Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Tonight's actress is a woman named Margaret Hamilton. I don't know if anybody recognizes the name. I did not.
She was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1902.
Everybody in Cleveland who knew her was shocked when she went to Hollywood and found some level of success in the movies. She was not particularly attractive. In fact, she was singularly unattractive.
But she found a niche in movies as that, that person, that woman. She played that part over and over again, but she was always just mentioned in the cast. She starred, she was in movies with great stars of the day. Names that most of you won't remember. But 1933 she was in a movie with Helen Hayes, then with Robert Montgomery, with Harold Lloyd, the great comedian Buster Keaton, another comedian. She was even in a movie once with Abbott and Costello.
But she was always just that character actress that was always mentioned in the cast. Nobody outside of Hollywood knew the name Margaret Hamilton.
But in 1939 she was finally cast in the cast of a movie that was to become a huge success.
It was a movie made from a famous children's book and the movie had great stars in it. Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Burt Lahr, Jack Haley, Billy Burke.
Also mentioned in the cast was Margaret Hamilton. But she was an indispensable part of the story and terrified people, including me, for years. And there is Margaret Hamilton.
If you have your Bibles, if you'll take those and turn to the Book of Acts. I want to read three passages of scripture in the book of acts, Acts chapter four.
And I want to begin reading with verse 33. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles feet. And distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joseph, if you're reading from the King James Bible it says Joseph Joses, but the name is Joseph. And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed, surnamed, it might be translated nicknamed.
So he was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of Consolation. Now Let me just say it can be translated consolation.
It can be translated encouragement. But there is another translation which I actually like. And it is the son of exhortation and Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of Consolation, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, the island of Cyprus, having land, sold it and brought the money and. And laid it at the apostles feet. Now turn to chapter six.
And in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.
Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you.
Seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and full of the Holy Ghost, and Philip and Prochorus and. And Nicanor and Timon and Parmitas and Nicholas of Proselyte of Antioch. Now turn, if you will, to Acts, chapter 9 and verse 10.
And there was a certain disciple of Damascus named Ananias. And to him the Lord said in a vision, ananias. And he said, behold, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise and go into the street which is called straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hands on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, lord, I have heard by many of this man how much evil he hath done to the saints in Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. And the Lord said unto him, go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to hear my name before the Gentiles and the kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that in the next few moments this evening that your spirit will so break in upon us that when we leave, we will say, surely we have heard from God. In Jesus name. Amen.
The movie tonight, if you will, is Paul's movie.
But as in every week, we're not concerned with Paul. I think we know who Paul was. Paul was an apostle, Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the Apostle. He was the star of his own movie. And he was also the star of the movie called Acts. Without Paul, there is hardly any book called Acts. He also wrote 13 letters of the New Testament and perhaps the Book of Hebrews.
He is the central figure of the whole book of Acts.
He was a hater and persecutor of the Church.
We know of his dramatic conversion experience on the road to Damascus.
And we know who Paul is in terms of his character and his nature. There's been so much preached, taught cinematically on television. Everything else about the Apostle Paul, but he's the star of the movie. What we want to deal with is three other men, those who had impact on Paul's life.
Think of the millions multiplied millions since his conversion on the road to Damascus, that have been influenced by the life and writings and teaching and ministry of Paul the Apostle. But what about those that influenced him?
So the first we want to deal with is Ananias.
See, he's an intriguing character. He's a Syrian Jew. He lives in the capital of Syria, Damascus.
And God appears. An angel appears to him in a vision and says, go down to Straight street and there's a man there named Saul of Tarsus. And I have struck him blind. And I want you to go there and lay hands on him. He has already seen you coming in a vision. He knows that it's going to be a man named Ananias. Go to him and lay hands on him that he might recover his sight.
And Ananias is so like us, isn't it, Chuckles? Me. He says, lord, I don't think you're aware who this guy is.
He begins to explain to God. He says, look, you don't understand.
He has persecuted the church. He hates us. He's brought people in chains. And you don't even know why he's in Damascus.
He has authority from the chief priests in Jerusalem to come to Damascus. He's come here to arrest people like me.
And God says, go thy way. For behold, he prayeth and he hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming to him.
Now we must ask ourselves, first of all, why would God choose Ananias?
We know that he's not the only believer in the city of Damascus.
He may not even be the most spiritually astute, because the most spiritually astute surely would not try to explain the situation to God.
But somehow or another, Ananias was accessible.
God reached him. God spoke to him.
I will say this, he was honest.
There. So often our prayers, if we are not trying to explain the situation to God, we're trying to con him.
We are not always honest in our prayers. There are times we say, oh, Lord, bless this person, Bless them, bless them, God. And deep in our heart, we're thinking, I can't stand that guy.
So he's honest.
He says that he's accessible. God speaks to him. He receives this vision. But Ananias is honest. He says, God, really, it seems to me it would be better if we leave him blind.
So Ananias confronts us with a question we must ask ourselves.
It's a huge what if? It's a huge what if.
What if an angel appeared to you in your room today and said, I want you to get on a jet and fly to Moscow, and I want you to go in and see Vladimir Putin and lay your hands on him. I'm going to fill him with the Holy Spirit.
Say, lord, I'm not sure that you know who Putin is, or what if God said, there's a man in prison, he's been in prison for a long time.
His name is Ted Kaczynski. I want you to go see him and tell him about my mercy and my grace and that he will be healed and sanctified and cleansed and filled with the Holy Spirit. And we say, lord, you know his name as Ted Kaczynski. We call him the Unabombered.
Or what if God says, I want you to go to North Korea and there's a man who is going to be my servant. His name is Kim Jong Un.
Or maybe it's closer to home.
He says, there's a woman named Annie Laurie Gaylor.
She is the executive director of the Freedom From Religion foundation, and she is one of the leading atheists and in America today. And she has lodged lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit against the church. She has persecuted us on every hand, but I will show her what great things she must suffer for the kingdom.
The next verse says, ananias arose and went to Straight Street.
He lodged his argument. He tried to explain the situation to God. He did get honest.
But when God says, now, look, I'm not. We're not going to vote on this.
I want you to Go then. Ananias goes. Quickly, immediately.
Ananias is a critical instrument of God in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. He is the fulfillment of the vision.
God reveals this vision to Saul where he is in the. In a house at Straight Street.
And God reveals that this man named Ananias will come to him.
So Ananias is also mentioned in the cast.
He's never mentioned again. It's this one moment. We know nothing about him before this, we know nothing about him after it. We only know that he is the select choice of God to perform the humble task to go to a man who is suffering and alone and afraid and who has been struck blind off of his horse and who is. Who is fasting in Straight street in downtown Damascus, whose whole life has been turned upside down. And he is chosen as the divine instrument of God to go and do only one thing. Lay hands on him and say, brother Saul, receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And he disappears from the movie and is never mentioned again.
So I would say to you, there may be those moments where somebody in this room that God opens an avenue, a place for you to have that word. And you may be also mentioned in the cast of somebody else's movie who goes on to be some personage.
I was a rowdy quarterback in Port St. Joe, Florida.
Pretty, pretty wild and not a Christian, not living for the Lord.
And I used to go into downtown Port St. Joe late at night. I'd sneak out of my house and meet with some other guys and we'd sit in the parking lot. Kroger, you know, in those little towns in those days, they rolled the sidewalks up. No such thing as an all night grocery store.
We'd sit in the parking lot at the grocery store or something and drink beer.
There was an old man in town, pastored an assembly of God church in a suburb of a little area of Port St. Joe.
Brother Hildreth had snow white hair. He was an older man and he had a heavy Welch accent.
How he got to a tiny little assembly of God church in Mexico Beach, I'll never know.
But he would come around and he always tried to talk to us and witnessed to us and everything. And we kind of, in a way, we kind of liked him. He was funny and jolly and everything like that. On the other hand, we didn't want him to mess up our lives.
And so occasionally he'd come around with a flatbed truck with hay on it for hayride. And you know, the prettiest girls in town were all Pentecostals. And so he'd say, he'd come to us and he'd say, come on, boys, we're going to the beach and have hot dogs. Come with us. And we'd say, no, Brother Hildreth, we're not going with you to the beach. You'll preach. You'll preach. No, no, we'll not preach tonight. Come on, just climb on, climb on with the girls. We'll go to the beach. Okay? You won't preach. No, no preaching tonight. We get out to the beach. He'd say, just before we have the hot dogs. Let me just read this. I was all. We'd say, brother Hildreth.
Thirty years later, I went to Calvary assembly of God in Orlando, Florida. And not the pastor that I followed, but the pastor before him.
I went to meet him and have lunch with him just to get to know him. He had been at the church years before I was.
And he said his name was Hildreth. And I said, I know it's a shot in the dark, it's probably crazy. I said, I bet you didn't know an old Welshman named Brother hildreth from Port St. Joe. He said, that's my dad.
So it was just such an odd little loop closed at that lunch. And I still cherish the memory of that crazy old white haired Welshman trying to get us to go to hayrides at the beach and lying to us.
Now, the second person we want to deal with is also a forerunner in the sense that he was not born in Israel. As Ananias is a Syrian Jew. Barnabas, as he comes to be called, Joseph is his real name. Barnabas is from the island of Cyprus. He's a Cypriot Jew.
He is a huge person in the Saul movie.
So when Saul is converted on the road to Damascus and he immediately turns to God, Totally. To Christ, totally.
Haven't you known people like this? They're so dead out for the devil, and when they get saved, they're just dead out for Jesus.
And so when he is healed and receives his sight and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Saul of Tarsus immediately begins to preach.
And so it's just like, it's just like one of those people. I said, can you imagine what would happen in the Kremlin if Putin suddenly began to preach Jesus?
Some somebody would be after him.
And so they get after Saul. And so the believers in the town hide him in a basket and lower him over the walls of Damascus and he flees in and goes back to Jerusalem. On the road that he came to arrest them, and he goes back to Jerusalem. Well, where's the logical place for him to go?
The Christian community.
But they're all terrified of him.
He's been arresting them. He's been putting them in prison.
He consented to the death of Stephen the martyr. They're all frightened of him. So he comes into the prayer meeting and says, hey, I'm a Christian.
How about we pray together? And they all said, okay, maybe not.
And so he tried to attach himself even to the apostolic community, to Peter and James and John and the apostles.
Barnabas is the one who kind of puts his arm around Saul of Tarsus and takes him to the apostles and says, hey, look, I think this guy's for real.
I got to tell you, I think he's for real.
Barnabas, which is his name, given name is Joseph, but the apostles call him the son of a. Positive, consoling, encouraging, exhortation.
That's what they name him. This is a guy that just builds people up. He encourages people, is also a person of discernment.
Even Simon Peter, even the apostles are not able to make clear in their minds whether this guy's the real deal. But Barnabas puts his arm around him and vouches for him.
Now, that's different than just saying, hey, here's this guy and he wants to talk to you. He says, I personally vouch for him.
That means if he turns out to be a spy and gets everybody arrested or killed, then they're going to say, look, Barnabas, you blew it.
But he goes on the line to support Paul, to support Saul of Tarsus.
But the apostolic community is still resistant.
And they say, look, here's what we think is the best thing. There are people that are trying to kill you.
Why don't you go back to Tarsus, to your hometown, and don't call us, Will call you.
And they leave him. They forget him.
Now there is a revival among the Gentiles at Antioch, and the word of it becomes so huge.
Dr. M.G. mcLuhan used to say that the first genuine megachurch in the Bible is at Antioch.
And the apostolic community sends Barnabas to Antioch because he's a Cypriot.
He also not only speaks Hebrew, he also speaks Greek. And these Gentiles in Antioch would speak Greek. He's well versed in Scripture. He's right out of the apostolic community. He represents Jerusalem. So he goes to Antioch and he sees that it's real, the conversions are real, and he wants to what, encourage them.
He's the son of Encouragement. And he thinks to himself, I need somebody up here to work with me. I need an assistant that is educated and has a great testimony and who's willing to do what I need him to do. I remember that guy.
I remember that guy Saul, that got converted at Damascus and we sent him home to Tarsus. And so he goes to Tarsus and, and collects Saul and brings him with him to Antioch. And they become together part of this powerful, real powerhouse of ministry of the church in Antioch. They're prophets, teachers, ministers, and they are listed in Acts chapter 13.
And Saul of Tarsus is one of those. And Barnabas is more or less the leader of them and Saul is more or less his sidekick.
At that moment, it looks like it's the Barnabas movie.
And Saul of Tarsus is also mentioned in the cast.
But the movie's about to turn.
So the Holy Spirit tells the church at Antioch separate Barnabas and Saul and send them off on the first mission trip in history.
And so they go and they take with them Barnabas cousin John Mark, it says, his sister's son.
And the mission trip in general goes well. It does go well in general. It's a great trip. Except John Mark, we don't know why he abandons the mission trip and goes home to his mother. So whether it may he's homesick or if he gets sick or we don't know what it is.
I've always said you want to really find out what somebody's character is like, take them on a three week mission trip, especially if you possibly can, to the third World.
And John Mark wilts and he goes home.
So they go back to Antioch and they decide to take a second mission trip.
And, and, and Barnabas says, I think we'll take John Mark with us again.
And Paul the Apostle, now Paul the Apostle says, are you kidding?
I'm not taking that lightweight with us. He left us on the last trip. Didn't you learn anything? He says, I'm not taking him. And the fight between them, the contention, I like the prissy language of the King James version. The contention between them becomes so sharp they finally divide and go on two mission trips. So the mission trip becomes two. Paul takes with him Silas and Timothy and Barnabas takes John Mark.
Why?
Because Barnabas is the son of encouragement.
He wants to rebuild John Mark. He wants to restore him. He says, look, we don't want the last time he's mentioned to be because he wilted on a tough mission trip. Let me rebuild him. Paul the apostle, who's a 14 karat type A choleric would never give an inch. Stamped in the middle of his forehead, he says, I don't have time to rebuild lightweights. I'm trying to do the work of building the first century church. And they divide and go separate ways.
It is interesting to note that later on, in one of his epistles, Paul the Apostle writes, bring John Mark to him, to me. I find him useful.
If I was Barnabas, I would be tempted to say, sure, now you find him useful because I rebuilt him when you left him on the garbage dump.
But Barnabas is a better Christian than I am.
Barnabas becomes that person of encouragement, that person that comes alongside, that strengthens.
You have no idea whose life you're touching.
You have no idea. That one kid, that one person, that one associate pastor, that one youth pastor, that neighbor that. You come as Barnabas, as an encourager, as an exhorter.
An exhorter says, you can do it. You can make it. Come on, get up on your feet. We're not finished yet. It's not gonna end like this, okay? You failed on the last trip. Come on, do another trip and you'll go down in history not as the guy who failed on a mission trip, but the guy who wrote the Gospel of Mark.
Let me rebuild you. Let me restrain, let me strengthen you.
God may call you as an Ananias to a one time mysterious moment and encounter that just touches somebody's life in a mighty way and never mentioned again. Or he may call you as a Barnabas.
Come alongside, arm around their shoulder, whisper in their ear, build them up, strengthen them, recreate them and put them back on the rails.
Now, there is a third man listed, also mentioned in the cast.
His name is Stephen.
When Paul the Apostle. Who? Saul, you understand? Saul of Tarsus. He was to become Paul the Apostle when he leaves Jerusalem with a warrant to arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem with authority from the chief priests and the elders from the Sanhedrin, he goes angry and ready to arrest Christians.
When the light appears in the sky and Jesus speaks to him, knocks him off his horse, strikes him blind. And he says, saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
It's a fascinating turn of phrase.
He doesn't say, why do you persecute the church?
It. It bespeaks Jesus personal identification with the body of Christ.
He says, when you persecute the church, you persecute me.
So he says, saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
Saul's answer tickles me. I think I'm the Only person in the world who finds stuff in the Bible funny. He says, saul saw, why persecutest thou me? And Saul says, who art thou, Lord?
I'm thinking maybe he had a clue.
Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But then he says, it is hard for you to kick against the goats.
What did he mean?
What could Jesus mean by that?
Something was goading Saul of Tarsus. Something was like a prick on his skin. What is. What is that thing that's digging at him? Digging at him.
I believe it was the death of Stephen.
I think the conversion of Saul didn't start on the road to Damascus. I think it started at the death of Stephen, which Saul engineered, endorsed. He guarded the ropes, the robes, the outer garments of those who stoned Stephen to death. Stephen was one of the seven.
He was not called a supernatural ministry initially. He was called to servanthood.
Peter and the other apostles said, it's not right for us to wait tables. And so he was called to be one of the first seven deacons.
But his anointing for supernatural ministry became obvious to everyone and he became a lightning rod for controversy so that he was arrested, dragged out of the temple and stoned to death.
His defense before the mob.
When Stephen begins to address the charges against him, you might be interested to know this. The longest soliloquy, single speaking speech, the longest soliloquy recorded in the entire book of Acts, is Stephen's sermon, right before they kill him.
He basically tells the story of the history of the Jewish people, of the Hebrew people.
And he tells how there were times of awakening and revival and how over and over again they resisted and how they were stiff necked and how they were rebellious and over. They killed the prophets, all the rest of it. And then he ends with, even as you now resist and rebel against Messiah.
And they kill him. They stone him to death. And it says, and they laid their coats at the feet and of a man named Saul of Tarsus.
Then later on, Jesus says, it's hard for you to kick against the pricks, kick the goads. Something is stabbing you, and it's hard for you. What was stabbing him? The way Stephen died.
Stephen doesn't cry out, God, make the rocks not hurt me, turn the rocks into marshmallows.
He doesn't cry out for escape.
He says, father, forgive them.
Lay not this charge against them. What does that sound like?
What does that sound like? What voice is coming through there when he, at the point of his death, prays for forgiveness for the people that are killing him.
He is receiving straight from the cross. The spirit of Christ is flowing through him and out.
And it is touching everybody in the room. Those, the others kill him.
I believe Saul of Tarsus winced.
Saul was filled with hatred.
He despised the church.
But it wasn't because he just hated the church. It was because he thought they were wrong.
He wasn't a murderer in that sense. He wasn't a robber. He wasn't an evil person. He was a person who was caught up in the legalism of his own self righteousness.
But I believe that the love and compassion and grace and it says Stephen's face glowed like an angel.
And he looked up at the sky and he said, I see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God. Standing at the right hand of God.
I think that whole scene weighed on Saul of Tarsus.
I think he was having nightmares.
I think he was waking up in the night hearing Stephen say, don't lay this charge to them. Forgive them, Father.
I think it was Stephen that prodded him.
It is hard for you to kick against the goats. What goats?
The righteous, gracious, generous giving, merciful death of Stephen.
So how do we close this?
I'm going to say something to you that's hard for charismatics to hear. Pentecostals.
It is that I believe.
I believe as you do, all of us do. I believe in healing.
I believe in signs and wonders and miracles. I believe the Book of James. If anyone among you is sick, let him call for the elders of the church and anoint him with oil and pray for the sick. I believe that. I believe in the ministry of healing. I've prayed with people. I've seen miracles.
But in the midst of that, I believe that as a result, we have come to a place where we undervalue the supernatural power of Christlike suffering.
That God may call us into a place where it is through our suffering that we touch someone else's life and not through the apparent victory that everybody thinks we ought to have.
I was a student at Emory University 100 years ago.
And it was so liberal. And the professors. I had professors who were atheists teaching my Old Testament. Professor Hendrickos Boris, a German professor. He was an atheist. Straight out. He told us he's teaching Old Testament at my seminary.
But there was one sweet old man. His name was Claude Thompson, and he had been a professor at Asbury, where the revival recently was.
And now he had transferred to Emory University.
He was the sweetest, gentlest man I've ever known. When we were in class, listening to Dr. Thompson lecture, if there was the sound of a siren out in the street, he would stop and pray for them.
He would immediately stop class and he'd say, oh, boys, somebody's having an emergency. Let's pray.
Dr. Thompson came down with cancer, so none of us believed in miracles.
I didn't. As far as I know, nobody did. I don't think anybody ever anointed him with oil. I don't think we ever prayed for him to be healed. I'm sure there were other people that were.
But we were seminary students in Liberal Seminary.
But he became so ill the last semester that his wife would drive the car up beside the building and several of us would go out and pick him up.
I hope I can tell that I must be tired. I'm sorry. We carry him in and we put a table so he couldn't stand behind the pulpit. We put a table, and he'd sit on the table and lecture on the table until he would just fall over from exhaustion.
And then he would pray for us.
I didn't believe a word he said, but I couldn't get him out of my mind.
I couldn't get that sweet old man out of my mind.
Finally, somebody said to him in class one day, Dr. Thompson, you.
Why do you keep coming to class?
He said, boys, I've tried to teach you how to live.
Now I'm going to show you how to die.
I've never forgot that God. I'm. I apologize.
So I think.
I think that dealing with suffering theologically with Pentecostals is dicey business because we know that God is not in heaven tearing the wings off of butterflies.
That's to talk about. The sanctifying use of suffering yielded up and surrendered to God is not to say that God looks over the church and says, okay, you know, I think I'll give him leprosy.
So somebody says, suffering is never the will of God.
What I do know is when we surrender up to him those things which come in our lives, he can use those things which are not his will to bring his will.
I'm not saying suffering is the will of God. I'm not saying God chooses somebody and says, okay, I think I'll. I think I'll mess their life up.
What I am saying is we live in a fallen universe.
People.
People get sick, people get old, people die.
But if we can reveal the redemptive power of Christ through us in our suffering, we don't know who's at the edge of the crowd, who will spend the Next few years kicking against the goats until they finally give in.
Well, let me close with this.
Good grief.
I. I preached a men's gathering at Rock Eagle for every year for nearly 40 years, hundreds and hundreds of men. One night I preached to, gave the altar call. So many men came forward. This one guy came, he was just weeping. And I went down to him and was. Prayed with him. And, you know, you're just always interested to know what.
What reached somebody. And I said, something in the service tonight must have really touched you. And he said, no.
He said, no, I thought you'd never shut up.
He said, 25 years ago, I was in a terrible snowstorm in Minnesota and my car conked out and I trudged up a snowy bank to a Waffle House or some kind of huddle house or some kind of little restaurant that was open.
And when I got in there, all the other stranded motorists were in there. The place was packed.
And he said, a guy in the back booth said, back here, friend, come here. I've got a place. And went back there and sat with the guy. And he said, this guy began to witness to me.
And he said, if you were to die, if you'd have died in that snowstorm, would you go to heaven? He said, it just climbed all over me. And I thought to myself, I'd rather freeze to death in that car than sit here and talk to this guy. And he said, I left.
He said I left. He said, it's bothered me for 25 years.
He said, a friend brought me to this convention and he said, when you started preaching, the only thing I could remember was that guy in that huddle house. And he said, I thought you'd never shut up.
You never know what God is using.
And I believe that he has a plan and a use for things in every life in this place. I don't know who is. Who is A Barnabas, I don't know who is an Ananias. And I don't know which one of us will be touching some life dramatically through something that we suffer like Stephen.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this precious church, for its investment in missions, for its leadership. We pray for Pastor Joey. We pray that his trip to Arizona will be efficacious in his life and leadership. We thank you for him. Bless the church, bless its visitors and members. And Lord, somehow, if you could even use the likes of us, Lord, if we could just be cast members in somebody else's moon movie would be so honored.
Thank you, Lord. In Jesus name amen Amen. God bless you, everybody.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr.markrutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
