Sebastian’s Testimony

Growing up, I was raised in what we called a “Christian family.” My parents married and had children. I’m the oldest of three boys. My dad had a good job, and my mom was able to stay at home. At one point in our lives, we were all volunteers/staff at the church where my aunt was a pastor. We had called ourselves Christians most of my life, yet we never read or did what the Bible said to do. Both of my parents had affairs during this time, my brothers and I were violent towards one another, and my father was abusive. Our household was chaotic, but when we went to church on Sunday morning, we would put on fake smiles and pretend everything was ok. No one questioned us about our lives, so it was easy to continue to pretend our life was something it was not. I thought our lives were completely normal Christian lives because no one ever said anything about it.

During this time, I was practicing all kinds of sin myself. I was practicing sins of various kinds from a young age. I was a master manipulator, a liar, and by the age of 12 had begun engaging with homosexuality. I had developed a porn addiction by 14 and had been in relationships with men from 16 on. All of this was developing and becoming worse. All the while, I was actively a part of the ministry team at church. I knew being gay was wrong, but instead of asking for my way of escape, I did my best to hide all this sin, which only increased the lying and manipulation. I would have girl friends throughout high school to hide the homosexual relationships I was in behind everyone’s backs. There were a few times I was caught by my mom, and I would confess to what I was doing, but I would never repent of the sins I was committing. I had no remorse in any of it. I was trying to please my family, my flesh, and the church all at the same time. I never even thought about what God was thinking or cared to ask.

After years of these sin practices, we moved to a different state and started meeting with a family my mom knew. They began to disciple us. They began to take us through the elementary teachings in Hebrews 6. They taught us what repentance truly is. At first, I was excited. The Word of God was refreshing to me. I was the seed in the parable of the sower that received the word with joy, but when tests and trials came, I was picked off. I went back into sin practices that I had temporarily stopped and went back to hiding my sin. I was addressed numerous times in accordance with Matthew 18, and yet I never ceased my sin practices. After months of this, another family came to meet my family through the family that was discipling us. As soon as I met this family, God spoke to the wife. He said, “Remove the evil one from among you.” Because I called myself a believer and yet continued to practice sin, I was the wicked person God was speaking to her about. I was also a stumbling block to anyone I spoke to, and I needed to be removed. 1 Corinthians 5 speaks of this:

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
1 Corinthians 5:1-5 NASB® 1995

According to the scriptures, I was to be turned over to Satan for the destruction of my flesh. When this scripture was brought to me, and I was told I was to be removed, I immediately stopped pretending and exposed the hatred I had inside of me. I turned that hatred towards anyone that called themselves Christians especially those that were obedient to the Word. There was no more faking my walk, and I wanted to be done with the church, God, the Bible, and Christians altogether. I left my family’s house a few months later, after my mother told me, “As long as you want to live in the world, you can not live here.” Growing up, she and I were best friends, so that was part of her process to choose being obedient to God over her son. I left the house a few days later and moved in with my aunt, who was the pastor I grew up with. When I moved in with her, my life became easy. I was comfortable again. They lived in a very nice home in a wealthy neighborhood, and I had the highest-paying job I had ever had. This situation gave me all the fleshly desires I could have asked for at the time.

While I was living in her home and working in a fine dining restaurant, I became an alcoholic, began having relations with men again, and lied to my aunt and my uncle, all while living under their roof. I knew she did not believe the Word of God, so it was easy for me to manipulate and lie to them. I got very comfortable in my sin in her home.

During this time, I started a relationship with a man and had completely given myself over to every fleshly desire that I had. I remember thinking, “If I am going to be removed for the destruction of my flesh, then I will go destroy my own flesh.” I had given up on ever being a Christian again and wanted to see what the world had to offer. I moved out of my aunt’s house and into my own place with my boyfriend. We drank, smoked, did drugs, gossiped, practiced hatred, and more. My father was in an affair at the time, so he invited me over to his girlfriend's house to celebrate Christmas. My grandparents and one of my brothers were there drinking, smoking, and gambling together. Yet all of us except for my grandfather claimed to be Christians at one point. My dad had embraced my sin, and I had embraced everyone else’s. There was no good fruit at that time; all it did was lay more stumbling blocks in front of my grandfather, who wasn’t a believer.

After our time together, my grandfather got sick and ended up in the hospital. My grandfather would never go to the hospital, so when I heard he had gone, I knew it was bad. I told my boyfriend that my grandfather was going to die. Less than two weeks later, my grandfather, back at his house, fell to the ground and died unexpectedly. Up until this point, I hadn’t spoken to my mom and youngest brother in almost a year because they had chosen to walk with God. I was on the phone with my mom to figure out what had happened and when the funeral would be. At that point, after the phone call, I had begun to experience godly sorrow. The sorrow that would lead to repentance; 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 lays this out. I fell back and wept. All I could pray was, “God, let this have its purpose.” After I stopped praying, I sat up and rebuked my boyfriend as well as myself for the sins we were committing. I began to quote scripture to him that I had not read in over two years, and called things off with him immediately. I moved him out that night at 2 am. I took him back to his house. When I was driving home, I heard, “Read Isaiah 52.”

Awake, awake,
Clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion;
Clothe yourself in your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city;
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Will no longer come into you.
Shake yourself from the dust, rise up,
O captive Jerusalem;
Loose yourself from the chains around your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion.
For thus says the LORD, “You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money.”
Isaiah 52:1-3 NASB® 1995

This was the first time in two years I had opened my Bible and heard God speaking to me. I knew that I could not go back to my sin, but I had to wash my robes and walk with God. I immediately poured out my liquor and wine collection, removed all drugs from my house, and began to ask God what to do.

When I went to Tennessee for my grandfather’s funeral, I began to experience prophetic dreams that came to pass, I began to produce good fruit, I got back into the word, and I started making my wrongs right with people. I immediately repented of all the sins that I knew of and began walking in obedience to God. God showed me that I was to move to Texas with my mom and brother, but to do so, I had to break my lease. I had $3,200 to my name, and it was going to cost $3200 to break the lease. I had settled in my heart that I would follow God no matter what. No matter what it costs me. The day I went to move and break my lease, I received a call that someone was going to sublet my apartment, and I was no longer responsible for anything there. God had made a way for me to move.

When I arrived in Texas, I met other believers who became my family. The family that God had told to remove me from His Body was one of these families. God had softened me, and I no longer had hatred for any of them. While I was in one of their homes, I received a call from a restaurant in an airport four hours south of where I was. They offered me a job; I had not applied for the job, but they found me. God had just given me a job there that would supply for my family while in Texas.

On my first day, I met a man named Corey. When I met Him, I immediately knew why I was working in this restaurant. Corey was everything that I used to be just 2 months before. He was a lukewarm, so-called believer, who was gay, drank, smoked, and was in the world practicing all kinds of sin. I had only been walking with God for 2 months, and was so scared to fall back into sin that I ignored him for a time. Occasionally, we would talk about God, and I would share parts of my life with him, but I kept our conversation to a minimum. One day, I overheard his conversation with our co-worker, who was an atheist. He said, “I’m reading the Bible, and I can’t be gay anymore.” I immediately went to him and asked him if I could share my testimony with him outside of work. After that day, we would discuss scripture and the things of God. It was an encouragement to me that I was truly doing the job God had for me. I wasn’t simply working and making money at my worldly job, but I was learning to become a fisher of men.

One night, I had a dream that I met my wife while working at the restaurant. I didn’t know what to do with that dream. I had already determined in my heart that I would live like Paul, that I would stay single and travel to speak to anyone God put me in front of. I had taken in the lie that no woman would marry a man who used to be gay, so I was never going to look for a wife. I wrote the dream down and let it be for several months. In September 2022, I was asked to share my testimony over the phone with a woman who was living in Montana at the time. It wasn’t abnormal to share my testimony with anyone, so I didn’t think much of it. On that call, God told me that she was my wife. I was shocked by what I had heard and didn’t say anything to her, as this was the first time we had spoken. Less than a month later, I had learned that she also knew that I was her husband. We spoke over the phone, and I knew that I would be moving to Montana in January of 2023. I left my job at the airport in December 2022 and moved to Montana in January 2023. By March 2023, we were married. Several months later, we found out that we would be having our first daughter. We now have two daughters and are meeting with people anywhere we can to share what God has done in our lives. My life has changed profoundly in every aspect of who I was to who I am now. All glory to God!

I encourage anyone who sees a brother in sin to follow the scripture in Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5 because biblical discipline is a command. Then, if they repent, meaning they have godly sorrow, then follow 2 Corinthians 2:6-11. When it is from God’s mind, in accordance with the scripture, it is a beautiful thing. Christ desires for His bride to be pure and clean. If we allow contamination in the body because of our own feelings/desires, we are responsible for the blemishes in the body. When I was first removed and turned over to Satan for the destruction of my flesh, I was filled with hatred. The hatred was already in me, but by people walking out the word of God, the darkness in me was exposed. I went and lived in the world for 2 years and never planned to be a disciple of Jesus. Praise Be To God that there were people who walked out biblical discipline with me. Had they not done that, I would still be calling myself a Christian and fully indulging in sin at the same time. 1 John tells us that we can not be children of God and practice sin at the same time. I would have been one of the “believers” spit out of Jesus’ mouth due to being lukewarm in the end times. I praise God that He put people around me who would follow His word and turn me over to Satan. Because of that, my soul will be saved on the day of the Lord.

Since I’ve been walking with God, I have had to administer biblical discipline. I have had to choose to love God more than my own blood family. Because of what I have walked through, it encourages me to be obedient even in the hard times of correcting other believers. I have had to walk through this process with my own mother. Years after walking with God, she chose to go after the lustful desires of her flesh. She chose sin over continuing to walk with God. Shortly after my mom walked away from God, my own brother, who encouraged me to walk with God, chose to leave after being confronted about the sin he was engaging in. I had to go through Matthew 18 with him. This was heartbreaking, but I did it because I love him. It was hard, but I remember that as long as I am pleasing to God, that is all that matters. Through all these processes, I have learned firsthand what Jesus says about family. My family consists of the ones who obey my Heavenly Father, and when I choose to leave father, mother, and brother for His sake and the gospel, He will give me His family, and I will lack nothing in Him.

But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 12:48-50 NASB® 1995

Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.
Mark 10:29-30 NASB® 1995

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