What Does Conversion Look Like?
Download MP3You all open up to Acts 16 as we continue our study in Acts. It's actually appropriate that we just heard from Craig sharing his testimony, how he came to know Christ, because what we're gonna be looking at for the next 2 weeks in acts are personal conversion stories. Up to this point in acts, typically, what we have found are phrases like, many were added to their number, or a great number believed. And it's these general terms talking stories, conversion stories about how people came to know Jesus. It's probably because Luke joins Paul.
Jeffrey Heine:He joins Paul and Silas in this missionary journey here. The them becomes the we and the us at this point in Acts. And, and Luke probably gets to see these personal conversion stories and so he writes about them. And I think it's so important for us as we know that God is working in the grand scale of things for us to remember that it's individuals. It's personal lives.
Jeffrey Heine:Every individual has an encounter with Jesus who completely transforms their life. Everybody on an individual level moves from death to life and is reborn. And so we're gonna spend the next 2 weeks looking at these 3 different conversion stories. So acts chapter 6, we'll begin reading, or 16, we'll begin reading in verse 6. And they went through the region of Phrygia in Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.
Jeffrey Heine:And when they had come to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So settling setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace.
Jeffrey Heine:And following the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside where we were supposed where we supposed there was a place of prayer, And we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
Jeffrey Heine:And after she after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us, Saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us. As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination, and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. She followed Paul and us crying out, these men are servants of the most high God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. In this, she kept doing for many days.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out to that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. This is the word of the lord. Yes, amen.
Jeffrey Heine:If you would pray with me. Lord, I pray that what we just saw take place in the heart of Lydia, you would do here, that you would open hearts, that you would open our hearts to pay attention to the words that you would have for us. Lord, we recognize that these are not normal words that we have just read, but these are words of life. And through your spirit, I pray that you would breathe life into this place. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. If you can remember back a few weeks, you heard me talk about how no matter where you are in life, no matter how old you are, young you are, no matter what career path you're on, no matter what your education is, your social status is, no matter you're married or single, no matter what's going on in your life, you're still trying to figure out what to do with your life. All of us, we we never outgrow that.
Jeffrey Heine:A matter of fact, after I preach that sermon, the next 2 weeks were were nothing but me having meetings with people trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their life and some of those were staff. Still trying to figure out what what does the Lord's will look like for me? Well, here, Paul is in that same place. He's still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Now, he's had a call.
Jeffrey Heine:If you remember, you know, 17 to 20 years ago, he was actually called to be a missionary. It took 17 years before he took his 1st missionary journey. Now, he's on his 2nd missionary journey, and he's kinda got a loose plan, but things are really just falling apart and he doesn't know what to do. The one thing he was certain of is that John Mark shouldn't go with him. And I was like, his one certainty is, I don't want that guy going with me.
Jeffrey Heine:And and then he heads out, but then Barnabas stays behind. His encourager, his mentor. And then he just kinda begins wandering and meandering around, not really sure what to do next. He's got this general call to to go and do mission work, but he seems to just be wandering. So in absence of a certainty, he just tries different things.
Jeffrey Heine:He thinks, maybe I should go to Asia. I mean, why not? There's a lot of people in Asia. Scenery's good. Food's good.
Jeffrey Heine:They don't know Jesus. Like, I'm going to Asia. It made sense to him, but then we read that the spirit of God forbade him to go. He was forbidden to go. I would call this a closed heart.
Jeffrey Heine:We we don't know how the spirit of God forbade Him to go. Likely, there was just an unsettling in his spirit. He just didn't think it was right. Like mentally, it made sense. Logistically, it made sense.
Jeffrey Heine:But he was probably just really troubled in his spirit because he was being forbidden by the spirit. So the next thing he does, he's like, okay. I won't go there. Well, I'm gonna go to Bithynia. And he attempts to go to Bithynia, But then we read that the the Lord kept him from going there.
Jeffrey Heine:The the actual words that we read are that the spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go. So first, we have a closed heart, now I would say we have a closed door. There's some kind of circumstances, we don't know what those circumstances were. Perhaps the the road to Bethenia was literally closed. Perhaps they didn't have the resources or they lacked the money to go.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, perhaps Paul forgot his passport. You know, it could be any any one of these things. Sometimes we, you know, we spiritualize our own negligence. I would do that all the time. You know, I can't find my shoes.
Jeffrey Heine:Mom, God doesn't want us to go to church. You know, I'd say things like that. We But perhaps it was something along those lines. We don't know, but he physically couldn't go. He was kept.
Jeffrey Heine:He wanted to, he tried to, but he was kept. So first we have a closed heart, and now we have a closed door. So what does Paul do next? It's like, well, I gotta go somewhere. And so he heads to Troas.
Jeffrey Heine:And I need to mention that what set him off to Troas, you know, a closed door, a closed heart was not fear of persecution, because Paul hits persecution everywhere. This was unsettling in a spirit or something else that was actually keeping him from going there. So he heads down to Troas, which is a port city. Meaning, he's going there to get on a ship to go someplace. Most likely back to Jerusalem to go home.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, he's attempted going to different places. There's only so many places you could you could sail from Troas. He's likely coming going home and it's there that God gives him a vision of the Macedonian man. Basically saying Paul, you idiot. Come here.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, you've been wandering long enough. Come here. Then we read that Paul discerns that the Lord wants them to go there. That they should go there and so they go. Now although this is described in just a few sentences, This took weeks if not months of Paul's life life.
Jeffrey Heine:He traveled over 300 miles of wandering. I mean just 300 miles of just walking and wandering and trying to figure out what is this call in his life supposed to look like. And it was only at the end when it seems like he's about to go home, take a boat home, that God calls him to Macedonia. Can any of you relate to this? Any of you feel like right now, you're just kind of on pause?
Jeffrey Heine:Kinda wandering with your life? You have some kind of general direction, but you don't have clarity and you just keep encountering closed doors after closed doors, or perhaps a closed heart to the opportunities in front of you, and you're just wondering what's next. If that's you, you're not alone. I bet Abraham felt like that. I bet Moses felt like that.
Jeffrey Heine:I think Paul feels like this. And so what should you do when you don't know what to do? I would say you obey God's general call for your life, which is to worship Him in whatever you're doing, and to make disciples wherever you are. Basically, you just take one step in front of the other, doing those things. If you don't know where to make disciples, well just look at the person next to you.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at the person who lives next to you. The person who works next to you. Start there. Take one foot in front of the other, and see where the Spirit leads. I've mentioned this often, but a moving car is easier to steer than one that is parked.
Jeffrey Heine:One that's parked, you just you can't even turn the steering wheel, but one that is moving is easy to guide and the spirit of God does this in our lives as we just start taking one step in front of the other. Hear me. If Paul had waited, if he had waited for the perfect plan, for the perfect strategy, to all become clear before he got out, you would have not seen any converts and certainly no churches planted. But Paul believes, it's like I have this general call to go and make disciples. I'm breathing, I'm walking, and I'm going.
Jeffrey Heine:And then the Spirit of God directs him. Back to the text here. Look again at verse 10. We read, and when Paul had seen this vision, immediately we sought that that we is when Luke comes in. It's now instead of the them, it's the we and the us.
Jeffrey Heine:So immediately, we sought to go on into Macedonia, including that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So Paul goes to Macedonia. In particular, he goes to the city of of Philippi. He makes his way there, and this will be a strategy of Paul from now on. He's gonna hit the large cities.
Jeffrey Heine:He's gonna go to where the people are at. The cities are usually the ones that influence the culture, not just in that city, but in all the surrounding community. And so Paul goes after the cities. And when he arrives in Philippi, he makes his way down to a place where he thinks would be the easiest for him to proclaim the gospel and that's to find a group of Jewish people together. And usually, they would meet down by the riverside at a place of prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:And what you would find in these pagan cities like Philippi, there was not really a large Jewish population so they couldn't afford a synagogue. And so usually those who were Jewish there went down to the river. And that was the place that they congregated together. So that was a natural place for Paul to go and start. And when he arrives there, he finds only women.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, it just seems to be always this way, that usually it's women who are interested in spiritual things. There are no men here. It's just the women gathered by the river. And Paul, he walks up and he likely asked if he could teach, and this would have been a real treat for them to have a visiting rabbi actually come and open up the scriptures for them. And so he comes and he, he opens up the scriptures, And when he does this, and he's likely telling them how all these scriptures lead to Jesus, a woman named Lydia is there and it says that her heart was opened her heart was open to respond to Paul.
Jeffrey Heine:We learn several things about Lydia in this text. And I think all of them are relevant for us. First off, she's from the city of Thyatira, which is, out in Asia, so she is likely Asian. Thyatira belonged to the ancient kingdom of Lydia. So Lydia probably wasn't even her name.
Jeffrey Heine:She was probably known as that lady, that foreigner from Lydia or the Lydian lady, but she would have been a foreigner in this community. She's wealthy. We know this because she owns her own home and it's not just any home. We'll find out later it has to be a really large house because lots of people keep coming and gathering there together. Her house is gonna become like a launching pad for the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:She also owns her own business. She's a seller of of purple fabrics. And purple was a really expensive dye, so so this was a business for wealthy people. If you want to put a contemporary face on Lydia, picture a very successful fashion designer. Someone who's made it in Paris and has done really well and grown a company, and she's the CEO of the company.
Jeffrey Heine:And now, she has moved to Birmingham to open a second location. She's bought a house in Mountain Brook. She still owns her house in Paris. People simply know her as the lady from Paris. The one who speaks with the accent.
Jeffrey Heine:But her business is thriving. And she fits right into the South here because she's a morally upright person. We know this because she essentially is going to church, so she's morally upright. She sits in a pew. She eats at Chick Fil A, she does, like, all the things that we do as southerners as as morally conservative people.
Jeffrey Heine:She's described as a worshiper of God. That's actually a technical phrase. A worshiper of God. It's used to describe a gentile who is really interested in the Jewish faith, so much that they read the Hebrew Scriptures, they observe the Sabbath, yet they're not ready to fully commit. They don't want to to jump in.
Jeffrey Heine:They're not converted yet, but that's where she is. We would call a person like this spiritually seeking. And as Paul begins to teach, we read that the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was being said. That phrase, to pay attention, in Greek, it literally means addicted. It's used to describe strong addictions.
Jeffrey Heine:As Paul was speaking, she was craving the words he was saying. She couldn't get enough of what he was saying. She had to keep coming back for more and for more. Perhaps she didn't even understand why she was coming to hear these things, but she just knew she had to keep hearing these words that Paul was saying. Now I've talked to a number of you here in this room that I know this is true for some of you.
Jeffrey Heine:Some of you have no idea why you're actually here. I mean, I know how you started off coming here. Maybe you just grew up in the South, you know, going to church, and so you think, well, I'm just supposed to go to church. Some of you guys have been honest enough to admit, I'm just here to find a date. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:That's great. You're you're here. It's, it's an attractional church model, you know, that we have. Some of you girls are like, oh, I finally got that. Some of you are are You know, you have kids for the first time and you're like, alright.
Jeffrey Heine:I've got to I gotta raise kids in a in a good, wholesome place. And so although you didn't go to church before, you're like, I'm gonna do this for my kids and you're here. I know in a group this size, we're all here for different reasons, but I've talked to enough of you to know that that might be why you started here. But you have found yourself strangely drawn. You found yourself, you begin craving Sundays to hear the words that are spoken.
Jeffrey Heine:And it's not anything that, you know, like I'm doing or another one the preachers is doing that's like so spectacular. It's just simply reading the word of God. It's not like you're interested in the movie clips we play or entertainment value or something like this. It's it's literally you are being drawn. And what I would say what's happening is the Lord is opening your heart.
Jeffrey Heine:And be encouraged. This is not natural. There is plenty of reasons for you not to be here. And what you're finding is probably the excuses a year ago that would have kept you from church, no longer do. But you're craving to hear God's word spoken over you.
Jeffrey Heine:This is where Lydia is. For some of you right now, even as I'm talking, your heart's beating fast in your chest because you know I'm talking to you. Once again, be encouraged that the Spirit of God is after you. So how do we reach the Lydia's of this world? Well, she is essentially saved through an evangelistic Bible study.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what this is. The Lydia's of this world are going to come to church if you invite them. The Lydia's of this world at your workplace, if you say, would you like to meet for coffee and go over the gospel of John? They're likely going to say yes, because they are spiritually seeking. What they need for you is to simply reach out.
Jeffrey Heine:To reach out and make the invitation, and they will likely say, yes. And you need to realize, if you were Lydia here, you need to respond to that. Because you might be morally upright, you might look the part, but you're still dead in your sins. Cornelius was a worshiper of God. Lydia was a worshiper of God.
Jeffrey Heine:That technical term, meaning they were getting close. But Paul doesn't come to them and say, hey, you're almost there. You're so so close. That's not the message that's ever brought. The message is you were dead in your sins, but Jesus can make you alive.
Jeffrey Heine:You need to be reborn. Hear that call if you were here. So how are these people like Lydia saved? You open your mouth and God opens their heart. You open their mouth and God opens their heart.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, I would make a terrible car salesman. Terrible. I I mean, it makes me cringe to think about trying to do that or going door to door trying to sell something. Or running one of those kiosks at the mall. I Oh my gosh.
Jeffrey Heine:I can't do that. Or worse would be if you're one of those people who, I don't know what they do, but they just walk around saying, would you like to take a survey? Like who wants to take a survey? If that was my job, it would be miserable. But you know what?
Jeffrey Heine:I can't be an evangelist, because I know what my job is, and it's not to entertain. It's not to try to wow you with some kind of persuasive words. It's not through my rhetoric. It's to simply be as clear as I possibly can about what I believe and what the Bible teaches, and then the Spirit of God opens hearts. That's what we're called to do.
Jeffrey Heine:If I could be so bold, let me say this. Don't be so arrogant as to think that a person's salvation rests on your persuasive words. A person's salvation doesn't rest on your persuasive words. God's not waiting for the perfect words and the perfect timing and all this. It's like, okay, I can work with that.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, like that's really really good. I don't have to do much now. No. God does all the heavy lifting. He does it all.
Jeffrey Heine:We simply, as clearly as we can present the gospel and then God transforms the heart. But he has asked us to go and to proclaim it. Now before moving on from this conversion story to the next one, I do want us to notice, just one of the fruits we see immediately happen from Lydia after she comes to know the Lord. The first thing that happens is she opens her home as a single woman opens her home to a bunch of strange men, all right? She becomes an incredibly hospitable person.
Jeffrey Heine:She urges them to stay at her house. Matter of fact, it says, and she prevailed upon her house. You kinda get this hint as to what made her such a successful businesswoman. She prevailed. She said, stay here.
Jeffrey Heine:And this is one of the fruits of the Spirit that we're gonna see throughout acts. A matter of fact, I wouldn't say it's just a fruit. It's a strategy of the spirit in the book of acts, is hospitality. In acts 10, Cornelius, after he is converted, he opens up his home. In acts 12, as we saw last week, John Mark's mom, she opens up her home to be used as a gathering spot.
Jeffrey Heine:Here, we just saw Lydia opening up her home. Next week we'll see later in, chapter 16 how the jailer, after he is converted, he opens up his home. In Acts 17, Jason, after he's converted, he opens up his home. Acts 18, Aquila and Priscilla open up their home. Acts 21, Manasseh opens up his home.
Jeffrey Heine:Acts 28, all the believers that are in Malta, they open up their home. You see it over and over again, that when the Spirit of God changes a person, they say everything that I own is yours. And they open up their home to strangers who are no longer strangers, but have become family. It happens so much, you have to say that this is actually a strategy of the spirit. It's a way that we use, it's the instrument we have as a launching pad for the gospel, is to open up our very homes.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. Let's look at the next conversion story here. The next person who is converted is this servant girl named, well, actually, she doesn't have a name. She's the opposite of Lydia. She's unnamed.
Jeffrey Heine:She's a nobody. I mean, Paul's going down to meet with, you know, the morally upright, people like Lydia, those who sit nicely in their pews. But as she's doing that, he's doing that every day. This young woman, a servant girl, is following Him. She's demon possessed and she's screaming at Him.
Jeffrey Heine:And she's screaming at Him, these words. These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaim the way to salvation. I mean, there's worse taunts than that. I mean, there's a That's not exactly bad. I wouldn't mind if somebody was out here right now screaming, that's a servant of the most high God.
Jeffrey Heine:It's like, thank you. Screaming the way of salvation right again. Like, it's it's it's not the the the worst taunt there, but it is a taunt. She's not like pointing people to them saying you really should believe this. I I think she's being deeply Yes.
Jeffrey Heine:She's uttering a true statement, but she is in no way drawn to this truth. She's repelled by it. She's the opposite of Lydia. She seems to despise this truth. The picture that I have in my head is from when our church used to meet at Cornerstone.
Jeffrey Heine:Cornerstone School, it's only a few blocks from our house. It's, on First Avenue North there in Woodlawn. And it's often a place right there at the corner where prostitutes gather. And I remember very vividly one time coming out of church. We met in the afternoon, so we were coming out and it was already getting dark.
Jeffrey Heine:It wasn't quite dark. And I walk out with Lauren and, and my 3 daughters, and I look up at the corner and there were 2 prostitutes there. And one of them looked at me and just just kinda gave me this look. It it was a look of mocking, but also of pain. She could not hide the pain.
Jeffrey Heine:And then she just walked away. That's the image I have I have of this this servant girl, this this slave. I I bet that that prostitute, I bet she would even have some kind of belief in Jesus. She might even kind of loosely believe in the gospel. She probably doesn't think that actually being a family man or having a nice family and taking them to church is really a wrong thing to do.
Jeffrey Heine:She might even think it's a right thing to do. But her look told me this, that's not for me. That ship has passed. And so she disdained what she saw, because she knew she can never be that. She can never be that because of the things that she has done and because the things that have been done to her.
Jeffrey Heine:It was a mixture of both her own sin and the sins of others, but she has found herself in this stage of life. And although she might see, agree, and understand kind of who I was and everything that was going on there, for her, she had long ago rejected that. And she moved on. That's the picture I have of this girl here. This girl who is being exploited, who's being oppressed, both by her sin and the sin of others.
Jeffrey Heine:So this person, she follows Paul around screaming at him. And in verse 18, you read that Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, cast the demon out of her. If you don't believe in the truthfulness of scripture, things like this, what are you gonna do about it? I mean, come on. You don't read things like and Paul deeply moved in compassion.
Jeffrey Heine:Or Paul looks at her and says, daughter of Eve, you know, why he touches her, you know, face, and then casts a demon. No. You get this real picture. Paul, deeply annoyed. He's just annoyed.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't know why he's annoyed. I mean, I could guess that he probably prefers going to people like Lydia. People who sit nicely in their pews, hang on your every word, taking notes. I mean, that's kind of easy. That's kind of fun to teach too.
Jeffrey Heine:Not people like this. Probably also annoyed that He knows if you were to stop and to deliver this woman, He knows what will happen. He knows the scene that will take place. The disruption that's gonna happen in that entire city and he wasn't wrong. He immediately is gonna get arrested and he's gonna get beaten.
Jeffrey Heine:So he's in He lets us go on for days. Then he's annoyed, and he casts out this demon. And he cast when he cast out this demon, hear me, he freed her spiritually and he freed her physically. He freed her spiritually and he freed her physically. He freed her from her demonic master, and he also freed her from her earthly masters.
Jeffrey Heine:And her owners became extremely angry because they no longer had a working girl. They could no longer profit off her. So the question is, how does the gospel come to people like her? Is an evangelistic Bible study going to reach her? No.
Jeffrey Heine:Is inviting somebody like that to church gonna reach her? No. Do you think if our church had some kind of amazing music, some music that really appealed to her, do you think that would pull her in? What if there was dynamic speaking or I did a sermon series directly related to people like that? How to find the gospel in the streets, how to survive on the streets, like if I did a sermon series on that, would that bring her in?
Jeffrey Heine:No. She's never coming in. She is never coming into this church. Years ago, I got to go on a trip to Indonesia. There's just a few of us.
Jeffrey Heine:I was with David Platt, J. D. Greer, some other mega baptist people. Alright. I was the only non baptist and the only non megachurch pastor.
Jeffrey Heine:And as the only non Baptist, what that meant is every time we went out, I ordered a beer. Alright? Just to see what would happen. Alright? Just put it out there.
Jeffrey Heine:At first, I'd ask, do you have anything stronger? And I would just get these looks. But, but one of the nights I was there, it was just JD and I. We we were hanging out. It was just the 2 of us.
Jeffrey Heine:And and he told me they actually lived in a Muslim country for a while. And he was a missionary in a Muslim country, and he said, you know what? It never once even crossed my radar that I should go into a mosque. Ever. Said, it didn't matter what they were speaking about.
Jeffrey Heine:It didn't matter if they had a dynamic speaker. It didn't matter if they were doing some kind of study that was appealing to me. It didn't matter that I was so lonely and I was dying for community. I wasn't going in there. It didn't matter if they had music that I might like.
Jeffrey Heine:It didn't matter if they were teaching Arabic. And so I could go and I could learn the language. It didn't matter because I was never ever gonna walk in to a place like that. There are people around in this community. It does not matter what we do in here.
Jeffrey Heine:They're never gonna come in here to experience that. And we have to quit thinking that evangelism is done in this building, in these walls. They will not come to us, we have to go to them. Period. There are people all around here who think that same thing about our church.
Jeffrey Heine:They're never gonna come through these doors. What Paul was doing here is social action. That's what he's doing. Picture picture this. Picture a young woman, maybe lives in Woodlawn East Lake or here in Avondale.
Jeffrey Heine:A young woman who has no future. She doesn't believe she has a future. She, she could barely read and write. She's never known a stable home, never seen a good marriage or what a family, healthy family, should look like. She's never been in a church.
Jeffrey Heine:Her only education about love, romance, relationships or or finances, her only education on those things has come either through TV, the music she listens to, or just from the streets. She's broken. She has done so many things that she is ashamed of. Some by her own choice and some by the choices of others. How do we reach her?
Jeffrey Heine:We reach her by taking on both her spiritual oppressors and her physical oppressors. People like that can't even hear because they have so much physical oppression. They don't even have the time, the capacity to hear the spiritual good news we give them unless we bring with that the physical good news and we free them both physically and spiritually. But we have to go to them. This is what Jesus meant when he said that we set the captives free.
Jeffrey Heine:There's a reason that our church has so many programs that are geared as outreach to those in this community. It's to do this. There's a reason we have, we have our tutoring at Avondale Elementary. We mentor through Inspire or Aspire Ministries. We serve at the hospitality house, the homeless shelter in Woodlawn.
Jeffrey Heine:We go and we do a Monday night sports ministry in Woodlawn. We take teach English as second language classes here. There's a reason we do all of those things is we're trying to remove some of those physical barriers so people can even hear the spiritual barriers they have. God has commissioned us to both free these people physically and spiritually. Some of you here in this room are like that servant girl.
Jeffrey Heine:You came to know Jesus deep and in an addiction. Deep in need in God, miraculously through the words of others, and through the outpouring of love and support. And somebody came in with, got involved in the messiness of your life and pulled you out and that's how you've come to know Jesus. Praise the Lord. Some of you were like Lydia.
Jeffrey Heine:Just kinda grew up in the south, went to church, and then eventually that became a hunger and a craving, and God opened your hearts and brought you in. But the great news of the gospel is we've now all become family. I love the fact that Lydia, she opens up her home, and You know what that means? Is that this servant girl now started going to Lydia's home. 2 people who would never ever run-in the same circles.
Jeffrey Heine:Through Christ becomes family. And hear me. If you do not know Jesus, if you're one of those people that you find yourself drawn here, drawn to these words, but you don't really know him, today cry out to him. Never, never will you hear in scripture that tomorrow is the day of salvation. That's what the enemy tells you.
Jeffrey Heine:Make the decision tomorrow. The only thing you hear is prophet after prophet saying today, today is the day of salvation. Don't go home without reaching out to the Lord today. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, I thank you for how you relentlessly pursue us.
Jeffrey Heine:We were strangers, and you have brought us in and called us family. Lord, in the passion in which you pursued us, if that passion is in us, we will now pursue others through the strength that you provide. Lord, and I pray that the people here would be unleashed through your Spirit into this dark and dying world. May we openly declare the very gospel we say we believe. May we open our mouths while you open the hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
