Hope Church LV Sermons
Guest Speaker :: Matt Pettit
And there are a lot of emotions that I feel right now, because this is where everything started Yeah, two of you. I know Vance is in Africa right now, but Vance, I love you, man. A lot of great things happen at Lucils, and can you get a witness on that? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of things change at Lucils, your weight, your next doctor's appointment. And I remember sitting in a booth and Vance was there, and Vance had a pull up a chair and he was sitting on the end of the booth. I'll never forget it. And we were just talking, small talk and all that. And then all of a sudden, I don't remember if it was Vance or myself, but one of us said the word kingdom minded. And the other one was like, "What'd you just say?" And I thought, "Well, if it's bad, I didn't say it. He told me to say it." And I was like, "King to mind." He was like, "I've been thinking the same thing. Our church is..." We got kingdom minded church. I said, " Vance, I've been thinking about that in my heart." And man, and God brought Vance and I together and knit our hearts together. And he has become one of my dearest friends. I saw him about eight months ago at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. And I had not seen him since we launched out three years ago up in the North. And he's like, "Man!" And I was like, "Fans!" And we hugged. And he said, "Man, we do live in the same city. We cook it together every now and then." And I was like, "Yeah, let's do that." I still haven't seen him. So anyway, we're both very busy, but man, I don't want to say to you. And some of you don't even know who I am, and that's cool when I don't care about that. But I want to tell you that I love you. You have been huge for me and my family and our church. And man, I am just so stoked to be here this morning, and I got a lot I want to say. But I want to tell you that Hope Baptist Church has been huge for our church. Thank you for your investment of time, of money, of resources, Vance, and his staff, and Christie, and his family. Thank you so much for having confidence in us. I just think it's cool that I get to do this for a living, and I am so honored to be at Hope Baptist Church. And I'm humbled by the fact that you guys partnered with us, and we're where we are and what we're doing, because of you. By the way, did you know that you didn't know this because I haven't told you yet? But did you know that we just partnered with a guy to plan a hundred churches in the Philippines by the year 2018? Yeah, absolutely. That's a God thing. Check it out. That's your fruit. That's you. When you get to heaven, you'll be like, "God's gonna be like, and here's another crown for the hundred church in the Philippines." You'll be like, "What are you talking about?" You're like, "No, you bore fruit through North Valley who then planted churches." "Hey, and you also get fruit for going to Africa and changing the whole continent." And it's like, "I think go to Africa." But yeah, you let Vance go. You guys are changing this city and the West and the world every day. And I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in my family and our staff and our church. We're having a great time. We launched out three years ago. We meet today at Simmeron Memorial High School in Las Vegas, up at 95 in Lake Mead. We're in three services. We have a Saturday night, two Sunday mornings, and on Christmas weekend, we're launching out service number four on Sunday night, so we are stoked about that. And that is all of your fruit. So thank you so much for the blessing you've been to my church. And I don't want to talk about my church this morning. This is all about me and you connecting. I want you to meet a couple of people. First of all, my wife is here in this service. I know you're gonna, I'll pay for this later, but that's okay. Could you stand up and let everybody see you? That's my new eight-week old baby that she's holding, all right? Love you, baby. Hey, when I moved to Vegas, we had two kids. I now have five. Yeah. Thanks a lot. I don't know what y'all serve out here at Lucille's, but somehow it's affected us. I had three kids, and then we were keeping a little girl. We ended up just keeping her forever. We were keeping her for some friends and ended up, you know, now she's ours. And so in 48 hours, I went from three to five because when I found that we were keeping her, I also found out my wife was pregnant. So I sold my, I sold my clubs, I sold my car, I sold my first born. I just sold everything. So the rest are playing, but anyway, honey, glad you, glad you're here. And I came early to the early service, obviously, and I want you to meet someone else who drove me here this morning, so that I could be with you. Drew Smith, Drew, don't you stand up and make and see? This is Drew Smith from our church. Drew, he drove me over here this morning so my wife could sleep in, and someone would take me lunch here in a minute, but Drew's a great guy. He's one of the first people we met when we launched our church out, and then we were going door-to-door, a flier, he's going to have a knock on the door, and you're like, you know, hope nobody answers. And so they finally answered. Drew came to the door, he was living with a couple of his buddies, Drew's single, and he's hanging out with a couple of his friends, and he was like, yeah, I'll go to church. You know how it is when you're doing that, you're like, okay, great, see you tomorrow. He's never going to come. You know how it is, he's not going to come to church. Well, sure enough, Drew started coming to our church, and now he's a stable part of our church leadership and a great passionate God follower. As a matter of fact, he just leaned over and told me a little bit ago during the music service. That next spring, he's going to the Philippines on his first mission strip with our church. So full circle, man, absolutely. Hey, and that's your fruit. That's your fruit, so thank you so very much. But man, God's been good to us. Here's what I want to do this morning, all right? I got a lot of my heart, and I don't want to go back and preach a message I did a year ago, or six months ago, or when I learned in seminary, God knows I would never preach one of those again. But I want to just share with you where I'm at right now, all right? I just want to be totally up for an honest with you, and what I want to share with you is what I'm sharing with my church right now. About three weeks ago, I was watching TV, I was watching a game, and if you're like me and you watch sports, you always have one game that you're watching, and then a fallback game that you recall to during the commercials. Can I get a witness on that? Yeah, absolutely. If you're my wife, you're watching all the design shows, you got to recall to the other design show. So commercials are obsolete other than Super Bowl weekend. So I'm flipping back and forth, and they've got ESPN1 and ESPN2 and ESPN37. I mean, they've got so many now. It's just heaven for a guy who loves sports. So about three weeks ago, I'm sitting on the couch, worshipping God through forts, and I had a game on, and a commercial came on, and I went to flip to the other game. But before I did, I heard this guy say that he was a student at Berkeley College in California, and that he was working on biofuel and renewable energy. Now, I knew then, go ahead and turn it, because neither one of those terms means anything to me. Probably should, but you could explain it to me, and it still wouldn't help, I'd still not understand. So I thought, I'm turning it now, until he said that his professor came to him at Berkeley College in California and said in 1969, how would you like to change the world? And I thought, oh, I'm gonna see how they did it. And the whole idea of changing the world was that he started a company decades ago that focused on biofuel and renewable energy, things which I still don't understand because I didn't research it for this message. Don't really care about that, all right? But this guy's gonna change the world through these two items. Anyone I thought to myself as I heard that, man, I love that. But guess what, if there's anybody who believes that they should be about changing the world, it ought to be the local church, it ought to be us as believers. And I know I say that and you're like, yeah, that's great. No, I really believe that. Do you understand that my mantra and my life and my family's life is, what's your vision, man? I'd like to change the world. You know, you say that to somebody and they're always like, that's great, that's great. So what's your real vision? You know, I'm totally upfront on this with you. I really believe that God wants to use us to change the world. And I don't know what you have going on in your family this morning. Some of you got marriage issues. Someone said, when do the marriage issue starts? And I always say, when you say I do, that's what they start. Finance issues, having kids, we all got job issues, the economy's bad. You know what, all that aside, I want you to know this. If you don't hear anything else this morning, know this. If you're in certain of life, be certain of this one thing. Your life has a calling from God. And God has called every one of you to be involved in changing the world. So, now I say that to you. I don't believe you're going to get in your car and say, we're going to change the world. Let's go in and out burgundy side. How we're going to change the world. And that's not going to happen. Some of you don't even believe that. Some of you think, you know what, I can't change the world. I'm nothing. I'm going to tell you this. Do you understand that you were designed by God? And I don't care what you've been through. God designs you so that you could change the world. So, where does it start? That's a good question. We want to change the world. Where does it start? Do you know where changing the world starts? It starts with your story. So, let me ask you this morning. Don't answer. Think about it. What's your story? Some of you are like, well, I'll never tell you my story. You don't even understand, Matt, what I've been through. You don't, listen, most people don't like their story. Most people don't enjoy their story. Most people are embarrassed by their story. But changing the world begins with understanding that your story matters and your story was orchestrated by God. I don't care how bad your past is. I don't care what you've done in your past. You need to understand that God orchestrates all things for His glory. Good or bad. God's bigger than your past. He's bigger than your present and He's bigger than your future obstacles. He is not limited by the way you've lived your life. He's not surprised by the way you live your life. You don't ever go to God and say, God, you're not complete, but I did. He's not shocked. God, do you know that's not right? And God's like, yeah, actually I did because I'm all knowing. I know these things. God's not shocked by your life. Your story matters to God. Do you understand that the whole Bible is the book of stories? That's all it is of crazy lunatic people that God used. We should all feel right at home. It's your story. What's your story? I don't expect you to do a 180 this morning, but I do expect you to leave. And my goal for you is when you leave this morning, you're thinking about the fact that God's writing your story. Here's what we're going to do this morning. I'm going to share with you in about five minutes time three quick stories in the Bible. And then the last one is a text that I'm going to read you. So buckle in, story, story, story. I'm going to read my text, make a point or two, then we're going to go home. All right? We should be home by four. Easy. All right? So let me rehearse a couple stories to you. And these are stories that most of you have heard. Noah's heart. How many of you have heard the story? Raise your hand. We know that story. People who don't even go to church know that story. But a guy who had to build a boat so that when it rained, the boat would float. And so God says, "No one built a boat. God, why am I building a boat?" Because it's going to rain. God, what's rain? Because it never rained before in the face of the earth. The earth was watered through the ground. What's rain? What's water from heaven? Why? Now, most of you, and I've said this before, men had been cool to be Noah. Build a boat. The size of three football fields. How cool would that be? The animals? Just by this nature, two by two, God said go and all the animals. How cool. No, it would have not been cool to be Noah. God's going to kill everybody but you and your family. Most of us don't get along with our families anyway. We've got to live in a boat for 40 days with our own family. God kills the world. So no one's got to go build a boat. Come on. Ham, Sham, and Jay, but let's build a boat. Why? God's going to send rain. What's rain? Oh, rain's water from heaven. Why? God's going to kill the world. What are we building a boat? The size of three football fields. What's football? Tell you about that later. People talk about, now this is important about your story. People talk about the fact that all the other people around the town were like, "No, it's an idiot. He's a lunatic." Do you realize the world had been around for nearly 2,000 years when they built a boat? It wasn't like nine people. There were a lot of people and they were like, "What are you doing? You're on the boat. You lunatic fanatic God follower. Who do you think you are?" But I'm going to tell you this. I promise you that Noah received as much criticism from his family as he did those outside of his family. I'm going to tell you this. When you're pursuing your dream through your life story, many times those closest to you will be your biggest obstacles. Because people closest to you, you are the ones who believe in you less. When Jesus said, "A prophet doesn't have any honor." Where? In his own country. Listen, when you started to believe in your story, people are going to be in a question. You're motive in your focus. That was a great story, a second story, a great story. David and Goliath. How many of you have heard of David and Goliath? You've heard of that story. If you go to any game and you've got a Division I team playing a Division III team or you've got a great team playing a bad team like I grew up in Miami, so you've got a great team like the Dolphins playing a real bad team like the Cowboys. So you've got that dynamic. How many times have you heard an announcer say, "Well, this is a true David and Goliath match." Have you heard of that people who don't even go to church? This is a true David and Goliath story. They don't even... They're quoting the Bible. You're not allowed to do that on ESPN, but they do it every week and to make the point that this team has no chance against that team. It's the story of David who faces down a giant and the giant is so appalled that David - a teenager, a teenager, a teenager would come out and fight him that not only does he not address David, but it looks past David to the Israelites and he says, "Am I a dog that you would send this kid to me? Who do you think I am? I'm Goliath." And then he looks at David and says, "Listen, young man, I'm just going to tell you how it is. I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to feed you to the beast of the field and to the fowls of the air. I'm going to tell you right now, if a 10-foot man looks at me and tells me he's going to kill me and feed me to the animals, I'm going to look him right in the face and say, "In the name of Jesus Christ, catch me if you can because I'm going to run." All right? Some of you are like, "Man, it's been cool to be David." No, that's not cool either. None of you... You know the ending. That's why it'd be cool. But I love what David did. Here's what you need to do with your dream. David looks right back at the giant and he says, "You know what? And read it. It's the first Samuel 17." He says, "You know what? Actually, that's not how it's going to go. Here's how it's going to go. I'm going to kill you." I love this. It's my favorite part of the story. Then I'm going to cut your head off. He's already dead. Why cut his head off? He's just antagonizing the giant. I'm going to kill you. Then just for the fun of it. I'm going to cut your head off. Then I'm going to feed you to the beast of the field and to the fouls of the air. That's how it's going to go. That is awesome. All of you... Listen, all of you have giants. They're bigger than you. They're better than you. They're more talented than you. And they have more money than you. There's no that. But God's not looking for money. God's not looking for talent. God's not looking for degrees. God's looking for a willing, passionate heart. That's all he needs. Let me throw the rest of the story. Then here's my favorite. Then I'll get to my real story. Jonah and the Whale. I love that story. Jonah and the Whale. I did a message. A whole series on Jonah and the Whale. Somebody came to me and said, "I don't even believe that story is true." And I was like, "I don't even care. It's a true story." It doesn't matter. Stick it out. Most of you, the approach you have on Jonah is so different because they throw him over the boat. He's going to drown. Do you realize that if we're not for the Whale that Jonah would have died, did you realize that? So in other words, the Whale was a gift. So Jonah goes overboard. He's dying. He's about to take in his last breath to end his life because drowning is a horrible way to go into quick. He's about to take in his last breath and all of a sudden, Jonah starts thinking, "I think I'm being eaten. I think something's eating me right now." And sure enough, a Whale comes over and eats him and swallows him. And not only does he not die, but he wakes up totally cognizant in the belly of a Whale. Not plush at all. He doesn't die. That's huge. 12 hours go by. He's waiting to die. 12 hours go by. He doesn't die. 24 hours goes by. He doesn't die. You understand that when Jonah was smaller by the Whale, he just waited to die. Many people live that way in 2010. They're just waiting to die. They don't believe they have purpose. They don't believe they have anything worth living for and they're just existing. Listen, there are a lot of people that exist. There's not a lot of people that really truly live. Absolutely. Jonah waited to die. I don't know, I'm guessing, because it doesn't say I'm going to ask him one day. About day and a half, Jonah's like, "You know what? I don't think I'm going to die." I think God's playing a little game. He's like, "You can either obey me or you can live in the Well for the rest of your life." I mean, there are dead fish coming in like every other four or five minutes. So I was like, "Why do I got to live and everyone else is dead?" And he realizes that he's not going to die, that the Whale was a gift from God. He'd repent of his sin and says, "Okay, God, I'll go. What does God do?" Now, this is what I love about God. God had all the power just to do, and he would appear in Nineveh. What did God do? Nope. He made the well. He swimmed ashore, boop, and bombed me to see him out just to make a point. So Jonah just stinking in all this junk going on in his body and all this dehydration and the way he looked. He goes to Nineveh and he shows up at Nineveh and looking like he looks and he says, "Repent. What would you do?" I'd repent. The whole city comes to Jesus. The whole city starts to believe in God. Check this out. This is huge. God uses a man to reach an entire city who just seven days earlier was running from God. The only answer to this, "You ever run from God?" Man, I run from God all the time. See, pastors aren't supposed to admit that, but I run from God all the time. Sometimes I run from the principles of God. I just don't like them. Listen, if you're running from God this morning, he might descend a well. God has ways to get your attention because you can't run from a God because every time you run from him, you run into him because God's everywhere. Just a little thought. I'm not a theologian, but I got that down. People tell me all the time. I'm like, "No, you're not. Yes, I am." I was like, "You're not running from God." They're like, "I am running from God. I'm smoking dope and I'm drinking and I'm running from God." I was like, "You can't run from God because every time you run from God, you run into God." They're like, "What are you trying to say?" I said, "What I'm trying to tell you is that God wants you back and he'll do whatever it takes to bring you back." Your story matters. What's your story? This is another phenomenal story, and I got to hurry. It's in the book of Acts, chapter number nine. If you have your Bible, you can turn there if not, it'll be on the screen. I'll read fast. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to read about 14 verses and I'm going to comment throughout and then I'm going to close with a couple of thoughts. How many have ever heard the story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus? Raise your hand. All right. About a third of you. Maybe almost half. Saul of Tarsus. Here's my prayer for you today. My prayer is that you leave here looking at that story like you've never looked at it before. That's my prayer. I don't expect you to make a 180 this morning. I don't expect your life to be radically changed. I want you to leave this morning saying I had never thought about that. That's my goal. All right. Verse one. Here we go. Meanwhile, which is an important word because it connects you to what's been going on, which is the fact that Stephen has just recently been stoned. He's been brutally, barbarically murdered by Saul. Saul was a murderer of believers and it says in verse one, "After that happened, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples," and he went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any there who belong to the what? To the way, capital W, the way who is that? That's you, Christians, God followers. If you found anybody that's in the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. Theologes will tell you that they believe the light that flashed was ten times brighter than the sun. Phenomenal story. We miss so much of the story. So a light flashes down and Saul falls off his donkey, verse four. He falls to the ground and he heard a voice saying, "This is huge, check this question out." Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Now, stop right there because how many have heard that question before and that part of the story, raise your hand? I've seen that a hundred or three hundred times in my life growing up I grew up in church. I've seen that question so many times, but it wasn't until about a week and a half ago that God impressed on me how powerful that question is. So God comes down and he knocks Saul to the ground and he says, "Saul, Saul calls his name twice. How many have kids? Raise your hands." Yeah. Yeah. What do you call their names twice for? Because they're idiots. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Kinda. Because they don't listen. Saul, what do you do that? You're trying to get their attention, Saul, Saul, and then he says this, "Why do you persecute me?" You know what that means? God calls down from heaven to a barbaric, murderous, ravenous fool who kills Christians and he says to him in essence, "Saul, why you break in my heart, that's huge." Do you realize how many things God could have said to him? Do you know how many things God deserved to say to him, "Saul, you're killing the people that love me. You're an idiot, Saul." He could have said, "Saul." You know what? Go straight to hell. You could have condemned him to hell right on the spot. He had that right. He was God, but he didn't. He said, "Saul, why do you break my heart?" Man, I've hurt people in my life. You ever heard anybody? I don't mean physically, but I've hurt people. I've had my words and by my actions and I've had people say to me before, "Man, you broke my heart. That's tough." I read that you punched me in the face like 30 times, but don't tell me I broke your heart and God leans over the side of heaven and he says to Saul, "You're breaking my heart. That's huge. He's a murderer. You're breaking my heart. Saul is so blown away by the question that he returns God's comments with the question and I believe it's the dumbest question in the whole Bible. Look at the next question. Verse 5, "Who are you, Lord?" It's the second dumb question. Just like on the side of the road and you're tired of fighting, you're jacking your car up and someone pulls over and says, "You got a flat tire?" No, I just stop every 10 of 12 miles and just change my tires because I'm bored. Yeah, idiot. I got a flat tire. Why would he? Let's check it out. Why would he say that because you're really in the English? It doesn't make any sense. Who are you, Lord? You just called his name. You know who he is. And by the way, if you're driving down the road and all four of your tires go flat and you pull the side of the road and the big boomy voice comes from heaven, there's a good chance it's God. And what if you were leaving here and that happened and your car pulls over and it just stops and a big light shines down brighter than the sun and you hear this big boomy voice saying, "Why didn't you tie this morning?" You know what? It's either Vance on a bullhorn from Africa or it's God, all right? It's probably God. So knew that. So if Saul knew that it was God, then why would he ask the question? Let me tell you my belief on it and I believe I can back it up. I believe that Saul thought God was something other than what God displayed himself to be when he said to him, "Why do you break my heart?" Saul's perception of who he thought God was was wrong. God, in one moment of time, reached down to a murdering fool and showed him love and said, "You break my heart." Saul knew he should have been killed on the spot, but yet here's the God that he has feared his whole life saying to him, "You break my heart." And his question and essence was this, "What kind of God are you?" That's huge. We all have false perceptions of who God is. We thank God. Many of you thank God's up in heaven with a baseball bat, just waiting to get you when you get out of line. You just think he's that just domineering forces. I dare you to step out of line, and I'll whack you back in line so quick. That's how I grew up. How did God tell me not long ago? I have a friend that I've been inviting to church, but he won't go to church. He said, "I'm afraid if I go into church, the roof will fall in." Saul says, "Have you ever heard of that?" You ever heard people say, "The roof will fall in." I'm like, "No, I know the architect. It's pretty secure. It's not going to come down if you come in." He said, "No, no, I don't mean that. I mean, like, God's going to get me." I was like, "You really think God wants to get you?" He was like, "Well, yeah, you don't know what I've done." I was like, "God, if God wants to get you, you would have already been gotten." Does that make sense? Can I just be honest? I hear that from lost people all the time who don't want to go to church. "I'm afraid if I go to church, God will get me." Well, God, if God wants to get, he doesn't miss. God doesn't shoot down lightning bolts from heaven and, "Oh, man, that's the wrong guy. I'm sorry." It was supposed to be him. "No. If God wanted to get you, he'd already gotten you. God's not out to get you. God's out to love you to death." I had a friend one time. We were in Sunday school class. How many have ever been in Sunday school? You might not even know what the... Okay, Sunday school, yeah. The thing before church. And we don't do that out here in my church, so anyway. So when Sunday school, 40 people in a guy raised his hand for prayer... We ever had prayer request time, lasted about eight hours. Prayer request. "What is it? Hey, pray for me. I had a flat tire last week." I was like, "Really? Really? I mean, you want me to pray for you? Just get it changed." He said, "No, no, it's more than that." I said, "What is?" He goes, "It's just... You just need to know that God... He'd got flat in my tire last week." I was like, "God, flat in your tire. I'm curious now in front of these 40 people. Why would God do that?" He said, "Well, the week before I did something wrong. He got me." I was driving down the interstate. Boom, it went flat and I pulled over and I said, "He got me." I was like, "Really? He got a guy, he said, "God, flat in your tires. Yeah." I said, "You're saying like on the 20th, you did something wrong and on the 28th, got you back?" He said, "Yeah. So God came down from heaven and said, "Where are we going to do this guy? He's flat in his tire. Really? Maybe you have 30,000 mile tires and they have 65,000 miles on him. Maybe. Maybe you were a construction, which you do, and maybe you ran over and now. Maybe. God's not out to get you. God didn't have time to be flattening people's tires. He's trying to save the world. Man, if God wanted to get you because of your sin, all of us would already be dead. Does that make sense? God was blown away that God didn't kill him and he said, "What kind of God are you?" And God says this and this is huge. If you miss this, you'll miss the rest of the story. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. That's huge. Listen, why is that huge? Was Jesus in Jerusalem? No. Was he on the Damascus road? No. Was he in Bethlehem? No. He'd already been to Bethlehem. He'd already lived 33 years. He'd already been crucified. He'd already been resurrected. Where was he when this happened? He was on the right hand of God. But yeah, he says to Saul, "I am Jesus, the one that you keep persecuting." When you killed Stephen two chapters ago, when you killed Stephen one month ago, you killed me. You persecute me. What is he saying to Saul? He's saying this, "I am so closely tied to those who follow me." That when they walk through trials and when they have pain and when you hurt them, you hurt me. That's huge. By the way, if you're here this morning and you fill alone, you're mistaken because you are not alone. You follow God and when you love Jesus Christ, when you walk through valleys, he walks to the valley with you. He knows thoughts that you don't even know how to express because the Holy Spirit that lives within you fills your pain. It's huge. Look at the next verse. This is so key. Here's where it gets very key. He tells them to get up and go and I'll tell you what you need to do, verse 7. And the men traveling with Saul stood there speechless because I wouldn't say anything. If God spoke from heaven and blinded a friend of mine, I'd be quite too. They heard the sound but didn't see anyone. And Saul got up, and this is huge, verse 8, Saul got up from the ground, check it out. But when he opened his eyes, he could not see anything. He could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus for three days. He was blind. He did not eat or drink anything. Check this out. Our barbaric leader, murdering leader of thugs, he's got his gang with him. They got the rituals. They have their leader. They have their agenda, kill Christians. And in one moment of time, he goes blind and one of his thug leaders has got it grabbing by the hand and leading him down the road. That is a phenomenal picture that God is giving us in Acts chapter 9. Here's why. Here's why I believe. Why did God blind him because God could have made him go deaf? Could he not have? God could have done anything he wanted. God could have just taken his legs away. God could have given him a third arm out of his back. He could have done whatever he wanted to do. He could have cursed him. He could have paralyzed him. God had the ability to do anything he wanted to solve. But what did he do to him? Number one, he blinded him. And number two, he allowed one of his followers to lead him. Listen to me closely. This is huge. God took two things from Saul in this verse, and I promise you in your life you've been there and some of you are there today. Number one, God took his vision. And number two, God took his pride. Sometimes God will take from you what you think is your vision so that he can give you his vision. He humbled Saul. For the rest of their day journey, we believe the next journey was a day and a half. He was led by one of his thug followers by the hand. He lost his way. It ever felt like you lost your way? If you have, realize that it might be on purpose because sometimes in order for you to quit pursuing what you want, God's got to take it from you until he can give you what he wants. And God will do whatever it takes to get your attention. God took a sight. Now here's where you come to the story. If you're a God follower, if you've been going to church for any amount of time, here's where you come to the story. You're going to let it get better. Check this out. Here's where it gets a little bit humorous. Look at verse 10, "In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias and Lord called him out and said, 'Ananias' and 'Ananias' said, 'Yes, Lord.' Verse 11, "The Lord said to Ananias, 'Go to the house of Judas on straight street.'" And that's for a man named Tarsus named Saul for he is praying. Now stop there. Everyone knew who this guy was. You understand that, especially if you were a believer, you knew who Saul of Tarsus was. So God appears to his disciple. His name was Ananias. He says, 'Ananias, I want you to go to Judas' house on straight street, which is a phenomenal thought. But anyway, not for now. Go to Judas' house on straight street. There's a man there praying. His name was Saul of Tarsus and to make it even more interesting, God throws in there, he's praying. Now you already know that Ananias is thinking, 'What? You want me to go to Saul of Tarsus? The Christian murderer? He's praying? What? He just killed Stephen, my friend. And you want me to go see him and look what God says. And this is, no, no, don't miss this. In a vision Ananias, he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Check this out. God uses his God followers to give sight to the blind. Let me say it again. God uses God followers to give sight to the non-God followers. That's your job. God does that here. Look at it. Check it out. What is God doing over here? He knocks Saul to the ground, blinds him with the sun blazing light, takes his sight from him, allows him to be led by his followers, and he orchestrates that. Then he goes to Ananias. At the same time, he's blinding this guy. Go away. I tell you what to do. Ananias, it's me. Hey. There's a guy over here. Have a vision. Okay. He's having a vision that you're coming to him. And somehow he knows your name. Ananias, he had a name badge on, and you're on the way to his house. He's expecting you to come. Why? Because I called him to have a vision where you were coming to his house. And now I'm telling you that he's having the vision so that you can go to him and restore his sight. He's God doing. He's orchestrating the story, just as he does in your life. Some of you have been through some deep pain in your heart's broken, in your man at God. Some of you look at your past and say, "God could never use me. My life is horrible. I made bad decisions." Okay. Let me ask you a question, and I'll come back to Ananias. Don't you think that God could have stopped your bad decisions? Don't you think that God could have stopped your pain? He's omniscient. He's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. God can stop anything he chooses. But he didn't. What does that mean? That means he's orchestrating your story. Because Romans 8, the apostle, Saul, who changed his name to Paul, wrote in Romans 8, God calls us all things to work out for God. He didn't say all things were good. He says he orchestrates them for God. Right now, some of you are in the midst of some very lonely times. You're blind, and you're confused, and you're directionless, and you're lost. And God's going, "Good, good. I'm orchestrating your story." And it is a beautiful story. And God orchestrates this story, and then check this out. And every one of you would respond the same way that Ananias did. Check this out. Ananias said in verse 13, "Lord," in the Greek that means "time out." Not really. The other servers, I think, were some people saying, "I did not know," in the Greek that that. "Lord," and in no high, no how he does it in a very palatable way. "Lord, I've heard many reports about this man and all the harm he's done to your saints." Remember, you're a people that is killing, remember, he's not a nice guy. I didn't know if you knew that. If you've ever done that to God, God, I wanted to tell you something. I'm not sure if you know God, but I want to let you know. And God's like, "You idiot, I created it, that I know all things." We do that all the time. God, I need to tell you something. I just, you're going to be shocked when you hear it. I just want you to know God, he's a mean guy. I've heard some reports on him, but he gets better. Check this out. And this is huge. Look at the next statement that Ananias makes. And God, in case you didn't know, he's come here with the authority from the chief priest. God, he, did you know that God, he's got a paper that says, "Everyone who's a believer is going to jail and going to be murdered." Did you? God, he has authority from the high priest. Do you think God was shocked by that? Do you think God was up in heaven going, "I did not know that." Gabriel, Michael, who knew that? Does anybody know? How come no one told me that he had a piece of paper from the high priest? I was unaware of that. Change is everything. Do you not see the humor in that? But we do the same thing every day of our lives. God, you don't understand my life. God, I don't have a degree in God, my life is, I've made some bad decisions in God. I've really made some errors in my life. What? God created you. He created your story. It's special. And when you don't love your story, you offend the very power of God. He's got power from the chief priest. God doesn't care. Where do you think the chief priest got his power from? Why do you think the chief priest breathes every day? Because God gives him permission. God doesn't care about the governor. God doesn't care about the chief priest. God doesn't care about those in power. God cares about you being obedient and he's not worried about all around you or behind you or above you. He's not worried about that. Why? He runs everything. He's in control. Sickness. You'll love this. Look at the next statement. This is classic, classic, classic verse number 15, but Lord to Ananias, one word. What is it? Go. Look at my Bible. It's just one word. A one word sentence. Go with an exclamation point. Go. This is how I love this. How many of you have children raise your hands? All right. I've got five kids. I never thought I'd ever be married. Now I've got five kids. That's like one spectrum to the very other side. Before we had kids, and my wife will testify to this, she's here this morning, before we had kids, we knew how to raise kids. Does that make sense? Can I get a witness on that? Yeah. Before you have kids, I hear what we're going to do, Jack, here's how it's going to be. Then you have kids and realize that you don't have a clue what it takes to raise kids. Before you had kids, I was like, I've got this all figured out. Now that you have kids, you're like, man, if I just make it through tonight, I'll be okay. Before we had kids, I told my wife, my kids get in trouble. I'm going to explain to them why. When they ask me why, I'm going to say, here's the deal, son. Sit us down, they're my oldest. You who were birthed from the loins of my wife. The reason you're in trouble, and I say, I'm going to explain to him, because when he does wrong, it's an opportunity for me to teach him why wrong is wrong and right is right and why he needs to be doing right more than wrong, the opportunity. Now we have five kids. I don't explain squat to them. Do that, why dad? Because I said so, and if you don't do it, and if another syllable leaves your lips, I will rip your head off, all right? You will obey me because I am your father, and I even know why, but I'm not telling. Just obey me. If your parents are laughing, because you know it's true. Why daddy? Because I said so. That's what God said to Ananias. Go. Oh, he's got order from the chief priest. Go. He's a bad man. Go. He just killed Stephen. Go. Listen to me. You don't need the plan laid out before you take your first step. The president of the seminary attended. Here's his motto, fire ready aim. I've adopted that in my life, my staff hates it. What's the plan? We don't have one. What are we going to do now? We start. Some of you want everything laid out, God I'll go, but tell me why, and God's like I'm not telling you why. Just go. No, I'm not going until you're kind of late. Where am I going to end up? I'm not telling where you're going to end up. Just go. Trust me. What? Trust me. But God, I'm not good at that. But then stay where you are because I hope the belly of the well gets comfortable. Because that's where you're going to stay. I've got to finish. I'm almost done. Look at the next verse. This is huge. He says go and then to make matters worse, he tells and unites. Look at the next statement, go because this man is my what? He tells and instrument, are you kidding me? He just murdered Stephen, and he's your chosen instrument. God, what are you saying? What about me? I've been serving you my whole life like the oldest son of the prodigal. Remember him? I've been serving you all these years, and you're going to use that idiot. God chose you. The Bible says he chose every one of you before the foundation of the world was ever cast. He chose you. If God can use a murdering barbaric fool to write half of the New Testament, don't you think he could use your life? That's all I want you to think. The great murderer of Christians wrote half. There's 26 books in the New Testament. He wrote 13 of them, and one, the Romans that I still don't understand. Paul, the murderer, the Bible you're reading from today, he wrote. Why? It's God chose him. What makes you think God doesn't want to use you? I'm in my sixties. Let me say this, and this is not part of my message, but I'm just going to get this out there. Do you realize that the older you get, the more influence you have, and the older you get, the more power you have, not only to affect your future, but to affect the generation that come behind me? So I don't care if you're 99, God wants to use you in a big way because you're chosen. Let me finish. I keep seeing that big in-and-out burger sign back there, and I'm getting hungry. That's a bad thing for church. Y'all need to take that down, if I ever come back. I'm serious, aren't we, Drew? We talk about in-and-out all the time in our second service. I lose like half the people by the time I'm preaching because they're going in-and-out. Oh, man, verse 17. So then Inanias went to the house and entered in, and placing his hands on Saul. I love this. He said, check this out. Brother Saul, brother, just once you know you're in the family now, and family members don't kill each other. You see that? Brother, brother, brother Saul. I'm sure he said it in the deep, brother Saul. The Lord then slashed. The Lord, you know, Jesus, the one who peered to you because this is not my idea. This is his idea because I think this is a bad idea. I don't like me. I'm nervous. My hands are shaking. I don't want to touch your head to get your sight back. If I could just scream it from my house, I would have, but God wouldn't let me. Here it is. This is important. In verse 8, he took two things from Saul, his sight, and his pride. Check this out. In verse 18, 17, 18, and 19, he gives him two things back. He has sent me so that you may, number one, see again and be filled with what? The Holy Spirit of God. That's all you need. You don't have to be smart, and you don't have to be talented. Teddy, I love your passion, my brother. Don't ever lose your passion. I love the way you all sing with passion, this talent. You see that, and you think, man, I could never do that. I was over there singing by Drew. Drew just testified this morning, but I'll never do that. I can't sing. I can't play anything, but it's not about you. Yeah, but my past is horrible. It's not about you. Yeah, but I've done some bad things in my life. It's not about you. God will give you two things. He'll give you a vision of changing the world through your story, and then he will fill you with the Holy Spirit. The rest happens by faith. Oh, man, your story matters to God. Don't you dare leave here this morning and not know that. You're driving in an outburger. Man, you know what? I didn't get anything this morning other than my story matters to God. With this, I close, and then we'll go home. And the scales fell off of his eyes, and he could see again, and Saul becomes one of the greatest leaders in the Bible that we have ever read about. I'll listen closely. Three things, and then we'll go home. Number one, if you're going to change the world through your personal story, you have to realize, number one, that God has called you to change the world. Now, that's not deep, and you're not going to leave for saying, "No, no, no, that's not deep at all," but you've been called. You've been called to change the world. Number two, when you commit to change the world through your personal story, it will call for major life change. Your life will have to change. Some of you will move to Africa, and if you're sitting right now saying, "Not me," then you're probably the first one that's going to go. Now, for people to say that, "I would never do that," and a year later, while having their sending service, your life is going to have to change. There will be major life changes that you go through. If God's going to use your story, your life's going to radically change. Some of you got to get over some sin issues you've been struggling with. You've got to get rid of your sin. Now you're meddling. No, now I'm just being honest with all of us. We all got sin. You understand that? We all struggle. I'm first in line. We struggle with sin. Let me tell you the quickest way to get rid of your sin. You want to know how? Ask God to take the desire for it from you. So we deal with the symptoms. We deal with all the outside symptoms, the trauma, the emotions, the drama. Ask God to take the desire for your sin away and watch your life change in a major way, and you'll never be the same. And the one you've got to believe you're called, number two, your life will go through major change. When I moved out here, my wife will testify to this. It's one of the most difficult days of my life to have been since I moved. The saddest, the most heart-wrenching days have been since I moved, but yet some of the most rewarding days have been since I moved. They come together. As you proceed in God's vision for your life, the steps get harder and the giants get bigger. Lastly, then we'll be done. Number three, major life change, you've got to believe you're called, and sometimes you're going to have to lead when it seems like nobody else is following. Changing the world is lonely. Leadership is lonely. That's why God orders pastors to pray without ceasing, and it orders you to pray. Why? Because sometimes you feel alone in the journey, don't you? I feel like nobody cares. You feel like no one is getting involved with your vision. You're out here, and you feel like you're on an island, and you look back behind you, and there's nobody following you. I'm going to tell you right now, if you don't get anything, get this. The worst measure of are you leading, is is anybody following? You can get anybody to follow you, you can do anything. You can do something stooping, it's someone to follow you. My kids are testament to that. I've always said this, don't make it your goal to lead people. Make it your goal to lead the way. Lead the way. Don't worry about the people. They'll come. Make it your goal to lead the way. Don't worry about leading people. I don't like people saying, "That's going to lead people. That's going to lead people. Everybody get in line. Get in line. Okay, now you're out of line. Get back in line. That's like getting a bunch of kindergartners to follow you for about 30 seconds. It's not going to happen. Get in line everybody, get in line. Everybody get in line. No. Don't worry about the people. Follow the way of God. Pursue the vision God has for you. Look at your story and say, "Man, God's going to use all my frailties, and God's going to use all my shortcomings, and God's even going to use my sin to create who I am because it's in the valley where you learn who you are." During the dark days that you find out what you're made of, and that's when you follow the way and you pursue the vision, and before long people follow you because people don't follow words, people follow action. Lead the way. Your story matters to God. About three weeks ago I was putting my three-year-old to bed, you'll see he'll be here a little bit. He's in the nursery, reaping. I'm sure a great halfic. About two years ago we went through a time in our lives, my wife, and I did what they found something in his brain and they thought he was wrong with him and it freaked us out. We went through about six months of MRIs and trying to figure out what it was. It was just a horrible time. If you ever walk through that, you know it's tough and it ended up being nothing. He's fine today, but I try to put my kids to bed when I'm home if I can if I'm not doing something else. When I was putting him down and he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, put that in quotes, and I brushed the teeth, cleaned the toilet bowl, scrubbed the floor, brushed the teeth, so I was brushing his teeth and so I'm out in the hallway because I've always got something I'm doing and I'm going to hurry. I'm like, "Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up. Go in." All of a sudden I hear him talking. Why was he talking to? Because the other kids are in the other room. I go back in there and he's on his lightning McQueen cell phone. Not real, but he's on his little stuff and he's like, "Mm-hmm, yep." And he's looking in the mirror and he's like, "Mm-hmm, yep." "Yeah, no, tonight's not good. Nope, nope, nope. Yep." I'm like, "What are you doing? Well, I got stuff I got to do, get out the phone, we got to go to bed. What are you doing? Talking on that cell phone. And my three-year-old went, "Hold on a second. Shh. What a phone." I was like, "Are you kidding me? Really?" It's like I walked in and I was like, "No way. He just did that." And I went back in the room and I was like, "Bring, you got to go up the phone." I started whispering because my kids have made me crazy. I was like, "You got to get out the phone." I was like, "My, my whispering boy. Get out the phone. You're not on the phone. You're three." And he was like, "Shh." "Yeah, I got to go. Yeah. It's my dad. Yeah, I got to go to bed." All right. Yeah, tomorrow's good. Did I work? Okay. See you later. Okay. Dad, I'm ready. I'm like, "Really?" I told my wife, I was like, "Dee, look at that." And my wife said, "Hmm, he got that honestly because that's what I do because I don't have an office. We work out of our homes. So I'm always on the phone and my kids come around and I'm like, "It's on the phone. Quiet. It's a deacon, quiet." Unmute. I've never had cell phone training class in my house. We've never had times where you learn to talk on the phone before you go to bed. Why is he doing it? He's just doing what he sees. You want to change the world? You want to lead people? Do what Jesus did and believe in your story and I promise you, you will change the world. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray that you take these words and bore them into our souls. I love you today. You've been good to my life and my family because of this church. Thank you for advancing in Christi and their leadership. Thank you for the confidence in our church and in my life. Thank you for the hope Baptist Church and their sacrificial financial support of our work. Thank you for their time and their faith and their prayers for us. God, today has been a great reunion day for me and I'm just humbled to be here today. God, remind all of us that you want to use our stories and that you care. God, there are people here this morning and they are hurting in a big, big way. I mean, you'd like to use them. Remind us today that you wrote our stories and you care. I pray you send them well into our lives and send that giant to direct us, to protect us, and to drive us in the direction that you would have us go. Thank you for my beautiful wife, my beautiful family. Thank you for her Drew and his passion for you and bless his future. God bless our church and our staff, bless Hope Baptist Church and Vance and this team of leaders, bless Christi and the kids. God, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that you would allow Hope Baptist Church to touch the nations. I love you today. Thank you for writing this beautiful story. I love you. And I pray all these things in the matchless, wonderful name above all names, the name of Jesus Christ, I pray all these things and all God's people sent.