511. I'm saved - Great! Now what? (#1) March 18, 2024

[00:00:00] Welcome to Wisdom Today. My name is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. In this podcast

[00:00:12] we will be exploring the book of Proverbs.

[00:00:21] So open and prayer. Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this podcast today.

[00:00:27] Lord, I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every one of them.

[00:00:34] In addition, I pray that everyone listening would have favor with both God and man.

[00:00:40] I ask this in Jesus name, Amen. This is Proverbs 18 beginning in verse 1.

[00:00:49] A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. He rages against all wise judgment.

[00:00:58] A fool has no delight in understanding but in expressing his own heart.

[00:01:06] When the wicked comes, contempt comes also and with dishonor comes reproach.

[00:01:14] The words of a man's mouth are deep waters. The wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook.

[00:01:22] It is not good to show partiality to the wicked or to overthrow the righteous in judgment.

[00:01:30] A fool's lips enter into contention and his mouth calls for blows.

[00:01:38] A fool's mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul.

[00:01:45] The words of a tail bearer are like tasty trifles and they go down into the innmost body.

[00:01:53] He who is slothful in his work is a brother to him who is a great destroyer.

[00:02:01] The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe.

[00:02:08] The rich man's wealth is his strong city and like a high wall in his own esteem.

[00:02:16] Before destruction, the heart of a man is haughty and before honor is humility.

[00:02:24] He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.

[00:02:32] The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness but who can bear a broken spirit?

[00:02:40] The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

[00:02:48] A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before great man.

[00:02:55] The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him.

[00:03:04] Casting lots causes contensions to cease and keeps the mighty apart.

[00:03:11] A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city and contensions are like the bars of the castle.

[00:03:21] A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth,

[00:03:26] from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue

[00:03:35] and those who love it will eat its fruit. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains

[00:03:44] favor from the Lord. The poor man uses in treaties but the rich answers roughly. A man who has

[00:03:55] friends must himself be friendly but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

[00:04:04] Friends today I'd like to go over verse 20 and probably 18 verse 20 tells us this. A man's stomach

[00:04:15] shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, from the produce of his lips he shall be filled.

[00:04:25] Friends this is Bill Kelly your host and I'm going to do something a little bit different

[00:04:30] this week. I was planning on beginning my study on Luke's gospel this week but the last couple days

[00:04:38] the Holy Spirit has been dealing with me about the topic of new believers and people who have just

[00:04:48] entered into the kingdom of God, people who have just repeated the sinner's prayer and they're not

[00:04:57] exactly sure of what they've done and they don't know how to proceed from here. So that is what

[00:05:06] I'm going to spend this entire week on so on Tuesdays I have testimonies. So if you are a new

[00:05:15] believer I would invite you to listen to this testimony tomorrow but on today Wednesday, Thursday

[00:05:25] and Fridays podcast what I am going to do is slowly but surely give a bit of my testimony

[00:05:35] over a period of those four podcasts and basically go over in detail how I have become the person

[00:05:47] that I am today and so what I'd like to do is go to the book of Romans in chapter 10 and this is

[00:05:59] what it says beginning in verse 9 that if you confess with your mouths the Lord Jesus and believe

[00:06:09] in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved and this is who I am

[00:06:18] talking about this week. You have been saved and first of all let me be clear as to what that means

[00:06:28] once you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior you can be assured that you will not be going to hell

[00:06:37] that is good news what it also means is that you have been saved from all of your sins and what

[00:06:47] that means is you no longer have to be a slave to sin. Now what I'd like to do is go to the book

[00:06:58] of 2 Timothy and if we go to the second chapter and look at verse 15 this is what it says

[00:07:09] be diligent to present yourself approved to God a worker who does not need to be ashamed

[00:07:21] rightly dividing the word of truth. Now friends what does that mean? Now first of all at the time

[00:07:32] that I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior it was back in 1995 so it has been 28 years

[00:07:43] that I have been living the Christian life and I've mentioned this many times on this podcast

[00:07:52] you don't go from being a sinner and not knowing God to all of a sudden having it all together.

[00:08:03] It's incremental steps the Bible tells us we change from glory to glory and friends it's wonderful

[00:08:13] when you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior it's like a weight comes off of your shoulder

[00:08:21] knowing that you no longer have to be a slave to sin is a wonderful riddle. It is so important

[00:08:32] but this verse tells me that we need to do something now that we have taken that step

[00:08:42] now personally as a teacher I took this to mean that I was supposed to begin teaching the gospel.

[00:08:55] Now obviously as a public school teacher I couldn't do that in a public school setting

[00:09:04] so what that meant is I had to find an avenue or a platform where I would be able to share

[00:09:14] the good news of Jesus and the good news of scripture in general. So what I did is I went to a nursing

[00:09:24] home and I did a little bit of research on nursing homes in the area and I found one and selected one

[00:09:32] that I felt I was supposed to go to. So I still remember this was way back in 1996 now this didn't

[00:09:42] happen immediately and I still at that time was not married yet I ended up marrying my wife

[00:09:50] in January of 96 so there was a transition that took place over basically a seven or eight month period

[00:10:01] where I felt that the Lord was speaking to me I felt that I was supposed to let my guard down

[00:10:10] and begin to put my trust in Jesus and I knew that my wife who had been a Christian basically

[00:10:20] from her earliest days and she was always saved that it would be a good thing for me if I did that.

[00:10:30] So here I am going into this nursing home and I knocked and they said can I help you and I said yes

[00:10:39] I said I would like to make myself available to you what I'd like to do is come every other week

[00:10:47] and come from maybe an hour or an hour and a half and share the Bible with your residence

[00:10:56] and I said and my wife is a music teacher and she plays the piano so what I'd like to do is begin

[00:11:03] by going over a few well-known you know hymns and then I will give the message and she said well

[00:11:13] what are you expecting to get in return and I said absolutely nothing I said I'm just here to

[00:11:21] share the good news and basically to get to know the residents and basically share the love of God

[00:11:28] and I don't know how but she took the further steps she approved it through the people in charge

[00:11:39] and lo and behold I was going to begin my public ministry. Now for me that is what I felt the

[00:11:50] Holy Spirit was telling me I was supposed to be doing so I prepared a message for what I was

[00:11:59] gonna be going over that first time and my wife and I selected a few songs we let our church know

[00:12:07] that we were going to be beginning this and they were supportive of us they ended up giving us some

[00:12:13] hymn books that we could pass out to the people with the words on them so anyway we started this

[00:12:21] and this went on for a couple years but anyway I got myself into the word of God. Now most of you

[00:12:32] aren't going to do that most of you don't want to begin a personal ministry so what do you do in

[00:12:42] the meantime and this would be my thought friends there's one thing that everyone can do every one

[00:12:53] of us has a story and it's called a personal testimony so that is something that you can begin to

[00:13:04] share with your closest relatives people in your family if you are a child you can let your mom

[00:13:14] or dad know if you are the parent you can let your kids know and hopefully get to the point where

[00:13:23] your kids will do the same thing but I am going to mention here no one is going to get in to heaven

[00:13:33] based on someone else in their family being a Christian and you not taking that step individually

[00:13:43] the main thing that I would like to get across in the course of these four podcasts this week is where do you go

[00:13:55] to become stronger in your faith and in the book of Romans now this was written by Paul and Paul wrote a

[00:14:06] letter to the church in Rome at that time and what it says in chapter 10 of Romans and that's

[00:14:16] the same chapter that it says that we're going to be saved that was in verse 10 if we go just a few

[00:14:25] verses later in that same chapter chapter 10 verse 17 it says now then faith comes by hearing

[00:14:38] and hearing by the word of God so friends it is important that we get into the word of God

[00:14:49] now I know there are people listening to this podcast today that do not read scripture on a regular

[00:14:57] basis I know that and my encouragement to anyone listening today is that you consider beginning

[00:15:07] to read the Bible on a regular basis in my humble opinion I believe the reason many people do not

[00:15:19] read the Bible is because they are intimidated by the size of the Bible the Bible is not a regular book

[00:15:30] usually it is not a hundred and fifteen to a hundred and forty pages usually the Bible is over a thousand

[00:15:40] pages and a number of Bibles are two to three thousand pages and many people are intimidated by that

[00:15:51] I think when people go and think about reading the Bible they think that they need to read

[00:15:59] the entire Bible and friends if you have never read the Bible I am not going to suggest that you do

[00:16:07] that as a matter of fact I am going to suggest that you don't do that so this is what I'm going to

[00:16:16] do today what I am going to suggest is if there is a particular area of your life that you are really

[00:16:26] having difficulty with you can do what I call a topical study and you're going to look at your phone

[00:16:38] and go to Google and for example the last four weeks I have done topical studies on the word faith

[00:16:48] and the second one on the word righteousness and the third one on the word grace and last week

[00:16:59] I did it on the word trust and what you do is simply say for example if you want to do it on faith

[00:17:09] and if you want to increase your faith one thing you could do is go back to my archives look back

[00:17:20] four weeks and look at one of those podcasts and listen to those messages but if you have a

[00:17:28] different topic say for example fear and you have a lot of fear in your life simply look up

[00:17:36] and read about eight or ten passages of scripture in the Bible on the word fear

[00:17:45] get them into your heart meditate on them over and over again because the Bible tells us to not

[00:17:56] and a matter of fact the Bible tells us 365 times not to fear so every day you have one verse

[00:18:09] in the Bible that tells you do not be afraid do not fear friends before we close today I'd like

[00:18:19] to go back to our verse of the day and today we're in proverb 18 and verse 20 told us this

[00:18:28] a man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth from the produce of his lips

[00:18:36] he shall be filled and friends one of the things I've realized is that our words are so powerful

[00:18:45] a matter of fact if you go just one verse past verse 20 verse 21 tells us that death and life

[00:18:54] are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit but verse 20 says you will be

[00:19:02] satisfied with the fruit of your mouth and friends you're only going to be satisfied is if you say

[00:19:13] something nice say something kind and you see the people respond with a smile they'll say thank you

[00:19:22] oh thank you very much friends you're only going to feel good if you speak kind gracious loving

[00:19:31] words that is what Jesus asks us to do that's what it means to love God and love friends love people

[00:19:44] and we are to love everyone friends my call to action today is very simple ask yourself this question

[00:19:54] are you reading the Bible on a regular basis and give some thought to looking at a particular topic

[00:20:06] in the Bible and beginning to look at scripture using a particular topic and learning

[00:20:16] scripture that way friends I will never end a podcast without giving anyone an opportunity to

[00:20:24] receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior if there is anyone listening today and you've never taken

[00:20:31] that step I invite you to repeat a simple prayer after me today Jesus I recognize that I am a center

[00:20:39] and I have need of a Savior Jesus I know that you are the Son of God and that you came here and

[00:20:48] died on a cross and were buried on the third day I believe you were raised from the dead

[00:20:57] and have forgiven me of all of my sins Jesus thank you for doing that Jesus I invite you to come

[00:21:05] into my heart I make you my Lord and Savior now may the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord

[00:21:14] make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you the Lord lift up his countenance upon you

[00:21:22] and give you peace friends tomorrow is testimony day please join me and a special guest as we further

[00:21:31] explore wisdom today