Sermon Transcript
28. So that’s 16 chapters and about 20 new hand signs to teach you.
So with your permission, I’m gonna move a little bit more quickly, if that’s alright. And if you’re sitting here and you’re new and you’re saying, did he just say hand signs? Yes, I just said hand signs. And it’s actually been a fun way that we’ve been working through and getting the bigger picture of the book of Acts, drawing from Pastor Dave’s experience with Walk Through the Bible. And so we’re gonna do that now.
Now I’m just gonna review the last 2 weeks, okay? So if you haven’t been here, You’re gonna have to go online and see them a little bit more in detail, but I’m gonna review those and then teach today’s. All right, you guys all stretched out? You guys ready to do this? I know you’ve been practicing every day.
Okay, you got these hand signs down? Ready? I think we’ll even have it on the screen there for you. Okay, here we go. Ascends, Spirit, cures, embezzlement, night release, deacons, Stephen, Oh, sorry.
Persecution, Philip’s preaching, Paul’s conversion, and Peter’s vision. All right, you did a better job than I did. I’m teaching you basically the last— the chapters 13 through 28 that focus now on the Apostle Paul. Okay, and what basically— how you can sum that up is he went on 3 missionary journeys, and then he was put— had 3 trials and ultimately ended up in Rome. Okay, so the first missionary journeys, we’re gonna do it like this: first missionary journey, second missionary journey, third missionary journey.
You guys aren’t feeling that? Okay. All right, we’re gonna give you some more context here. Okay, so I’m gonna tell you the number of missionary journey that it was, how many years, and where he went to, the region of focus. Okay, so first missionary journey was 2 years.
Easy way to remember the years, by the way, as we do this, is just add a number to the number of the missionary journey. Okay, so first missionary journey, 2 years, and he spent his time in Galatia. Okay, so if we have a map, that’s about this area. Okay, and he was just sharing the gospel, planting new churches, and tons of folks were putting their faith in Christ. So he got back to Jerusalem and was telling the church there all this wonderful news, and they really had mixed— a mixed response.
On the one hand, they’re really excited that the Gentiles are were coming to faith in Christ. But on the other hand, there were these false teachers going around saying that, okay, that’s fine, you can have your faith in Christ, you know, faith in Jesus gives you salvation, but you must also obey the law in order to be saved. So all the apostles at the time in Jerusalem got together to ask this question: must you follow the law to be saved? And they decided together with a resounding conclusion: no. Okay, so how we’re going to do this is we’re going to point in front of us and say Jerusalem Council.
We’re pointing in front of us because that’s where Jerusalem is. You’re just going to have to trust me on that. All right, Jerusalem Council, law. Okay, so first of all, you got to inflect your, your voice there. We’re asking a question.
All right, and you’re going to put your hands together like tablets, the 10 Commandments. Okay, law, and we’re going to say no. Okay, so Jerusalem Council, law, no. Let’s do that. First missionary journey, 2 years.
Let’s point to Galatia. Jerusalem Council. Law? No. Alright, so after the Jerusalem Council, Paul wanted to go back to the churches that he planted carrying the message, the decision that the Jerusalem Council came to, and encouraging them.
But he wanted to go a little bit further, plant some more churches. So he went on the second missionary journey for 3 years. And now we have 3 fingers up. This is gonna help us, help us remember the 3 places that he went addition to where he went last time. Okay, so we’re gonna say Macedonia, Achaia, and Greece.
And that’s the 8, 9, and 10 there. Just follow from north to south. Second missionary journey, 3 years: Macedonia, Achaia, Greece. Okay, he came back and then he went out again for a third missionary journey. This one was what?
4 years. And this time he went everywhere. Okay, and we’re gonna just say Asia. Okay, not modern-day Asia, Asia then, right? Okay.
All right, so let’s go ahead and do all those together. So first missionary journey, 2 years, Galatia, Jerusalem Council, law, no. Second missionary journey, 3 years, Macedonia, Achaia, Greece. Third missionary journey, 4 years, Asia. All right, you guys are doing this, great job.
Okay, this gets us now to chapter 21 or so. And Paul is on his way back on his 3rd missionary journey, and he’s decided he’s gonna go to Jerusalem. But there’s a check in his spirit. Actually, the Holy Spirit’s warning him that if he goes back to Jerusalem, some bad things are gonna happen to him there. And even some prophets tell him, look, if you go back there, you’re gonna be put in prison.
And sure enough, when he does get back to Jerusalem, some of the Jews who haven’t been happy with his teaching drum up some false accusations and put him in jail. Okay, so, and then he has 3 trials. So to represent this, we’re gonna put our hands together. You know, they’re handcuffed, right? We say trials.
All right, now he had 3 trials in front of 3 different governors, and all of these governors didn’t know what to do with Paul. Okay, it was concerning their law, the Jewish law, and they didn’t really know what to do with it. So they each passed Paul along. All right, so how we’re gonna remember them is by their interesting names. Okay, the first governor was Felix.
You guys remember Felix the Cat? If you don’t, ask your parents. We’re gonna do Felix the Cat. We’re gonna say Felix. He was on the fence just like Felix the Cat was, not knowing what to do with Paul.
All right, the next governor was Festus, and to him Paul was a festering problem. So we’re gonna, you know, just rub our hands and say Festus. He didn’t know what to do with Paul. And then the last governor that Paul went before was the governor Agrippa. Some of you might see where this is going.
He couldn’t get a grip on the situation with Paul. All right, okay, and then just to finish this out, after that Paul went ahead and appealed to trial under Caesar, and at that point the governors couldn’t do anything more. They shipped him off to Rome, and he was— where he was imprisoned. We’re gonna go ahead and conclude this by putting our fingers up like this to represent prison bars, and say imprisonment. Okay, so we’re just gonna do all this together.
Try your best. You can look at the online and we’ll just have fun with it. Okay, ready? We’ll just start at missionary journey. Okay, first missionary journey, 2 years, Galatia.
Jerusalem Council, law? No. Second missionary journey, 3 years, Macedonia, Achaia, Greece. Third missionary journey, 4 years. Asia, trials.
Felix, Festus, Agrippa, imprisonment. All right guys, good job. You got it.
We’ll have to have some brave soul come up next week and do them all. Maybe we’ll get you a prize or something. That’ll be fun. But hey, just to like, just to bring that full circle. You know, the book of Acts ends with Paul in prison, but we know from the pastoral epistles and also other historical accounts that he was released for a certain time, and then he went back to prison for another period of time where he was ultimately killed, actually martyred for his faith.
But if you want to know how the walkthrough ends, you can attend a live event, or you catch me, I’ll teach it to you. But ultimately, the last symbol in all of that, as we say, expands, because— or expansion, because the wonderful news about the book of Acts is it doesn’t end in chapter 28, but it continues today, and it continues through us. And really, that brings us to the series that we’re doing today. Okay, this is an overview of the book of Acts, like I said, and what we’ve been doing is borrowing from this image. We’ve called this sermon series, The Ripple Effect.
It’s like you take this rock and you throw it into a clear body of water. What happens? A splash, and then waves begin to ripple out, right? Well, the rock in that image is the command in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, this theme verse that we keep coming back to. Jesus says, you will be— you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses.
That’s the commandment. That’s the rock thrown thrown into the water. He says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem. That’s the first ripple. Pastor Dave focused on that.
That’s chapters 1 through 7 of Acts. And then he says, you’ll be my witnesses in all Judea and Samaria. Pastor Steve focused on that, chapters 8 through 12, primarily looking at Philip. And then today, you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. That final ripple through the Apostle Paul, through the end of these chapters.
And, you know, let me just say, it wasn’t so much a ripple wave as it was a tidal wave. The Apostle Paul had a tremendous impact, not only in his generation, but on Christianity as we know it today. I mean, I imagine that just about every single one of us who are Christ followers here today, just about every single one of us, the ancestry of our faith will somehow or another find its way back to its origin being Paul. You ever play that game, 6 degrees to Kevin Bacon? It’s that kind of deal, but with the Apostle Paul.
I don’t know how many degrees you would need, but the point is Paul was the first one out there breaking cultural barriers, reaching out cross-culturally to the world. And what an amazing, amazingly relevant and important figure for us to consider as we consider our witness in this series. Why? Because, as you know, as we’ve been alluding to even in our Sunday morning announcements today, whereas Paul went out to the world, the world is coming to us, is it not? And we have such a wonderful calling to bring the gospel here to this diverse community that is just becoming more and more diverse if you look at the numbers.
What a wonderful place to be, and what an incredible opportunity. So what we’re going to be doing is looking at how Paul was incredibly effective at reaching all people everywhere with the gospel, and considering for us, as we look at his model, how we too can be effective at reaching all people everywhere, even the people from around the world at our doorstep. Okay, so if you have your Bibles, go ahead and open to Acts 17. We’re going to be looking at verses 16 through 18. Now, as much as I would love to cover 16 chapters I didn’t think that approach didn’t seem to work for me.
So what I’m going to do here is look at a case study of Paul in Athens and really kind of relate it to what Paul was doing throughout his ministry. Okay, so we’ll look at him here in the book of— excuse me, chapter 17, verses 16 through 18, but it really encapsulates what he was doing throughout his entire ministry. So while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him.
Some of them asked, what is this babbler trying to say? Others remarked, he seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. So how was Paul so effective at reaching all people everywhere? Well, it started with how he lived.
You know, Paul, he was on his second missionary journey. How long did that last? 3 years. Macedonia, Achaia. Now he’s now just arriving to Greece, of course, where Athens is, and he’s arriving on the run.
People are trying to kill him. Those, you know, those Achaeans, they didn’t— they weren’t too keen on him, okay? So they’re trying to stone him. And so he gets here, that’s what sets up today. While he’s waiting in Athens, he’s waiting for them.
Who are the people he’s waiting for? Well, it’s his ministry partners, those who he had gotten separated while trying, you know, not to die. Okay, so he’s in Athens, verse 17, waiting. Verse 17, what does he do? He gets busy sharing the gospel.
I mean, I just think what an incredible person this guy was, how incredibly impactful he was at reaching all people everywhere. Everywhere. And we see this in how he lives in that he was never idle.
Even when he was waiting, he was sharing the gospel. Now, I wonder what you or I would have done had we gotten to Athens in his shoes. I imagine it would have been any number of things except sharing the gospel. Okay, I’ll tell you what I would have been doing. I would have been hunkering down.
Okay, these people who were trying to kill him had already proven that they were willing to over 100 miles to pursue him. So I would have been laying low, okay? Paul didn’t do that. Some of us, maybe if we weren’t too scared, Athens is far enough away, let’s go out, you know. What would we do?
We’d go out and tour, you know. Athens is a cool place to be, let alone back then when it was a little bit more in its prime. And then you have, of course, maybe some of you guys are the spiritual elite among us. You’d be like, yeah, David, I would have been out there sharing the gospel. First of all, whatever.
But second of all, I mean, even if that were the case, don’t you think our inclination would have probably been, hey, strength in numbers, let’s at least wait for our ministry partners to get here? Paul did none of that, but just went out there while he was waiting, just went out there and shared the gospel. He was never idle. You know, I was thinking about what this would look like in our lives, and have I seen this, and it reminded me of one of the YOPros who had a graduation for her PhD from Stanford a little while back. She invited a number of friends, colleagues, fellow classmates, and some of the OPROs to be there at this graduation.
It was a lot of fun, okay? We were there in this Los Altos Hill backyard, great food. Peter Licari, great ribs, wherever you are. And it was just— we were just having a good time. But one of those things happened when I was walking through this part.
You know when you’re in a party and there’s a lot of folks You just kind of have to weave your way. Well, of course I was weaving my way to the food, you know, barbecue, get over there. And so I was doing that and I wasn’t even intentionally listening to people, but I just heard one conversation, then 2 conversations, then 3 conversations about Jesus, about spiritual things. And I got to the end of the, you know, where I was going, I kind of looked back and I saw the Yopros had been dispersed among folks just having these spiritual conversations. And I remember going to the bathroom and I ran into one of the other YOPROs and he said, David, are you hearing these spiritual conversations?
And I said, yeah, it’s awesome. You would have thought that we had like, we would have gotten together and huddled and said, hey, we’re gonna go like convert all these folks. None of that. Instead, it was these YOPROs saying, you know what, we refuse to be idle even at a graduation party. Let’s share our faith.
Let’s have spiritual conversations.
I wonder how many seeds were planted that day. I mean, that’s the kind of thing that gets me fired up in the ministry, because that is our calling, to be witnesses, Jesus said, to ripple out the gospel individually, as a church. And when you see it in action, if we’re going to be effective, we can’t be idle. So what does this look like for you? What might it look like for you.
You know, you have to think about, think about it. But maybe it’s, you know, when you’re at work, you know, someone discovers that you’re a Christian there or that you’re going to Bible study. You know, to remain idle in that case would be to say, hey, you know what, that conversation, I don’t need to really have a conversation there. What if we pursued those conversations a little bit further, dug a little bit deeper spiritually?
Maybe it’s when you’re out on a walk. For example, you’re checking your mail and being, you know, willing and open to have a conversation with one of your neighbors. Just a little ago, I got in a conversation with somebody who’s out there. You know, I don’t always do this, so don’t think that I do, but I’m out there and I’m just like, you know what, why not? We just have this conversation with these random folks, and at the end of the conversation, we’re like exchanging contact information.
What would this look like for you? Maybe somebody’s telling you they’re going through a rough patch at work, you know, and you say, hey, I want to pray for you, that follow-up. Maybe it’s when you’re in a line for a movie. Maybe it’s when you’re in line for the new iPhone. You know, you’re out there camping.
Hey, you have plenty of time anyways, right? Paul was effective at reaching all people everywhere because of how he lived. He was never idle. And because of that, the gospel just spread out. Rippled out this wave.
And you know, it’s not just this, this text here in Athens. You know, he would just do this in many different ways, in many different cities. You know, one of his customs was to go first in a new city that he’s never been to, to the synagogue, and just start preaching the gospel there. That’s what he’d do. Well, one time he goes to a city in Macedonia, second missionary journey, Macedonia, and there is no synagogue.
There’s not enough Jews to incorporate. So what does he do? He says, well, let’s just look for other opportunities. There’s none here in the city. Let’s go outside.
Let’s go in the wilderness. Hey, there’s some people praying out there, some women. Let’s talk about Jesus. Boom, the first Christian convert on the continent of Europe and the start of the church there. Paul was incredibly effective because he was never idle.
We need to be— we can’t be idle ourselves if we’re to be effective. He was also effective because of where he went. Look at verse 17. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. Now if you look down to verse 19, which, sorry, it’s not going to be on the screen.
People got curious about this. They wondered, okay, tell us a little bit more. So verse 19, they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus. Okay, here are 3 places that Paul went in a short period of time with the gospel. They had the synagogue, which is essentially, you know, it’s like church for us today, like a religious gathering.
You had the Areopagus, that’s like city hall. And then you had the marketplace, which wasn’t just, you know, where you did bartering. It was where all trade and all business happened in the city. You had art performed there, showcased. You had entertainment, everything.
In other words, what’s happening here is How— where Paul went was all places with the gospel. He took the gospel into all areas of life. And not just in this text. I mean, remember we talked about him in trials? He’d be in front of the governors on trial for his life, and you know what?
Here’s an opportunity. I’m gonna share the gospel. He’d be in prison, and he’d say, you know what? There’s a jailer there. Let me share the gospel.
He took the gospel into all areas of life. We need to do the same. Now, here’s the thing. I mean, I think for a number of us in this room, for the modern Christian, this is actually a real challenge, isn’t it? Taking the gospel into all areas of our life.
Because I think the pressure that we feel in our culture is to keep our faith private. Do you feel that at all? It’s this idea of, hey, that’s fine, go ahead and believe it, what you will, but just don’t go bringing that here. You know, here in the office, in the classroom. Don’t even bring that in casual conversation.
Hey, I don’t— I’m sorry, David, I don’t talk about religion. Right? But if we’re to be effective, if we’re going to be that ripple where the gospel goes out, we have to bring the gospel to bear in all areas of life. Just like Paul. So the question then is, well, how do we do it?
And, you know, the answer to that isn’t so straightforward. Because this is a narrative, right? We see the principle, not a prescription. Paul doesn’t say do XYZ. He says, here’s how I lived out my life, follow that.
You know what that means? That means it’s going to take some creativity on our part. We’re going to have to apply our minds. How do we bring the gospel in this 21st century Silicon Valley to the people that we’re among at work? How do we do that?
You know, my mind quickly goes to public school teachers. Because I think of those of you who are in public school teaching, what an incredibly challenging thing to do, to bring your faith into this culture. I’m just gonna go ahead and remove that. Bring your faith in that culture. You know, I had some buddies, I grew up in the East Bay, and a number of my friends are public teachers there in Richmond and Oakland.
And what some of them did was they just, you know what, we We can’t bring our faith openly in the classroom, so what they did was created a Christian club in their different school. And they figured, you know what, it might not solve all the things that we’d love to do, but at least I can speak a little more openly here and work with these students and help them encourage and bring people to this club. We gotta apply our minds. Or maybe it’s, you know, like some of my friends in various professions, some of you guys in this room, it’s like you take your office space and you adorn it with different symbols to just subtly communicate, hey, I am a woman of faith here, I’m a man of faith here. And so they can make those connections for people, and you can be a witness that way.
It might mean being intentional with talking with friends or coworkers about your weekend. This is something Cindy did really well and intentionally in her job up in the city. She used to just— if anybody ever asked her about her weekend, she would just You know what, yeah, I went to church, I did this event, here’s the reason why we did it. Just in a natural way, but to open up an opportunity to witness. She was intentionally thinking about those opportunities.
I don’t know what it’s going to mean like for you, but we have to apply our minds. Talk to people in your profession, Christ followers who’ve been doing this, taking this seriously. Pool our minds. But again, the point is, if we can’t restrict our faith to our own private lives, or just Sunday morning gatherings. The gospel has to enter into all areas of life if we’re going to be effective, if the gospel is going to ripple out through us.
Next, Paul was effective in reaching all people everywhere because of what he felt. You see that here in verse 16. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. John Stott has written about Paul this way. He said, the reason we can’t speak the way Paul is that we can’t see what Paul sees.
And the reason we can’t see what Paul sees is we don’t feel what Paul feels. Now, if I were to ask you why it is you share your faith, why it is we share our faith, what might you say? I think perhaps the most simple answer to that was, well, because Jesus told me to, right? Obedience. And that’s a good reason to.
Acts 1:8. We’re to be witnesses. But Paul takes it a little bit, a step further than that, built on the foundation of obedience, to love and compassion.
Love for what Jesus has done for us and compassion for what Jesus wants to do for others. That’s what Paul felt here, love and compassion. He was distressed. It led him to the point of desperation that it had to come out. The gospel news of Jesus Christ had to come out of him.
It couldn’t just stay there. It had— it just— it was just gonna come out. Have you ever known someone like this in your life? Who just shares their faith like this? Just love and compassion all the time?
Have you ever felt this way yourself? If you’re like me, sometimes we feel it on occasions. You know, for me, you’ll never guess where where I’m usually stirred up for love and compassion towards others. Of all places, it happens most often for me on airplanes. You know, you take off and I look out the window, and as things get smaller, as people get smaller, and you just see how many people there are, my heart is often stirred to, man, I long for people to come to know Christ.
And that’ll often be enough for me to say, you know what, I’m going to engage these person sitting next to me. Now, I’ve been convicted through studying Paul here that I wish that happened a little bit more often for me, right? And not just at 30,000 feet, okay? We need to just— love and compassion needs to be pouring out of us. And so the question is, do you feel love and compassion for those around you?
Not just talking about maybe your family members who don’t know Jesus, or your closest of friends who don’t know Jesus. What about the people you’re sitting next to at work or in the classroom, students? What about the people it’s hard for you to relate to because maybe there’s a cultural barrier? Maybe the people, you know, you speak the same language, it’s English, but you speak a different language, you know what I mean? What about those?
Do you have love and compassion towards them?
Here’s a question: if you don’t, if I don’t, well, what do we do about it? And that answer actually seems pretty straightforward to me. We need to go back to the cross. Because Paul was living out his faith of love and compassion because of his faith in what Jesus has done for him, right? And when we contemplate what Jesus did on the cross, forgiving us while yet we were sinners, while yet we were his enemies, that all that can do is stir within us love and compassion.
Compassion. And so I think we need to go back to the cross sometimes if we don’t feel this. But if we’re going to have this impact of spreading the gospel, it rippling out through our lives, we’ve got to feel like Paul felt.
And it’s not just something that, hey, we’ll just get to. You know, I’ll obey that from time to time. No, it’s got to be spilling out of us.
Next, we see Paul was also effective in reaching all people everywhere because of what he saw. Again, verse 16, what Paul was waiting for— excuse me, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. Okay, that spells it out for us. What did he see? He saw a city full of idols.
And that’s the reason, for what it’s worth, that Paul was moved to such love and compassion, because he was seeing things that were taking the place of the living God for the Athenians. They were worshiping other things and being distracted from having a relationship in the living God, and that was just moving him too much that he just had to speak into that. That’s what he saw— idols. And that’s, for what it’s worth, the definition of an idol. It’s a god substitute, something we put in place of worshiping the living God.
We all worship something. Listen to how Pastor Tim Keller of a church in New York makes this connection of idolatry to the 21st century. He says, what are the gods of beauty, power, money, and achievement but these same things that have assumed mythic proportions in our individual lives and in our society? We may not physically kneel before the statue of Aphrodite, but many young women today are driven into depression and eating disorders by an obsession— by an obsessive concern over their body image. We might not actually burn incense to Artemis, but when money and career are raised to cosmic proportions, we perform a kind of child sacrifice, neglecting family and community to achieve a higher place in business and gain more wealth and prestige.
If I were to ask you, what are the idols here in Silicon Valley? I don’t think we’d have to think too long and hard for this, right? I mean, you could come up with a list just as well as I could. We worship work, don’t we? And, you know, it’s all about the next promotion, or it’s all about having my resume just the way it needs to be.
It’s all about being recognized for this or that project or achievement that I’m doing. We worship money and comfort, constantly comparing ourselves to what others have. We worship things like relationships. Or that ideal relationship. If I just had her or him, then I would be happy.
We really— we worship things like how we come across and appear as parents or as students. I had somebody after first service come up to me and say, yeah, this area worships the Niners. I’m not going there. That’s in your heart, you got to work that out. No, it’s interesting though, we get together at stadiums and we Yeah, Paul shows us we need to see the idols of our society so that we can speak into them.
Because idols, whatever form they take, can never fully satisfy us.
Idols will never love us for who we are, but will only ever demand more of us, more sacrifice. And so to Paul, it’s so important that we identify and speak into these idols Because they offer an opportunity for folks to see their need for the only one who does fully satisfy and who does love us for who we are and has, has taken care of all of the demands on our behalf. Which leads us to our last point, what Paul did about it. Verse 18, a group of philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, what is this babbler trying to say?
Others remarked, he seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. What did Paul— what Paul did was preach the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. That’s what he did about it. His message was simple.
Jesus alone can satisfy. Jesus alone has salvation. Let’s look at this in its 2 parts briefly. First, he talked about the resurrection. Do you know how incredibly vulnerable Paul was to talk about the resurrection?
That was, for what it’s worth, why he was often being chased after and almost stoned, is because of his stance on the resurrection. If you read the rest of this account, you’ll see even in Athens that a lot of people said, you know what, Paul, that’s just too much, no more. Would that be fun for you to run into that kind of response?
But he preached it even to the point of being rejected. Look, the only way the gospel is going to spread out is if we preach the resurrection. Because Christianity is not true because it’s relevant, it’s relevant because it’s true. And Christianity isn’t real because it changes people’s lives, it changes people’s lives because it’s a reality.
The resurrection changes everything.
Do you realize how vulnerable it makes the Christian faith? Everything rises and falls on the resurrection. Paul himself, in one of his letters that he later wrote, in 1 Corinthians 15, said, if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. My buddy Tim Keller— excuse me, another Tim. Now that’d be cool to have him, but My buddy Tim Riley, who’s spoken here before, some of you guys know him well.
You know what he says to that? He says, you don’t go putting the way out in the scriptures. If you’re trying to indoctrinate people into your faith, you don’t give them a way out of it. Hey, all you have to do, Paul says, is disprove the resurrection. And you don’t have to deal with Christianity.
And yet the interesting thing about Tim’s story is when he investigated the resurrection, that is what put his faith in Jesus. Are you talking about the resurrection? Am I talking about the resurrection? I don’t think I’m talking about the resurrection as much as I should be.
Look, Paul was willing to get into the marketplace and say, come ask me about this. That’s what verse 17 is about. It says he reasoned with them. What does reasoning mean? He was trying to persuade people of what?
Truth. A historical fact, Jesus’s death and resurrection. Are we talking about the resurrection? Are we reasoning with people? What would that look like for you and me to do that?
There’s a number of ways we could talk about this. I’ll just name a few. I mean, for starters, hundreds of people put their faith in Jesus because of the resurrection and because they saw him as an eyewitness. You would think over the years, over the millennia, That if hundreds of people did this, that if they had gotten together, conspired, and said, hey guys, let’s do this, we got this, you know, hey, just don’t let this out that we’re talking about. You would think that we would have evidence to a meeting like that.
None of it. You know, of the 12 apostles, his close guys, 11 of them were tortured and killed because they refused to recant what? The resurrection.
My favorite one is James, Jesus’s brother. It’s like, you know, he converted to Christianity, he became a follower of Jesus. Now you tell me how easy it would be for you to convince your brother that you’re the living Son of God. I mean, right?
Are we talking about the resurrection? We have to be. In order for this to spread out, we also need to be talking about the good news of Jesus. Now, I love this. Look at the end of verse 18 again.
These words are just so intimate. I mean, even the formal title of Christ is left off here. What’s he conveying? It’s all about Jesus. Jesus.
The good news of Jesus, that he alone can satisfy. That he alone loves us for who we are. He’s made a way possible to God. That all these other things that we strive after, that we’ll never live up to, they’ll always want more— our work, our comfort, relationships— whereas they will always disappoint, Jesus will never. Our love in him is secure because all idols say, sacrifice for me.
Jesus says, I have sacrificed for you. Do you see how freeing and radical that is? No idol will ever say to us that it has first loved us. Do you realize that? We must always pay first for the idol.
That is not how it works with Jesus. That’s what’s so radical about his message, this good news. He loves us first that we might love him.
We need to be speaking about the resurrection. We need to be speaking about the good news of Jesus. Are you willing to do that? In this Silicon Valley where it’s diverse, what an opportunity, guys. We, we have the opportunity.
We can be world changers literally here, right? You know, the tech industry is just changing the world culturally, but the folks who come here, and if they are from another country and they choose to go back, They’re leaders there often. What a calling. But we can’t, we can’t be idle. We can’t.
We must take our faith into all areas of life. We must be driven by love and compassion. We need to see idols in the culture so that we can speak into them. And we must speak the good news of Jesus and his resurrection. I was thinking of an example that might bring this all together, and it came.
Sweet, sweet memory that came to me that I’ve never shared with you before. When Cindy and I were first married, we went to San Diego for vacation. That’s where Cindy’s parents lived at the time, and it was great. I mean, it was just a great place to just get away and relax. They really did a good job of letting us unwind.
And one of the things I loved to do was I had this little spot upstairs where there’s just a lot of natural lighting, and, you know, there’s a nice breeze, ocean air coming through, and I would just read for hours. I loved it. Okay, obviously before the kids came around, that wouldn’t happen nowadays. But anyways, so I’d go do that, and one of these times we’d just gotten there, I got— I was reading in my little spot, my happy place, and Cindy came in, she opened the door, closed it behind her, said, David, I got it. Let’s do a Bible study with my parents.
I think they’d be open. Okay, so this is obviously before they were believers, and I need to confess confess to you, what was going through my mind at the time was not, yeah, let’s do that. Uh-huh. No, what was going through my mind is like, seriously? I just sat down to read.
I’m a pastor and I lead Bible studies for a living. Can I get a break? I didn’t say any of that, okay? What came out was, you’re right, let’s do that. And so, and so we did.
And why did we do this? Well, it’s because Cindy felt the need not to be idol. And to take our faith even into where we were on vacation and getting away, right? Why? Because of her compassion and love for her parents to know Jesus.
I was asking my mother-in-law, who attends first service, if I could share this, this example. And she said, she said, yeah, you know, she didn’t know Cindy and I were plotting against her. But anyways, but She was telling me, you know, at that time, yeah, so they’re Buddhists, or they were Buddhists, and they said, you know, what we had just really come to the conclusion at that time is that there were many roads to heaven and that we were just gonna be neighbors there. You guys are Christian, but we’ll be neighbors there. And so that was their God substitute.
And man, we had such a wonderful conversation that day. We did have a Bible study, and I’m not joking when I say this, The scripture that we focused on was 1 Corinthians 15, and if you know that scripture, it is almost exclusively on the resurrection of Jesus. We just talked about the good news of Jesus and his resurrection for a couple hours. I have such fond memories of that conversation because I really think that was a turning point for them in many respects, for them ultimately put their faith in Christ. If you had asked me at that time, I actually would have said, I don’t, you know, they haven’t said it yet, but they might.
I don’t know, they might be believers.
Now, is this to say, hey, you know, we’re great, look at what we can— no. You know, even the Apostle Paul, the only way he was effective and able to have this ripple effect that he did was because of the Holy Spirit working through him, right? And so it really comes down to looking for opportunities to partner with him. He desires to do this. He has more love and compassion for the people around us than we do.
But are we doing this? Are we open?
You know, I just think we just have such an amazing opportunity in this area. Let me just ask it this way. Do you realize that God wants to use you like he used Paul? That’s just a wonderful way. It’s a powerful way to think of it.
God wants to use you like he used Paul. And I love how Pastor Steve said it last week. Ordinary people as we are, God wants to use us. And it’s my humble opinion that it’s often because we’re ordinary that he has such a big impact through us. But are we open to that?
Are we looking for opportunities?
Are we— do we realize he wants to create a wave through us and reach people with the gospel? It can happen naturally. It can happen all the time. We just have to be open, looking for ways to do this. But here’s the problem.
It’s so easy to fall into routine. I think that’s the biggest enemy of today’s lesson, by the way, is routine and creature comforts. I had a person after the service say, hey, you know, he’s like, it’s interesting. You know, I’ve thought about it. You know, we spend 30 minutes on a sermon and 30 hours a week with television.
I was like, wow.
But we have such an opportunity to take the gospel and ripple it out in these ways, not being idle, taking it into different areas, love and compassion, seeing idols, speaking into them with the good news and resurrection of Jesus. Because look, the stakes are too high not to be doing this. I mean, it took nothing short of Jesus dying to set all of this into motion. So can we pray that the Lord would use us individually and as a church to be vigilant in this area that he’s called us, he’s put us in to reach and have the gospel spread all the further? Because I believe if we’re willing to take even a small step, that we’ll be amazed to see what God will do.
Let’s pray.
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to give you an opportunity. If you’re here today and you have not received Jesus as your Savior, you can do that today. He is the only one who can satisfy. He’s the only one who can fill us completely because it’s all based on what he’s done for us. I want you to listen to a verse that I didn’t read earlier, but Jesus said this: Come to me, all who are weary and burdened.
I will give you rest. And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What he was talking about is that we don’t have to chase other things that won’t satisfy us anymore.
And if this is you, with everybody’s eyes closed and heads bowed, and you want to indicate that you would like to put your faith in him today, I just encourage you to raise your hand. I’ll see it, I’ll pray for you, but more importantly, the Lord will see it. But if you’d like to put your faith in Jesus today, you can raise your hand.
Just give a few more moments.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you so much for coming to die for us, that we might have our sins forgiven in your name, and being raised, that we might have eternal life in your name if we’ve received you. Lord, you’ve, you’ve done everything for us, and we love you for it. And Lord, what’s more than that is you don’t just leave it for us to just enjoy and benefit from, but you give us this amazing calling, this amazing amazing privilege and opportunity to share your gospel with others, this good news with others, those around us. And what an amazing place, Lord, to do that here in Silicon Valley, this diverse culture. Lord, it’s so fun to be here.
Lord, may we as individuals and as a church be vigilant in this, seeing opportunities to spread your gospel, that in your power, your Holy Spirit, you might do a mighty work through us. We pray this in Jesus’s name. Amen.
At this time, the worship team is going to come back up and lead us in, in some more time of song and worship. So let’s prepare our hearts for that now.
