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This past Sunday we learned about the art and science of a personal testimony from Paul's example in Acts 25-26. We learned that every personal testimony should include three main parts: life before Christ, meeting Christ, and life with Christ. 

That last point is what Paul demonstrates in  Acts 26:19-23—“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, (20) but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. (21) For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

If you could summarize Paul’s new life in Christ in a word, which word would you choose? I think the most fitting word is obedience. He begins this section by saying he wasn’t disobedient. Then he explains how he was obedient in Damascus, in Jerusalem, in Judea, and among the Gentiles. When he told people about Jesus, he told them to be obedient. He was obedient to Jesus, even if it meant risking his life in the process.

Is this how you understand your new life with Christ? Is your life marked by obedience? When you tell your story, do you talk about obedience? Sadly, many testimonies I hear don’t sound like this at all. Far too many Christians talk about a transformation in purely subjective terms: “I had this new sense of peace,” “I finally had joy,” “I never felt alone again,” “for the first time I knew genuine love.” Now all these things are often true for believers, but none of them are the best evidence of a believer.

It’s fashionable among many Christians to downplay obedience, but the Bible consistently depicts the believer as the person who obediently follows Jesus. Jesus says this in John 3:36—"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Hebrews 5:9 says Jesus is “the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” In Romans 6:17 Paul says thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

Friend, if you claim to be a Christian, but your life is not marked by obedience I invite you to examine yourself. Titus 1:16 talks about people who “profess to know God but deny Him by their works.” Is that you? Are you claiming to be a Christian because you prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, or got baptized one time? Or is there concrete evidence in your life today that you have been converted?

If I were to ask you to prove that you’re alive, what would you do? Would you go and locate your birth certificate? Would you point to it and say, “see, I’m alive!”? Of course not! If you want to prove that you’re alive you speak, you listen, you walk, you move. The same principle is true for believers in Jesus. You know you’re a genuine believer not because you can point to a baptism certificate or some date in your Bible that records when you walked an aisle. You know you’re a Christian because you speak to Jesus through prayer, because you listen to Him in His Word, because you walk in obedience to Him.

None of this means you obey perfectly, but if you’re a Christian you will obey truly. Your desire is to obediently follow Jesus. That’s why the church is so important. PBC Family, one of our responsibilities is to help each other obey Jesus. In fact, I would suggest to you that you cannot obey Jesus without a church family. There are too many “one another” commands in Scripture that require a local church family. When we take communion and look around, we’re reminded of our responsibility to help one another. And if one of us continues in unrepentant disobedience, our responsibility is to remove that person and treat them like an unbeliever because believers are people who strive to obey.