Storyboarding - Week 1

Amen.

Amen and Amen. All right, starting a brand new series

today called Storyboarding, and we're going to talk about we

talk about your testimony. You know, I think a lot

of times we just came off of a series Beautiful

Day in the Neighborhood, where we said, hey, be a

good neighbor. This is what a good neighbor is. You're

sharing your faith, You're doing those things, and share your testimony,

tell your story, and then we just take it for

granted that everybody knows what that is or how to

do that and how to find your testimony. So today

we're going to start a series of just how do

I how do I even know where to look for

my testimony?

Amen?

And today we're going to get into the overview, lay

the foundation. The next week we're gonna get very practical.

So next week when you come, I really would like

for you to bring something to write on and something

to write with, because I'm gonna give you some perfectly

practical steps on how to see your testimony, build your

testimony so that you can share your testimony. Amen. Let's

go to Revelation chapter twelve. Revelation chapter twelve, starting in

verse ten, it says, then I heard a loud voice

saying in heaven now salvation and strength, and the kingdom

and the kingdom of our God and the power of

His Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren,

who accused them before our God day and night, has

been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood

of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

And they did not and they did not love their

sins to the death. Therefore rejoice, so heavens and you

who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the

earth and the sea. For the devil has come down

to you, having great wrath because he knows that he has.

A short time. You're it me is a short time.

Enemy. Father, We thank you for your word that it's

the only change agent on the face of the planet.

So help us live our lives according to your words,

so that our lives help other people see you, so

that they can experience the same thing that we've experienced.

Lord, we love you, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen,

I mean we.

Overcome by the blood of the Lamb, which Jesus has

already done. Jesus shed his blood on Calvary, and he

did that for us, He did it for all humanity,

and we overcome by that blood that's already been shed

and the word of our testimony. Now, I think a

lot of times when we read this passage of scripture,

we read it in a very very selfish context. We

think that that overcoming is just that we overcome, like

whatever's happening to me, whatever's happening to Steve, whatever's happening

to Fred, whatever's happening to Lend, whatever's happening to whoever.

It is, that we overcome that by the blood of

the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And we do,

but we also help humanity overcome by the blood of

the Lamb and the word of our testimony. It's not

a selfish view because remember, the lowest form of the

Christian experience is that we receive a blessing. The highest

form of the Christian expression is that we be a blessing.

So when we read this, our testimony.

Is not just helping us as an individual overcome, but

it's positioning us to help champion other people to overcome that.

When we share what God is doing.

That shared faith, that shared experience helps boost people and

move people further. Along towards that grace collision with Jesus.

And we read this passage of scripture, and we must

understand that Satan is always about his work. They said

that one hundred percent of the time the devil's doing

what the devil does. He don't take a break. He

doesn't have bad days where he accidentally does good. Come on, somebody,

do you know the devil has never had a bad

day where he stumbled and did good. But yet all

the time we say things like this, don't we oh, well,

I just had a bad day. He don't have a

bad day and do good. So we need to learn

to craft who we are. Build that storyboard. A storyboard

is a visual representation of the story or the process

that we're trying to explain. It's a visual representation of

what we're trying to accomplish. So that means we build,

we craft our testimony in such a way that our

lives are the visual illustration of all the things that

we've heard, and all the things that we've learned, and

all of the experiences that we've had, and all the

things God has done for us. See, those things are

not separate. I think for a long time in the church,

we got it wrong because we taught discipleship is something

we learn in a Sunday school classroom. Discipleship is what

happened at Sunday night service and midweek service. But discipleship

is the application of the things that we know. That's

when we become a disciple. The knowledge and the action

are not independent of each other. They don't become discipleship

until they're one and the same. So when we talk

about storyboarding and building this testimony, it's a testimony.

That we live out each and every day.

Now I want to carry you through through a passage

of scripture, and I want to show you how you

find your testimony and at what part maybe you are

at in your testimony.

Because you've heard me.

Say it a thousand times and Chase, I guess I

have to say it one thousand more. Your testimony isn't

a testimony just because it's got a clean bowl on

the end of it and everything is good. Your testimony

is your testimony even when it's hard and messy right

in the middle of its a matter of fact, just

better to ownboard people there so they can experience it

with you.

I mean, if you knew me before I was saved.

It would make a much bigger impact on your life

if you knew who I was. When Angie started praying

for me. I would like to point out, though, that

I was so good looking. She it was worth the prayers.

She was willing to pray, to fast and pray and

cry out to God.

Just remember that.

But everybody go to John chapter got to John chapter eight.

In John chapter eight, we have this, this passage of scripture,

this woman, this brought to Jesus by the Pharisees. We're

gonna start in verse three. It says, then the scribes

and the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery.

And when they had set her in the midst, they

said to him, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery.

The very act, the very act. Let me say this

woman was guilty.

She was. There was no perceived there was no guessing.

The woman was guilty.

And they bring her to Jesus.

And the penalty for this is that she should be

stoned to death. And they're trying to trap Jesus. And

I want you to know that the enemy will use

you to trap somebody else because he doesn't care about you,

people will use you to trap somebody else because most

people don't care about you.

But they brought this woman and they put her at.

The feet of Jesus and they said, hey, this one

was caught an adultery.

She's supposed to be stone. What do you say? And Jesus.

Kneels down and it begins to right on the ground.

And we don't know what he was writing. A lot

of people say he was writing the sins of the

men that were standing there, or you know, I don't know.

They could have been playing tic tac toe. I don't

know what Jesus was writing on the ground. And it

doesn't matter. What matters is.

The fact that he said, you who was without sin cast.

The first stone. In other words, there are no perfect people.

There's some people that act perfect. We don't like y'all either.

Y'all like us, We don't like you. Quit acting perfect.

We don't even allow perfect people to come here. Y'all

just mess things up because we're gonna fall short of

that standard one hundred percent of the time.

There's no perfect people.

You said, hey, if you haven't sinned, cast the first stone,

and they start walking away one by one until it's

just Jesus and this woman.

And in verse ten, Jesus says, when Jesus.

Had raised up and saw no one but the woman,

he said to her, woman, where are those accusers of yours?

No one is condemned you. She said, no one, Lord,

and Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more. Now, I want to point

something out here, something that because I've preached this scripture.

I don't know how many times I've preached this passage

of scripture, but I saw something when I preached it

this time, or when I studied, I saw something this

time that I hadn't seen before, and that is that

Jesus never forgave her of her sins. He just said,

I don't condemn you. He didn't say I forgive you.

And Jesus forgave people of their sins all the time,

and he said it. But here he just said, hey, listen,

I'm not condemning you either.

Go and sin no more. It's this beautiful collision of.

Grace and truth, those two areas that Jesus is the

perfect embodiment of grace. I don't condemn you, truth, Go

and sin no more. And it's easy for us to

look and say, oh, well, this woman had this incredible testimony.

This woman comes and Jesus does this for and that's

their testimony. But I want to kind of I want

to kind of look through this because it's my opinion,

just based on common sense, that this woman is probably

Mary Magdalen. This woman right here is probably Mary Magdalen,

because just after this story we see this woman show

up as Jesus is in the house of a Pharisee,

and this woman shows up in Luke chapter seven, verse

forty seven. It says, therefore, I say to you her sins,

which are many, are forgiven. Now this woman comes in.

She breaks this alabaster box, She annoints Jesus' feet, She

washes his feet with her tears and dries them with

her hair. And they said about this woman, this woman

is she's she's a lady of the night. She's a prostitute,

she's she's out there. She's not somebody. If Jesus, if

he was who he said he was, he wouldn't deal

with he wouldn't be with her. Jesus is not afraid

to get involved in the middle of your sin. Jesus

is not afraid of your dysfunction, of your brokenness. He'll

roll up his sleeves and get right in the middle

of it. Those moments when you doubt, he's patting you

on the back, saying, you know, I understand why you're doubting.

Right now, he's not ready to strike you with a

lightning bolt. And Jesus says to this woman who had

just been brought to his feet, Therefore, I say to

you her sins, which your many, are forgiven. For she

loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same

loves little. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Now,

what's the first time he didn't say it? The moment

she comes and she gets real about her destination, her

destiny having a collision with the grace that's in Jesus

in spite of the fact he's still calling us to truth.

He's calling us to truth, but he covers us with

his grace. And her response to that that collision of

grace and truth was now, I'm gonna come and worship him.

I'm gonna come and follow at his feet.

I'm gonna give him something that cost me something, and

I'm gonna I'm.

Gonna embarrass myself. I'm going to weep.

I'm going to to dry his feet with my hair.

Jesus looks at her now and says, your sins are forgiven.

And she could have left.

And started building her testimony because now, listen, he didn't

condemn me before, and now he's forgiven me of my sins. Whoo.

But that's not the end. In the next chapter, Luke

mentions Mary by name the first time she shows up.

Then in chapter ten, Jesus goes to the home of Lazarus,

this person that he weeps over when Lazarus dies. But

up until now we don't know of any affiliation Jesus

has with Lazarus. But he shows up and there's Lazarus

two sisters, Mary and Martha. And if you know that story,

if you don't, it's okay too. But in that story,

Martha's running around doing everything because people have showed up

to the house and she wasn't expecting them.

Amen, preacher came over, didn't no chicken fried?

And she she's scrambling around trying to trying to get

things put in order.

And Mary is just sitting.

On the floor at the feet of Jesus, just looking

up at him and smiling, and Martha.

Just says, tell her to do something. My lazy sisters

sitting around. I'm doing all the work.

I've cooked the chicken, I've mashed the potatoes, i have

fried the opra, I've made the tea.

I've done everything.

Tell her to do something that Jesus listen there, says,

why are you mad she chose the better thing? Why

are you mad that she just chose to sit here

and worship? Because after all, I didn't ask you for

nothing to eat. Do you know? Sometimes we get hospitality,

we get kindness confused with testimony that sometimes we think

because we're a good person and we're nice, that that's enough.

But chances are that means you live in the South.

Our mama and our grandmama taught us that you be

nice to people, you don't have nothing good to say,

don't say anything at all. And we live according to

these principles. But we think that's living our faith out loud.

We think that's living our testimony in our Christianity out loud.

But listen, lots of people can be kind and not

be leading someone towards a grace collision with Jesus. In

John chapter eleven, starting in verse Well, let me read

it to you. Now, a certain man was sick, Lazarus

of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

This is how we know it's the same Mary. It

was Mary that anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and

wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.

Jesus showed up at lazarus house because Mary. He showed

up at Lazaru's house, which would lead to one of

the greatest miracles that people talk about from scripture, the

raising of Lazarus from the dead. And it wasn't because

Lazarus was a cool dude. It was because Mary came

and she was caught in adultery. But she didn't let

that stopper. She broke into a Pharisees house where she

knew she wasn't welcome to worship Jesus.

She didn't let religion stop her. She just kept on pressing.

He shows up at the house and she sits at

his feet and she worships him while everybody else is

doing the status quo and the normal.

You weren't created to do the normal and to fit in.

The Bible, says You're peculiar, some of you more than others,

but you are peculiar. And now he is here, at

this pivotal moment to raise Lazarus from the dead because

of a woman who he first met.

When she was caught in adultery.

WHA, that's enough, right, she's got a she's got a testimony.

Now she could she could travel from church to church

to speak at every small group and share her testimony.

It would blow people's minds. I was bad, that I

was good. Then boom, raised the dead past the offering.

But here's the remarkable thing. That's not where her life

with Jesus stops either. She is identified as being at

the cross when Jesus was crucified. She was standing right

there with his mother, and she witnessed.

The death of our Lord Jesus.

Again, let me tell you the woman whose first introduction

to him. But she was guilty of adultery. And it

would be amazing if it stopped right there. But it

doesn't because they uh they went to with some spices

and some wraps to the tomb. They were going to

anoint Jesus' body for burial. They show up and they

find out that the stones rolled away, Mary and Mary,

another lady. I just her name just flew out of

my head. I'm not as young as they used to be.

And they show up and they run and they tell

the disciples, Hey, his body's gone. So the disciples sprint.

They get there, they look in. His body's gone. They

sprint back, and Mary hangs around at the tomb and

she turns around. And this woman whose first introduction to

Jesus was when she was caught in adultery, turns around

and is the very first person to meet the resurrected

Lord face to face after his resurrection.

Where is her testimony in all of that?

All of it?

And here's what I want.

You to understand that your friends, your family, that crazy

uncle that nobody wants to be around but still needs

Jesus is less impacted by I saw the Lord high

and lifted up than he is by when he found me.

I was called an adultery when he found me. Nobody

wanted me. When he found me, I was broken and

dismissed by every single person that you could imagine because

I wasn't worth attention. I had to sell myself to

get attention from anybody. But when he found me, he

didn't condemn me, and I'm not there yet, but I'm

going down the road because the next time I met him,

he saved me and he washed away my sin. Hey,

you know what. And then he did something that didn't

impact me at all. But you know, he shows up

at my house and he set my sister straight. Yeah,

you right, that's what I'm saying, you know my sister.

And then he came and raised my brother from the

dad man. I don't know why, but I was there

when his mama went. It all went south. When I

watched him breathe his last breath, he looked straight into

my eyes and he said, Father, God, forgive them because

they don't know what they do. Because I didn't get

it all right. From the time that I first met

him until now, I still blew it.

I still did some things I shouldn't have done.

But he never stopped loving me, and he was always there,

and he was always walking beside me because I was

always moving in the right direction. And then I got

to experience something that nobody else can ever experience. I

got to meet the resurrected Savior.

I got to.

Meet him like nobody else can meet him. And when

you meet him, It'll be like nobody else has or

can ever from meet him again, because he has specifically

designed that encounter to meet you and your coworkers and

your family and your friends right at their point of need,

to make them know that they are the most special

person in the world, and they overcome the bondage in

their lives by the word of your testimony and the

blood that He's already shed.

So how do I tell that story? I tell it.

I tell it like listen after baseball practice one day

I was at a Pentecostal Holiness Bible college. Let that

resonate for a moment. It was hot, so we go

down this little dirt road and drank too much alcohol

too fast, and got alcohol poisoning. And for the next

three days I laid in my dorm room bed and

I couldn't keep water down.

I was that woman that.

First was put before Jesus, dirty and unclean. And he

looked at me the same way that day as he

looks at me today on this stage. And I was

dying of dehydration because I had no liquid in my body.

And I looked at the ceiling and I prayed a

prayer DoD that's how I first addressed God. Dude, if

you're there like these people say you are, just let

me feel good enough to take a shower. Boom, stomach settled,

headache went away, and I walked to the shower. When

I turned on the water, and that water ran across

my body. I was so dehydrated it felt like my

skin was soaking the water into my body.

Said, I'd crafted a deal with God. If I took

a shower, I'd go to church.

I knew there was a lady there singing, and I

never felt bad when somebody sang, only when somebody preached.

For some reason, So I walk in and Angie had

saved me a seat, and I sat down beside her,

and this black Daisy McGrew Southern gospel singer. She screamed,

stopped the music, and she started preaching. It looked like

her arm was forty feet long. Girl, don't date, no

sinning boy, is what she started preaching.

And I was like, whoa, that's me.

But I wanted to reach over and hold Angie's ears right,

But conviction hit me so hard that I got up

and I left the church, went across the quad. On

my way across the quad, Randy Goff saw me and

followed me to my room. He was working security that night.

He came into the room and he said, Hey, can

I pray for you? I said no, He said, I'm

going to pray for you. I said, I gon to

knock your teeth out. And he knelt down and he

started praying. And I don't know when. I don't know

when it happened geographically, but I went from the bed

to my knees beside him because I never heard such

sincere words spoken over my life before. And that night,

in dorm room three oh one of Wellans Hall, I

literally verifiably met Jesus and.

It changed my life forever.

Tina and Wendy were there that night with Angie, and

when Tina saw me, she knew I had gotten saved

because I didn't look like the same person anymore, didn't

even looked like the same person Fast forward just a

few months later, and I find myself right here in

this building, Danny apple White's preaching about the baptism of

the Holy Spirit, and right there on the floor I

received the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Then fast forward

another couple of months, and I don't know why I mean,

pastor Gear just has the ability to see things in

people that are there that nobody else believes are there.

And he looked at me, said, hey, you want to

help in kids church? Who would put me in kids church?

And I'm learning stuff, right, I'm learning stuff for the

first time Saturday night and I'm teaching it on Sunday.

It's blowing my mind because like what But I'm telling

the kids that they're like, yeah, yeah, we knew that.

I'm like, you're four, you already knew during knew the

water party and they.

Walked across and okay.

But I just keep pursuing Jesus because I know that

my destiny is tied to him. I get to preach

my first sermon, no good, get to preach my second sermon,

probably worse.

Than the first. I got invited to this little church

and winder to preach.

I go down there and and I preach a message

and all these people come to the I didn't know

unless I promise. So my cousin, Louise Robertson, was the

pastor of this little Church of God, a prophecy church.

I made the altar call and everybody in the church

came to the altar. I pray for everybody that four times.

I found out later that she had met with the

church earlier and told them that when I made the

altar call, regardless of what I've reached, they had to

come to the altar. And why do I mention that,

because it was one of those memorial stones. Somebody believed

in me enough to coerce their people to respond positively.

So I don't give up on the call. And time

after time after time, God elevated me when I didn't

deserve to be elevated. He protected me when I shouldn't

have been protected. He gave me favor when I didn't

deserve favor. And I come and I stand here before

you today because I am that woman called an adultery.

I am that woman that my first introduction to Jesus

was when I was unlovable. And now I stand before

you declaring the resurrected Lord. And if he did it

for me, because I'm zero special, he'll do it for you.

And you have the same story inside you.

You just go back to that point where things were bad,

but Jesus said they were different, and you find your

testimony somewhere between things were bad and what Jesus says,

and we begin to live our faith out loud, and

we begin to declare the fact that he is who he.

Says he is with every moment of every day.

And when we mess up, we look at people and say, listen,

I repent because I know I messed up, and I'm sorry.

I don't make up a lot to try to hide it.

And we live our lives authentically. We live our lives

organically because Jesus has planted us as a tree that

is supposed to grow and prosper. In Second Corinthians, chapter five, clay,

you guys can come and get ready. In Second Corinthians,

chapter five, verse seventeen, it says, therefore, if anyone is

in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have

passed away. Behold, all things.

Have become new.

And the enemy has taken that passage of scripture, and

he's told us that we have to pretend like we

were always the way we are right now because those

old things passed away.

They did, and Jesus has washed us of it.

It's clean.

We're not accountable for those things anymore.

Jesus has cleansed us. He's made us a new creation,

and he's set a destiny before us that we could

see it.

But it doesn't mean we don't talk about where we're from.

If you don't talk about where you're from, it means

less where you're going. You have to add the.

Where you're from so that when you get where you're going.

The testimony leads other people in the same direction, because

there's other people where you were, and they need to

be where you are. And that's why we take the

time to storyboard our testimony so that our life lives

it out loud. Your testimony will cause ridiculous things in you.

There are times when I'm at the grocery store.

And I'm going down the grocery store and I'm done right,

I just need to go to.

The register, and the ale I'm at.

Is the eye where all the alcohol is. Now listen,

there's nothing in me that's gonna grab a beer on

the way by nothing not doesn't affect me one, I mean,

not gonna happen. Don't not gonna find me laying in

the in the liquor. I'll drunk right I'm in, because

that's just that temptation is not like that anymore. But

here's the thought that goes through my mind is that

so many people have heard my testimony. I'm not going

down that aisle, even though it's the shortest path to

where I want to go, because I don't want to

get to the end of the aisle and somebody look

in my buggy to see if I have something in

my buggy.

Because I want to live my life out loud.

Amen. It's not because I think I'm gonna fall. It's

because I want to lift everybody else up. And when

we craft our lives in that way, and we always

look back and take inventory of our testimony, it changes

the way we respond and react and the way we

are storyboard what God is doing in your life. Don't

wait until he's done. Do it now. Invite people into

your trauma and your drama right now so that they

can see how God shows up time after time after time.

And listen. Maybe you're here today and you've never trusted

Jesus as your savior. Maybe you're here today and you

think you know. I don't think. I don't think the

Lord can use me.

I don't even want the Lord to use me.

I just came here because somebody made me come. But

the reality is you're so special beautifully created and crafted

for a purpose and a destiny that's so far beyond

anything you can imagine out of your life. That you're

not here by accident. You're here because Jesus desires.

To touch your life.

Maybe you're here and you've prayed that prayer one time,

but so many things have come between you and the Lord.

Sin has crept in and you're hurt.

Has caused a chasm, and you just don't feel close

to him, and you're not where you should be with him.

You're here at the very right moment to get that

testimony back on track. Everybody who ever head bowed, every

I closed. If you're here this morning, you say, hey, pastor,

I want to give my life to Jesus, or I

want to come back to Jesus, just slip your hand up,

say that's me.

Pray for me, Pray for.

Me, because amen, Amen, I believe there's two or three more. Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,

Amen ove all this.

Parent ye put your hands down. I wonder about to

stay with me all over the building.

Now this is the moment. This is the moment where

where we show Jesus. But all of my pain, my hurt,

my insecurity, my fear, my doubt. Those things don't matter

in this moment. I'm going to run towards him because

I know that he's all that matters right now in

this moment. Alter team, come quickly. I'm going to count three.

When I count to three. If you raised your hand,

I don't want you to wait. I don't want you

to look. This is not popularity. This is about faith.

This is the moment where everything changes, all things pass away,

all things are made You that moment, pivotal moment in

your life where things are made right. It's on the

count of three.

I want you to step out.

I want you to move one, two, three, step out

and come right now. Come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on. There were other hands, Come on,

where are you? But don't let the enemy rob you

of this moment. You will go home and you will

think about it and you will regret it.

Don't allow the enemy to rob you of this moment. Come.

If you thought you I need to raise my hand

for some reason, you need to come. I don't know

what that reason is, but Jesus knows what that reason

is so come