Sunday Morning, August 1, 2010
BAPTISM: KEN SELMAN
** I asked Ken to write out his testimony. He shared a little bit during the service, but he was pretty overcome by emotion. After he shared, I read his testimony to the congregation. I have printed it below. The short message that follows it is simply what I shared before we baptized him…
Ken’s Testimony
My name is R. Ken Selman Jr., I was born 29 October 1964, in Clovis, Curry County, New Mexico. My early years were in Hobbs, New Mexico, and I graduated Hot Springs High School in May of 1982, in T. or C., New Mexico. During these years I did go to church early on in life, but it tapered off by my mid-elementary years. It was during these latter years that Satan took hold of me. My first encounter with alcohol was when I was approximately 11-12 years old, and it grew increasingly worse over the next 34 years.
I'm not saying that alcohol was my only problem, I was living for all the lusts of the world, with no other cares in the world. I was divorced when all three of my kid's were at a young age, and I blamed my divorce on the LORD as well. I had a conceived notion that good deeds would keep me in good graces with the LORD, so I did good deeds quite often to "keep in the LORD's good graces."
Eight years after my divorce I took my ex-wife to court and was awarded custody of all three of my children. This was a very trying time for me as well, because of the resentment my kids had toward me for taking them away from their mother. I worked through it and eventually won the kids’ favor, but I continued my lusts of the world.
As time went on being a single, working dad, I found myself asking (praying) the LORD for patience through his mercy and grace. Eventually something clicked in my mind (heart), and I found myself asking more and more from the LORD, but still doing my own thing. I started thinking that I needed to be a “better dad,” so I started trying to tell my kids about the LORD, but I continued to do things that were not right, in other words telling my kids "do as I say, not as I do."
My son started riding bulls both in High School Rodeo and Pro/Am rodeo's, and I was hauling my youngest two kid's all over this state and the four surrounding states. I had these two kids start accompanying me to "cowboy church services" held in the stands on Sunday mornings, and my son and I would attend prayers behind the bucking shoots prior to the bull riding competition, but I continued to do my own thing. A couple of years later I would end up sending my youngest daughter back to her mother for reasons that I now associate with me "doing my own thing." My son continued bull riding, eventually going professional, and I continued to haul with him, and we continued to attend cowboy church services and prayers behind the chutes, until he moved out of the home to live his own life.
Now with all three of my children graduated and out of the home, I still felt very alone and wondering what the problem was. I felt a tug on my heart to seek the LORD's face, but I did not want to give up my way of living, I mean I was "having fun." I started kinda of half hearted seeking the LORD's face, and I claimed to be a "Christian" with my mouth, but I was far from it. I was challenged by my ex-fiancée to start attending church and reading the Word, while at the same time praying with an open heart. I took this advice.
In January 2010, I started reading the Bible and praying with an open heart. I started thinking about a church I could attend, and remembered attending this church on a couple of occasions, so I came one Sunday in January. I felt good and accepted here, so I have attended as often as I could ever since. I was invited by a couple of members of this church to attend the "stranger" Bible study, and accepted their invitation.
I was immediately touched by the lesson of the "Stranger" study, and I would read well ahead of the rest of the class on my own, and then go back over it all with the class. I thought I knew about the LORD, but quickly learned I knew very little. What I was learning excited me and gave me a feeling that I cannot explain, but I wanted to tell everyone that the LORD had come into my heart and saved me. I struggled with this feeling for several months, I was being tempted by Satan and having a very tough time. I finally, after many talks with Pastor Tyson and Brother Justin Burks, prayed for and put all my faith in the LORD. I now know there is nothing I can do on my own to be saved, for I am a helpless sinner and all my good deeds are like filthy rags, so after putting all my faith in the LORD, I know that HE has saved me and has put the Holy Spirit in my heart. I know there is much more to learn, and that I am merely an infant in a long journey to be with the LORD for all eternity. I also know that I am not guaranteed that my life will be easy from here on out, and that I will face many trials and tribulations, but I know that the LORD is always with me and will give me the strength to endure, if I ask it of HIM in HIS name.
I am so thankful that GOD sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross to save me from my sins, so that I can appear righteous in His eyes, so that I can spend time and all eternity with him in Heaven, where the LORD JESUS CHRIST has prepared a place for me. I am being baptized this morning to show that I died with the LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST, and have turned from my old sinful life to a new life, where I am taking up my cross to follow JESUS CHRIST.
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I would like to make a few comments on Ken’s testimony. In addition to knowing Ken and reading what he has written, I asked him a few questions. When Ken was young, he went to church. When he says that he didn’t know much about the Lord until a few months ago, that doesn’t mean that he knew nothing. Specifically, he knew that Jesus died on the cross for sins and rose again. Ken knew those truths from the time he was a boy. He tells us that as time went on, he knew something was wrong in his life and that the answer was somehow in the Lord. Think about it. Ken knew he was a sinner and he knew that Jesus died on the cross for sins, but that did not make him right with God. He tried to live a better life and prayed to God, but that didn’t make him a Christian. Why not? We tend to say, “Because he didn’t pray and ask Jesus to save him.” Ken gives a better answer when he says, “I felt a tug on my heart to seek the LORD's face, but I did not want to give up my way of living…”
Please allow me to make something very clear. Knowledge is extremely important. No one can be saved without a certain amount of knowledge. We must recognize that we are sinners and that there is not a single thing we can do to change that fact. We must come to understand that there is nothing good in us. Only then we will long for a Savior. We must understand that Jesus is the one and only Savior, because He and He alone went to the cross and bore the punishment for our sins, rising from the dead to live forever with His Father. That basic knowledge is essential.
To a certain extent Ken had that knowledge, but there was still a great problem. The problem wasn’t that Ken didn’t bow his head and ask the Lord to save him. The problem was that Ken wanted to continue living the way he was living. Do I mean drinking and carousing? No, that isn’t what I mean. Ken wanted to keep doing what Ken wanted to do. The nature of the specific sins doesn’t matter. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way…” (Is. 53:6). Sin is living the way I want to live instead of the way God wants me to live. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, God can deliver me from that path, but until I want that to change, there is no salvation.
In other words, God doesn’t save a person without his will being broken. We can’t just accept what Jesus did for sin and go on living the way we have always lived. That is not a Christian. It doesn’t matter if a person has made a profession of Christ and been baptized; he is not a child of God until he has died with Christ and been raised to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).
We are big on justification through faith alone, and so we should be. We aren’t made right with God by any deeds we can do. “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). If we could do things to make us right, then we could brag about it. It’s all in Christ. But now look at verse 10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” When we are saved by grace through faith, we have become a new creation, created in Jesus Christ to do the good works that God has prepared for us to do. Do you see that this is a new kind of life that God creates in us?
Yes, we must be justified by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. Absolutely. But this justification never occurs without regeneration also taking place. And what is regeneration? It is new life. No one has ever been justified before God, having his sins forgiven, without also receiving new life. This is that being born again we read about in John 3. Jesus told Nicodemus that in spite of all his biblical knowledge and morality, he would never see the kingdom of God until he was born again. Jesus told him that he must be born of the Spirit. Then He gave this little explanation in John 3:8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." We can’t see God put the Spirit in a person’s life, but we can see the evidence. It is true that it will be different for different people, but the life of Jesus Christ cannot be hid. When a person is born again, he becomes a new creation in Christ. Let’s read it in 2 Cor. 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
Let me put it like this. Conversion is not just turning over a new leaf. A person doesn’t just decide that he is going to become a Christian and live a new kind of life. There must be the miracle of new birth. Ken Selman did not just decide that he would embrace Christianity. At some point, God put the life of His Son in Ken. Yes, Ken believes the truths about Jesus and about his own sin, but that isn’t the extent of what has happened. He is not the same Ken Selman he used to be. Jesus lives in him.
But what did Ken do to deserve this new life? Absolutely nothing. Ken deserves nothing from God except eternal punishment, and that is the same thing I deserve. The life he now has is a gift from God, purchased by Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. However, God did lead Ken to seek Him. You heard him mention a half-hearted seeking in the past. After Ken started coming to services here and got in a Bible study which emphasized what God did in Christ, some of us saw the beginnings of a whole-hearted seeking. Ken will tell you that there was an intense battle going on in his life. It was not about whether he would just decide to add belief in Jesus. It was about life and death. Would Ken continue on in the same direction with some Christian beliefs added, or would he deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Jesus? Praise God that our Lord rescued this man from sin and self and made him our brother!
You might find it interesting to know that Ken professed Christ and was baptized when he was 8 (?). What about that? Was he saved then, and now he just rededicating his life to Christ? NO. The outward acts of professing Christ and being baptized did not save Ken in the least. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t sincere; it means that he was not born of the Spirit at that time. You say, “But if he had stayed in church and learned more, it would have taken.” No. Death cannot be nurtured into life; the Spirit of God must impart the life of Jesus.
Now please listen patiently to me. I have been asked questions along this line: “Pastor, if you don’t have an altar call at the end of the service, how can people be saved?” God does the saving. “But if you don’t have a public invitation, how will they be able to express the fact that they believe in Jesus?” The same way it has been done down through the centuries. The public invitation is a new invention. How did Ken express what God has done in him? You are seeing the culmination of that expression this morning.
Here is what I am trying to say. This issue of conversion is not a small thing. Please understand that I approach this subject with much fear and trembling. Why? Because there is great mystery in it. We are talking about life and death. Some time ago some of us could have persuaded Ken to profess Christ and be baptized. Then why not? Because there is an invisible birth that must take place in a person; that constitutes true conversion.
My goal is not to discourage people from coming to Christ. God forbid. The goal is for people to come to true faith in Christ. There was a counterfeit faith in Jesus’ day and in our day. In his little letter, James talks at length about this counterfeit faith. Jesus refused to entrust Himself to some people who believed on Him (John 2:23-25). I cannot escape the words of Paul in I Cor. 2:1-5…
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. 2. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Listen to me, brothers and sisters. This is a spiritual work in which we can all participate. How is that? First of all, we pray. I know that many of you pray for the seekers who attend services here regularly but do not yet have a relationship with Christ. Praise God! Keep praying and expect our Lord to do that miracle. Then we live the life of Christ within us. We have the opportunity to demonstrate the life of Christ, as we follow Jesus and love others. Then we share the gospel. Yes, invite people to services, but understand that everyone you invite will not come. So what do you do? You do what Christians have done since the first century; you share the gospel with them. You tell them that Jesus is the only way because He and He alone died for sins. This is prayerful and loving evangelism, and it is the work of the entire church.
Praise God that we are seeing people saved, but let’s pray for many more. Mercy drops round us are falling, but let us plead for the showers of blessing.
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