Turning Your Life Around Series

Turning Your Life Around

Text: 2 Chronicles 7:14

On Monday night, we began this series of messages centered on the very first part of the theme verse for this week, and we asked the question, “What Does It Mean to Be Called By God’s Name.” And I believe that on that night, by the time we finished dissecting this passage, and were ready to leave the confines of this place of worship, We knew and had a clear understanding of what it means to be called by His name.

On last night, we continued our journey through God’s word and the Lord let us deal with the second part of this passage as we labored in the Word using the subject, “Getting Right for Prayer.” We discovered that we need to become a people of prayer. We need to pay the price of prayer. We need to understand the point of prayer. We need to know the position of prayer. And once we know all of that, we can then experience the power of prayer.

On tonight, we would like the Holy Spirit to move in this place and anoint this message that it may touch hearts and minds, and not fall on deaf ears. We would like to focus in on the third part of this verse which gives us instructions to seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways. So tonight, I’d like to you to turn to your neighbor and say “Neighbor, I’m ready to turn my life around.”

Subject: Turning Your Life Around

In the book of Acts, its author, Dr. Luke, introduces a Roman Soldier to the Holy Bible by the name of Saul. Luke records in the 7th Chapter of Acts that this young Roman Soldier was present at and presided over the stoning of the Apostle by the name of Stephen.

Luke continues his writing in the 8th Chapter by recording that there was a great persecution of the church going on in Jerusalem, which was causing many Christians to scatter abroad. And although this seems like a bad thing on the surface, we know that it was this persecution of the Christians that triggered Christianity’s spread outside of Jerusalem and into other parts of the world. Can I get a Witness?

Luke then records in verse 3 of Chapter 8 that Saul made a havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hauling off men and women and committing them to prison. My brothers and sisters, Saul was a treacherous man. He was a wicked man. He was an enemy of the gospel, devoted to destroying and eliminating the good news about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But let us not yet fully condemn Saul for his evil doings. For Jesus said that “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” And my brother and sisters, there are a whole lot of us who are in the church right now who are just like Saul.

No, maybe we haven’t been responsible for taking the physical life of somebody in the church, but there are a whole lot of folk in the church who have allowed their tongue to kill a whole lot of their brothers and sisters in Christ. Have I got a witness?

Lots of us have used our tongues as fiery darts and have laced our darts with deadly poison. And we are even more treacherous than Saul because we won’t even look the person in the face when we’re killing them. We just go around stabbing them in the back. Telling all kinds of lies on them. Scandalizing their name. And what eventually happens is that we kill their spirit and their will to stay in the church. So they leave the church and return to being among the lost. They are now dead. And we’ve killed them. Oh I wish I had some help up in here.

There are a whole lot of others in the church who are wreaking havoc, just like Saul, every step along the way. Instead of following the vision and the plan of the pastor, they are coming up with their own agenda, to do their own business in the church.

Instead of paying their tithes and offering like God commands for his people to do, they are still stuck on church salary. They are still putting in one or two dollars when God has blessed them with everything that they have.

They are wreaking havoc by keeping up and stirring up all kinds of mess all over the church. They go and tell one person one thing and then go right to somebody else and tell them something different. Then they sit back and watch all hell break loose because of mess that they’ve made up. I’m talking about good old every Sunday bible toting church folk.