Thank you for joining us today. My name is David Harper, pastor of HBC Rome, and we're excited to celebrate with you the message of Jesus Christ. Expecting that for the next hour or so, you'll be filled with hope, encouraged, and refreshed as we learn together what it means to follow Jesus.
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I hope you enjoy today's worship and message, and if you haven't already, go ahead and stand up, and let's get started. Thank you, Thomas, for leading us in worship here this morning.
It's a little more low-key these days, but it seems like the last few weeks have kind of been low-key. I don't know if y'all are enjoying this weather or not. I like it being a little cooler, but the overcast is killing me. And the time change is depressing. So let's just go ahead and get that out there. Y'all all look like you feel the same way I do right now.
Go to the book of Acts. While we're going there, we're going to be in the book of Acts today, as we have been and will be for a few more weeks, and we'll wrap it up with Acts 28. But today we're in chapters 20 and 21, as I try to hit the high spots of these chapters and challenge us to act out, live out the Holy Spirit of God within us. He should be doing something inside of every believer.
If the Holy Spirit's not working in your life, what's wrong with you? I want y'all to ask yourself, where's the Holy Spirit working? Where's He working in your life? Because if He lives within you, He's doing something. He's moving. He always is. God's always moving, always leading, always working, always guiding, always changing us. And through the Holy Spirit, He changes the people around us. And so we see that in the book of Acts.
Let me stop here and say a couple of things today. I have you with me. Happy birthday to little Harper up there and to our friend Edward visiting with us today. Heard your birthday is today. We're glad you're here this morning. And again, thank all of you for being here.
We're going to be in the book of Acts, chapter 20, and I'm going to read verses 7 to 12. I'm just going to kind of, there's so much here in two chapters that I've got to jump through this. But I'm talking about this from running the race. If the Holy Spirit lives within you, you're going to be running. Running the race of God.
Now, how many of us feel like we're running a race every day? I mean, every day it feels like you're the little rat on the wheel, going, going, going, going. You know, one of the things that scares me is as I get older and think about retirement, all these retired folks tell me they're busier now than they've ever been. I'm like, I'm running my little legs off right now. I can't imagine getting busier than where I am today. So I don't know that I'm retiring anytime soon.
So it's just, we're running a race. But are we, as believers, look at me, hear me. Are you, let's personalize it. Boy, if I could just call your names. Are you running the race of the Holy Spirit of God in your life today? Right now, this week, are you running the race with the Holy Spirit? Are you running the race of God? Or are you just running the rat race?
Trying to get, you know, there was a book written years ago. I loved it. It says, "Who Moved My Cheese?" It was like the rat chasing the cheese, and it's always moving. The world's always moving it around, and it never seems to be in the same place. And you just feel like you're running the race over and over again. Or you're climbing a ladder only to realize the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
Has anybody ever felt like that? Man, you're just climbing, trying to climb the ladder of success. And you get to the top and realize, well, that's not the wall I thought I was leaning against right there. Paul's going to show us because for chapters now, if we go back, I mean, chapter 16 is overcoming difficulties. Chapter 17, 18, 19. I mean, it really goes back to chapter 14. We're talking about all the difficulties because everywhere Paul went, he's wrapping up his missionary journeys, except the very last journey that he will take will come out of chapter 21. It'll unfold out of chapter 1 to 28, and we'll see that.
And it literally will be the journey to his death. He's been on three different missionary journeys up into Turkey, to Syria, to Turkey, over into Europe, into Macedonia, back over into upper Turkey and into Asia Minor. He's been on these different trips, planning churches and staying in Ephesus. We saw a couple of weeks ago in Ephesus. He's there for 18 months. And as a matter of fact, riots broke out. That's where we left off last week; riots broke out in chapter 19.
The men who made the little golden statues of Diana were furious with Paul because people were stopping buying their little idols because they'd become believers, and the idol business was going down, and their silversmiths weren't making as much money. They caused a riot against Paul, and you know, that's everywhere he went. Can you imagine living your life that everywhere you went, people are trying to kill you and throw you out of town?
And not even that, I mean, I've had a few people say some bad things about me. I used to get some calls in the middle of the night threatening me some years ago. I've told you before about the little lady who called me and told me one day, said, "Don't open any packages that you didn't order." This is before Amazon. This is like way back there, like 20 years ago. And I'm like, it was more than 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And I said, she was probably in her 90s then. And I said, "Excuse me, what are you saying?" And she said, "I'm just telling you, don't open any packages you didn't order. There's people who would kill you if they could get away with it."
Now, you talk about something sobering you up. Now, I hadn't been drinking, but I'd probably been daydreaming. And all of a sudden, your mind clears out real quick when somebody says something like that to you, and you start thinking, "What? What in the world?" I just know a tiny, tiny bit of what that's like.
When we had the Power Team years ago, there was a young lady who came to our church right before Power Team. A young lady came to our church, and she got saved. And you know how I know she got saved? I can say that, I think, with all clarity. Because she went back to her live-in boyfriend and said, "I can't live with you anymore. I'm now a Christian."
And it made him mad that she wouldn't live with him and have sex with him. So he went around to all of our Power Team posters that he could find. And I'm talking about John Norrell. I mean, it's like WWE posters. I mean, these things were huge. They were all over town. And he would put little banners across them that said "cult." He'd make up all this stuff about us and put it on those posters. And finally, the police caught up with him and arrested him for disfiguring our property.
And he was mad because his girlfriend wouldn't live with him anymore because she became a Christian. Does that sound like the New Testament to you? That sounds exactly like the book of Acts. The little demonic girl that Paul cast the demon out of her, and then she couldn't tell fortunes anymore. Sounds the same way. Man, here's somebody who got right with God, and the whole direction of their life changed. And they began to run a different race.
And she moved out, and she apologized, and she got baptized, and began to serve the Lord. Man, you talk about it makes a difference when you follow Jesus. When you're running the race and not just running. And here's what I know, guys. Look at me. And this is the day of our day. We've got so many screens. We turn on four TVs in the house, and then we sit there and look at our iPad and iPhone. And we're all into all this stuff. We're running a rat race every day.
Why aren't we running the race for Jesus? We're so distracted today. We're all caught up in college football right now or pro football or whatever. And here comes Thanksgiving. And here comes Christmas. And here comes New Year. And then it's springtime, and we've got to plant the yard. And we've got to get some flowers. And it's this thing. And it's that thing. And by summer, it's vacations. And we've got to go here. And we've got to go there. And we've got to do this. And we've got to do that. And then we're right back around to the same thing. And here we go again. Another circle. Another race. Another rat race. Just over and over and over again.
Listen to me. What are you doing with Jesus in your life? A year from now, if you look back, is your life going to be different at the end of 2024? Here we are in the next to the last month of this year, and we head into 2025. When you get to November of 2025, is anything going to be different in your life because of the way you've lived running the race for Jesus? Or is it just going to be the same-o, same-o, same-o that it's always been?
We're all in such a rut chasing the carrots that the world dangles in front of us that we don't realize. I think, this is David Harper's opinion, so make sure you understand that. As I read the Word of God and understand what's going on in our world around us, we are quickly headed towards the end times.
Do you know what that means? That means one day soon, you're going to stand before Jesus and give an account of your life. And He isn't going to care that you had a new sofa. He isn't going to care that you got a nice newer car. He's going to ask you, "What did you do with the life I gave you? The opportunity to run the race for Him." What are you going to tell Him about that? You had an opportunity to live for God, to make a difference in Rome, Georgia, Silver Creek, Lindale, East Rome, wherever you're from, Cusa or Murchie, wherever it is, you had an opportunity to make a difference for God and run the race. How are you going to answer God?
And I think that's quickly coming at us, that we're going to stand before Jesus one day real soon and answer for our life. Man, that challenges me. And I think that's what challenged Paul because they would say, "Paul, we're going to kill you." And he'd say, "Okay, that's great. I'll go be with Jesus. Hallelujah, I'll rejoice in heaven getting to see Jesus face to face." And they'd say, "No, we don't think we're going to kill you. We're going to leave you here." And he said, "Oh, wonderful. Then I get to keep leading the church and encouraging people to follow Jesus."
So whether I'm here or whether I'm there, it's Jesus, and I'm going to keep following Him. And that's the way our lives ought to be. Follow Jesus. None of us know how many days we have left. None of us know how many hours that we have left. Run the race of life for Jesus.
So that's what you see Paul doing. He's been through all this discouragement. I mean, everywhere he goes, Lystra, they stoned him and left him for dead. Riots broke out in Ephesus. Philippi, they beat him and put him in jail, and he broke out of jail. I mean, over and over, they're chasing him from town to town to town. He would make people so mad in this town that when he went to the next town, they would follow him there and stir those people up, and riots would break out in every... Wouldn't you get tired of that? You'd get discouraged.
And we talked a little bit about that discouragement last week that I saw in Paul's life. But he comes here this week, and he talks to us about running this race. So look down to verse 7, 20 verse 7. I've got to move quickly.
Now, on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued this message until midnight. Did you get that? I've gone long here a few times. I've never kept you till midnight. I mean, it's like they started at lunch, and Paul's going, "I got 12 points, and it's going to take an hour a point, so just hang on."
Years ago, I told somebody this story just the other day. Years ago, up in the old building, and I mean, this is way back in the early 90s. All the Southern Baptist churches, all the Floyd County Baptist churches would do, in January, we did a January Bible study. Every church would do, like on Sunday nights, we would do this study kind of collectively. Everybody at their own church would do these studies.
And I invited one of the local pastors to come to our church one night. It was on the book of Malachi. And he was a preaching machine. I mean, he was good. I'd let him out the gate, and he was gone. And he preaches for a while, and he had a segment of the book he was supposed to preach. And he looks back at me at some point and says, "Can we take a break and then come back and finish this?"
And I looked at him. I stepped up there where he was, and I said, "If you take a break, we're all going home. Everybody's going to leave but me and you, and the only reason I've got to be here is because I have to be the pastor and close up when it's all over." And I said, "No, no, wrap up whatever you're doing and let's go."
Paul was long preaching. He preaches until midnight. And here's the story in this. I want you to see that all to help you. I mean, Paul's just trying to get everything he can. He knows time's running short for him. He knows it's running out.
And in the window was a certain man named Eutychus. This is a three-story building. They're up in the top of it. And Eutychus is sitting in a window, and it's around midnight. And guess what Eutychus does? What some of y'all do when I'm preaching? Doze off.
Some of you will remember a guy in our church some years back named Wesley Willis. Yeah, you already start laughing, don't you? Wesley was a funny guy. In the old building, he would sit on the front row over here for a long time. He was in charge of some of the ushers and stuff, and he'd sit on the front row over there. And so often, I'd just see him nod off.
And he kept trying to convince me that his blood pressure medicine or some kind of medicine would make him nod off. And I always thought, you know, it's like an anesthesiologist, Andrew. It's like in the surgery room, there's one person that's responsible to put you to sleep, and that same person, and by the way, is the only one in there that cares whether you wake up.
I don't know if you've ever thought about that. He's the only one concerned about whether you wake up. You wake up or not. Everybody else is worried about their own little thing. I've always thought if I put you to sleep, it's my job to wake you up. So if I see you asleep, guess what? I'm going to get loud. I'm going to be pointed. I'm not going to call your name, but I may get real close to that, you know.
Wesley would doze off, and I'd just kind of walk to the edge of the stage and get loud over there, and he'd kind of startle. And then he moved to the back of the church. He thought I couldn't see back there. What y'all don't know is I can see everybody at one time. I mean, I just, I'm very, I feed off the congregation and what you're doing. So if you're sleeping, I'm going to probably go to sleep. I'm going to do everything I can to stop it. But I feed off of you.
And so I'm watching everybody. And the only guys who try to hide in the dark are the sound booth guys. Look at them. They're waving their arms back there. They don't know I can see them that much. They're really tore up about this door over here right now. Because when the sun is out and somebody parks just right, there's a beam of sunlight that shoots right back there on them.
And a matter of fact, the crossbar of those doors makes a perfect crosshair on the booth. And I can see that first Sunday we had that door changed. They were lit up like daylight back there. And it was like rats. It's like roach bugs running for cover when you turn the light on. I look back there. They're all realizing he can see us.
Run the race. We got to run the race. Paul's been discouraged. He's been beaten. He's been tracked down everywhere he's gone. He's been in trouble everywhere. And now he's long preaching, trying to share what he can. And Eutychus falls asleep in the window. And he falls out the window and hits the ground. And it kills him.
And Paul gets up. And he heads down there. And when he gets down there, he continued. He went down, he fell on him and embraced him and said, "Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him." Now, when he came up, he broke bread and ate and talked a long while, even till daybreak. And he departed. And they brought the young man in alive. And they were not a little bit. So they were very comforted by what Paul did.
Paul's running the race, guys. He's running the race of life. And stuff, there's always going to be things that are going to try to take you out in the race of life. If you've ever run a real race, you get a cramp, it'll try to take you out. You pull a muscle, it'll try to take you out. You twist your ankle, it'll try to take you out. Running the race spiritually is just like that. Things are going to happen.
As a matter of fact, today, I'm probably going to say some things. I don't want it to, but I'm going to say some things. But it may take some of you out because you can't look beyond what I'm going to say. And by the way, you and several thousand others have come through here and got their feelings hurt or decided it wasn't the place for them and moved on to another place.
I'm not here for the, I love the people. I'm going to talk about loving the people in just a second. I love Jesus. And I know He called me here. And He's the one I have to be faithful to Jesus. Before I'm even faithful to the elders or the deacons or the leaders or the people of this church, I must follow Jesus with all my heart.
And you know what? I would to God that you felt that way. That you would follow Jesus no matter what gets in your way. Well, that would hurt my feelings, but Jesus has led me to follow Him. See, here's what you need to know. If you're really following Jesus, I'm dead to self. Dead men don't have hurt feelings. Dead people don't get their feelings hurt. Dead people don't get upset. They're out there dead in the ground.
Spiritually, I'm supposed to be dead to my flesh and how I feel about things and make sure that I am following the Word of God and following Jesus with all my heart. And so you run the race following Jesus. And you see that here. Paul's, man, he lives his passion. His passion is people. His passion is the Word of God. His passion is teaching and preaching and leading people to follow Jesus.
And there on that first day, he gets together just like we all do now on the first, here we are the first day of the week on Sunday. We're here together. He reminds us of this when he writes to the Philippians in chapter 3 in verse 13. He says, "One thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Several times Paul will invoke the metaphor of running a race as a picture of living the Christian life. We're running, we're moving, there's hurdles, there's obstacles, but we keep moving and we keep running and going towards it. And that's what he's telling the Philippians. You know, I push, what's behind me is behind me. What if Paul had lived his whole life thinking about he helped kill Stephen?
What if Paul had lived his whole life about all the Christians he had put in prison before his salvation? What if he had lived about all the mistakes he had made for years leading up to his opportunity to serve God? He would have never gone anywhere. And yet that's what some of us do. We live in our past. We live looking at the rearview mirror, and all we can think about is all the stuff we've done wrong in the past.
And the enemy will remind you of your past to try to destroy your future. You've got to keep your eyes. Keep your eyes on the goal. Keep your eyes on the prize. That's what he's saying. Look past those things. In Philippians, he's saying, look past those things. Look to the prize and keep running the race. Live out your passion.
Man, that's what he's doing here when Eutychus falls out the window. He's got a passion for this group of people, and he knows he's got a short time. So I can't imagine speaking for almost 12 hours and then staying up till the morning. How excited, how passionate he must have been for these people and for the work of God and saw an opportunity there because he's fixing to move on quickly, and he's got to give his best to them while he has that opportunity.
And I pray that we would be like that. I pray that we would be, that we would live our life with the passion to say, "I must do my best right now." You're here today. I can't help the people who aren't. You're here today. You're here today. I would, God, He would change you and me today. Do something in us.
We were just over there praying for our family and for the future generation, for the grandchildren that are here now and the ones that will come, and for our family. We want God to do something in those children for the future, not just today, but for the future, just like I want God to do something in this church for the future.
Paul lived with passion. He had a passion here, and he keeps moving forward. And he reminds us in 2 Corinthians that God's power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9. He said, "I could boast of all the weaknesses. I can boast about all the great things he could do." He was an incredibly educated man. We don't even know how many languages. We know he spoke multiple languages. He was a brilliant writer. He wrote half the New Testament.
He didn't glory in any of those things. What he gloried in was, "I'm weak. And when I'm weak, God knows. He makes me strong." It's God that does the work through me.
The second thing I'd have you see quickly, and I've already kind of spoken about it, is his love for people. Man, he loves these people. He said, "You know, I've not hesitated to preach to you anything that would be helpful to you, but I've taught you publicly from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus."
I just, again, remind you. I feel like I need to do this every so often. Our business as a church is people. It's not chairs. It's not a stage. It's not even music. It's not the building. It's not the grounds. It's not the new sidewalk out there. That's not our business. Our business is people. We do all of that so people have an opportunity to come in here.
I shared with you last week, I say it often, the whole reason I'm here, the reason the air conditioner was on, the reason the lights were on, the reason we have a sound system, the reason we sang songs, the reason I preach a sermon is so that in a moment we're going to hit the invitation time, and you have an opportunity to respond to what God I pray is saying to you today. Encounter God and respond to Him. That's the most important thing that will happen this morning.
Not you getting to lunch before the Methodist because that ain't going to happen. Not you going somewhere where your favorite place and getting something. The most important thing that's going to happen this morning is God's going to speak to you, and you have an opportunity to respond to what He's saying to you.
And I challenge you to do that. Love people. Paul loved people. Jesus loved people. For God so loved the world. What does that mean? The people. God so loved the people of the world that He gave His one and only Son. He didn't give Himself for the trees and the plants and Mother Earth. He gave His Son for the people of this world that they could come back into right relationship with God.
That's our business because that's God's business. We ought to be challenged with that. We ought to love people. Paul wanted to keep preaching the gospel. That's why he's here. He poured his life into the church at Ephesus. We're going to see that in just a minute where he's going to come back to them and meet them on his way out. They're going to come back together. He loved these people. That's why he wrote those letters.
He's not just writing a letter because God told him to. You can see in that letter his concern, his love that the people follow God and do the things of God. Even if it's like 1 and 2 Corinthians, he's correcting them. See, so much of that is correction and discipline and don't do this and do that. But then you come to the book of Philippians, and he writes them, and he just tells them, "Man, I love you. I'm thankful for you."
There's not a lot of problems to fix. Keep serving Jesus. He loved the people. Paul had a posse. Everywhere he went, he kind of collected people. He collected Timothy. Luke was already with him. He had Barnabas for a while. Then he has Silas. Then he has John Mark come back with him again. Then he has others. He just has this group of people that go with him.
Why? Because God loves people, and Paul loved people, and that was his passion was getting people to God. He spent three years. He spent almost three total years, 18 months in one fell swoop. You see Paul working with the church at Ephesus. You know how you spell love? T-I-M-E.
You can give gifts to people, but the greatest gift you can give is your time. Your self to those around you. I know a lot of people think, "Well, I'll give you something expensive, and that'll take care of it." The greatest gift you can give is time. That's what Paul knew. He gave his time to these churches, to these people because he loved them and spent time with them.
Probably no other church had more time with Paul than Ephesus. He truly loved this church. Let me give you the third thing quickly, and I'll continue on. It's to live on purpose.
How easy is it today to lose focus in life? Man, I speak to you as somebody who's had this challenge my whole life. I've been ADHD before they ever even knew what ADD was. I was a hyperactive child. My dad had one cure for it. It was called a hickory or a belt. Every now and then he broke out the belt. I got a lot of spankings. I got a lot of discipline in my life. I was a crazy kid.
I was that kid that always asked why. Why, why, why this, why that. I wanted to know. I wanted to learn. My little brain was just, and it still does. My brain just still churns. Beverly will tell you. I'm constantly, "What about this? What about that? What are we learning here? What are we learning there? What's going on?"
And then I get distracted easily. So I'm telling you, I know this personally. It's hard to live your life today with focus, right? There's a million things. Some of you crack me up. You can keep up with 10 series on Netflix and Paramount and Disney and everything else. But then when I ask you to read your Bible, it's kind of like, "I don't really have time to read the Bible."
Hey, leave off one of those series and read your Bible. Oh, it's getting personal now, right? Oh, oh, oh. Give up TV time. Give up time. I'm on my phone or on my iPad. Man, I'm just challenging you. Live on purpose.
There's some of you, you have some purpose. You love cars or you love shoes. Gosh, some of you ladies, my lady, shoes. If you're old enough, you remember the Imelda Marcos closet. Remember that? We used to have one of those at my house.
It's easy today to lose focus and get focused on so many other things. You're going to walk out. Matter of fact, before you walk out of here, there's probably somebody going to text you while you're sitting here. There's something going to, you're going to get a notification on your phone that your team is out of the top 10. That something happened, something somewhere, something's going to be thrown at you, even in this room, to take you off focus.
And you've got to decide, am I going to stay focused and following Jesus or not? I mean, that's a personal decision. I can't make that decision for you. Your wife can't make that. Your husband can't make that. Your kids can't make that decision for you. Only you can decide that.
Are you going, in these last days, in these days that seem like everything counts right now, three times what it used to count, are you going to lose focus? Focus. Paul kept his focus, man, even at the end of the day.
At the end of this thing, even through all these discouragements, all these physical things that he went through, all these struggles and troubles and battles, and there's still a whole lot more stuff left in front of him, Paul did not lose his focus. He knew he had to follow Jesus whatever the price.
And he encourages them. In Acts 20:24, he says, "I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, and that task is testifying to the gospel of God's grace."
Verse 24, he sends word ahead that he's about to sail by close to where Ephesus is, and he asks the elders and some of the church to come meet him at the dock because he knows this is the last time he'll ever see them. He's headed to Jerusalem, and I don't know if he knows he's going to get in trouble in Jerusalem because there's plots everywhere to kill him, but all of them really originate in Jerusalem, and that's going to happen in the next chapter.
And out of going to Jerusalem, he's going to wind up being sent to Rome to see Caesar. He's going to stand in front of all these. He's going to work his way through the court system of the Romans. For the rest of his life, he'll be a prisoner. And he says, "I'm willing to do that. That's what I'm supposed to do."
And he meets the Ephesians. He meets the people from the church at Ephesus. He meets them on the dock, and to me, it's one of the most moving parts of chapter 20 is when he meets them, and they fall on each other's necks. They hug each other's necks. It says they fall on their necks. I mean, they hug each other's necks, and it's even with tears, and they weep together because they know they'll never see Paul again.
Now, they'll hear from him. He'll write them. But they'll never see him again, and then they pray over. They pray together, and Paul goes and gets on the ship and goes to Jerusalem. To me, it's one of the most moving experiences in the book of Acts, how much he loved this church, how much he lived on focus with them.
He wanted them to stay focused on following God and giving their best to God. That's why he would say, "I'm crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in this body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Boy, that Galatians 2:20 ought to challenge every one of us to live our life by the power of Jesus Christ.
And then you go into chapter 21, and I'll wrap this up, is that choices have consequences. He's going to go into Jerusalem. In Acts 21, verse 8, it says, "On the next day, those who were Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea. This is just north of Jerusalem. And they entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. And this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. And when he had come to us, he took Paul's belt."
Listen to what this guy does. He's going to paint a picture of what's happening to Paul. He takes Paul's belt, and he binds his own hands and feet. And he said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit, 'So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Romans.'"
Now, when he heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem. And Paul answered, "What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart?" And listen to what he says. "For I am ready not only to be bound, but I'm also ready to die at Jerusalem for the name of Jesus Christ."
Wow. Boy, can anybody in the room say that? What a powerful statement. If they put me in jail, that's fine. If it's for the name of Jesus. Even if they kill me, it's for the name of Jesus. And they're going to attempt to do that.
So when he could not be dissuaded, we ceased saying, "The will of the Lord be done." Now, the rest of that story in chapter 21 is he goes to Jerusalem. And he goes up to the temple with several men who go with him. And they've all shaved their heads. And it's a special covenant. And they take their hair, and they're going to burn it on the altar as a sacrifice of the covenant they've made to each other and to God.
While they're there, somebody recognizes Paul. They recognize him. And the Jews grab him. And they drag him out. And when they do, I think the riot at Ephesus was a huge riot. It doesn't even compare to what's going on in the temple because there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people on that temple mount, and the riot breaks out, and they literally start beating Paul so badly.
Somebody runs up to where the Romans have a garrison there near the temple because they knew this is where all the trouble breaks out is around the temple. So they have a garrison there, and they run up and they grab the Roman soldiers. It's kind of like going to get the National Guard to come in and stop a riot. They go get the Romans. The Romans come in, push everybody back, grab Paul and go, "What in the world is going on?"
And it tells us if they hadn't interceded, they would have killed Paul right there on the steps of the temple. And he arrests Paul and takes him to the garrison and begins to lock him up. And then somebody finds out he's a Roman citizen, and it scares them all to death because to kill for a Roman soldier, to kill a Roman citizen, actually to even beat a Roman citizen was punishable by death.
And they get the word, and now they're afraid for Paul. And then they go and find out it's a matter between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So they let Paul go over to speak to the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin court, the leaders of Israel. And he goes in and he begins to preach Jesus to them, and they make all these accusations against him.
And here's what happens. At the end of that, the Romans take him back to the garrison, and here's what the Jews decide. We're going to kill Paul. We're not going to put him on trial. We're going to assassinate him. Doesn't that sound just like the world today? If we don't like what you say, we're going to kill you. We're just going to assassinate you.
And they made a pledge, 40 men, 40 men made a pledge together that they would kill Paul. Now listen, the religious leaders are in on this. Here's what the Jewish leaders do. They say, "Tomorrow we're going to ask the Romans to bring Paul back over here so we can hear his argument again."
But while they're moving him over here, these 40 men are going to lay in wait. And if they get a chance, they're just going to go stab him. Somehow they're going to kill Paul on his way here. The pretense is he's coming to speak. The real plan is to assassinate him on his way there.
Nephew, his sister's son, hears word of this assassination plan. He goes to Paul. Paul tells him, "Go tell the commander of the Roman guard what you've heard." And he goes in and tells the Roman guard. And listen to what they do. I mean, this is like, boy, you think, wow.
They basically send 500 soldiers with Paul to take him out in the middle of the night and to move him from Jerusalem up to Caesarea, which is the Roman stronghold or capital is there in Caesarea. And they take him there and put him in the dungeon there. And they tell the Jewish leaders, "If you want to come make accusations against him, you've got to come to our headquarters."
And they literally save Paul's life by moving him there. 200 spearmen, 200 foot soldiers, I think it was 70 horsemen. They're all assigned to get Paul from Jerusalem to Caesarea. They literally, God protects his life. He stays focused in all of this.
Paul's focused. He said, "I'm going to go there." And what you're going to see in the next few weeks as we go through this is Paul's going to get opportunity after opportunity. He's going to get to speak to Felix, who's a powerful Roman leader. And eventually, he's going to make his way to Rome. And we believe that Paul got to speak before Caesar. He spoke to Caesar's household.
He's going to get these incredible opportunities to share. And by the way, everywhere he goes, people are going to get saved. But yet, at the end of this, you're going to see he's going to lose his life for the gospel. He's focused. He knows it. He knows he's going to die for the gospel.
By the way, you've heard me tell it before. Every one of the 12 apostles, Judas hanged himself. Out of the other 11, the only one that died of old age was John. John was executed or assassinated for preaching the gospel. And John, they dropped him in a vat of boiling oil, and he wouldn't boil because God wasn't through with him yet.
Because now he's going to go be exiled, and he's going to write the books of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. And he's going to write the great book of Revelation to tell us what the future is bringing to us. God had a plan for John.
Do you think those men would have died if the resurrection of Jesus was a hoax? Do you think they would have gone to the ends of the earth and allowed themselves to be executed? All they had to do, all they had to say is, "It's a hoax. It's not real. I renounce the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and you get to live." Not one of them did that. Not one. Not one. For years, not one.
They had a focus. And Paul shows us, man, that focus of running the race for Jesus. I ask you this morning, where are you? Where are you in your commitment to run the race for Jesus? I know we all got to run the race to pay our bills. I understand that. I have, I've Georgia Power's increased my bill this month. Thank God, hallelujah, praise the Lord.
You know, groceries have gone crazy. I can't hardly go to the grocery store anymore. I almost lose myself, lose my temper with buying groceries these days. Anybody else feel that way? You got, we're running. You know what? We got to live. We've got to eat. We've got to provide for our family. I'm responsible to provide shelter and food and protection for my family. I have to take care of things just like you do.
But that shouldn't be the primary focus of our life. I want to live for Jesus, guys. I've watched so many great men and women of God go through life and seem like get almost to the finish line and quit and go, "I'm out. I'm tired of this. I'm walking away. You know what? I'm just going to go home and sit in my recliner, and I'll watch TV at home, and I'll turn on some live stream."
You know, you can still watch Charles Stanley. He's dead. I'll watch him every Sunday morning. He's dead. He's been dead for I don't know how long now. He's been dead. So you remember the name Oliver Green? Oliver Green's been dead for 34, 40 years, and you can still listen to Oliver Green on the radio.
I mean, there's all these great things out there you can do. God called us to the church. He called the church as the arm of God that's to make a difference in the world today. That's the church. That's us believers gathered together here at Hollywood. We're to make a difference in this community and the communities where you live, work, study, shop, and play. We're to make a difference.
But you can't do that if you're not running the race. I'm not saying go home and quit your job. Don't hear me say that at all. I'm not saying don't go buy groceries. I'm saying wherever you are, run the race for God. When you're at work, run the race for God. When you're in your neighborhood, run the race for God. When you go out shopping, run the race for God.
I know it's really hard to do, but down at the ball field, really try hard. Run the race for God. Huh? Run the race for God. That's what He's called us to do.
In about four more years, less than four more years, three years from this February, this coming February, three more years, in three years, I will have been in the ministry 50 years. Y'all know I'm really just 50 years old, right? And I just look old because of being in the ministry with y'all.
And I just look old because of being in the ministry with y'all. Beverly's dad, Carolyn's Jovan, used to kid me all the time, and he'd say, "Your hair is grayer than mine." Joe's like 25 years older than me, and he said, "Your hair is grayer than mine." I said, "Yeah, you don't pastor a Baptist church either."
Run the race. Finish well. Don't quit. Don't give up. I mean, if anybody ought to be throwing in the towel, this should be Paul going, "I'm out. All these people are trying to kill me. I can go back to Tarsus and make tents, and everybody will leave me alone." But I gotta keep running the race. I've got a calling of God on my life to run the race and to make a difference for Jesus.
And by the way, listen to what I'm about to say to you. If you are a believer, male, female, boy, girl, mom, dad, grandparent, single adult, whoever you are in my hearing, my voice, watching online, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you're called to run the race for Jesus. Run the race of life for Jesus.
That's not just for pastors. That's for all of us. And I watch so many people quit. It can be discouraging, but I'm not going to quit, and I pray you won't quit till we see Jesus face to face. And hopefully one day we hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Run the race. Let's pray.
Father, thank You for this morning. Thank You for what You continue to do in our lives here together. I pray even in this moment You'd speak to us and challenge us, Lord, to follow You with all of our heart, to see You work in each of our lives and accomplish Your will and purpose for what You want to do here today, to run the race.
I know I'm no Apostle Paul. I know I'm the least of the people in this room, Lord, but I want to run the race for You. I really, I don't want to get fouled out. I don't want to mess up. I don't want to quit. I get tired, I get weary, I get discouraged, but I don't want to quit.
Everybody in this room that's running the race for You, they get the same thing. They get discouraged. They have struggles. They have issues in their life that carry on. God, help us to follow You with all of our heart.
I pray here this morning there's somebody maybe even thinking about quitting today or thought about it this week. Discouragement has come on them because of what they've been through. I pray the Holy Spirit would renew that fire in their heart today to keep running the race with Jesus all the way to the end. Accomplish Your will and purpose in our time together here this morning, I pray.
Heads bowed, eyes closed. I pray the Holy Spirit of God has been speaking to you, challenging you, calling you. Maybe you're like that prodigal son. You're walking at a distance from God. There's some things in your life you need to get out of the pig pen and clean out of your life and come back and do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
The Father’s waiting on you. He's not going to throw you out because of your sin, but if you confess your sin, He's faithful and just to cleanse us and forgive us of all unrighteousness, and He'll restore you if you'll come back home to Him today.
So if you're walking at a guilty distance from God, come back home, prodigal son, prodigal daughter. You're living in sin. Walk away from that sin and come follow Jesus today. If you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, let us show you how you can know Him, how you can trust Him, and He will forgive you and give you a clean slate and a brand new start and an opportunity to follow Him with all your heart.
Run the race for Jesus. And for those of you that are those faithful, faithful believers, you just keep running the race. I pray this morning the Holy Spirit encourages you to keep on keeping on. The old song said, "We've come too far to turn back now."
God, help us to keep following You, walking with You, seeking You, running it by Your power, not by my abilities, not by our abilities, but by Your power. Would You help us to press on through the end of the race that we might receive the prize that's waiting for us out there in eternity?
We love You so much and thank You for what You're doing in this place. If you need to come this morning and just pray, you've got some prayer requests. A lot of hurting people are waiting for you to come and pray for you. A lot of hurting people in your family and the needs you have. Come talk to the Lord about those needs, whatever it may be.
Whatever the Holy Spirit's telling you to do, that's all I want you to do. I just want you to do what the Holy Spirit is saying. This is what you need to do. This is what you need to pray about. This is how you need to respond to the call this morning. Just whatever the Holy Spirit says, respond. Do what He says. Follow His call, follow His lead on your life this morning, and it'll lead you to the right place.
If you're physically able, would you stand with us, please? Heads bowed, eyes closed. Let's stand together. They're going to begin to sing. There are people here that love to pray with you. If you want somebody to pray with you, if you want to pray along, whatever it may be, the Holy Spirit's calling you, calling your name out. Follow Jesus. Come on this morning. You have that opportunity. This is it right now. Come on as they sing.
Doesn't make any mistakes. He's calling you. Respond to His call. Come on, that's right. Obey His call. Come on, come on.
I was called by name. Oh, that's such a true statement. God made you for more. Find that.
You can be seated. Wow. I love that song. Do you think Lazarus stayed in the graveyard after Jesus resurrected him? Do you think he said, "You know what? I think I'm going to go back into the tomb and lay down. I'll be out later. Y'all come back and get me after a while."
I think he got as far away from that graveyard as he possibly could. And I don't know why we don't do that as well. Because salvation is just the beginning of the walk. The cross is just the beginning of what God's doing.
Thank you this morning for being here. Thank you for your attentiveness. Thank you for responding. Somebody asked me over the years, I've been asked this, do you ever get worried about people coming to the altar multiple times? Absolutely not.
I used to be one of those guys. I came to the altar every Sunday trying to say, "God, what is it You want me to do? What is it You're trying to do in my life?" Seeking God, this is a great place to humble yourself and get before God. And if you're doing that on a regular basis, I believe God will answer your prayer and show you what you're looking for.
But don't sit back there and think, "Well, what are they going to think about me?" We're going to think you're looking for Jesus. That's what we're going to think. We're going to think you want to run the race and you want to follow God. That's what we're going to think.
And by the way, it doesn't even matter what anybody else thinks. What matters is what does God think? What's God calling you to do in your own life in following Him and obeying Him? That's the most important thing. Forget everybody else. Follow Jesus.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for your attentiveness to our guest. We just thank you for being here. And if you'd take a moment and do the text information, the welcome, and just let us know that you're here, or you can grab the little card in the seat pocket in front of you. And if you want to fill it out, you can put it in the offering box back there or hand it to one of our folks as you go out the door, and they'll get it to the right place.
To our church family, I'm asking you to give. I'm asking you to be obedient in giving. We're about to put the budget together for 2025. There are some things that giving doesn't increase. There are some things we're not going to be able to do. There are some challenges in front of us. And I'm asking you, your giving makes all the difference in what we can do in ministry.
And you're always so gracious and generous. But, boy, this is a time to really step it up as we wrap up and move into the end of the year and get ready for 2025. 2025 is coming at us really fast. So you have the opportunity to give. You can give online, which about 60% to 70% of you do. You give online, either through text to give or online giving or on the website at hbcrome.org. You have that opportunity and privilege, and thank you for what you do and continue to do in the matter of giving.
A couple of things I just mentioned to you again today, and some of these have already been mentioned, and I'll just say a few things about them. Again, devotion, I've tried to encourage you with this the last few weeks. We've been doing this all the way through the book of Acts. As you leave here, this sheet is available to you if you want a hard copy.
Now, somewhere in the evening or tonight or early morning, this will get emailed out to you. We have your email address. It'll come out to your email address. But it's basically going back over the two chapters. Because people say, "What do I read during the week? What do I need to be doing in the Bible?" You need to be in the Bible.
Matter of fact, you need the Bible in you. And so I want to encourage you, take this, and it's got five days' worth of devotions of what to read, what to look at, how to think about what we've been talking about today. And the second page is a prayer guide.
How can you be praying for our church through these five days as we work our way through the book of Acts? We want the Holy Spirit to act out in our church, and that means you. He's got to act out through you. It's not the church in this building. The church is you.
And if the Holy Spirit's going to act out through us, we've got to be in the Word and in prayer. So we give that to you as you go, and I just ask you to take it and put it to use this week. Sit around and go, "I don't know what to read. I don't know what to do." There it is. We've laid it out for you, and the electronic version will come out later.
We've got the Fall Family Fest next week, as you can well tell. The building's not going to be completed by then. We've kind of hit a slow, slow down with trying to figure out the future of the cross out here that would go on the building. And so we've been working with the structural engineer. It's taken us several weeks to get him and get him engaged and get what we do now.
We have the plans, and we're trying to see what we can do. We're probably not going to get the cross put up this time around. We'll see, but we're trying to get the beam and the structure put in the building. Before you know it, Hollywood, we like to do things backwards sometimes. We would go, "Let's put up all this stuff, new metal, new cladding, all that, and then, you know, six months from now, a year from now, we'll tear half of it off to put the beam in the wall."
And so we're trying to do that as we go, and so that has slowed things down a little bit. As you saw, they put the sidewalk around. There are some other things they'll be working on this week, but primarily they'll be voting in here Tuesday, and so for the next couple of days, they'll be limited to what they can do.
But next Sunday is the Fall Family Festival, and so I just encourage you, if you like to volunteer, the sheets back there on the table as you go out. Volunteer for a game or somewhere you can serve, somewhere you can be part of that, and that's from three to five. So you'll have the opportunity to do that.
And so if you have an opportunity to leave, go get lunch, do whatever it is you do on Sunday afternoon, come back from three to five, help us because here's an opportunity again to reach out to the community. This Thursday, Hope for the Hungry, if you're involved in that ministry, we're reaching out to the community by offering food. That's what our church is supposed to do: reach out, share the gospel, minister to the people around us.
We need some individually wrapped candies before next Sunday. You brought a lot of stuff, but we really need some more candy to come in, and that would help tremendously. You can see all the other things that are going on there.
Let me say again thank you for the gifts that have come for Pastor Appreciation and the cards and notes. Beverly and I are very, very grateful for you and for what you've done to encourage us, and thank you for those.
Some prayer requests: continue to pray for Tommy Renfro. Marie Hodges is at home and having some health issues. And then we continue to pray for David Bailey and his family, for Tracing, Dustin, Hannah, Nora, all the family. Continue to lift them up. You can see all the other announcements there.
I hope you take advantage of those and be part of that. You can see the upcoming dates. Again, we're headed to the end of the year as hard as we can go, so take note of those things: the Friendsgiving meal and other things that are coming.
Please make a note of that. If you're watching online, God bless you. Have a great week, and go reach out to somebody this week.
on Nov 03, 2024
