Thank you. 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. Amen. You can be seated. Thank you for being here this morning. Why don't you thank Ben, Shelly, and Thomas for leading us in worship this morning? That was a great time of worship, and I loved that song.
And by the way, Thomas and his faithfulness to be here. I miss Ben and Lauren being able to be with us so much with all that's going on in their lives. But Thomas has been so faithful, and that song he sang there at the end really, really speaks to me.
I want to say something to you. I don't know who this is for. I really didn't plan to say this. It's in part of the sermon, but I think somebody maybe needs to hear this. If you want to figure out who you are, see, in my generation, in the 60s and 70s, we dropped out to go find ourselves. Boy, you see how well that worked out for all of us, right?
If you want to find out who you are, you first find out who He is. When you get your focus on God, and you get in the Word, and you let the Holy Spirit help you understand who God is and your relationship to Him, it will change your view of who you are.
You don't have to go to the mountains of Colorado or the beaches of the United States. You don't have to go to the beaches of Maine or somewhere in Europe to go find yourself. Get in the Word. Let God speak to your heart about who He is, and I guarantee you, it will inform you about who you are.
Because, man, when you see yourself, when you see who He is, and I look at me, I realize David is not near as important as I think he is some days, right? He's the one. And so just, because I love that, you know, I know who I am because I know who you are.
I love how that song opens up. And then I love that in the verse where it talks about, "I wasn't made to be tending a grave." It's like, I envision Lazarus. I don't know that it's written and says Lazarus, but I envision Lazarus coming out of the tomb, and they try to say, "Hey, he's hungry, and let's go eat." And he's like, "Wait a second, I need to go clean up the tomb. I need to fix the tomb." No, no, no. He's ready to get away from that tomb.
And yet so many times in our lives, we live in the tomb of our sins and our struggles instead of walking away from that old life and living the new life that Christ has given us. Amen? Just whatever that's worth to you this morning.
Acts chapter 22, we're going to continue to talk about Acts 22 this morning, and I've got something for you to do, and we're going to see what happens in all this. We've been talking, for those of our guests, thank you for being here. We've been working our way through the book of Acts for a couple of months now, and we're almost there. We're almost there. Just a few more weeks, and by the way, just a few more weeks and it's going to be Christmas.
Nobody wants to hear that. I know. I've already seen all the Christmas decorations everywhere. My daughter-in-law's already got her tree up. I'm like, holy cow. And if you notice, when we get there, you'll see at the bottom of the info sheet, the last thing on the list is the Christmas Eve service, and it's headed towards us real quickly.
We've been talking about, in the book of Acts, the works of the Holy Spirit. We've called this "Act Out." Live out, act out what the Holy Spirit has for you. Understand, the Holy Spirit wasn't just there for Barnabas and Silas. He wasn't just there for James and John and Simon Peter and all the early disciples. He wasn't even there just for Paul.
In Acts chapter 9, we've been kind of following Paul now. It's kind of become the central person that God seems to be moving through and around. The story's kind of written around his missionary life, his intentionality of going to the world, taking the gospel to the Jews and the Gentiles of the world in southern Europe and over into southeast Asia, moving the gospel out from Jerusalem into other places.
And a lot of it takes on the focus of Paul. Well, now it's probably about 20 years later. And Paul's been through a lot. We talked about this a few weeks ago. We talked a few weeks ago about the discouragement. I went back and made a list from Acts chapter 9 when Paul gets saved immediately in Damascus. You know the story, and we're going to talk about it this morning.
But he talks about he gets saved in Damascus, and in verse 23 to 35, there's a plot to kill Saul already. They're already after him in Damascus. They had to lure him out of a basket down the side of the wall so he could escape Damascus without getting killed. You know what's amazing to me? What's supposed to be a godly culture, they sure were a lot of killing.
If we don't like you, we just kill you. America's been almost like that. We won't kill you physically. We'll just try to destroy you publicly if we dislike you. Just a thought. And it's not even through the end. It's through the end of chapter 9, that same chapter where Saul gets saved, and in Damascus they try to kill him, and he heads back towards Jerusalem and Caesarea to Jerusalem the second time they try to kill Paul.
When he goes in chapter 13 to Antioch, Pisidia and Antioch, they go after him there. Paul and Barnabas were persecuted and driven out of Antioch. The Jews raised up people around him in the next city of Iconium, and then Paul is stoned and left for dead in Lystra in Acts chapter 14. I mean, already they've tried to kill him several times, and then they do stone him to death at Lystra, and they leave him, and God raises him back to life.
In chapter 16, they're beaten with many blows and put in the inner prison at Philippi. Remember that? That sets up the story of the Philippian jailer getting saved. In Acts 17, he's forced out of Thessalonica. Later in Acts 17, he's forced out of Berea. In chapter 18, he's brought before the judgment seat of the Jews in Corinth, and those charges got dismissed against him.
In chapter 19, it says there's this huge riot that breaks out in the city of Ephesus. The book of Ephesians is written to that church there, and we've talked a lot about his love for Ephesus. A huge riot broke out in Ephesus because of Paul's preaching there. Yeah. He's beaten in Jerusalem. They intend to kill him. That was chapter 21 where we were last week.
He comes back to Jerusalem and offers the sacrifice. He's shaved his head, and he's burning the hair as kind of a fulfillment of a covenant that he's made to go back and share the gospel in Jerusalem. And then in chapter 21 also, the Romans, literally the Roman soldiers have to run down the hill from the garrison into the temple area and make a circle around Paul to keep him from getting killed.
I don't know if you watch college football. We were talking about it last night. Oh, gosh. Y'all don't want to talk about the Ole Miss-Georgia game, but that's where at the end of it, I mean, there's probably 50,000 people on the field, and the coach of Ole Miss at Oxford, Lane Kiffin, the coach, is out there, and I'm thinking, how are they going to get him out of there? I mean, it's just people as far as you can see in every direction.
And last week we saw, I don't know what game we were watching last week, and the state troopers got around the head coach and literally pushed through the crowd to get the coach through the crowd. And I got a feeling that's probably what happened, something like that in Jerusalem at the temple. There's thousands of people on the Temple Mount, and they surround Paul, and they're ready to kill him.
There's a riot that breaks out on Temple Mount. They're ready to kill Paul, and the Romans come in and set up around him and protect him and take him back to their garrison, and they put him in chains. And by the way, that was illegal. It was illegal to chain a Roman citizen like a slave unless they had been convicted of an offense. And when they find out he's a Roman citizen, it scares them to death.
And so the next day now we're going to see in chapter 22, they've set up this meeting for Paul to go stand before the Sadducees and Pharisees, and he's going to give his argument for the gospel, and it's literally going to be his testimony. I want you to hear this. I've entitled this, "The Power of Your Testimony."
Now, you may not have a Paul testimony. I don't have a Paul testimony. I didn't get killed. I didn't get stoned to death, and God raised me back to life. I've been in a few bad places in my life where God came through, and I've been in a few bad places in my life where God came through.
Anybody else like that? Anybody God come through for you in some times in your life? You got a testimony? Listen, even if you're just like I was as a kid, I was six years old when I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior. You know what I knew? That as a six-year-old boy sitting in the Saks Baptist Church on the second row by my mother for months, for months, when my dad would preach, when the preacher would preach, I would come under conviction that I needed to be saved, that I was a dirty, rotten sinner as a six-year-old boy.
Not as a 60-year-old man, a six-year-old boy, because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Amen? That's what the Bible says. We've all sinned. Your mom's sinned. Your dad's sinned. I've sinned. Your kids have sinned. We've all sinned. Only one person's ever lived without sin, and that was Jesus. And that's why he could be the ultimate sacrifice for our sin and paid the price for it.
And as a six-year-old boy, I sat there and recognized, I wish my testimony had stayed that, because the perfect testimony to me is I went out and did drugs, I did all this, I did all these horrible things, and then I came back. No, the greatest testimony would be I got saved as a six-year-old boy and I walked with Jesus until the day I died. I let God run my life and control my life.
I wish that was my testimony, but it's not. As a 14-year-old boy, I wound up out here at Peach State Bible Camp in Northern Floyd County. And boy, in that week, I just came to have fun with my friends, and in that week, God spoke to my heart. Matter of fact, I was so far away from God, I thought I got saved.
And then later on, I realized I'd been saved all along. I'd just been far away from God as a teenager. I was a rebellious, I mean, capital letters, rebellious teenager and young adult, wanted to get away from God, anything to do with God, anything to do with church, anything to do with Jesus. I was pushing as far out there as I could to get away from that. And God would not let me go.
And can I tell you, looking back, I am so grateful God didn't just let me go. Because some of us would have just said, done with you, out, I'm out. I'm over it. Go on and do what you want to do. And I'm grateful that God pursued me and pursued me and pursued me time after time. Or I wouldn't be standing here today. I surely wouldn't be doing the ministry God's given me to do for these almost 39 years here in this church, in this city.
I would have never had this opportunity had not God pursued me and come after me. And that's my testimony. It's not David Harper. It's God. It's the goodness of God. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. It's not my ability. It's not my intellectual capabilities. It's not my scholarly knowledge. It is the work of the living God through my life that has allowed me to live and do the things God's given me to do. To have the impact.
And by the way, that's the same thing that's true for you. God isn't impressed with all the degrees you have. God isn't impressed with how many languages you can speak. God isn't impressed with your bank account. God isn't impressed with your IQ or where your social standing in the community. God's impressed when you surrender yourself to the Holy Spirit.
God's impressed when you surrender yourself to the Spirit of God and let God do through you what he wants to do through you. That's what impresses God. What impresses God is when we give in to his plan and what he desires. And like Shelly said a while ago, it isn't always what you want.
There's been a lot of times I didn't get what I want. But I got what was best from God. I always joke about it. If you're older, you ever gone back to your class reunion and seen that gal you had a crush on in high school and she wouldn't give you the time of day? And you go, praise God, she didn't. Huh? Huh?
Or that guy, you know, he was a stud football player and now you go back and see him and he's a 340-pound burping sofa. Come on, come on. I didn't call any names. I didn't call any names. You give up yourself on that. You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you pray for stuff and you're glad God didn't answer your prayer the way you wanted it.
Because a little while later you realize, oh, I didn't really need that. I got that instead. We've all had that. So when Paul stands today, we're going to see the first few verses right here and I'll get into it. But I want you to understand, listen to me, what I'm going to say. Your testimony is as powerful as Paul's.
Your testimony will speak to somebody that my testimony may never speak to. Your testimony will speak to someone. Use the testimony that God's given you. There is a reason God's given you that testimony in your life. Use it. Use it. You say, well, I don't know how to argue the Bible. Well, you don't have to argue the Bible. Matter of fact, you shouldn't be arguing the Bible.
I don't know anybody that's ever gotten saved because they lost an argument. Do you? That's kind of me. That's like saying we're going to tax our country into prosperity. What? How does that happen? You don't win people by winning an argument. I've never heard anybody that went, oh, I lost that argument with you, so I guess I'll give in to Jesus. No, it usually makes them more mad, doesn't it?
You want to win somebody, you tell them what Jesus did for you. And you know what nobody can argue about? Is your testimony. Because you know what Jesus did for you. We cannot, there's all kind of stuff in the Bible that we've been arguing about for 2,000 years and nobody's settling it. There's nobody, I think I'm right. They think they're right. We have to agree to disagree on some things and move on.
Nobody has settled some of those arguments. But when you tell your testimony of what God did for you, nobody can argue against your testimony and what God personally has done in your life. And that's, so that's what Paul's going to show us how to do that.
Look at Acts 22. I'll get into it. As a matter of fact, I'm well towards where I want to go. He says in Acts 22, verse 1, "Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now." This is the Jewish council. This is the Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders. And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent because they thought this guy's some ignorant.
They didn't know he knew all the info that he had. They don't know who he is. And then he said, "I am indeed a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel." Now they know who Gamaliel is. He's one of the leading Pharisees of the Sanhedrin or has been. I don't know if he's still alive at this point.
"Taught according to the strictness of our father's law. I was zealous towards God as you all are now. I persecuted this way to the death." That's what the church was called in the early stages of the New Testament. It was called people of the way, the way, and they would use the symbol of the fish as a secret symbol of that. They were believers. They were called people of the way because Jesus talked about being him being the way, the truth, the life.
And so he's telling them, "I used to try to destroy this same people. I persecuted them this way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness and all the council of the elders from whom I also received letters to the brethren and went to Damascus to bring in chains, but they were there to Jerusalem to be punished."
Now it happened. And so here's his testimony as a journey to came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" So I answered, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said to me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting."
And those who were there with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. And so I said, "What shall I do, Lord?" And the Lord said to me, "Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all the things which are appointed for you to do."
And since I could not see for the glory of that light being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus. And we'll talk more about this, but this is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is all through the book of Acts. We've seen the work of the Holy Spirit. That was Acts chapter 9. Here we are at 22, probably about 20 years later, where Paul now is standing before the Supreme Court of Israel.
Can I say to you he wasn't ready to stand there 20 years before? Sometimes God lets time go by because we're not ready for what he's bringing to our life. God may be preparing you for something bigger, better as time goes by, and a lot of us get impatient. We want to push on in and make something happen. No, follow the plan of God and see where God is going to take Paul before the Sanhedrin.
It's just going to take years for him to get there, and now he's been on three missionary journeys. He's done all these, started all these incredible churches. He's going to write all these incredible books. Half the New Testament is yet to be written by this man, and now he stands before the Supreme Court, and his argument is, "Here's what Jesus did for me."
And that's important, and that's a good example for us to see. I heard a guy say, Howard Hendricks, a great man of the last century, said, "In the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering." Just stop and think about that for a moment. Our country, our generation around us now, they're screaming for answers. They can't figure out some of the basic things of life. They're screaming for answers, and we have the answer: Jesus, the Word of God, and we're stuttering.
We're afraid to speak or because we're afraid somebody will try to cancel us and push us out of course, a bigot, all of those names people are getting called for whatever it is if they disagree with them about it. It's our responsibility, listen, this is our mission as Christians to proclaim the gospel.
The reason, if you're a believer sitting in this room, the reason you're still alive today is for God to use you to proclaim the gospel to a world who needs to hear Jesus. Say amen or oh me. Come on. God can't use me. Yes, he can. If he can speak through Balaam's donkey, he can speak through you.
It's time. We're to proclaim the gospel to a world who needs to know Jesus Christ, where we live, work, study, shop, and play. We're to be the missionaries now. We're to be the ambassadors now. We're to be the ones to testify and give witness of Jesus Christ now. That's our call. That's what God's put us here for.
So we never know when we'll begin to be required to speak up for the Lord. Paul is just worshiping in the temple. I mean, just a day. The day before, Paul's just in the temple worshiping God and offering his sacrifice and all that. Somebody goes, "Hey, I think that's that Saul guy over there. That's that troublemaker over there." And they run over and grab him and start, and then a riot breaks out and all this happens.
And the next day, now he's standing before the Supreme Court of Israel. He didn't plan on that. He's just worshiping God, doing what God's given him to do. You don't know. Listen to me. You don't know when and where God will give you an opportunity to share the testimony and the gospel to the people around you.
It may be tomorrow in the break room where somebody's talking about some struggle they're having in their life. And God opens a door for you to share, "Here's what Jesus did for me." You don't have to get on the table. You don't have to get your red Schofield Bible and jump up there and say, "Turn to page 42 and let me show you what Jesus done."
I want you to start telling what Jesus did for you. Has God brought you? Has God brought you through any trouble? Has God brought you through a difficult time in your life? Did God bring you to a place that you were willing to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Share that story. That's your testimony.
Your testimony is your story of what God's done for you. Today, that would be the easier way to say it that probably more people would understand. When I say testimony, I'm talking about tell your story. Here's what God did for me. Here's where I came from. Here's how he worked. Here's how he worked in my life. Here's how I came to know Jesus. Here's how my life's been different.
And here's how God's been working through my life through the years. Here's some difficulties. And that's a lot of times what people are, when they're open to the gospel, it's because they're going through a divorce. They've lost a job. There's some difficulty happening in their life. Their child is sick. The doctors tell them it's cancer. Some difficulty that's happened in their life.
And you get the chance to say, "Hey, let me tell you how God brought me through a dark time in my life. Here's what Jesus did for me." And he's brought me to this place. And he can do the same thing for you. Because if Jesus could save Saul, killing Christians, he can save anybody. Amen? If he can save me, he can save you. If he can save you, he can save somebody else.
So Paul takes that and uses that opportunity. We need to learn what we offer. The world is not arguments. Nobody wants to hear your theological argument. I get in situations all the time where some pastors, they want to talk about theological arguments, and I just go, I don't have time for that.
Our world's dying, going to hell, and we're trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pen. How stupid is that? With the world going to hell, we're arguing over things that will never be answered. You can't answer that question, and so many hundreds of other questions, you can't answer them. Only when we get to heaven will we stand before God, and God will go, "You know what, you were right, or you were wrong. You missed it. They got it right, and you were wrong," but it ain't going to make any difference now.
What makes a difference now is what are you doing for the people around you? What are you allowing God to do through you today? And so you see it, man. You see all these people that are speaking up, and Paul's using that opportunity, his perspective here. He defends himself, and he shows, and we're going to, he's going to do this several times.
Matter of fact, we're going to see at least three times he's going to share his testimony. Two more are yet to come before Festus and Felix, and then he's going to even write it in a couple of his letters that he'll write in Philippians 3 and 1 Timothy 1.
So let me give you the steps of this. I'll just do this quickly. Here, you got, they'll be on the screen if you want to take a note or two. I just want to encourage you, and there's a sheet there to help you, because what I want to encourage you to do is not just hear about Paul's testimony. If you've never written down your own personal testimony, I'm going to encourage you to take the effort to do that today.
Now, let me just tell you, some folks, it may scare you a little bit, because you may not have a testimony to give, you may not have a story yet, but to look at your life and go, what's God done in my life? What's my story? Paul's personal encounter with Jesus is what empowered him. The reason Paul could do this, the reason Paul could speak up and give this testimony, give this story, is because of what Christ had done in him.
Can I tell you the whole reason I'm standing here today is because of what Jesus Christ has done in me. It's not anything about David. It's not any good work in my life. I've just been dumb enough to try to follow God with my life, and God's given me opportunities that I never dreamed I would have to serve him and to follow him.
I thought I'd be a bathroom cleaner in the youth building for the rest of my life. I thought I'd be working with youth for the rest of my life, putting out basketballs. I never envisioned that I'd ever have the opportunity. Matter of fact, I've told the story here. I went and did a youth camp back in, what was that, '85, July of '85 with Hollywood.
The guy who was supposed to do it had to drop out at the last minute because of some other issues going on, and they called me and asked me if I'd go. I went, did the youth camp, came back, went home. That was in July. At the end of September, 1st of October, I got a phone call. Charles Barnett called me. He was on the trip, and he said, "Hey, we want to talk to you."
All I could think of on the phone was, "What did I say? What did I do? What happened? That was three months ago. Why are you just now calling me?" I said, "What's up, Charles? Why are you calling me?" He said, "Well, our pastor, Dan, he resigned about a month ago, and we put together a pulpit committee, and the first guy we want to talk to you is you."
Again, "Why do you want to talk to me?" He said, "We want to talk to you about being our pastor." I'm like, "You've got the wrong guy." I guess I should have hung up right then. But he kept on. And we kept talking, and February of '86, I moved here to be the pastor. I never dreamed.
I like being the youth guy because the youth guy gets to have all the fun, and the senior pastor has to clean up all the mess that the youth guy has fun making. Paul's encounter with Jesus, that's what empowered that testimony. That's what empowers him to go stand before the Sanhedrin and tell them what God's done in his life.
It's because of the Holy Spirit of God. And if the Holy Spirit, listen to what I'm going to say to you. If the Holy Spirit of God lives inside of you, how come he doesn't get out of you? How is it that he doesn't come through you? See, I can't help myself sometimes. I'm sitting in places, and somebody says something, and I'm like, I just have to, something will just blurt out of my mouth, and I'll go, boy, I think I should have kept my mouth shut right there.
But I felt like, man, that's the, I can't, I can't control, I'm not going to try to restrain the Holy Spirit of God speaking through me. Does that make sense? You have an opportunity. I had a friend I worked with years ago over in the city of Anniston, and he would talk about, he was a, one day he was telling me about, he went to church, I was witnessing to him, telling him about Jesus.
And he said, "I go to church, I'm a deacon in my church." And I said, "Please don't tell anybody. Please don't tell anybody you're a deacon. Please don't tell anybody you're a Christian." And he looked at me kind of funny. He's like, "What do you mean?" And I said, "You got the foulest. You got the foulest mouth of anybody on our crew. You're awful the way you talk and act. And you're a deacon? You're a Christian? That has no meaning, no credence to it whatsoever."
Later on, I thought, I guess I should have kept my mouth shut. You've got to speak up. Paul's encounter with Jesus, that's what empowers him to speak the truth and the love from a position of love. Paul's wholehearted defense comes from a firm conviction that he's speaking out of obedience to God.
God spoke to him on the way to Damascus. He obeyed God, went into Damascus, went to the house. They came and prayed over him. He trusted Christ. He got his sight back, and he begins to immediately preach Jesus. Immediately he begins to preach Jesus. Now he's not preaching to whole crowds. He's just got a few people there. He's telling them what God did for him.
And he continues to do that and move on and on and on through his life. He's empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. And that's what I, God, I can't say this enough. My question for anybody in this room that says they're a believer and you haven't been changed, you don't feel and sense the Holy Spirit working in you, how does God come out of heaven and come live in your heart and it doesn't change you?
I have a problem with that. Because you know what I know? Everybody in this book that the Holy Spirit of God came to live within them, they were different. And they spoke out about God. And they served God. Their life was different because of following Jesus Christ.
And if you can just keep living your life the way you've lived it on and on and on and on, I gotta tell you, I wondered have you really ever come to the place where God lives in your life? Where the Holy Spirit lives within you? Because the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit won't let me keep on living my life the way I want to.
Anybody else in here have a problem with that? Man, I want to live a certain way. I want to do something. I want to be mad at somebody. I want to hold a grudge, and the Holy Spirit's like, "You gotta deal with that." I don't want to deal with that. Well, you gotta deal with it.
He's empowered by the Holy Spirit. Ask the Lord to help you speak out the truth of God in your life. Let me give you quickly a few other things here, and I'm done. Paul connected with his audience. I love the way Paul does this. He was an intelligent man. He was a well-educated man. But it wasn't just about his because he speaks Hebrew.
And that blew him away. He knew if he spoke Hebrew to them, if he spoke Greek, they would think he's a Gentile. He's nobody. But when he began to speak in Hebrew, he connected to his, he knew his audience. He knew the room. He knew the room. He knew who's there. Who are the people that I'm speaking to?
Know who you're speaking to. Sometimes you don't always get to do that. Sometimes I'm put in positions that I'm talking to somebody and I don't really know who I'm talking to. I know their whole background or what they're about or who they are. But a lot of times when you're speaking to people, you know who they are and where they're from and how to go about connecting to them.
And Paul knew that. He knew how to connect that. He cites his credentials in a way that demonstrates God's transforming power in his life. I was killing people. I was killing the church. I was imprisoning the church. That's the people of the way. That's the church. I was destroying them, and God interrupted my life on the road to Damascus, and I changed directions 180 degrees going in a different direction than what I was going before.
That's a demonstration of God's power to connect and let him know that there's something different. You establish that connection. Most of us, you know, I'm from northeast Alabama. You're here in northeast, northwest Georgia. There's not a dime's worth of difference between here and Anniston, Alabama.
Matter of fact, what can I tell you? When I moved here from Anniston, I thought finally I'll get away, as an Alabama fan, I thought finally I'll get away from the Auburn fans. I'll move to Georgia and found out in Rome, Georgia, there are more Auburn fans than there were in Anniston. I couldn't get away from them. And then some of them became my best friends.
We live in this culture. You know how to speak to the people at your work. You don't have to speak in some deep theological language. You know where most people around you live. You know how they conduct their lives. You know how to connect and speak to them. Use that opportunity because most of them are just like us.
I told Aaron this weekend, we were driving through north Georgia and north Alabama, and I said, "You know what? I used to live, we lived in Fort Payne for a couple of years, and I said until I moved to Rome, Fort Payne, Alabama was the most redneck city I ever lived in." And then I moved to Rome.
We're a blue-collar. We're our culture. You know it. You know who we are. You know how to speak to the people on your job. Whether you're in school or whether you're at work, you're in the medical profession or you're in business, you know how to speak to the people around you. Use that opportunity. You don't have to speak Hebrew to connect with them.
Paul connected. He connected with the audience. Let me give you the third thing here quickly. Paul did not glorify his past life of sin, and I love this. I've heard so many testimonies in my life. Some of you, how many of you remember when Promise Keepers used to meet in Rome? The men's group used to meet in Rome, big men's group used to meet here in Rome, and every month we met at a different church.
Rick Walker was the guy, a big football coach, put all that together, and Rick was the guy you couldn't say no to because he was a whole lot bigger than the rest of us. And he was a big mouth, and he'd come sit down in my office and say, "I need you. You're gonna, here's what you're gonna do next month," and he'd just tell me.
I felt like, "Okay, Rick, whatever you say, coach." There'd be several hundred men there, and I still remember one of the Promise Keepers meetings. I don't know if anybody was there but me or anybody else could have been there that night, but that night a guy got up and gave his testimony, and he spent the whole time, probably about 30 minutes sharing his testimony, and 25 minutes of the 30-minute testimony was how much alcohol he drank, how many women he was with, how many bad things he did, and it was all the horrible things of his life.
And in the last couple minutes, he went, "And Jesus saved me and changed me after that." And I'm like, "That's not how you present a testimony." I'm not proud of what I've done. Some horribly sinful things in my life, and I'm not proud of those things. Thank God they're under the blood. I don't want to talk about what I've done wrong.
I'll just enough to let you know I've been out there in sin. I know what the world is like. I know what Satan has to offer, and it's almost killed me a couple of times. I'm not going back to that. The glory is in telling what Jesus, how he changed you and how your life is different now. Amen?
That's the testimony. The testimony, yeah, why did all these horrible things? Look at all these great, you know, when he got through thinking, I'm like, I want to go to that part of his testimony instead of that part. We don't glorify our past sins. You hear people talk about all these things they did.
He tells, "I was a Jew like you. I'm a, I was part of the Pharisees like you. I was part of this court like you." He connected to them and let them know where he had been and what he had done. "I imprisoned him. I beat him. I did all these things that you're doing now to me. I've done that, and here's how God changed me."
He tells of his past, but he doesn't glory in the past. And so when you share your testimony, don't glory in the sin. Glory in Jesus. Does that make sense? Glory in Jesus. Man, if it hadn't been for Jesus, I'd still be in sin. If it hadn't been for Jesus, I'd still be over there. The glory is in what Jesus transforms, changes, empowers me to be different.
So Paul knew that. Then one of the last things here, Paul knew that he might not be able to change the minds of hateful people. He knew he probably wasn't going to change the minds of most of these men, this council. There wasn't a lot of them. I mean, good night. Remember now he's been through about 15 times where people have either assaulted him, riots have broken out, they killed him in Lystra, they put him in, beat him and put him in jail in Philippi.
I mean, he's been through some stuff. So by the time he gets here, he knows probably he's been through some stuff. He's been through some stuff. He's been through some stuff. Probably not going to change all these folks. And listen to what I'm going to say. Look at me, look at me. It's not your job to change people when you share your testimony.
It's not your job to change them. That's the Holy Spirit's job. You can't change anybody. Matter of fact, you can't even change yourself. You say, "Are you kidding me? I've changed." All right, lose 20 pounds, improve yourself. Take some, we in two months, we will all be on some kind of New Year's kick of we're going to go to the gym that lasts about 30 days or less.
I love how everybody goes and signs up for a year membership, then they go about half of January, and then they're paying for February to December, and they don't even attend. And then you got to take a birth certificate and your social security card and know your mother's maiden name to get it canceled.
We struggle to change. The only person that can change us is Jesus. The only person that can change somebody else is Jesus, folks. It's not my job to change you. It's my responsibility to share the truth with you, and then the Holy Spirit's responsibility is to change you.
There's been some times, and I'll just help maybe try to help you understand this a little bit better. When I've been preaching either here in this building or the old church, I've been preaching here in this building and I've been preaching here in this old worship center, there's been some times that I preached a man, I thought, "Hey, that was a pretty good sermon, man. It was on today."
And it comes time for invitation, and nobody moves. And it's kind of like the Holy Spirit says, "Hey, you're not the one that causes people to move. I am." There's been some sermons I've preached, and I thought, "Boy, you crucified that sermon. That was horrible. I got through it and go, I want to sneak out the back door. That was awful. I did a horrible job with that."
And you give the invitation, and 20 people come forward. And it's like the Holy Spirit reach over and taps me on the shoulder and goes, "Hey, it's not about you. It's not about you." Causing people to move and change is the Holy Spirit's job, not my job.
My job, your job, listen to that, your job as a believer, your job as a Christian, your job as a follower of Jesus is to share the truth. It's the Holy Spirit's job to change people. That'll help you a lot somewhere down the road when you understand that. I can't make anybody change. It's the Holy Spirit's responsibility.
And so Paul, he knew that. He has courage to speak the truth and just let God do what he wants to do. And so Paul, he knew that. He knew whatever he's going to do at this point. And they're going to try to assassinate him in the next chapter that we're not going to get to. There's 40 men that take a vow. They're not going to eat food again until Paul's dead.
We're going to assassinate this guy. Not we're going to put him on trial and give him a fair trial and then do whatever. No, on his way while he's traveling, while he's moving back and forth, we're going to attack him and kill him just to get rid of him. Forty of them are going to do that.
You got to have a plan. You got to have courage to speak up and use the word of God. Thank God today you don't have to, you shouldn't have to worry about somebody trying to physically assault you or hurt you or attack you. But boy, you will get crucified on social media or other places when you stand up for Jesus.
You got to have some courage to stand for God. That's what the church needs today. It's the power of God that makes the difference. It's really God's power that makes the difference. Man, all through this, Paul talks about the power of God, the power of God, the power of God, that God did this.
It's hard to argue against the power of God. You can argue against somebody's argument, but it's hard to argue against the power of God changed my life, put me in a new direction. I saw God start churches, save people. Incredible things happen because of the power of God in my life.
The last thing I give, I read this story about a missionary who was speaking to a group of Hindu women who were surprised to see one of them get up and walk away. And so a little bit later, she returned and listened more intently than before. And he asked at the end, "Why did you leave in the middle of my message?" asked the missionary.
Listen to this. She said, "I was so interested in the wonderful things you were saying that I went to ask the man traveling with you if you live like you teach." That's kind of important. She said, "I went and found the people who travel with you, and I said, does he live like he teaches?" And she said, "They said you do. So I came back to hear more about this Jesus."
The woman was impressed, not with just the words he said, but how you live. And I say to you, it's going to be hard to share your testimony if you don't live it. Did everybody say amen right there? It's going to be hard to share your testimony if you don't live it.
I just encourage you, man, this morning, it's just about hearing Paul's testimony. There's a sheet of paper right there in your seat. Some of you have done this before. Some of you haven't. It's just three simple questions there. What was your life like before you came to know Jesus? You don't need a 30-minute story. You need about a three-minute testimony.
It needs to be an elevator speech. It needs to be something you can share in the line at Walmart or Kroger that you could, if you were in line waiting to check out, in two or three minutes, you could share, "Here's what my life was like before Christ. Here's how I came to know Christ. Here's how my life is different after God working in my life."
A quick synopsis of your story. What's God done in you? And this morning, if you're sitting there thinking, "Man, I really don't have a testimony. I don't have a story. I've come to church. I've been a good church member. I've been a good Baptist. I show up. I try to do all the right things." That's not enough, friend. You need to know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.
Or if you're maybe like that prodigal son that you're far off from God and you know your life wouldn't match up with your testimony, today could be the day you say, "I'm going home. I'm going to make my life right. I'm coming. I'm going back to the Father because he waits with open arms to welcome you."
That can be part of your story. You got away from God, and he welcomed you back. That's part of my story. Happened multiple times in my life. God welcomed me back with open arms.
This morning, God wants to speak and do something in your life to use your testimony. Because listen to what I'm going to say to you. People you work with, people you live around, your family, your neighbors, the people your kids play ball with, those people you work with, those people you live with, those people you go hiking, listen, the places where you play golf, listen, those people will probably never darken the doors of a church.
You are the only Bible they will ever see or hear is the testimony from you of what God's done in your life. And you're responsible. You're responsible for them. I'm responsible for those around me. What are you going to do with the message of Jesus, the testimony, the story of Jesus in your life?
Let's pray together. Father, thank you this morning for being with us. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that is here and for what you desire to do in each of our lives together here this morning. And I pray that you would work as only you can in this time together here today. Draw us to Jesus.
Lord, we just confess we desperately need you. There's Christians in this room that desperately need the hand of God to work in their life and the needs that they're facing. There's people across this room that they desperately need you to work in their life. That could be part of their story of what you're doing in their life right here in November of 2024.
Would you do a work? Would you awaken us? Would you awaken us to what you want to do through us? Lord, you're still calling the church to minister to America. Shake us and move us that the church would come alive to the opportunity in front of us to make a difference in our country, to make a difference in this city, this county, this neighborhood, right here, our family.
Give us that opportunity. Help us tomorrow to go to our job or go to our school or go to our place of work or business and be that testimony for Jesus. That's still the story of Jesus to somebody around us. Do a work in each one of us right here, right now, in this moment. I pray for the glory of Jesus if you would do those things.
Heads bowed, eyes closed. The Holy Spirit of God has spoken to you about any need in your life, something you need to do. Maybe it's just something you need to come and pray about. Maybe it's something you need to come and get right with the Father about. Maybe there's somebody in the room you realize you've never really trusted Jesus as your Savior.
Don't go out of here depending on your church membership. Don't go out of here depending on some baptism somewhere, some experience. Make sure you truly know God's changed your life or He wants to change it today. Maybe God's burdened your heart for somebody around you, a neighbor, a friend, a family member, somebody at work that you know you need to be. They need a testimony. They need a Christian to come tell the story of Jesus around them.
And you know you need to be that one. God help you to go in the power of the Holy Spirit to be that witness for Jesus. Lord, have your way in this moment, in this time. Let us obey you and follow you together here today. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Would you stand with me, please? Heads bowed, eyes closed. They're going to sing. You have a moment to respond. Respond to what the Holy Spirit of God may be telling you to do in this moment. I pray you'll follow Him. If you've got a need, you need to come pray about something in your own life that's going on or those around you, come and bring that to the Lord here this morning. Here's your opportunity. Come on as we sing. Come on. Come on. The Spirit of God's moving. He's calling you. Come on. Some of you come pray with these that are here, please. We need you desperately.
You can be seated. Thank you for your attentiveness this morning. Thank you for your response. Man, I want us to make a difference for Jesus. God's trying to work in each of our lives and direct us to make a difference in this community and our family, neighbors, friends, business work, wherever we are.
He's trying to work through us and engage us in that. And I'm grateful to see folks respond to the call of God on their life. And Joe Marino's an incredible testimony right back there. Joe fell off a 25-foot ladder the other day. Could have killed him. And he messed his leg up. Could have been a whole lot worse. And God's taken care of him.
I didn't know he was back here today. And keep him in your prayers. So again, thank you for being here and for obeying God and following his call on your life today. I'm going to try to move quickly because we're a few minutes after.
The Boston Butt fundraiser ends today for Mexico Missions. If you want to get tickets, today's the deadline to purchase those and pick up to the 21st. If you've got any questions, you can see Chris. And if you've got money or tickets or whatever to turn in, you can get those to Chris as well.
The Fall Family Festival is this afternoon at 3 o'clock from 3 to 5 right here outside the Worship Center. We've had two or three people can't be here today. Stephen and Donna got sick, and they're not going to be able to be here. Some others, I think there's about four or five folks that had planned to be part of this that now aren't going to be able to be here.
And if you haven't signed up for something, we could use your help at two o'clock. They're going to begin to set up the games and all the things out here. If you could come then and help, that would be great, or be here at three to help run one of the games. Whatever you could do, we would be grateful for. A lot of you've already signed up for stuff, but just saying if you think you can't do anything, yeah, you can help build the corn pit.
I mean, there's things you can do. Kids are going to wallow around in about what is about 500 pounds of corn? How many? 800 pounds of corn? That's a sight to behold, and we're going to bless all you moms when you take some of that corn home with you in your kids' clothes.
So that'll be fun this afternoon. It's always fun to watch the kids have fun, but we could use your help. Just saying we could use some more help because some of our folks who volunteered have had to drop out. So please, please help us.
You've got a whole list there that coming dates and things on the front of your info sheet. I just some prayer requests. Please continue to pray for Hilda Griffin. You probably saw earlier this week her sister, Claudette, passed away. Continue to pray for Tommy Renfro, Kim Estep's mom, Joe, and then David Bailey's did his second round of chemo this week and had some more difficulty out of that.
Please continue to pray for David and Tracy and lift all these needs up in our prayers. Thank you. Thank you again for being here. Greet our guest as you go. I'll get you out of here as quick as I can. God bless you. Have a great week. See you in just a little bit, and let's bless our families. You're dismissed.
Whether you were with us online or in person, thank you for joining us today. We hope you experience God's presence in today's service and see God moving in your life. We would love to pray with you and come alongside you on your journey with Christ, so be sure to connect with us this week and let us know how we can help. You'll find us on social media, or you can visit us at hbcrome.org and connect with us there. We would love to hear from you. Have a great week.
on Nov 10, 2024
