Unearthing Truth: Lessons from the Bereans

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has

for us here today.

We're going to continue our study in the book of Acts.

If you have your Bibles, turn there with me.

Acts 17, Acts 17.

We're going to start in verse number 10 here this evening and we're

going to be looking at the folks in Berea and maybe you've even

heard of some people saying, hey, we should be like the Bereans.

And we're going to talk about what that means here this evening.

I hope that this is a reminder for many people about what this passage

is all about.

Maybe for some this is a, a new look at a new story, but either

way, you, you take it here this evening.

There's a lot that we can learn from this passage of scripture.

You know, there are, are passages of scripture in the Bible

that are, are what we call descriptive passages, meaning it's

just describing something that happened.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to follow it there.

There are a lot of passages even in the Book of Acts that tell

us things that people did.

And, and we shouldn't follow that.

I mean, if you look back at Thessalonica, they were basically,

they chased Paul out of there.

We shouldn't chase a good Bible believing preacher out of town.

Okay, that's not a good thing.

So the Bible will list things.

We look at the Old Testament.

I mean, guys, don't, don't follow David's example as a husband

in many ways.

Okay, don't do that.

There's descriptive passages, but there's also prescriptive passages

meaning passages of scripture that we take and we follow and, and

we, we obey, we heed.

And I think that this passage of scripture is a descriptive passage,

historically speaking about what the Bereans did when Paul preached.

But we do think, I believe that this is also a prescript of

passage.

We should be like the Bereans.

We should receive the Word like these folks receive the Word

here in this place.

And so we're in Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Just to remind you, we're on Paul's second missionary journey.

He had a first missionary journey and there was great success.

And now he's launched back out on a second missionary journey and

he's a few stops in.

And he's had some success and he's had some difficulties.

He's had some persecution.

Specifically at his last place there in Thessalonica, he preached.

And as you can see, they came and they persecuted Jason, who was

housing Paul and Silas and those other folks on the missionary

team.

And eventually Jason and the rest of these guys send Paul and

Silas out in the middle of the night to go to Berea.

And so God directs Paul and Silas to a different place.

And.

And that's a theme in Paul's ministry.

Closed doors, open doors, God redirecting.

And if you remember back even a few passages ago, when we were

talking about Paul desiring to go to one place and God directed

him to go to another place, sometimes that looks like a failure,

that looks like a.

A roadblock.

But we know that God had a purpose and a plan for Paul to go

to Philippi, and that was to lead Lydia to Christ, to lead the

Philippian jailer to Christ.

And so God has a plan for our life.

Sometimes he'll close the door.

Sometimes he'll have us face persecution in Thessalonica.

I don't know about you, but anytime we feel pushback, anytime

we feel any pressure, we feel like maybe God isn't happy with me.

But sometimes that might just be where God wants us to be.

He might want us to be feeling some pressure.

He might want us to be growing and changing.

Sometimes I tell my kids, part of growing is there's going to be

pain in that.

There's going to be difficulties in that.

Life isn't always easy, and we're going to see that here with

Paul.

But nonetheless, Paul is going to preach.

He's going to stay faithful.

So let's look at verse 10.

It says in the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas

by night unto Berea.

And so they're rushed out to a new place.

And then it says, who coming thither, went into the synagogue

of the Jews.

And so Paul and Silas go and do their thing.

They go and preach first to the Jews.

They go and appeal to the people that have religion.

They know about the Scriptures.

Now, the truth is, is that though they knew about the Scriptures,

many of them were misunderstanding the Scriptures or

at least incompletely seeing the Scriptures for what they should

be.

And we know that what Paul's message really is is, hey, everything

that you've seen in Scriptures points to Jesus.

Paul's preaching the Gospel.

He's preaching Jesus alone.

He's preaching salvation by faith and not by works.

He's preaching salvation by Faith through the grace of God, not

through the law of the people, not the tradition of man.

And so the people in Thessalonica, many believe.

But if you remember, who was the most upset in Thessalonica, it

was the Jews.

It was the devout men that had a system going on there.

And when Paul preached the message, it turned that system on

its head.

And they said, these are the men that are turning the world upside

down.

And, and I think that's a good thing, right?

It's a good thing.

Christians should be turning the world's culture upside down.

What the world says is the most important, we should say is

the least important.

What the world says is the least important, we should say is

the most important.

What.

What do people say?

You know, don't bring up religion around people.

That's not a good thing.

That's just only going to cause issues, folks.

The, the number one thing we should bring up is our faith.

And, and what the world says is, what you should talk about is

money and, and, and, and, you know, Hollywood and, and fame and

all of these things.

And that's the last thing that we should care about when it comes

to our Christian life.

And so we get to verse number 11, and we see that the Bereans are

going to be distinct.

They're going to be different than those that other people have

talked about here in these passages here.

The.

The author, Luke, he's talked about different people, he's talking

about different groups, but he says the Bereans are different.

Verse 11.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

So specifically, he's comparing the Bereans to the Thessalonicans,

the people of the Thessalonians, the people from Thessalonica

says in the Berean, the Bereans were different.

They were more noble.

Why?

He gives a couple of reasons why they were more noble.

Two things.

First, they earned this compliment because they received

the Word with all readiness of mind.

With all readiness of mind.

They're open to hear the Word.

This is important.

Now, we're going to see here in a few moments that they didn't

receive it blindly.

We're going to see that they definitely had their mind set on

checking the Word, but they received the Word with readiness

of mind.

They're open to the word.

Folks, I think that we should be like the Bereans in the fact that

we should be open to hearing and studying and receiving the Word

of God when someone stands up and preaches the truth of God.

And we should be ready to Hear that.

We should be open to hear that.

I know for me, sometimes it was easy for me to hear preaching

and receive it when I agreed with everything that they were saying,

when it, when it matched everything that my life was all about.

So if a preacher got up and said things that I agree with and

he didn't touch on any of the sins that I struggled with, I was

happy with him.

I might even say amen.

But the moment where that preacher started crossing the line

and stepping on my toes, my natural fleshly reaction was, I'm

gonna put a barrier up there.

I'm just gonna close off.

I'm gonna start thinking about the ball game.

I'm gonna start thinking about what's happening tomorrow.

We all know what it can be like.

We could be in a pew, but we could be a thousand miles away.

And what we can see here is distinct about the Marines is that

they receive the Word with all readiness of mind.

This is a really neat thing to see.

They.

They received the Word, but then it didn't stop with just them

receiving the Word says and search the Scriptures daily.

So, so it didn't stop with them hearing preaching and hearing

teaching.

They went further.

Daily.

They searched the Scriptures.

This talks about Bible study.

They checked what was being preached to them.

And so they searched the Scriptures daily.

Whether those things were so and so of all the people that they

could trust, we would say, hey, they could at least trust Paul.

I mean, if you think about who Paul is, this is a fellow that is

known to be the most famous apostle.

We could even argue the most famous theologian of all time, the

human author of many books in The New Testament, 13 New Testament

books, I believe.

Yet they still search the Scriptures daily to see if Paul was

telling them the truth.

That's so, so important because I think that what we need

to understand is that it doesn't really matter how the person

delivers the message.

We always must check to see if that message is coming from Scripture.

We talked about this before.

Sometimes there can be someone that gets up and is very entertaining.

Someone can get up and they can even be very compelling in their

analogies and their stories.

And they might even pepper in Scripture to what they're saying.

But folks, it's important for us to understand that we need to

go back to see what is the message that they are really preaching,

dive deeper.

The book of Jude says to contend for the faith.

The book of Jude tells us who, that if they're preaching anything

outside the truth of who Jesus Christ is, they're not preaching

the truth.

It might be helpful when it comes to my personal life.

Like, they might give me some advice that might make things happen

in my life, pragmatically speaking, work like, hey, you know

what?

If I just cut that person off, everything will be better in my life.

And so at first, it might sound like a good idea, but we need

to check what a person is preaching and match it to Scripture.

And that's what they did.

They received the Word, but then they checked the Word.

They received the Word, but they studied the Word.

And I think that so many times in our society today, people want

to hear, hey, what?

Just tell us what to believe.

Tell us what to do.

Give me a list.

Give, give, give me a, you know, a hundred steps to becoming

a good Christian.

And if you just do these a hundred steps, everything will be

okay.

But the problem is, is that's removing ourselves from digging to

the, into the Scriptures ourselves, allowing the Holy Spirit

to work in our lives and to convict us and to comfort us and

to guide us.

And so they search the Scriptures daily.

Whether those things were.

So I think the bigger question for us when we're hearing preaching

is this, where, where is that speaker?

Where is that teacher?

Where is that, that evangelist?

Where is that missionary getting his content from?

Is the content from Scripture?

Is the content from his own opinions now?

Could he have some good opinions?

Sure.

But the truth is, is that our opinions can fail.

My opinions, my inclinations, my desires are always going to be

inadequate in comparison to the perfect word of God.

The Bible speaks of the Word of God being forever.

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the Word of God is going

to be forever.

The grass withereth and the flower fadeth with the Word of God

is forever.

The only true, objective truth that we have in this world is scripture

and what it tells us about God.

Everything else in the world is going to fade away.

Everything else is going to change.

And what we're going to see here in this passage of Scripture,

that these Bereans received the Word and they searched the Word,

and we're going to even see that they applied the Word.

And so when the Bereans heard Paul teach, their reaction wasn't,

well, he's a good speaker.

Their reaction was, well, I don't like his delivery.

They didn't say, well, he's got funny jokes.

They, what did they do?

They went to, what does this man teach about the truth?

We must, we must search the Scriptures daily.

And, and I would say it this way, many of you, I think probably

most of you, hear preaching outside of the church.

You all, I know, hear preaching when you're here, okay?

I know that.

I know that because I, I, I'm in somewhat of control of what's

being preached from the pulpit.

So I know you're hearing preaching when you come here.

Check that preaching.

I would say, first and foremost, check the preaching that,

that I preach.

Check the preaching that Pastor John preaches.

Check all the teachers at Middletown Baptist Church.

Folks, the moment we start to question people, when they question

is the moment we have gotten into a bad place.

Hey, what we have to do is we have to say this.

Look, I'm going to preach to you the best that I possibly can,

but I'm not afraid of you inspecting.

Folks.

If we are afraid of people inspecting what we teach and what

we believe, we might not be be believing the right thing.

Or maybe we're not solid in what we believe about the truth of

Jesus Christ.

Folks, this, this word here can be scrutinized.

Let, let's allow it to be scrutinized.

You would say what?

That's not fair.

No, the truth is, is that we have something that cannot be torn

away.

We have a, a book here, the Word of God.

What does that mean, Word of God?

It means all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

It's breathed by God.

Therefore, there's no contradictions.

We don't have to worry about that.

There's no failures.

There's no inadequacies.

And what we can say here this evening is that if a preacher is

coming up and preaching from the word, hey, they're going to be

okay with you asking questions.

They're going to be okay with you checking them.

The, the moment where, and maybe some of you have had this experience

in your life where you go up to someone and say, why do we believe

this?

And they get upset about that and don't give you a solid answer.

Or maybe say, well, you just can't understand why we do that.

That's the moment where we say, that might be a false teacher.

We need to, we need to separate ourselves from that.

And if a person tells you, hey, you know what?

This is the truth, make sure they are putting that in truth.

Make sure they are grounding that in scripture.

You're listening to a YouTube video.

Some of you might say, pastor, I appreciate your preaching, but

I got to hear more preaching throughout the week.

Fantastic.

I hope you do.

But the question is, is who are you listening to and what are

they preaching?

Always check that preaching with the word.

Search the scriptures daily.

And we see that it's daily we see that it's something that they

regularly did.

And so their research wasn't, you know, just casual like, well,

I think there's a verse in Scripture about that.

So I'm okay.

He used the word Jesus, so that's okay.

We know that someone can use the word Jesus but not be talking

about our Jesus.

We know someone can use the word gospel and not be talking about

our gospel.

Someone can use the word Bible but not be talking about our Bible.

There's a lot of people that believe that, hey, this is a good

book, Jesus was a good man, Christianity is a good thing.

But they're preaching an incomplete gospel, they're preaching

a false gospel.

And so what they did is they checked him with the scriptures.

They searched the scriptures.

They saw value in that.

So of us don't search our scriptures because we don't see value

in that.

We see value in maybe allowing someone else to search it for us.

You know, there's something rewarding about receiving a truth

from a preacher, but there's something even more rewarding when

I find that truth for myself in scripture, when I understand that

and believe it and apply it to my life.

And so they saw value in searching the Scriptures.

They, they, they saw the value in taking some time to look into

it and dig deeper.

The Bible speaks of something called meditation.

Now, actually, meditation is talked about a lot in our society

today.

People that are atheists will say there's a benefit to meditation.

If you go to somebody that doesn't believe in God, they'll say,

hey, you need to meditate.

But it's a different type of meditation.

The meditation that the world speaks of is clearing your mind and

having an empty mind.

The Bible actually says that meditation is the opposite.

It's filling our minds with the truth of God.

It's filling our minds with the Word and then dwelling on that,

living in that, chewing on it, grabbing every nutrient that we can

from the scriptures.

And so they searched the scriptures to find out the truth.

They received the Word and they believed the Word when they

searched it and matched it with the truth of God.

So they had diligent searching.

They were concerned for the truth.

They didn't nest.

They didn't become skeptical.

But all they did was they matched up the truth of the preaching

with the truth of Scripture.

So we go back to the passage there, and it says, therefore, what

was the result of this?

Therefore, many of them believed faith cometh by hearing

and hearing by the word of God.

We want to see more people believe in the Truth.

We need to proclaim the truth more, Proclaim the Word more.

We're going to see revival in our midst when the Word of God is

celebrated, when the Word of God is embraced, when the Word of

God is lived out.

We see people growing in their faith.

When the Word of God is clearly explained and meditated upon

and searched in daily.

Folks, you want to see spiritual growth in your life, be

open to hearing preaching, but then search the scriptures daily.

You have questions, ask if you're confused, it's okay.

Let me tell you a little secret.

Everyone that searches the scriptures gets confused here and

there.

We're human.

We're flawed.

The Bible says that if we lack wisdom, James tells us this, right?

James says, if we lack wisdom, what do we do?

We just give up.

We ask of God, and he gives it to us liberally.

He doesn't hold it against us.

So, folks, if there's a.

I've heard a lot of people say, well, you know what?

I try to read the Bible and I just get lost.

I.

I just.

I.

I understand, I understand.

I've been there.

I've read scripture, and my eyes begin to cross, and I go, I'm

not sure what this is talking about right here.

But the truth is that we search, we dig deeper, we go further,

we take a step of saying, you know what?

I'm willing to dig deeper because I see value in this.

Don't give up.

Don't give up on it.

Continue to pursue the truth of God.

And I would say for us, you know, we're willing.

And I'm going to say this in love here this evening.

You guys know that I love you, right?

We're willing to sit down and watch something for three, four hours

if it's entertaining us, right?

None of us would say, like, it's really hard to sit down and

watch my favorite movie or sit down and watch my favorite team.

I mean, we're on every.

We're.

We're hanging on every little thing.

But sometimes when we look at scripture, we say, well, you know

what?

I just.

I just Scripture and I don't click.

I understand, I understand that, that different people read

and retain differently, okay?

But the beauty of what God has given us within our culture is that

there's ways that you can listen to scripture.

There's ways that you can have scripture dictated to you, dramatized.

Okay?

There's.

There's all different ways that you can intake Scripture.

And so what I would tell you to do is find a way that works for

you and say, you know what?

I'm going to meditate upon scripture here today.

That's great that we heard a sermon, but how many of us.

And I want you to.

Don't raise your hand right now, but I want you to do this.

How many of you have said, I'm going to go back and read that passage

of scripture that pastor read today and preached today and see

if he was making sense.

Like, was he really making sense about that?

That's why, that's why you hear me say, every single time I

get up and preach.

Maybe not every single time, but I'll say, open your Bibles too,

because I want you to be looking, I want you to be checking,

because I might say something wrong.

I.

I will say something wrong.

I will mess up.

Okay, so make sure.

I mean, for example, I've been.

One time I was preaching, I was preaching on one side of the

page and, And I have my notes over here.

And, And I had.

And I.

And I looked back and I started preaching from a whole other

passage of scripture, like three columns over.

And I'm like, I'm trying to make sense of this.

And I'm going, I'm totally lost right now.

Where was I going with this?

And I realized I.

And I had to go back and correct all that.

But the truth is, is like, there's going to be times where it's

very tempting to say, well, I'm sure they're going to throw the

scripture up on the screen.

And trust me, I don't care if it's.

I mean, some people prefer the paper, some people prefer the phone

or the laptop or whatever.

But bring scripture out when someone is speaking, check them on

that, and we see the result is this faith.

We see that they are coming to Christ.

They believe also of honorable women, which were Greeks and of men,

not a few, meaning there was a lot of men and women getting saved.

It wasn't just one group of people.

They received it with readiness of mind.

They checked the scriptures.

And many believed Paul had nothing to fear by preaching.

But Paul had nothing to fear by them searching the scriptures

either.

If they were really seeking God in his word, they would find

out that Paul was preaching the truth.

And any preacher worth his weight and salt.

I've heard that phrase before, and I've had to look up what that

meant.

But, but, but any, any preacher that's a good preacher will

be willing for someone to inspect their preaching.

And we have to see that here.

Paul says, hey, we have nothing to hide.

Not every single preacher in the world will.

Will say that.

There are some religions, dare I say cults, that will not want you

to look into certain areas.

They will avoid that.

They won't shine light in that corner of their belief system.

There will be people that say you have to pay X amount of dollars

to get to the next level.

And if you're not at that level, you can't understand this

next level of truth.

Folks, Christianity should be the opposite.

The truths of God are obtainable by people that are billionaires

and people that have not one cent of their name because it's the

truth of God to all people.

And so the moment that someone doesn't want you, hey, well, all

you got to do is buy my three step plan and now you can know more

about Jesus.

That's, that's a false preacher, that's a false teacher.

The word of God should not be monetized.

It should not be a place where we can profit off of the person who

is seeking.

Now can do.

People have to cover their cost and make a living.

I understand that, but you understand people have made the gospel

basically a avenue to abuse.

People that are searching and they mislead them.

And there were many people that were doing that in that society

and there's many people that are doing that in this society today.

We're going to see that there were a lot of intellectuals in Paul's

time that were preaching something that was contradictory

to the gospel.

Next week we're going to look at Paul in Athens and man, that's

a really interesting study.

And we're going to get there here in a little bit.

But let's go back.

So, so many people believed the women, the men.

And the reason being is that they were searching the scriptures

and they were realizing that Paul's message was aligning with

the truth.

And so this is exactly what's happening there with the Bereans.

They search, they see the truth and they believe.

You know what, we have a world today that's searching for God.

We really do.

If you look at the national news, you look at the Internet, you

look at podcasts, there's a lot of religion out there right now.

People are seeking after the truth.

Now they're off.

Many of them are off.

But they're looking for some truth and they're looking for a voice

that can preach the truth.

And what I could tell you here today is that we need to utilize

this opportunity.

If people are seeking, we need to show them the truth.

We need to preach the truth.

We don't need to be afraid of preaching or teaching the truth.

And so that's what Paul was doing here.

He was saying, hey, you know what?

They're searching, so let's preach to them.

Let's preach to them the truth.

So let's look at verse 13.

It says, but when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the

word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, these were the same

guys that just chased Paul out.

These were the ones that got upset.

Why?

Because Paul and his cohorts were turning their world upside down.

They get mad and they actually pursue Paul and go to Berea.

So the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God

was preached at of Paul at Berea.

They came thither also and stirred up the people.

Anytime the word of God is preached, people will be upset.

There will be opposition.

There always will be opposition to the preaching of the

Word of God.

At least I can look in Scripture and see that every time

the word of God was preached, there's going to be people that are

naysayers.

And in the sad case, it's the religious people.

In this case it's the Jewish people.

It's the ones who had a way of doing things.

And they were like, well, you know what?

If this grace is preached, if this Jesus is preached, we're not

going to be able to have the control like we had before our.

Our way of doing things.

Our tradition is going to be flipped on its head.

And so many times that's what we see in our world today, that we

value tradition and man made religion more than a relationship

with Jesus Christ and the truth.

And so what we can see here is that the Jews of Thessalonica are

going to cause some issues.

But obviously the word of God is more powerful than naysayers.

The word of God is more powerful than any opposition that

is faced.

And so they were not satisfied to chase Paul out.

They wanted to go after Paul even when he went to another place.

And so this same thing of stirring up the crowd happened in

many places in Paul's ministry.

And what happens here is, is God directing them somewhere else.

Verse 14.

And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go, as

it were, to the sea.

So a lot of people stop at the Bereans being, you know, more noble

because of them receiving the Scriptures with readiness of mind

and because they search the Scriptures daily.

But I think you could take it a little bit further.

They're no, they're noble because they believed, and they're

noble because they protect Paul.

Here they say, paul, you have a message that you need to preach,

we need to protect you, we need to get you away from here.

And they do.

God preserves Paul.

But this is interesting.

Paul did not leave Silas and Timotheus or Timothy with the folks

there in Thessalonica.

But he does leave Silas and Timothy there in this case.

And so Paul leaves.

They sent Paul away.

But at the end of verse 14, we see that Silas and Timothy stay there

for a while.

And Paul, I think Paul saw the need for discipleship there.

Paul wanted to leave them behind to teach and to take care

of these new Christians.

And so God moved in the heart of Paul to disciple these young Christians

there at Berea.

Verse 15.

And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens.

And receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come

to him with all speed, they departed.

So we do know at some point Silas and Timothy stayed there.

And this shows that Paul had a passion not just to evangelize, but

to plant churches.

We should have a passion for converts, but it should be more than

just converts.

We should have a passion for building disciples.

We should have a passion for building followers.

And that's why he left Silas and Timothy there.

It showed that Paul didn't believe that he alone can do the

work of converting.

He needed people like Silas and Timothy to help him and to teach.

And not one person can be the sole person when it comes to preaching

the gospel and teaching people.

We, we need other folks to step up and to help.

And that's exactly what we see here in the case of, of Paul, Silas

and Timothy.

So you would say, what else can we learn from the Bereans?

I, I think one thing is this.

They, they received the Word with readiness of mind.

I like that phrase, readiness of mind.

They were ready to receive.

They had an open heart and they had an open mind to the truth.

Open heart and open mind.

There, there are some people that are, are open hearted to the

truth, but they're not open minded to the truth.

What do I mean by that?

They're not.

They, they want to receive the Word with their heart and their emotions,

but they don't want to receive it with their intellect.

And I think that's important to notice because we have some people

that will be just stirred by emotional preaching, but yet they

don't think about the implications of what this means in

accordance to scripture for their life.

It's a very flash in the pan kind of reception of the Word of

God.

There are other people who receive the Word of God, who, with

all intellect but no emotion in their hearts.

So theoretically, this all works.

But I don't need to put it to practice.

This all makes sense to me.

And I'll even Amen.

And I'll even agree that, yes, we should live this way, but it all

stops there.

And I.

I think what the Bereans did that's unique is that they received

it with an openness of mind.

They searched the Scriptures daily, they checked it, but then

they received it with an openness of heart to apply it to

their lives.

And so many times you can hear someone get up and preach the truth

and go, yeah, they're good preachers.

I agree, Amen.

But we don't really receive it with our hearts to live it out in

our lives.

The.

The decision that we make stays in that pew or our agree, you

know, because, by the way, let me just tell you this.

Agreeing with a speaker is not enough.

Okay, Let me say I got up here tonight and I said something egregiously

unbiblical anti God.

You would say, I don't agree with that.

And that's good.

But in practice, basically agreeing with a biblical truth but

not doing anything about it is basically the same thing, right?

It's basically that, like, okay, love your neighbor as yourself.

Amen.

But if I don't go love my neighbor as myself, I'm just basically

agreeing to the fact that, hey, you know what?

Loving my neighbor isn't important.

Study the Scriptures.

Amen.

I don't go study my Scriptures.

I didn't really believe that to be true.

I believe it intellectually.

But what do they say?

There's.

That there was a track years ago.

I'm sure that it's still around today, like 18 inches from

heaven.

Like the.

The distance from your brain and from your heart is like 18 inches.

And they say, you know, it's one thing to believe in your mind,

but to believe it in your heart and apply it to your life is

another thing.

And I think that's the difference of the Bereans.

They.

They received it with readiness of mind, but they were

open to studying it daily and open it to applying to the life.

You say, how do you know they applied it to their lives?

Well, we know that there was a church that grew there in Berea,

but even so, we know that there was an individual that left

Berea and actually went with Paul on one of his trips.

And so if you go to Acts, chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Acts, chapter 20, verse 4, Paul visits Macedonia and Greece,

Acts 20:4

and we see that there, accompanying him into Asia is so

potter of Berea.

And so we know that there was an individual that was saved at some

point there in Berea, discipled there in Berea, and then

went out and started serving with Paul.

So we know that there was some element of health happening and growth

happening there in Berea, and that's how it should be.

You know, if someone came to this church today and visited this

church and they saw the snapshot of who we were, and they

came back in 10 years and everybody was the same, except we

all just were a little bit older, maybe a little bit grayer,

but all of us were at the same place in our life when it came to

our spiritual side, or maybe we've even regressed.

You know, that would be a shame.

The truth is, is that every element of the church should be pushing

forward to growth, should be pushing forward to discipleship,

should be pushing forward to being a church that's searching the

scriptures daily.

Folks.

We should be a church.

We.

We don't have to be.

We don't have to be the church that has a bunch of PhD people in

it.

You don't have to read, you know, big commentaries every single

day.

But we should be a church that emphasizes the study of the word

of God.

We should be a church that emphasizes that.

That we can actually think biblically about things.

What.

What if someone came up to you and said, why do you believe what

you believe?

Would you be able to explain that to somebody?

Brother Bob, how you're teaching in your class.

How can we trust this thing right here?

Why do we trust the 66 books?

Why don't we trust that this.

Why don't we trust this book, Right?

Have you ever had someone ask you that?

Why don't you read the Book of Enoch?

Why don't you read the Book of Barnabas or the Gospel of Barnabas?

And if you.

You're like, I don't know.

Well, you know, I'm not saying all of you need to understand those

things, but we do need to have a set of understanding of these things.

When we come to people that are going to ask us questions, then

you say, well, Pastor, that's your job.

Yes, I understand that.

I understand.

I'm doing everything that I possibly can to intake knowledge

so that I can apply that in my teaching and my preaching and my

counseling.

But all of us have responsibility to search the scriptures

daily, to be articulate, to be fluent in what the Bible says.

How many of us, let's be honest with ourselves here tonight.

How many of us would be nervous if a child came up and started

asking us Bible questions about their Sunday school class.

You'd say, well, I wouldn't be nervous.

I know the story of Jonah.

I know the story of Moses.

Well, what if they were learning about something that maybe

you weren't familiar with?

And you would say, I.

I don't know, maybe.

Well, instead of being shamed about it, say, hey, let's study it

together.

Let's look at this together.

I've had that happen.

I've had Alicia's like, hey, what do you know about this in scripture?

And I'm like, man, I don't know.

I haven't tuned up on that one in a while.

Let's look at.

I'll have to check that one later.

I don't know everything about scripture.

You could read the Bible every day of your life for 50 years and

still not know everything about Scripture.

And.

And that's the beauty of being a berean, is that we're growing every

single day.

So if someone came back in 10, 20, 50 years, some of you are like,

I don't know if I'll be here in 10, 20, 50 years.

50 years.

I don't know.

I don't know if I'll be here in 50 years.

Oh, man, that's pretty sobering thought.

Anyway, either way you think about it, if someone came back in

a long time, would I be at a further step of being closer to the

Lord when they checked in on me again?

And my encouragement for you here this evening is to be a Berean,

to receive the Word with readiness of mind as a.

As a.

You know, when I tell you one of the things that I would do is

a.

As a.

As a person.

So I'm going to give you a little snapshot into my life.

Pastors aren't perfect, and I wasn't even a pastor at this point.

I was in.

I was doing my master's degree, and I was, you know, doing

classes, and I thought I really knew a lot about scripture.

Like, I thought I was like the man in that area.

And so I would hear preachers come up and, you know, instead of

me going, what is that preacher preaching about the truth

of God?

I would sit there and want to critique.

Okay, so what is he.

Okay, so what is he going to preach?

How is he going to exposit this passage here?

Did he reference that Greek thing?

I would have put a point there instead, you know, And I was thinking.

I was like, I knew what I was doing.

And in that whole process of trying to critique that preacher,

I didn't even take any spiritual Truth with me.

And he was giving good spiritual truths out.

And so you would say, well, I'm not tempted to do that, Pastor.

But you know what you are tempted to do?

Maybe to say, well, you know what?

I got tomorrow at work, okay, I got a lot on my plate.

Walking into the office on Monday morning, started letting your

mind drift, right?

To receive the Word with readiness of mind to not allow ourselves

to be distracted, to not allow ourselves to, to take ourselves to

a place where we are not engaged in the preaching of the Word

of God.

And there's preachers are different.

I mean, some preachers are going to hold your attention better

than others.

Some preachers you're going to click with other preachers you're

going to say, man, you know, it's a little bit more difficult.

We have a missionary come in and, and maybe they're, they're preaching

certain different ways or another speaker coming in.

I would always encourage you to say, hey, if he is preaching the

word of God, there's something there for me tonight.

And I've always told people this, and I know that this is a difficult

thing to swallow because I don't think you should get up and

just read.

But if someone just got up and read scripture for 20 minutes, that's

beneficial to us when it comes.

No scripture is, is going to return void.

Right.

Now I do believe that there's a challenge for us as preachers to

exposit and to teach the passage.

But, but I would encourage you to think about it from this perspective.

Even if it's not my favorite story, even if it's not my favorite

preacher, even if it's not my favorite style, if he is preaching

the truth of God, there's something there for me.

So to receive the Word with readiness of mind.

Lord willing, in a few years we're going to have some of our men,

our young men, our teens coming up here and preaching.

Guys, be patient with them.

It's not so easy to get up here and to talk for X amount of

time and keep your focus on the Word of God.

And there might be a fellow that gets up here and he's stumbling

all over himself, but he's going to give you a truth to the

Word of God.

Hey, make sure you say Amen.

Make sure you hear that and let them know that you're thankful

for them Preaching the Word of God.

So receive the Word.

But it's more than that.

It's, it's studying the Word.

If you know, we, we watch.

Well, I'll say it this way, my My son is getting into sports.

Micah, he likes sports.

Silas likes sports, too, but he's not able to kind of articulate

himself yet.

But Mike is like, dad, he watches these guys on tv, and he

watches how these football guys catch the ball and run.

He's like, dad, I think I want to be.

I want to play.

Am I going to.

I think he said, am I going to play college football, Dad?

I said, son, I don't know.

But I will tell you this.

If.

If you expect just to never play football and never practice

football and then go out and play football at the highest level,

it's probably not going to happen.

Right?

Got it.

You got to put the work in.

You got to practice.

You got to do the daily grind.

You got to do the things that are not easy.

And a lot of times we'll say, like, well, I want to know the Word.

I want to be able to live a godly life.

But a lot of times we want to do that without searching the Scriptures

daily.

And so the challenge is, for many of us as Christians, is I think

a lot of us, I think most of us would want to be those seasoned,

mature Christians and say, you know, I just want to have a.

A word from God to everyone when I come.

When they come up to me and ask me a question.

I want to use Scripture.

Folks, that doesn't come overnight.

That doesn't just get implanted into your mind now by the

power of God.

He helps us.

But what I would say is it takes the time and the effort to

love and to grow in the word of God.

It's a spiritual discipline to search the Scriptures daily whether

those things were so.

And I.

And I'll tell you this, and we'll be done after this.

If you see something in scripture that you're like, pastor,

why'd you preach that?

I'm gonna do my best to respond back to you with grace and

try to be as.

As humble as I can in my response, because, you know, every

person in this room is valid in the concept of, hey, you know

what?

If you see something in scripture and you want to have a

question about that, don't be afraid to come ask.

See, I've always been taught this about, you know, I've heard

that phrase a lot.

I've always been taught this, but why do we believe this?

It might be that, hey, that's not really in scripture.

It's just something that we've always done.

You can still do that, but it's not in Scripture.

I.

I miss.

I.

I said this this week with the.

I was it this week or last week?

I said it cleanly, guys.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

I said that to our kids.

And Alicia, Alicia caught me on that.

She goes where I, she's like, where is that in scripture?

I was like, it's not.

Okay, it's not.

But that's sometimes what happens.

Sometimes we get these little phrases that are not scriptural,

but we almost adhere to the fact that they are.

And, and it's okay to say that.

You, you can say like, hey, we should be clean, guys, but don't

tell your children.

That's in, in a passage of scripture.

It's not okay.

God helps those who help themselves.

That's not in Scripture.

Okay?

So, so there, there are a lot of things that you'll hear in our

vernacular, in our, in our culture that are not scriptural,

but you would never know that unless you dug into scripture.

Unless you go into scripture and say, okay, that's not there.

Or that is there, and we should be preaching that.

So never be ashamed.

Like you could be 70 years old and maybe not have an understanding

of what, why we believe what we believe.

It's okay, it's okay.

There's no shame in that.

There's things that we're all learning day to day and, and I would

encourage you to think about the why behind that.

So be a berean.

Be a berean.

When it comes to receiving the word, searching the word, believing

the word, and then protecting the word.

Okay?

Think about it that way.

Receive the word, study the word, believe the word, protect the

word.

I think when we do it like that, we can be successful in our,

in our walk with Christ.

Well, thank you so much for your attention.

Next week, if you're interested, Paul is going to go to

Athens.

Very interesting story where it comes to, he's dealing with people

like the Epicureans, the Stoics.

This is maybe some stuff that you've heard in your history class.

Yeah, this is history.

So we're going to really see Paul interact with these folks here

in this area and talk about philosophies of man.

And I think that one of the things we're going to learn is that

Paul actually uses certain elements of their culture to reach

them for Christ.

And there's things that we can do within our world today, our culture,

to reach people for Christ.

And I think it'll be a really neat eye opening experience for us

to grow and understand how we can share our faith with people around

us.

Well, let's go ahead and pray and then we'll be dismissed here

this evening.

Lord, I thank you for this time that you've given us.

I thank you for the opportunity to study your Word this

evening.

We're thankful for the wonderful songs that we sang, the

wonderful testimonies we had.

Lord, we thank you for the example of the Bereans.

We thank you for the fact that they received the Word there with

readiness of mind.

Lord, we're thankful that they search the Scriptures daily.

We're thankful that they believed.

We're thankful that they protected Paul as he was.

I'm promoting the truth and and also as they grew in in the teaching

of of Silas and Timothy.

Lord, I pray that we can follow that same model within our

midst.

Lord, help us to grow.

Help us to search.

Help us to to be able to stand upon the truth that we believe.

And so Lord, I pray that you keep us safe as we go our separate

ways this evening and we ask all these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

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You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro Middletown BaptistChurch.com

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.