You know, I used to see my mother
make dresses and she would have a pattern. I know most of you
are too young to remember those days, but she'd have a pattern,
a paper pattern laid out on the floor. Well, the Apostle Paul,
I believe, is kind of an example or a pattern of how God converts
sinners. If God has saved you, converted
you, brought you to a knowledge of himself, He has others for
you to bring to a knowledge of Himself. When He saved you, He
didn't have you just in mind alone. He had others. Might be your mom, might be your
dad, maybe your children. Think about this. If God saved
you and you have three kids, Oh, you have your own congregation
and ministry. To witness to them and begin
to tell them early of the miracle of God's grace in converting
power. How many relatives do you have
that do not know Christ? And why isn't this big building
filled to capacity? Why aren't we excited about what
God's done for us enough to do our best to get other folks in
here to hear the gospel, or to tell them yourself the gospel,
to witness to Christ? You see, every elect is saved
to become a chosen vessel, to bear the name of Jesus Christ
to others. That's why you're saved. To the
praise of the glory of His grace. My dad was a great bird hunter
and he loved bird dogs. And I remember him so many times
talking to other hunters and he'd say, he'd reach for his
wallet and he'd go, I got a picture of my bird dog here. You want
to see her? You know, you and I ought to
be talking not about our bird dog, but about our Savior to
other people. I've got a wonderful Savior who
is sovereign and Lord. God may have saved you to bring
thousands to Christ. Amen? So we need to get busy about
this thing of witnessing to his saving grace. His special eye
was on you to bless you, to save you, to bring you to faith in
Christ, and then for you to go out and tell everybody what God
has done for you and what He will do for them in His Son,
Jesus Christ. I love to hear your story of
how God brought you to faith in Christ. You were a long way
off! And God said, fetch her out of
Lodibar to the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit went to sniffing
around, and you were the biggest sinner he could find at that
time. I went hunting this week, pheasant
hunting. We got 50 birds. That's a lot
of birds, like 50 pheasants. Well, they were set, you know,
they were set out there. But anyway, someone took me hunting
and we had an excellent dog. And when we would shoot those
pheasants, that trainer would say to that dog, fetch. That
dog would go, until it found that bird and
brought it back. The Holy Spirit one day, in conversion
encounter with you, sought you out of Lodibar and brought you
back to Jesus Christ and to faith in Christ. How awesome is that? I don't know, maybe you're just
a, you know, you're a common working man. Let others of those
that you work with, you ever talk about the Lord on the job
or in conversation with your fellow workers about how God
brought you? You know, many times people say
this to me, well, you know, I'm not a preacher. Oh, if you've
been saved by the grace of God, you are. You've been called to
tell. And the best preaching in the
world for you is to tell what God's done for you. Tell it to
mom. Tell it to dad. Tell it to your
children.