How God Can Use You To Impact Others

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Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Andy Ryder. I'm one of your pastors here,

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and I help lead Crossroads anywhere.

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That's serving our community of people online

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and all over the country and the world

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who are running after Jesus together.

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Now, those seven practices are things

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that followers of Jesus have done

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for thousands of years that lead to growth.

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And there's a whole Internet full of stuff

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that you could be watching right now

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and a whole world of stuff you could be doing,

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but you chose to be here.

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Hey, well done.

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And that you're here and not watching, like,

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random stuff on the internet tells me something about you.

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It tells me that you want something more,

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something bigger, something better than

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just more scrolling, that you want to grow.

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And I think that's exactly what can happen today.

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Quick side note, a little bit later,

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we're going to be taking communion.

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If you're already following Jesus,

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grab something to eat and drink and just set it aside.

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I'll talk us through that when we get there.

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Right now, we're going to take some time to connect with God.

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This music isn't a live concert that you watch.

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It's a conversation with God

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that you get to be a part of.

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So whatever's going on in your life,

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whether it's good or bad, whether it's easy or hard,

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I want you to bring that to mind as we sing this song

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about a God who makes up for lost time.

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- Sing this together.

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That's what He does.

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- Come on and sing.

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- Listen, now we're going to do another thing

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that followers of Jesus have done for thousands of years.

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We're going to have a chance to take communion.

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Communion is a reminder of God's love for us

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and our trust in Him.

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It's also a reminder that we're a part of a global church

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that no matter what language we speak

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or where we live, that we still get to follow Jesus together.

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And anyone who's made that decision can participate.

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Now, it's not magic, but it is a powerful reminder

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of God's love for us and our trust in Him is our only hope.

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Let me set the stage for this.

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The last night before Jesus was to be executed,

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He gathered his friends around Him for a meal.

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So find something to eat or drink.

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I'm going to use just really simply

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a bottle of water and a cracker.

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Jesus used wine and bread, but you can use anything.

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1 Corinthians tells the story like this:

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The food represented His body that was broken

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so that we could be made whole. Take and eat.

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1 Corinthians goes on to say:

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In the same way also, He took the cup after supper,

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The drink represented His blood shed

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so that ours wouldn't have to.

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Take and drink.

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There's a pastor that I love who said that:

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The reality of following Jesus is this:

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With that hope, with that joy in mind,

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would you just pray with me?

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God, we ask for Your forgiveness

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and we ask that You would help us remember

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that You would bring to mind,

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that You would help remind us

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of just how incredibly loved we are.

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Thank You for the gift of Your Son,

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for living a life that we couldn't,

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and being killed so that we could experience fresh life.

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Amen.

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- Come on, sing that again.

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- God, I'm so thankful for Your presence

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and for Your Holy Spirit

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that offers us peace that surpasses all understanding,

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a love that endures, joy in the midst of our trials.

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God, I'm so thankful, God,

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that we can be in Your presence

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and experience how good You are.

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Would You remind someone of your goodness today

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in this room? In Your name we pray. Amen.

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- This summer, we're doing something

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that's never been done in Crossroads' 26 year history,

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and I am so excited about it.

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Crossroads is a church of tens of thousands of people

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who live all over the world, right?

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Some people show up in person at physical locations

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and some of us live too far away for that.

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But we're still all one church and it's amazing.

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But we know it can be lonely if you're

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the only Crossroads person in your neighborhood

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or your town or your city.

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So we want to gather all of our Crossroads community

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who don't usually get to show up at a building

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together this summer in person.

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Join us for the first ever anywhere weekend

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hosted right in the city where it all started,

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Cincinnati, Ohio.

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It will be a powerful weekend packed

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with community building, connection, fun,

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spiritual activation and training

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on how you can be the church wherever you are.

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It's going to be 100% fun, 100% meaningful,

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100% family friendly and 100% bad at math.

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If you can get here, all meals, experiences,

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and even childcare are on us.

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It's a chance for anywhere community members

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who don't live within driving distance

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of a local site to meet new friends,

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to hear from key staff like Brian Tome,

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Kyle Ranson and more,

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to experience Crossroads worship in person,

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to help Crossroads take over

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a professional baseball game,

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to hear what God might be wanting to do in you

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and in your city.

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And to get the best that Cincinnati has to offer:

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amazing food, free date nights out,

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custom designed kid experiences, and so much more.

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It's all happening Friday night, July 21st

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through Sunday afternoon, July 23rd.

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See Crossroads.net/anywhereweekend

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for more details, and to get signed up.

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And if you have any questions, like, what do I do with my kids?

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Or I live in Seattle, how do I get there?

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Hey, we will get you taken care of.

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You can reach out to me directly

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at Andy.Reider@crossroads.net.

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And hey, just a reminder,

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whether you participate in Crossroads online

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or in person at a physical site,

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you can head to crossroads.net/locations

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and click on the site nearest you

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to check out what's happening in your area.

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Now we're going to jump into our weekly teaching

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as Alli Patterson, shows us about the power of story.

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- The X Factor.

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We all know it when we see it,

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but it's hard to quantify.

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It's what sets somebody apart from everyone else

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and helps them succeed.

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Every good story has an X factor,

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or else we wouldn't watch it, right?

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James Bond, Olivia Pope, John B,

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they all have the X Factor.

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It could be a special talent, a way with words,

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charisma, style, or the secret Krabby Patty recipe,

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and of course, the X factors themselves.

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But what's our secret sauce?

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When we receive Jesus, the Holy Spirit

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gives us an X factor that makes us different.

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And Acts is the key to understanding

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and unlocking our own X Factor.

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Today we're in the Book of Acts,

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all about the early days of the church.

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It's a book about everyday people being changed

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by God's power and changing the world as a result.

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And we have access to the same life changing,

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world changing power.

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Today, we're going to see how the Holy Spirit

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sends us and gives us a new story.

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Saul was a guy known for hating Christians,

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but when Jesus broke through into his life,

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He gave him a new story, a new mission,

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and a new name: Paul.

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Just like Paul, our story isn't finished yet.

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When we have the Holy Spirit,

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we unlock the X factor of a new story.

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- Well. Hey, good morning, everyone.

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My name is Alli Patterson,

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I'm one of the teaching pastors here at Crossroads.

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Thanks for spending part of your weekend

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in our community.

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Merry May-cember. Whatever we're supposed to say.

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May is the new December. Anyone else with me?

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I'm so incredibly busy this month,

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but truly, being here this weekend

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is a total highlight of mine.

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So welcome.

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I have a question for you right as we start off today,

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I really want you to answer it.

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It's nothing embarrassing or anything,

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but if such a thing were possible,

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who would say that you would like your life

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to be used by God to touch or impact

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somebody else around you? Yes?

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I think many of us, most of us would say,

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"Yeah, we'd be up for that."

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And today we're going to get into the Book of Acts

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because it holds a key to how we actually do that

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to the people that are right in front of us

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every single day.

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And it's deeply rooted in those seven,

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what we call proven practices,

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but they're really just ancient ways

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of the earliest followers of Christ.

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And we're going to talk about two of those

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and the power that they have to impact

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the people around you every day

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because the Holy Spirit uniquely empowers them.

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I think this desire we have to, it feels good,

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you know, like, when we know our life

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or something we did or said or were

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in somebody else's life matters.

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And this is a uniquely human thing.

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My cat doesn't wake up every day wondering

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how she can make my life better.

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My husband argues that maybe she does the opposite.

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I know some of you liked me until I said I had a cat.

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Right?

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It's all right. You can hate on my cat.

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It's all right. All you dog lovers out there.

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But for real, we are the only thing

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that wakes up going, like,

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"I'd like to have a positive impact around me."

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And this is a clue to how life with God

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is really supposed to work here on the earth.

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The very first man and woman, He told them

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that they were His agents, His representatives,

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His image bearers to do things on earth in His place.

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And we hear that echoed in the Old Testament

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as He makes a nation out of His people

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and He tells them you're going to be a light

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to all other nations and a blessing to all nations.

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And Jesus echoes those same things,

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sending His disciples out to go

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and to represent who He is and His character

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and His Kingdom all over the face of the Earth.

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God has always wanted human beings lives

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to be used by Him in a really unique and special way.

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To be used by God is really quite simply

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just to put Him on display in such a way

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that it draws other people

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even just a tiny bit closer to Him.

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And you're invited into that.

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And today I hope that you feel more equipped

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to actually do that in your everyday life.

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Let me pray for you.

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Lord, thank You for all the ears listening.

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Thank You for all of Your people that are gathered.

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I pray that this time would be well spent,

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and I ask that by Your Spirit You would equip us

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to do whatever it is that You're going to send us

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out into the world to do, even this very week.

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In Jesus name, Amen.

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Well, I got kind of a wake up call a month or so ago.

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Who was here the weekend that we had

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a guest speaker named John Burke?

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Were some of you here that weekend?

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If you haven't seen that service,

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highly recommend that you go and find that online

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and watch it.

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He presented some research about what we can know

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about heaven based on near-death experiences,

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not just a couple, but thousands and thousands

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and thousands that he's researched.

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And so I got this big wake up call about my life

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really being used to impact the people in front of me

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because of this guy that I saw that weekend.

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- Howard, tell us about this life review that you had.

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- There was a number of angels, I call them angels,

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who had been recording my entire life, all my life.

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And Jesus wanted them to play out

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in chronological order, the scenes of my life.

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And the entire emphasis was on

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my interaction with other people.

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Of course, initially starting out with my mother

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and father and my sisters

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and then school and friends.

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- And so you just, you saw it or you...?

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- We saw it, we felt it, we experienced it.

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And it was really interesting because it was --

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the whole emphasis was on people and not on things.

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Matter of fact, there were some instances

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where I had won promotions, honors, awards,

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and they skipped them.

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And Jesus -- I said to Jesus,

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"You're skipping the most important thing in my life.

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This is what I live for, to get this award,

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Kentucky Artist of the Year,

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big banquet in my honor

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and a big cash prize and everything."

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And he said, "That's not what we're here for you to see.

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That's not important."

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- That's not what we're here for you to see.

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That's not what's important.

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Oh, like, I left the service going, how do --

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how, how have I not been that crystal clear?

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Like, how do I walk through the day

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and even get distracted by the phone in my hand

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and miss the person right in front of me? Come on.

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For some reason, this was like a big wake up call for me.

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So I go, I go the next day and I happen to have a haircut.

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And a woman named Anne cuts my hair.

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She might even be here. Hey, Anne.

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She and her son had come to the service

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and we were sitting there together processing

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that particular service because

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it was really intriguing, really impactful.

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And I was describing that realization that I was having.

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And I said to her, "Hey, Anne. What if?

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What if the only thing that God cares about

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in my life right this second

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is how I'm interacting with you?

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What if that's it?

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How could He care about something else?

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Like you're standing in front of me and I'm with you,

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and I'm a person who's standing here in time

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and space, and the only thing in front of me

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is another person that He loves.

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What if it -- What if that's it?"

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And almost as soon as I said the words,

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I just felt the same kind of rush

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I had in the day before in the service

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where God was going, "Okay, now you're catching on.

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It is about the people that

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are standing in front of you every day."

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And that begs the question, how are we to interact?

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Then how are we to interact like God?

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How? How do I do that in a way

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where my daily interactions actually matter,

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or at least they have the potential to matter?

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In the Book of Acts shows us two really simple

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but critical things that the Holy Spirit uniquely empowers.

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And as I read the Book of Acts

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and thought about this weekend, I thought,

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this is really fascinating because if we know this

00:33:45

and we grow in these things

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and we do these things on purpose,

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what might happen to our lives,

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what kind of impact might we start to have?

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And the two things that the Holy Spirit

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uniquely empowers are story and Scripture.

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Story and Scripture.

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And you see this over and over and over

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in the Book of Acts, because the Book of Acts

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is really just regular people who used story

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and scripture to change the minds and hearts

00:34:16

and impact the lives of the people

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that are right in front of them.

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And so we're going to dive into these two elements today,

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the first of which is story that we're going to look at.

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And I'm going to use a passage from Acts 26.

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Acts 26 is way at the end of the book.

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And the whole kind of second half of the Book of Acts

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is about a guy named Paul.

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And Paul meets Jesus kind of earlier in the Book of Acts,

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and he goes about talking about him, really.

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He just goes around talking about Jesus

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and his experience, and he lands himself in jail,

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which is where he is when we find him in Acts 26.

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And he's been there for two years,

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so he's been sitting in jail because of false charges,

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kind of trumped up charges,

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similar to the kind of stuff they would attack Jesus about,

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like, he's teaching against Moses,

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he's trying to incite a rebellion.

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He's saying things against the Jewish law.

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And all these false accusations that have landed him in prison

00:35:10

and he's just been sitting there.

00:35:12

And he finally gets the chance to talk to a man

00:35:15

named King Agrippa and give his self defense,

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which is where we pick up this passage in Acts 26.

00:35:22

And his speech, if you will, that day

00:35:26

is to King Agrippa, but, of course,

00:35:28

there's a lot of other people listening as well.

00:35:30

And here's how he starts:

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So Paul kind of starts with his,

00:35:52

seems like he's going to give you a life story, right?

00:35:56

He starts and our life stories are good for that.

00:35:58

They connect with people on a certain level

00:36:00

because we have common backgrounds

00:36:02

or similar interests or we've lived in certain places

00:36:04

or done certain things.

00:36:06

That's exactly what you think you're hearing from Paul.

00:36:08

He starts with kind of his life story.

00:36:10

I had the chance a couple of weeks ago

00:36:11

to talk to some corporate leaders

00:36:13

and you bet I wanted to connect with them

00:36:16

in such a way that I wanted them to understand,

00:36:19

like, I know what your life is like

00:36:21

because I've been there.

00:36:22

I drew a little bit on my experience

00:36:24

from having a corporate job,

00:36:26

what seems like now quite a long time ago.

00:36:28

But common experiences, life stories,

00:36:31

they do that really, really well.

00:36:33

But that's not the kind of story

00:36:36

that Paul was actually telling.

00:36:39

Listen to where he goes next. He says:

00:37:14

Not quite where you expected him to go, right?

00:37:18

And he goes on to a very important moment.

00:37:51

This is the story that Paul tells.

00:37:55

And it's specifically because the Holy Spirit

00:37:59

does not empower your life story,

00:38:01

the Holy Spirit empowers your Jesus story.

00:38:04

The Holy Spirit empowers stories told about Jesus,

00:38:07

and it does so, He does so for a very specific reason.

00:38:12

In 3 or 4 different places in the New Testament,

00:38:16

the Holy Spirit is actually referred to

00:38:18

as the Spirit of Jesus,

00:38:20

the Spirit of Jesus Christ multiple times.

00:38:23

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus.

00:38:26

So when you start talking about Jesus,

00:38:28

the Holy Spirit is, like, "Right there, now I'm in."

00:38:33

The Holy Spirit empowers uniquely,

00:38:36

not that your other stories aren't good,

00:38:38

but uniquely empowers the stories that you have

00:38:42

in your life about encountering and experiencing Jesus.

00:38:46

Because the Holy Spirit was sent for that purpose.

00:38:49

Jesus sends Him and it's the Spirit of Jesus.

00:38:53

So when you talk about Jesus, boom,

00:38:55

your words take on multiple new dimensions

00:38:59

in the Kingdom of God.

00:39:00

They carry weight and impact

00:39:02

like you can never imagine on your own.

00:39:05

And there's a formula, if you will.

00:39:08

I don't know if it's right to call it that.

00:39:10

I think that's fair.

00:39:11

There's a pattern that Paul uses

00:39:14

in this particular speech and in all the other times

00:39:17

that you can read that he tells his story,

00:39:20

and it's super simple:

00:39:22

before Jesus, the encounter with Jesus,

00:39:29

and then after.

00:39:32

He uses before, encounter, after.

00:39:37

Really simple pattern,

00:39:39

but that's why he's choosing what he's choosing.

00:39:41

You know, he starts and he's connecting

00:39:44

with the people in the room, and then he goes into

00:39:46

a very surprising moment in his life. Can we agree?

00:39:50

Not many of us would tell our life story and go,

00:39:52

like, "And also, I was an unbeliever,

00:39:55

a scoffer, a hater, a murderer."

00:39:58

And that's the next part.

00:40:02

We might even seek to leave out some of those things.

00:40:05

And Paul seems to go right for them

00:40:07

because he's doing something very, very purposely.

00:40:10

He's telling a story about Jesus.

00:40:12

And when you tell a story about Jesus,

00:40:14

we need to know what were you like

00:40:17

before you experienced this guy named Jesus?

00:40:21

And then Paul, of course, gives us his encounter.

00:40:25

He saw something.

00:40:26

He met Him in pretty dramatic fashion.

00:40:29

He was told some things by Jesus.

00:40:31

He saw this bright light. He fell to the ground.

00:40:33

This is a firsthand account.

00:40:35

And he becomes what the same word Jesus uses here

00:40:39

to Paul is the same word He uses

00:40:41

before He ascends into heaven

00:40:43

to His disciples in their final instructions.

00:40:46

He says, "You're going to be my witnesses."

00:40:49

A witness has an experience, an event,

00:40:52

a happening, an understanding, a new something

00:40:55

that goes down that you could actually describe.

00:40:58

And that's exactly what we see Paul doing.

00:41:00

He says, "This is what I actually lived."

00:41:03

He becomes a witness,

00:41:05

and that's exactly what Jesus told him to do.

00:41:06

Here's what he reports Jesus says to him

00:41:09

on the side of the road that day:

00:41:20

What you have seen, this experience,

00:41:23

and what you will see,

00:41:24

which means there's going to be other ones.

00:41:27

There's going to be more stories

00:41:29

that Paul encounters about Jesus.

00:41:31

And he tells this story before, encounter, and after.

00:41:37

And as he describes the after, all he basically says

00:41:40

to King Agrippa is, "So that's what I did.

00:41:43

He told me to go tell what I saw,

00:41:45

so I started going around and telling what I saw.

00:41:48

And it really made some people mad, and here we are.

00:41:51

But how can I not?

00:41:54

Because that's actually what happened to me."

00:41:59

And this is the thing about our own lives

00:42:03

is that we have to, if we want to impact the lives

00:42:07

of the people around us,

00:42:08

they need all three of those parts.

00:42:10

And we're so prone to leave one of them out,

00:42:12

to assume that we either don't need it or it's,

00:42:15

you know, it's not necessary or we just don't like it.

00:42:18

They need all the parts before, the experience, and after.

00:42:25

Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of thought.

00:42:28

Maybe we've just never thought that through before.

00:42:30

So I decided to put this formula, this pattern,

00:42:33

to the test with my own story.

00:42:34

Now, if you've been coming here,

00:42:36

you've heard my story before.

00:42:37

This is not something that you haven't heard

00:42:39

or that's unfamiliar to a lot of you

00:42:41

who are part of our community.

00:42:42

But I'm just going to push my story

00:42:44

into those three buckets.

00:42:46

And let's look at what happens when we do that.

00:42:49

So before, if I were going to describe to you

00:42:52

the time in my life before I really encountered Jesus,

00:42:56

it would be something like this.

00:42:57

So a lot of you grew up like me

00:42:59

in maybe a midwestern city.

00:43:01

I grew up and I was one of three kids

00:43:04

in a pretty nice family.

00:43:05

I was a pretty good kid.

00:43:07

I thought I was pretty solid.

00:43:08

I did my work. I went to school.

00:43:10

I tried to make friends. I tried to be nice.

00:43:13

I tried to do the things

00:43:14

that I was told would make a good life.

00:43:16

And I did those and I was actually pretty good at them.

00:43:19

So I went to college and I studied

00:43:21

and I had my eye on a corporate career.

00:43:23

I met a nice guy. We got married.

00:43:25

I got exactly the job that I wanted.

00:43:28

And I began life thinking I had it by the tail.

00:43:32

And as I did that, I built exactly the life

00:43:35

that I'd intended to do.

00:43:36

But I failed to see I was building it

00:43:38

all around and on and through my own strength.

00:43:42

It was all about me.

00:43:46

And eventually that life all about me

00:43:48

led me into some people and circumstances

00:43:50

that I didn't see coming

00:43:52

that I wasn't strong enough to handle

00:43:53

and that brought out all of my weaknesses,

00:43:55

every single one of them.

00:43:57

Everything from people pleasing to performance

00:43:59

to beauty issues to all kinds of stuff.

00:44:02

And all of those went into a big ball

00:44:05

to conspire to offer me the opportunity which I took

00:44:08

and had an affair with someone that I worked with.

00:44:13

And I became somebody

00:44:14

that I would have judged the day before,

00:44:16

that I couldn't even look in the mirror at,

00:44:18

that I didn't even know anymore.

00:44:23

That's what my life was like before I encountered Jesus.

00:44:28

And then right around that time

00:44:32

I had an encounter with Jesus.

00:44:34

I started to feel like God was pushing in on my life.

00:44:39

It felt like everywhere I looked

00:44:40

there was something about God

00:44:42

or someone that knew God.

00:44:43

And I finally realized, like,

00:44:45

He's kind of pushing in on me here.

00:44:47

And I went on a run one day and I started talking to Him.

00:44:51

And then I started crying.

00:44:53

And then I cried so hard I couldn't run.

00:44:55

And I actually dropped to my knees on the sidewalk

00:44:57

and I said, "Jesus, I can't do this anymore.

00:45:01

I can't live like this anymore.

00:45:03

Get me out. Do whatever you need to do.

00:45:06

Break me, get me out. I don't want this life.

00:45:09

I want whatever You have for me instead."

00:45:13

And I experienced Jesus in the following

00:45:16

6 to 9 months in ways that were utterly incredible,

00:45:20

totally undeniable.

00:45:22

I had Him speak to me in dreams.

00:45:24

I had Him send me people with specific encouragement.

00:45:27

I felt His presence in the kitchen

00:45:29

when I was singing to Him one day.

00:45:32

And most importantly, above all,

00:45:34

I started to read the Bible

00:45:35

and there were sometimes words on the page

00:45:37

that just seemed to be highlighted, like,

00:45:39

"Those are for you."

00:45:44

And I encountered a real and living Jesus.

00:45:48

And what happened after? What happened after?

00:45:51

Well, those words that I started to read

00:45:53

were actually the crux of what happened after,

00:45:55

because I decided I had nothing left to lose.

00:45:57

It was pretty much all down around my feet at that point.

00:46:00

And so I just started doing what I was actually reading.

00:46:07

I pretty much threw all my eggs in His basket.

00:46:09

Every time that there was an opportunity to tell the truth,

00:46:12

to be obedient to something. That's what Paul uses.

00:46:14

The word he uses is I was obedient to the vision.

00:46:17

I did what He said, and I started to do that.

00:46:21

And I found a God who knew exactly how life worked,

00:46:24

who knew exactly how a marriage was supposed to operate,

00:46:26

who knew exactly what my job,

00:46:28

the place the job was supposed to have in my life,

00:46:30

who knew exactly who I was and who knew the way out.

00:46:34

He knew the way to rebuild me, my life, my marriage,

00:46:38

my work, everything from the inside out.

00:46:43

And the end of the end of the after is that tomorrow,

00:46:46

actually, we celebrate 24 years of marriage

00:46:51

together because of Him.

00:46:53

How can I not offer you that story?

00:46:56

And what if I left out the before?

00:47:00

That's what I wanted to do for a really long time.

00:47:03

I just wanted to leave out the before part.

00:47:05

I actually had a friend who asked me,

00:47:08

I had a book that released in January

00:47:10

and she read the manuscript before it released.

00:47:12

And she asked me what my favorite part of the book was,

00:47:14

and I told her something super nerdy.

00:47:16

And she laughed in my face and she said,

00:47:18

"Nobody's ever going to ask you about that.

00:47:21

Everybody's going to want to talk about your story."

00:47:24

And it frustrates, it kind of irritated me

00:47:26

because I'm like, "I want you to --

00:47:27

I want you to love God. I want you to know God."

00:47:31

And she was like [FX]. But the truth is,

00:47:36

as soon as I put those 3 pieces together,

00:47:38

the before, the experience with Jesus and the after,

00:47:41

it ceases to be a story about me.

00:47:44

Now it's a story about God.

00:47:47

Now, it doesn't say anything about me,

00:47:51

it says everything about Him.

00:47:55

And that's what happens when we put those 3 parts together.

00:47:57

Parents in the room, parents listening,

00:47:59

I have a special word for you.

00:48:01

Your kids, they need all three parts.

00:48:04

They desperately need to know that you have a before.

00:48:08

Because when they live theirs, they're going to want to know

00:48:11

that they have a parent with a before,

00:48:13

an experience with Jesus

00:48:15

that got them somewhere afterwards.

00:48:19

And that's the same thing that your friends need to hear,

00:48:21

that your colleagues need to hear.

00:48:22

If you want to have an impact on the people

00:48:25

around you, you need to be telling

00:48:26

your before, your experience, and your after

00:48:29

with Jesus stories,

00:48:31

because the Holy Spirit will explode those

00:48:33

in the life of other people.

00:48:36

And I think there's reasons why we don't, right?

00:48:39

I mean, I said why I didn't.

00:48:40

I don't want to talk about the before,

00:48:42

even this very weekend.

00:48:43

I'm like, really? Really?

00:48:49

Because there's still a little part of me

00:48:51

that thinks that story is about me.

00:48:52

It's not about me,

00:48:54

but we're ashamed of our part in it, right?

00:48:56

Paul's a murderer.

00:48:58

He's going, "Yeah, like, I not only helped murder them,

00:49:01

I cast my vote and they all came to me

00:49:04

and told me it was done afterwards."

00:49:08

And he tells that just as plain as day.

00:49:11

But some of us are, we are too ashamed.

00:49:13

We've locked it too far in the past.

00:49:15

I'm telling you, you've got to break

00:49:16

your agreement with silence because

00:49:18

you are silencing the power of God

00:49:21

for the people around you.

00:49:24

Some of us just don't have one.

00:49:26

We just don't have a story to tell.

00:49:28

And to you, I would say totally okay.

00:49:31

God loves to answer that prayer. As a matter of fact,

00:49:33

I'm going to pray for you right now.

00:49:35

Lord, there are people in here wh are

00:49:38

silently telling you that's me right now.

00:49:41

Just tell Him that's me,

00:49:42

who do not have a story about encountering You.

00:49:45

Would You make Yourself real to them?

00:49:47

Would You reveal Yourself to them?

00:49:49

Would You actually give them an experience

00:49:52

with Your spirit that leads them

00:49:54

to the life that You have for them.

00:49:56

Lord, give them a story to tell

00:49:58

of You for Your glory. Amen.

00:50:02

And I think some of our stories,

00:50:04

we just think they're too simple.

00:50:05

We don't think they're good enough.

00:50:07

I had a professor in seminary who,

00:50:09

I took him for a couple of classes,

00:50:11

so I heard this a couple of times

00:50:12

and it just made me smile because he would start

00:50:14

his classes by telling his story the first day.

00:50:17

He would tell, like how he came to know Jesus initially,

00:50:19

like, many years ago.

00:50:21

He's probably like in his late 50s to 60.

00:50:23

And he said, "You know, I tell my story?"

00:50:25

He goes, "I tell it because it's so incredibly boring."

00:50:29

He was like, "We need to tell more boring stories

00:50:32

about becoming a follower of Jesus, because guess what?

00:50:35

Most of us are just going to have

00:50:37

a compelling internal interaction with Jesus

00:50:40

whereby we realize who He is and what He did for us,

00:50:43

and we're going to say, "Lord, I want that."

00:50:45

And he said, "I tell my story because it's boring.

00:50:49

And the vast majority of stories of people who come

00:50:52

to Jesus in their life, at least the first one,

00:50:55

is kind of boring."

00:50:57

And to you, I would just encourage.

00:50:59

Don't worry. There's a lot of other stories to come.

00:51:03

Jesus said to Paul he was going to testify

00:51:05

about what he had seen and what he will see.

00:51:07

That means you get a lot more.

00:51:08

You might be on the edge of a thriller.

00:51:10

You might be on the edge of a thriller.

00:51:12

Maybe you're going to have a story about

00:51:13

what God does when you start doing money like He says,

00:51:17

or dating like He says or whatever.

00:51:19

But you might be on the edge of a story

00:51:22

that's way more dramatic than you think.

00:51:26

There's not just one for us.

00:51:27

There's many, many stories.

00:51:30

My idea, as I was looking through Acts,

00:51:33

I keyed right in on how the Holy Spirit

00:51:35

empowered Paul's story, not just this time,

00:51:38

but many times to reach somebody in front of him.

00:51:41

And I kind of wanted to talk just about that

00:51:44

because it's so what God has helped me to realize as well.

00:51:47

But an honest reading of Acts,

00:51:50

you could not just stop there.

00:51:52

You have to talk about the other element

00:51:54

because there's never even stories present

00:51:56

without this other element, which is Scripture.

00:52:00

Scripture is also uniquely empowered by the Holy Spirit.

00:52:04

And again, there's a very specific reason why.

00:52:07

The Holy Spirit is the living Word of God.

00:52:12

So it's like this --

00:52:13

It's like this equals sine equation.

00:52:16

It's sort of like Jesus algebra or something.

00:52:19

Jesus was called the Word of God

00:52:21

and the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is also Jesus.

00:52:27

It's the Spirit of Jesus.

00:52:28

So if the Word of God and the Holy Spirit

00:52:32

are all connected to Jesus,

00:52:33

then the Holy Spirit is the living, breathing Word of God

00:52:38

that was sent for us right now.

00:52:41

That means the Word of God is alive and active.

00:52:46

There's a prophet named Isaiah who actually gave words

00:52:49

for that that I love.

00:52:50

He said, When we turn loose the Word of God,

00:52:52

when the Word of God is spoken, he said

00:52:55

it goes out and accomplishes what the Lord sent it for.

00:52:59

That means when you turn loose the Word of God

00:53:02

out of your mouth into the life of someone else,

00:53:05

it means it carries a power

00:53:07

to actually do something in their life.

00:53:10

That's incredible.

00:53:12

Are you serious? I mean, that's incredible stuff.

00:53:15

That means that we need to be steeped in Scripture.

00:53:18

And please, I don't mean don't be --

00:53:21

Don't be the guy that answers everything with a Bible verse.

00:53:24

That is not what I mean.

00:53:26

Nobody really likes that guy.

00:53:30

And sometimes Paul does that actually.

00:53:32

Sometimes, to some people, I could see it, I could get there.

00:53:35

But most of the time what I mean is this thing

00:53:38

that we hear in Paul's speech to Agrippa that day,

00:53:40

that everything is just dripping with the truths

00:53:44

and the words and the concepts that are born in Scripture.

00:53:48

Here's what he says:

00:54:12

Now we don't hear the same way they did

00:54:14

all the Scripture that's packed into that.

00:54:16

But we hear some of the words.

00:54:18

We hear the word hope repeated.

00:54:20

We hear his reference to the 12 tribes.

00:54:23

Basically what he's using scripture to do

00:54:25

is cut right to the heart of the issue.

00:54:28

There's all this talk about who he is and what he's saying

00:54:31

and all these narratives about what he means

00:54:34

and what he's done and why he's on trial.

00:54:37

Paul stops and says, "You know what?

00:54:38

This is really simple,

00:54:39

I'm going to cut to the heart of the matter.

00:54:41

It's about hope and it's about God's power to raise the dead.

00:54:44

Do you not want those things?"

00:54:49

And Scripture gives us this ability in our life as well.

00:54:52

It gives us the ability

00:54:53

to see something that's below the surface.

00:54:56

Jesus did this all the time.

00:54:57

People would ask Jesus a question

00:54:59

or they would speak to Him

00:55:01

and He wouldn't directly answer them.

00:55:02

He would actually answer the heart underneath it.

00:55:08

In Hebrews, the Word of God is called a double edged sword,

00:55:11

and it's said to slice to the attitudes

00:55:15

and thoughts of the heart.

00:55:16

Those are things you can't see.

00:55:19

Does anyone else think we could use some help in our life

00:55:22

cutting through all the false narratives around us?

00:55:27

Anybody else hear four different explanations

00:55:30

for the same event from radically different perspectives

00:55:34

and ever wonder like what in the world is going on here?

00:55:38

When we read Scripture, it equips us to think, to see,

00:55:42

and then to speak what we see happening

00:55:45

in the Kingdom of God, in the spiritual realm.

00:55:48

And it cuts to the heart of issues

00:55:51

instead of staying on the surface.

00:55:52

Man, I could use some more of that in a world

00:55:55

like we're living in, in a culture

00:55:57

like we're living in right now.

00:55:59

And Paul spoke words, many, many words in this speech

00:56:03

that were steeped in the prophets,

00:56:06

that had weight way beyond what he was saying,

00:56:08

that he meant to do a head tilt.

00:56:11

He directly quotes Ezekiel 2, Jeremiah 1, and Isaiah 42.

00:56:17

And you would read through his words

00:56:19

and you would miss that because our ears don't hear that.

00:56:23

We're not steeped in Scripture

00:56:25

like the way his Jewish listeners were,

00:56:27

but if you heard it, you would hear phrase after phrase,

00:56:31

sentence after sentence, his words carried the weight

00:56:35

of the Word of God behind them.

00:56:38

And they were there to produce a result in the people listening.

00:56:46

If you don't read Scripture, you will forfeit

00:56:49

that kind of impact in the people around you.

00:56:51

You don't -- you don't have to do this, like, in --

00:56:55

It's not, I mean, it could be studious.

00:56:57

Goodness knows, I like a studious study,

00:57:00

but it begins to come alive in you.

00:57:02

Think of yourself like, like a two liter bottle.

00:57:05

You have a little, little hole at the top

00:57:08

and a really big capacity underneath.

00:57:10

And when you just constantly drip Scripture in,

00:57:12

it begins to live in you.

00:57:15

Pretty soon it's how you see people. It's what you think.

00:57:18

It's the wisdom or advice that you offer.

00:57:20

It's the things that you say and you're like, oh.

00:57:23

Have you ever talked to someone

00:57:24

that has a weightiness to their words?

00:57:26

That's what the power of Scripture does.

00:57:29

That's how it begins to interact and just explode

00:57:34

in impact in the life of the people around you.

00:57:37

If you want to be used by God,

00:57:38

you have got to get into Scripture.

00:57:43

I've never interacted with a follower of Jesus,

00:57:45

never, ever, not one time that had an impact on my life

00:57:50

that wasn't deeply entrenched in the Word of God.

00:57:53

And there's a reason for that.

00:57:57

I want you to hear a story right here from our community

00:58:00

that I think is an amazing example

00:58:02

of this one two punch

00:58:03

of scripture and story put together.

00:58:09

- My name is Ryan Williams.

00:58:10

We've been together 13 years, married 12.

00:58:14

- And I'm Jamie Williams.

00:58:16

Long story short, alcohol became a big part

00:58:19

of our relationship, our marriage, our struggles.

00:58:23

It affected me a lot more than him.

00:58:25

So in 2017, it caught up with me.

00:58:29

He had moved out.

00:58:30

One night he came over and that one night we didn't argue.

00:58:34

In the morning I woke up and freaked out

00:58:36

because I needed a drink.

00:58:38

God stepped in right at that moment

00:58:40

and I looked at him and I said,

00:58:42

"I need -- I think I need help."

00:58:44

And he just hugged me and started crying.

00:58:46

He goes, "I've been waiting for you to say that."

00:58:48

So that began our our journey of me trying to stop.

00:58:53

We got involved in a program, Celebrate Recovery.

00:58:57

- Celebrate recovery, yeah.

00:58:58

And things were going pretty good for four years.

00:59:01

Jesus was finally, you know, moving.

00:59:03

Beginning of 2022, I had a secret

00:59:07

that I carried with me for over 30 years.

00:59:10

And nobody, I never let anybody know about.

00:59:13

And I had a 30 year porn addiction.

00:59:16

That porn addiction ultimately led me

00:59:19

to an emotional affair, to a physical affair,

00:59:22

to just basically telling Jamie I'm done.

00:59:26

I remember she looked at me one day and she goes,

00:59:29

"So are you done with the marriage?"

00:59:31

And I said yes.

00:59:33

And then she asked me, "So are you done with God?"

00:59:37

And I just, like laughed.

00:59:40

God can't heal who you pretend to be.

00:59:45

My whole life, I was pretending.

00:59:47

I didn't know about anything.

00:59:48

It was just he started acting funny.

00:59:50

Three days before it was time to go sign,

00:59:53

I stumbled upon some communication, some texts

00:59:58

between him and someone else, and then everything clicked.

01:00:03

- I had put in a plan to break free of this bondage

01:00:06

that -- because I was just done.

01:00:08

I wanted my wife back.

01:00:09

I wanted my family back.

01:00:11

But even if I didn't get that,

01:00:14

I needed to break free from this.

01:00:16

July 5th, 2022, she's like, "Let's go to the courthouse."

01:00:21

So we got it signed and went out to eat

01:00:24

and she pulls out all these texts. She just puts it down.

01:00:26

She goes, "You need to get some help, and I'm praying for you."

01:00:29

And she gets up and she walks out.

01:00:31

I met up with a good Christian brother and he was like,

01:00:34

"You know, you need to read the story

01:00:35

about David and Bathsheba."

01:00:37

And I read it and I just crumble.

01:00:39

I repented to God like I never had in my life.

01:00:46

I was done being fake, so I just was like,

01:00:49

"God, I don't know what to do.

01:00:51

I've tried everything else. Jesus, help me."

01:00:53

And I heard Him say, "You know what, Ryan?

01:00:57

You got two choices here.

01:00:59

You can follow this path that you're on.

01:01:00

You may not be physically dead, but everything else

01:01:04

in your life is going to be dead.

01:01:05

But if you follow Me, you surrender to Me and you obey me,

01:01:10

I promise you you'll be okay.

01:01:12

I will take care of you."

01:01:14

And I was like, "All right, that's what I'm going to do."

01:01:17

But it was July 18th of the same month

01:01:20

of the same year that she looks at me at a park

01:01:22

in Michigan and says, "Ryan, I love you

01:01:23

and I want to work on our marriage."

01:01:27

- Once I pictured him having this journey

01:01:29

and pictured it, me not getting to witness it

01:01:32

and be a part of it, that was an instant heart change.

01:01:35

And then five days after the judge goes,

01:01:39

"There's something wrong with the paper,

01:01:41

so you're not divorced yet.

01:01:42

It's being reset for a month."

01:01:44

And in that month was that timeframe where it was like,

01:01:47

God put everything out on the line.

01:01:51

So we're still married, Never got divorced.

01:01:53

- God was like, "Look what I'm going to do

01:01:55

in this 30 day period right here."

01:01:57

- In 30 days. Yeah.

01:01:58

- Look what I can do."

01:02:00

Couples camp has been refreshing.

01:02:03

- The renewing of the vows,

01:02:04

hearing and being able to look in each other's eyes,

01:02:07

and especially after this year and say those words.

01:02:10

- It was like it was just me and her in there.

01:02:12

You know, with, all everybody else was gone,

01:02:15

it was just me and her.

01:02:16

And it was just like, that's when the holy --

01:02:18

I felt the Holy Spirit.

01:02:19

- Yeah, I don't care the state of your relationship right now,

01:02:24

I mean, it's just like watching transformation happen.

01:02:28

- That's an incredible story.

01:02:30

You know, God loves stories.

01:02:32

You can't write your own ending like that.

01:02:35

They were still married.

01:02:37

There was a glitch in the paperwork.

01:02:39

That's too good not to be God.

01:02:41

That is just an incredible story.

01:02:44

And I just have to call out the obvious.

01:02:46

You know, God, there is absolutely no brokenness

01:02:51

in your life that can't become

01:02:53

a before you encountered Jesus story.

01:02:56

The things we're talking about today are murderers

01:02:59

and porn addicts and alcoholics and adulterers

01:03:02

who are telling stories about the redemptive power of Jesus.

01:03:06

It's absolutely mind blowing.

01:03:09

It's totally mind blowing.

01:03:10

And they're all stories about Him.

01:03:12

You don't listen to that story and go,

01:03:14

"Wow, they were really messed up."

01:03:15

What you hear is: Jesus can do that for you.

01:03:21

Jesus can do that for you.

01:03:23

That's the kind of story He wants to write in your life.

01:03:27

And it's unbelievable.

01:03:28

And also, we don't need a lecture

01:03:30

about marriage and repentance, right?

01:03:33

What we need is our humanity acknowledged in a story.

01:03:38

And the Holy Spirit uniquely empowers those stories,

01:03:41

which are steeped in the truth of Scripture.

01:03:44

Did anybody else, like, take a deep breath

01:03:45

when he said, "God can't heal who you pretend to be?"

01:03:51

Do you know the kind of truths

01:03:52

that are wrapped around that,

01:03:54

that are deeply, deeply embedded in the pages

01:03:57

of the Bible at his moment of repentance?

01:04:00

Doesn't get much more clear

01:04:01

than the story of David and Bathsheba.

01:04:03

Here, read this.

01:04:05

I mean, God is creative, but every good story He tells

01:04:10

is deeply rooted in the truths that are found

01:04:13

in the Word of God.

01:04:14

Friends, if you want to have a life that impacts other people,

01:04:18

it may take some boldness and some courage on your part

01:04:22

to put that story together and let it out of your mouth.

01:04:24

It might take some discipline and some things

01:04:27

that you need to push out of the way

01:04:29

so that you can actually begin to be steeped

01:04:32

in the words of Scripture to the point

01:04:34

where they start to permeate your life.

01:04:35

But I promise you, you will begin to have an impact

01:04:38

on the people standing in front of you,

01:04:40

which is what God cares about.

01:04:42

And Paul knew that, too.

01:04:43

We've got to finish the story here because

01:04:45

there's too good, too good an ending not to see.

01:04:48

So Paul's finishing his speech to King Agrippa.

01:04:52

And he knows that God cares most deeply

01:04:57

about the guy standing right in front of him.

01:04:59

Listen to how he finishes this, he says:

01:05:35

Paul knew that God may have put him in jail for two years

01:05:41

to get to this day, just to talk to that guy

01:05:45

standing in front of him.

01:05:47

And I think he was perfectly fine with it.

01:05:50

He seemed absolutely laser focused

01:05:53

that no matter what else he said that day,

01:05:55

he was going to speak directly to King Agrippa

01:05:58

because he had to have believed that his job was

01:06:02

to try to impact the person that the Lord brought

01:06:04

into his life, into his day, into that moment

01:06:08

to speak directly to and he went for it.

01:06:10

He went straight for it because he knew

01:06:13

that guy is a guy that God loves.

01:06:16

That guy is the one that I can speak to right now.

01:06:18

He's the one that I have influence over.

01:06:21

He's the one my words can reach

01:06:22

and he's the only one I've been allowed to speak to,

01:06:25

so I'm going to go for it, and that's what he did.

01:06:28

And friends, that's how Jesus feels about you.

01:06:30

What if your last two years have all conspired

01:06:33

to get you here to the point at which you are going

01:06:36

to have an encounter with Jesus

01:06:38

because of something that happens here today,

01:06:41

and you've lived your before Jesus story,

01:06:43

and today is your encounter,

01:06:44

and today is your encounter

01:06:46

and the rest of it happens that you have an after.

01:06:48

What if Jesus has been

01:06:50

conspiring to do that in your life

01:06:51

for the last two years and today is the day?

01:06:55

That's exactly what many of us need.

01:06:57

We need to believe that the story Jesus came and lived

01:07:00

was for us, was to reach us.

01:07:02

That we're the one, eyes locked on us

01:07:05

that Jesus has been after, He's been coming after you.

01:07:08

He's been putting people in your path.

01:07:10

He is literally hunting you down so that you understand

01:07:14

how much He wants to reach you

01:07:18

and that His story was a story He came and lived

01:07:21

so that you could have one of the same.

01:07:25

And some of the rest of us just need a cold water in the face,

01:07:29

like I had a month or so ago.

01:07:31

Hey, it's you. You are plan A.

01:07:34

You are God's big plan to reach your kid,

01:07:36

to reach your mom, to reach your friend,

01:07:38

to reach your colleagues.

01:07:39

When he opens the door, step through it.

01:07:42

Step through it. Tell your story. Tell them the truth.

01:07:46

Take the opportunity in front of you because

01:07:49

there is no other plan for the people you love.

01:07:51

You are it, and God wants your life to be used by Him.

01:07:56

Let me pray for all of our weeks and all the people.

01:07:59

Can you imagine all the people, the multitudes of people

01:08:03

that are represented by this community

01:08:06

that we go out this week with the idea that, maybe,

01:08:10

just maybe, God would use our life to touch somebody else?

01:08:14

Lord, I pray that You would turn Your Word loose

01:08:17

among these people, among this community.

01:08:19

I pray that You would release stories

01:08:21

that have been in the dark for years about You.

01:08:24

And I pray that you would rip off the lid

01:08:27

on those and let those out.

01:08:29

I ask that you would deeply, deeply move

01:08:33

in the life of this community so that we can go out

01:08:36

this week, the people that we love,

01:08:38

the people that we work with and make an impact

01:08:41

and be used by You.

01:08:43

It's in Your Son Jesus's name that I pray. Amen.

01:08:48

- Your story is powerful and it needs to be shared.

01:08:51

Maya Angelou says there is no greater agony

01:08:54

than bearing an untold story inside you.

01:08:57

The world needs your story and you need to share it.

01:09:00

Head to Crossroads.net/shareyourstory

01:09:03

to share a bit of how God has shown up in your life.

01:09:06

And join us next week as Joel Firebaugh,

01:09:08

the guy who leads all of our students around Crossroads

01:09:11

talks about how to experience real life change.

01:09:14

Sometimes we get stuck, sometimes we mess up,

01:09:17

sometimes we go a way we know we aren't supposed to,

01:09:20

but we don't have to stay there.

01:09:21

The Holy Spirit gives us the X factor to change.

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