How to Give Your Christian Testimony - Part 1
Acts 26:1-11
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - March 26, 2008
(Background Acts 25:11-27)
*What if no one had ever shared the gospel with you?
-Everything would be different! -- No purpose, no meaning, no spiritual help, no foundation in life. You would be hopeless, lost and unforgiven. This is why God wants us to share our faith. God wants you to give your Christian testimony, and Paul shows us how.
1. First: Hunt for opportunities to share.
*You have to be on the lookout for opportunities to share. Paul made the most of every opportunity, even this show trial he found himself in. As we see in vs. 1&2:
1. Then Agrippa said to Paul, "You are permitted to speak for yourself.’’ So Paul stretched out his hand and answered for himself:
2. I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews,
*Remember that Paul, an innocent man, has been falsely imprisoned now for two years. And the only way he could avoid being forced to go back to Jerusalem (and probably be murdered along the way) was to appeal to Caesar. How would Paul respond here? Would he lash out in bitterness at the injustice he suffered? No -- Paul turned this trial into another opportunity to testify for Jesus.
*Are you going through a hard time? Turn it around for good. Your hard time could give you a golden opportunity to share the best thing in your life: your relationship with Jesus Christ.
*May be someone else’s hard time opens the door. Writer (Mrs.) Robbie Castleman heard a physics professor defend Christianity on a university campus a few years ago. He had been nominated for the Nobel Prize more than once, and had become a Christian well into his faculty career.
*After listening to his brilliant presentation of why he found Christianity credible, Robbie asked him what first got him to consider the Christian faith. He told her that his journey to faith began after the death of his child. He noticed that his wife’s grief began to give way to some hope and healing that he could not understand nor experience. When he asked her about it, she confessed that she had been attending a Bible study with friends and had become a Christian. He was surprised, intrigued, and open to anything that would comfort his pain and emptiness. He, too, began to share his grief within his new circle of friends. They opened their hearts as well as their Bibles to this professor and his wife, and he trusted in the Lord. (1)
*Open doors to share your testimony are all around us. Be on the lookout for those opportunities.
2. But you also need to get a happy attitude about sharing.
*Ask God to give you the right attitude to share. Be joyful and thankful for the testimony God has given and for the opportunity to share. I like what Paul said in vs. 2, “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews...” Paul was happy to share, even before that hostile crowd. And we should be happy too.
*I know that all kinds of negative thoughts and feelings can run through our minds when we see the opportunity to share. We may feel terribly inadequate. Researcher George Barna once asked Christians about their witnessing experiences. He found that 9 out of 10 believers who try to explain their beliefs come away feeling like a failure. (1)
*In Luke 12:8 Jesus said, “Whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God.” That doesn’t sound like failure to me!
*Often we are afraid to share. If you have ever walked up to the home of a stranger trying to share your faith, you have probably prayed (at least a little bit), “Lord, Please don’t let them be at home!” Often we are afraid to share, but do not be afraid. God wants you to share your testimony, and He will surely help you to do it. In Luke 12:11-12 Jesus said, “When they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
*God is going to help you tell your story of faith, so get a happy attitude about sharing.
3. And be hospitable in every situation.
*In this most stressful situation, Paul was gentle, courteous and even respectful. He stretched out his hand in vs. 1, and John Phillips tells us that it could have been a type of salute to show respect to Agrippa’s rank. Paul also spoke courteously to the king. Listen to Paul again in vs. 2&3: “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, especially because you are expert in all customs and questions which have to do with the Jews. Therefore I beg you to hear me patiently.”
*This courteous manner stands out much more if we understand the background of Agrippa and Bernice. They came from one of the most notorious families in the land. For example, Agrippa was the son of Herod Agrippa, who killed James, the brother of John the Apostle. He also tried to kill Peter. That’s just a small part of King Agrippa’s terrible family background. And Bernice was not King Agrippa’s wife, but his sister. Bernice left her husband to live with her brother in an incestuous relationship. (2)
These people were as corrupt and immoral as could be, but Paul treated them with compassion. He knew they were sinners who needed the life-changing grace of Jesus Christ! The lesson for us is to treat everyone with as much kindness and compassion as possible. Be hospitable in every situation.
4. And keep living in the hope of God’s promise.
*In vs. 4-8, Paul talked about his enduring hope in Jesus. He began by saying:
4. My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews know.
5. They knew me from the first, if they were willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
6. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.
7. To this promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. For this hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews.
8. Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?
*Paul would never -- could never abandon his hope in Jesus! He had found real hope and he knew it. Roy Rogers’ wife Dale Evans once put it this way: “I spent most of my life searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Then I finally found it at the foot of the cross.” (3)
*You will never find a greater treasure that what the Lord offers us at the foot of the cross! It is our hope. Keep living in that hope!
*In his book, “Jumpstarting Dead Churches,” Paul W. Powell shared the testimony of a young man named Danny. For three summers he had been a part-time youth director at a church in Lake Jackson, Texas. His first summer there he met a lively, dedicated young girl named Joy. Her name fit her well because she radiated the love and joy of Christ.
*During the next three summers Danny saw Joy grow and mature in her faith until she became one of the finest young people in the group. After he returned to school following the third summer, he received word that Joy had cancer of the pancreas and was not expected to live past the Christmas holidays.
*As soon as he could, he went to Lake Jackson to visit with her. She was in the hospital by now, her body already emaciated by the ravages of cancer. They chatted about a lot of things for a while and then Joy said to him, “Danny, do you know what it’s like to be without hope?”
*Danny said he was speechless. He couldn’t even look Joy in the eye. He just ducked his head, dug the toe of his shoe into the carpet, and finally said, “No, Joy, I’ve been very fortunate in life. I really don’t know what it’s like to be without hope.” Then Joy replied, “Neither do I.”
*Paul Powell added that as believers we may run out of time in this world, but we never run out of hope. (4)
5. You will certainly have something to share if you keep living in the hope of God’s promise. And be honest about who you are.
*Paul was honest in vs. 9-11, where he said,
9. “Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10. This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.
11. And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.”
*We are all sinners saved by grace! -- And we need to admit that. You don’t have to go into all the gory details, but 72% of the unchurched people in America think that church is nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. (5)
*When someone uses that as an excuse to Bill Bouknight, he says, “Come on and join us; there’s room for one more.” After all, anybody who tries to be better than he is could be called a hypocrite. (6)
*Remember that church is not a museum for super saints. It’s a hospital for sinners. As D.T. Niles once said, “Evangelism is like one beggar telling another where he kind find bread.” (7)
*We’re not here because we are better than other people. We are here because we have found the bread of life and God wants us to share it! Let’s share it with everyone we can!
1. Found online in sermon by David Holwick: “What’s Your Reason?” - 1 Peter 3:13-16 - 08/24/97
2. John Gill’s exposition of the Entire Bible - Acts 25:13 and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
3. Found in SermonCentral sermon “Easter - What a Difference!” by Melvin Newland - 1 Cor 15:1-11
4. Jumpstarting Dead Churches by Paul W. Powell - p. 157-158 Copyright 1995 - Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention
5. BP News 1/9/08 (Found in Church Leaders Intelligence Report 01.30.08)
6. ChristianGlobe.com sermon “Who Is This Jesus?” by Bill Bouknight - Col 1:13-20 - 2002
7. D.T. Niles quote found in ChristianGlobe.com sermon “Jesus and the Divorced Evangelist” by Donald Strobe - John 4:27-38 - 2005
