A Centurion in Jerusalem | Centurion (Part 3)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:03] Speaker B: You're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as president of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland. [00:00:41] Speaker A: We are working through a series on the New Testament called Centurion. And we've done this for a couple of weeks now as it started on Easter. And we're just looking at all the different places that centurions are mentioned in the Bible. The first two are probably more famous that you're aware of. We talked about the centurion at the cross and then we've discussed Cornelius, the centurion, that Simon Peter goes to his house and the Holy Spirit falls on these Gentile centurions and that the early church realizes, oh, okay, Jesus is for everybody. The Holy Spirit is for everybody. This week and the next couple of weeks, we're going to be dealing with centurions that don't have a name and that you may not be as familiar with their story. Nevertheless, they are recorded in the New Testament and there are things that we can learn from them. So if you will turn to Acts chapter 21. This morning we're going to talk about a centurion in Jerusalem. A centurion in Jerusalem, Acts chapter 21. We're going to begin reading with verse 30, but I just want to remind you of where we are at in the story. Okay, so the Book of Acts is about the early church and the early chapters are about Simon Peter. But about halfway through the Book of Acts, the focus shifts and it shifts to Paul. And Paul is called to be the apostle of the early church to the Gentiles, Right? Because now they're realizing Jesus is Messiah for all. The Holy Spirit is for everybody. They're understanding this as they're working through it. And so Paul is sent to the Gentiles and he begins to start churches in all over the Mediterranean seaboard. And he makes these different missionary journeys to tell people about Jesus and to start churches. And so he's been traveling now for years and years among the Gentiles. He returns after his third missionary journey, he returns to Jerusalem to make a report to the church. Because the, the headquarters of the early churches in Jerusalem at that time. So he returns to Jerusalem to make a report. And some of the leaders of the early church asked Paul to go to the temple and cleanse himself, to go through the Jewish laws and rites of cleansing. Because, remember, Paul has been way off the reservation, so to speak, okay? He's been hanging out with Gentiles. He's probably been eating food offered to idols because he tells them in many of those letters that that's okay. He's been hanging out with gentiles. He may or may not even be keeping kosher anymore. There's all kinds of stuff. And so the Jewish leaders at the church in Jerusalem to Paul, go to the temple and get clean. And Paul, who has fought his entire ministry against this type of legalism, inexplicably says, okay, fine, maybe he's just tired of fighting. I've been there plenty of times where he just. They say, go to the temple and get clean and get clean. And Paul goes, okay, fine. He takes a couple of Jewish guys with him, and him and three or four Jewish guys go to the temple to go through the cleansing rituals that are demanded by Jewish law. He gets inside, into the inner areas of the temple, and somebody recognizes him, right? And they know that Paul's been hanging out with Gentiles. They know that Paul's been preaching Jesus as the Messiah. They know that Paul has been preaching Jesus as Messiah to the Gentiles. And like all rumors that start, they jump to the wrong conclusion. They see Paul with a couple of guys that they don't recognize, and they assume Paul has brought Gentiles into the temple, right? Because that's what Paul is about. He's taking the Gospel to the Gentiles. He's hanging out with Gentiles. So they assume that Paul has defiled the temple and that he has brought gentiles into the inner parts of the temple with him. So they freak out. Everybody in the temple starts yelling and screaming. They grab Paul and they decide that they want to kill him. Now, this is what legalism does to you. They decide they're going to kill Paul, but they can't kill him inside the temple, so they're going to drag him outside and kill him in the streets. All right? So this is what's happening. So everybody is screaming and yelling, and there's this huge commotion and tumult. And so the soldiers show up, the cops show up. You know what I'm saying? So you got to fight in a parking lot. The cops are going to show up eventually. So there's all this stuff happening in the temple. They drag Paul outside into the street and the cops show up. So that's where we are in this story, because it's important to understand what's happening so you understand what happens later. Acts 21 and verse 30. And all the city was disturbed, as we just said, and the people ran together and seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple. And immediately the doors were shut. Now, as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. He immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the commander came near and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains. And he asked who he was and what he had done. And some among the multitude cried one thing and some another. And when he could not ascertain the truth, that's important. Remember that little phrase right there? When he could not ascertain the truth because of the tumult, he commanded Paul to be taken into the barracks. Pray, Lord, we ask in the next few moments that we can hear from you. That is what this little message is about, is hearing from you. Help us open our ears to listen and to hear. We want to hear your words. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Billy Mitchell was born in the late 1800s. He was interested in joining the army, and he did so. Billy Mitchell worked his way up, became an officer. He fought in World War I, and during World War I, he was fascinated by airplanes. Airplanes were used sparingly on the battlefield in World War I, but Billy Mitchell was fascinated by the idea of air power and airplanes. He continued to rise in rank and became a general. A few years after World War I ended, Billy Mitchell began to make a proposal. He was now the deputy director of the Air Service, which is the forerunner of the United States Air Force. Remember, there was no Air Force until after World War II, but he was the deputy director of the Air Service. And Billy Mitchell began to make at the time the crazy and outlandish proposal that bombers could sink a battleship. And it was ludicrous. In the early 1920s, it was ludicrous. And so the. The. The top admirals in the Navy continued to fight with Billy Mitchell about this idea that a battleship could be sunk by bombers. And Billy Mitchell said, I'm telling you, in the wars to come, air supremacy will be tantamount to victory. You cannot win unless. And he said, I am telling you, bombers can sink a battleship. The United States Navy had a German battleship from World War I that they had captured. It was in dry dock. And they said, okay, Billy Mitchell, sink this battleship. And so they brought this German battleship out of dry dock. They. They anchored it off the coast, and they set up the parameters of the testing. Billy Mitchell was so confident that his bombers would be able to sink the battleship that the head of the. The heads of the Navy got nervous. And so they changed the rules of engagement and they changed the conditions of the exercise in order to favor the battleship. Billy Mitchell was not deterred. And on the day of the test, even with the changes in the rules and the conditions, Billy Mitchell's bombers sank the battleship in 22 minutes. And Billy Mitchell said, I told you. And then, of course, nobody in the Navy was very happy that this had happened. And Billy Mitchell continued to speak truth to the heads of the armed services. Billy Mitchell began to make other seemingly outlandish claims. He said, our base at Pearl harbor is not adequately protected from attack. And they said, billy, what are you talking about? We control the seas around Pearl Harbor. And Billy Mitchell said, not the seas, the air. He said, pearl harbor is vulnerable to attack from the air. And Billy Mitchell was dismissed as a lunatic. Billy Mitchell said, I believe that the empire of Japan is becoming increasingly militaristic in their advances, and they want to control the entire Pacific. And he said, one of the ways that they're going to control the Pacific is they are going to invade the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. That's America, not a state at that time, but it was American territory. And he said, the Japanese army is going to put soldiers on the Aleutian Islands in order to control the North Pacific. And finally, the heads of the armed services had had enough. And Billy Mitchell was brought up for court martial for doing nothing more than speaking truth. One of the youngest people, one of the youngest presiding judges on Billy Mitchell's court martial was a man named Douglas MacArthur. And Douglas MacArthur said, the most distasteful thing I have ever had to do in my life was participate in the court martial of Billy Mitchell. It was a total and complete kangaroo court. But Billy Mitchell was found guilty on all charges. And a year later, he resigned from the army. But here's the thing. He was right. He was right. They couldn't see it at the time, but he was telling the truth. Air supremacy is the key to victory in the modern battlefield. Furthermore, Pearl harbor was attacked from the air. Furthermore, you may or may not know this. Japanese soldiers landed on several of the Aleutian Islands and held them for a number of years during World War II in order to have control of the northern Pacific as the islands of Alaska come way down into the Pacific. Everything that Billy Mitchell said was true, but the people around him could not hear it. Everything that Paul says in these next few chapters is truth if you'd like [00:10:56] Speaker B: to stay connected with what God is doing through Global Servants, we'd love for you to check out our free We Serve magazine. Each issue shares stories, ministry updates and photography from our work across West Africa and through our House of Grace girls homes in Thailand and Ghana. It's a closer look at the lives being impacted and the work taking place through Global Servants. We publish new editions throughout the year along with our annual report each fall so you can stay connected with the ministry year round. If you live in the US you can sign up to receive a free copy by mail and for Those outside the US digital editions are available online. Sign up today at globalservants.org We Serve magazine [00:11:41] Speaker A: what we want to talk about and look at and discuss for a minute this morning is not the idea of hearing from God. God is always speaking to us. God is always talking. He is talking in all kinds of different ways, but God is always speaking. The issue for most of us most of the time is what is our response to God's word in our life? Even more specifically is this. If we get an audible voice from God, you're going to do it. I promise you. No matter how crazy it is, no matter how scary it is, no matter how silly, ludicrous, insane it seems. You get an audible voice from God, you get an angel with a flaming sword. Guess what, buddy? You're doing whatever it told you to do, right? But I'm going to be real candid with you now. I've never gotten the audible voice of God. I've never gotten angel with a flaming sword. So here's the thing. How do we respond when God uses other people to speak truth into our life? That is the more problematic thing for us. Audible voice of God Travis yes, okay, great. Whatever. Don't smite me. Right? You would do it. But when somebody comes to you and says, I have a word from God for you, how do you respond to that? We respond very differently. Paul is speaking truth. The commander of the Garrison cannot ascertain the truth because the only person that's speaking truth is Paul. And Paul's not speaking. Everybody is running around yelling and screaming. Paul three different times in this that we're going to look at tries to speak truth. And everybody responds differently. And that's what I want us to talk about and think about for a moment this morning is how do we respond when God's word is spoken into our life? Many times spoken by another person. How do we. How do we respond to that? How do we respond in our prayer life? Okay, you say, well, I don't know about another person. All right? You're reading the Bible, you're in prayer, and you feel like God has given you something in your mind. How do you respond to that? Do you say, well, that was God. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just my subconscious. Maybe it was just my thought process. How do we respond when God speaks into our life? Now turn, if you will, to Acts chapter 22. He can't figure out what's going on. So the commander takes Paul back to the barracks where the soldiers and the centurions live. And Paul says to him, hey, let me talk to the crowd. I'm sure I can calm them down. And the commander goes, okay, right. So Paul steps out on the stairs of going up into these Roman garrison. He steps out onto the stairs and he says, hey, let me talk to to you for a minute. And he begins to talk about Jesus. And he gives, in the beginning of chapter 22, he gives a long sermon about his testimony, his life. Jesus appeared to him on the way to Damascus, all this kind of stuff. And he's speaking all of that. Now go forward if you will, to verse 17, Acts 22 and 17. So he's giving them this whole history, his testimony. Now he says, now it happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple that I was in a trance. And I saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning me. So I said, lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him. Then he said to me, that is God, he says. Then God said to me, depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. And they listened to him until this word. And then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live. The crowd actually listens for a while. 17 verses of a testimony Paul gives them. And they listen. But as soon as Paul says something that they don't like, they immediately freak out the crowd Refused to hear it. The crowd refused. There is going to come a moment in all of our lives when God speaks a word into your spirit, into your life, directly from God, from someone else. And you're never going to get a word from God that you're 100% okay with. Words from God challenge us. Words from God are supposed to convict us. Words from God are supposed to propel us forward. They're supposed to say, launch into this new season. Do this thing that might be a little scary. Go to this place where you might be uncomfortable. But God's word is if. If you think God is only going to give you a word that you agree with, you understand you're making yourself God. I don't. God doesn't give me every. I don't agree with everything God tells me to do. If you have a God that agrees with everything, you think you don't have a God, you are God. Do you understand that? So. So God is always going to give you something that challenges you, that convicts you. He's going to give you a word and he's going to say, I love you. I care about you. You're the best. I created you for a purpose and a destiny. And you're like, yeah, God. And then he says, and now I want you to offer forgiveness to that person who horribly wound. And you go, wait a minute, right? Just like they did with Paul. You start putting your fingers in your ears and throwing dirt in the air and saying, get this guy out of here. It's easy to agree with God when he's telling you how great you are, but it's a lot harder to agree with God when he calls you to something that is scary. When he invites you to go into a new season that seems dangerous or intimidating. When he called you to new levels of forgiveness or grace or love, that's where we tried to change the channel. Courtney hates watching television with me. Television. Now we have some streaming channels, and so there's nothing to do with the stream. You just sit and watch it. But Courtney hates watching TV with me because as soon as a commercial comes on, every man in the place knows exactly what I'm going to do. I think it's a male centric issue. You just take that remote and do like that. I just start, right? And then I find something else. And I watch that for a second, and then the commercial comes on and I flip again. And then after like five minutes, I was like, wait a minute, baby. What are we watching? And she's like, we were watching that show and I turned back and it's already started. And she's like, are you happy? We missed, right? That's how we approach the word of God in our life. We're cool with it. As soon as something comes on that we don't like, as soon as something comes on that we don't agree with, as soon as something comes on that we don't want to hear, we just start flipping the channels. God's got to be saying something better on another channel. God's got to have a different movie. There's got to be some channel that doesn't have any commercials. I'm not interested in listening to any of this other stuff. But see, that is the word of God. For our life, we have to be willing to hear all that God would give us. They're willing to listen to everything Paul says until he says one word that they disagree with, which is Gentiles. And then they say, get him out of here. Kill him. You said that he's not even fit to live. How do we respond to the challenging word? It's easy to embrace the encouraging word. That's easy. Hey, Travis, you're doing a great job. Hey, thanks, God. I appreciate that. That one's easy. I'm not making fun of God. I'm saying you get an encouraging word every once in a while where God says, I love you. I believe in you. You're doing a great job. And you go, man, thank you, God. God, thank you. But then there's the word where God says, what about that person? Oh, I hate that person. God. God says, I know you hate that person. I want to talk to you about that. And you go, right, right. But listen to me. That is the word that is challenging, is the moment where we grow. That's how you move forward. That's how you become more mature in your walk and in your faith and in your spiritual discipleship. The word of blessing and encouragement is wonderful, but that's not really a word that grows you. A word that grows you is a word that challenges you. And so if we run from that, we are going to find ourselves in the same place that we've always been, doing the same thing we've always done. Embrace the challenging word in order to find new levels of growth to your life. That's what God's calling us to be about. Don't refuse to listen. The crowd refuses. All right, so now what happens is we're going to skip forward, and then we're going to come back. All right? So the crowd goes freaks out. They want to kill Paul again. They pull him back into the garrison and he spends the night there. And the next morning they take him to appear before the high priest and the religious leaders in Israel, what we would call the Sanhedrin. Okay? So he appears. Now, it's no longer the crowd screaming and yelling and everything, because this is a religious issue. Because the disturbance happened in the temple. They now take him to appear before the religious leaders. So that's what happens. So turn, if you will, to Acts 23 and verse 6. So he appears before the Sanhedrin, before the chief priests, the council, all of that, that Acts 23:6. And when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and one part Pharisees, he cried out in the council, men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. And when he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And the assembly was divided. For Pharisees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit. But the Pharisees confess both. Then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes of the Pharisees party arose and protested, saying, we find no evil in this man. But if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. Now, when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing lest Paul might be pulled in pieces by them, commanded the soldier to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him back into the barracks. All right, I love this. The crowd wants to kill Paul. The next day, Paul appears before the religious leaders. Everybody with their robes on, looking so nice. And by the end of the meeting, they're trying to kill Paul too. Fascinating, isn't it? You go, oh, the crowd, they're so unruly. But the religious leaders, he says, fearing that they would tear Paul into pieces. I've been in some board meetings like that. Fearing that they would tear Paul into pieces, he takes him back to the garrison. So what's happening here? All right, we read it, but what's happening here? So Paul appears before the high priest and the council. There are two types of religious leadership in Israel at the time. The Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees, Jesus has dealings with them, you know, the Pharisees, all that kind of stuff. The Sadducees were there, but they weren't as influential. But they were still an important religious group. However, they did not believe that there was A resurrection. They did not believe that the Spirit went on. They did not believe in angels, so they didn't believe in angels. They didn't believe in the Resurrection. They didn't believe in the Spirit. So they were sad, you see? All right, everybody stay calm. All right, Listen. They can't all be winners. I have to do 52 of these a year. They can't all be winners, okay? They were Sadducees. All right? So Paul realizes, hey, some of these guys are Pharisees, and some of these guys are Sadducees. So what does he say? He says, I'm a Pharisee, the son of the Pharisee. And all I was doing was talking about the Resurrection. And they immediately attack each other. The crowd refuses to listen. The religious argued. The religious argued. Paul is trying to speak truth to them. And instead of being willing to listen, they want to argue with each other. This should be very challenging for all of us. How many of us are arguing about the stuff that doesn't really matter instead of listening to the truth that God is giving us? We are the church. As we sang today, we are supposed to be the spotless Bride of Christ. But the problem is that we have traded our eternal truth for temporary things that are not true. And we find ourselves fighting about that more than listening to the truth that God is giving us. We've got to step back from this. I've tried to make this clear over and over again, but this is vitally important for you to hear from me. The stuff that is here, the natural stuff, the fleshy stuff, is not what we, the Bride of Christ, have been called to be about. We are supposed to be hearing truth. The problem is we've got. We fight with each other. We fight with each other. Denominations fight against denominations. Well, I've got the moral high ground because I believe in this thing. I've got the moral high ground. We're better Christians because we believe in that thing. And we fight with each other. Instead of being the Bride of Christ and hearing the truth that God wants to give us and go out and change the world. Instead, we are committing civil war within ourselves over stuff that's not just not that important. We really got to re. Figure this out, be willing to hear truth, truth that is, from God, truth that is, of God. And we've distracted ourselves. We've distracted ourselves with things that we have claimed are true when they're not. We have traded true truth, truth for stuff that we say is true that deep down inside we know isn't. But true Truth challenges us too much. So we try to convince ourselves that what we're doing with this stuff is actually what we're supposed to be doing. But we've traded what God is saying to us for stuff that isn't. That isn't our calling. So I'm not trying to get off on a rabbit trail at all. But Jesus, when he's leaving in Acts, says to them, go into all the world and make disciples. Go into all the world and make disciples, preach the gospel, do this. We have to remember that anything that takes us away from that is not getting us closer to the truth of God's word. For our life. We need to be the best type of citizen possible. You need to know the issues. You need to know what you believe about the issues. You need to know who politicians are. You need to know how they vote and not what they tell you. You need to understand how government works. You should know how the system works. You should be knowledgeable. You should vote. You should vote in every single election. You should vote in local elections, you should vote in federal elections. You should vote in off year elections. You should vote in primaries. I am telling you all of that. But I am also telling you that is not true truth. Don't sacrifice God's word for your life, for the temporary. That's not what God wants the bride of Christ to be about. And we have to remember that and rediscover that. The religious people decide that all this other stuff is the important thing. And Paul is standing there waiting to tell them about Jesus. We've got to get back in touch with that. We must rediscover that. That is what we're supposed to be about. Instead of fighting each other over what you believe is slightly different than what I, what you believe is slightly wrong. Yelling at every. We should be hearing truth and speaking truth. The world around us does not need your opinion. They need you to speak the truth of God to them. That's what they need. That's what they're desperate for. They need to know that we as the Bride of Christ, we as the Church, are speaking not opinion, but, but fact. And the facts and the truth that we are getting come straight from the source. That's what we have to be doing. So the crowd refuses the religious argue. Now go back to where we were. Acts chapter 22 we're right back where we were. The crowd is trying to kill Paul. They pull him into the garrison and the. Excuse me. The commander of the garrison doesn't know what to do. So look, if you will, at Acts 22 and 23, we're going to start reading right where we left off. They listened to Paul and then they said, he's not fit to live. So look at Acts 22 and 23. Then, as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust into the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks and said that Paul. Paul should be examined under scourging. Examined under scourging means they're going to torture him to tell the truth. Okay, so they're going to beat him and whip him until he tells the truth, so that he might know why they shouted so against him. And as they bound Paul with thongs, with chains, they bound him with leather straps, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, take care what you do, for this man is a Roman. And the commander came and said to Paul, tell me, are you a Roman? And he said, yes. And the commander answered with a large sum. I obtained this citizenship. And Paul said, but I was born a citizen. This is fascinating. The crowd screams and yells and refuses to hear anything that Paul says. Paul says one thing to the religious leaders, and they start fighting with each other, threatening to kill Paul, threatening to tear him apart. Fighting with each other. They argue. They don't want to listen. They want to argue. They want to fight. They're standing there and the commander says, all right, we're going to beat this guy. We're going to whip this guy until he tells us the truth. And they chain Paul's hands like this. And it says, he just said lots of stuff going on. Soldiers yelling, the crowd outside beating on the door. It's loud, it's tumultuous, rowdy. Paul's about to be beaten, and he just turns and says to the centurion, you know, I'm not sure. You tell me. I'm not a lawyer, but is it legal to whip a Roman citizen? I don't know. I can't remember the law off the top of my head, but is it legal to beat a Roman citizen? And the Centurion, what, 26. When the Centurion heard that that's the key, the centurion listened. The centurion listened. The crowd refuses. The religious leaders argue, but the centurion listens. It's as simple as that. It's as simple as that. You go, well, why don't I Ever hear what God's word for my life is? Because you're not listening. Because you're not listening. You go, man, that seems like a really harsh word. No, it's not. I'm speaking to myself, too. God is speaking to us all the time. The reason that we don't hear him is because either we're yelling too loud about something he said that we don't like, or we're arguing with each other about something that's stupid and we don't listen. The centurion heard that. The centurion was willing to listen. The centurion blocked out all the other noise of the crowd screaming and the people yelling and beating on the door, and Paul's about to be beaten and all the stuff that's happening and the centurion blocks it all out and list to what Paul is saying. That's. That's our call. That's what we're supposed to be about. We. It's as simple as that. You want to hear from God? Listen. Listen. Listening requires us to not speak, to not scream, to not argue with each other, to not refuse to hear the word. Listening requires us to listen. How do we pray? I've talked about this before, and I am chief among sinners when it comes to this, because I'm always. When I try to pray, I feel like if I don't stay focused, my mind wanders. So you've seen me preach. I don't know how anybody preaches standing like this. It's physically impossible for me. My hands start shaking if I stand here for too long. I can't do it. You want to know how I pray? The exact same way people that can just sit in a chair and pray and fold their hands. That's great. I'm not making fun of you. I'm saying I'm literally incapable of doing it. So I just pace and I just walk while I'm praying in my office, at home, whatever it is, I just walk and pace and know what I do. Because if I don't pray, if I'm not vocalizing, if I'm not talking about it, you know what happens is I start thinking about stuff. Well, what's going on this coming Sunday? Oh, what's going on there? Oh, I hope Matthew's picking out good songs. Oh, what's Chris up to? That guy's always up to something. Oh, and I'm thinking about this. Oh, and I got an elder meeting next week, and I got to focus on that. And we got these other things, right? So in order to Block all that noise out. I just talk all the time while I'm praying. God, thank you for this and I thank you for that. And I just pray and I pray and I'm talking. But you know what I don't do? And I'm trying to do better at 50, and I'm trying to learn. I don't do a lot of listening when I pray. And you know what? If you want to hear what the other person says, you got to shut up long enough to hear them talk. You know what I'm saying? And I just. We need to add listening to our prayer life where you just sit and listen and don't yell and don't scream and don't talk and don't refuse and don't argue. Just listen. What is God saying to me today? That is the thing. A long time ago, first church ever pastored. It was probably stress related, but I had my first and only bout with laryngitis. And I completely and totally lost my voice the day after Christmas. We had gone down to Florida to visit Courtney's parents. And so the whole week we were there between Christmas and New Year, I couldn't speak at all. I totally and completely lost my voice the day after Christmas. And so one day we were in the mall. This was years ago. So Liam was maybe just four, three or four. And somehow we were splitting up. Different people doing different things. And I took Liam to go get something to eat, and we went to the Chick fil a in the food court. Liam was a little bitty guy. And we got up there and we're getting closer and we're ready to order. And I realize I can't, dog. I don't. That was it. That's it. That's all I got. So we get up to the counter and little girl, you know, Chick fil a employees. They're nothing if not spunky. So she goes, hi, welcome to Chick Fil a. How can I help you? I was like. And she was like, right. But she's so nice because she works at a Chick Fil a. And I was like, come here. And so she leans across the counter and I lean and I whisper in her ear, I've got laryngitis. I have to order like this. And she was like, mmm, my pleasure. And so, right. So she was like, I don't like this much. So that's how I had to order. And she had to lean in and listen very carefully. And the food court is loud and everybody's yelling in the Chick fil a. And Everybody's talking and screaming, and she had to listen as I whispered in her ear what me and Liam wanted to eat for lunch. That's how God speaks to us most of the time. That's how God talks. He is not in the earthquake. He is not in the fire. He is in the still, small voice. And if you don't get quiet long enough to listen what he's whispering in your ear, you can convince yourself that he's not talking to you at all. But he is. He is talking to you all the time. It's just that you got to be quiet enough to hear him. The centurion heard that. The centurion heard what Paul said. Paul spoke truth. Nobody else was, but Paul spoke truth, and he heard it. That is what we have to get back in touch with, hearing the truth that God gives us. Now, sometimes God speaks a word to us in our spirit. Sometimes God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. And sometimes God speaks to us through other people, as Paul was trying to tell all these people the truth of who Jesus was. So let me close with this. How does it work if I'm in an airport going somewhere, and some guy rushes up to me that I've never met before, never known, never talked to before, and says, hey, I got a word from God for you. All right, I might listen to that, but I don't know that I'm going to take ownership of that word. I don't know that guy. I don't know who he is. I don't know his life. I don't know his. I don't know anything about him. But it's different when it's someone that we know, when it's someone that we're familiar with. God doesn't always. He's never spoken to me with an audible voice from heaven. I've never gotten an angel with a flaming sword. But often God speaks through others. We have to humble ourselves and hear a word from somebody else because it is humbling. And that's what I want to leave us with and challenge you with as we close. You say, but why didn't God just give the word directly to me? I don't know, but he didn't. So you have to be willing to humble yourself and hear the word from another imperfect vessel. Right? But what happens when somebody wants to speak a word in your life? You go, well, I know who they are. I know what they're about. I know their testimony. I know their backstory. I'm not going to listen to that word. What is that that's the crowd refusing to hear it because of one thing they don't like, one thing they don't want to hear. They refuse to hear the word. Listen, we're all cracked vessels. We're all imperfect vessels. We are all wounded healers. So what we say is, when God speaks into a word from somebody else, we go, oh, I know them. I'm not going to refuse. I'm not going to accept that word. I refuse that because I know who they are. Or they come and give us something that we want to then argue about. Well, what about this? What about that? So what does it look like? In the fall of 2022, I was a very happy, wonderful ministry was at a church I'd pastored for almost eight years. It was growing, it was going good. Everything was cool. It was wonderful. Had no problems, no issues. And I wasn't particularly looking to leave that church. In fact, Courtney and I had decided that I was never, ever going to submit a resume anywhere. I said, if God wants me to move, he's just going to have to open up an opportunity. But I'm not going to just start cold calling, sending resumes and begging to get out of here. I said, I like this church. I like being here, and I'll know it's God. So I've told part of this story, but I haven't told the whole thing before. So bear with me for just a second. In the fall of 2022, a friend of my dad's that I knew some, but he's my dad's age. We weren't great friends, but he was friends with my dad, supported global servants for a long time. He and my dad go fishing together all the time. Guy named Dan Clark called me. He said, hey, Travis, how you doing? I said, fine, Dan. How are you doing? I was like, did Denise finally come to her senses and leave you? I was like, I got to pick on you a little bit, Dan. I said, fine, Dan, how are you? He said, good, I want to ask you something. I said, okay. He said, I go to church. I live in Cartersville. I go to church at Liberty Square. I said, okay. I never heard of Liberty Square. And I vaguely knew where Cartersville was. I said, okay. He said, our lead pastor is resigning, and I want to give your names to the North Georgia bishop for the Church of God as a possible candidate. I was like, who is this? I told him, I said, dan. I said, I'm a Pentecostal. But I said, you know, I'm not even in the Church of God. And he goes, oh, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it. I was like, well, I think it's kind of a big deal. I'm going to be honest with you. He said, don't worry about it. I just want to know if I can put your name, if I can give your name to the Bishop of North Georgia as a candidate. I said, okay. That was it. He called me on a Friday. Courtney was at women's retreat. I didn't see her that weekend. She came home late Saturday night. We did church on Sunday. And Sunday afternoon, I said, I'm going to tell Courtney about that odd phone call from Dan Clark. And then I just didn't. And then Monday, I was like, well, I'm going to talk to her about it on Monday. And I didn't. And I didn't. On Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, I take Fridays off because I have to work on Sunday. So we take Fridays off. The office was closed. So Friday morning, I said to Courtney, do you want to take a walk? She said, sure. So we just walked around our neighborhood. And I said, hey, I've been meaning to tell you something for a while. And I said, I got a call last week while you were gone from a guy named Dan. And I said, he's at a church in Cartersville. I said, it's a church of God. And I said, he wants to put my name in as a candidate to be the lead pastor at that church, and I'll never forget it. Courtney said, that's it. It. I said, how you know that's it? I said, I just told you about it. I've been praying about it for a week. I'm looking at the Internet. I was watching y' all services. I went to the website. I'm Googling home prices in Cartersville. I was looking at high schools. I'm doing all this stuff. I'm praying. I'm getting nothing from my heavenly Father for a whole week. I said, there's a church in Cartersville. It's a church of God. And Courtney said, that's it. I said, that's it. She said, that's it. God's calling us to that church. I know it. She said, that's where we're gonna go. And I was like, okay, so here's the thing, right? I could have refused to hear that. For those of you that are married, there is nothing more humbling than getting a word from God from your spouse. You're like, you know what, God? Just speak to me next time, okay? You don't have to. We don't have to involve, you know, cut out the middleman. Nothing more galling than getting a word for. From God. From your spouse. So I could have refused to hear it. Oh, she doesn't know. She hasn't looked at all the services and she hadn't been to the website, and she hasn't. Right. I could have argued with her. Well, how do you know? What do you. Da, da, da. The centurion heard that. The centurion listened and said, okay. We walked through that process for several months. For those of you that were here at the time, I wasn't announced as the pastor here until December. That phone call happened in the fall. It was several months. I'm telling you, I've never been more sure that I was going to get offered a job in my life. Truth. Because I had heard true truth from my favorite person in the entire world who had heard it from God. And I just knew. God is speaking all the time. We just got to humble ourselves and listen. Just listen. Quit fighting with each other and with God. Quit refusing to hear certain words. Just take a step back. Hear the word listen and receive it. It's as simple as that. He's speaking to us all the time. Listen, listen, listen. Let's pray. God, I ask that you would finish this message in the hearts of every person here. All of us, myself included, are desperate for a word from you. God help us to listen to that word no matter how you give it to us. [00:45:47] Speaker B: Us. [00:45:48] Speaker A: Whether you give it directly to us, whether you send it to us through the Word through the Bible, whether you send it to us through prayer, whether you send it to us through another person, no matter how you communicate that word, God help us not to do anything other than hear it. Listen. God help us, all of us, to listen to your word for our life, God, speak to us. I intercede for every person, every life represented that you would speak to them more and more in the coming weeks and months, that you would make their destiny and their purpose and you're calling for their life clear to them. Speak to them and God. I also intercede for every person that they would listen to your word when you speak. Help us, all of us, myself included, to listen. Not to refuse the word, not to argue with the word, but to simply listen to that word that you are giving us. We love you and we praise you, God, do all these things. In the name of your son, Jesus, we pray. Amen. [00:46:50] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia, area. We invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland.