Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Acts 14:1-20

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - May 2, 2007

*Life changing words: Hearing your boyfriend ask, “Will you marry me?”

*Answering “Yes!” or “No.” Both of those answers are pretty life-changing.

*Hearing your wife say, “I’m pregnant.” That’s life-changing. But the greatest life-changing words are the words of the Gospel. “God loves you. Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus will save you.” And Christians, we must let people hear this good new from us!

1. We must let our voices be heard, first of all, because many people will believe and be saved.

*We can see it happening here in vs. 1: “Now it happened in Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude both of the Jews and of the Greeks believed.”

*Many believed. They trusted in the Lord, and they were saved, because somebody let their voice be heard.

-What an infinite blessing: To be saved, forgiven! To have eternal life!

-To be part of the family of God! To have a home in Heaven!

*Can you remember what it was like to be lost? Think of life without Jesus: life that is really not living, a two-dimensional shell of a life in a three-dimensional world. That’s what life is without Jesus.

-But we are saved! Because somebody let their voice be heard. And people all around us need to hear.

*A Barna survey recently found that 33% of adults in America are unchurched (Meaning they have not attended any type of service during the past 6 months). That is well over 75 million adults. (1)

-We must not believe that those 75 million people are unreachable.

*As Richard Pfeil once said:

“I wonder sometimes whether the myths in our heads are really true. The myths in our culture are that people don’t really want to hear about Christianity. People are satisfied with their lives. They have everything and they don’t need the Lord in their lives. They have another religion, and they don’t need us to convert them. I wonder if those words in our heads are a lie.

-When I look at the [early] church, they always professed Jesus Christ. Throughout the history of the church, people have discovered that they need him. People have listened and they will listen. People have responded and they will respond. They responded . . . in great numbers, and every time the church caught fire and talked about their faith, people began to listen.” (2)

*Bruce Larson gave this testimony about an unexpected conversion, a neighbor of his in Sanibel Island, Florida. Bruce said:

“I had a neighbor in his eighties who had been a vice-president for McGraw-Hill, one of the great publishing firms of our land. He was a brilliant businessman. He was a senior vestryman in the Episcopal church, on the city council in Sanibel, respected, and loved by all.

-One weekend, he went off to a [renewal] conference with a bunch of lay people who began praying with him and talking about Jesus. This beautiful man comes home transformed and says to his neighbors and friends, "I met Jesus."

-"What happened to you?"

-He says, "I don’t know. I fell in love."

-"He’s always been a good man," his neighbors said, "but now he’s a new man." (3)

2. Let your voice be heard, because many people will believe and be saved, and because blind people are poisoning minds.

*We see it happen in vs. 2-7:

2. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren.

3. Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

4. But the multitude of the city was divided: part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles.

5. And when a violent attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them,

6. they became aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding region.

7. And they were preaching the gospel there.

*Those blind, unbelieving Jews were poisoning people’s minds in Iconium. Today many spiritually blind people do all they can to poison people’s minds. One of the most popular websites on the internet is “MySpace,” especially with young people. Today I looked at a just a few of the Religion and Belief groups at MySpace. There are 117,846 of these groups listed on 11785 pages. Out of the first 50 groups, about 15 were obviously Christian, but examples of other groups include:

-Universal Masters (Public Group)