to you, the ways he has rescued you.

Then craft your story in a way that honors Christ as the hero, shares the story of Jesus as the centerpiece of your own story, and prepares you to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

Wrap Series

We’ve now reached the end of this teaching series.

I hope that you know the Gospel story better than you did before.

I hope that you’ve been moved by the faithful, pursuing love of God as demonstrated through the drama of Scripture.

I hope that you’ve been inspired to surrender more of yourself to Jesus as a result of hearing the Good News presented in this way.

More than that, I hope that you can now see that you are not just a recipient of God’s mission to save sinners, but that you are actually a participant in His mission.

If you have been saved by God’s rescue mission in Christ, then God plans to use you to share His Gospel message so that he can rescue others.

That’s what you were created for. It’s why you have breath in your lungs. It’s where God wants you to go next.

Knowing, living, and sharing the story of God — the greatest story in the world —

the Gospel.