We've all been hurt. We all have scars. And through a relationship with Jesus Christ,
we can all overcome and we can all be healed. Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Hey everybody, welcome back to this sanctuary. So another year has gone by and I have once
again made my annual trek out to OKC to go and hang out with some of my favorite people.
And it's always good to go back out there. You know, it's good to have the fellowship.
It's good to have the camaraderie and the love. And something that has always stuck
out is the testimony. Every single year I get to go out, I get to hang out with all
these amazing people and I get to hear these amazing testimonies. And it's always gotten
me thinking that a lot of times people are out there, they're giving testimony and they
don't even realize it. God's light is shining through us and lighting not only our paths
but the darkness that others around us have been dealing with. The fact that we share
so much is part of what makes coming together so electric. You know, a little bit of common
ground that you might have with someone is what turns the field drastically. You go from
going in and just having this little, you know, I'm meeting a couple of people and
suddenly having this leveled huge field very quickly. Alright? And that's going to be
what I'm talking about today. So we're going to get some legalistic jargon out of the way
real fast. So go ahead, open your Bibles up, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 10. And the
Bible says, on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled by the
day's holy people and to be marveled at among all those who believed, this includes you
because you believed our testimony to you. So this is identifying testimony as witness.
It is a form of evidence. A very legalistic definition even by today's standards. You
know, hello law and order, I wish I kind of had a little soundtrack button for that at
this moment. So, you know, it is, it is extremely legalistic. Now, we're going to go a little
bit further here. Flip over to Psalm 119 and we're going to look at verse 88. So Psalm
119 verse 88, the Bible says, In your unfailing love preserve my life, that I may obey the
statutes of your mouth. Even better, look at Isaiah chapter 8 verse 16. In Isaiah chapter
8 verse 16, the Bible says, bind up this testimonial warning and seal up God's instruction among
my disciples. And emphasizes this in Isaiah 8 20 in which the Bible says, consult God's
instruction and the testimonial warning if anyone does not speak according to this word,
they have no light of dawn. What is all this? Well, simply put, it's the scriptures as the
revelation of God's will. You know, people say, oh, I don't know what God wants from
me. And they're right, they don't. And you know why? It's because they don't read the
scripture. They don't read God's word. They have a Bible and it sits there and it collects
dust. You know, you go into a parking lot outside of a church on any given Sunday, you
just kind of walk through, there's a good chance you'll probably even see a Bible that's
been sitting in that back window, you know, just collecting dust and it's faded and crudded
and just kind of worn out and falling apart because, you know, the sun's done its damage.
You know, a lot of people, you know, the Bible is the number one thing that's going to be
sold around the world is the Bible. So many are sold and so regularly, they don't even
put it on the list because, I mean, it's just the champ. The champ is not dethroned, ever.
All right? That's how popular it is. Yet people don't ever even look at it. You know, they
might open it up once or twice once they get it, but then that's it. You know, so what
is Scripture? It's the very Word of God. This is God's way of talking to us, you know,
first and foremost. You know, binding up and sealing God's instruction there in verse
16, it's talking about writing down His Word and passing it along to the next generation.
You know, we have our Bible today because past generations ensured that His Word was
preserved and passed it to us, you know, and now we've inherited that same message.
You know, it's on us to become those scribes. You know, over the years, that's why they
talk about like the scrolls and everything because, you know, whatever form was used
at that time, you know, it's moved forward. You know, and of course, as time goes and
the way, you know, people talk to the different dialects, different languages, you know, as
the vernacular changes, of course, you know, the wording changes a little so that it can
still speak to the people, still get the same message across. You know, it's like even
here in the U.S., people talk about the Bibles and they're like, oh, it's not the original?
Well, hey, guess what? You can go out there and you can get yourself a Bible written in
Greek or Hebrew and neither one of those is going to be the same as it was back then because
of the same reasons, the way people speak and the way that the language has changed
over the years. If you were able to actually go out and find something in the original,
good luck with that unless you're a scholar that works in that field and has access to
those libraries physically, the odds of you actually seeing that kind of stuff is next
to nil. But even then, you go through and you read it, you know, it's people struggle
just to decipher the King James version. It's like this is it. I don't read shit. I don't
read Shakespeare. What is this? Nobody talks in these and vows anymore. And it's the same
kind of thing. All right. A little bit of rabbit trail there. Like I said coming back,
we've inherited the same mission, you know, to as you know, as people and generations
have gone past to become the scribes that pass on the mission, you know, to pass on
the word, you know, years pass, you know, called scribes, you write it down. Even you
think of even older times, you know, how were things passed along in the oral traditions,
you know, song and story and all that kind of stuff, you know, and I guarantee you, you
know, I know that there's someone out there who's like, what do you mean? I'm on a I have
a mission here. You know, you weren't expecting to be told it. But hey, guess what? Here we
are. And we do. And it's amazing, because we've all been doing it all along. And I
think that's why it's so important to be here for so long. Just being here and listening,
you know, it's because you believe in that mission of not leaving a fellow warrior behind.
Now, you know, from a very military aspect and for veterans, you know, and this pertains
to first responders and all as well, you know, that's my heart. That's what I did for a
veteran. I mean, I don't want to leave anyone behind on the battlefield and the various
theaters of war going on in their hearts and their minds. We often forget about the spiritual
war that's going on in each and every single one of us, and everyone that's around us.
We get so focused on helping each other and trying to save each other, you know, physically,
mentally, and so on that, you know, we forget about the most important trauma that's out
there, that's been treated, the spiritual trauma. You know, our focus is so caught up
on just what we're seeing in front of us. Like I said, that physical, those emotional,
the mental aspects, you know, it's very much, you know, if you would, a holistic needs type
of approach, you know, because it doesn't do us any good. I mean, you know, are we going
to keep someone breathing? Yes. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. Don't twist it or contort
it. It's good. But I mean, what good is it if we're to pick up, you know, our brother
or our sister just to leave them in condemnation? We need to ensure that they know the gospel.
Not that they've heard, you know, a little bit of something or watched a little something
on TV, but that they truly know the gospel. And that comes from our testimony. Okay, our
testimony. Isaiah chapter 43, if you open up to that. So Isaiah chapter 43 verse 10.
The Bible says, you are my witnesses, declares the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen.
And in Isaiah 44, just a little bit later, if you were to flip over to that, so Isaiah
chapter 44 verse eight, the Bible continues on to say, do not tremble, do not be afraid.
Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God
besides me? No, there is no other rock. I know not one. See, our testimony is a huge
part of how we answer the call of the Great Commission, you know, how we go out about
it. Our testimony is to share our personal accounts of what he has done for us in our
lives. You know, while a lot of people out there in the world, you know, people in general,
you don't see God directly. We don't get to come face to face and have a casual conversation
like we would with any other Joe Schmo. However, while the people of the world don't see him
and they don't know him, they do see his love and they do see his light. It's because it's
reflected in us as Christians, as followers of Christ. It's reflected through our words
and our actions, our examples. So, you know, here at this point, someone's out there thinking,
oh boy, you still want us to go out into the world and start throwing scripture at people?
Well, yes and no. You know, to those who haven't been saved, to those who don't know Jesus,
you and I are all that they're probably ever going to know of him. You know, again, this
comes back to our words and our actions are what they see. So, do you reflect his light,
his hope, his love, or in your jerk? What do they see? You don't have to use scripture
to show the Lord in your life. His work is in your life. His work in your life is your testimony.
So, you know, I have a, every year when I go out, this year was the first exception,
we missed him, you know, but one of our buddies, our brother, Shane, he comes out and he very
eloquent puts it, you know, if you've ever had a relationship, you can sell. And it's
the same thing, you know, he's talking about sales, but in this respect, you know, it's
the same thing. You know, you think about it, who all do we know? Who all is out there?
Who all is listening? Who all is present? We've got veterans, first responders, teachers,
cooks, construction workers, you know, you name it. Customer service, you know, representatives,
technical support representatives are out there, truckers, bus drivers, you know, everything,
janitors, everything, everything across the board. But here's the point, in the words
of the electric one, it doesn't matter who you are, okay? You can be a janitor or you
can even be a down and out living on the street kind of struggling not knowing how you're
going to get by one day to the next. Yet, you'll still have the story of God intervening
in your life. Who set you into the world? God. Who set you up that once in a lifetime
trip? God. Who created those memories with friends and family? God. Who convinced you
to make that career change? God. Who kind of nudged you into putting in for that position
that you were really hesitating on? God. You know, who helped you to become a parent when
you never thought you would? God. Who pulled you out of that bottle and helped you to sober
up? God. Who pulled you out of that position that was out there where you were about to
be killed? God. Who sent someone to you when you were hurt and might have died? God. Who
kept you from hurting someone else? God. The reason that kept you from pulling the trigger
when you were so convinced you were done with life? God did that. And there are so many
things that happened in our lives, everywhere, each and every single one of us. There are
so many blessings that we can share. That's God. What God speaks into our lives is what
we can share with the world so they can see Him in us. I mean, you can go out there, yeah,
you can throw scripture at people, absolutely. But to those who don't understand it, you're
speaking in a foreign language. Look at the disciples. What did they do? Did they go to
some fancy college? No. Now, they did spend three years learning directly from Jesus.
So they learned a lot, yes. However, their greatest testimony was from their own experiences,
their own relationship with Jesus and what God had done for them and their own walks.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, we're going to open up to that. In 2 Corinthians chapter
4 verse 5, the Bible says, for what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord
and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. It's about Jesus. Now, when we give
our testimony, we need to remember not to put Him in the back seat. See, it's not about
us. It's not about our accomplishments or our abilities. What it is, it is about what
Jesus has done. People need to be introduced to Him, not us. They already see us. We need
to be pointing the way, just like John the Baptist, we need to be pointing the way to
Jesus. When we go out there, we're talking, we're sharing things. As my wife likes to
say, it's not about you, Burton. Hey, it's not about me. It's not about you either.
It's about Jesus. When people hear you preaching, I'm sorry, when you hear people preaching
about their own ideas instead of Christ, that's when you need to watch out. You need to look
out for those false teachers. But when they're preaching about the things that God has done
for them personally, when they're sharing the Word with those who are ready to hear
it, that is powerful. That's where it comes back to being a servant leader. See, serving
people, it's not cheap. It's not. Serving people will require time. Serving people will
require effort. Serving people will require sacrifice. And people, without a doubt, will
disappoint you. Matter of fact, there will be some that won't even come close to living
up to what you would expect from them. But let me remind you, the Bible tells us, we
all fall short of the glory of God. Each and every single one of us, because it's through
His mercy and His grace that we're saved. See, think about it. We all know those quote-unquote
adults who still act like children. You go to work, or even if you don't work with them,
you go someplace where you see them frequently. You're like, oh gosh, this moron again. It's
a fact of life. So what is it about testimony then? It's the power that our testimonies
hold. See, your testimony is a declaration of the truth of God. John chapter 8 verse
32, the Bible says, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Just
a few verses later, in verse 36, the Bible continues on to say, so if the Son sets you
free, you will be free indeed. That's power. That's freedom. Jesus is the truth that sets
us free. No matter where we are in our life or where we are in our path, that's freedom.
Freedom from continued slavery to sin. Freedom from self-deception. Freedom from Satan.
When we look at serving God, His truth frees us to be who He intended for us to be. We
get to finally become the people. Now, it's not instant, of course. It takes time. But
at that point, once we finally get to taste that freedom, we finally start changing into
who we are supposed to be. Now, let's go back a little bit here to John chapter 4.
When you look at John chapter 4 verses 1 through 38, the Bible tells us about the Samaritan
woman who met Jesus at Jacob's well. Keep in mind, she had never met Jesus before. Here's
a woman. She had committed so much sin, so much that she went out of her way to stay
clear of the people of her own town. People knew her. They knew exactly what was up. It's
kind of like these days. They talk about, oh yeah, they've been around the block a time
or two. This was that woman. She had been married several times. She was living with
another man who wasn't even her husband. And again, like I said, she had never met Jesus.
Yet here he is coming up to her, talking to her, and telling her about all the things
that she had done. Her past transgressions, if you would. He's letting her know, hey,
I know who you are. I still don't have a problem talking to you. He treated her like a human
being. He treated her with compassion. He showed his love. Now, now she believed. It
was life changing. And that's what's meant by life changing when people talk about life
changing things in the Bible. So she came out of hiding. Happily, she came out of hiding
and she ran and she started telling everyone about Jesus. Her testimony after this brief
encounter with the Lord. And it was. It was a very brief encounter. So what happened?
In verses 39 through 41, the Bible says many of the Samaritans from that town believed
in him because of a woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the
Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them and he stayed two days. And
because of his words, many more became believers. So what happened? Did she go into town and
start throwing scripture around and preaching at people? You know, was that was that her
thing? Was she out there just, you know, stay, you know, be basically becoming a street corner
preacher and just throwing it all at people? No, absolutely not. All she did was she went
in and she started telling people what Jesus did for her, what Jesus had told her. And
because of her belief in him, she was free because of what the people saw in her. They
believed Jesus changes our lives when we truly accept him. We change. And while it might
not always seem like it because it's going to change a lot of things in your life, things
are that some things are actually going to get hard. But everything that changes because
of Jesus in our lives is for the better. So John chapter one, John chapter one verses
29 through 51, the Bible tells us that John the Baptist gave his testimony of Jesus to
two of his disciples. I talked about this not that long ago, what, two, three or maybe
even a month ago. This maybe has been a little while. But what happened here? John the Baptist,
he gave his testimony. He told a couple of his own disciples, his own students who Jesus
was. He was pointing the way to Jesus. And the same thing happened. That testimony of
one person brought more students to Jesus. So if you recall just a little bit ago, closer
to the beginning of this, I did say, your testimony comes from what you say and what
you do. And I'd like to share one of my favorite examples of this. And some of you may have
heard this story before. It's history. It's not even a story. It's history. This is something
that actually happened a long, long time ago. Those of you who study history fervently,
military history especially, and not from the US, this didn't happen here in the US.
Back in the US, didn't even exist yet. So in what we know today as Turkey, the Roman
Emperor Valerius, I'm going to butcher his name here a little bit. Valerius Licinius
went to great lengths to persecute Christians and to get them to renounce their faith.
Now, about 320 AD, there were 40 Roman soldiers who had professed themselves as Christians,
and they refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods, and they were being ordered to do this.
So what happened was they were stripped of their military titles, jailed, and essentially
tried for treason, just for professing their faith. This all took place in the winter,
and for those of you who aren't familiar with the geography, and I know most people
aren't because geography is kind of rough, in that area in particular, winters get really,
really harsh, like insanely harsh. And their sentence, the sentence of these 40 soldiers
was that they were going to be taken out to a frozen lake, stripped naked, and then sent
out onto the lake. The soldiers, and the soldiers, more soldiers were going to, those who were
loyal, they were going to be placed all around the lake. Basically, they were going to put
sentries all the way around the lake to make sure that none of these men tried to escape.
And what they did was they took, they basically set up a tent with a warm bath, so kind of
a makeshift bath house, but they set up a warm bath just a little ways away from them
on the shore. All right, so all any of them needed to do to be forgiven was to renounce
their faith, and then they'd be taken straight to the bath to warm up. All right, so that's
pretty harsh. Basically, they're being marched out, stripped naked, and being told, hey,
you're going to go out there and you're going to freeze to death tonight unless you renounce
your faith. Plain and simple, that's what it came down to. So they went on to show just
how great their faith was. When they were taken out, they didn't wait for the guards
or the other soldiers to come and strip them. They took off their own clothes and then ran
out onto this lake like a bunch of mad men. They just ran out on the lake like, hey, check
this out. We're good. God's on our side. Woo-hoo. And they're out there. They're very
motivated, and they encouraged each other. And this stood well into the night, and that
temperature, it dropped to absolutely unbearable levels. Now, when this happened, one, only
one, a single soldier came off that lake, came out of that ice, and went to renounce
his faith. So they took him to the bathhouse, and basically he died of shock as soon as
he got in the tub. Plain and simple, and knowing now what we know about hypothermia and all
that kind of stuff, we understand why. Now, upon seeing the conviction of the remaining
39, one of the sentries who was watching, who was not a Christian, he's watching what's
going on, and he has a vision, basically this vision of crowns on all their heads and that
they're warm. At this point, just seeing their action, seeing their actions, the testimony
of what they were doing, that converted him. He went and he professed his faith, stripped
down out of his armor and his clothing, and walked out to join the other 39, therefore
bringing their number back up to 40. And the night continued on. Come morning, those frozen,
they were frozen stiff. Those 40, they were still there. Their number did not go down
again. It did not change again. They were frozen stiff, yet some of them were still
alive, barely, but they were there. So they were all taken. Those who had died, those
who were still alive, and they were all just burned. And what they did afterwards was they
took their ashes and they dumped it into a river. Today, they are still remembered as
the 40 martyrs of Seabast. Their actions, the testimony in itself, and it saved one
right off the bat, and it saved many more since. Matter of fact, their ashes, when it's
poured into the river, people went to try to collect some of those ashes out of the river.
That's how much it spoke even then. And you imagine, you say, hey, guess what, you're
going out there naked and you're going to freeze to death. And in doing so, you're going
to save so, so many. I want you to think, you know, here's the effect of all this. I
want you to think of a candle. And you take that candle and you touch it to another. Now
that flame's expanded. You know, it's come from dark, a little bit brighter, just a little
bit. And then you take both of those candles and you touch a couple more candles and so
on and so forth. If you've ever been to like a crystal candlelight service, you know what
I'm talking about. You go from a room that is extremely dim and then eventually as all
those candles keep getting lit and lit and lit and lit and so on and so forth, eventually
it becomes very, very bright. Our testimony, yours and mine, that is the first candle.
That testimony, that is the light, that light from God. You share that light. When we go
out there, we share that light, we share our testimony and we give that glory to God when
we do it. And we point people to God. As much as we get wrapped up in ourselves, we just
can't forget to truly be our brother's keeper and to point the way to Jesus. We share our
light, the light of God that's with us. We share our testimony and that spreads out.
That is being your brother's keeper. That's answering the Great Commission. That is how
you give your testimony. Words and actions.
Thank you for tuning in to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. If you'd like to know more
about our ministry, you can find us on Facebook at Be The Light Sanctuary or you can visit
our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org. Thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you
next time. God bless.