Ready or Not

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

You guys can have a seat. Thank you, Lord, for a beautiful time together as a family. Thank you, Lord, for words to express things that are sometimes difficult to express. Thank you, Lord, for just time with spiritual family for encouragement and hope. Thank you, Lord, for your word. I pray that you would help us to listen as we move through it here together this morning. And it's your name that we pray. Amen.

Well, I wanna tell you a little bit of a story. Once upon a time, my family and I were going to Benbrook Lake. The kids, this is probably five, seven years ago, something like that. So we had a bunch of grade schoolers and high schoolers, and we go to Benbrook Lake, and we're kinda out there. There's this little piece of Benbrook that kinda just juts out, and we're on there. I don't even know the name of the little island that it is, but it's just kinda, there's this little road, and it goes out to just this tip, and it's kinda in the middle of the lake, really. And so we are, we're kinda out, we're camping there, and the sky looks a little threatening. We don't think much of it. We're just chillin'. And so we set up camp, we set up a low, kind of a camp kinda right on the beach and went up high. And you know, we're having a good time. We're kinda the only ones out there,

and maybe everybody else is smarter than us, I don't know, but they're not a whole lot of people that have been broke lake, and sure enough, man, the winds start kinda whipping around, and it's kinda getting windy, the sky kinda gets a little more threatening, and everything's going good, and we're thinking, okay, this'll be a little bit of rainstorm, we'll kinda figure this out. And then there was this, it's really hard to describe, there was like this black mass that was just swallowing everything, all the visibility was just leaving, just as it approached us, and it freaked all of us out. Everybody, all seven of us, we're all freaking out, we're all jumping in the car, we're all like packing up our camp, we're all, we had planned something really great, and something then happened that adjusted all of those plans for us, okay? We had a great night in, a safe structure at that point,

we went back to the house, we watched movies, we were not gonna camp. Sometimes, whenever you are trying to plan something, whenever you are trying to, you want everything to kinda be just so, maybe it's a date, maybe it's a family vacation, maybe it's a camping trip like us, and then there's just things that happen that just knock that thing on its head. It's just gone. As we open up Acts 25 through 26 today, and that's where we're gonna be, and so there's, all the verses are gonna be up here as we work through each one, but if you wanna read the Bible for yourself, you got a favorite translation, you got a whatever, there should be Bibles that are underneath the seats kinda near you, you can also power it up on your phone, right, but we're gonna be looking at most of Acts 25, chapter 25 and chapter 26 today. As we open up to those two, we find Paul in the middle of that storm, okay?

So if it's back to my story, Paul is, did not break camp fast enough and get in the car, okay? Paul is out there in the middle, and there is a storm just beating down on him, and he's trying to get the tent pegs up, and it's just rain, just coming down, wind's blowing. Maybe he loses his tent in the lake, I'm not really sure, but there is some things happening right here and they are completely outside of his control and they are not happening quickly. So it's not just that things are askew, it's not just that things aren't going the way he thought they would, they have kept not going the way that he thought they would. He has been unjustly imprisoned for two plus years

under a guy named Felix. Felix is replaced by Festus, but they're both F words and they're the same guy, okay? It doesn't matter, Felix and Festus, they're both the same kind of the same person, same instrument, and they are both kind of the governor or the person in charge of Paul being in prison. And so the thing that Paul, from his perspective, when Felix gets replaced by Festus, maybe something can change, and so Paul gets another shot, right, so Paul is now talking to Festus. Remember, he's been in prison for two plus years and we're gonna jump to verse eight, Acts 25 verse eight. So this is Paul arguing his case, rearguing his case that he's already been in prison for two plus years. He's rearguing his case and maybe it's gonna go different this time. And so it says, Paul argued in his defense, neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar,

have I committed any offense. So Paul is trying to say, I didn't do anything wrong to anybody, you don't have a reason to keep me here, he's right. Your case has no merit. But you can kind of hear his frustration, right? You can kind of, there's something, there's a little bit of an edge, like I didn't, it's not just, hey, I'm here and I shouldn't be, it's, man, I haven't done anything to be here. And part of that, you know, we looked at it last week, but as bears repeating, Paul is trying to obey the Spirit's call to go to Jerusalem and then to Rome. And the Lord has affirmed this verbally while he was in jail, right? So the man has a directive, the man has a confirmed thing he needs to be doing, but he is stuck in Caesarea. This is where he's in prison. He's stuck in Caesarea, he is biding his time, he is waiting, maybe something's gonna happen, maybe something's gonna shake loose.

How's the Lord gonna get me to Jerusalem? And then to Rome, what is happening right here? Maybe this is another shot. And so he impassionately pleads his case. But this is what Festus does, and look at the next verse, ex 25 verse nine. But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, do you wish to go to Jerusalem and dare be tried on these charges before me? Okay, so what Paul is seeing now, because he's not a dummy, he's running into the exact same corruption, to the exact same delay, to the exact same good old boy system, and he is not going to be tried fairly. In fact, and Paul knows this, if he goes to Jerusalem to be tried, there is an active plot to kill him, okay? So when Festus mentions this, this is going to set off all kinds of alarms in Paul. Like I'm not going back to Jerusalem, I'm not going to die there, that's not, so Paul is why, and this is what he says,

verse 11 is kind of his response, it says, this is Paul, if then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death, but if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar. That does not sound like much to you and me, okay? If somebody would say, I appeal to the president, you know, like, okay, calm down, you're going to go in the low appellate court over here, okay, but in Paul's day, when he's saying, I'm not getting satisfaction, I'm a Roman citizen, I deserve to be tried fairly, and I'm not being tried fairly right now, I appeal to Caesar. Now that means two things. Number one, it means Paul has pulled the ripcord, okay? This is the point of no return. Paul said, I appeal to Caesar, and that's a big deal to do in a Roman court, right? And so he's really, he's kind of just done it.

It also means that he's out of options, okay? He's escaping death, almost certainly, he's escaping death, but now he has to go to Caesar, right? And so you see Paul, it's a weird thing because he's kind of in the midst of this wind and storm and getting rocked around, but here he's asserting some amount of control, some amount of autonomy here, okay? In verse 11, look at verse 12, this is what Festus says in response. Festus, when he had conferred with his counsel answered, to Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you shall go, okay? And it's kind of like, it's almost like Festus is saying, all right, big boy, you wanna go see Caesar? You're gonna get him. You're gonna get all that that means. But, and this is, I feel like I don't wanna get too far in the weeds on this, but we need to understand legally what's happening. This creates a really big problem for Festus

with the guy who has Paul. This creates a problem for him because now that Paul has appealed to Caesar, Festus is the one who has to do it, and Festus has to provide reasoning that he's going to shove Paul up to Caesar. In other words, Festus can't just run it at the flagpole, run it up all the way up to the top with Caesar with no cause. He can't just say, well, go see Caesar. I mean, I'm sure he's not busy. He has to give a cause, but Festus is too dumb to do this. Specifically, he's too ignorant of Jewish customs to even know what to write. Okay? You ever had a paper to write, and you looked at the title that the professor gave you, and you're like, I don't even know what that title means. I can't even put this in AI because I don't even know what to write. Don't use AI. Just kidding, you can do it.

He's too ignorant, so he doesn't even know. He's looking at this whole situation and going, I have no idea. I don't have a referent for this. Enter King Agrippa. King Agrippa. King Agrippa and his sister, Bernice, they kind of come into play here, and they are what is called Jewish client royalty, meaning they are king, Agrippa is a king, but he's not a king over Caesar. He's a king at the good pleasure of the Roman Empire. He answers to the Roman Empire. He's so a king over the Jews, but he doesn't have authority over Festus, for example. And whenever Festus learned that he was gonna be near, he jumps on that opportunity, and he asks him all kinds of questions because he needs to know what am I gonna do with Paul? How do I write this up to Caesar? What do I do? So this is what Festus said. Look at Acts 25, and this is verses 14 through 15. Festus said, there is a man left prisoner by Felix,

and when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews laid out their case against him, asking for a sentence of condemnation against him. So Paul is tossed around by these political favors. All this political kind of machinations are moving Paul around. He's still exerting some control. And also, even despite that, Paul has continued to minister over these two plus years. Listen to how Festus summarizes Paul's disagreement, okay? His pulse, his issue. Look at verse 19. This is still Festus talking about Paul, and remember, Festus has not, has only listened to Paul a couple of times by this point. It says, rather, and this is again, this is Festus summarizing Paul's disagreement. Rather, they had certain points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus

who was dead but whom Paul asserted to be alive. So it tells us that kind of Paul has been faithful in the spot that he is in. In other words, he wasn't just in jail, rotting, doing nothing. He was preaching. He was talking to his captors. He was talking to Festus, talking to Felix, just trying to figure it out, right? Festus knows it's about Jesus. He doesn't, listen, Festus probably can't recite the gospel, okay, but he knows something is there and it's about Jesus and it's about Jesus rising from the dead.

And again, Paul has been faithful. Festus can't recite the gospel, but Festus has heard something, enough to say something here. And right here, right here in this moment, Paul's ministry spot, the place that he's been, the jail that he's been in, is about to get an unexpected encore. His opportunity to share the gospel with all these people is about to just reset. He's about to get a whole other thing again.

And it's unexpected. I want you to consider all of the ministry spots that you have right now in your own person, right? In your own life. I recently have heard a story about a school librarian and as she was asked this question, she realized that she knew the first name of 700 students in her school, right? That's a lot of people that you know, but it's not just school librarians, right? If you are in management of any kind, you know your direct reports and you know their needs. And if you bothered just a little bit, you'd know about their family and you would know maybe about how their weekend went or about if they have a troubled child or if they have a strain going on at home. Just a few questions would give you that amount of information. You have a great deal of influence. If you are a teacher, okay? You're not in management, you're not in the corporate world exactly,

but you are a teacher and you know those students and you know their families and you know which kids are probably getting beat at home and you know which kids who are completely disconnected from their parents. You know this, you know this about them. You know their first and last name. You probably know their middle name. It would be nothing for you to pray for them. It would be simple. You have those ministry spots. If you are a doctor, if you're in the medical profession at all, you know your patients. You probably know more about your patients than their family knows about them. You know some information about them that they might not share with a whole lot of people. You know them. Man, even if you are working a counter, you know your regulars.

I go to the same coffee shop a couple of times a week in part because I wanna get to know the people that are working behind that counter. I wanna pray for them, I wanna listen to them, I wanna ask them how their life is going. And typically in a coffee shop, the turnover is pretty high with people behind the counter. So there's usually just new people to kind of meet and know.

Look, for some of you, maybe you've already answered that question. Maybe you already know your ministry spot. But for some reason, you think it's over. You've shared your story. You've given your testimony. You've shared the gospel. You've loved them in their moment. You've walked with them through pain. You've listened to them. They've come over to your house late and they cried on your shoulder and you thought, man, this is some real breakthrough. And then you get ghosted for three weeks after that while they kind of recoup.

And maybe, maybe you just think it's over. What I wanna look at Paul as today, and really what I want you to see is that there's these times when the Holy Spirit is gonna give you an encore. It's gonna give you a moment on something you thought was dead and gone. It's gonna give you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't work on our timetable, so we think stuff is kind of expired or gone bad or I've said too much in that relationship and they've rejected the Lord. Or I've shared my story a thousand times and they've always been either, they've ignored it or they've been antagonistic toward it. Nothing's going to change. I don't need to tell Barbara at the copier that I've been praying for her this weekend. I don't need to tell her that because she's just going to scoff like she always does. Sometimes, not all the time, not every time, but sometimes it's the time after that

that Barbara hears the gospel. Sometimes it's the encore. And what I want you to just understand and we're about to look at what Paul does in his moment, he's about to get a ministry spot encore. He didn't think that was gonna happen. He thought he was gonna run that jail maybe. I don't know, I don't know what he thought, but he did not expect to share the gospel in this moment in time. We know that for sure.

And your ministry spots are going to come at you ready or not. You're gonna have an opportunity to share the gospel in ways that you did not expect, you didn't plan for, right, you didn't plan for the kid in your classroom asking that perfect question. I mean, look, they just like, just set it up, you know, and you're just like, I'm gonna spike it, I'm gonna do it. And so they're just giving you, you didn't pray, you didn't plan that, you didn't think that was gonna happen today. In fact, you kind of woke up crabby, right? You woke up on the rocks out of the bed. You weren't interested in whatever they were dealing with that morning, but you know what, like, you get to class and one of your students says, you know, I've been reading the Bible and I have this question of like who Jesus is. Oh my gosh, right? Just, what a golden moment. You don't plan those things, but they're there

and they happen. For Paul, here's his ministry spot, it's coming right around. And let's look and see, just see what we can learn. Look at Paul. We're gonna start in Acts 24, excuse me, let me say that one more time. We're gonna start in Acts 26, verses four through five. So we're skipping to the next chapter, Acts 26, four through five. This is where Paul is given an opportunity to speak before, Festus and Agrippa, okay? So that's important for later. He's speaking to Festus and Agrippa. He is defending himself yet again for this thing that he's on trial for. And listen to how Paul has his testimony ready, right? And there's something we can learn from that. Verses four and five, here we go. My manner of life from my youth spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem is known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify,

that according to the strictest party of our religion, I have lived as a Pharisee. Paul here is giving us his past perspective. This is where he's come from. He's not just listing details. He's kind of getting into the perspective that he was under. Look at verses nine through the beginning of 10. This is Paul still talking about himself. He says, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and I did so in Jerusalem, and all the, you know, he just lists it all out. Listen to him, he's saying, I was convinced, this is part of his testimony, I was convinced that I needed to oppose Jesus. I was convinced that people that followed Jesus needed to be put to death. I believed that he was a danger and I acted accordingly. Paul is not needing to, he's not needing to kind of frame this at all. He's just simply saying, before I follow Jesus Christ,

this is exactly how I thought life should be lived and here's how I lived it. He's giving us the perspective. And then look at verses 14 and 15. And Paul's saying, middle of 14, Paul's saying, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick, it is hard for you to kick against the goads. And I said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. This is a truly amazing, indelible experience for Paul. He's never going to forget this. And then look at verse 26, this is the Lord still talking to Paul. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. Paul is doing two things here as he's kind of going through his testimony.

Here's the first thing he's doing. He's relaying his moment of belief. Paul is relaying his moment of belief. He's crystallizing for them. He's distilling this moment in time whenever he believed. And let me ask you, just to think about your own testimony for just a minute, what's your moment? What's your moment? Maybe you don't have one. Yeah. But if you do have one, I wanna kinda warn you of a danger. I wanna, I see this happen a lot. I do this sometimes. Often we want to make our moment sound very theologically correct. Okay, so we talk about our moment, and we might say something like, I saw the weight of my sin and I knew that I needed repentance and I knew that the Lord was sovereign in my life. Okay, first of all, no. You did not know those things. Most of you did not know those things, right? You didn't know about weight of sin. You didn't know the word repentance.

You didn't really know what it meant. No, most of us know, all right? And while all that might be true, it might be true that you kinda felt the way you're saying you felt, okay, that might be true. What is often also true is that you and I, we came to Jesus for petty reasons. Very, very small, petty, in the moment reasons. It doesn't mean it wasn't valid. It means that was our perspective when we came to the Lord. Mine, my testimony that I've said several times is that I was a liar and I knew it was going to come crash down on me. I knew that my life was going to fall apart and Jesus offered me a way out. Hallelujah, okay? Look, I couldn't have recited the apostles' creed in that moment. I barely knew scripture in that moment, right? But I did know I was a liar and I did know I needed a way out and I felt the Lord Jesus pulling me and saying, let's go, let's get outta here.

This doesn't need to be your life. And today, I stand before you knowing now that it was more than that in the moment. I do, I understand those things. But when I take the time and try to project what I know now on what I knew then, it's disingenuous. It's unrelatable. It doesn't work. When you try to sugar coat how you came to the Lord, man, look, if you were eight years old,

if you were eight years old in church camp and you were scared to go to hell and that's why you raised your hand and you wanted to start following the Lord, glory to God. You found out it was more than that, hopefully. But let's not spurn the eight-year-old's faith of saying, look, I don't wanna spend an eternity without Jesus. Okay, cool. Where do we go from there?

But we don't need to sit there and get all kind of self-righteous and be all gate-keepy and say, no, no, no, it has to be kind of a certain note. Look, I understand this is something I help people with a lot of times, especially whenever we're doing kind of baptism class. And this is just really, really, really helpful. Look, when you're eight years old, your life is that big. This is not scientific.

Drew Ivey, this is not scientific. Okay, I can't prove this, I'm sorry, buddy. Okay. Your life is this big when you're eight years old. And so how much are you gonna trust God? You're gonna trust God this much? No, you don't know that much. Your life's this big. You're gonna trust God with your life? Then it's gotta be this big. Okay? Now what happens? Life gets bigger. And this is a very common thing. You hit like 15. And you think, oh man, my faith is the size of an eight year old. There's all this territory I haven't covered. I don't know if I trust Jesus for like my dating relationships. I don't know if I trust Jesus for like what it's gonna take to like get a job and drive a car and graduate high school and all these other things that I'm concerned about at 15 that I was not concerned about when I was eight years old. And then what happens again? You go to college.

And then what happens again? Like you get married, you got kids, you got, life gets bigger, man. Life gets bigger. And so what are you gonna do? You're gonna get like re-baptized every time? You know, like, look, I'm not against double dipping. I'm just telling you that when you go through that, it doesn't mean that you weren't saved before. It doesn't mean you need to get saved again. What it means is that you need to check in with the Lord and go, hey, look, Lord, I've got all this life here. I don't really know what to do with this. But I know you know what to do with it. And you know what we're coming to the Lord, here's why. We're coming to the Lord all over again, all dumb again, and going, I don't know how to deal with this. And some of you, some of you are 55 years old, and you are coming on a new phase of life you have no reference for. You don't know how to operate this season of your life.

And, but what you wanna do is you wanna pretend like you've got all that covered. You wanna pretend like life isn't continuing to get more big and complex and you're like, no, no, no, it really is this simple. No, it's not, it's complicated. That's okay. Man, look, I'm 47, am I 47? 47 years old, we're just gonna confidently assert that, whether it's true or not. I did, I just had a birthday, I'm 47 years old. Okay, my wife's giving me the high sign, okay. Look, man, five years ago, my life wasn't as complicated as it is now. 10 years ago, my life is light years ahead of where I was 10 years ago. I got two kids in college now. At 37, I could not imagine having children in college. I was barely like getting by raising my own children in like grade school, helping with those questions. Look, when you share your moment, when you distill that thing, man, just resist the urge.

Resist the urge to make it sound pretty. But have it ready. Have it ready. Know, know when you came to the Lord. Know what your kind of, your breaking moment was. You're like, well, I don't know if we know exactly when I became a Christian. Look, I'm not, we're not trying to like, prove it out scientifically. I don't need a graph of your life. But you need to be able to relay it in a way that makes sense to people. Paul is not using big, complicated words here. He's simply testifying what the Lord told him in that moment. What's your moment? Consider your moment. Here's the second thing Paul did. Paul focused on the why, right? Paul's like, I was convinced that I needed to oppose Jesus. And then Jesus appeared. I had this vision, I had this thing. Here's what he says actually in verses 19 to 20 of Acts 26. He's talking to King Agrippa. King Agrippa, therefore, oh King Agrippa,

I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus and other places that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with repentance. So look, just like I'm asking, like, what's your moment? I'm also asking, what's your why? What's your why? What I've noticed often, and this was true with my testimony from a while back, testimonies tend to focus a lot on how, not why. Go with me for just a second. You're gonna talk about location. I was saved at a VBS, I was saved at camp, I was saved at a worship service, I was saved, whatever. On a hike, I don't know. But you're talking about where, which is fine, it's not bad, but you're just focusing on the how. You're gonna talk about how old you were or what season of life you were in or whatever. You're gonna give that context, your location, your age, and also the method.

What did you do? Did you walk an aisle? Did you say a prayer? Did you go to the back with the couch and the chairs? If you need to go to the back with the couch and chairs, that's fine, okay? I'm not saying the method is bad. But if your testimony is all how and no why, then you're kind of missing it a little bit, right? If you're saying it's formulaic, okay, well, what if somebody doesn't have that formula? When you train to share the gospel in a different culture, like whenever I had to go to India, had to, when I got to, go to India this past summer and share the gospel. Before that, I was in England, I got to share the gospel in England. Look, if you say I was eight and walked an aisle at a VBS, they're gonna look at you like you're insane. They have no idea what that is or how that saves somebody.

So talking about your how, when you're talking about your testimony, talking about that how, it's sometimes not helpful. Okay, so do me a favor. Here's kind of your challenge after you've considered your moment. I want you to kind of strip the hows. I want you to try to share your testimony with somebody that you know, and it could be like with your wife or somebody that already knows the gospel, or it could be somebody who doesn't. Either way, it's great. But I want you to do it without saying your age, your location, or the method. What you will find is that that is very difficult to do for the very first time. That is hard because all you're left with is a why. That's why my testimony is the way it is. When I said I was a liar, it's true. Life had kind of come crashing down on me. The Lord offered me a way out. You can assume I was younger, but you don't know if that happened when I was 30,

or if that happened when I was 12, which is what happened. You don't know if I was at VBS camp, house, friend's house, you don't know any of that. You don't know if I was in a church building, you know I was at camp. And you don't know the method. You don't know it was when I was listening to a sermon and then I responded to what this guy was saying. You don't know all that. You don't need to. It's kind of immaterial to my testimony, do you understand? My testimony is that I was a liar and that the Lord met me in that moment and the Lord offered me a way out. That's enough. That's enough. It doesn't have to get prettier than that. It doesn't have to get more detailed than that. You don't need a diagram to share your story. Diagrams aren't bad. You don't need them to share your story. Look at the last thing that Paul does with his testimony. Here we go, Acts 26, 22.

So we're all the way down in verse 22 now. It says, to this day I have had the help that comes from God. And so I stand here testifying both to small and great saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass. This is a really interesting thing that Paul does. He says that he has a today. Today, this is why I'm here, King Agrippa. This is what is happening not 15 years ago, not 20 years ago when I had that domestic and sorority experience, because it was about 20, 25 years ago from this point in time, right? Paul is relaying a 25 year old story and then he says to this day,

to this day, this is why I'm here. What's your today? What's your moment? What's your why? What's your today? This is a good check on your own life. How recent is your faith in Jesus Christ? And just here's a rule of thumb. If it's been a week, just maybe start thinking about things that you need to repent of, right? Just kind of jostle that a little bit. If it's been a month, like since anything has happened, spiritually, like since you've talked to the Lord, since you've read scripture, if it's been a month, then talk to somebody about what's tripping you up. Probably need another perspective on that, right? If it's been a month, invite somebody in to speak to that with you. And if it's been longer than that, I would say it's probably time for you to kind of stop down and do some deep spiritual inventory. And I can help you with that, I can walk you through that,

I can give you material for that. But that's the kind of work that I think you probably need to do. Whenever we're talking about your testimony, any one of these is a great way to talk about your faith, your testimony. You can talk about your moment, you can talk about your why, you can talk about your today, and that's great. Paul had his testimony ready. He had it ready to go at a moment's notice. He got an encore, he didn't expect to get an encore. If you are with a coworker, and you might have showed the gospel to this person, you might have been praying for this person, and you feel like it's gone, the ship has sailed. But then there's this encore that happened. Man, have this ready. Do some of the spade work before. Consider your why, consider your moment, consider your today. Do that work now so that whenever somebody asks you a question about the Lord, or somebody says,

hey, I've been struggling with this, whatever, you're not caught flat-footed, wondering what to do, you're ready, you're ready. Look at verse 24, because it wasn't just his testimony that was ready, there's two other things I want to say very quickly. Verse 24, it says, and as he, Paul, was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are out of your mind.

He said with a loud voice, I'm just trying to read. Your great learning is driving you out of your mind. If you are sharing your testimony, then you need to understand that opposition is coming. Like, you need to be ready for opposition, ready to be interrupted, ready to be misrepresented, ready to be misunderstood. Paul doesn't miss a beat, he says, I am not out of my mind, Festus. And then he looks at Agrippa, he's like, Festus, I'm not dealing with you, Agrippa. And here's what he says, look at verses 26 and 27, this is a great response, right?

The king would be King Agrippa. This is Paul talking, for the king knows about these things and to him I speak boldly for I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. Ooh, Paul is turning the heat up on Agrippa, right? In this moment that Festus is trying to shout him down, he's like, I'm not crazy, Agrippa, you know what I'm saying is true.

I know you believe, King Agrippa. I know you do. Look, you will experience opposition and sharing your testimony, don't play the victim, don't do it, don't let it discourage you, right? It puts you in a long heritage of people that have been discredited for the gospel, take it on the chin, move on. There's a guy named Cliff Knechtle, Cliff Knechtle, it's a very odd spelling,

but that's his name, it's good. If you would like to search for this brother, really anywhere, Instagram, YouTube, whatever, Facebook, do that, you can take a picture of that word and search for it later, it's great stuff. This guy, for decades, has gone to college campuses and spoken with people about the Lord, right? This guy, look, this guy's sharp, this guy's sharper than a tack, this guy knows things, it's great. And he just goes on university campus and argues with students. Look, he has readied his testimony, he has readied himself for opposition, and I think that, look, we can hold guys like Cliff up and say, look, isn't this great what he's doing? Oh yeah, that's so great, okay. And we do, it's not a false clap, it's a real one, we do love what this guy's doing, and we might look at his life and say, might. Most of you will look at his life and say, I cannot do that.

If sharing my faith means I'm going to a university campus and I'm going to get yelled at by college students who just went through their third psychology class and are going to bog me down in metaphysics and historical principles that I'm unaware of, no thank you, right? I am not going to be humiliated like that. I'm not going to go to universities, I'm not going to argue with students, okay. Heard and understood, yes, great. But the Lord doesn't ask us to do that. What Cliff does really well and what the Lord asks us to do is to own the question, okay. I want you to hear that, I'm going to say it again. What Cliff does and what the Lord has called us to do, it converges, the Venn diagrams converge on the middle and the middle part is own the question. And this is what Paul does with King Agrippa, he owns the question, ready yourself to own the question. Here's what I mean.

I mean that if, that when somebody asks you a question, rather than taking offense to that question or rather than getting super kind of like, oh I don't know, well you've flustered with the question because you have to answer it right then. No, own the question and know that you're going to have time to answer it. When you own the question, even when you don't know the answer right then, if you own the question, you're going to look for the answer. If you don't own the question and somebody asks you a question and you feel dumb, you're just gonna shut that person off or down or walk away from the situation. This is conflict resolution 101, like if you feel insecure, you are going to shut the whole thing down, okay. You don't need to feel insecure because you don't need to own the answer. You need to own the question. Owning the question means you listen to somebody

ask a question and you confidently say, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I would love to learn it. Do you want to learn it with me? I'm gonna do some research. We can either do it together or talk later after I'm done researching, but I'd love to do it together. That's owning the question, ladies and gentlemen. If you own the question, you are taking personal responsibility for the conversation that you are having. You understand that the person asking you a question has a whole world going on, hopes, dreams, everything. They're not some person to be shouted down. They're not some item to be discarded. They are a person and you are taking responsibility for that question when you own the question. And maybe I'll just kind of say it obviously. If you own the question, it's because you care about the person that's asking the question more than you care about how you look.

Cliff Knechtle goes to university campuses. And look, that makes him a great speaker, right? He has talent, he has skill, he has experience. All those things are good. But it's not what makes him a great apologist. It's not what makes him a great debater. What makes him a great debater is that he absolutely loves the people that are asking him the question. And I would dare you in the best way I can to go search a video, just watch one.

And it's, I mean, it's somewhat intense. They don't yell at each other, that's not exactly what I mean. But watch Cliff own a question. Watch him say, are you asking this or this? Or what do you mean by that? Or, I mean, he really is kind of getting to the bottom of what is being asked and out of a deep love for the person, own the question. Love the people.

When I was younger in ministry, there's a Christian author, you can still read him, I think he's still writing books. His name's Erwin McManus, Erwin Raphael McManus, okay. And I don't like wholesale support Erwin McManus. I'm sure he's written some crazy stuff that I wouldn't agree with, but that's neither here nor there. In the moment in time that I was next to Erwin, was at a conference and he was speaking at that conference and he had written a couple of books that were very, kind of just made a huge impression on me because Erwin McManus really is kind of evangelistic

at all costs. He's sharing the gospel like with everybody and anybody that he possibly can. He's doing it in every way he possibly can and he's writing books about it and I was consuming them and I'm, I don't know, I'm 25 at this point, I'm very, I thought I was real mature. And so I go to Erwin at this conference, he's doing like a book signing and I want him to sign my book and I'm like fangirling really hard and Erwin is very gracious with me and he says, hey man, thanks and asked me a couple of questions and so I just kind of felt like this was my moment, I'm just gonna ask him. And I said, Erwin, I just gotta be honest, I read your books and I really, I really wanna share the gospel with people but I'm really afraid to do that. I really wanna share my testimony but I'm really afraid to do that. What should I do, how should I get over that? And Erwin, in all his wisdom,

just kind of sat back and listened to me and just said, and this is not a direct quote but it's pretty close, he said, I find that when people are afraid to share the gospel, it's because they don't love people enough to do the work. I mean, that just knifed me in the heart. It just destroyed me in the best way possible. Like I wasn't mad at Erwin for answering that way but he just cut through all the fluff, he cut through all the technique, he cut through all the things, all the social cues and all, and he just said, look man, if you love somebody, you're gonna share the gospel with them because you don't want them to spend eternity away from the Lord. Man, like what a gut punch for me at 25, looking for like the next big trick on how to share the gospel and what I realized was man, it's never,

it sometimes is more than about loving a person but it's never less. It always is about loving people, man. And to love people, it begins with loving the Lord more than you love yourself. If you're going to love people this way, if you're gonna love people this way, just hear the passion. We're gonna end with these two verses. Listen to Paul's passion. Listen to Paul own the question verses 28 and 29. So this is just after he said, I know you believe to King Agrippa, right? He just got Agrippa and Agrippa said to Paul, verse 28, in a short time, would you persuade me to be a Christian? So that was a scoff, okay? Like, oh, you're gonna make me a Christian right this second. And Paul said, listen, he just let this just wash over you right now. Whether short or long, I would to God. I would to God. I mean, I very much want this to happen. I would to God, Paul says.

I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am except for these chains. Paul is owning the question. He knows Agrippa. He knows that he believes. He knows that Agrippa knows that what he's saying is true. I would to God that all who hear me this day would be such as I am. I feel like that's a great way to end this morning and to just, man, just hear that passion. I would to God. I would to God that all of you today would be such as I am except for these chains. Maybe I would say I would to God that all of you would be such as I am except for the Britney Spears mic, okay? Except for that, I would, I want you to be, look, I say that not arrogantly but I say that, look, I have found something. People in here, many people in here have found something that has dramatically changed the trajectory of their lives, amen? I'm sorry.

People in here have been saved from hell and death and they are walking in new life, amen? Yeah, okay, now you're awake. Listen, you have a testimony. You have been brought from death to life. That is worth sharing with anybody that you know. That is worth sharing in any way possible. That's worth you taking 30 minutes to ready your testimony. Know your moment, know your why. And if you can do that, know your today. That was my third, sorry. Even I forgot my sermon.

Know your why, know your moment, know your today. Man, if you can do that, if you could be halfway ready the next time you get this ministry spot encore, you get this moment to like share with a kid or with a coworker or with your boss or whatever, one of your direct reports. Man, what a great day. What a great moment that's gonna be. Are you gonna be ready? Look, for some of you, that's brand new content. And you're like, I know, if I'm a Christian, I don't even know, I still got these big major questions. I still got these big rocks to move in my own heart. That's great. That's fantastic. I'm gonna be sitting there where those lamps are at the couch and those two chairs. I'm just gonna be chilling right there while we sing the last song. After the service, I'm gonna be around there for a little bit. Man, if you want to come and talk, if you need prayer, if you got big questions,

that's where to ask them. That's how to take a step. Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, we know that you are all these big theological things, right? We know that you're sovereign. We know that you are omnipotent. You are omnipresent. We know all these things. But we also know that you care about us. We also know that you concern yourselves with sometimes what we think are very small things. You wanna know how we feel about things. You wanna listen to us. You wanna care for us in a way that is so tender and personal. I pray that you would speak to our hearts in the midst of that. That's your name that we pray. Amen. Would you stand as we sing?