Telling The TRUTH
030913 Telling The Truth 28 Minute Program
[music] You're listening to "Telling the Truth" from Triple T. Christian Youth Ministries, "Telling the Truth to and Through Teenagers." Here is Triple T. founder and president, George Dooms. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there's no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going, King James. Use what you have. God wants you to understand that you have the opportunity to do something special for His glory. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. Don't be lackadaisical, nor have a nonchalant approach, but deliberately use what God has entrusted to you for the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a world to be one. There are souls that are waiting to be told hallelujah to heaven, and you can be the catalyst. You can be the one to tell them. All of us are going to leave this life one day, and there is no hope on the horizon for doing something once we are gone. But while we are here, let's use every effort and energy possible and expend it for God's glory, again for the furtherance of the gospel. With your prayer partner, with your share partner, take Jesus to people who need Him. Open the Word of God together. Pray diligently and deliberately. And then work out your strategy. And when you are ready, then go. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. Romans 12, 6a, New King James Version. It's what you do with what you have that counts. And God is entrusted to us very, very special things. Gifts that God has given. What are your gifts? Fair them out. Learn what they are. Develop them to the greatest possible degree that you can and use them for God's glory. Whatever gifts He has entrusted to you. One of the things you can do is pray. And if you don't know what your gifts are, you might want to have a prayer partner and share partner reading together with you. Romans 12. Check yourselves out. Find out what you could do if you would do what you should do with God's gift to you. Again, praying is of the utmost importance. Reflecting on God's Word is essential. And being a communicator of the gospel is the way to help folk come to know Christ. Will you prayerfully consider doing the work of an evangelist? Start where you are and use what you have. And God will make you usable and use you to make an impact on people that you know or should know. Use what you have. Our ministry let us use it in our ministry. He who teaches in teaching. Romans 12, 7, New King James. You have a ministry opportunity, a possibility to serve the Lord with all that He is entrusted to you. And if you are a teacher, if you have a heart for sharing truth with other people, then use it for God's glory. Use it to give honor to Him and to help people learn about Him. Rightly divide the Word of truth. Recently I was with somebody who claimed to be a right divider, but was not a worker in the Lord's vineyard sharing the gospel. He was simply basking in His own information taken intake, but not sharing the gospel with people who need Jesus. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Understand God will balance all that He has gifted you to do if you will use what you have for the furtherance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be a worker who does not need to be ashamed. Not a shirker, but a worker. There's a vast, vast difference. It's what you do with what you have that counts. So will you use what God has entrusted to you for His glory and the furtherance of the gospel? Let us use the gifts that God has entrusted to us. He who exhorts in our exhortation. He who gives with liberality. He who leads with diligence. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Romans 12, 8, New King James. Are you an exhorter? Are you a giver? Are you a leader? Are you a person who is merciful? Be cheerful. Be excited. Be delighted that God has entrusted gifts to you and then use what you have to bring honor and glory to God by sharing the story of the virgin birth, the sinless life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. People are waiting to hear the truth. Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Will you be a truth teller? Will you pray with a prayer partner and together? Will you share the gospel with people who need the Lord? Will you pray for them and then go to them with God's good news? There are people waiting for you to tell them how to get to heaven. Will you tell them today? You can, if you will. Have you memorized God's word? Do you know the plan of salvation? Can you share it effectively and prayerfully and directly? Use what God has entrusted to you. Do you love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, spirit, body, all of you? Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor, what is evil? Cling to what is good. Romans 12-9, New King James Version. What a wonderful way to go, without hypocrisy. Hypocrites are not nice people. Don't be one, and really, really get disgusted with things that are evil. They are sinful, that are not good, and then grab hold cling to what is good. God is good, and you can be good in God's sight if you will do His will. Find out what God's will is for you. Let Romans 12-1-2 give you guidance and direction, and then keep reading the rest of the verses right on through verse 9. And as God imparts to you wisdom through the Bible, share it with another person who is a believer, and together form a coalition to go with the gospel to people who need the Lord. Do it in love. Do you really love the Lord enough to serve Him? Do you love people who are lost enough to tell them how to be saved? Love is the need of the hour. God is love, and God so loved the world that He gave. Will you go with the gospel? Are you praying with other believers? Listen to Romans 12-10 and 11, New King James. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Isn't that fantastic? Isn't that magnificent? God gives us the formula. He gives us the plan. What we can do to be effective for His glory. Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Diligence is a very interesting term, but God wants your diligence to be dedicated to Him. Is it? If not, will you just present your body a living sacrifice, holding acceptable unto God, which is the most reasonable thing in the whole wide world you could possibly do? And as you pray with other believers, as you determine the strategy to take the gospel to people who need Jesus, prayerfully go, let them know that they need to admit they have sin, turn to Jesus from their sins, to trust Him with all of their hearts, and then to tell other people they have believed. That's how the multiplication of the gospel of Jesus Christ happens. Will you be a multiplier? You can multiply your ministry by sharing Jesus with others. Rejoice in hope, patient intribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality, bless those who persecute you, bless, and do not curse. Romans 12, 12, 13, and 14 are King James Version. Rejoice in hope. Do you have hope on the horizon for something you believe God would be pleased to have happen? Then keep it intact, praying expectantly. Be patient in tribulation. You are going to have some difficulties. Some folk really are going to upset you, so be careful and be prayerful. Continue steadfastly in prayer. That means constantly talk to the Lord about your needs and about the needs of others. Then distribute to the needs of the saints. In other words, give gifts and things to people who are in need who are believers. Be hospitable in the middle of all things. And here's the difficult one. Bless those who persecute you, bless, and do not curse. It's so easy to fight back, to flare up when people are putting you down. But look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Give honor and glory to him and tell people about him. Every Saturday at 7.27 p.m. you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T. 13,000 US-41 North at Booneville and Harmony Road, midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for ages 6 to 9 is available in a separate room. For more information call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. [music] Use what you have. The leading youth concept, the faith factors, are a series of steps to reach youth. Jesus Christ. The world must be saved. Jesus said, "I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly." He gave us John 3.16, but he also gave us John 3.17. And almost everybody, I know, who is a Christian, has memorized John 3.16. But not so many have memorized John 3.17. So let's listen to Jesus himself as he is giving us this very, very special message from his heart. This is God's Word, speaking in the words of Jesus Christ. First, let's listen again to John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that her believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3.17. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. The world must be saved. How does it happen? One at a time. That's the way you became a Christian. When we admit we have sinned, we believe on Jesus Christ when we're willing to share our faith in him with others. Well, the first concept is pray always. Next, seek God's will. You do that in every area of your life. The third thing to do is set your goals. Set your goals again in all those four areas. The physical, the mental, the social, the spiritual. The number four, you just have to start where you are. Not where you wish you were, not where you used to be, not where you're someday going to be, but where are you now? And then concept number five, use what you have. If you don't have it, you can't use it. So, if you don't have it, acquire it, and then use what you have. But you have been entrusted by God with a multiplicity of talents, and God wants you to ferret out those talents and use them for his glory. The word ferret comes from a little animal. So it's worth a zoo, and we saw that little ferret come out. Out in the West, when the farmers were having difficulties, some of their plants were being attacked by some varmints. They put those little ferrets down there, and they got those things out. And that's why we use the word ferret. Those are little animals that go after their goal. They're goal seekers. They go in after, and they bring out their foes to the top. And we need to find out what is down deep inside of us, that God is entrusted to us, because you have talents. God has given you talents. But if you're not going to pay the price to develop those talents, you might as well not have them, right? So it's what you do with what you have that counts. So, what are we to do? We're to use what we have. Moses was approached by God, and he was called of God to lead the children of Israel. But you know what Moses said? "I cannot." "No way, Jose. I can't do it." But you know what God said? He said, "Moses, I want you to answer a question for me. What is that in your hand?" And Moses said, "A rod." God said, "Take that rod and throw it down." Moses threw the rod down, and the rod became a snake. "Hiss!" God said, "Okay, Moses, pick it up." Fearfully trembling. He reached out and grabbed that snake by the tail, and it became a rod. And God said, "Use what you have, Moses. Use your rod to lead my people." Moses was obedient to God at that moment. He later argued again about not being able to speak and having other problems. But if we take a look at what is in our hands, what are we going to find? Take an inventory of your tools. What do you have available? What do you know? What can you use for God's glory? The one thing that we have that all of us have in common is the Bible, the Word of God. So as we have a Bible, let us not just hold it high, but let us penetrate our hearts with it, and let us use it for God's glory. Let us find out all that we can about the Bible, and then let us take the concepts and the precepts of the Word of God and expose them to young people who need to know Jesus. God wants to use you, and He wants you to pray this prayer. Lord, make me usable, and use me for your glory. So continue taking your inventory. Has God given you the privilege to be able to carry a tune and make a melody with your voice? Wonderful. But pay the price to develop that to the ultimate degree that you possibly can. Practice, rehearse, do it over and over and over again. I have a friend who wants to sing for God's glory, and when I first met this friend, I thought, boy, he can sing pretty well. Now I hear him sing, and I say, he can sing much, much better. You know why? Because every day he sings, every day he practices, every day he uses what he has to develop it to further God's kingdom and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ is exalted. I don't know what your abilities are, I don't know what your talents are, but whatever you can do, use what you have for God's glory. And the more you use what you have, the more adept you will be at the utilization of that talent or that tool. What's the real need? Getting the gospel from its hiding place and exposing it to people in the world one at a time. Remember what Jesus says here? "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." We're not talking about a collective group of people, all of a sudden becoming Christianized. We're talking about individuals, men, women, guys and girls saying, "I know I've sinned, I know I've messed up, I'm sorry about it, I'm going to move to Jesus Christ from my sins." And they're going to have changed hearts. You see, if you will use what you have, you will be able to accomplish far more than if you don't. And of course, as I said earlier, you must acquire the tools. If you're going to really have an impact, if you're going to make an impact on the people that you're going to try to reach, if you're going to expand that circle that we find ourselves in, and if we're going to increase it and enlarge it, then we're going to have to tell other people about the circle, about what's going on, about where and why and what and how it's all happening. So how do we do this? Well, we get our tools together. What kind of tools do we need? It all depends on your circumstance, your situation. Perhaps you need a poster, a poster that says, "This is the event. This is the youth happening. Here's what's going to take place and when it's going to take place and where it's going to take place. Maybe we need to have a small reproduction of that poster that we would call a flyer or bulletin insert. Printed information that we can have available to hand out to lots and lots of people, to put in the mail or hand out one-on-one or do some other distribution of that information. What can we do? What tools can we use? Let's collect everything that we need to get the job done. Has the media been informed of your outreach? Use what you have. Use your computer. Even use a pen or a pencil. Write a news release and say, "This is what's going to happen. This is who's coming. This is where it's going to take place. This is the month, the day, the year. This is the precise time that it's going to happen." As we work together to get the word out, this is just another tool that we can use for God's glory. And God wants us to just take a constant personal inventory and group inventory to say, "What can I do? What can I use for Him? Help that each of us will understand that promotion doesn't come from the east or from the west, the north or the south, but it comes from God, that God will allow us to be at the right place and the right time to share what we know and what we can do with other people effectively. And as this happens, then we can have more and more people, not just informed, but making a commitment to come to the effort, to the event. Are we doing all of this so that we can have fun? Well, we're going to have fun doing it hopefully, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to reach people with God's glorious gospel, to get them to the sound of the gospel, to get them into a place where they can be reached effectively. This is why all the things that we do happen. This is why we have icebreakers and involvements and inspiration and the impact itself, which can be a movie or a message from an individual speaker, a music group or whatever, as long as the gospel is precisely and concisely presented to the people who are going to come to believe on Christ. And when we do this, we're going to see great things happen. So we need to understand that the tools have all got to be on hand. Use what you have. It's one thing to have them all piled up in the corner and say, "Isn't that beautiful?" Look at those posters. Boy, I've got a stack of posters. I've got a stack of bulletin inserts. Look at that. And if they don't get out, what good is it to use them as door stops or dust collectors? Use what you have. You put your feet to work and you make a distribution plan and you get them out there to the people who need to have them, right? So as we do this, we can see again what's going to happen as we together put it all in proper perspective. Using what you have takes work. It takes effort. It takes energy. It's not going to happen automatically. It happens when we make the determination in our hearts and then in our heads when we follow up with that decision to use what we have. You see, the word "use" is an active word. "U-S-E." Use it. Somebody has phrased it this way. Use it or lose it. We need to use it for God's glory. The book of James talks practically, pragmatically, about working out the plan and doing something. Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. For if anyone is a hear of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself and goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it is not a forgetful hear, but a doer of the work. Use what you have for God's glory. And as you put it all together, you'll be able to see that you have one major thing umbrellaing everything else that's there. It's just all over the top of it all, and it's called P-R-A-Y-E-R. Prayer. Prayer gets the job done. Before you use anything, you need to pray. Dear God, make me usable. Use me. Use this object. Use this tool. Use this talent for your glory. Then you need to pray specifically for the people that you are concerned about. You need to pray that God will help you reach out to them, and the job will be done. The world will be won one at a time, okay? So if we get it together properly in our prayer perspective, we're going to understand that we pray because everything depends on God. And we work as if it all depends on us. Prayer is the one thing in every Christian's arsenal that can be used at any moment under any circumstance. But do you know why we are powerless as Christians? Because we are prayerless. Much prayer. Much power. Little prayer. Little are no power. So let's understand that you have to use the privilege of prayer. You can't say, I believe in prayer. I've read books about prayer. I've talked about prayer. I've even listened to a lecture about prayer. Boy, do I know a lot about prayer. That will do you no good at all unless you use what you have. The privilege of prayer. Call on the Lord. Talk with Him directly. Specifically, make your requests made known to God, okay? And when we do this, we can even pray again specifically about the tools that are before us. Lord, how am I supposed to use this? How can I really reach the most possible people in the shortest possible time? Show me what to do. Give me guidance and direction that only you can so that I can be effective for you. So that we can multiply our outreach, so that we can honestly have an impact where we are. Prayer is a privilege that should not be neglected. If we will understand this, wow. What a great thing is going to happen. Praying alone is okay, but praying together with others really adds dimension that is indescribable and very difficult to ascertain in advance of what's going to transpire when it happens. Suffice it to say, "The Bible tells us," and I shared this some time ago with you. Jesus said, "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." However, once we have prayed, then we must move out as if it all depends on us. God does not do for you what you can do for yourself. If God wanted to, he could take his finger and could write John 3.16 in clouds all over the world in any language anywhere so that everybody, anybody could just look up and see the gospel and be saved. God could do that. Do you believe that he could do that? But he didn't choose to do that. Do you know what God chose to do? He chose to use people, people like you, people like me. And we have not only the responsibility, but we have the privilege of using what we have for his glory. So if our effort is not successful, is it God's fault? No, because he is available to us. We need to pray to him to ask for guidance, for direction, for perfect, perfect leadership that the Holy Spirit can and will provide for us when we make ourselves available to the Lord. Then we need to take that next step and the next and the next, using what we have for God's glory. The utilization of things for the glory of the Lord will make all the difference there is. I like to go into nurseries and look at the toy box and see all those wonderful things that have been put there. Then I like to watch when boys and girls are led in the room. And you know what they do? What did you do when you were boys and girls and you had a toy box? You would go in and you would get something out and you wouldn't just leave it in the toy box, but you would take it out. That's what kids do. They take it out and they start to use it. They play with it hardly ever when they have been in the nursery. Do I go back and see all the toys back in the box? They say, "I've played with it. I'll put it back where it belongs in the box." No, they don't. And what about you? Are you using what you have for the glory of the Lord? I hope you are. I hope that you'll contact us. Again, write to us or call us. That would be great. Christ through you can change the world. Every Saturday at 7.27pm, you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T, 13,000 US-41 North at Boone Building Harmony Road, Midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for ages 6 to 9 is available in a separate room. For more information, call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. For your free copy of the "Telling the Truth" newsletter, call 812-86724-18, 812-86724-18, or write Triple T, 13,000 US-41 North, Evansville, Indiana, 477-25. Tune in to "Telling the Truth" next week at this same time on this same station. [Music] [MUSIC PLAYING]