Persuading Or Evading

Persuading or Evading?

Pray.

This morning I want to ask you a very simple question. As you live in this world as a child of God and come into

contact with people every day of your life, Are you Persuading or Evading?

Many times throughout the New Testament, the apostle Paul would use the word Persuade referring to sharing

the gospel with lost people. Are you trying to persuade people to accept Christ or are you evading the act of

persuading? Say that three times fast.

As many of us know, the apostle Paul made tents and sold them at times in his life in order to provide for his

needs financially instead of burdening the churches to support him. And I mention that only to tell this horrible joke,

A man kept having this reocurring dream. Night after night after night. One night he would dream that he was a

wig wam. The next night, he would dream that he was a teepee, and those dreams alternated like that for weeks,

one night he was a wig wam, the next night he was a tee pee. So he went to see a psychiatrist.

He said doctor, what do you think of these dreams I've been having? To which the doctor said, I think I know your

problem, You're too tence. (sounds like too tents). Horrible I know.

If you have your Bible's with you , open them to the book of Romans and look at chapter 8 verses 38-39 with me.

The apostle Paul begins that verse there in verse 38 by first stating, for I AM PERSUADED...........

So the first thing that must occur before you can persuade another person to Christ is first be persuaded yourself.

Paul is saying in those two verses that I know without a shadow of a doubt, nothing can separate me from the love

of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. A wonderful verse that certainly lets every believer KNOW that they

cannot lose their salvation. But that is another sermon for another day.

Today I want us to focus on the word persuaded. Paul is persuaded, Paul is so sure about what he is saying

here, how? Because of his own life experiences. Paul was beaten several times, Paul was stoned and left for dead,

Paul was shipwrecked on different occassions, Paul was robbed and stripped of his clothing several times. Paul

battled false teachers daily within the churches that God used him to plant. Paul was imprisoned several different

times in his life.

And through all of that, through every life experience Paul was persuaded of this one fact, That God never left

him and that God never stopped loving him. At the whipping post, God loved Him. Shipwrecked, wading in the

water, God loved him. Lying, near death after being stoned, God loved him. Lying beaten and naked in the street,

God loved him, Sitting shackled by chains in a dark, dreary dungeon, Paul knew God loved him.

Nobody was going to tell Paul that God abondened him. Nobody was going to convince Paul that God stopped

loving him. Paul said, God allowed all of those difficult times in my life for various reasons, to which he explains

throughout His NT writings, but here Paul is stating, through it all, God never stopped loving me nor will He ever

stop loving me. And nobdody will convince me to the contrary.

Life experiences played a huge role in Paul's development as a servant of Christ.

Many people ask the question today, why do bad things happen to good people? Paul , I think we would all agree,

was a good person, from a human stand point, not God's. But we would all say Paul was a good guy, a man doing

his best to serve the Lord, so why would God allow all of these hardships to occur in his life?

For the same reason God allows them into your life. My Bible says, God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

So we must understand this about God, He is not improving his techniques. God's first attempt at something is

always perfect and never needs improving. How God dealt with Paul was perfect and it is no different today.

God will allow us to experience things in our lives to reveal Himself more real to us. I can preach to you about the

eternal, inseparable love of God, BUT until you EXPERIENCE it, you'll never understand it.

I can preach to you about God's Mercy and Grace till I'm blue in the face BUT until you EXPERIENCE it, you'll

never understand it. If you notice in the Bible, you'll never find an angel witnessing or trying to persuade another

person to accept Christ, Why? Because they have never EXPERIENCED salvation therefore they do not understand