The Requirements of a Godly Influence

• t’s called the Sermon Companion. It’s helpful to me for connecting even more with Doctor Stanley’s messages. male announcer: “In Touch,” the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on “In Touch,” “The Requirements of a Godly Influence.” Dr. Stanley: Influence is both a responsibility and a privilege.
• We think about influence, we think about the power to affect someone’s life, the power to persuade someone to do this or to do that. And when you think about the billions of dollars that are spent every year by people who want to persuade us–that is, to influence us–they want to influence what we eat and where we eat it, what we drink, what we wear, and how we wear it, or what we drive or maybe even how we vote.
• But people are always trying to influence us, and they’re spending millions and millions of dollars doing so. And you think about when you influence somebody, sometimes that influence is purposeful, sometimes it’s passive, sometimes it’s very good, and sometimes it can be evil. But all of us are being influenced, and all of us are influencing someone else, and oftentimes it is passive.
• It’s conscious or unconscious; that is, we consciously want to influence our children or other people, but oftentimes unconsciously, without any effort on our part, we are influencing. So if you’ll think about all of these commercials, it’s all about influencing us. Well, what I want to talk about in this message is influence, but I wanna talk about a godly influence, and that is the title of this message.
• What are the requirements in order that you and I would be a godly influence on other people? And by “godly influence” I mean a good influence. I mean an influence to exert that power within us to help other people understand who Jesus is and to influence them to accept Him as their personal Savior and to influence them to grow in their understanding and knowledge of the Word of God and to influence them to walk in a way that is godly, that is holy, that is righteous, and to influence them to serve Him and
• to follow Him all the days of their life and to support His work and to spread His message all over the world. And so all of us have a responsibility, especially as believers, to be influencers– that is, exerting the power that we have. Now, that can be by our voice, by our speech, by our personality, by our possessions, by our position in life, but all of us are influencers.
• And in the book of Daniel, you’ll find the most beautiful example of someone who indeed cast a godly influence on all those around him. And so I want you to turn, if you will, to Daniel, and if some of you are new believers and you don’t know exactly where that is, if you look in the Old Testament, there are four big prophets.