I'm excited that Evan Shealy's gonna be a dad.

And there's no joke about that.

That's for real.

That's happening.

That's real life.

That's exciting.

God is so faithful, is He not?

And He's been, man, God has been so good to us this morning.

It's better than a 54-yard kick with nine seconds left in the game.

When I start talking about football, things are, things are, things are happening.

God is good.

God is good.

Amen?

Amen.

If you're joining us on live stream, yes, this is Springhouse and I am Kevin O'Day

and we're glad that you're here.

Couple other things this morning.

Following this service, following right out those doors into the fellowship hall, we are

going to have a luncheon for those who are newer to Springhouse, want to meet our pastoral

team.

If you're new today or maybe you didn't register, but you'd like to stop in, we have plenty

of food.

We'd love you to come and hang out with us.

We want to get to know you, tell you a little bit about our church and, and just meet you

and talk with you.

So that will be immediately following.

Barbies said, please make sure you dismiss them out that backside door.

I'm probably going to forget later.

So go out that door at the end of the gathering, right through those double doors into the

fellowship hall, if you're participating in that.

And then on Tuesday morning, if you are a business leader, manager, owner, aspiring

leader in a business, would you raise your hand?

Put them up high, put them up high.

I'm a business leader, manager, owner.

Okay.

We have something called the business collective that meets on the second Tuesday of every

month.

And let me tell you, it is rich and it is powerful.

There is a free breakfast for you and Joshua McLeod with alongside Justin Bashir co-lead

this and I want to invite you eight o'clock on Tuesday morning here in the foyer to join

us for breakfast and be a part of that.

Even if you're an aspiring leader, I, every time I've heard Josh speak, Justin speak,

it's been, it's been great.

And so I want to invite you to that this Tuesday, if you have capacity at eight o'clock.

Does that sound good?

Okay.

We are, we are today going to be in Acts chapter nine and you all, so many of you, because

you've been following along with us knew that already.

And you've read Acts chapter nine and you've done the exhaustive study on Acts chapter

nine.

So I really don't have to teach much because you've already done the work.

Right.

But because so many of you are following along with us, we had a scheduling change with our

staff in the next few weeks.

So I want you to continue to read along with us.

So I wanted to inform you about that.

So today we're going to be in Acts chapter nine, but here's the schedule for the next

three weeks.

Next week we'll actually jump to chapter 13 and then we're going to backtrack 12 and then

11.

Okay.

So if this week you'll jump to 13, then we got chapter 13, chapter 12, and then chapter

11.

Okay.

That's just because we had a little bit of a scheduling change that needed to happen

with our speaking team.

Okay.

So that's the plan.

And then also before we get into this, we will be reading Acts chapter nine.

And if you know Acts chapter nine, because you have read it, correct.

We're talking about probably one of the famous, one of the famous stories in scripture that

we know about the, the moment where Jesus Christ encounters Saul.

Right.

Well, I wanted to go and say this off the top.

I want to clean up perhaps a misperception or a misconception of Saul and Paul.

Okay.

Cause we're, we're heading into this, this, we're going to be talking about Saul today

and Saul and Paul, this Saul we're talking about, they're, they're the same person, Saul

and Paul.

A lot of believers have thought for, I was one of them that the name change happened

with this moment in scripture we're about to read.

And that's not actually the case.

That was not written in scripture.

Actually it's an Acts chapter 13, which we're talking about next week where Saul, the first

time we look at Saul's name being changed over to Paul or, or, or, or whatnot.

So I just wanted to clean it up because today we're going to use the name Saul because that's

what's written in the scripture.

And I didn't want you to be confused about who we're talking about.

We're talking about one in the same person.

That sound good?

Are we all on the same page?

Okay, great.

Well, we're going to stand this morning and we're going to read as if your favorite football

team won the game.

And if they didn't, proclaimed by faith next week.

Let's read together.

"Saul was still breathing murderous threats against the Lord's disciples.

He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that

if he found any there who belonged to the way, whether men or women, he might take them

as prisoners to Jerusalem.

As he reared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute

me?'

'Why are you, Lord?'

Saul asked.

'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,' he replied.

'Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.'

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless.

They heard the sound, but they didn't see anyone.

Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing.

So they led him by the hand into Damascus.

For three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything.

In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias.

The Lord called to him in a vision, 'Ananias.'

'Yes, Lord,' he answered.

The Lord told him, 'Go to the house of Judas on straight street and ask for a man from

Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.

In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hand on him to receive

his sight.

'Lord,' Ananias answered, 'I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he

has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.

And he has come here with authority from the chief priest to arrest all who call on your

name.'

But the Lord said to Ananias, 'Go, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name

to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.

I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.'

Then Ananias went to the house and entered it.

Placing his hands on Saul, he said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on

the road as you were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled

with the Holy Spirit.'

Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again.

He got up and was baptized and after taking some food, he regrained his strength."

Father, I thank you for great readers and I thank you Lord for your holy word.

I pray that it transform our lives.

I pray Lord that you would open our eyes today to see you and what you want to share with

us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we are continuing our series in Acts paired with the theme of his church.

We're watching the Holy Spirit move.

How many know that the Holy Spirit wants to be an active part of your day in day out life?

The Holy Spirit wants to be an active part of your life.

He wants to show you things that you're not seeing.

He wants to blind you from things that you shouldn't be looking at.

The Holy Spirit wants to be active in your life.

And if we let him, he will do some real incredible things in us and through us.

I was in an accident on Monday.

Another accident, yes.

And it was not fun.

A hornet fell on my face and flew on my face and I freaked out.

And I'm glad nobody else was in the car with me because it would have been a real special

moment for them.

But I freaked out and I slapped this hornet off of my face and it landed in my shoe and

stung my foot.

And as it proceeded to sting my foot, I rammed my truck into a tree.

And so there's my truck and it is getting the work necessary to fix it.

I want us to start this morning with this.

The smallest distractions are often the most destructive.

The smallest distractions are often the most destructive.

When we look at Saul, the top of our scripture says that he had been vomiting murderous threats

against those who are following the way.

And you might think to yourself, well, this isn't necessarily a small distraction.

That seems pretty big.

What I want us to understand is actually Saul was in the majority.

He was not in the minority.

The church was just starting.

The church was beginning and believers were being added to the numbers every day.

But Saul's mentality and his thought process, he actually was in the majority of what people

thought about those who are following the way.

He just had the guts to get out and say, I'm gonna do something about this, including going

to the high priest and saying, could I have letters that gives me the authority to walk

right up into the synagogue, right up into the churches and say, I'm gonna yank you out

if you believe in this Jesus, if you believe in this resurrected Jesus.

And so Saul was ruthless.

He was on fire for just going after those who had followed the way.

And so he was distracted by what he could not really see.

And can I tell you that sometimes even as believers, we are distracted and blinded by

what we cannot see, what we cannot see.

And so on the way on the road and on the way to Damascus, as he's going, the word tells

us that a light appears, a bright light appears around him.

And it of course is the Lord Jesus.

And you know, there are portions of this scripture and all throughout scripture I find humorous,

but the very man that he's persecuting is the man who appears before him in this moment.

And he asked him, Jesus says, Saul, so why are you persecuting me?

And I wonder how many of us need Jesus to ask that question of us in the way that we

have chosen to not only live our lives, but we have chosen to remain blind though we have

been given the right to see.

Saul, so why are you persecuting me?

And Saul retorts, he answers, he says, who are you Lord?

Who are you Lord?

I've resolved as a maturing Christian that I need to ask the question, who are you Lord?

Far more than I do.

I need to ask the question, who are you Lord?

You know, I get to a place where I think I know him and I know him really well, and then

he'll reveal something new about himself and in his character.

Don't we ever get to a point where you think you've got all of the knowledge of who he

is.

He has so much more than you can even fathom on this, on this, on this earth and in this

world.

And Jesus answers, he says, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

And the word tells us that because of the light and because of his interaction, Saul

was blinded for three days.

Now what I want us to understand is we know that Saul was blinded for three days, but

at the moment where his sight was taken away, that could have been eternity in his mind.

He didn't know that three days there was going to be a man named Ananias coming around to

touch him.

He was blinded.

So for all intents and purposes, if you're putting yourself in his shoes, I'm blind.

This is it.

This is, this is the start of the rest of my life.

And have you ever been in a situation where something extraordinary happens and you think

it is the start of the rest of your life.

Something's taken away, something stolen from you.

Some, some egregious act has taken place in your life, some relational conflict, and you

begin to make up in your mind that this is now forever.

But can I tell you that we have a glorious God who is awesome and wonderful and working

on your behalf that just because something's going on today doesn't mean that it's forever,

that you're better is yet to come, that there's, that there is hope that you can lean into

Christ Jesus, though you may not know the end for the beginning, you have a hope in

this savior.

You have a hope in this, in this savior.

We want an experience with Jesus, but I want to ask you what if the most powerful experiences

in your life were the ones where Jesus took something from you rather than giving something

to you.

With his desire for us to become more like him, he may choose to remove the thing that

is distracting you from him that you don't think is a distraction.

Your will, your rights, your comfortable lifestyle, your money, or a relationship.

But God would never want to take those things away from me.

He absolutely would if they were in the throne of your life.

We serve a jealous God.

We serve a God who sees the end from the beginning and has an amazing plan for your life.

He wants to be on the throne.

He wants to be on the throne in your life and he's not going to share that seat with

anyone or anything.

So that we can get to a place where we can really see church in every situation.

Look for Jesus in every circumstance that you find yourself in.

Look for Jesus when you're tackling a hard question or even a decision, or maybe it's

going to the grocery store and determining whether you need to buy this or that.

Look for Christ Jesus in the situation.

He will always present himself.

He can be found.

He can be found.

The Holy Spirit gives us the power to see the things that we cannot see.

I worked at Chick-fil-A for a number of years.

And when I became a manager at the age of 16, I'd already been working there for a year

and a half.

And I remember my first night closing as a manager and being in that manager spot, the

owner came in and he said, I'm going to have you close the store and then I'm going to

come review what you've done.

I'm going to come check it out.

And so we had a team about five or six there and they usually stay till about 930.

I kept them there till 10 o'clock because I was going to have this place spick and span,

and I was going to make it look great for the owner when he came.

Well, the owner comes down at 10 o'clock and he says, Kevin, do you think you did a good

job?

I said, yes, sir.

The team and I, I think we executed this well.

I think we've gotten everything.

In fact, I think you're going to be so impressed with what we've done.

Do you know that that man kept me there till 1 a.m. showing me everything that I did wrong

and I missed and I had to clean it myself.

Can I tell you, I now have a curse in my life.

When I walk into any environment, I see everything that is wrong with what's going on in the

room and I have to train my eyes to see the fruit.

I have to train my eyes to see the good.

And guys, is that not a Christian principle that we need to train our eyes to see the

good?

We need to train our eyes to see Jesus in the situations that we're in.

I have a propensity to see everything bad, but man, especially when it comes to looking

at people, I hope that I can look and say, I see Jesus.

I see Jesus.

He's not hard to find.

Have you ever been looking for something and it was in your hand?

Hey, where's my cell phone?

Have you seen my phone?

Have you seen my, where are my glasses?

You know, where are my, they're on your head.

Anybody, where are my keys?

And you're holding them, right?

This is not hard to find.

He is not.

And what a privilege it is to look for Jesus.

Where can I find Christ in this?

And most of the time, friends, it is not in the most obvious places.

Although once you find him, it's kind of like, how did I miss him?

Right?

Once you find the Lord, it's kind of like he was always there and I just, I can't believe

I didn't see him.

He was, he was always right there at the school.

I played a game of hide and seek with the teenagers when I did lock-ins.

I used to do lock-ins, but I'm not a youth pastor anymore.

And I, and I, and I did a lock-in at the school and I hid in a great spot.

I hid at the top of a bookshelf in the library and I was just laying there and those teens

circled that, that bookshelf.

I had to be a hundred times and I was right there.

I was right there.

Well, about 10 or 15 minutes into the game, my weight took over and the bookshelf crashed

down and I fell.

And they said, "I couldn't believe you were there all the time."

And I said, "Yeah, I was, I've been here the entire time.

I heard you searching.

I heard you looking saying, 'Would he be here?

Would he be here?'"

Guys, Jesus is not hard to find.

He's not, and he is in your situation.

He's not trying to not be found.

He wants to be found.

We look at Elijah and the story in the Old Testament, and we see him looking for the

Lord in the cave and, and the Lord provides a mighty wind and he provides an earthquake

and he provides a fire, all spectacular things.

Can I tell you that most of the time, the Lord's not going to be found in the spectacular.

He's going to be found in those small moments, those mundane things.

This is why we don't come to a church where we just put, "Well, I could do fireworks.

That's probably something I would do not to get your, not to get his attention or take

away from him, but that's because I use object lessons."

But we're not here to have a concert.

We're not here, we're not here to, I mean, we want things done with excellent, but we're

not here to provide a show for you so you can keep your distance from Christ and go

home and live the same way that you've always lived.

We're here because we want to be sanctified as a church so that holiness can prevail and

that people can be added to the kingdom.

But in order to do that, we have to engage and look for Jesus Christ.

This is what he says.

He says in Jeremiah to the prophet, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with

all of your heart."

Also to Jeremiah, he says, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and hidden

things that you have not known."

The book of Proverbs known as the book of wisdom, "I love those who love me," says the

Lord, "and those who seek me," what?

"They find me."

Are you seeking the Lord?

Has anybody seen the movie The Matrix?

It's an older movie now, but The Matrix, red pill, blue pill.

Morpheus says this in the movie, he says this, "You take that blue pill, the story ends,

you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole really

goes."

This is the difference in the kingdom.

After you get saved, you have an option.

You have a choice.

You can continue to live your life blinded or you can wake up and realize that your life

is far more than just the 80 years, 90 years that you have on this planet.

I've showed this example a hundred times it seems, but this is not your only life.

It's not just here.

People who walk around blind believe that this is the extent of our lives, but this

is just a portion of it.

This is a portion of it.

What really happens is this eternity.

Whenever you decide to believe, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, allow the Holy Spirit

to open your eyes, you realize that what you do in this red part determines what happens

in the white part.

Your eternity is secure in him and you have an eternity to live with him.

What are you doing with your limited time here on earth, friends?

What are you doing?

How are you allowing?

Are you walking around blind or are you allowing the Lord to open your eyes, to see the things

that you need to change to become more like him?

But more than that, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, I want you to use me, use me as a vessel to

proclaim your gospel, to advance your kingdom.

Unfortunately, many believers, even though they've received their sight, choose to walk

around as if they're still blind.

May I submit to you this morning that you cannot follow someone you choose not to see.

And the Holy Spirit will lead us to Jesus every single time because the Holy Spirit

is a revealer.

He reveals things to us.

He reveals Christ to us.

He opens our eyes to see the reality.

And once we see the reality, we stop our destructive behavior.

And so this man appears on the scene by the name of Ananias.

Now, this is not the same Ananias we talked about several weeks ago.

He's dead.

He's dead.

Okay.

He died.

Do you know that people can have the same name, right?

This is a different Ananias, okay?

And Ananias is on the scene and I love what happens here.

And it's in the small things if we pay attention in scripture, the Lord appears to Saul and

he says, "Saul, Saul."

And his response is, "Who are you, Lord?"

And when he says, "Ananias," Ananias says, "Yes, Lord."

Oh, that we would know the Holy Spirit's voice so well that our first response is, "Yes,

Lord."

"Yes, Lord."

"I'm listening, Lord.

I want to hear your — I want to hear what you have to say."

And just like Pastor Ronnie said last week with that joke, "Knock, knock, who's there?

Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit who?"

It takes a cultivation of a lifestyle to practice listening to the Holy Spirit's voice in order

to know when he's speaking to us.

He wants to speak to you.

Do you know what the Holy Spirit's voice sounds like?

Ananias did.

And I love that Saul having no idea that he wasn't going to be blind in three days is

being taken to Damascus and the Lord is in the wing space prepping an Ananias for to

deliver Saul out of his blindness and launch him into his ministry.

How many Ananiases do we have in here where God is speaking to you and he has something

for you in the preparation for someone else, in the preparation for you to be a vessel

to go and speak something to someone else so that their ministry can begin, so that

thing can change in their life?

Are we listening to the Lord with the spirit of an posture of, "Yes, Lord.

I am listening to you."

Go to Judas' house on Straight Street and ask for Saul, "I'm going to use you to restore

his sight."

Now, Saul has not written these letters to these churches yet.

He's barely been introduced to Christ.

We don't have the testimony yet of Saul.

You know what we know about Saul?

He's wanting to murder some Christians.

And you know what he wants to do with Ananias?

He wants to kill him.

That would be Saul's choice for Ananias.

And so Ananias kind of goes, "Uh, Lord," and this is so funny to me, "Lord, do you know

that Saul is like, he went to the high priest and got a letter and permission to go in and

yank the believers out of the church and arrest them.

Like do you know, like, 'Lord, excuse me, I hear what you're saying, but do you understand

that Saul, he might hurt me, he might hurt me.'"

And I love the Lord's response here.

He says, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."

Oh, that's comforting, Lord.

I'm going to show him how much he has to suffer for my name.

I want you to go tell the guy who wants to kill you that you're going to suffer, that

you're going to suffer.

But I love that Ananias's yes was on the table.

Because when I read the scriptures, when I read these letters that Paul wrote, when I

read these, that when I see that believers throughout the course of thousands of years

have been added to the kingdom, guess what, Ananias's fingerprints are all over it because

he chose to have a yes on the table.

So when you render a yes to the Lord, you are a part of a greater picture of advancing

the kingdom of God.

Over in Judges, there is a guy by the name of Gideon.

And Gideon, I love this story.

And the Lord has told him to go out and kill some folks and he's scared.

And he says, I don't know if it's really you, Lord, this is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to put this fleece out.

And if you make the fleece wet and the ground dry, then I will know it is you.

How many have ever tested the law?

Be honest.

I've tested the Lord God in that.

I just said, Lord, if you'll do this.

Well, Gideon goes out and it's exactly like he said it would be.

Exactly like this.

Now, I don't know if anybody in here is like Gideon and Kevin O'Day, but then the next

day he said, you know what, Lord, I just want to make absolutely sure.

So let's do the opposite here, Lord, this time you make the ground wet and the fleece

dry.

And then I will know that I know that I know that it's you.

The next day he gets up and guess what?

It's exactly that way.

Now, I have no problem with laying out fleeces, but let me tell you something.

God answers that fleece, you better do what he tells you to do.

Now, if anybody is still as weak as Gideon and Kevin O'Day, he musters 32,000 men to

go out to fight this battle.

And the Lord says, no, that's too many.

You're going to have to give up some of them.

So, okay.

All right.

I hear you, Lord.

Okay.

I know that's a bit aggressive.

10,000.

Let's get them out of the way.

No, that's too many.

Let's go down to 300 because if you go out with 300 men, then when you're victorious,

I get the glory says the Lord.

I get the glory.

Guys, when we are looking for Christ, when we were looking for the Holy Spirit in our

circumstances and situations, it's always going to be in a situation where he gets the

glory.

Guys, unfortunately, I don't believe that God considers our circumstances as a prerequisite

for your obedience to him because a lion doesn't bother our Lord.

A fiery furnace does not bother the Lord.

The Red Sea is nothing for our God.

And so he wants his people to rise up in faith.

The book of Hebrews says without faith, it is what?

Impossible.

Can you say impossible?

Impossible to please the Lord.

We want to be a people of faith who please the Lord, but that takes us listening to the

voice of the Holy Spirit when he opens our eyes to see the things the way he sees them

and not the way we choose to see them in our flesh.

We have this misperception that God will never give you more than you can handle.

That is baloney.

That is absolute baloney.

He'd never give you Aaron.

He'll never give you more than you handle.

You just keep living that way.

You just keep carrying that yourself.

Are you kidding me?

If God only gave you what you could handle, then you would have no need for God.

And he is a God who desires to be needed and we need him.

You are going friends to be asked to suffer for Christ.

Ananias, you're going to be asked to suffer for Christ.

Jesus said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross

and follow me.

And when you get up in the morning, you have flesh desires and Jesus is asking you to deny

your flesh, to deny the things that you want to do.

When I wake up in the morning, I want number one priority be Kevin.

That's if I'm honest with myself, it's like, what do I want to do?

How's my day going to go?

How do I want to interact?

And I have to quickly first thing in the morning, surrender and deny myself.

I have to quickly in the morning say, God, you've got to have this day because I know

if I take it, I'm gonna mess it up really, really bad.

Paul would come to write this very Saul that's been persecuting Christians and now is blind.

He writes this in a letter to the Galatians.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who is in me.

And then he would write to the Philippians for to me to live is Christ and to die is

gain.

Guys, do we have a heart posture that says to live is Christ, to die is gain.

And so Ananias, he finds brother Saul and when he finds him, he boldly proclaims what

the Lord told him.

And the Lord meets them there and he says, I'm not just here.

Listen to this.

I'm not just here to restore your sight.

I'm here so that you may see and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

You see Saul, it's not enough for you to set, retain your sight.

It's not enough for you to see.

You need the power of the Holy Spirit because God has some churches that he's gonna use

you to write some letters to.

He's going to use you, he's gonna have you thrown into prison for proclaiming the way,

the truth and the life.

You're gonna need some supernatural strength that you don't have within yourself.

You need the Holy Spirit and friends, believers, can I tell you, you need the Holy Spirit.

You need the Holy Spirit in your life.

You do not have the strength to suffer for Jesus the way he's asking you to, but the

Holy Spirit gives you the strength.

And thus this begins a new life for Saul, a life filled with the Holy Spirit.

And I'll tell you, there's nothing better than having a life filled with the Holy Spirit.

Ananias could have justified his way out of obeying the Lord.

In fact, I believe if Ananias was here today, I believe some of us would tell Ananias, it's

not God's will for you to go to Saul.

God would not want you to, I mean, do you know that he could arrest you and throw you

in the jail?

Surely there's another way.

Don't worry about going.

I don't, I don't really resonate with, and what we're actually saying is I don't have

the faith to believe that God said what he said.

And because of my lack of faith, I'm going to tear down your, your faith.

Always follow the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Always follow the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Bruce Coble, this is Bruce Coble.

He was our mission pastor for two decades, a little over two decades.

And I, he told me a story once and I'm going to share it with you.

I've shared it before, but he said, in listening to the Holy Spirit, he painted this picture

of a catastrophe that had happened.

And in this catastrophe, there was a young girl along the way who needed a cup of water.

And the Holy Spirit has told me, I want you to go take this girl a cup of water.

And so I've got this cup of water, but along the path, there are these casualties from

this accident.

And to my left would be, let's say a woman whose arm has literally blown off because

of this, this, this, this, this massive explosion that has happened.

And she's screaming out to me for help.

She's screaming out and calling me by name.

And there would be a man over here who would need something else and he would be crawling

out to me and I might even have what he needs on my person.

The question is, am I going to go help those people or am I going to, am I going to do

what the Holy Spirit's told me to do?

And that's hard.

Why?

Because these people need me.

But my job and my role is to obey the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Because you see, by my choice to obey the Holy Spirit and what he's asked me to do,

I trust him with this lady and this man.

But when I go and I try to get into this situation with this woman and this man, when the Holy

Spirit hasn't told me to do that, then I don't just cause mess and wreak havoc in their lives.

I wreak havoc in my own because I'm listening to my own voice.

We can trust the Holy Spirit.

We can trust his voice and we can do what he tells us to do.

And I would argue that probably the harder thing is for us not to do the things he's

telling us not to do.

And so what I want us to understand today is you have a choice.

The Holy Spirit is not a manipulator.

He doesn't force you to do anything.

Ananias had a choice.

He stated his case, but he had a choice.

And you too have a choice.

And the choice really boils down to two things.

I will obey or I won't obey.

I will obey or I won't obey.

Comfortable circumstances are not a prerequisite for our obedience to the Lord.

I don't believe that the Lord changes his mind based on our circumstance, but he looks

for our faith.

You have a choice.

You have a choice.

And with that choice, the Holy Spirit empowers us to do hard things.

He empowers us to do hard things.

Worship team, you can make your way back.

I'm going to close with this story.

Well this.

On Wednesdays, our staff meets in here.

It's huge on my heart that the pastoral team at this church meets regularly and prays together.

And thankfully we all meet.

We are all here.

We all meet together and we pray for you and for the church.

And this last Wednesday, I asked everyone to bring an answer to the question, "When

was the last time you were wrong?"

When was the last time you were wrong?

And we went around the circle.

We shared and had a time of fellowship together.

And one of the pieces of conversation that happened in that had to do with my position

here as lead pastor and leading from a vulnerable point of view.

And guys, can I just tell you, I hate it.

I hate illuminating my mess for you guys.

You know, it's like, Lord, what mess do you want to eliminate for me, you know, in me?

But it's part of what I feel like I'm called to do.

And so I'm gonna get real vulnerable with you guys here for a minute.

Okay.

Something happened this very recently.

And I, a group of guys, they were talking, they were bantering back and forth and just

chumming it up and whatnot.

And my name got brought up in that group.

And in this group was somebody I care so much about, deep love for this guy.

And so in the context of the conversation, my name got brought up and they started to

say some real hurtful things about me.

And what they didn't know is they were doing that around students at the school.

This was late in the afternoon.

And one of the students was recording the conversation.

And so I, this is fresh off the press.

And so the student apologized and said, I think that you need to hear this, especially

because of who was in the conversation.

And guys, it crushed me.

It crushed me because I never thought that this person could say or be a part of conversations,

really none of them, but especially this person I care so deeply about.

And so after listening to it for like 40 times, hoping that there's some, like, I missed something.

There's this can't be, this person loves me.

I know I just, and it's just, there's no way around it.

I just went to the Lord and I said, Lord, I'm going to have to talk to this person about

this.

I don't know how to do it.

And in tears, as I'm crying there, the Lord said, I want you to love them above the hurt.

And I said, Lord, but when I look at them, I'm going to know that they have, or they

have the propensity to say and do.

And the Lord said, but yeah, when you look at them and you know that, you also know how

much you actually love them.

And so I haven't shared that with the people or the person I don't plan to.

I have just chosen to love harder and love deeper because the Holy Spirit empowers me

to do hard things.

Guys, the Holy Spirit will empower you to do hard things.

If you allow them to open your eyes, allow yourself to be used by Him.

You'll see Jesus.

And He's really the only one that matters in the first place.

Would you stand with me?

Those who are ministering to people, if you'll come forward, I don't know if some of you

are hurting today or you need a special touch from the Lord today.

But if that's you, I invite you to come.

You can leave here the same way you came, or you can leave a changed person because

of the Holy Spirit, not because of anything these people have done.

They're just going to go to the Holy Spirit with you.

So let's worship together and do some business with the Lord.

Amen.

Amen.