Matthew Stuckey here, and I'm giving you another soul-winning tip, and in this video I want to talk to you about the importance of using examples and how that manifests itself in our Gospel presentations.
You know, obviously, you know, using examples is a great way for people to understand things and make illustrations and things such as that.
Well, in John chapter 3, verse 12, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and he kind of makes mention of this.
He says,
And what Jesus is saying is that he used earthly things to explain heavenly things.
Earthly examples to explain the spiritual.
And see, point number one is this.
Examples are a great way to illustrate what we're trying to say and help it to make sense to people.
And so Jesus speaks about that he used earthly things, earthly examples.
And so point number one is, hey, it's a good idea to use some examples when you're going soul-winning to help illustrate what you're trying to talk about.
Point number two, though, is this.
Realize that God has actually given us a lot of examples in regards to soul-winning that we can actually use.
You think of all the examples Jesus gives throughout the Bible.
You think of salvation being a gift.
Obviously, a gift is a great example that you can use just as everyone gets a Christmas gift or they've given and received gifts before.
It's something people can relate to.
Jesus talks about drinking this water you're going to thirst again, but it talks about the everlasting water.
And so being saved is like drinking a glass of water.
It's that easy.
Or he talks about being born again.
We've all been born physically one time.
To go to heaven, you have to be born spiritually one time.
And your parents are always going to be your parents.
And so there's many examples.
In this video, I'm not trying to go through all these individual examples.
I will be doing that after this video in the future videos.
I'm just trying to help illustrate to you that there are many different examples that Jesus gives in regards to actually preaching the gospel and going soul-winning.
And we can use these to help people understand.
So point number one, examples are a great way to help people understand things, understand the spiritual truth by giving them an earthly example.
Number two, Jesus has given us many examples.
The Bible has given us many examples that we can use.
And number three, realize that your own personal examples might actually be lacking.
See, the thing about the examples that Jesus gives and the Bible gives and God gives,
the thing is that they are basically perfect examples that are comprehensive and teach everything we need.
But your personal examples might not be.
You say, why is that?
Well, you know, my personal background is, you know, I always grew up, you know, loving soccer and math.
Those were those two things.
I love math. I love soccer.
And perhaps I could come up with some cool math illustration or some cool soccer illustration when I'm preaching the gospel to try to illustrate something.
But see, the problem is, if I'm preaching the gospel to someone who knows very little about soccer,
that example might go over their head.
If I try to use some offsides example and, you know, I'm trying to use that during my gospel presentation,
they might just be like, well, what is offsides?
And then you're spending five minutes explaining what offsides is and what it isn't in soccer.
And see, it would be an example that could be lacking because not everybody can relate to it.
When it comes to math, maybe a lot of people like math.
A lot of people don't like math.
Maybe some people are familiar with what I'm talking about.
Maybe some aren't.
If I start talking about the transitive property or things like that, some people might understand it, some might not.
Well, here's the thing.
It's an example that's lacking because not everybody can relate to it.
But see, the examples in the Bible are not lacking.
They're comprehensive.
They teach everything we need in regards to a person getting saved.
And there are things people can relate to.
People can relate to a gift.
People can relate to being born again.
People can relate to being, you know, salvation.
Physically, and it helps them understand the spiritual.
People can relate to, you know, opening a door.
I am the door.
There's a lot of great examples in the Bible, and God has given us them.
So instead of using your personal examples when preaching the gospel, just stick with the things that the Bible has.
And we have to be reminded of the fact that the gospel is meant to be simple and easy to understand.
We want to try to make it as simple as possible.
It's a gift.
That's what the Bible says.
So simple, so easy.
We don't have to come up with complicated examples.
The Bible talks about the faith of a child.
And so if you're using these complicated examples, are children going to be able to understand them?
Probably not.
And so let us just stick with the examples that God has actually given us in the Bible.
Anyways, thank you, and God bless.