← Lakepointe Church with Josh Howerton
Lakepointe Church with Josh Howerton
How to Go All In For Jesus | There Is More: ENDGAME | Pastor Mike Breaux
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Hey, guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now enjoy this Bible teaching.
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All right, what is up, everybody? Great to see you, Lake Point family. Welcome to Lake Point today. Hey, I want to shout out to all of our campuses today and those of you that might be joining us online, man, super grateful for all of y'. All. My name is Bro, by the way, and I get to be on the teaching team here and one of the highlights and privilege of my life. And man, I want to add my congratulations to all the graduates today. Man, I can't wait to see what God does with your life. So proud of our students here, our student ministry here. I mean, just a bunch of great people. Debbie and I have many of you know, we have, we got 10 grandkids. I don't know when this happened, but we got them. And we've got six graduations this month. Last weekend we had a college graduation out in California. Two nights ago we had two 8th grade graduations. This Friday night we got a high school graduation, then a preschool graduation. They got graduations for everything. And then a fifth grade graduation and then another high school graduation the same day in June. I mean, it's a busy season cheering on our kids, but I love them so much and love you all so much. And thank you for being a part of Lake Point, man. I'm excited to jump back in to Acts 26 today. So if you've got a Bible, you can head over to Acts 26 or you got an app that you use or you can. We'll put it on the screens as well. We can track along together. But Josh last week unpacked so much chapter 26, and he taught us a very simple way to share our faith. Kind of the ABCs, if you will. He said A stands for assume that people are interested. Don't dismiss people. Don't think, ah, they're probably not into the whole God thing. Just assume that they're looking for hope. Cause most people are right. The B stood for build a bridge Just try to find some common ground, like a hometown or a favorite sports team or a favorite restaurant or maybe a distant cousin that you might know and just start to build genuine friendship. The C stood for convert first downs. He said, you don't have to score a touchdown. You don't have to quote, unquote, close the deal. Your conversation might be number two out of 47 other conversations. Just trust the Holy Spirit to keep pursuing that person because he loves them a lot more than you do and he is pursuing them. So if you missed last weekend, encourage you to get online. Check it out. It could be super helpful to you. I want to take a shot at chapter 26 from another angle, and I want to hang this entire message on this one word. Almost. Almost. You know, the word almost is used a lot in the world of sports. I was watching the NBA playoffs the other night and Luka and the Mavs were. Hang on a second. I'm so sorry. It's still too soon for some of you. Let go of that bitterness you have inside of you. I forgot what team it was, but somebody was down like two with three seconds to go and some guy launches a half court shot. It goes in and out. The announcer goes, almost. That almost went in. I never watched much soccer until my granddaughter started playing. I learned that whole game is predicated on almost shot on goal, almost. Another shot, almost. Final score, zero, zero. Someone almost won. You're playing golf. You hit a 50 foot put. Oh, almost went in. Or you. You got a huge fish on the line. Almost reeled him in. We use the word a lot in like, man, I almost called you. I almost said the exact same thing. I almost went to school there. I almost took that job. I almost bought that stock. I almost asked her out. Kids on a road trip ask, are we there yet? And we respond, almost. There's lots of almost in life. One of the churches I get to teach at in Southern California, we're doing a series called 30 Days to Live. What if you had 30 days to live? Would that change the way you approach your life? One of the key verses is Psalm 39, verse 4, which says, Lord, just remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, how fleeting my life is. And that got me thinking. So I got online and I checked out a certain site where you can enter your date of birth, your weight, your height, your bmi, whether you're a smoker or non smoker, your outlook on life. And then they will predict how much time you got left According to them, I got 485,654,400 seconds left to live. And I checked out about like, a month ago. So now I put no stock whatsoever in predicting days and stuff like that. I mean, only God knows the number of seconds that I have left. And I am so grateful that my life is in his hands. And I want to do my best to. To take care of my body and my mind and my soul so that I can be a good steward of the fleeting life that God has given me here. But the truth is, I'm dying, you're dying, we're all terminal. So here's a little anti. Almost kind of prayer that I've been praying lately. God, turn my someday into today. All right, all of our campuses, let's say that out loud together. God turned my someday into today. Let's say that again. God turned my someday into today. Cause the truth is, man, we all got a someday list, right? Someday I'll get serious about taking care of my body. Someday I'll get serious about building into my marriage. Someday I'm going to address my drug or alcohol problem. You know, Someday I'll probably forgive them. Someday I'm going to get on a budget. Someday I'm going to get in a group. Someday I'm going to jump on a serving team. Hey, listen, I don't know what my someday is going to. To be. Nothing apart from the unfailing love of God is guaranteed to me. I could walk out of here today and get in a car wreck. My plane could go down. I could have a heart attack. I could be diagnosed with cancer, with als, with diabetes, whatever. So I don't know about y'. All. I don't want to almost live. I don't want to almost live. So teach me, oh God, to number my days and please help me turn my someday into today. Man, if only this guy named Herod in Acts 26 would have prayed that kind of prayer. I don't know, maybe he almost did. Let me explain who this Harry character is. Because like Pastor Josh said last week, that name pops up a lot from time to time in the New Testament. I was recently driving through Alabama and I was looking for a radio station, and I found this old school country station. And there was a song by Hank Williams Jr. Know who he is? Kind of an outlaw kind of character, kind of a rowdy dude. His daddy was a legendary country singer who famously dealt with all kinds of drug and alcohol demons. In fact, Hank Senior tragically OD'd at age 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac while on tour through West Virginia. So I'm driving through Alabama and Hank Jr. Is singing this song. Folks ask me, Hank, why do you drink? Why do you roll, smoke? Why must you live out the songs that you wrote? Well, stop and think it over. Put yourself in my unique position. If I get stoned, I'm just carrying on an old family tradition. Now please don't encourage that. But I was singing all my heart in the car. The Herods had quite the family tradition that they carried on, starting with Herod the Great. He was the Roman appointed king of Judea. Super paranoid guy, materialistic, very power hungry. He did all kinds of over the top, self indulgent construction projects. He killed his wife, quote unquote, his favorite wife, three of his sons, other family members over conspiracy theories that they were coming for his throne. And most famously, he was the Herod who massacres all infants under the age of two at the birth of Jesus, who again he saw as a threat to his throne. His son, Herod Archelaus ruled Judea after his father. And he was so abusive and so corrupt that Rome had to remove him. You gotta be bad for Rome to remove you. Briefly, he's mentioned in Matthew chapter two. And his brutality was the reason that Joseph and Mary decided not to come back to Judea with their young family. Then his brother was Herod Antipas. He's probably the most prominent Herod in the New Testament. He continued to carry on the family tradition of ego depravity and self gratification. The historian Josephus says that on the way to Rome, Herod Antipas stays at his brother Philip's house, sleeps with Philip's wife Herodias, who happens to be the granddaughter of Herod the Great. This is so weird. He agrees to dump his wife, Herodias dumps his brother and they hook up. And you might remember how John the Baptist speaks into the moral corruption, calls them both out, tells them that what they have done to his wife and her husband and his brother was wrong. So to shut him up for a while, Herod Antipas throws John the Baptist in prison. And then one night at a party when he's all tanked up and turned on, he has John beheaded at the request of his lovely wife Herodias. Then there was Herod Agrippa I. He was the grandson of Herod the Great. You might remember back In Acts chapter 12 we studied that how he carries on the family tradition by killing one of the apostles, James, the son of Zebedee and when he sees how it pleased the powerful religious leaders, he throws Peter in jail. Gonna execute him after Passover. But an angel miraculously helps Peter break out of prison. Then shortly thereafter, also in Acts chapter 12, Herod is giving this grand flowery speech. And the people love it so much that they begin to pump up his ego by calling him a God. And he says, you're right, I am. And as he accepts their praise and worship, the only real God strikes him down and he's eaten by worms and dies. Then here in Acts 26 is that guy's son. This is Herod Agrippa II. And he shows up on the scene with his sister Bernice, who most historians suspect was more than a sister, if you know what I'm saying. And they were still carrying on the family tradition of ego depravity, materialism, self indulgence and self importance. Just a real quick note here. You do know, don't you, that at any time you and I can step up with God's help and be a cycle breaker in our family. We don't have to carry on the family tradition. We can change the trajectory of our family tree. And man, I am so grateful that a bunch of you have done that in your life. But you know how much courage that took. And it takes self awareness and it takes a great deal of humility, which means that we have to come down off the throne of our life and surrender to the leadership of God and man. That's hard for a lot of people to do. It was really hard for King Herod. So here's the scene ramping up to Acts 26. Our guy Paul, who is totally innocent, is awaiting trial. And the location is this place, palace on the beautiful coast of Caesarea. It's one of those opulent construction projects that Herod the Great had built for himself. It's now being used as the headquarters for the new Roman governor, a guy named Festus. Well, Herod Agrippa and his quote unquote, sister Bernice come up to the coast from Jerusalem for a visit. And while they're there, the Roman governor Festus tells him, hey, man, we got this prisoner here, his name is Paul. Your Jewish religious leaders want me to execute him. But I told them that Roman law doesn't condemn a man without a trial. So I listened to their accusations against him. I'm just telling you, it's like nothing. It's something about their religion and some dead guy named Jesus, who this prisoner Paul assists is alive. I don't know exactly how to handle all this. So I asked him if he was willing to stand trial in Jerusalem, but he declined. And as a Roman citizen, he appealed to have his case heard before Caesar. But in my opinion, man, he's done nothing wrong. But since he's already appealed to Rome to stand before Caesar, he's gotta go. But here's the deal. I don't even know what to tell him he's being charged with. You wanna meet this guy? I mean, he's an interesting dude. And Herod Agrippa says, well, yeah, I'd love to meet him. And so they arrange for it to happen the next day. Well, the next day comes and it says that Agrippa and Bernice show up with all kinds of pomp. There's lots of show and military escorts followed by all kinds of prominent officials coming in. So lots of very influential people are in this grand room, and they bring the prisoner in. And Agrippa, not Festus, says to Paul, you may speak in your defense. Now, like Josh said last weekend, Paul knows the family history, the family tradition of the Herods, and he knows what they're capable of. So it takes a lot of courage to stand there. But Paul is not only courageous, he's also pretty shrewd. He knows that Herod really, really likes being in charge. He knows that Herod really enjoys being the center of attention. So Paul meets him where he's at and kind of just lays it on. Check this out. Verse 2. I am fortunate, King Agrippa hearing my defense today against all these accusations made by the Jewish leaders, for I know that you are an expert on all Jewish customs and controversies. Now, please listen to me patiently. Now, remember here, Paul is not trying to convince them to set him free because he's already appealed to Caesar, so he knows he's eventually going to have to go to Rome. But he realizes in this moment, man, I got a room full of influencers and leaders and governors and rulers and kings. What an opportunity to share my story and the way that Jesus has completely changed my life. You see, Paul was a guy who didn't almost live. He lived like he had 30 days. I can remember one time I may have told you this before, I was on a college campus speaking, and I see this student walking toward me, got a bright yellow shirt on with big black bold letters on the front which said Live. Then some fine print underneath. Then he walked past me, saw the back of his shirt, said die fine print underneath. What in the world is that shirt all about? So I got around in front of him Again, so I could kind of read the T shirt and it said, live like you'll die tomorrow. Die knowing you'll live forever. And that was Paul. That was Paul because of the resurrection of Jesus. He wasn't afraid to die. And listen to me, when you're not afraid to die, you're not afraid to live. So Paul sees this as an incredible opportunity that God has placed before him to point people to Jesus. And so he begins to tell a story beginning with his resume, verse 4. As the Jewish leaders are well aware, I was given a thorough Jewish training from my earliest childhood among my own people in Jerusalem. Now they don't claim me now, but if they would admit it, they know. They know that I have been a member of the Pharisees, the strictest sect of our religion. This kind of reminds me of what he talks about over. It's over in like Philippians chapter 3 where Paul is listing all his impressive religious credentials. He says, man, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees, I was a super zealous law keeper. I was a protector of the faith. But now I consider all that rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And then Paul says to Herod, who knows Jewish religion, he says, you know your majesty, what's incredible, I'm actually on trial for having hope. That's right. I'm on trial for having hope. The same hope that we've that the prophets all talked about. The hope that we've all been waiting for all these years. I mean, why does it seem so mind blowing to everybody that the creator of solar systems, the creator of sunsets and DNA can raise the dead back to life? My hope is in him. And then Paul, who used to go by his Hebrew name Saul, he goes from resume to rap sheet. Check this out. Back in the Saul days, I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus, the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem, authorized by the leading priests. I caused many believers there to be sent to prison and I cast my vote against them. Think Stephen, back in Acts chapter seven when they stoned him, when they were condemned to death many times I had them punished, tortured in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities. That's how passionate I was about this. I was filled with such a self righteous anger and this deep, deep hatred based on my own perceived superiority. I went after Him. You need a hit on a Jesus follower. Better call Saul. I'm not proud of this. I did some very, very, very bad, misdirected things. And I did it all in the name of God and gang. Paul is able to stand there and honestly say all this because he knew he wasn't defined by his past. He knew that he was a completely new person in Jesus Christ. See, Jesus doesn't just make us better. He makes you new. And your past is not a liability. It can become an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of a God who redeems all things. Some of y' all like the repurposed stuff. You'll see like a piece of trash on the side of the road. You'll put it in the back of your car and take it home and turn it into this amazing conversation piece. Or you go to an old fixer upper and you take out a wall, do all this and transform it into this beautiful showplace. Or you get under the hood of an old junker and you get that thing running like it's new. Some of y' all are really, really good at that stuff. But as gifted as you might be, you can't hold a candle of what God can do. He is really into restoration. He's into transformation. He's into repurposing. Sometimes we say, God could never use a guy like me. God can never, ever use a woman like me. I mean, if people knew my past. Listen to me. God uses all of that. He restores broken things. He can make anybody new, and he wants to do that with you. And then use your unique to touch the lives of other people. Your past does not define you. It just describes you and highlights the transformative power of the amazing grace of God at work in your life. So Paul lays out his past, and then he shares the turning point of his life. He says, this is who I used to be. And then he says, and this is why I'm no longer that guy. Verse 12. One day I was on such a mission to Damascus, armed with the authority and commission of the leading priests. About noon. Your majesty, as I was on the road, a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shone down on me and my companions, and we all fell down. And I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's useless for you to fight against my will again. Paul's Jewish name was Saul. And the repetition of his name here was a way of signaling just how personal, how urgent, how intimate this conversation was going to be. This is not like a generic revelation for everybody on that road. This is Jesus talking directly to Saul like he is the only one on that road. You ever felt like that? It felt like God was talking to you like you're the only one in the room. Well, he is. And Jesus asked him, why are you persecuting me? Now, Saul, Paul, he hadn't been personally persecuting Jesus, but Jesus here is identifying with his followers, his church, his body, his family, saying, listen, if you're mistreating them, you're mistreating me. The English Standard version puts verse 14 like this. Jesus asked him, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's hard for you to kick against the goads. You ever read that verse, Thought, what the heck does that mean? Well, a goad was a sharp stick with a metal tip used to guide oxen. And if an ox would, like, kick against it, it would hurt him more, and he would still be resigned to move in the direction that he was supposed to go. So Jesus is saying here, Saul, why are you being so stubborn? Why are you fighting a fight that you can't win? It's futile. Give it up. Stop kicking and surrender to me. Because I want to give you a new heart. I want to give you a new passion. I want to give you a brand new purpose for living your life. And Paul continues, so I ask, who are you, Lord? And the Lord replied, I'm Jesus, the one you're persecuting. Then Paul says, then the resurrected Jesus told me I was supposed to tell everybody about him. He gave me the good news of God's love and forgiveness. And he told me that I was supposed to bring light to all kinds of people living in all kinds of dark places. And so, King Agrippa, I just simply obeyed that vision from heaven. I'm just acting out of obedience to God. I preached first to those in Damascus, the very city I went there to imprison believers, and then in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that all must repent of their sins and turn to God and then prove that they've changed with the good things they do. Honestly, that's what I was arrested for. I was arrested for stirring up hope, for sharing the good news of God's love for all people. They want to kill me for what the prophets have said all along, that the Messiah would come and he would suffer, but then he would rise from the dead. And then right in the middle of all this, the Roman governor Festus blurts out, dude, you are Crazy. All that study of yours has made you insane. And you know what? The gospel does sound a little crazy to those who don't understand. God's grace used to sound crazy to me. Come on, crucified king, huh? A risen Savior. Forgiveness for sinners. Love your enemies. More is less and less is more. First is last, and last is first. Want to be great, then go serve somebody. What? I mean, it does sound crazy. It is countercultural. It is so counterintuitive. But gang, Jesus brought it, he taught it, he walked it, and then he backed it all up by rising from the dead. So here is Paul, this brilliant intellectual, saying, I know I might sound crazy, but this is not a fairy tale. This is true. And it was done out in the open, in plain sight. And there are tons of trustworthy eyewitnesses. In fact, there are many, many witnesses just like me who are willing to die for what they know to be true. So, sirs, this is real history about a real man who taught real truth, who performed real miracles, died on a real cross, no longer occupies a real empty tomb and gives real life to people like us. All of this actually happened. So, no, I am not insane. Most excellent, Festus. What I'm saying is a sober truth. And King Agrippa over here, he knows all about these things. I speak boldly, for I'm sure these events, they're all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner. And then he looks King Agrippa in the eye and says, king Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do. And Herod cuts him off and he says, do you think you can persuade me to become a Christian so quickly? Now, we don't know if this was like him being sarcastic. We don't know if he was feeling like political pressure from Festus as the two of them were laughing it up over Festus. Paul, your crazy comment. We don't know if he's saying, you know, you're right, I do know these things, but I am not ready to go there with you. And we don't know, like, which words he emphasized when he said it. Did he say, do you think you can persuade me? Do you think you can persuade me? Do you think you can persuade me? Do you think you can persuade me to become a Christian? Do you think you can persuade me to become a Christian so quickly? Don't know how he said it, but however he said it, Paul comes back with, whether quickly or not, I pray to God that both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains. Man, I wish you knew Jesus, too. I wish you would embrace God's free gift of forgiveness, too. I pray that you would find abundant life, eternal life, just like I have. I wish that you would accept God's amazing grace. I wish everyone here would follow Jesus so that you all could be free. Yeah, for sure. I got these chains right here. But make no mistake about it, I'm more free than I've ever been in my entire life. And it says they all stood up to leave and they said to each other, this man's done nothing wrong to deserve death or in prison. And then Agrippa says to Festus, he could have been set free if he hadn't appealed to Caesar. Paul's probably thinking, Agrippa could have been set free if he hadn't appealed to his ego. One guy chained up on the outside, but free on the inside. Another man free on the outside, but so chained up on the inside. Some older translations have Agrippa's response to Paul as more of a statement than a question. And again, we don't know the tone of this. We don't know the intent of it, but here comes our word for the day. Then Agrippa said to Paul, you almost persuaded me to become a Christian. You almost persuade me. Now, there's no biblical or historical record that suggests that Herod Agrippa ever became a follower of Jesus. I mean, I would hope that he did, but most likely he became just another almost, almost persuaded. There's an old, old hymn, like, written in 1870, based on Herod's response here in Acts 26. Almost persuaded now to believe Almost persuaded Christ to receive Seems now some soul to say, go, spirit, go thy way Some more convenient day on the. I'll call. Have you been there? I was this close, man. I was almost persuaded. I heard the call of the Spirit back when I was in high school. I felt the tug of God, man. I almost leaned in, you know, maybe I will someday. The writer of Hebrews says, today, you must listen to his voice. Don't harden your hearts against him as Israel did when they rebelled. You see, when God calls today and we don't respond today, we get a little more set in our ways. We get a little more comfortable in our dysfunction, a little more stubborn, a little harder on the inside. Some of you may have been saying, honestly, yeah, I'll give my life to Jesus someday. I'll let him forgive me someday. I'll humble myself and turn toward God someday. Because I got Time, man. I'll secure my eternal destination, like, later on down the road, you know, when the time is right. Well, the word of God says, indeed, the right time is now. Today is the day of salvation. This is all hitting really close to me this week as I was working through all this. I've been texting with a buddy who a couple of years ago found out he had cancer. And he has gone through six different experimental cancer treatments. And this guy, he is a picture of health. Big, strong, healthy, athletic guy. Great husband, great dad, great friend, great neighbor. And he texted me on Tuesday that he was leaving the hospital to go into hospice care. He was sad for his family, but looking forward to meeting Jesus face to face. And for most of his life, man, he was an almost kind of guy. About 10 years ago, he moved from almost to all in. And he began to live like he would die tomorrow. And now he is dying knowing that he's going to live forever. God lovingly pursues and speaks to all of us. Please don't be like Agrippa and get up and walk out of this room saying, I almost acknowledge my need for God. I almost humbled myself. I almost said yes to the holy Spirit, man. I almost raised my hand in surrender. You know, a couple of weeks ago when I was watching, like, those 700 people get into the pool for baptism, I almost. I almost got in the water. You know, maybe someday God turned my someday into today. The truth is, some of you might be feeling God's pull right now. You sense that you, quiet voice inside of you saying, this is true, and this is true for you. Don't ignore that. This is not emotion. This is not pressure. It's not manipulation, not hype. This is the God who created you and wants to do life with you, who loves you, who is speaking to you right now, calling you home. Because here's the truth, man. You can sit in church for years and still be almost. Today is the day. Now is the moment to move from almost to all in. So I'm gonna invite you to all of our campuses right now. Let's just bow our heads for a moment. In this moment, right now, today, you can just say in your own words from your own heart, Jesus, I surrender. I give up. I believe you died for me. I believe you rose from the dead. Thanks for pursuing me. And right now, I'm turning toward you. Forgive my sin, sweep away my shame. Take my life, lead me, because I'm done being almost. I surrender my heart and my life to you right now. I'm all in. I'm all in. If that's the desire of your heart right now, while we all got our heads bowed with you, would you just slip your hand up in the air, let me pray for you. If that's you right now, say, man, I'm all in. Father, I thank you for moments like this where we can start to move toward you. You've been chasing us for a long time, waiting for the day that we turn around and recognize how much you love us and what you've done for us. So, Father, I pray for all these folks right now that are taking a step towards surrender. Just saying, I'm ready. Today is the day of salvation in my life. The time is right right now. Father, I thank you for moving in hearts of people. Thank you for accepting us the way we are and then loving us too much to leave us there and changing us, repurposing us, restoring us, making us new. Thank you for guys like Paul, that they really did live like they were going to die tomorrow. And they died knowing they live forever. We want to live the same way. And I pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.