The Worst Sinner: Week 1

My name is James, and like Andrew said, we're starting

a new series on the life of Paul as we

continue through the Book of Acts, and it's gonna be

excited to be looking at his life and seeing how

God changes lives. Can we just take a moment and

just prepare our hearts and pray before the Lord. God

speak to us today, God teach us today. God help

our hearts be prepared to hear from you today. We

pray all this now in the mighty name of Jesus.

We pray Amen. You know, I don't think that I

have ever talked about my great grandfather Burgess in like

one sermon ever throughout my whole career, and I think

it's simply because there's really no story to tell. He

was an extremely simple man. And here's the thing. It's

not like I could go back and say, well, he

did this or he did that. Now. He just lived

a pretty straight and narrow life. He loved our family

as well as anyone could love a family, and again,

he was just a very very simple man. We called

him papal Norney. That's because my older brother, who was

the first great grandchild, for some reason, called him pap

Old Norny, and I'm sure some of you have some

weird names in your family. And after that he became

pap Old Norny, So pap Old Norny again just was

a great man of God, a man of integrity, and

a man who was again very very simple man, loved

a simple life. Matter of fact, when I think back

about him, you know, he was a farmer in Kentucky,

met my great grandmother. They came up to Ohio on horseback.

You really got to love somebody to ride horseback from Kentucky.

He was a carpenter. He was a man of God. Again,

he was a simple man, and he wore overalls the work. Okay,

he wore suits the church and the rest of the world.

He wore slacks and button up shirts. Again, very simple man.

He loved Kellogg's cereals so much, the corn flakes, that

that's pretty much what he ate for decades, and it

became such a thing in our family. Kind of a

joke that for many of his birthdays are Christmas celebrations.

Guess what he got as a present boxes of cereal

Kellogg's corn flakes. And matter of fact, when he passed away,

I got his bowl and the bull's huge and it's

a huge bowl. And when some of my family members

come over, they're like, can I see the ball? And

it's like this sacred thing that I pull out and everybody's.

Like, that's pack ball's bowl that.

He used for forty years. Because he was a very

very simple man and again just a great guy. He

loved the Cincinnati Reds, and man he could just he

watched every game and when his hearing got kind of bad,

he just watched them on the television, but then had

a radio with a wired one into his ear and

it was just again, great simple solution, you know, listen

to them, watch them on the tube. And again, simple

man with simple solutions. Now he was a carpenter, an

expert carpenter. But as we went through his things and

went through his house after he passed away, we found

that most things were fixed with duct tape, because sometimes

duct tape is the most simple, easiest way to fix something.

He was a carpenter, but again a very very simple man.

Let me tell you he loved me well. He was

an awesome grandpa to me. I spent a night over

their house a lot. He picked me up on every

Friday morning took me to work when it was grand's

day to get her hair done, and when I would

spend the night with him, and he would always ask

me the same question because he had his big wood workshop.

He goes, Jimmy, what do you want me to make you?

And I always, as like a four five year old boy,

was like, I want a sword, or I want, you know,

bow and arrow or a sling shot. And he was

always like, that sounds great, and he would go out

and he would make me a very sharp sword out

of wood and our our real you know, real bow

and arrow, and I would and he would just be

very simple and say the pointing end that's away from you. Again,

simple solutions for a simple man. This is a picture

of me one day with the sword that he made me,

and and it's really interesting. I wanted to show you

guys this. And then it wasn't until Thursday before I

preached that. I was like looking at this again and thinking, like,

you know how you could sometimes look back at an

old family photo from like thirty or forty years and

notice something that you never noticed before. Well, when I

looked at the thing on my head where I was

supposed to be a pirate. I realized that he did

not go out and buy that outfit, but he kept

those in his pocket to blow his nose. And then

I realized that I was wearing his nose blowing rag

on my head. Again, A simple solution from a simple man.

You know, no need to buy an outfit. Let's just

slap that on Jimmy's head. And that's probably why I

went bald right here. But anyways, he was a simple man,

a great man, and you know I miss him terribly.

You know, my hope for us today is that many

times the best things in life are the simple things

God enjoys using simplicity. And so today we're not gonna

look at any hidden secrets of the text. We're not

gonna talk about the mysteries of this city or this place.

We're not gonna try to unearth some ancient Greek meaning

from a word that we've never known about. No, today

we're gonna just stay simple. We're gonna look at an

amazing story, and here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna

apply some of those lessons for our life. So here's

what we're gonna do today. We're gonna keep it simple.

I'm gonna walk us through the text. Okay, we're gonna

read the whole text. We'll walk through the text. I'll

make some comments, and at the end, I look at

five ways how we can apply this text to our life. Again,

a very simple message today, but again sometimes simple is

the best. All right, let's go ahead and jump into

Acts chapter nine. And things have changed. This is what

I would call.

The change moment in the new Church, other than we

have the moment where we see acts happen and we

see the beginning.

Of the church. This is the big change moment. Actually,

this moment changed Christianity forever. Okay, and let's look at it.

Acts chapter nine says, meanwhile, Saul was breathing out murderous

threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the High

Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues and Damascus,

so that if he found any there who belonged to

the way I pay attention to that the way, whether

men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

All right, So what we got going on here? All right?

First of all, we're talking about Saul, who later became Paul.

What does he do? He goes before the Sanhedrin to

the high Priest. This is the most powerful religious entity

in the region. And he says, all right, here's what

I want. I want you to give me some letters

because a cult has risen up, and this cult wants

to destroy our religion. So I want you to give

me letters so I can go to these synagogues and

if I find anybody from this cult, I'm gonna bring

him back and we're gonna deal with them. Okay. Now

this happened right after Paul kind of set himself apart

as the main persecutor of this new church. Matter of fact,

we see in the chapters before this that Paul on

the dusty hills of Jerusalem, he is one, uh you know,

holding the cults. He is overseeing the horrible execution of

one of our first deacons in the church, Stephen. So

Paul has already started out on this murders rampage. But

now he said, hey, this ends with me. We're gonna

go find these people, we're gonna stop this cult, and

it's all over. Now. I don't know about you, but

Saul was full of anger, rage, hatred, and he had

these violent day dreams about what he was gonna do

to these Christians. Have you ever known somebody who was

filled with rage and anger? I mean, have you ever

been around somebody who's filled with rage and anger? It's

kind of a scary thing. I've been in some situations

where I've seen people hurt another person out of anger

that would just make your stomach turnover. But and when

I think about this anger, this boiling overrunning anger and rage,

I always think back to this one moment when early on,

when I was a youth pastor, I was up at

the VBS at our church and I was there just

to help the children's ministry out in any way that

I could help. But I was sitting in my office

at this moment and this guy who was well known

from our community. He was a felon, he was well

known as just a bad, bad man. He walks into

my office and he is just, you know, drooling at

these talking spits coming out. He's angry, he's vulgary, he's cussing,

and he has veins popping all over the place, and

he's just looking at me and goes, you're gonna give

me money right now or a lot of people are

going to be hurt now. I remember VBS is going on.

We have a few hundred kids here, plus volunteers. And

he came in. He goes, I'm going to hurt people.

And I knew that this guy was either high on

meth or PCP. And I don't know, if you've ever

been around people who are high on those and angry,

it's a pretty scary thing. And so I knew I

needed to get him out of the church immediately, and

so I said, you know, I don't have any cash

on me. He goes, he's no, Here's what I need

you to do. He goes, I got a guy out there,

follow us to the gas station and fill our tank up,

and then you're good. And I'm like what. But then again,

when you're dealing with street people who are hustling, they

make weird deals like you give me this rock, I'll

fill your tank up. Whatever. It was one of those

weird things, and so I just said, okay, I'll go

with you. And I really did feel like a hostage

because I was being forced to go, but I just

needed to get them off the church property because I

was like, all right, they can hurt me, but I

don't want them hurting the kids. I don't want them

hurting any of our church members. So I take him

down there, and let me tell you, I wouldn't have

left if I had even thought there was a chance

that this guy would not have got extremely violent. Like

I said, he was raging. So it went to the place,

filled up the tank, and then as soon as they left,

I called some police officers from our church and they

knew him, and then they went after him because they

knew who he was. Now. Coincidentally, the next week we said,

you know, we should have a security team, and that

was actually the start of our security team at that church.

But here's the thing. If you've ever been around somebody

with determined rage, it's kind of like a spooky thing

to be around. It's off setting, it makes you very nervous.

And Paul has this determined rage. You get to understand,

he has this determined rage that he is going to

go and he is going to go and kill Christians.

He's going to stop this cult. So what does he do.

He says, all right, I want letters of introduction into

the synagogues and Damascus. Now here's what you have to

understand about the ancient city of Damascus. It was a very

religious place, very beautiful place. But they had five synagogues,

and so basically Saul was going to go to each

one of those synagogues and find out if anyone was

speaking or trying to recruit to this you know, cult

that he considered the Way to be. Now, if you

notice in our text today the word way is capitalized.

Originally the church was called the Way. We don't know

why it was called the Way. Some people say it

was because Jesus said I'm the Way, the Truth, and

the Life, and maybe the early Church just grabbed a

hold of this saying, but either way, they identified with Christ. Now,

to the rest of the Jewish community, this was an

insurrection group, not a political one, but a religious one.

They were opponents of the Jewish religion. And here just

imagine Paul, he filled with anger. Said the Bible says

that he's breathing out murderous threats, and he's like, you know,

we're gonna get the men, We're gonna get the women.

We're gonna put them in shackles, we're gonna bring them

in for a trial, we're gonna put them in prison,

and we're gonna murder them. This stopped with me. Understand

how devoted he was, and then the world changes. Let's

look at this. As he neared Damascus on his journey,

suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell

to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul,

why do you persecute me? He says, who are you? Lord?

Soul asked says, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

Now think about this. We know that Jesus died, he resurrected,

and he's in heaven. So how's he having a conversation

with Jesus. Well, you know, Jesus is obviously in that

moment speaking through. But also the big question is is

if Jesus is in heaven, how is Saul persecuting Jesus.

Here's what you have to understand. The Bible teaches us

that when we get married, two become one, and my

wife and I when we got married, too, became one.

And Christ is saying, like, listen, Saul, you're messing with

my bride. You're messing with my bride whom I died for.

And you gotta think about how he's gonna take up

for his bride. His bride is being persecuted. He says,

you're not gonna treat my bride this way. Why are

you persecuting me? Why? Because he considers us in him

connected as one. You know, my wife and I are

the same way. You know, you can make fun and

joke about my wife all you want, but if you

say something bad about her, we're not gonna be friends.

And my wife all she loves to hear a dig

on me. I mean, you just go down there and

just roll on me all day long. She loves it.

But if you actually say something bad about me, I

just want the church to all to know I cannot

be held responsible for what she does. She's fiercely loyal

because we're supposed to be. Jesus actually died for the church,

suffered for the church. How loyal do you think he

was to us? And so he says, so, why are

you persecuting me? Why are you hurting my bride? And

then we see the text move on, and then Jesus says,

now get up and go into the city and you'll

be told what you must do. The men traveling with

Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound of Jesus's voice,

but they did not see anything. Saul got up from

the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could

not see or he could see nothing. So they led

him by hand into Damascus for three days. He was blind.

Think about that for three days and did not eat

or drink anything. The next thing, we know the guys

around here, but they don't see it, but they notice

that Saul is blind, so like an old man, they

literally have to guide him by his arms all the

way into the city of Damascus. And then what do

we see? For three days? Paul says in the dark,

talking to God, contemplating, Now, I'm not worthy to ever

be compared to Paul, but I do know this that

Paul and I are both men of conviction. We put

a lot of thought into big decisions, and sometimes by

time the church here is about a decision that we've made,

I've been talking about that decision or thinking about that

decision for a whole year, maybe even two years. And

so I like to think about big decisions, any decision,

it's a huge commitment. I'll think about it for a

long time, just like when I came to Christ. For

three days before I came to Christ, all I thought

about was do I believe that Jesus is real? And

can I really give my life up for him? And

here's Saul in the darkness for three days. His whole

theology is being uprooted. He's talking to God and God

is explaining to him what he's gonna have to suffer

and go through. So Saul caught the place. But in

somewhere in the midst of those three days, Saul decided,

I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and because he's

a Messiah, I'm gonna give my whole life to him.

And then here we see a new character move into

our story today. And Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias,

and the Lord called to him in a vision. Annius, Yes, Lord,

he answered. The Lord told him, go to the house

of Judas on Straight Street. I love, he says, go

to straight Street. I don't know about you, but did

your parents ever tell you to straighten up? Growing up?

And they're gonna help you straighten up? And I don't

know how many times. There was a miracle that happened

where my dad would whoop me, and all of a

sudden I went from a really bad boy to a

really good boy. All of a sudden. It was a miracle.

My dad would help me straighten up. Now back in

the day, going straight meant getting right with God. All

the places that he could have had Paul, or excuse me, Saul, meat,

he had to meet on straight Street. And he says,

there and ask for a man named Tarth, says a

man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying in

a vision he has seen a man name in Anius

come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.

Lord in Anias answered, I have heard many reports about

this man. So I heard about this guy, you know,

and all the harm he has done to your holy

people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority

from the chief priests to arrest all who call on

your name. But the Lord said it, Anonius, go, this

man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to

the Gentiles and to their kings and to the people

of Israel. And then check this out. What a prophecy.

Here I will show him how much he must suffer

for my name, how much he must suffer for my

name Verse seventeen. Then Annius went to the house and

entered in and placed his hands on Saul. He said, brother, Saul,

do you guys know what's the change. Here He went

from evil, wicked persecutor Saul, and now because of Jesus,

he's brother Saul. And it says the Lord Jesus, who

appeared to you on the road as you were coming here,

has sent me so that you may see again to

be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like skills

fell from Saul's eyes and he can see again. He

got up and was baptized, and after taking some food,

he regained his strength. All right, that's the end of

the story. And here's what we're not gonna do for

the rest of the days. For the rest of the day,

we're not gonna break down Saul's conversion because as we

go through Acts, there's multiple times that Saul brings up

his story of conversion. Acts twenty two, when he goes

before herod Agrippa, he brings up his story. But basically

almost every big moment where Saul kind of gets into

a pinch, guess what he does. He shares his story

about Jesus. You know, there's a lot of people who

think that just because they didn't go to seminary and

they don't have all the answers, that you cannot share

about Jesus. Let me tell you something. All people need

to hear is your story about how Jesus changed your life.

You just need to tell them about how Jesus loves you.

You just need to tell them about Jesus. Did you

notice here the Paul you know, we don't see you know,

you know, using all these evangelism tools and all sort

of stuff. As we get through acts, he just tells

a story about how Jesus changed his life. Now here's

what I want to do. I want us to talk

about Innonius. Okay, See, much of what Paul learned was yes,

by the Holy Spirit. Matter fact, in Galatians we see

that Paul went away for three years. This is pretty crazy.

He went away for three years after he comes to

Christ and the Holy Spirit. Could you imagine the Holy

Spirit himself actually discipling you for three years. He's discipled

by the Holy Spirit. Okay. But yet, at the same time,

from the very beginning of Paul's walk with Christ, from

the very beginning and all the way throughout his ministry,

he's constantly surrounded by other people. All right, there's other

people who had huge impact on Saul. Barnabas encouraged him

Lydia was a wealthy woman who maximro Factci financed a

lot of his journeys. Silas was a missionary partner with him,

John mark Man. Their relationship blew up, but still had

a God still used it. Titus and Timothy. He poured

his life into them. We got three letters, three letters

in the New Testament that he wrote to his disciples.

He spent time at Priscilla and Aquila and Phoebe. Was

a great servant of the church who meant a lot

of Paul. Here's what's going on. What we see from

the very beginning of his relationship of God. He is

surrounded by other disciples. And here's what God is trying

to speak to us, is say to us through that

example today, here's the thing. When we go on our

journey to follow Christ, we don't do it in isolation.

We don't do it in isolation. Matter fact, that word

in the Greek for this type of fellowship and discipleship,

it gives a picture of not of one person walking

and from another person and the other person is following them.

But the word in the Greek for fellowship that we're

looking at is shoulder to shoulder, people walking together doing

life together, helping each other become more like Christ. And

my question to you right now is who are you

walking shoulder to shoulder with. You know, I love to

have people pour into my life, help me process life.

And you know I've made a ton of mistakes. So

I love to talk to young pastors and say, all right,

I blew it here, blew it here, blue here, don't

do this, don't do this, don't do this. On Mondays,

almost every Monday since I've been a pastor here on staff,

so we're coming up to seven years here soon. Every Monday,

I meet with the group called my advisory team, and

about half of it is people from the church and

half of it is some of the executive leaders of

our staff. Here's what they do on Mondays. Every decision

we make for the church, we process it. Sometimes we

process it for weeks. But here's the other thing that

happens on Monday for two hours every week. These people,

they have full access to my life. They can ask

me any question they want. And there's been times where

they've encouraged me. There's been times a lot of times

where they've rebuked me. I might come in and a

little salty about something they say, James, that's probably not

what Christ would want, you know, you to feel about that.

They speak into my life. They challenge me. Sometimes when

I'm weak, they're my backbone. Sometimes when I need humble

they humble me. But sometimes when I need encourage. Matter

of fact, every time I need incurge, they encourage me.

I'm walking through my life with others. We're not supposed

to do this thing called Christianity in isolation. We need

deep relationships. So as we get back to Antonius, you know,

not the one we talked about a few weeks ago.

You know, he's told to go to see Saw and

he's kind of like, you know, Saul, the Sanhedrin, the persecutor,

the angry man, the Theologia, the one who you know

murders Steven, the one who has letters that take me

to jail. You want me to go to that soul.

And God's like, yes, you're gonna bring him healing direction

and you're gonna baptize him because I gotta tell him

how much he must suffer from my name's sake. Annius,

And this is what God was saying to Anonius. And Annie,

you're step one in Paul's discipleship journey. You're step number one.

You're his first influence, you're his first encounter. You're the

first person who's gonna disciple him. He didn't disciple him forever,

but he was his first disciple. And here's something that

we learned from that right there, is that we are

called to walk by and walk with others in their journey.

We're supposed to walk by and with others in their journey.

So here's what we're gonna do for rest to day. Okay,

we got about fourteen minutes left. I think I'm gonna

end early today. Hallelijah, Praise the Lord. I feel like

the Holy Spirit's moving and we're just gonna look at

some lessons learned from Ananias and Saul. Okay, number one,

here's the first thing we learned from this story today.

You were never so far from God that you can't

go to straight street. Because, let me tell you, some

God's delights and broken vessels messed up people. And I've

had people tell me that God doesn't want me, God

doesn't want to do anything. They're thinking about their past.

And here's what I like to tell these people, Like

you don't understand, you know, and some people think they

cannot be used by God, and they don't have this hope.

But you don't understand. And if you are that person

or you know that person, remember that Saul was a

guy who was so wicked, so evil that he actually

murdered Christians. He was literally the enemy of God, and

God chose him. See, you are never too far away

from God for him to change you, to do great

things through you. Look at Peter, he ran his mouth,

he screwed up, he denied Jesus. He kind of soldier's

ear off. He was rebuked by Jesus multiple times. Look

at Mary Magdalen. Many people called her an immoral and

she was considered a horner day. Zach Keios was a

tax collector. He was hated by everyone. Everybody hated him.

And then Jesus said, hey, zach Kias you and I

are gonna become friends. Get alan from that tree. I'm

gonna go hang out for you. Because here's what Jesus does.

He looks at the most messed up people, the people

whose backgrounds are just all over the place, and he says,

these are my people, these are my people, these are

the ones I love to do things through. They're my people. Sampson.

Think about him. He was a mess man. He could

control his passion or his lust or his anger. God

made him a judge. Look at Gideon. Gideon didn't trust

in the Lord. He kept putting out fleeces, but God

used them. Look at Josiah, he married a hooker, and

then what did God do? God used his story to

bring Israel back to him. Look at Elijah, he was

cowardly and whining and hiding after a great battle. God

used him again. Look at Jonah, he was a reluctant,

kept running from God. Imperfect, cocky, unstable, messed up, mistake makers.

People who are all over the place emotionally. These are

God's people. These are the ones he uses, and he says,

as I have things for you to do. Whatever excuse

you have, remember that God delights and using the least

of these to glorify him the most. He's got your name,

he's got your number, he knows where you live, he

knows all about your past, and he has a future

for you. Just turn to him. Number two. No one

will get your attention and change your direction like God. Okay,

a real encounter with God will change you in three ways.

At least publicly, personally, and professionally. All right, So he

has a place for them to go straight street. Okay,

and here's the thing you need to know. You can't

run from God. Ask Jonah. Don't think that God won't

use you again, ask Elijah. And you might be held

hostage by your past. Well, if you think that, go

ask Ray have the prostitute. Maybe you think you're too

cocky or arrogant to be used by God, We'll go

and ask Peter. God has a plan for you, and

God will grab a hold of you and get your attention.

And there's some of you you need to understand this today.

God wants to change your future and use you. Will

you let him in? Or do you need a lightning

bolt to hit you? Or will you just say yes?

Number three? God will give you people to help you

on your journey to go straight to get right with God. See,

there's a process of us becoming mature. It's called discipleship.

And every one of us in this room we should

be involved in discipleship in two ways. Okay, who is

walking with you? And with whom are you walking? In

other words, who's leading you and who are you leading?

Right now? Remember an and Ius. He's a very tiny

part of the whole scripture of the body of the Bible. Yeah,

God wanted us to know this about him. He was

just supposed to meet with him and pray with him,

and then we don't see an and Ius again. And

that's it. That's his role for Saul's life. It's just

that simple. And there's a lot of us. We might

not have this long discipleship journey with somebody, but all

of us are supposed to be a part of somebody's

discipleship journey. That's what I love about Christine Aber on

our staff. She is the person who mostly meets people

at the welcome center. She also is part of our

marketing and online ministries. And when somebody decides they want

to know more about the church, she meets some at

next step and says, all right, here's your next steps

and discipleship. So Christine really plays a role in our

church where she helps people get from point A to

point B, and then Tim picks that up and Tim

helps people get from being new here to being connected

through some type of group. So Tim gets people from

point B to C and then Uh, David, not the

youth pastor, Uh, but David in our church, he helps

people to serve and so he gets people from C

to D. And a lot of people are involved in

these ministries are helping. But here's the thing. No one

has taken somebody through the whole discipleship journey. There maybe

just taking somebody from one part to the next part.

But the point is all of us need to be

a part of somebody's journey. Okay, we should all be

a part of someone else's journey. Now Paul was open

to ann and I is why, and he's broken. See,

Paul didn't know that he needed somebody just to get

started in his walk with God. And here's the thing.

If you choose to stay in isolation, you're going to

miss out on significant growth, and you're going to miss

out on all that God wants to do in and

through you. Now I get it being a part of

group serving teams. They help us go forward significantly, But

I also know that it's really hard for a lot

of us. It's just not as easy to see a

lot of you are not extroverts. A lot of you

are introverts. If you're an introvert, raise your hand, Raise

your hand. If you're introverts, can it introverts, please stand

up and tell us a little bit about yourself right now.

We would love to hear your story, and I know

you would love to tell your story right now. I'm

like half introvert, half extrovert. Matter of fact, if you

look at my schedule, my schedule is very, very simple.

My schedule is Sunday almost all day, it's people. Monday

all day until about nine o'clock at night. It's people.

Tuesday and Wednesday. I try to see no human all right.

I work by myself. Thursday until about nine o'clock at night.

It's all people. Friday and Saturday. I need to be

away from humans again. Okay, Now that's just the way

it is. That's how my body recovers. So this past week,

what do we have? We had a trunk or treat,

which was awesome, and my wife says, guess what you're

doing Friday. You're doing trunk or treat? And I'm like,

oh man, I got to see people my on my Friday.

And here's the thing. If I start the morning out

with people, I'm fine. But if I'm introvert all day long,

I have to, like, for like three hours work up

into being an extrovert again, and I was not happy

about this, Like, oh man, this is gonna be really hard.

And I was like, can I bring my axe? My wife,

let me bring my axe. So I was cool with

being at the trunk or tree. But you know, it

was really hard on me to go from a week

full of people to continue to do that. And I

know for a lot of us, a lot of us

were introverts, but probably about half of us. And it's hard.

But let me tell you something that that introvert part

of me. You know, Monday nights, there's so many Monday

nights I would love to have off, but that's my

small group night. And often I walk away from Monday

night thinking that was the best night of my week.

Let me tell you something about my small group members.

My small group members, they were kind of like all

over to church. I brought them together and we kind

of made this family together. Let me just tell you

about my small group members. Let me tell you Wes

and Ashley's life in their career has taken off over

the last couple of years. The Snellings weren't even going

to our church a couple of years ago, and now

they're thriving they're serving and God has changing their life.

Jason for my small group, He's out there serving every

single week. Wes is often on the guitar. His wife

helps office some women's ministry. John and his wife are

serving all over the place of the Willmans. They serve

like crazy. Russell, who wasn't even a part of our

group a year ago, is now in the training to

help people with celebrate recovery. The pals have grown so

much professionally and spiritually. And I've watched everybody in my

small group go from here to here, and it's been

one of the greatest blessings of my life. See, we

need people in our lives. I'm so glad I get

to be a part of their I probably won't be

a part of their forever journey, but I get to

be a part of this part of their journey. Why.

Because God has plans for all of us. And here's

the thing. We ought to never underestimate the potential in

any one single person. Number four. We are not bound

to buy our past, nor are we aware of our future. Okay,

and now I thank God from where I came from,

But I wonder sometimes how on earth did I get

here to Indianapolis at church acrossing. I grew up very

rough neighborhood, very poor area, okay, And you know I

grew up. I had a hillbilly accent, a redneck attitude,

and I was evil and I love to do evil things.

And let me tell you something, I don't know how

I went from there and that part of town to

live in here in Indianapolis, which, by the way, if

we live in this area, this area is awesome. It's

one of the best places, not only in America but

in the world. I really hope you appreciate the area

we live in. We live in an awesome area, and

I wonder sometimes how I got here. And then I

think about this church. You know, this church, you guys,

I feel like we just fit each other like a glove.

You know, you guys allowed me to preach through a text.

You all will laugh at almost anything. Your people of grit,

you get your hands dirty in our community, and I

feel like we for each other. But then when I

look back and I think about that trajectory in my life,

it does not make sense, Like God, how on earth

did I go from here to here? You might be

asking this question today, how do you get to the

place in your life that God has prepared for you.

It's just this simple. Simply live for him faithfully today.

Live for him faithfully today. Last thing as we close today,

who is your next appointment? On Straight Street in eighteen fifties,

there was a young shoe salesman named Edward Kimball. And

Edward Kimball heart broke for this young man who worked

for him. So Edward Kimball decided that God wanted to

him to share the Gospel with him. So he went

to this young man. He shared the Gospel with that

young man, and that young man decided to come to

Christ that day. That's all we know about Edward Kimball.

That's it, that's his story. He worked at a shoe store.

God told him to go talk to somebody. He did,

that person got saved. Now let me tell you about

the person that he led the Christ. His name was

Dwight L. Moody, and D. L. Moody was literally the

most influential Christian of the eighteenth century, and he led

tens of thousands of people of Christ, maybe more than that,

maybe hundreds of thousands of people to Christ. Some say

he influenced as many as a million people. Now Kimble's

his only part was what doing this one thing and

being part of this one part of D. L. Moody's discipleship.

Even though D. L. Moody went on to have this

ministry that just you know, reached millions, all of us

aren't going to reach millions, but all of us can

reach one. And here's the thing. As I closed this

to remind you, some of us are Kimbles, some of

us are Moody's, some of us are Intonysis, some of

us are Pauls. But in God's eyes, we're all somebody.

So here's what we're gonna do today. We're going to

close in prayer, and let's just take some time right now,

and I want you to just simply ask this question,

very very simply God, am I being faithful and my

discipleship relationships? So let's just take some time to pray,

and I want you to close your eyes, bow your

head and just simply ask that and talk to God.

Am I being faithful and my discipleship relationships?

Let's pray.

And I feel like there's some people here in the

room that have maybe walked away from the relationship with

Christ or theyre not in a relationship with Christ, and

I want to give you an opportunity to have your

life changed, your direction changed forever. I want to give

you an opportunity to come into a relationship with Christ,

and to do that, I want you to pray this

prayer with me right now. Jesus, I asked for you

to become my savior, my Lord, the leader of my life.

I believe that you, Jesus, died on the cross for

my sins. Three days later you resurrected, and Jesus, I'm

asking you to forgive me of my sins and save

my soul. Holy Spirit, please fill my life and lead

me and guide me and direct me. With everyone's eyes

still closed, heads bowed, we raise your hand. If you

just pray that prayer, raise your hand. I see that hand,

I see that hand. In the other hand, I see

that hand. That hand. Praise the Lord. I see that hand.

Praise the Lord. Amen. Amen. We're going to continue to

worship now, but we're also going to celebrate that God

is still changing lives today.