From Worst Branch to Number One: Why We Must Share Testimonies
Dr RJ Sing, 10 November 2017, 19 min
Originally preached as “Colin and Ashana's Testimony”
Sermon outline
God answers prayer and gives His people favour, and the church needs to hear the testimonies of faithful members who have quietly served for years.
Opening
He calls Colin and Ashana to the front to share their testimony as an encouragement, and introduces them as people he has known for a very long time.
The power of prayer: worst branch to best
He recalls that when Colin started managing a bank branch it was one of the worst performing. He visited, they talked and prayed together, and the branch became the best producing in the province and number one in the country, which he links to what had just been shared about the power of prayer and the power of God.
“I mean, how can you explain that, the worst performing to the best performing?”
Favour on a faithful life
He introduces Ashana as someone he has known since she was a child: a bright young woman with a law degree, now a regional manager over many stores for a national chain, to whom God has given great favour.
“And God's given her such favor.”
We don't share testimonies, and we're changing that
Many members come quietly to church, sit and serve for years, and nobody knows what God has done for them. He says that is not their fault but the church's, because testimonies have not been shared, and that is changing.
“But it's not their fault, it's our fault because we don't share testimonies. And we're changing that.”
Their testimony
Colin tells how God promoted him and his work flourished after they joined the ministry in 2006, how a crisis at work in 2009 nearly crushed his hopes, and how Pastor's teaching that setbacks push us towards our destiny, that we must refuse depression and keep sowing in famine, carried him through. God sustained the family, opened the way back into work and then into three businesses of his own, and gave them favour in a property purchase the experts said was impossible; he says he took hold of Pastor's theme for 2017, a year of supernatural outpourings. Ashana thanks God for an early answer to prayer when they first came to the church, for repeated promotions, and for a difficult manager who came to recommend her after they prayed for him, and urges members to stay grounded and committed in the house of God.
Putting it into practice
- Share your testimony so that others are encouraged.
- Keep serving faithfully, even when no one knows what God has done for you.
Closing
He asks the church to clap as Colin and Ashana come up, and the rest of the recording is their testimony. Ashana closes by encouraging the church to stay grounded, committed and determined in the house of God, because they are in the right place to receive.
In his words
- “I mean, how can you explain that, the worst performing to the best performing?”
- “They just come quietly in church and they sit down for years and years and years and they've served.”
- “But it's not their fault, it's our fault because we don't share testimonies. And we're changing that.”