Acts 17:1-8

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Acts 17 · chapter mention

! to be learning from this morning. And if you're a child, I hope you've got a sheet. If you haven't

! got a sheet, then somebody can bring you one if you put your hand up. Has every child got

a sheet? And there are two parts to the sheet. There's the under eights and then there's the

nine and above bit. So do follow along on that and hopefully it will make sense by itself.

It's Sunday today, but on Sunday March the 30th, 1851, around 40% of the population of

England was in church. 40%. By the year 2005, that figure had fallen to 6.3%. And if you

go out onto the streets and ask them today, are you religious? Then more than half of

the population of this country will tell you that they are not. Just looking at the statistics,

you can see that the church has declined significantly in its size and its impact in British society.

And we feel that and we see it in different ways, don't we? We see it, for example, in

the legislation that's passed by the government, which is increasingly legislation passed in

denial of the teaching of scripture. We see it in the advocacy of the new atheists who

are campaigning against religion. We see it in attempts to get street preachers off the streets

in complaints about having the Christian message taught, even in a very mild way, in primary schools

and that kind of thing. Britain has changed since 1851 quite dramatically. We are nowhere near the state

of a country like Pakistan and Christians in this country still enjoy remarkable liberties and freedom

and peacefulness. So we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that our situation is anything like

the situation of Christians in difficult countries like that, or in Syria, for example, and many other

places that we could name. But nonetheless, and I suspect this is particularly true of an older

generation, we can feel that the world has changed around us quite dramatically and in unsettling ways.

I suspect, I wasn't alive in the 1950s as you can tell, but I suspect if you were, you felt

reasonably comfortable as a Christian in what was in some senses a Christian country, in that it had

some kind of adherence still then, at least to Christian morality, if not to the claims of the Christian

gospel. So if you knew that age, now feels very, very different indeed. And all the changes that have

taken place in our country raise all sorts of difficult questions for the church, don't they?

How should the church respond to a changed nation? And how should the church reach a changed nation with the gospel?

So from outside, we have questions pressing upon us, we have pressure upon us.

But we also have internal challenges in the life of any church, don't we?

And I don't know, I've obviously preached here before and I did your church weekend, but I don't know

your church life very well, but I imagine there are all sorts of internal pressures in the life of your church as well.

For example, the evident growth in the church creates issues and challenges for a church.

The building project which you're attempting to embark on creates issues and challenges for the church.

There will be things within the life of the church which raise questions for you.

So both given the external pressures of our culture and the inevitable internal challenges in the life of a church,

you may well find yourself sometimes wondering, what sort of church should we be?

And that's the question I want to think about with you this morning from Acts 17.

What sort of church should IPC Ealing be?

And what should its priorities be?

Given all of the external pressures and challenges and the internal challenges developments as well.

What sort of church should you be?

It seems to me that there are two common responses to the kinds of challenges that I've outlined.

And you might characterize them like this.

The first would be the circle the wagons approach.

That we are surrounded by an increasingly challenging and, to be honest, frightening culture.

We wonder what the future holds.

And the temptation really, you know what they did in the westerns, if they're riding along in the westerns and they see the enemy coming over the brow of the hill, what do they do?

They get the wagons going in a circle because it's a good defensive position.

And you stay inside the circle of wagons to protect yourself.

This is the sort of museum approach to church.

That the answer to a changing, frightening culture is to freeze everything in the life of the church, perhaps in the 1950s.

So that you never sing anything that was written before, who knows when, whatever your favourite date is.

1940 perhaps.

1900 perhaps.

It's the old for old sake approach.

It's what we might call, children, sheets, the antiquarian approach to the life of the church.

Okay?

Preserve it.

Pickle it, if you like.

Just keep it all the same.

And there are plenty of churches that have taken that approach to a scary, changing world.

Freeze everything.

Touch nothing.

Change nothing.

That would be one approach.

But the second approach, actually precisely the opposite, would be the change everything approach.

And here, there are many churches that would want to change, first of all, even the message of the church.

Bishop Spong was a famous Episcopal bishop in America.

The Anglican church in America.

And he wrote a book, the argument of which was that Christianity must change or die.

That if you keep on teaching the same message, the church will shrivel up and die.

You must embrace instead a kind of vague, general spirituality, which will be amenable to the people of a changing world around you, that they too can embrace.

There are other forms of this, aren't there?

I think some of the preaching you see, if you watch it on satellite TV, is that what you see?

Is it still called satellite TV?

Is it satellite?

Is that the right word?

It feels slightly old-fashioned as I say it.

But anyway, whatever that thing is now, with all those channels.

That kind of preaching you see there, churches, stadiums full of thousands of people.

Has anyone ever seen Joel Osteen on TV?

Joel Osteen, who's into the I am sayings.

You know the I am sayings?

Not the I am sayings of John's Gospel.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the resurrection and the life.

But rather the I am sayings of self-affirmation.

So he gets them all standing up, and I'm not going to do it, don't worry.

But he gets them all standing up, thousands of people chanting,

I am intelligent.

I am beautiful.

I am strong.

I am successful.

I am confident.

Change the message to one of vague spirituality with Bishop Spong.

To one of self-affirmation with Joel Osteen.

Change the preaching to be full of stories and comedy.

There are even preachers who study comedians to work out how they should preach.

Change the method as well.

And here, in the change everything thing, you don't sing anything from before 1990, probably.

You only sing new things, and you change your church to resemble something more like a rock concert.

Again, something that will make people feel at home, given where our culture is at.

And you get the impression from this kind of approach that the church has only just been invented.

And that there were no Christians before 1990 writing songs.

So you change the message and the method.

And this kind of church, you might call it the trendy church, as opposed to the antiquarian church,

ends up resembling a peculiar mix of therapy and a gig.

Put the two together.

And you get sort of self-help teaching plus rock music.

And you end up with a kind of therapy gig church.

Trendy church.

Now what sort of church should IPC Ealing be?

Should it become the antiquarian church?

Should it be the trendy church?

Well, let's look at what the Apostle Paul shows us in Acts 17.

Here we find Paul on his second missionary journey.

His second missionary journey.

The year is 49 or 50 AD.

He is pioneering.

He is heading into Greece in response to that call from the Macedonian man that has come earlier in Acts.

And all of this is very much the outworking of what the Lord Jesus said at the beginning of the book of Acts.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria.

And to the end of the earth.

Acts 1 verse 8.

Acts 1:8

To the end of the earth.

And here we are at the end of the earth.

With the gospel going out even to these Greeks in Macedonia.

Thessalonica, where they are now, is an incredibly Roman place.

It's really, really into being Roman.

And that will become important as we look more closely at the passage.

It is, in other words, very hostile territory.

Sometimes we draw inspiration, don't we, as Christians.

If you know some Christian history from the giants of the past.

Maybe you are into the giants of the Reformation in the 16th century.

The giants of the revivals of the 18th century.

But actually, their culture was not that like our culture.

They were living in some kind of Christendom.

Where there was a pretty much universal acceptance, at least in theory, of the truths of the Christian faith.

If not in practice in individuals' lives.

Our situation is much more like this situation here in Acts 17, isn't it?

Bringing the gospel into a culture which is really very largely ignorant of the gospel.

And hostile to the gospel.

And worships other gods.

That's what Thessalonica was like.

And that's what our situation today is like.

So here we see Paul going into this new territory.

Starting a church.

And we can ask, well what's his message?

And what's his method?

What does he teach?

And how does he do it?

And we can learn from him some priorities for the church today.

And it's pretty straightforward, really.

The message, first of all.

Have a look at verse 2.

Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures.

So his message, quite simply, is the message of the Bible.

But it's more specific than that.

Because as we read on, we get some more detail.

Verse 3.

Explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.

So within scripture there is a particular focus on the promised Messiah.

On the Christ.

Now that doesn't mean, of course, that Paul is only preaching what ends up being the Gospels.

The stories of Jesus' life.

Because how much of the Bible focuses on the Messiah?

All of it does.

Back from Genesis 3.15 we have the promise of the serpent crusher.

We have all of the types of Christ in the Old Testament and the kings and the priests and the prophets.

The whole of the Bible is pointing to the Christ, to the Messiah.

And specifically to his death and his resurrection.

So Paul's message is the message of the Bible, which is the message of the Christ, the Messiah,

which is the message of the Messiah's death and resurrection.

But even more specific than that, did you see there in verse 3?

Explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer.

So Paul is preaching the Bible, the Christ of the Bible, the death and resurrection of the Christ of the Bible,

and the necessity of the death of the Christ of the Bible.

That is his particular focus.

He had to die.

And there he echoes the teaching of the Lord Jesus himself in the Gospels, doesn't he, if you think?

How Jesus several times taught his disciples that the Son of Man must be delivered up and suffer and die.

This then was not a message simply pickling a past generation.

It was not a message concerned with his hearers, actually, and their situation, and their story, and their needs for therapy.

It was a message concerned with the Bible.

It was a message concerned with the Bible and the Christ of the Bible.

Now don't get me wrong.

The Christian message impacts our lives as individuals at our points of deepest need.

That's absolutely clear.

Only the Christian message can do that.

But our points of deepest need are often not what we think they are,

and people often misunderstand what their deepest need is.

And the Christian message at the end of the day is not about you and me.

You are not the centre of the universe.

And the Christian Gospel is not about you.

It is for you.

It is for your eternal salvation and your good and your blessing.

But it is about the Christ and his death and his resurrection.

As soon as you hear a message in a church which is becoming all about you,

you know it's going astray and there is something wrong with it.

Because the message that the Apostle preached here and elsewhere was a message about the Christ.

Not a message about you and me and our lives.

Now as I say, preaching needs to be relevant to our lives,

and it will be if it is about the Christ.

But it is about the Christ.

So fairly simply then, Paul's message was not a message of therapy,

it was not a message of vague spirituality,

it was not a message of comedy or entertainment,

it was a message concerning the Bible,

a message concerning the Christ of the Bible,

his death, his resurrection, the necessity of his death.

And what was his method?

We see this in some detail here actually.

Have a look at verse 2 again.

Do you see the verbs used in verses 2 and 3?

Paul went in as was his custom,

and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures.

Verse 3.

Explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.

And saying,

This Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.

You see the four key verbs there,

describing his method.

Reasoned,

explained,

proved,

proclaimed.

That's what Paul did.

And that maps out I think,

fairly neatly onto what today we would call

evangelism and apologetics.

So there is clear evangelism here.

This Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.

What's Paul been doing?

He's come proclaiming the Christ.

Proclaiming the Messiah.

Preaching the good news of Jesus.

But in addition to that now,

he is reasoning from the Scriptures.

He's explaining and proving.

And that's what we might call apologetics today.

And specifically,

interesting,

this word here that's used for proving,

possibly even indicates that what Paul was doing

was lining up the prophecies of the Old Testament

with the events of Jesus' life

and showing how they fitted together.

He's placing them side by side.

So he's saying,

Look here in Isaiah 52, 53,

what it says about the coming Messiah.

Look here in what happened in Jesus' life and death

and see,

see the match,

see how he fulfills these prophecies.

But all of it, of course,

is Bible, Bible, Bible.

Everything Paul is doing here.

He's reasoning, yes,

but he's reasoning from the Scriptures.

He's explaining and proving, yes,

but he's explaining and proving

the Scriptures

and the Christ of the Scriptures.

So it's very much

Bible method.

His method is the Scriptures, quite simply.

The proclamation

and the proving of the Scriptures.

Now you might say to me,

Well, that's just because he's talking to Jews

who know the Scriptures.

Well, if you think that,

have a read on later today

in Acts 17

and see what he does when he goes to Athens.

Because actually when he goes to Athens,

he does the same proclaiming

and he proclaims the same message

from the Bible.

He needs to fill in some more

of the basics of who God is,

the creator God of all things,

not an idol.

But it's the same message

that he's preaching

which he's got from the Scriptures.

So the method, again,

is the proclamation of the Christ,

of the Scriptures.

There's less proving,

but even there,

there's still proving that goes on

when he's talking to Gentiles as well.

Now, this then is the Apostle's message.

It's not a message of self-help

and therapy.

This is his method.

It's not a method of entertainment.

It's not a method of antiquarianism.

It's not a method of friendliness.

It's quite simply a message

and a method of the Scriptures

and the Christ of the Scriptures.

But you may well wonder,

OK, but if the Church does do that,

what happens?

The crucial question of our pragmatic age,

does it work if we do that?

And actually the passage,

in God's kindness,

answers even our silly,

pragmatic questions.

It works.

But it works in two ways.

Have a look now at the fruit

of Paul's ministry.

First of all,

the first response to Paul's

message and method

is a response of persuasion.

people are persuaded.

You see that in verse 4.

And some of them were persuaded

and joined Paul and Silas,

as did a great many of the devout Greeks

and not a few of the leading women.

So some Jews,

more Gentiles,

were persuaded

and actually it's

were joined

to Paul and Silas.

There's a hint there

in the language of verse 4

of God's sovereignty

in taking these people

who've been persuaded

and joining them

to Paul and Silas.

God does the joining here

in the original.

God is sovereign

so that when his message

is preached

and people are faithful

to the biblical method,

they will be joined.

He will do the joining.

He will join them

to the church.

And that's what happens here.

So we can be confident

that if we stick

to the apostolic message

and the apostolic method,

it will bear fruit.

God will join people

to the church.

But that's not all

that happens here

because something else

happens as well

in verse 5 and following.

There isn't only persuasion,

there is also,

secondly,

persecution.

Do you see what happens here?

The Jews are jealous.

They want to keep

the Gentiles out,

it seems.

And so they try to

raise a crowd,

a rabble,

a mob,

to stir things up

and they go

looking for them.

Now they can't find them

but they drag out

this man Jason

and they bring him

before the city authorities

shouting that these men

who've turned the world

upside down

have now come here too

and they're causing

trouble here too.

And in particular,

do you see what they're doing?

They say,

they're acting against

the decrees of Caesar

saying that there is

another king,

Jesus.

So observe the characteristics

of this response

of persecution.

First of all,

it arises from jealousy

as persecution

often does.

Secondly,

it is violent.

It is a dangerous mob.

The mob is a scary thing.

We don't see it very often

but we have seen it

in our country

not long ago

when a mob

rises up

and the kind of destruction

and violence

that can ensue.

But also it gets

cleverly political

here in verses 6 and 7.

Do you see that?

They try to get

the city authorities

involved

and they accuse them

of effectively

treason

trying to make

another king.

Now can you think

of another episode

in the Bible

where the same thing

happens?

where they do the same

thing

using the authorities

raising an accusation

of treason

with the Lord Jesus

himself of course.

Remember he said

if they persecute me

they'll persecute you.

If they treat me

like this

they'll treat you

like this.

Well here it is

happening.

They're actually doing

exactly the same thing.

They're going to the

authorities

trying to imply

that they are

stirring up a

revolution

by preaching

another king

and the word

used here

is the same

word that's used

of Caesar himself.

And of course

actually

you might say

they were.

Because when

Caesar

takes on a role

which is only

properly to be

given to God

there is

a conflict

between Caesar

and King Jesus.

You see that

very quickly

after the New Testament

with the Roman

emperor's claims

to be God

and demands

for worship.

Is there a

conflict between

Christ and Caesar?

Absolutely there is.

Because Caesar

has trespassed

on ground

which belongs

to Jesus.

So this is not

a fanciful claim

either.

We don't want to say

oh well Jesus said

that his kingdom

was not of this world

so he really wasn't

trespassing on

Caesar's ground.

He was trespassing

on Caesar's ground

because Caesar

was trespassing

on his.

So it's political

clever political

opposition.

And then lastly

and this is why

we read on to

verse 15

do you see how

dogged they are?

How they won't

let go?

Verse 13

They've gone on

now to preach

in Berea

and they've received

a very favourable

response in Berea

and from the Jews

in Berea

but verse 13

when the Jews

from Thessalonica

learned that the

word of God

was proclaimed

by Paul at Berea

also

they came there too

agitating and

stirring up the

crowds.

In other words

the opponents of

the gospel

are so relentless

it's not enough

when you've left

town.

You leave town

and they come

after you.

They keep going

they won't

let go.

This is a very

determined kind

of resistance

to the gospel.

So what happens

with the apostolic

message

and the apostolic

method?

some believe

God and his

sovereignty

joins them

to the church.

Others react

with violent

political

and determined

persecution.

Now again

we live still

in remarkably

favourable times

in this country

but we don't

need to look

far abroad

to see how

this is the story

of many

probably most

Christians

in the world

that they

experience opposition

like this

and we could

imagine it

coming here

quite quickly.

Let's think

back to our

opening question

then.

In the face

of a changing

culture

an increasingly

hostile

culture

with

questions

generated

by the

internal

life

of our

church

what sort

of church

should we

be?

Well Paul

gives us here

a clear example

doesn't he?

We need to

stick to

the message

of the Bible

of the Christ

of the Bible

of his cross

and his resurrection

and we need to

stick to the

method

of proclaiming

the scriptures

and defending

the scriptures.

So what should

you be doing

as a church?

Well this is the

right emphasis

isn't it

on the

spirituality

of the church

that you

should be

concerned

with this

apostolic

message

and method

with keeping

the scriptures

at the heart

of your church.

What do you

expect

of your

pastor?

pastor?

I hope you

expect your

pastor to

love you

and care

for you

and as

appropriate

visit you

and see you

and talk to you

but I hope

you are also

clear

that your

pastor's

task

is to

proclaim

this message

by this

method

which requires

your pastor

to be locked

away in his

study

studying the

scriptures

each week

and in that

sense he's

torn in two

isn't he?

He needs to be

out among you

but he needs

to be protecting

his time

to study the

scriptures.

Now Paul is not

primed me to say

this and he

didn't tell me

anything along

these lines

but this passage

tells us doesn't

it?

That the life of a

church needs to

be focused on the

message and method

of the scriptures

and therefore you

want your pastor

to be devoted

to the study

of the scriptures

and you need to

make sure that

he's doing that

and to protect

that.

What do you want

to happen in your

youth and children's

work?

In your groups

that meet before

the service and

midweek?

What should they be

focused on?

Now it's great for

children to have

fun but that is

not actually the

aim.

The aim is to

bring them to the

scriptures to drink.

Now here's a test

for you

to see if you

have absorbed

this message or

not.

Imagine your

child comes home

or you hear that

somebody's child has

come home and

has said,

there's just so

much Bible in

our meeting.

What's your

reaction?

As your reaction

I'll go and talk

to the leaders

and tell them

it's just a bit

too heavy at the

moment.

Now I know,

I know,

I know,

it could be,

it's conceivable

that such a

meeting could be

too heavy.

But I think it's

probably very,

very unlikely in

our culture and

our times.

Is that your

action?

Do you think

I'll go and tell

them to soft

pedal a bit and

get less Bible

in the meeting?

I'll phone them

up and give

them a roasting.

You may be

thinking it never

happens.

It happens all

over the place.

It happens to

pastors with their

sermons.

I know a

pastor who

receives a note.

I think it's

even a handwritten

note which is

rather lovely,

isn't it?

Every time he

crosses 25 minutes

he gets a note.

I know of

youth workers

who have parents

coming to say

them saying it's

just too heavy and

dull, you're putting

them off the

gospel by having

so much Bible.

It is conceivable,

yes, when it hits

an hour and a half,

maybe, but probably

they're a long way

from that generally

speaking.

What would your

reaction be if your

child or a child

said that?

Would you sit down

and say actually

rejoice that you

have a club which

is teaching you the

word of God, which

is his living voice.

Celebrate that you're

hearing about the

Lord Jesus from his

word.

This is an amazing

privilege that we

have to do this and

to do it freely.

It's an extraordinary

thing.

I know it's hard work

sometimes.

We find that has

grown up too in

church.

Would you say that?

We know it's hard to

concentrate on some

preachers sometimes,

especially that

Williams bloke.

It's hard to listen

to them sometimes,

but it's the word

of God and so we

work hard at it.

And that's what we

need to do in our

clubs as well, is to

work hard at listening

because this is God's

message and this is

God's method.

Is that what you

would say?

Or would you want

them to soft pedal

a bit?

Then again for us

as individuals of

any age, if you're at

school, we talked

about this a bit

beforehand, and you

have friends and

neighbours and family

members who do not

know the Lord Jesus.

What is it that they

need to hear?

Maybe that there are

all sorts of useful

conversations you could

have with them, but the

focus of what they need

to hear is Christ and

his death and his

resurrection.

Now maybe sometimes you

need to have a more

philosophical argument

about this or that or

the other.

A bit of ground

clearing maybe.

But actually the focus

of our conversations

with our friends and

our neighbours and

our school friends and

our family members who

are not Christians needs

to be the Lord Jesus,

doesn't it?

This is the apostolic

message.

We need to be

introducing people to

him.

So I think this passage,

I hope you find this

passage to be good news

for us this morning,

because it can be quite

bewildering, can't it?

In a culture we feel

under pressure, we feel

isolated, we feel like a

small minority, yes, it's

quite a nice full room.

How many people are there

in Ealing?

This is a tiny, tiny,

tiny, tiny fraction of

the people who live

within half a mile of

this place.

You're a minority, you're

a tiny minority, you can

feel that sometimes.

You can feel the world is

increasingly hostile in

what it's doing.

And that can make us

wonder, should we be doing

something different?

Should we change?

Should we tweak?

Should we adjust?

I take it this is a good

news passage, because it

tells us very simply what

the Apostles' priorities

were in his message and

in his method.

And that's liberating.

We don't need to be

wringing our hands

thinking, what do we do?

What should we fill our

meetings with?

Oh no, how can we reach

this world?

Stick to the Apostles'

message.

Stick to the Apostles'

method.

Christ and the Bible.

And lastly, as we draw

to a close, let me just

say a word to those of you

who are inquiring and

would not consider

yourselves Christians

here this morning.

What should you be

inquiring about?

If that's you, what

questions do you need

to be asking?

What should your

concern be?

This passage gives us

a wonderfully clear

answer, doesn't it?

The question for you is

the question which the

Lord Jesus himself

asked his disciples.

who do you say that I

am?

Who is Jesus?

And in particular, can I

draw your attention again

to verse 3?

The Apostle explained and

proved that it was

necessary for the Christ

to suffer.

So if you're not a

Christian here this morning,

let me leave you with

this question.

Do you believe that it

was necessary for the

Christ to suffer?

Do you understand why it

was necessary for the

Christ to suffer?

If God willed to save a

people, which he did,

their sin made it

necessary for the

Christ to suffer.

It is the only way.

And do you believe that

this morning?

Because one of the big

reasons I think why people

aren't Christians is

because they just don't

think they need to be.

The Lord Jesus described

himself as a doctor

come to heal the sick.

You only go to the

doctor if you know

you're sick.

And the scriptures tell

us that we are all sick

and in need of healing.

And that his death is

the sole means by

which we can be healed.

And if you're not a

Christian this morning,

that is the big question,

the big challenge for you

from this passage.

Do you see that?

Do you see that he had

to do it, to save you?

That there is no other

way for you to be

reconciled to the God

who made you.

Let's pray together.