Three Voices, One Gospel: Why Ordinary Stories Carry Extraordinary Power | Baptism Sunday | November 30th, 2025

What if sharing your faith felt less like a pitch and more like a real conversation? We open with a candid look at why evangelism makes many of us anxious, then introduce a simple framework—Good–God–Gospel—that helps you move from desire to discipline without sounding scripted. It’s a posture of listening first, spotting God’s character in everyday life, and naturally pointing to Jesus.

From there, the service blooms into three baptism testimonies that carry the weight and wonder of grace. Liam speaks to the pressure of playing the “good kid,” hiding questions, and finally hearing that repentance and belief mean your past no longer defines you—Christ does. Bennett reminds us that quiet faith is not small faith, and that courage sometimes looks like going public when your story isn’t sensational. Silas shares a raw journey through adoption, confusion, double lives, and the hollow promise of control, before discovering rest in Jesus and learning to choose Him daily. Their voices together show how ordinary honesty becomes extraordinary witness.

Scripture anchors the moment. Isaiah 43 turns witness into a sacred identity, not a hobby. John 4’s woman at the well models the simplest testimony—come and see. Acts 1:8 assures us that the Spirit supplies power when our words feel weak. Along the way, a funeral story surprises us with hope and reminds us that a single faithful declaration can ripple through a room. We close with practical next steps: use encouragement cards to ground baptisms in prayer, practice Good–God–Gospel in everyday conversations, and treat your life like sworn testimony—truthful about the mess, clear about the mercy.

If you want to learn more about the MidTree story or connect with us, go to our website HERE or text us at 812-MID-TREE.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Baptisms, And Encouragement Cards
• 3:21 Evangelism Anxiety And The 3D Framework
• 6:11 The Good–God–Gospel Conversation Tool
• 9:06 A Funeral That Preached Hope
• 13:16 Be Ready To Testify
• 14:10 Liam’s Story: From Appearance To Surrender
• 20:06 Baptism And The Call To Witness
• 21:10 Courtroom Imagery In Isaiah 43
• 24:50 Scripture’s Pattern: Saved Then Speaking
• 27:05 Bennett’s Story: Quiet Faith, Bold Step
• 31:50 The Woman At The Well And True Thirst
• 38:56 Normal Stories That Move Towns
• 42:21 Acts 1:8 And Power To Witness
• 45:01 Silas’s Story: Adoption, Wrestling, And Grace

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:32

Well, good morning, church. Excited to hang out with you. This is gonna be a really, really fun Sunday. Couple of things as you're sitting, band. I think y'all may help me with something in a minute. I'm not sure. Are you? I think the ushers have them. Bennett, maybe if you guys want to head that way. All right. Uh, a couple of things very quickly. Whenever we do a baptism, we always want to make these little baptism cards available to you guys. Hopefully, you can see them around you. You will also find them in the foyer. I love when an idea turns into culture, and it's already happened because as I was walking through, I saw three jars with names on it, and all of them already had cards of encouragement. Why do we do this? Well, we're gonna have three folks get baptized today. Uh, you will get to hear three of those stories. Two are getting baptized in the first service, and we want to send them out with encouragements so these little cards exist so that you can share with them a verse, a scripture, a prayer, or an encouragement so that this day lives on and longer for them. So please take advantage of that. If you need to find one, you'll see them in the foyer afterward. Hey, uh, we do this occasionally. If you ever want to know some of our hidden intentionalities here at the church, this is one of them. Every fifth Sunday, which today is the fifth Sunday, we want to do one or two things that are a little bit unique. And so what I want us to do, uh see if uh see if my slides are up and if you can hit them. Uh, what I wanted to do was to carry us from last week. We talked about generosity and move us more in into a storytelling Sunday, but I realized this. Uh I I've been in ministry for a long time. I'd go with the one on the middle if I had to guess. Um, I've been in ministry a long time, and there is something that generally speaking makes people pretty nervous when it comes to being a Christian and being discipled. It starts with an E and it ends with evangelism. And there are a couple of people in the room who are like, who's nervous to share their faith? You're the weirdos in the room. I just want you to know it. Like, I love how weird God has made you for his kingdom. All Christians are called to be weird in some capacity. I love that about you. But for a lot of believers, it's very hard. And so on this fifth Sunday, I kind of wanted to give us a little bit of a discipleship toolbox. And last week we talked about this concept of desire to discipline to devotion. And I just want to give you a tool that will help you share your faith. And I want it to legitimately be easy to do. So if you've got your phone, I'm gonna put a QR code up in a minute. You can grab it and just sit on it for a second. But what we talked about last week is as a Christian, part of discipleship is us walking through these three D's, having a desire for something. I want to reflect God's, you know, characteristic. Uh maybe when it comes to evangelism, we want to we want to reflect God's story. This is who God has been, from Genesis to Revelation. Pick any passage you want in scripture and you will find a storytelling God. But desire isn't enough. If you've never had a desire to share the story of God, that is a great first step. But eventually we need to get to a place where we have a discipline, we have a plan, and we're able to practice it with joy. Most believers, most churchgoers fall off the bandwagon when it comes to evangelism from one to two. All of us want this. We just want it to be so easy. We want somebody to walk up to us on the street and be like, will you explain the gospel of Jesus Christ to me so that we can be like, hey, I evangelized. But getting to that point takes time. And just for those of you who were not here, not all of us will get to the third step in every characteristic of God. Not all of us will get to a place where we delight in going above and beyond. The people who do that become missionaries and pastors and evangelists and things like this, but all of us should try to get to number two. So let me just give you quickly this morning, as you get ready to hear other people's stories, a very easy discipleship tool. If you don't want to scan the QR code or you have any trouble with it, good God gospel, you can just type that into a search bar and it will pull up a website for you. By the way, they also have an app that you can put on your phone. If I were in the years past, this is how I used to explain to people sharing the gospel. In fact, we just had a membership class and we walked through it God, man, Christ Responsor, Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. I think those are really great. When I was sitting around a table with a number of pastors two weeks ago, someone brought this up and just said, it's been life-giving to my congregation, and you guys may want to share it with yours. And the way that it works, good God gospel, is it takes a lot of the pressure off. And they say one of the things we realize about Christ was he got into a lot of good conversations with people. That there wasn't a sort of a hook at the end of the line. Jesus loved people, he loved the people he created in his own image and wanted to talk to them about their lives, even though he knew it better than they did. Think about that. God wanted to hear their perspective of their story, even though he wrote it and knew what was coming in it next. And then from those good conversations, focus on having good conversations, look for a place where you can see a characteristic of God. This is not very hard. Something of his nature. And then from that place, point to the gospel. One of the things that I really like about this, I'll show you their website here, if it'll allow me to. One of the things that I really like is it allows us to simply engage in well, that isn't it at all. Man, see, I test this stuff so much before y'all walk in. I'm not even gonna fool with it. Just go to the website. Oh, wait, it worked. There we go. One of the things that I really like about this is sometimes you're just gonna have a good conversation. And I don't know about you, but it can be difficult to feel like a failure every time you engage with somebody who isn't a believer or you would like to see take steps in their walk with Christ or toward Christ, and it never feels like the conversation lands there. This allows you to realize that sometimes it's just about having a good conversation that lays groundwork, then moving it on into transitioning into questions, comments, attributes of God, and then finally sharing the gospel. If you look this up, it will even walk you through some of those things that you can share with folks. And so I wanted to take a moment and share that with you guys just as a very easy way to put this in your back pocket. And one of the reasons is yesterday I was at one of the best funerals I have ever been at. Um typically weddings are more fun than funerals. Somebody asked me uh on the phone yesterday, do you like weddings or funerals more? And I said, Well, it depends. I would rank it in three different ways. My favorite would be the funeral of a believer. If I know that somebody has gone home to be with the Lord, that is an awesome celebratory time. Then a wedding, and then a funeral of somebody who I'm unsure about. It's an opportunity to share the gospel with people who have a lot of questions, but it wouldn't be my favorite. And I wanted to let you guys know uh that Steve Bland, who came to church here, since we have been at Impact, passed away about a week ago. This is a picture of Steve. Many of you may recognize him from the foyer or uh being in here, I had the privilege of uh officiating his funeral yesterday. And my favorite part of the funeral was my scariest part of any funeral. It was like hours before, okay? When you're officiating a funeral, you like to have your ducks in a row. Hours before the family said, Hey, well, after the eulogy, we'd like to do an open mic if anyone wants to share. That's when you start sweating and move from like uh from deodorant to anaperspirant. Like, that's no joke because you're the one who's in charge of that service. And they basically just said, let's see what's gonna happen. All right. So they they decided they want to do open mic. You want to honor the family? You're like, absolutely. I'm sitting in a funeral home in Hamilton, and I say, if anybody has a brief story that they would like to share about Steve, his life, or his faith, please feel free to come forward. About four people dead, and it was unbelievable. Unbelievable. The first person came up and talked uh about the the fact that what they had most in common was flight and aviation and Jesus. Next person came up and said, Steve had always been incredibly generous to me, but I'll never forget a conversation as a teenager when the internet went out one night before a term paper was due, and I was like, Dad, I can't get it to work. I can't get it to work. And my dad, Steve, came to me and he said, I feel like I'm letting you down. It is my job to provide for you, and I feel like a failure. And all these years later, that moment of a dad looking in the eyes of a kid and saying, It is my job to provide for you. And I feel like he eventually got it working, turned paper worked out, and she did great on it. And then an older gentleman came up and he said, I I don't have much to say, but I feel like the Lord would have me say this. Steve attended a Bible study three weeks ago. He doesn't usually come to our Bible study, it was the very first time he had shown up. And Steve asked the guy who was leading the Bible study if he could share for a few moments before we dove into God's word. And the the leader of the Bible study said, Yeah, go for it, Steve. And Steve simply shared his testimony, the story of how he came to Christ, and at the end of it, he said this I felt like I needed to declare to a room full of people what Christ had done for me, that my faith and trust is in him, and that my hope is in him in this life and in the life to come. And the and the man just said, I felt like you guys needed to hear that. And he went and he sat down. As we get ready to hear Liam's testimony, Liam's gonna be coming up first, as Liam gets ready to share his testimony, Christians in the room. Can I just tell you this? We are called to be people who are ready to talk about good God gospel 24-7-365. But there is something uniquely special about the moment you stand in front of a congregation and you say, I'm declaring my faith and trust in Jesus. Here is my story. And what I've told everyone is this. So please do not let me down. You are in a room full of cheerleaders, and there are one of two people in the room. There's somebody who needs to hear this because God is calling them to himself, and your story will be one more magnetic pull that draws them to the cross of Jesus Christ, or it's a brother or a sister who remembers this moment. And for some of them, it may have been many, many years ago, but you are gonna sit in a room of cheerleaders who are excited about this step that you are taking in your walk with Christ. So as we watch people walk in and as we celebrate someone who has walked into the next step, let's be a people who really enjoy the stories that God is writing all around us. Would you guys welcome Liam Anderson up?

SPEAKER_02: 13:24

Good morning, Mitri. My name is Liam Anderson. I was born into a Christian home with two loving parents who love Jesus. I've always gone to church, either being in kids' church or what we call a big church. Throughout my entire life, I've always known who Jesus was and the role he plays in my life. I've been blessed to say that I'm the brother to six of my siblings. Life is a little crazy, but I love it. Having a brother that has hard times with certain things is hard because I have to see my parents struggle and dealing with how to handle him and managing a full house at the same time. So my entire life I have lived with watching my parents fight to figure out how to help him. It not only took a toll on them, but it took a toll on me as well. Sometimes it was hard to talk to with my parents about stuff that I was going through because of the things that my brothers were going through. So I kept it to myself. I feared that if I told them these things, it would break them and make them feel like they failed me. So I had to make it seem like I was a perfect child that loved Jesus and didn't have anything wrong with me. And that made it a struggle with my walk with Christ. Because I was doing it to please my parents and make them happy because that's all I wanted, was to please the people around me, but I never wanted it for myself. I lived a life where I knew who Jesus was, knew all all about him, but didn't love him and didn't give my whole heart to him. I fell into sin and regret that pushed me to where I didn't want to be at church. I didn't want to have the talks with my mom about when she asked me when I was going to get baptized, and I was crumbling. I was still showing the appearance of how I love Jesus and how I'm a good kid, but down inside I didn't want that Christian life. But I was thanking it to make other people happy. I could never find true joy. I could only find happiness for moments. Finding out the struggles that my mom was facing took a toll on me. It hurt me so much because the mother that I have was hurting inside, and it is the hardest thing for me to know that my mom, my bet, was struggling with something that I could to do nothing to help her. So that pain that I was feeling was put into other things that I could that I thought would ease the pain, but it didn't. I went to our Laguna Beach trip like I do every year. This year was different because I had no intentions of growing my relationship with God, but all the intentions to have fun and just enjoy my time with my friends. But this is when God swooped in and showed me the light that I've been needing to see all this time. I was listening to Thomas preach about Jonah and he said a line that I'll never forget. If you repent and believe, no mistake or some serious mistakes will define you. Christ defines you. This just made me want that thing for myself and not because someone else wants it for me. I have now become a true believer and lover of Jesus Christ and will never stop loving him. I've been growing in my faith ever since. I always had questions that I wanted to be answered about Jesus and the Bible, but I was always afraid that I was the only one that ever thought about them. But when I finally asked and wasn't afraid of being judged for what I had to ask, I wasn't the only one thinking about the same things. I found out that I should never feel judged about questions that I wanted to be answered. God has truly shown me how great he is and how he works wondrous deeds through his word. In Hebrews eleven it says, Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. I have been rewarded with knowing what true joy is in my heavenly Father, because without God and the love of God, people think that they can find joy in other things. But that is not true joy. That is happiness that is momentary. It will not last forever, but the only everlasting thing is God's love for me and the joy that He brings me to the very proud moment.

SPEAKER_05: 17:51

And we have we just love you so much. So after hearing your testimony, hearing all this, and as Christ calls us in Matthew 28, 19, um, we want to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_06: 18:27

I don't know if you guys know this or not.

SPEAKER_00: 18:28

Um there's a protocol for how to do a baptism to serve people well. Uh they hold their nose, they hold their arms so that you have something to hold on to, especially if it's a big guy, you want something. I I'm like walking it through with Jan on the phone yesterday, and he's like, he said, Well, I know how to dunk my kid. I got it. Been doing it a long time. Congratulations, Liam. Please remember there are cards uh waiting there for you to share a scripture and encouragement or a prayer. Uh before we have the next one come up, I'd like to point to a scripture as I encourage us not to just be remembered, Psalm 66, 16. The goal is not just for us to hear, the goal is for us to tell our stories as well. God has always worked through telling stories, and he's always worked through empowering witnesses. Will you guys hit the little button back there for thanks? This is Isaiah 43, 10. Now I want you to understand something. Testimony is not just a churchy word. Uh, when we think of a testimony and you don't think of the word at church, where else in life might it come up? Okay, in court, right? This is also where we see the concept of witnesses. In fact, in the old testament, the term witness and a testimony would have been in a courtroom setting. And I want to invite you in to this one passage in Isaiah chapter 43. You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. In the Old Testament, what Isaiah the prophet is doing is he is opening up a courtroom scene in this book of the Bible. And there are a couple of things that are happening. One, God is calling his people onto the witness stand. And he's asking them questions like, Have I made promises? Yes, Lord, you have made promises. Have I kept my promises? Yes, Lord, you have kept your promises. Can I be trusted? Lord, you can always be trusted. You have kept every promise you have ever made. And then he turns, and while the witnesses, while the testifiers are on the stand, he says, then let the nations know. Deuteronomy would say, Take this witness to your children. God does not just call us, he gives us a new identity. If you are a Christian, according to this passage, if you're a Christian, it doesn't matter what church you go to. It doesn't matter if you're a member or not a member of that church, it doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for 20 years or 20 minutes. The moment we become a believer in Christ, our identity shifts. Why? Because we move from one side of the gavel drop in a courtroom to the other. We move from guilty to not guilty. And at the same time, God says, don't just take the benefits of my payment for you. Join the team. Take the stand. Tell the story. Let me ask your life questions through the highs of blessings that I give you. Let me ask your life questions through the lows and the difficulties that I allow. Because in all of these things, you are my witnesses. You have taken the stand for an onlooking world to see. A testimony isn't just a churchy word about telling a story. It's one of test it's one of Scripture's oldest patterns. All through the Old Testament, God calls his people onto the witness stand. At Sinai, the law itself is called the testimony. In Deuteronomy, parents are commanded to tell their children the story of Egypt and the God who rescued them. Joshua, which we just finished, gathers the tribe together and says, You are witnesses, build these stones up so that when people walk by, they say, Why is this here? And you have one more opportunity to hop on the stand in the courtroom and say, This is my God who makes promises. This is my God who keeps them. The Psalms would echo the same thing. Come and hear, and I will tell you what God has done for my soul. And as you see in Isaiah, he's opening up the doors to the courtroom and inviting the world to look in. The pattern is unmistakable. God saves people and then he calls them to speak. There is no place in the Bible for someone to respond to salvation and find themselves in silence. None. All throughout scripture, we are called to be testifiers. And so you'll hear two more of those testimonies now. And the first one is Bennett Mask. If you guys would welcome Bennett up. Keep trying. Don't give up. Hello? There you go.

SPEAKER_03: 23:39

Okay, my name is Bennett Mask, and this is my testimony. To start, this wasn't an easy testimony for me to write because I thought I had to have a crazy story about addictions or drugs. But I realized that a testimony is about how God worked and is working in my life. I started writing this testimony on my own at night when my parents thought I was already asleep. It took it was the night that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed. I felt angry and confused about what had happened and why it happened that day. The week before, my dad and I watched a few of his videos and we were talking about Christianity. His death motivated me to share my faith in Christ boldly, like he did. Every time I listened to Charlie speak about Christianity before he was killed, I thought, how can people not believe Christianity is true? You see, I grew up in a Christian household, but it was really just my parents' faith. Even though I believed Jesus made me, I did not take personal responsibility for my faith. I had not taken the time to acknowledge and study the Bible and the gospel for myself. When I was nine years old, I went to a vacation Bible school at New Hope Baptist Church in Peace Tree City, where I really understood the gospel. I understood that the only way to know God and have a relationship with him was by him dying on the cross and saving me for my sins. I realized someone had to die in place for my sins, and I'm learning his resurrection showed me that Jesus conquered my sin and death. But there was a huge transition in my life right after that, where my family moved from Peace Tree City, the only place I called home, the Pine Mountain. This was a tough move for me because of how connected I was at my school. We prayed that my new school would be a great fit for me, but it really wasn't. I ended up moving schools halfway through the year and finally felt settled. I moved after moving schools, I looked back and realized how good God is and how He had an ultimate plan for me. This hard time taught me to be more empathetic to others that weren't connected because I wasn't. This has allowed me to notice others who are struggling. Through all this, I've been memorizing Joshua 1.9, which says, Be strong and courageous, do not be fearful, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. This verse has made me realize that God will always be with me through the hard times of my life. While all this was happening, I started going to Midtree Youth, where I met Thomas Crocky. He's been such a contributor in my life, and I can't thank him enough. He did not pay me to say that. I also seem to think more about God in my everyday life and what he's done for me. Lately I've realized I've been following the Lord but haven't been baptized. Charlie Kirk once said, I want to be remembered for courage of my faith. That's the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith. Hearing this, I also want my faith to be the most important thing as well. This is me taking a faith step into the next chapter of my life and what God has in store for me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 26:50

So Bennett is the second of three um stories. Two other guys were baptized today. Um the first guy, Liam, that we heard from, he uh had a testimony of uh grew up in kind of a Christian household and he strayed. He strayed into very tangible sin, outright um rebellion, and the Lord brought him back. And the third guy that we will hear from, Silas, um, his story starts very far from where he is today, physically in a different country, in a different um place where he's adopted in. Bennett sits in the middle of these two guys sharing a story about how he was generally a good kid, generally a good person. And oftentimes we in the church, this is the hardest story for us to get on the stage. This is the hardest story for us to get into the baptismal because what we as a church are doing is convincing good good um people that they're not good enough to earn their salvation, that they're not good enough to be right with God, and Bennett has recognized that, he realizes that, he he knows um his need for a savior, and he knows that Jesus uh paid that price for him. And so, Bennett, with your uh confession of faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is my honor and my joy to baptize you.

SPEAKER_00: 28:20

When Bennett began sharing his story, one of the first things that he said is something that probably many of us have heard or felt. I thought if I was gonna share my story, I needed to have drug addiction, I needed to have something, which which is a funny thing as a parent. Um, I'm looking at people who have shared their testimony in this room. And one of the really fun things is when you hear a testimony that is so wild and out of the blue that you're just like, oh my gosh, that's insane. And yet every parent in the room is praying that their child's testimony is like the most boring testimony ever. Uh every parent's like, let their biggest thing be that their uh tree house burned down and they did not know how the world was going to go on. One of my favorite passages when it comes to us being a storytelling people comes out of John chapter four. It would be well known to you guys. A woman, uh, you know, I hate saying that. You may be new to the church, you've never heard this story. I hope this becomes a well-known story if you don't know it already. A woman from Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. Now she looks at Jesus and she says, Why are you asking me? I'm a Samaritan and you're a Jew. We're not really supposed to hang out. Uh like one of us could get in trouble. Our people do due to racism and socioeconomic politics. We're not supposed to talk, we're not supposed to hang out. You're a male, I'm a female. Like, this is not supposed to be how conversation works. But what does Jesus do? He begins a really good conversation. He starts talking with her about life. He starts talking with her about faith. She begins asking questions about worship. And Jesus looks at her and he looks at this well, and he says, I'd like you to get me some water. And she says, This isn't even supposed to be happening. And then Jesus said, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. Now she doesn't understand what's happening at this point. She looks to him and literally says this question Do you have a better well than the one that Jacob put in? Like, do you have some water purification source that we don't know about? Do you have a technology? It's not clicking. Jesus is just having a really good conversation, but it's beginning to point to something. This woman in her life has gone to the well of hope, the well of relationships, the well of trying to make a meaningful life multiple times. And what Jesus is saying to her is this if you'll quit trying to write your story, I've got a better one written. If you will put down the pen of deciding what every one of your days and every one of your decisions is supposed to look like, if you would live in surrender, which is what Bennett just talked about, and let me write your story, it would be a better story than you could possibly imagine. And Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here. Now, does Jesus know her story before he begins it? Is it fascinating that Jesus lets us talk? It is a fascinating thing that God wants to listen to us when we pray. We bring no new information to the conversation. Have you ever had a conversation with your kid when you are busy and you already know how the conversation is going to begin and the body paragraphs and the conclusion? Or are y'all just better people than me? And you're not like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Get to the punchline, we're there, and now here is why you can't have spend the night company. That's usually how it like plays out. Jesus, sorry, Jesus knows the whole story and he asks questions. This is a fascinating reality of the God that we love. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here. And the woman looks at him and she says, I have no husband. Jesus says, You're right in saying it, but you haven't told the whole truth. You've had five husbands, and the man that you're with now isn't your husband. How has writing your own story gone? He would say to her. And he would say to all of us. And as soon as Jesus reveals this, I know you, I care about you, and I have a better story for your life. All of us have to decide if we believe him or not. Are we gonna go to the well of our own making, or will we trust him? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, Come here, and I want you to see something. Jesus remains there. She leaves her water jug behind, walks into the village. This would be a woman of disrepute. This would be somebody who crowds do not listen to. They talk behind her back. That's who this woman is. She has done nothing but made trouble. She has not had the story that her mom or her dad wanted for her. But here she comes into the town and she says, Hey, I know that I may never have had anything worth you listening to before. I know that many of you have discredited my story because of the life that I have lived. I want you to come and I want you to see someone who told me all I ever did. What is fascinating about this? That God knows her, that God cares. They went out of the town and they were coming to him. Jesus looks at his disciples. I want you to picture this. The woman leaves, jar still on the well. She walks in and gathers the attention of a crowd in a village. While that's happening, the disciples go by very confused. Why is Jesus talking to this woman? Doesn't he know it's going to ruin his ministry to talk to her? This is going to make people question him, but not in the right kind of way. The disciples get there, and here is what Jesus says as crowds are beginning to come. You can see them off in the distance. This group moving slowly toward the well. And Jesus says, Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? We live in an agrarian culture. Don't we talk about this? Don't we look forward to Thanksgiving? Don't we look forward to the harvest? Don't we say we have planted and God has watered and the sun has risen and there has been growth? So let's get together and celebrate the God of the harvest. Do we not say this? He says to his followers. Look, I tell you. I want you to imagine this. The woman has left and the crowd is coming, and Jesus looks at the twelve and he says, Look. Do you see what's happening right now in your midst? Look. Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Many unexpected people from that town believed in him. Please notice this. Because of one of the most regular stories you could ever tell. Do you want to know what her testimony was? I went to church and I felt like God knew me. You should come in here too. That was her testimony. Her testimony was there's a man, Jesus, who knows everything about me and he still cares. He knows all my brokenness and he doesn't turn away. He knows that I have nothing good to give this world, and he treats me like I'm valuable. Because of the woman's testimony, many Samaritans from that town believed. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days, and many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. Everyone who comes toward this, and I know that there are many of you in the room who have gone to the class and you're thinking it through. I know that we have two or three more testimonies in the months ahead. I know that there are many of you in the room who are thinking this. I've been going to church for too long and I'm too old. It's going to be too bizarre if I say, hey, I'm 43 years old and I've never been baptized. God knows we're good together. Like we've got it figured out. I know that that happens in a setting like this. But do you realize what God puts on display? Many people believe because a person told a simple story of how God entered into their life and cared about them, and then they came and heard the good news of Christ. For we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. And for all of us who are believers, this is what happens. In the Old Testament, we were witnesses that took the stand. In the New Testament, Jesus says, Now get off the stand and go into the world. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses. In Jerusalem, but don't stop there. And to all Judea, don't stop there. To Samaria, where this woman was, but don't stop there. And to the end of the world. She simply told her story. A story that included guilt and shame and embarrassment. But more importantly, it was a story that included Jesus. And when we take this with us, we get off the stand as witnesses and we go into an on-looking world. And God guarantees that He will fill us with the Spirit to have the ability to witness. And so as we get ready to hear our final story, I just want to encourage you with this. I don't know where you are on this today. I hope you at least have a desire to share the story of what God has done. I hope that you would move into having a plan and practicing it with joy, whether you do good God gospel or something else, that you would realize that it is normal stories that include Jesus that change towns and villages and the world. Let us be a people who love telling these stories, even as we get ready to hear one more from Silas Hodge about grace stronger than all my sin. Silas, I'm looking for you. Where are you at? There you go.

SPEAKER_04: 39:21

Hey Mitri. My name is Silas Hodge. Um I'm originally from Uganda. I was adopted when I was four. I don't know how many four-year-olds have vivid memories, but seeing white people for the first time will do it. It wasn't long until my extroverted big back self was giving my new siblings, Landry, um Jeb, and Ruthie, piggyback rides and eating everything on Insight. I became the son of Adam and Jill Hodge and came to America in 2009. With my adoption came lies, confusion. And confusion, yeah. Whether it was the adoption agency, my biological parents, or both, there was a fabricated story about my father's death and my mother abandoning me. That story allowed me to be adopted, but I remembered seeing my dad before I left, so I couldn't accept that he died. When the truth finally came out that he was alive, more evidence pointed to the possibility that the adoption may have been motivated by money rather than my well-being. We learned all of this when I was seven. The crazy part, um, my biological parents wanted me back because the deal they had made didn't work out. Um my adopted parents, Adam and Jill, putting my best interests first, asked me if I wanted to return. And honestly, that that's when everything began to unravel. I don't underst I didn't understand it at the time, but now I see that fear and doubt took over. I began fearing that they didn't love me. I doubted they actually wanted me. I tried to turn my biological parents into the good guys because I couldn't accept the possibility that they might have given me away for money. But I was too afraid to bring these questions and feelings into the light. So they turned into fears that led me to live two different lives. On the outside, I tried to be perfect and obedient, hoping to earn love and approval. That was one life. The face I showed the world to my friends. Um but at home, I was the opposite. I became annoying, controlling, agitating, a bully, a liar. Just truly frustrating. Deep down, I was testing their love. Will you still want me if I make myself unlovable? This landed me in trouble almost every day. I would come home from school already in trouble for something I'd done in the 30 minutes between waking up and getting to school. If my parents had ChatGBT back then, they would have been asking for new creative punishments because they had already used them all. Eventually, pornography became my way of dealing with the frustration, pain, and confusion. It felt like the only world where I was in control, but that wasn't true. It was controlling me. It led me into foolish choices. By the age 12, the fruit of pornography and years of rebellion brought me to a place where I was no longer trusted in my own home. So I was sent to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, uh, French camp, Mississippi. There the Lord opened my eyes. I saw a world of brokenness, brokenness around me. So many kids had no fathers or had fathers who were abusive or addicted. But God humbled me and helped me see the blessings he had given me, a family who did love me, the opportunity to live in America. And after a year at a boarding um at the boarding school, the vice president of the school took me into his family and discipled me and invested into me for the next four years of high school. That season taught me how to read the word grown integrity and serve. I haven't mentioned Jesus yet. I did it on purpose, because if you were hearing my story, you might assume Jesus saved me at French camp, since that's where things seemed to start coming together. But that's not where Jesus chose to meet me. Jesus came into my life six months before I was sent to the boarding school. I wasn't seeking him. I wasn't I was living in rebellion while looking good on the outside. I could play the part physically, but my heart was tired, tired of deception, tired of lies, tired of walls. Come to me all who labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's Matthew 11, 28. Um and I believed, I believed Jesus when he said that. I gave my heart to him that day, but as will has preached through Joshua. Following Jesus is a choice we must make every single day. I'll be the first to admit that I choose my flesh more often than I'd like to admit. Some days my selfishness hurts people, and some days the spirit empowers me to love them. I've learned not to let the severity of my sin make me doubt the grace of God, but also not let the grace of God make me forget the severity of my sin. I'm I'm thankful that the Lord has given me his spirit who guides, convicts, and comforts me. I'm grateful for his word which realigns my heart to what is true. I'm blessed to have fellow believers, the church who walk alongside me, encouraging me and building me up. And thank you, Impact 360, it's a gap year program that I was able to do last year for a fruitful, a year of fruitful study of God's word and the world around me. Um God, thank you for being faithful to finish what you start, because Christ was obedient to finish what he started, giving his life so that I may have life. I know you will complete the good work you began in me, sanctifying me and making me a little bit more like Christ day by day.

SPEAKER_00: 45:14

If there are things that you could leave out that you chose to include, and I think that was a gift, I would also say recognizing that we have so many adoptive and foster care families. One of the greatest realities of Silas's story is that as believers enter into the mess that is broken families and adoption and fostering, one of the great gifts and one of the great realities is every one of us is an orphan in need of a new father. And that is true for those of us who have simple stories, and it is true for those of us who have incredibly complex stories. And I just want you to know how much I appreciate you sharing that. Um, Silas, because of your faith in Jesus Christ, we baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you guys haven't had the opportunity uh to meet or love on Silas, I would encourage you to do so. Band, if you guys want to go ahead and start coming this way. This morning has been a morning of sharing stories. I've done what I could on the pastoral side, on the scriptural side to encourage us with this. Let's be a people who never stop being stretched by the Spirit of God. Let's be a people who sing out. Let's be a people who pray for and receive prayer. If you need prayer, if you want to celebrate, we'll have some folks on the back porch to pray with you. But let's be a people who tell our stories. Anytime Jesus enters in, it is a great, great story. So let's be a people who share it. If you would go ahead and stand as we get ready to sing and give God the breath that He has given us back to Him.