**David Harper:**
Welcome, everyone. My name is David Harper, pastor of HBC Rome, and we're excited to celebrate with you the message of Jesus Christ. We expect that for the next hour or so, you'll be filled with hope, encouraged, and refreshed as we learn together what it means to be a Christian and 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.
So sing it out. We're going to sing the bridge to another song that will be very familiar to you all.
God, in my mind, I'm thinking that's like 10 years from now. And he's like, "How old are you?" And I said, "Well, I'll be 67 next week." And he's like, "You realize that's like three years from now, don't you?" I'm like, "No, that's like 10 years from now, man." He said, "The math, David, the math, it's like three years from now." And I'm like, "Holy crap, am I that old?" I'm just like, "Wow, I don't know how I got here." But, you know, it's kind of a shock to the system.
As I process some things this last week, preparing for today, we've been on this subject of "together" through the month of January. And here's where I feel like God's taking me, maybe for the month of February. I really wanted to do something more about relationships and love and how to have a happy marriage and let somebody else teach that besides me. I've got a great wife, and how she tolerates me, I do not know. But God bless her and my family for putting up with me. But that wasn't where God wants me to go.
I want to talk about, for the next few weeks, we'll see how long, about "Take Back Your Life." Two years ago yesterday, I boarded a plane. You guys sent me to Israel with a bunch of other pastors and people from Rome. It was a trip of a lifetime. Of course, it's not a trip of a lifetime. Like every trip I take these days is a trip of a lifetime. You know, I kind of get to do some things in the middle of all this. And, hey, if you get to go anywhere during COVID, it was like, "Wow, I get to go somewhere." You know, like, I just want to go to Home Depot. I just want to leave my house and go somewhere, you know.
And then two years ago in COVID, I could go to Home Depot and be with 500 people in Home Depot, but I couldn't come to church and be with more than 15 people. You know, it was kind of a weird time. But all that to say is I boarded that plane that night from Atlanta and flew to JFK. Then we waited around at JFK, got everybody together, and moved into the International Terminal. We went to the El Al Airline, which is the Israeli airline to fly to Jerusalem from New York City.
People began to come up in that terminal and ask us questions. We were in line to check in and show them our passports and our tickets and all this stuff. There were people in the line that were approaching us, each one of us, and asking us questions. One of the questions they were asking is, "Have you been to China? Have you been sick? Have you been around other people who've been to China or who have been sick?" We were hearing about people getting sick, and things were happening. At that point, we didn't have all the information.
I'm not sure we still have all the information. Amen. I mean, we just feel like we're starting to find out what's really true in all of this. But it was really amazing. I'm asking questions, and I'm like, "Why are you asking this question?" You're starting to put pieces together. Very honestly, from the time we got back from that trip, within a couple of weeks, we went into the shutdown in March. We were closed until almost the end of April for six weeks, for six Sundays here.
It has felt like, to me, this is David Harper's opinion, it has felt like somebody else has taken my life away from me for the last two years, or at least bits and pieces of it. Would you say amen to that? Maybe you feel that way or don't feel that way, but I feel that way. There still feels like they're trying to control us with some things and trying to grab hold of our lives and make us go in a certain direction, make us believe certain things, make us say certain things. If you don't do those things, then you get canceled. Even if you question what they're doing and question some of these, then you still get canceled. This whole cancel culture thing is of the devil himself.
America is about freedom of expression. The very first amendment in the Bill of Rights is that we have the right to free speech and the right to worship as we please. Amen? That's one of the foundational principles of our country. I just feel like somebody's been trying to manipulate us and move us in certain ways. I want to take a few weeks and really challenge you. I started to call this "Refocus." I don't know where I'm going to go from here, but I really feel like it's time for us to stop and examine our lives.
I feel like there are pieces or components, or maybe for some of you, our whole lives have been taken away. It's time to take it back. It's time for me to take back my life and take back responsibility. Because here's what you need to understand: the Calvary is not coming for you.
You ever watch any of those old western movies? And you'd always know, you know, there's four cowboys over here and a bunch of Indians are coming. And I know today that's not politically correct to talk about all this. They're all sitting there, and you know, boy, this is the end for them. They're going to, all these guys, these guys are gone. They're goners. It's just a matter of time. And all of a sudden, you hear the trumpet blow, "Charge!" and over the hill comes the Calvary, and they roll in and they save the day. Right?
I want you to know this morning there's no Calvary coming for you. There's no Calvary coming for you. There's no Calvary coming for you. There's nobody stepping out to take care of you. Listen to what I'm going to say to you. You and Jesus make a majority in any circumstances. You stand with Jesus regardless. He's the one that's going to take care of you. And he's not the Calvary coming over the hill. If you're a believer, he lives within you now. And he wants to give you the victory. He wants to give you the victory now. Matter of fact, you have the victory in you. It's just a matter of living it out.
Anybody say amen to that? It's there. It's a matter of living out the victory that's in you. And that's really what I want to talk about for the next few weeks is how to take back your life. I want to, regardless of what Joe Biden does or Donald Trump does or the Republicans or the Democrats or the local officials or no matter what COVID does or what happens, I want to take back your life, take back my life, and follow God with all my heart.
There's a lot of people in Rome that want to do that as well. Lauren spoke about it a while ago. If you were there last Sunday night, I know a number of you were. Man, last Sunday night, you saw there were 800 people from Rome gathered at West Rome. What a worship time! What an incredible time of worship! People are hungry for God to do something fresh and new.
Maybe that's not you, or maybe it is you, or maybe you're watching online today or you're here in the room. But I believe it's time for us to step into what God wants to do in our lives right here in 2022. I can't fix what happened in 2020. I can't fix what happened in 2021. I can't fix the problems we've faced in the church in the last two years. But I can do something about today.
I can't do a lot about the mistakes I've made in the past, and neither can you. But I can follow in this moment. I can do something about my life in this moment. And that's where I want to take you today. I want to talk about this being your wake-up call.
Good night. Does anybody have to stop and even think about that you're facing a wake-up call in 2022 after what we've been through the last couple of years? After what our country's going through? After what the church has been through? After what you individually have been through? Does anybody even sit up and think about all this as a wake-up call to the church and to Christians today?
I mean, you ought to go, when I say that it's a wake-up call, you really ought to go, "Duh." We already know that, right? But I think a lot of people don't realize that. So I want to call you into that mindset this morning. I'm going to go somewhere that's just, for most of you, you've probably never heard this story. I'm amazed at a lot of folks. You know, you're not going to know, probably even know this story in 1 Kings 20. That's where I'm going. If you want to join me there, I'm going to be down in the latter part of the chapter, verses 37 to 43, and talk about a situation here.
I pray God would use this. I've been amazed. I love our youth are in Judges. On Wednesday nights, they'll come and say, "Hey, is that really in?" I think on Sunday mornings, they're studying through some of the judges. They'll come on Wednesday nights and say, "Is that really in there about the big guy who got stabbed in the gut?" Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's there.
There are stories in the Bible you don't even have a clue about if all you read are just the highlights and the cute little verses and the platitudes that are in Psalms and Proverbs and in the Gospels. There's a lot more to the Word of God. So this morning, I just want to challenge you. This is a wake-up call. If you want to take back your life, if you feel like, "Man, my life's been on the wrong path for a while, and it's time to get my life on the right path."
I don't mean you've been out committing adultery. Maybe you have. I don't know. Or I've been out stealing. I've been stealing from somebody. I don't know where you are. Or it's just, "Man, I've lost the focus of my life. I've lost the focus of following God. I've lost the heart desire that I used to have for God to do something fresh in my heart. I've lost the focus of being obedient and following God with all my heart and all my life."
This morning, I want to refocus that. I want to take back my life. Well, here's your wake-up call this morning. So I'm going to get into this, and I want to pray, and we're going to get right into this.
Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the privilege to serve you, to follow you, and I pray that you will speak clearly through my words, but even more than that, speak clearly through your words and through your Holy Spirit into every heart. I can only speak to the ears of those who are willing to hear, but your Holy Spirit can speak to every heart and life in this room. I pray you'd do that even now in this moment. Speak powerfully and clearly.
God, I believe there's a wake-up call to the church, to me, to HBC Rome, to Rome, Georgia. It's a wake-up call to turn and take back our life of following you and not be sidetracked with all these other issues that go on around us, but to follow you with all of our heart. I pray you'd make that real in our lives here this morning. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
I want to make one more statement. Here, I want you to hear it, and then I'm going to move to 1 Kings 20 and get into this and try to move real quickly this morning. That's not usually my spiritual gift, but I'm going to try.
Have you ever considered how different the world would be if Adolf Hitler were a morning person? And we're going to come back to that, because some of you are going, "Wait, what? What's that got to do with anything?" Come back to that in a few minutes.
1 Kings 20 is a story of King Ahab and Samaria and Israel and the enemies that come against them and the prophet of God. God gives a specific direction to the king, and he doesn't follow it. In this story here in 1 Kings 20, you find a message here of a man coming to the king. I'm going to look, it really starts with verse 37.
The prophet found another man and said, "Strike me, please." So the man struck him and wounded him. Then the prophet went and stood by the road waiting for the king. He disguised himself with his headband down over his eyes. As the king passed by, the prophet called out to him, "Your servant went into the thick of the battle."
There's just been this huge battle for this war. Someone came to me with a captive and said, "Guard this man." Now notice the question he's going to ask the king. It's absolutely essential to the subject matter this morning. He said to the king, "Someone came to me with a captive, a POW, a prisoner of war, and said, 'Guard this man. If he is missing, it will be your life for his life, or you must pay a talent of silver.'"
Let me come right here and clarify that for you. A talent of silver at this point in 1 Kings 20 would be equivalent to about a half a million dollars today. So basically, he's telling the story to the king. We captured this POW in war. Somebody brought him to me and said, "It's your job. Your job is to guard this guy, to watch him. If he gets away, we either kill you or you can pay a half a million dollars, your choice."
So don't let him get away. You know what they're saying to him? "Hello, can I, I'm from Alabama. Can we just cut through all that?" They're saying, "Don't let this guy get away." Right? I mean, don't let him get away. Don't let him get away or it's going to be a high price for it.
So notice what he says, "If he gets away, it will be your life for his, or you must pay a talent of silver." While your servant was busy here and there, so I'm busy doing these other things, I'm busy. The man disappeared. Does that sound like one of your kids telling you what happened?
"I don't know what happened. I mean, I was doing stuff, and I looked around, and the dog ate my report. I don't know. I don't know what happened to it." Eric, how many times have you heard that at school? "The dog ate my homework." It was something I was busy here and there, and it's gone.
The king now responds to this story from this man and says, "That is your sentence." What's he saying? "You've pronounced it on yourself." What you said is my sentence to you. So he says to him, "You've already told me. So you let this guy get away. It's either your life or half a million dollars. You've announced your own judgment."
You've sentenced yourself by what you told me in the story. Now notice, go with me. Verse 41, and the prophet, it's a surprise. The prophet takes off his headband from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets. He said to the king, "Listen to this. This is what the Lord says to you. You have set free a man I determined should die."
He let one of the kings get away that had brought this war. God had told him, "Take him out." And he didn't do it. God said the same thing to you. "I determined this man should die. Therefore, it is yours, your life, your people for his people." Sullen and angry, the king of Israel went to his palace in Samaria.
So here's this guy, here's this prophet that's dressed up as this dusty, dirty soldier. He literally, boy, he takes this thing a long way. I mean, I've taken some things a long way out there, but I don't know if I do what he did. He literally got a guy to beat him up so he would look like he had been in war. He had a guy beat him up and hit him in the face and make him look like he had been beaten up by the enemy.
Then he puts his headband on to kind of cover part of his face up and make it look like he's got a bandage around his head to disguise him. He stops the king's chariot and has this conversation with him. This man looks like he's just barely hanging on. He's just standing there. He tells that story about how he went in the middle of the battle and how all this was happening.
You see where he's going with this. The king sees this. He gets into this conversation, and it's a focus of saying that God's going to do the same thing to you that you say to me. I really want to make sure you understand the background here. The New King James says, "Guard this man." He's tasked with, they bring this POW. I don't know how important he is, but he must be pretty important.
"Guard this man." The King James says it real clearly. If you like the old King James, it says, "Keep this man." In other words, don't let this guy get away. If you do, you're going to die or you got to pay a whole bunch of money, which they knew he did not have.
So the point is in this story is don't let him get away. That's the whole point of this. The man was told, "Here's what's required of you. Here's what's going to happen to you." There's no way he's going to be able to pay that amount of money. So he lets this guy get away. In his story, he tells him, "I'm going to have to die."
He's asking the king, "What should he do? How should he handle this?" It's just this little window here that he's hoping for mercy. He's hoping for a reprieve. He's hoping the king will say, "Hey, you know, it's all right. No big deal. We'll catch him again. It'll be okay." And that's not what he gives. The king says, "You just announced your own judgment."
You just pronounced judgment on yourself that what you said, if you were supposed to die, if he gets away, you die, then that's what I'm requiring of you. It becomes very clear at this point that the prophet takes off the bandage, takes off the disguise, and the king recognizes him at that point. He knows he's one of the prophets, and he looks at the king and says the same sentence, the same thing that you pronounced on me, God has pronounced on you.
You were supposed to obey God in this area, and you didn't. Now God says, "I'm going to do the same thing to you." If you read this, you might go back later this week, don't do it now, please, but go back sometime this week and read some of 1 Kings 20 and kind of get more of the background of this.
I just want to take it here in this made-up story. By the way, let me help you understand if you didn't catch it, spoiler alert, there is no POW. There is no prisoner of war. There is nobody he's guarding. It's all a made-up story by this prophet to put the king in a place where he's pronouncing judgment on himself.
God's using this, and part of this taking back your life and wake-up call is the fact that whether we intended to or not, listen closely, whether we've intended to or not, there are moments when we're disobedient to God, right? I mean, you may not have intended to be disobedient to God, but you have. Maybe you've not.
I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. Guilt is not what I'm after at all. Shame is not what God's after at all. There have been times you knew you should have been in God's Word and you haven't. You know what that is? That's disobedience. There are times we should be praying. We should be close to God. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago when we talked about praying together.
One of the reasons I want you to be in the Word is one, that's where your power and strength, that's where the relationship connection to God comes from. But it's also what directs your prayer life instead of just praying these willy-nilly Santa Claus prayers, "God, give me one of those and give me a pony and give me a little princess and give me one of these and send me one of those."
Like it's Christmas, God sending out all these prizes that we pray for. Knowing the Word of God, God directs your prayer life. It's so important to who we are as believers that we know the Word of God so we know how to pray. We talked about that with Elijah on Mount Carmel. He knew God had said back in Deuteronomy, "If you disobey me, I'll shut up heaven."
So when he prays, "God, don't let it rain," he was praying the scripture from back in Deuteronomy because he knew the Word of God. Now we miss that most of the time when we look at that passage and we just go, "Elijah's just praying a prayer." He's just up there pulling words out of the blue going, "Okay, God, stop the rain."
Then three and a half years later, he prays again and says, "Let it rain." No, he's following the scripture, and that's why it's so important for you to know the Word of God. Who in here doesn't need God to do something in your life? Because you need to be up here instead of me.
You're praying about your job. You're thinking about your family. You're trying to decide what to do for the future. I mean, holy cow, the whole world is selling their houses right now. We're all going to live in a tiny house or a trailer or an RV somewhere, I guess. Heck, everybody I know, all of a sudden, all these houses are up for sale because they've got these ungodly prices on them, and you're just going, "Ah."
Do you not need to stop and say, "God, what do you want me to do? What's your will for my life?" If you're going to take your life back, you've got to respond to the wake-up calls God's putting in front of us. Ladies and gentlemen, I feel like America, I feel like the church in America, lost people are supposed to do this.
Have you ever seen a movie where they're driving down the road, and there's a sign that says, "Bridge Out?" And you go a little further, and there's another sign that says, "Bridge Out Ahead." And there's another detour, "Bridge Out Ahead." And then there's the barriers across the road. If you keep going, you're going to drive off a cliff here, and you're going to die. And they just keep driving through that, right?
They pass the sign and go, "Well, that don't mean me. That means everybody else." It's kind of like the speed limit signs, right? That's the way I look at it. Everybody else is supposed to do 55. I can do whatever I want to, right? I mean, that's the way we Americans live.
And the church today, it seems like we're just driving down this road at breakneck speed. And there's a bridge out, bridge out, bridge out, barrier, barrier, barrier. And we're headed off the cliff at 90 miles an hour thinking, "That means somebody else." That means another church over there. That means that church over there that's liberal.
Can I tell you, if you don't read the Word of God and know the Word of God, you might as well be in a liberal church. Because it's the Word of God that makes the difference. It's the Word of God that guides our life. We say that, and if I ask you right now, how many of you believe the Word of God is the infallible, inerrant Word of God? Man, you'd raise your hand. Yes, absolutely, I do. But you don't act like it.
Because if you really believe that, you'd be in this book every day saying, "God, where is it that you want me to go?" I feel like today, the church is driving down that road. The American church is headed down that road as hard and fast as we can. And God has put sign after sign after sign to say, "This is your wake-up call, wake-up call, wake-up call, wake-up. Wake up and look at the stinking road."
Just looking at the road, you know there's trouble ahead. Who looks at what we're going through right now in our culture and doesn't go, "There's trouble ahead if somebody doesn't do something?" We're headed off a cliff. We don't want to admit that, and we don't want to think that.
I know some of you in the room, you think the Republicans will fix that, and another president will change that. Honey, this is all in the hands of God. And it's about your life, not just about America's life, and what you're going to do in this wake-up call.
So God sends this wake-up call in this story. He sends this wake-up call to the king, and can I, I'm just going to give you some points here. I'm going to move on and close this thing. What are you going to do with what you've been given? You're taking notes today. You ought to jot that down. What are you going to do? Because that's a question for everybody in this room.
Earlier, when we were singing that last song, "Hold the Ground," Bill comes around, he's going to set up my stand, and he's standing behind me over there singing. I'm thinking, "Man, I sound a whole lot better when I sing when Bill Fortenberry's standing behind me." Right? All of a sudden, Bill's singing, and I'm going, "Wow, I sound pretty good."
Then I realize, "Oh, that's Bill standing behind me." You know, you sound really good in the shower, right? Anybody sing in the shower? I like to sing in the shower. And when you get out and start singing, and you're like, "Hmm, not so good." Or you're singing real big in your car with the radio or a CD, or just maybe you don't listen to CDs anymore, your Apple Music or whatever, and then you turn it down and you go, "Oh, I sounded pretty good when it was just the radio going, but by myself, hmm, not so much."
So you may think, "Look at me, look at me and hear me, look at me." You may think you don't have anything. You may think you don't have anything to give to serve God. But everybody in this room has got something. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here, and God wouldn't have saved you and put his Holy Spirit in you. He didn't just put his Holy Spirit in you for you to exist and get to heaven one day. He put his Holy Spirit in you to live out the Christ life and be used by God here on planet Earth today, right now.
And my God, if there's ever been a day where you've been saved, and there's ever been a day that we need to serve God, how about today? How about 2022? So what are you going to do? What are you going to do with what you've been given? And you're going to say, "Man, I don't have a whole lot. I don't have a whole lot of money. I don't have a whole lot of gifts." I understand. Believe me, I understand.
With my pastor friends, I remind them often. They were like, last Sunday night, I got up and did a little bit up there with them, and they said, "You need to go up and do this." And I'm like, "Guys, the only gifts I have are spitting and hollering. And I got a little gift of, like, I love to hang out with people. I mean, my spiritual gift is hanging out and yelling. That's it. That's all I got."
So you know what I'm going to try to do? I'm going to try to maximize the gifts that I've been given. Because here's what I know. I don't have a lot. And some of you are going to sit there and say, "I don't have a lot." You've got something. You've got something from God in your soul that you could use by God.
Everybody can't sing like Lauren, Ben, and Thomas. Dear God, I love to watch David Bailey play the drums. I wish I had enough rhythm to even keep a beat on a drum. And I'll watch them and go, "I'm not a musician." I took piano for seven years as a kid. I hated it every moment. Wished to God I could play any tune on a piano today. Missed that.
But you've been given something. Most of us in this room probably don't have a whole lot of money. I want you to hear what I'm going to tell you. Compared to the rest of the world, you are millionaires. Compared to most of the people of Africa, most of the people of South America, most of the people of Central America, most of the people of Asia, you have wealth beyond measure because you're an American.
Most of us have food in our pantry, and probably this time of year especially in the wintertime. If you do like I do when they're talking about snow every other week, I always try to make sure my pantry's got some food in it. So if we don't have anything but mac and cheese and some potato soup, I've got something to eat in case all y'all buy the milk and bread before I get there.
Which is prone to happen. Because I don't really take it seriously about half the time. Because half the time they're going, "Oh yeah, it's going to snow." And then we have the snowmageddon we had like eight years ago. And I'm like, "Uh-oh, I wasn't ready."
You know, most of the world doesn't even have a pantry. Every day they're getting food to feed their family that day. They got to go out that day. Yeah, you're not Bill Gates. Yeah, you're not Jeff Bezos. Yeah, you don't have B&O. Yeah, you don't have millions and billions of dollars. But you've still got more than most of the world.
And my question for you, listen, listen. I'm not accountable for Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and the millionaires and billionaires of the world. I'm accountable for David Harper. Just as you're accountable for you. And hear me, it doesn't matter whether you're 80 or 8. What are you going to do? What are you going to do with what God has given you? That's the first wake-up call.
That's the first wake-up call today. What are you going to do? That's what this prophet is saying to the king. It's what the king has pronounced to this prophet. You had this guy, and you let him get away. Ladies and gentlemen, here's one thing I know. And I'm learning fast. First, you've got your life. You may not have a whole life else.
Some of you in this room are in your late 20s, early 30s. It seems like a couple of years ago, I was a 31-year-old guy coming to pastor this church. Next Sunday will be 36 years. I don't even know where those 36 years have gone. Just a few years ago, it feels like I was a 31-year-old man. What are you going to do with your life?
Because here's what I'm telling you. You'll turn around a couple of times, and you'll be 67 or 70 or 80. What are you going to do? Stop thinking about what your wife ought to do or what your husband ought to do or what your kids ought to do. What are you going to do?
Man, can you put yourself in this story? I'm challenged here that we need to see. You can be deceived that the prophet is going to deceive the king into getting him to make a proclamation about his own life and what he ought to do. We're the soldier that's meant to guard the other soldier. And you know what he says?
"I just got to go in here and there and paying attention to other things, and I let him get away." How many of us have been, we've been paying attention. We've been looking away. We've been focused on other things. He didn't say, "Hey, somebody brought me a cake. Somebody brought me a big meal. The TV's on. There's my favorite shows on TV. I'm looking at Netflix. I'm doing this. I'm doing that."
He just said, "I'm standing there, and I got focused on other things. I looked up, and he's gone." Can I tell you, that's exactly what will happen with your life. If you remember some old guy yelling and spitting. Sorry. Y'all are in the spit zone this morning. I'm trying to back up some.
You remember one day that some old preacher told you, "Your life will slip by so fast." Because it will. What are you going to do with what you've been given? Because see, it's possible that while you're going here and there, while you're going back and forth to work, while you're worried about COVID-19, while you're worried about the politics of our day, while you're worried about our culture falling off the cliff, while you're worried about all those other things, your life is slipping away, and you're letting away what God's given you.
It's a wake-up call today. And I pray to God you're hearing God say that to you. It's a wake-up call. Dads, moms, young people, young adults, middle-aged, senior adults, it doesn't matter how old you are, you're accountable for you and what you do in this moment to wake up and realize, "I've got to get busy about what the Father wants me to be busy about."
It's a wake-up call. Now, you're meant to guard yourself and watch yourself. That's the second thing I want you to see. You're accountable for you. Can I put it that way maybe? You're accountable for you. I have an accountability for this church that I'll answer to God one day for how I've led this church all these years. And that honestly scares the fool out of me.
I've got to answer for that. So do the leaders of this church. But you know what? Ultimately, I've got to answer for David Harper. I've got to answer for how I've led my family. You've got to answer for you. That's what he's talking about here. He says, "You've got to supervise yourself. You've got to lead yourself so that you don't escape, so that you don't let these things happen that you get."
See, this prophet said, "If I'd have been focused, if I'd have been focused on the right things, if I'd been paying attention to what's around me, I never would have let the guy get away." I wonder how much we've let get away from us because we haven't been focused on us.
We talked about it in our elders meeting this morning. It's so easy today to compare yourself to other people, to look around on your job and go, "This guy's sleeping with two or three different ladies, and he's doing all this stuff, and he's a jerk, and man, he's a horrible person, but he's getting the raise, and he's moving up, and he's getting a new title, and he's getting all the accolades, and everything's great happening to him, and here I am over here, I'm trying to serve God, and nothing good's happening to me."
Anybody ever felt that way? David did. David talks about it in the Psalms. Man, the ungodly are getting all this credit, and nothing's happening for me. Matter of fact, Saul's trying to kill me. How bad is that? And so you have to be on guard. You have to be on guard for yourself.
I need to move through this quickly, but you don't let it escape. Don't miss it. Jesus said in Matthew 16, verse 26, it's easy to see that what if you gain the whole world, but lose your soul? Jesus is saying, "Man, you can be focused on everything else. I need a bigger house. I need better furniture. I need another truck. I need this, and I need that, and I want these things."
In focusing on all these other things, you lose the most important thing, which is your soul and your walk with God. It seems like that's exactly where the church is today. We're focused on everything else but God. And this is a wake-up call. Come back to that. Come back to see what he's trying to say to you.
What kind of, I mean, when you stand before God one day, you're not going to go, "But I drove a Ford Raptor, and I lived in a house at 3,000 square feet and five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and I lived in a house in this beautiful yard and a swimming pool." God ain't going to care about that.
By the way, in eternity, you're not either. That's temporal. And it's nice. I think God wants you to have nice things. But more than anything, he wants you to walk with him. Be focused on him. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep your heart with all diligence." Man, this is a great verse. Write it down. Proverbs 4:23.
By the way, you ought to be reading a Proverbs. You ought to read a chapter of Proverbs every day of your life. There's a ton of wisdom in Proverbs. This old man gathers all this wisdom together and passes it along to these young men and women. In Proverbs 4:23, he says, "Keep your heart with all diligence." Guard your heart, in other words.
Why? For out of it spring the issues of life. Here's what I know. If I keep my heart guarded in the right direction, everything else around me is headed in the right direction. Guard your heart. Guard your heart. Jeremiah warns the same thing. He tells us hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it?
The culture of our day says, "Follow your heart." Man, if it feels good, do it. If you want to do it, just do what you want to do. Follow your heart. You know where that will lead you? To hell. It'll lead to trouble. Jeremiah says, "You need to understand your heart is desperately, deeply wicked. Your flesh will lead you away from God, not to God."
So be careful. Guard yourself. Your heart's tricky. It'll trick you into doing things you shouldn't do. How many of us have fallen in love with a new car? You start thinking, "Man, I'd like to have another car." You go in the car lot, and you start smelling that new car smell.
There is something hypnotic about that new car smell. I don't think I've got any car salesmen in the room. If I do, I'm sorry. But you know what you ought to do? You ought to go out there. You ought to go to Advanced Auto Parts and buy some of that new car smell and go spray it in your 20-year-old car. It'll help your feelings.
How many times have I bought something like that and went, "Boy, that looks good. I'm going to get that." And it's great, and it's wonderful, and you're going, "Wow, that's awesome. That's incredible. I got this car. It's in, man." And then they send the payment book.
All of a sudden, it's not as great as it once was. Then somebody dings it with a cart at Walmart, and you want to kill them. But you can't. You can't find them. Or it could be like Joey and Bev. You parked two miles away from Walmart, and I want everybody to hike in.
When I go with them, I need one of those carts that people ride around in just to get from the parking lot to the front door. How many times have we followed our heart? Just be honest with yourself. How many times have you followed your heart, and it led you to trouble?
How many times have you followed God, and it led you to the right place? That may have been difficult, but it turned out being the right place where you needed to be. So I want to give you just two things here quickly. I know I've got to wrap this up, but there are two things I want to say to you about two things to be on guard against.
I'm going to get to this, and we'll come back to why it was problematic for Hitler to not be a morning person. Don't forget that. We're coming back to it. Two things to be on guard against. Guard against giving in. Guard against giving in to the world. Giving in to your heart. Giving in to your emotions.
An incredibly intelligent guy. I've tried to pay attention to older men and women in my life who have spoken into my life. I had a guy tell me one time, "When you don't know what to do, listen up. Listen to this. Don't do anything. Just tap the brakes and wait. See what God does."
I had another guy speak into my life and help me. As a matter of fact, I've heard this multiple times. "Don't make a major decision in an emotional moment." If you go home depressed, dear God, don't make a decision to leave your job or leave your wife or move to Montana unless you're a millionaire.
Don't make a major decision while you're in an emotional state. Guard your heart. Don't give in to those things. Think them through. Look deeply. Don't make a decision about getting into a relationship when you don't know where it's going to go. Guard your heart. Guard your heart.
Don't give in to those emotions of the moment. Look at that and ask God. Think it through. Look at God. Let Him lead you through that moment. Does anybody say amen to that? All of us old-timers ought to say amen. This is a word from God this morning.
Wish somebody had poured this into my thick skull when I was about 20 years old. Of course, my hard head was so thick it didn't get in. Everything that I'm telling you this morning, listen, I had to learn the hard way. I had to have God break me down over years. Break through my thick skull to teach me the principles I'm trying to give to you today from the Word of God.
It took me a long time to learn these because as a Harper, we don't learn anything the easy way. But I'll tell you something about learning things the hard way. You don't forget them. You don't forget them. So be careful. It's giving in. Don't give in so easy.
Man, it's just so easy today to give in. It's so easy to just go home and turn on Netflix. Go home and turn on Prime. Go home and turn on the TV and chill out and lean back and forget life and realize, "Man, life's passing you by." It's passing you by. Don't give in.
It's easy today to do that. It's easy to get online and vent your frustrations and tell everybody else what they ought to do instead of thinking about what you ought to do. The second temptation, quickly, is to give up.
How many people do I know that have just given up? I'm telling you, in 36 years, listen to what I'm going to tell you. Because a lot of them sit right where you're sitting today or up in that other building up there some years ago. They sat in church. They said they were believers. They said they loved Jesus. They worshiped. They sang. They prayed. They applauded. They cried. They went to the altar. They did everything that you're doing.
But there came a point when they said, "I'm giving up on this." And they went home. I want you to hear me. There's no guarantee that that same thing can't happen to you. I know most of you in this room, I mean, thank you for being here this morning. It's stinking cold this weekend, and you're here in a great crowd. You're here, and a lot going on. You're here and following God.
But there's no guarantee that any of us, I, listen, I can still mess up. I can still destroy my life and my testimony. And so can you. We've got to constantly be on guard for that. Don't give up. I know it's hard right now. I know it's harder right now to serve God than it's ever been in my lifetime.
It's harder to speak to people and speak into people's lives. Honestly, I think people are hungrier for it right now. They want to know the truth. They want somebody to kind of guide them and speak into them. It's hard to get close to people. It's hard to share that with people without being close to them.
The days of just going down the street and winning somebody to Jesus cold call on the sidewalk or knocking on their door, those days seem to have come and gone. We've got to build relationships with this community so we can speak the truth in love into their lives. You all ought to say amen right there.
Don't give up. Yeah, it's hard. Yes, it's difficult. Yes, the culture's going a different direction. Man, you're a fish swimming upstream today if you're following Jesus. But don't give in. Giving up's a real temptation. I have to tell you, some days it hits me like that. I just go, "I'm tired of this, man. I just want to go do something else and walk away."
Can I be honest with you? I have those thoughts some days too. Then I realize, like Jeremiah, God's put a fire in my bones. If I go do something else, I'm going to be a miserable individual for the rest of my life if I'm not following God, doing what he's called me to do. If you're a believer, the same thing's true of you.
Don't give in to the world and don't give up on God. Can I say, look at me. You may be days from seeing a miracle in your life. This may be your year. 2022 may be the year God comes through for that thing that you've been praying about for two years. This could be the day, this could be the year God brings that to pass. And you're going to give up before that happens?
Don't you dare give up on God. Don't give up. You've got to guard yourself from that. You've got to guard yourself. It's a huge temptation today. So God wants to sustain you and bring you through this.
Let me move on. Let's come back to Adolf Hitler. So you've got to be on guard. 78 years ago this June, the Allied armies had been pushed out of Europe. They'd been pushed out of Europe. They couldn't get to Germany because Germany's kind of in the central northern part of Europe. To get to Europe, Adolf Hitler thought there was, he considered the Atlantic Ocean to be like a wall around Europe.
The Allies couldn't get there. Now he knew they were going to try. That's what I want you to understand about this story. If you don't know anything about D-Day and the invasion of Normandy that came, the invasion of France that came, they knew they were coming. They knew they were coming.
As a matter of fact, they knew pretty much when they were going to come. Because June was kind of this window when there weren't storms on the Atlantic. Even that day that they go, there's major storms that take place. Around the time of D-Day, they're having to figure out how the weather's going to work so they can get to France and land.
So the enemy knows they're coming. They know. Adolf Hitler knows they're coming. They position troops along the coast from Spain to the Arctic. Man, they're ready. For wherever the Allies come, we're going to be ready to repel them and keep them back.
So the Allies have this plan to deceive them. The morning of D-Day, they start raining these paratroopers behind the lines. But those paratroopers, if you've seen any of the old movies, you've probably seen some of this. They're mannequins. They're dropping these paratroopers that look like they're going to invade here. When the real invasion, they're using deceit to try to get.
Because they know if we can just get a toehold into Europe, we can break open a front and make our way to Germany. We can put an end to this war. They will very quickly once they get there. The plan was incredible. But getting there, so they deceived the Axis, the Germans. They deceived them into thinking they're going this way.
They even put inflatable tanks out there. They had these balloons that looked like tanks. They set them up and blew them out in these fields. Those paratroopers that were falling, some of them had explosives strapped to them. When they hit the ground, they'd explode. So all the attention shifts to this spot.
They're guarding that spot, and they're going over there. It leaves Omaha and Normandy open. The second wave of that was they were going to destroy all the pillboxes and machine gun nests along the coastline there at Omaha and Normandy. But at Omaha, they couldn't get them. They couldn't get them all.
If you've ever seen "Saving Private Ryan," it's probably the closest thing to the realistic. Don't watch it if you have a soft stomach. You watch what those men went through that day as they tried to take that beachhead. The Germans knew they were coming. They had fortifications set up for them.
But here's the deal. The Panzer units, the big tank that Germany relied on, could only be moved at the command of Adolf Hitler. Nobody else could give them. As they realized that they had been tricked into thinking the invasion was going to happen here, and it's really happening here, they need to move these Panzer tank divisions in to reinforce them.
Because in a war, reinforcements is everything. I'm going to tie all this in here in a moment, so just stay with me. Only Adolf Hitler can give that command. Well, you know what Adolf Hitler's routine was? He liked to sleep in.
Anybody like to sleep in? He was known to sleep in until 11, 12, maybe even to early afternoon. All the people around him were afraid to wake him up the morning of D-Day. When they realized they had been deceived, they were afraid to go wake him up and tell him, "We've been tricked, and we need to move these tanks over to this area to reinforce them."
By the time he woke up, which some say was probably between 11 and 12 o'clock, they already had a toehold on the beach and were taking the ground they needed. Because Adolf Hitler liked to sleep in. He wasn't a morning person.
The decision to reinforce them came too late. Thank God for the Allies, for us, or we'd probably be speaking. I'd probably be preaching in German today if we could even preach. It changed the course of history.
What am I saying to you? I'm saying don't wait too late to make the decision you need to make. God's given us a responsibility. This is a wake-up call. Oh man, I hope God's speaking to your heart this morning. I hope it's more than just a sermon that you go, "Oh, I'll remember that story about Adolf Hitler. I'm going to tell that at work tomorrow."
Or something, or some cute thing, or some funny thing that I said, or some point that you really like. I hope it's really a wake-up call, almost like a slap in the face to wake you up to realize this is your moment.
Brian, David, Steve, Jeff, guys, this is your moment. This is our moment as a church, as individuals, as families. Does anybody here else besides me want to take back your life and make a difference for God?
Because when it's all said and done, it isn't going to matter what kind of house I live in, what kind of car I drive, what kind of clothes I wear. But it is going to make a difference what I do for God. And listen to me. It's going to make a difference in eternity for some other people.
All my ministry, hear me, I'm done. All my ministry, what I've wanted to do, I want to take as many people to heaven with me as I possibly can. I don't mean David Harper is going to get them into heaven. I mean, don't misunderstand that.
"Oh, David, how are you going to get people to heaven?" I'm going to tell them about Jesus. I'm not going to sit back and just let our world go to hell and sit on my hands and go, "Yeah, I'm not responsible." Yes, we are.
Like the story of that prophet. He was responsible for that one guy. He got distracted and let him get away. I'm saying to you this morning, don't let that happen to you. Don't let your life get away. Don't let the people around you get away.
Man, this is our moment to make a difference for God. Take your life back starting today.
Father, thank you for this moment. Pray you would teach us, speak to us. God, there's a, I don't know that today is the day. I don't know that today is the day everything changes for somebody. But boy, let's help us to live like that.
Help us to live like Romans 13 talks about that we wake up. Wake up, get up, for salvation is near. Help us, let this be a wake-up call that we've got one life, and it will soon be passed. Only what we do for Christ will last.
I know those are cute little sayings. But boy, there's some deep, still truths in those statements. I pray for a week, a week of call to believers all across this room that we need to follow you. It's time for us to make a difference. This is our moment. This is our opportunity.
Lord, help us. I want to today begin to take my life back where I'm following you with all my heart and making a difference for my community, for my culture, for my family, for our church, and for the people around us. To the glory and honor of Jesus.
With heads bowed and eyes closed, I just wonder how many people in the room, nobody looking around. How many people in the room said, "Preacher, I'm in that same boat. It's time for me to take back my life and to follow God."
God's speaking to me this morning. I'm not going to call you out or anything. But I just want to cross the room. If you just put your hand up and down and say, "Man, this has been for me this morning. God spoke to me about my life and what I need to do."
God bless you all across the room. There's hands going up and down. Thank you for that. I pray that the Holy Spirit of God. Amen. I want you to speak into lives. Not just my words are hitting your ears, but the Holy Spirit is hitting your heart and your soul and your spirit with what you need to do.
If there's somebody in the room that you need to know Jesus Christ, or you're watching online and you realize, "Man, I need to know Jesus. I've never fully given my life to Christ. I've been religious or I've been in church or I've been a good person. But today I need to really know what it is to know Jesus Christ."
That relationship that God desires for me, that personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is calling you, speaking to you about it. I'm going to beg you to get to know him this morning. Let us show you how you can come to know Jesus and how he can change your life and change the direction.
The Holy Spirit is speaking to you this morning. I don't know what he's telling you you need to do. Maybe you're like that prodigal son or daughter. You've been in a far country, and it's time to come back home. Know the Father loves you and wants to forgive you and restore you and take back your life to follow him.
Whatever it may be, I beg you, Holy Spirit, lead us in this moment to obey you. I pray it for Jesus' glory and honor. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Would you stand your feet if you're physically able? I believe the Holy Spirit's made it clear what some of us ought to do in this moment.
Maybe you just need to come and pray and talk to God about what's going on in your life. Maybe you need to come back home. This is the time where you kick out that leg over the pig pen and say, "Man, I'm getting to God this morning. I want God to do something in me."
Maybe you just need to come and pray what God wants to do in your life or in your family or in the need that you face. I'm begging you. Heads bowed, eyes closed. They're going to begin to sing. Would you step out and obey the Spirit of God in this moment? Right now. Just take that step of faith and obey God. Come on.
As we sing, be obedient to God. This is your moment to obey God. Take advantage of it just for another moment. Come on, yes, you restore.
Father, in this moment, we call out to you. We pray, help us to have a wake-up call and begin this process of taking back our lives. Help us to see we've got to do something with what you've given us. Help us to make those right choices this week.
Help us to be on guard for ourselves and those around us. Lord, help us to not give in to the flesh and not give up to the world, but to follow you with all of our heart. I pray, God, let this be a new start for some believers in this room, for some couples, for some families, for some dads and moms to lead their home.
Help us to follow you with all of our heart as we seek you in this time. In Jesus' name, I pray. And for your glory, we'd ask these things. Amen.
You can be seated. A couple of things I need to do quickly with you is encourage you to connect with us. Again, if you are a guest here today or you've been a guest before and haven't ever done this, would you please take a second and text "WELCOME" to the number on the screen?
That just helps start us connecting with you. As Zach said and others say, we're not going to bomb you. We're not coming to your house. We just want to begin to make a connection. If you're watching online or if you're here in the room and boy, you're taking a step to follow Jesus today or want to know more about that, we want to help with that.
We want to be part of that. Or you've got any need that we can help with. We're constantly looking out. How can we be of service to our community and the people around us? I just want to encourage you to connect with us in that process.
Then we've mentioned it several times because of the time of year that we're in, the inclement weather that comes and goes. As you know, if you've lived in Georgia, if you've lived in the Southeast any length of time, our real danger zone is in February and March when bad weather really can hit any time.
But we want to be able to communicate with you. At that same number, if you would text HBCROME. Can you put that up there? Yeah, there we go. That just gets you in the text group where you get the information like on Sunday morning if we're having to make a decision about meeting or not meeting, you'll get a text message.
We're not going to text you every day. We're not even going to text you every week. But when something serious is going on and we need to let you know some information, that's what gets you in the system right there so that you'll get the notification to know what's going on.
That's a huge help. Then there's a challenge this morning besides connecting. I encourage you to connect with some people. You ought to be thinking, who else needs to hear what we're talking about right now? Do you know anybody? Is there anybody in your life that you go, "Man, Joe needs to hear this," or "Susie needs to hear this," or "Somebody else needs?"
Then get them here. My God, do everything you can. Go to work tomorrow and share what God's doing in your life and in our time together here about taking back your life.
Anybody else struggling with taking back their life these days? Then go invite them to be part of this. They can watch this online. If they missed today, they can catch up. They can be here. They can watch on. We've got to connect with people.
Does anybody say amen to that? That's important. Thank you. There are so many new faces that have been visiting with us the last few weeks and months. Man, we're so grateful you're here. I just feel like God's at work in drawing people in. Amen.
I mean, it's really cool what God's doing to draw some people in and some fresh faces and excitement. Amen. We need to advance that kingdom. So who do you know that needs to hear this kind of message and this kind of hope and direction for their life?
I encourage you to be part of that. For our church family, it's an opportunity for us to give. I had somebody ask me the other day, "Are we ever going to start passing the offering plate again?" Probably not. Not anytime soon. Thank you for giving.
You can give in the basket here. There's a basket back there. If you physically give, you can mail it in. Tons of you are giving online and giving through text to give. So there are multiple ways to give, as you can see on the screen.
If you'd like to write a check, mail it in. Do that. Whatever you need to do, you continue to give. Thank you. For two years, you've kept this church going. I really wish, honestly, look at me. If you're giving, I wish I could come to your house and just sit down and say thank you.
Thank you. Because your faithfulness and faithfully giving for two years, we've been able to keep moving forward. I'm so grateful for that. You're incredible. When so many people are looking for other ways, other places, and other ways to put their money these days, man, you've continued to support the kingdom work of this church and connected this church to all the other churches that are serving together in this community.
You're making a difference. It's an incredible moment in the history of Rome and Floyd County for our churches to be serving together the way we are and seeing God do what we do. So thank you for that.
Now, a couple of things I need to mention quickly, the events. If you are a guest or if you haven't joined our church, or you've been a member here years ago and you were somewhere else, and now you've come back, we want you to come through the new members class.
It's going to give you a lot of information in a couple of hours' time and kind of bring you up to speed with where everybody else is. We're going to do that two weeks from today on the 20th, immediately following the service. But we need to know you're coming because we're going to have food for you.
So if you want food, which I assume most of you do right now, I'm hungry, you'll want food after that service. You'll want food because we'll meet together either down here or up in D107. We'll meet together and eat lunch together and talk and get through that process as quickly as we can.
We need to know if we need to provide childcare for you, that you're coming so we can provide food. So please reach out to the church and let us know. You can do that in a quick email. Matter of fact, right now you can pull out your phone and send an email to info@hbcrome.org and say, "Yes, me and my wife and our two kids or whatever are going to be attending the new members class on the 20th."
That will help us prepare for that. Or you can call the office tomorrow and let them know. That would be a huge help to us. There are a couple of things coming up real quickly with the ladies' ministry this week. They're having dinner and a movie on February the 12th in D107. They have tickets for that.
Anybody in the room got tickets? You're taking names, okay? Feliz is over here taking names like a hall monitor. So please be part of that and let them know. Then there's a prayer event coming up on March, March the 5th. They have a prayer event scheduled for that.
Then there's a baby shower coming up for Haven Crumley on March, Wednesday, March the 2nd in D107. She's having a little girl, and we want to be helpful with that.
So I got something else I need to share with you. But first of all, thank you guys that are watching online. Thank you for being part of our service today. I hope you'll reach out and let us know how we can help you. God bless you.
I hope you have a great week. And for those of you in the room, you were with us online or in person. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you experienced 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. God bless you.
on Jan 05, 2025
