Faith in the Face of Fear: Lessons from Paul's Journey

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.

All right, well, we're going to go ahead and start our Bible study

here this evening.

Now, we were studying a book of the Bible before we got to the

Christmas season.

And I know that we're a little light in numbers tonight, but does

anyone remember what book we were studying?

We were 16 chapters in.

So if you don't remember, it's going to hurt my heart.

It's going to be us, ax.

All right.

I had some people that came through there.

I appreciate that.

Acts.

And we were actually using Acts Acts as an acronym for a phrase,

and it was Authentic Church through Scripture.

Okay.

So hopefully some of this is ringing a bell for the regulars and

for others.

We'll catch you up.

I'm going to give you a synopsis of 16 chapters of the book

of Acts in three minutes.

Just kidding.

I can't do that.

But we're going to do.

What we're going to do tonight is I'll try to catch you up the best

that I can with where we are, and then we're going to jump right

into Acts 17.

So we've gone through 16 chapters in the Book of Acts.

Now, what we have learned so far is that the early church was

commissioned or given a job to preach the gospel, right.

And.

And to spread.

And that spread came through them going out and telling people.

But actually, we saw that the spread of the Gospel actually came

through persecution.

And as the persecution began to grow, so then the people began

to spread.

And God allowed certain difficulties to happen to the church

so that the gospel would be spread.

And we looked at a bunch of different things.

We looked at a fellow named Stephen, the some people call the

first deacon.

He was martyred for his faith.

And actually there was a fella that was there as a witness and was

holding the coats of the fellows that were stoning him.

And that was a guy named Saul.

Now, we've kind of tracked the life of Saul.

We looked at Saul's conversion, his transformation from

being a persecutor of Christians to being a preacher to

folks in Christianity and actually being the one persecuted.

And that's where we pick up.

But Paul is now on his second missionary journey.

We tracked his first Missionary journey.

He went all the way around into places like Asia and even moved

his way into Europe and worked his way all the way back to Jerusalem

and then moved his way back out.

And now he's on his second missionary journey and we're going

to see here this evening he leaves a place, Philippi, which was

a place that he saw the conversion of this fellow.

This was the jail keeper, the prison keeper, and his whole family

was transformed.

In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we saw a lady named Lydia that was

converted there in Philippi.

And really, if we remember, Philippi was a place that Paul wasn't

even intending to go.

It was actually God had closed two doors to get him to go to Philippi.

And we learned that sometimes God closes doors.

He speaks just as loud by closed doors as he does open doors.

And sometimes God stops things in our life so that he brings us

to a place where we need to go.

And whether Paul knew it or not, he needed to go to Philippi

to see these individuals converted.

But now he leaves Philippi and we're going to see in Acts chapter

Acts 17 · chapter mention

17, he goes to a place called Thessalonica.

And we're going to look at his visit here to Thessalonica.

It's a short visit.

It's a visit that sees some success but actually sees a lot of

persecution in a short amount of time.

And they're basically chased out in three weeks.

And believe it or not though, within this three week period, a

church is started.

And we see that there are actually two books of the Bible,

first and Second Thessalonians that are written to the church that

was started at this very moment here in Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

So what's significant about Thessalonica?

Well, it's a prominent city in a place called Macedonia, modern

day Greece.

If you go to the Footsteps of Paul tour in Greece, you will go

to Thessalonica.

And it due to its location, it's a seaport there on the Aegean

Sea and it was a major place for Roman transit.

And Paul and Silas traveled to Thessalonica there to preach the

gospel of Jesus Christ to these people.

So this is a very well to do city.

It's a city that had a lot of religion, it's a city that had a

lot of trade.

And so there's going to be an opportunity for Paul to preach the

gospel here with Silas and the the group that is going.

So let's go ahead and look at Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

You have somewhat of a context to what's happening here.

And then we're going to look at what happens as he preaches.

So it says here in verse one.

Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia,

they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them.

And so Paul's first step was he would go and he would preach to

the Jewish people in all of these cities, because all of these

cities had Jews there living.

And they would then meet in the synagogue.

Now, what's significant about the synagogue, the synagogue was

not just their church.

The synagogue was the meeting place.

The synagogue was the town hall.

They would all go to the synagogue to learn.

They would all go to the synagogue to share.

And so Paul thought that this was the best place to go to speak

to individuals who already had an understanding of the Old Testament

scriptures.

So what Paul would do is he would go to synagogues and he would

reason with the people from the Old Testament, Jesus Christ.

So he would preach to them not religion, but a relationship with

Jesus.

And so it says in verse two, as Paul, as his manner was, went

in unto them and three Sabbath days.

So three Sabbath days means he was there for three weeks.

So he would come and speak on their Sabbath, which would be basically

Saturday, and he would come in and he would speak each Sabbath in

the synagogue.

And so he said, it said there that he spoke three Sabbath days.

And then it says this phrase here, reason with them out of the

Scriptures.

Now, I want you to think about that phrase, reason with them from

the Scriptures, because there's a lot of significance to

that, because that is how we are supposed to deal with individuals

that need Jesus Christ.

Reason with them out of the Scriptures, not reason with them

with man's wisdom or reason with them out of some kind of argument

in accordance to pragmatic thinking.

Now, when I use that word, pragmatic, what does that mean?

Pragmatic means it works.

So a lot of people preach religion in a pragmatic way.

Well, if this makes your life better, you need to believe it.

And though Jesus makes our life better, we understand that that

doesn't always look like a material better.

It doesn't always look like a physical better.

It might be a spiritual better, but it might not be what

the world is seeking after.

So it says there that he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.

And this was his custom.

The Greek word for reason is really the root word that we get

for the word in English, dialogue.

So he dialogues with them, he has a conversation with them.

And so essentially, what we See is he discusses Scripture with

these people.

And so Paul did the work of explaining to them about Scripture.

So verse three, it says, opening and alleging that Christ

must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead.

This looks exactly like what we were talking about this morning.

Paul comes to them and it says here, opening and alleging.

Basically, he op.

Literally it's saying he opened the Scriptures and reason

with them and explained to them the Gospel.

Now we have to understand Paul didn't have the New Testament as

we have it today.

So we know what Paul is doing is he's referring back to the Old

Testament and appealing to, to the prophecies of Jesus and showing

that Jesus was the fulfillment of those prophecies.

But nonetheless, Paul is preaching the gospel.

We could preach the gospel from the New Testament.

We could preach the gospel from the Old Testament.

There is a very common teaching out there today that says,

remove the Old Testament and all we need is the new.

We do need the new, but we also need the old.

You can preach the gospel from Isaiah 53.

You can preach the gospel from the book of Genesis.

Genesis chapter 3, verse 15 is called the proto evangelium, which

Genesis 3:15

means the first gospel.

If you look at Genesis 3:15, what does it say?

Genesis 3:15

It talks all about that the seed of the woman would crush the

seed of man, the seed of the serpent, right?

And so there would be that conflict, that good and evil, but

ultimately Christ would come and be the Messiah and give us salvation.

And so I think it's important for us to think about how Paul brings

the gospel to these people.

And I'll remember he's bringing the gospel to religious

people.

He's bringing the gospel to people who are devout.

A lot of times we think that we're bringing the gospel to people

that are completely unaware of the truth of Jesus Christ or completely

unaware of religion or completely unaware of the Bible.

And that is sometimes the case.

We, we do see that Paul does preach to people that are unaware

of any religion.

But we do see, for the most part, though, that Paul preaches

to people who have some semblance of understanding of God,

God and of the Scriptures.

And that's important because one time I used to think that, that

if someone's in church, they must know about the gospel.

If someone's in church, they must know what the Bible says about

Jesus, about salvation, about forgiveness.

But I'm going to tell you, folks, I.

I grew up in a Christian home, I grew up in a Christian school,

but yet I didn't get saved until I was 16 years old.

It was because I knew intellectually, I knew in my mind

what the Bible said about the gospel, but I had yet believed it.

And so what Paul does here is he's not just teaching them facts.

He's opening the Scriptures and alleging, or really what we would

say is explaining the Gospel to them in a way that they can understand.

So he says what, what is he alleging?

What is he trying to convince them of?

That Christ needs to have suffered and he needs to be risen

again from the dead in their minds.

And that Jesus, whom I preach to you, is the Christ or the Messiah.

So what is he preaching?

He's preaching Jesus.

He's preaching salvation through Jesus and Jesus alone.

He's preaching the complete Gospel, his life, death, burial and

resurrection.

And so there's a lesson that we can learn here from Paul as he's

preaching, and it ties right together with what we talked about

this morning.

He's preaching plainly, he's preaching powerfully.

We're going to see here he preaches persistently and no doubt

he was doing it prayerfully.

If we look at Paul's life, he.

He is a man of prayer.

And so he comes and preaches the complete, authentic gospel, nothing

pulled back.

He preaches Christ to them.

And so what's the result?

Well, the result's going to be here that some believe and some of

them believed.

So there are individuals that are in the synagogue that are hearing

the truth.

Some are going to believe and some aren't going to believe.

What's the distinction?

What's the difference?

What's the difference between the people that believe and don't

believe?

Well, we see here that when verse four.

And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas and

the devout Greeks, a great multitude of them, chief women, not

of a few, meaning the Greeks and the women were the ones actually

believing.

And many of the religious Jews weren't believing.

We're going to see here in a few moments that it was their pride

that was holding them back from believing the truth of Jesus

Christ.

And so there are individuals like the Greeks and even the women

here, which at this time frame, these were the ones that were

considered lower in class than the religious men.

But the Bible knows that these were the ones predominantly were

the ones that were getting saved because they were coming with

humility, they were coming with a sense of openness.

But we see verse five.

But the Jews which believe not.

So here's the distinction.

It's really this.

Those who believed in the message and those who didn't believe

the message.

Paul isn't preaching a different message to these people

that believe and then a failure message over to here to these

people that believe.

Sometimes we think that when people don't believe, it's a failure.

It's, it's not a failure if you present the gospel to the best

of your ability.

And, and what we can see here is that there's some people believing,

some people not believing.

Verse 5.

But the Jews which believe not moved with envy, jealousy, pride.

So we see what holds back these individuals from coming to

Christ and it's their pride, it's their envious nature, it's their

jealousy.

And so Paul emphasized in all of this who Jesus is.

He is the Christ, he is the one who died, he is the one who rose

again.

And so some of them were persuaded, persuaded there was a

good response from some.

The, the greatest multitude of believers were the Greeks.

They were the women.

But what we can see here is that their jealousy, their envy got

the best of them.

And so just like places like Antioch, just like places like Iconium

and Lystra and Paul's first missionary journey, there is a mob

incited by envious people, prideful people.

And so what we can see here is that the indication of their belief

is linked to their humility.

The indication of their unbelief is linked to their pride.

So what we can say is this.

It's the classic principle that God resists the proud but gives

grace to the humble.

The more we respond in pride and envy to the message of the gospel,

the more we are self focused in the gospel, the more we come to

a place in our life where we reject the gospel.

And so we see here in verse 5 that the Jews which believe not moved

with envy took unto them certain.

And this is, I like the, how the King James puts this because

it makes it very proper.

It says this certain lewd fellows of the baser sort.

We don't use that very common that.

My, my old pastor used to use that for people that were difficult.

He was like, we've got some lewd fellows of the baser sword over

here.

That's a nice way to say that these were bad guys.

They weren't the good guys in town.

They were the ones that were looking for a fight.

They were fellows that were inappropriate.

They were rabble arousers.

They were the ones that were in the fight all the time.

They were known to be troublemakers.

And so these religious Jewish people that claim to be the highest

in society when it came to believing in God got envious of Paul's

Success in preaching the gospel, that they went and they got

the bad people in town, the rabble rousers, the lewd fellows

of a baser sort, and they said, let's cause some issues, let's

stir up the pot.

And so they get these guys and they go and they attack a fella named

Jason.

Now why do they attack Jason?

Well, we're going to find out why here in a few moments.

So he gets these, these, they get these lewd fellows of the baser

sort and they gathered a company and set all the city on an

uproar.

So a little 11, 11, if the whole lump, right, we see that there's

a group of people that are upset with what Paul is doing and

Silas and the rest of them, that they cause a riot and it says,

and they assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them

out to the people.

Now why did they attack the house of Jason?

Well, most commentators believe that Jason's house was the

centerpiece for the ministry of Paul and Silas in Thessalonica.

Now you remember that they went to the synagogue to preach,

but they met in homes at this time frame.

So it was probably Jason's house that was known as the Christians

meeting place in the place of Thessalonica.

So Jason is the one housing and taking care of Paul and Silas

and the other Christians there.

So they attacked Jason's house.

And it says in verse six.

And when they found them not meaning Paul and Silas, they drew

Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying,

these that have turned the world upside down are come hither.

Also.

I like that phrase that they use there.

They basically say that Paul and Silas and the apostles have turned

the world upside down.

Man.

Wouldn't it be an amazing thing if people would say that about

Christians today?

These Christians are turning the world upside down by the way

that they're living their life now.

I, I don't believe that they were turning the world upside down.

They actually were turning the world right side up, right?

The world has been twisted and these preachers were turning the

world to the right place.

But, but again, what did we mention this morning?

That when you live in a world of lies and evil, when you live for

the truth, you seem strange, you seem weird, you seem like the

one out of place.

And so Paul and Silas and these folks that were preaching the

gospel seemed out of place and they were accused of turning the

world upside down.

And so basically they pull Jason and his friends here out into

the city and they say, hey, these guys are the ones that are

homing the apostles.

These are the ones that are homing the individuals who are turning

the world upside down.

And so they attack Jason.

They attack these individuals that were Christians.

And so they accused these Christians before the rulers of the

city, these evil men of the city.

Gave, I would say, a compliment to God's people here.

Like, I would love for people to say, hey, there's a pastor over

Middletown Baptist Church that's causing trouble by leading

people to Christ.

That would be like, thank you.

Appreciate that.

Because when the world comes against us, it shows us that we're

doing the right thing.

When Satan comes against us, it's not so much that he's coming

against us, he's coming against the Lord.

And we're on that side.

And I would encourage you, when Jesus says, hey, they don't

hate you, they hate me.

And when you're on my side, they're going to hate you, too.

And so when the world comes against us, that's an indication

that we're doing the right thing.

When the world is confused by our decisions that we make and mocks

us, that shows us that we're doing the right thing.

And so this shows that Paul and Silas and the rest of these folks

that were on the missionary group were doing the right thing.

And so they were complaining that these Christians were causing

a stir in their status quo.

This is the same thing that was accused of Jesus.

Remember what Jesus, when he came in, he.

He makes this triumphal entry the week before he goes to the cross.

And as Jesus is coming down, everyone's celebrating him, right?

They're.

They're saying, hosanna, this is our Savior, our Messiah.

They're waving palm branches, which was a symbol for victory.

They were throwing their clothes in the way, and Jesus rides

in on a donkey.

And by the way, that was a very clear indication that Jesus

was claiming to be Messiah.

They were all aware of what Jesus was proclaiming on that trip

down the Palm Sunday road.

But the problem was, is that Jesus didn't do what they expected

him to do.

Jesus actually came in and started calling out the religious

leaders.

He started saying, hey, if you remember, he turned the tables over.

He said, you guys are ruining what God has said for us to do.

He made the house of prayer a house of thieves, basically, is what

he was saying.

And so Jesus was turning the status quo on its head.

And what it was, really, what the status quo was in Jesus's time

was that the Pharisees would abuse people like widows.

They would.

They would basically take the widows in and try to give them financial

advice and abuse their money and take their money.

And so Jesus comes in and says, this is not the way religion

should be lived out.

This is not the way you show love to people.

And so they were getting really upset.

Why did they get so mad at Jesus?

Because he was trying to change their status quo.

That's why they're getting so mad at Paul and Silas, because he's

coming in and he's preaching a different message.

Not a message of bring us money.

Not a message of follow the law.

Not a message of you have to be religious.

It's a message of Jesus Christ, a message of forgiveness,

a message of freedom, a message of grace.

And that's not a message that's received very well.

And so what we can see here is that they are upset.

And so it says here in verse 7, whom Jason hath received.

And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar.

So they appeal to, in their minds, the highest power.

Instead of appealing to God, they appeal to Caesar.

And they say, these guys are breaking Caesar's law by saying that

there is another king.

That's what they say there, that they're breaking the decrees

of Caesar saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

So what Paul and Silas were saying is that there is one king,

Jesus Christ.

He's our ultimate leader.

And the people said, well, you know, what we can use against them

is that they're going against Caesar.

And this was a serious charge.

This was a charge that would have caused them to face great punishment.

The charge was so serious enough that it troubled the crowd

and the rulers of the city.

When they heard these things, it raised fear in their mind that

their city might be known as an opposition to Caesar.

And you don't want to be in opposition to Caesar, because Caesar

was the ruler of the world at the time.

Caesar was in control.

I mean, people feared him.

And so what we can see here is that they appeal to the fear of man.

They appear.

They.

They appeal to the power of man instead of the power of God.

And so we see that this is another distinction that shows the

contrast between those who believed and they didn't believe.

The ones who believe were willing to call Jesus king.

The ones who didn't believe were calling Caesar king.

And really, by extension, they were calling themselves kings, because

that's really what we do when we don't submit ourselves to Christ.

What we do is we exalt ourselves.

We exalt ourselves above Christ.

And that's what these folks were doing here.

But they use Caesar as an excuse.

And so really, their fears were unfounded.

Even though the gospel has.

Has definite political implications.

It.

It.

I believe.

I believe when we live as Christians, we become better citizens.

Actually, if you think about it, if you think about it from the

concept of how we are to submit to authority unless it contrasts

against the word of God.

Right?

And there's that struggle that we all face.

Romans, chapter 13 says, hey, follow the laws of the land.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

But then Paul or, or, excuse me, Peter says in the book of Acts,

we obey God rather than man.

Well, sometimes people say that's a contradiction.

It's not a contradiction.

We're to obey the laws of the land unless it contradicts with what

we believe about scripture.

Now, that's a hard pill to swallow.

I, I can show you in scripture what I mean by that.

Now, this doesn't mean that we don't have a voice.

And this, this doesn't mean that we don't fight for freedoms

and we fight for our rights.

I think we should.

And so, so don't get me wrong, but this, what this is basically

saying here is this it?

Like, I can't just go out.

Let's use the speed limit as an example.

I can't just go out and say, well, I'm a Christian and I obey

God rather than man, and I don't like going 35 miles an hour

down Middletown.

I could go a lot faster safely.

So I'm just going to go whatever speed I want.

No, that's a, that's a legitimate rule from the land that

has no biblical implication.

Right.

There are other laws of the land that have infringed upon our

Christian biblical beliefs.

And therefore we are able to exercise our obedience to God.

And so therefore we don't say that the law of the land is the highest

law.

We say that God's law is the highest law.

But we are good citizens until it contradicts with the law of God,

with the word of God.

And so what we can see here is that they're all worried of this

rebellion, but really, if they would have all become Christians

in Thessalonica, they would have been a better place to live.

If you've studied ancient Rome, if you've studied those places

that Rome ruled for a long time, those were not great places

to live.

Those were not safe places to live.

There was debauchery, there was evil.

I don't need to go into a lot of this, but toward the tail end

of the Roman Empire, it was pretty much the most filthy place

you could live.

And that is one of the major reasons why the Roman Empire folded,

because they basically were eroded from the inside out.

Their morals were gone by the end.

And.

And there's a great study.

This has nothing to do with the Bible, but I would say it's a

great study, historically speaking, looking at ancient Rome

and the way that they decline and looking at similarities to how

Western, specifically United States are.

Are moving towards.

And I'm going be, you know, curious to see what you think about

that.

But anyway, I'm going to move forward a little bit.

Here we see there in verse number eight, it says, and they troubled

the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things.

And when they had taken security of Jason and of the others,

they let them go.

So they.

They let Jason and these others go.

And when it says there and they take in security, basically

Jason makes bail.

He gives them some money so that he can get out.

Jason and his friends get out and they go back.

And so verse 10, and the brethren immediately sent away Paul

and Silas by night unto Berea, who coming thither, went into the

synagogue of the Jews.

And so they leave.

So Paul and Silas and the rest of the group are only there for three

weeks, and all of this implodes.

This is like, hey, get out of here.

They're going to kill you.

God directed Paul and Silas away.

Now, it's always interesting for me to see where Paul and Silas

stay somewhere.

When Paul stays and faces persecution and when he runs.

And I struggle with that sometimes because I'm like, what

makes him stay in one area and get beat to death?

And other times he just leaves.

I believe it's the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I believe the Holy Spirit led Paul and Silas out of here to get

to a place called Berea.

And so it looks like, at least in my eyes, if I was to read just

acts chapter 17 on its own, I would say, wow, Paul and Silas really

Acts 17 · chapter mention

failed in Thessalonica.

They went out and preached.

Some people got saved, but they ran out and Thessalonica has

no hope.

But pause in Acts chapter 17 and turn with me to first Thessalonians,

Acts 17 · chapter mention 1 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1.

Now remember, first and second Thessalonians are books of the Bible

written to this very same church.

And so, you know, Paul started this church.

Three weeks later, he leaves.

What was the outcome?

We would think.

I mean, I would think, I don't want to speak for you, but I would

think after three weeks of leaving, there's not going to be

any church there.

It's going to fail.

It's going to.

It's going to fall.

But we see that the power of God is greater than that.

We see that even though there were a small amount of people saved

there, great things are going to happen.

They're not perfect.

But it does say in First Thessalonians, we'll look at.

Let's look at First Thessalonians chapter one and let's

look at verse eight.

This is really cool.

This is really exciting because even though these individuals

were left by Paul and Silas after three weeks, it says in verse

eight, for from you talking about the church in Thessalonica,

for from you sounded out the word of God not only in Macedonia

and Achaia, but also in every place.

Your faith to God word is spread abroad so that we need not

to speak anything.

Meaning this church was known for sounding or sharing the word

of the Lord all over the known world.

Thessalonica was a successful church.

It goes on to say more and more later on verse nine, it says,

for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had

unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living

and true God and to wait for the Son from heaven whom he raised

from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath

to come.

So it seems that later some people began teaching the truth.

Due to the short amount of time that Paul spent in Thessalonica,

he was concerned about the church there.

We see over and over again that he says it's actually in First

Thessalonians chapter two, he said, I wanted to come back, but

Satan blocked our way.

We know that later on, Paul sent Timothy to check in and encourage

them in 1st Thessalonians chapter 3.

And Paul was concerned that the tempter, the Bible says the tempter,

Satan in some way would tempt them away from their truth.

But Timothy returned to Paul bringing good news about the Thessalonican

church and how they were thriving.

So it seems that later, eventually in Second Thessalonians,

some people came in and started preaching false doctrine

and.

But ultimately they were focused on the coming of the Lord.

And so the church of Thessalonica was located in a prominent

city, had a great deal of opportunity for the Gospel of Jesus

Christ.

And just like the church in Thessalonica, many churches today

are planted in difficult areas of the Gospel.

But yet it's the power of God that shows the success and not the

location of the church or the time that the church has had in planning.

I know that three Weeks doesn't sound like a lot.

I mean, for me, it blows my mind.

People go to Bible college for like, eight years and they still

struggle.

And these people went to Bible college for three weeks with Paul,

and some of them were only saved for three weeks.

But God preserved this church because of his power.

And I think it's important for us to see that it doesn't take a

lot for us to follow Christ.

Sometimes we think that it has to be led by someone that has this

much education or it has to have this many ministries or.

Or this much money.

Folks, we can do a lot for the cause of the gospel with the power

of God.

It could be a small little faction of people, but that ultimately

can show the power of God more and more.

And even Paul said in 2 Corinthians, he says, when I'm weak,

that's when God's strong, when the church is at its weakest and

what we would say is the most vulnerable.

That's when God can really shine brightly through us.

He can shine brightly through us at all points.

But you know what?

It's sometimes hard when we have a lot of freedoms.

Sometimes.

What is that statement?

Like, hard times make good men, but then good men make easy

times, and easy times make weak men, right?

Or something like that.

Sometimes what happens is that there's so many people that fight

for the cause of the gospel, that we have so much religious freedom.

We've been so infiltrated with the gospel and our culture that we've

become so weak in our witness because we haven't had to stand for

our faith.

And.

And we can see that in the Book of Acts and even in places around

the world today where there is persecution, there actually is a

very, very strong remnant of the church.

And.

And there are people getting saved in places that you can die

for your faith.

We had a fellow from India come in and he was talking about

how there's persecution there, but still people getting saved.

There's places that are closed off that we can't even mention where

these missionaries are going.

But he says, hey, people are still getting saved.

And so it's not just about freedom of religion that causes people

to get saved.

Thank God we have freedom of religion in our country.

But what I would say as Christians is that we don't need

to lean on that as a crutch to say, you know what?

We can do it whenever we want to do it.

We need to be able to say, you know what?

Would I preach the gospel even if people were against me, would

I preach the gospel, even if people said that's a law that we're

breaking, I've often thought about that.

I've often thought about, like, what if, what if.

What if a government came in and said, you can preach about this,

but you can't preach about that.

I would like to say that I would continue to preach the truth

of the gospel, but the fear of man can grip us.

You saw what happened back in Thessalonica.

The fear of man gripped those religious people.

They're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

That's not what we like.

We don't want that.

So the religious Jewish people got upset when the Greeks were getting

saved.

They got upset when the women were getting saved because they're

like, we can't control them anymore.

Because this is talking about the freedom of Christ, not the.

Not the control of man.

And so what I would say to you tonight is this.

When we look at the Church of Thessalonica, we can see a lot of

flaws.

We can see the envious people there, we can see the prideful people

there, or we can see the people that were open and willing

to say, you know what?

I'm going to serve Jesus Christ.

No matter how much opposition is there.

Because you know what?

When Paul and Silas and the rest of the guys left, the church

didn't leave and God didn't leave.

The power of God stayed there in Thessalonica.

And to this day, I believe that there are believers there in

Thessalonica.

So 2,000 years later, God has still been faithful to the faithful

people there.

And so that's what it means for us today.

No matter what happens in our country, no matter what's going to

happen in 2025, no matter what opposition that we face internally,

externally, physical, spiritual, emotional, hey, God is

still in control.

God is still going to be with us.

The power of God is not weak.

He's not the King.

James says it this way.

God is not slack concerning his promises as some men are.

Meaning this.

We fail sometimes when we make a promise to somebody, we fail no

matter if we want to or not.

Like, I've made promises to people that I wanted to keep, but

because of my failures and because of my weakness, I.

I didn't keep those words.

But God, when he makes his word true, it stays true.

He doesn't take back what he says.

And so the Bible says he's not willing that any should perish, but

all should come to repentance.

And so God's goal for us is to preach the gospel, to live the gospel.

And we see these wonderful things happen.

So I think it's an amazing story to see.

Yes, Thessalonica had some struggles.

They weren't the greatest of people there chasing Paul out.

And we're actually going to see that.

The next place that Paul goes, which is probably one of my favorite

passages of scripture, is when Paul goes to Berea and we see the

distinction between the Thessalonicans and the Bereans, the

Thessalonians and the Bereans.

It basically says the Bereans were better because they searched

the scriptures, they tested what Paul said.

And next week we're going to get, hopefully, Lord willing, if

the weather holds up, we're going to come back and we're going

to look at the study there in Paul studying and going through Acts

17 and looking at Berea and how we can be Bereans.

Actually, the challenge for us all is to be like the Bereans.

And so I hope that you can come back for that.

So as, as we conclude here today, I, I want you to think about

what did Paul do?

He appealed to the gospel.

He, he opened the scriptures, he reasoned with them.

So let's think about it this way.

We can reason with people from the scriptures.

How do we reason with people from the Scriptures?

It says there, we open the scriptures.

You got to open the scriptures to reason with people about the Scriptures.

Open the scriptures.

And then the King James says to, to allege or to try to convince

or to explain the Scriptures.

So to reason in the scriptures, to open the scriptures,

to explain the scriptures, we have to know the Scriptures.

And I believe that's why the next mention there of Berea is because

the Bereans sought the Scriptures.

You, you, you can't teach the scriptures unless you know the scriptures.

If someone comes up to you, maybe they know you're a Christian.

Let's think about this for a second.

Let's put ourselves in a real world, real, real world situation.

Someone walks up to you and they say, hey, I heard you're a Christian.

What do you guys believe about?

And they fill in the blank.

Okay, now they could say something that the Bible doesn't

talk about, but what can you do with that?

Well, you could probably find some kind of biblical principle,

some kind of biblical passage that could tie something in there.

Or they might say something very clearly.

For example, what do you think about this hot button issue in the

news?

And it's of clear sin.

And you could say, well, let me show you what the Bible says now,

what I feel, because what Happens sometimes is we as Christians

have good intentions, but we come across as bigoted because we

just explain what we feel about something, and that's okay.

I mean, you can have feelings about something.

But you know what's a lot more compelling for someone, whether they're

going to believe Scripture or not, is for me to go, well, my.

My scriptures, God's word to me, says this on this passage.

And people could either do one of two things.

They can either agree with you and say, okay, I see that, or they

can say, well, I don't believe the Bible.

But.

But it's.

Again, it's not you.

It's.

It's the scriptures.

You're reasoning from the Scriptures.

What happens is, is that we usually tend to reason from our own

opinions and our own attitudes and then maybe get to Scripture at

some point.

But what I would encourage you to do is know your scriptures so

well that when someone comes and says, hey, if you're a Christian,

what do you guys believe about this?

You're able to say, well, we believe this because of this reasoning

from the Scriptures.

And so what Paul was able to do was he was able to say, hey, you

know what?

This is why we believe Jesus Christ crucified because of this

passage in Isaiah 53, because of this passage in Micah 5, because

of this passage in.

In all these Jeremiah.

And he goes through the Old Testament and he reasons with them.

And so are you able.

Am I able to reason from the Scriptures the truth of Jesus Christ?

And.

And there.

There are people that are looking right now.

I mean, there's a lot of very popular people in our culture today

that are not known to be Christians, but they're seeking after

something.

They're seeking after the truth.

The word of God is actually being mentioned more and more these

days.

If you get on the Internet, there are people searching now.

There's a lot of people being misled.

But we as Christians have an awesome opportunity to show people

substance in a world with no substance.

When we show them the real thing, it's different.

There's so much counterfeit gospels out there today.

There's like, counterfeit this, counterfeit that.

Hey, you know what, man?

Don't get on the.

I would warn you to stay off the Internet as much as you can,

because there's some really wacky things on the Internet.

I can tell you.

I.

I get stuck in rabbit holes trying to do research for sermons,

and I get down these rabbit holes of these people that believe

some really wacky things.

But what I will say to you is that Understand this.

As people are looking for the truth, they're finding all these

weird things.

And when we show them the real thing, it's different.

You know, I don't know if any of you have ever worked in a bank.

I've never worked in a bank, but I've heard this.

I don't know for sure, but this is what I've heard, that when

they're teaching people how to identify authenticity, they don't

teach them all the counterfeits.

They just teach them what the authentic one looks like.

And then from there, we can know anything, because people can

come up with counterfeits different every day.

But if we know what the authentic thing is, we're able to

present that and know that.

What I would tell you is this.

Present the authentic gospel.

You don't have to worry about, well, all these people believe this

and all these people believe that.

Believe what you believe about scripture and reason from the scriptures.

And when you reason from the scriptures, you're able to have a.

A defense.

Your defense is, well, this is the Bible.

This thing will not fail us.

I will tell you that.

Scripture will not fail.

Everything else will fail.

My mind will fail by.

Usually by Sunday night about this time, my words are so scrambled

up, I've said so much stuff, my brain is.

Is about fried.

But you know what?

Even if my brain is fried, if I reason with Scripture, I'm okay.

Because if I can say to someone, hey, you know what?

The Bible says this about marriage.

Let's just get real tonight.

The Bible says this about what?

What Genesis?

Well, Jesus never said anything about marriage.

Yeah, Jesus did.

Jesus did appeal in the Gospels.

He says it said that a man is supposed to leave his wife, or, excuse

him, leave his wife.

Let me rephrase that.

It's late.

Leave his parents and cling to his wife and become one flesh.

Jesus appeals to what the book of Genesis says.

Jesus very clearly defines what marriage is in accordance to

the Old Testament.

So the people that deny that Jesus believed in a literal Old Testament

deny that Jesus.

Jesus referred to Jonah and, and being in the fish for three days.

Jesus appealed to all the Old Testament prophets.

And so Jesus believed that that was all real too.

So what we have to do is we have to say if Jesus, if anybody

didn't have to reason from the scriptures, it was Jesus.

Right?

Jesus didn't have to go back and refer back to the Old Testament,

but he did.

Why?

Because there's power there.

It's the word of God.

And so if Jesus relied on scriptures for his reasoning, I think

we should as well.

And so I would encourage you to think about that.

So it's not just pragmatism.

Jesus makes your life better.

I don't like sharing that with people.

I mean, I understand what we mean by that because he does make

our life better.

But, you know, getting eight hours of sleep makes my life better.

Eating healthy makes my life better.

Right.

So if you equate Jesus just to a He's a help to you.

That's, that's, that's, that's lowering the truth of the gospel.

We have to say that Jesus is everything.

We're dead in our sins.

And so Jesus isn't just going to help you.

Jesus is going to save you.

He's going to give you life.

And I heard, I was watching a video speaking of that.

I was watching a video today in my sermon prep, and there was

this atheist, and he got up there and he was talking and he says,

you know what?

I appreciate Christians who proselytize, they witness.

He was like.

Because that shows at least that they're true about what they

believe.

Was like, because if they really believe that I'm going to

hell because of my sin and they don't tell me the truth of the

gospel, man, that's pretty hateful.

He said, like, what if I was standing down the road and there

was a truck coming?

You looked and you said, well, whatever.

He was like, that wouldn't be very kind and loving.

So he says, I actually appreciate he's an atheist.

He doesn't believe in God.

But he says, I actually appreciate the Christians who will

try to tell me how to be saved because at least they're showing

that they believe what they believe.

And how convicting is that of us as Christians that say, well,

I believe that these people are going to hell if they don't believe,

but I'm not willing to share with them.

That shows really no love.

And so Paul was concerned about these people in Thessalonica.

And I think for us, if we are true about what we believe, we would

be telling more people.

We would be living differently.

And I think that that's something that we all should take

with us as a challenge.

It takes for me, as a challenge, because you know what

I always, I try to justify in my own mind, well, that person really

doesn't want to hear that right now.

I don't want to offend that person.

I don't want to step on that person's toes.

But if I love them, like, if I had a family member that I knew Wasn't

saved.

And I love them so much.

I'm going to tell them the truth.

Like, I'm not going to sit with my children and go, I don't

want to offend my son.

You know, I love my son with all my heart.

I love my daughter with all my heart.

I love all my children.

I love all my family.

I'm not going to sit there and go, I'm worried about offending them

by telling them the truth.

I'm going to tell them the truth because I love them.

But why does that then transfer over to when we deal with

other people?

We go, well, not, not important, not my problem.

It's, it's really what it is.

And I'm speaking from my own life.

This might not be you, but for me it's a lack of love for that person.

I don't love that person enough to stretch myself, to challenge

myself, to tell them about Jesus Christ.

And so I think that that's something to think about.

When we look at Paul and his boldness, those people were not kind

to him.

Paul went probably Paul went into most of these places knowing

that people are going to chase them out, but he still preached the

gospel to them.

And I think that all of us have, to this day, I don't think

any of you have ever been chased out of a building.

Chased.

Maybe you have been chased out of a building.

I've been chased out of a building, but for a couple of different

reasons.

But most of us, if we share the gospel with people, they're not

going to fight us, they're not going to punch us, they're not going

to whip us with, you know, cat of nine tails from the Roman Empire

or spirits.

Most of the time people might scoff and just turn away.

And so when we get to 20, 25, I'm not saying that we, we proselytize

like, you know, you, you, you.

I mean, it wouldn't be a problem if you pass out tracks to

every person that you came across and, and, and witness to them.

But what I would say is what Paul prayed, Paul prayed for something

called door of utterance.

It's like basically Paul prayed for open doors.

I don't think Paul witnessed every person that he saw, but when

the door was open for the gospel, he went right through it.

And so what, what we would pray is this.

Lord, give me a door of utterance.

Give me an open door to give the gospel to somebody.

And the more that we look for those opportunities, the more that

we pray for those opportunities, the more I Believe

they come.

That's one prayer that God has always answered for me.

And sometimes I'm afraid to pray it because I'm like, I'm really

busy today.

But I.

I would sit there and say, lord, okay, today I really want to

have an opportunity to give the gospel to someone.

And it would be, like, miraculous thing.

Someone would come up and be like, and I wouldn't even know I'm

wearing a Middletown Baptist Church hat or shirt.

Like, Middletown Baptist Church.

I used to go there as a kid.

Is Pastor Lasko still there?

I'll be like, no, but, you know, I'm, you know, and then sometimes

I'm like, awkwardly.

I don't want to tell them I'm the pastor.

So I'm like, oh, yeah, we're.

We're a great church.

You can come on by and.

But it's like an opportunity right there.

Like, and.

And it's like, little thing that's an open door.

Like, someone asks you about your shirt, someone asks you about,

hey, where were you at today?

You know, a lot of times when you go out to eat after Sunday morning

service and some of us are dressed up or coming out, you know,

someone might ask you, hey, where are you coming from?

You.

Well, coming from church and talk about that.

So there's doors of opportunity that can come up anywhere.

And so I would encourage you to pray for those.

Well, we're going to go ahead and close out now, and then we'll.

We'll pray.

And then I have a few announcements that you guys can be

dismissed.

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

I thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

We thank you for the example of Paul and Silas preaching there

in Thessalonica.

We.

We thank you for their sacrifice.

We're thankful for even a short amount of investment.

Probably they had no idea that their investment would be reaping

dividends later on.

Lord, we know that the church in Thessalonica preached, sounded

the gospel all over the world.

And just because you use these men to preach the gospel, and we're

thankful for those men and women that were saved there in that

city and how so many people came to know you through their witness.

And so I pray that we can be that gospel message, that gospel

witness in this lost and dying world.

I pray that you can strengthen us, encourage our hearts as we go

our separate ways.

Help us to have a wonderful week, help us to be safe in the weather.

And if anyone has to drive, we pray that you keep them safe on the

roads.

I pray that you help us in 2025 to live the Gospel in every

way that we can.

We thank you.

We love you.

In Jesus name I pray.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

Podcast.

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

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

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

or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch

dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow

along for future podcasts and updates.

Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.