Self Portrait

WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH

PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN

SERMON TITLE: SELF PORTRAITS

“For God so Loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18

TEXT VERSE: Matthew 12:34-37 “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”

This is a very powerful verse. Jesus started out kind of bold. That’s what some preachers problems are, they aren’t bold enough.. They try to doctor the word up and make it sound pretty to people’s ears and they want to hear that they are doing a good job. I heard a few on the radio today and don’t get me wrong...there are some good ones. When you can feel the power and the Spirit of God and you can see it changing people’s lives, you know it’s right. But there is also some bad ones. They are misleading people. More of us preachers need to be bold and to be Holy and to stand on the blessed word of God. But Jesus in this scripture started out bold by saying, “O generation of vipers.” If that’s not bold, I don’t know what is. Here’s what I want you to catch though. He said, “How can ye, being evil, speak good things?” Often times we’ve preached messages on our language and our speech and how we’re not supposed to use it to condemn othersand on how we’re supposed to uplift people. But tonight God showed us something different and I want to preach to you tonight on Self Portraits.

Jesus said, “How can you being evil, speak good things. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” Notice that what you have on your heart is what comes out of your mouth. There’s a lot of Christians today that don’t study the word of God enough. You can hear some things come out of their mouth that let’s you know real quick what’s in their heart. I can’t look on your heart but whatever you have in your heart is going to come out your mouth. I’m not talking about how you talk to others. A lot of Christians today think just because they say something right, that their living a good Christian life. Just because of what you speak, it is not the self portrait of who you are. A Self Portrait is not only what we speak but how we live. Anybody can speak good. A lot of people can have good lip talk but it takes a lot for a person to have some good heart talk. I could stand up here and tell you that I was a Doctor of Theology or a Brain Surgeon but that doesn’t mean that I am one. If I don’t live it, why should I talk about it? But there’s a lot of Christians that the Bible calls them fair speeches. I want you to notice tonight how important it is for us to have things right in our heart and for that to come out of our mouth. Because of being around other people who want to know about us. If you tell them that you’re a Christian, you better be living like one. If I’m going to be a Pastor and a Preacher then I better be living like one. If you’re a Deacon you better live like it if you’re going to tell people you are one. Paul said if I’m going to preach the Gospel, I better live the Gospel. So every time we speak we’re painting a self portrait of ourselves to other people. Everything that comes out of our mouth is painting a self portrait of who we really are. The abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. There’s a lot of corruption coming out of people’s mouthes. They don’t realize what’s causing it. If you’ve got corruption on the inside....corruption will come out on the outside.