Thank You Herman and for those of you who do not know Herman goes off-script
all the time which is one of the many reasons why we love you Herman one of
the many many reasons my friends our second scripture reading today comes
from Acts the book of Acts chapter 16 beginning with the sixteenth verse but
as custom here we have every Sunday will be called the Bible check the Bible
check absolutely if you've brought your Bibles with you we want you to hold them
up definitely hold your Bible is a wonderful wonderful wonderful we
encourage you to bring your Bibles when you come to the house of the Lord you
need to be able to read the Word of God for your self as I've made mention
before you don't know if I might lose my mind on my way in here and tell you
anything but if you got your own Bible you can read for yourself and say I
parents kind of off today Acts chapter 16 beginning with verse 16 and we'll
read through the 22nd yeah 22nd verse please listen and read along once when
we were going to the place of Prayer we were met by a slave girl who had a
spirit by which she predicted the future she earned a great deal of money for the
owners by fortune-telling this girl followed Paul and Silas the rest of us
shouting these men are servants of the Most High God who are telling you the
way to be saved she kept this up for many days finally Paul became so
troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit in the
name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her at that moment the
spirit left her when the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of
making money was gone they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the
marketplace to face the authorities they brought them before the magistrates and
said these men are Jews and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating
customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice the crowd joined in the
attack against Paul and Silas and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped
and beaten a man if you would please my friends join me in a word of Prayer Lord
we thank you today for your blessings great they are as great are you and how
you have blessed us in ways that we never saw coming
we say thank you and we give you honor and we give you praise and we ask your
blessings upon this church the members here our guests all in this worshiping
community this gathering body we ask your blessings upon each and every one
of us and we thank you Lord for what we've witnessed for we know that you're
using these things to prepare us to hear a word from you so right now make me
less allow me to decrease so that you can increase and become more and fix us
by clearing out my hands opening our hearts and on stopping our ears so we
can hear from you and upon hearing from you we want to leave this place better
than the way we arrived yes Lord we want to walk out of here better and the way
we walked in in Jesus name we pray amen if you would please turn to a neighbor
look at them good and repeat after me friend today's sermon is leave me alone
or you're going to be changed it may leave me alone or you're going to be
changed how many of you grew up in a home with siblings brothers and sisters
or a brother or a sister okay wonderful let me ask you this
did they ever sit about an inch away from you and then take their finger and
put it about a half an inch away from your face and say I'm not touching you
I'm not touching you you can see me but I take it some of you
have experienced that let me ask you this that same sibling growing up did
they follow you everywhere I mean if you get up and walk out of a room they got
up and walked out of a room if if you win some place they went somebody's
everywhere you win they were right behind you sometimes right up on you and
the only place you can find privacy was the bathroom and maybe not there if you
couldn't get in there fast enough yeah let me ask you this did you have a
sibling or a younger cousin and whenever you were around this person whatever you
said something they said it again whatever you would say they would repeat
it over and over and over again did you grow up in a family where you had a
younger sibling and your mama made y'all dress alike
for family pictures and you were the one rolls wrong with all these people that
walk oh you all the twins no we're not no my mama made me wear this I wouldn't
have put this on she made me wear this things things they do to get on your
nerves get on your nerves let me ask you this how many of you had to go to school
with someone who constantly teased you
how many of you have had a job where you were working with someone who got all of
the promotion's that you believe you should have received and they did
everything in their power to make you feel little because they got it and you
didn't think things they do to get on your nerves let me ask you this you may
not want to answer it but did you ever pray that the Lord would zap them real
good you know in the name of Jesus make them move Lord make the did you ever
pray get rid of them did you ever wonder why God didn't do it why God didn't do
it this text Acts chapter 16 is a very famous chapter in the Bible because it
carries the story of Paul and Silas in a Philippian prison where at midnight they
would sing songs and they would pray to the Lord and an earthquake came and
shook the prison and opened the doors and everyone in the prison was
to go it's freely but they didn't leave and a jailer who was about to kill
himself for fear that he had lost all the prisoners ends up giving his life to
Christ that's what this chapter is popular for but here's the question how
did Paul and Silas end up in jail in the first place how did it get there in the
first place well let me tell you there was a woman there's a woman who was
possessed by an unrighteous spirits who would see Paul in Silas when they were
on their way to church and she would say these men are servants of the Most High
God who are telling you the way to be saved this woman she was a slave and the
spirit enabled her to tell people's futures which allowed her owners to
become rich they would charge a hefty fee for her to tell your fortune for her
to tell what's going to happen later on in your life these men she would say
servants of the Most High God who are telling you the way to be saved and she
followed Paul and Silas around for days saying this over and over again followed
behind him that means wherever they went if she would go saying this over and
over and over and eventually she got on Paul's nerves yeah she got all the
Apostle Paul's nerves and he cast the spirit out of her now here's the
question why would he do that when what she was saying is true she's saying the
right stuff so why I would probably come irritated
with her why would Paul cast this spirit out of her I don't know how many of you
are familiar with hip hop but for a long time in early hip-hop if you were a
rapper you needed to have a hype person this is the person that would run behind
you that would pump the crowd up so that you could go ahead and say your rhymes
get everybody excited about that Paul's got a height person everywhere Paul's
going she's pumping the crowd up y'all better listen to him he's the one he
comes to most high god he's got the words of salvation Paul gets irritated
sometimes it's fun to have your own cheering section I mean somebody that
will support you you know will give you a high-five when you do something that's
great and grand and Oh hog is irritated with her why would he get so irritated
with her when her words sound right to us and they were literally the right
words to us but what exactly did she mean when she said them I knew a lady I
knew a lady who would never cussed anybody out she was always mad she was
mad all the time and you were sitting on the edge you'll see waiting for her to
say some sted she would look at you through gritted teeth and say may the
Lord bless you real good I hope God blesses you so good we found
out later that is mean as she Wallace she was concerned about how people saw
her so she didn't want to say anything that would cause people to think poorly
of her so instead of saying what she was thinking all of the words in her heart
she would look at you and through gritted teeth say I hope God blesses you
real good
now listen may the Lord bless you real good I hope God blesses you real good
those words are right those words are true but coming from
this lady her intent was wrong there was no sincerity behind the words she was
speaking you see my friends in the Greek world the Most High God was known as
soos salvation in that same world was an understanding of peace and prosperity
that only the emperor could bring only the Emperor could give so perhaps Paul
knew what she meant but also realize how confusing it was to all of the
Philippians who heard it so Paul says in the name of Jesus Christ ain't no
confusion there in the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her
and the spirit did now many people have have looked at this text and they have
looked at this lady with this and they've said that this woman was
evil that the spirit in her was evil was not the holy spirit she's doing god
she's doing Satan's work rather not God's work that's what many people when
they've looked at this text have said but I'm not so certain about that I'm
not so certain you know I do believe that the spirit she had was not the Holy
Spirit I do believe that but I think the greater issue here is that she was
disruptive disruptive oh hello somebody and I know this world
is filled with a bunch of disruptive folks not anybody here in this church no
no no but you know the church that I'm talking about it's your cousin's Church
you know the one that's behind the bar and past the stream that's what's a
disruptive folks and then sure listen my friends we are to grow stronger in
Christ each day each day each day we should be able to do more than we were
able to do the day before we should be able to understand more than we could
the day before we should be able to endure more than we could the day before
but there are some folks in this world intentionally or unintentionally who
make great attempts to stunt your growth in Christ to slow down your progress
saying yeah these folks they can get on your nerves they can get on your last
nerve intentionally or aren't intentionally they show up playing that
one song from your past that makes you miss yo pay
intentionally or unintentionally they say the one thing in the church in the
house of God that your anger boil up on the inside intentionally or
unintentionally they'll wear something that takes your focus off of God's
working on to their attire and have you ever stopped and wondered why the Lord
hasn't moved all of the disruptive folks from your personal area code have you
ever stopped and wondered Lord why do you still have these folks around me wow
they still in my presence what perhaps it's because the Lord wants to use you
to get to them but they've got to be close enough to you before the Lord will
do that oh hello somebody many of us ought to be able to relate to
this because we've not always been productive some of us have been
disruptive too until we got close enough to the Lord to receive God's everlasting
touch so Paul frees this woman and her owners they become upset they become
disruptive they did not see this woman being delivered as something good
instead they saw their cash cow being sterile and it had Paul and Silas beaten
and thrown into prison well it's just like disruptive folks to focus on how
they can do harm to you instead of getting to know you it's just like them
it's just like oh and they may think that they can do this because they only
know a parts of you you see disruptive folks
they see the surface you but not the real you and many times you want to ask
don't you know who I am don't you realize Who I am
yeah I'm the guy that has bad days from time to time but I'm more than that I'm
the one who catches a cold periodically but I'm more than that I'm the one who
has had a string of misfortunes but I'm more than that I'm the one who was
captain of my high school football team but I'm more than that I'm the one who
had to repeat the 12th grade but I'm more than that I'm the one who got
pregnant when I was 16 years old but I'm more than that I'm the one who bought a
new car and had it repossessed but I'm more than that I'm the one who scored
higher than anyone else on their a CTS but I'm more than that I'm the one whose
ex-husband used to beat me time and time again but I'm more than that I'm the one
who's looking for a job and can't seem to get hired I'm the one who always
smiles but rarely has someone to encourage me I'm the one who has
arthritis in my left knee but I walk everywhere I'm the one who persecuted
the church I'm the one who held the coats of killers as they it morally
executed Steven but I'm more than that
and more than that you see I'm also a child of God I'm also a servant of the
Most High and that's how I know change is always on the menu because it
happened to me so I want you to do me a favor tell all the disruptive folks in
your lives tell them this if you don't want to be about this life if if you're
not wanting to know my Jesus in a powerful life-changing way
you better move you better leave me alone because the more you try to slow
me down the closer you're getting the more you try to distract me the closer
you're getting the more you try to stop me the closer you're getting to being
changed changed the slave girl was changed Paul and Silas were put in jail
and then a jailer was changed my friends that's what this is all about that's
what this is all about people being changed from what they were into who God
would have them to be and the Lord is the expert in changing folks be blessed
in Jesus name Amen
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