Acts: A Committed God and an Idolatrous City | Student Pastor: Sam Rapp

So in March of 2021, Grace, the one who just read the scripture, it's like a rap family service right now, we bought our first house.

Now, one of the best parts of owning a house, if you're a homeowner, you know this, is that it's yours.

You can do pretty much whatever you want to, you can paint it however you want, you do the yard work however you want, you can, you know, decorate it however you want, whatever.

But on the other hand, one of the worst parts is that it's all yours.

So something breaks, you don't have a landlord to call, because you are the landlord.

So uh we learned this quickly uh in our house.

So a couple months ago, on a Wednesday morning at 11 a.m.

in broad daylight, I had to break into my house.

So I got back from a meeting, walk up to the door, and my key wouldn't turn the lock.

So, for context, I live just down the road across from session stands for a coffee shop.

Um so this day, uh these people at their 11 o'clock coffee meeting got a nice show to watch me break into my house.

Okay, so context, I have an audience as I'm breaking in.

Okay.

So at this point, uh I'm laying my right shoulder into the door, the lock won't turn, I'm I'm stuck out, I'm I'm getting increasingly frustrated, which the people across the street can see.

And I'm at the point where to the 25 people across the street, I feel like I'm doing something illegal, even though I'm it's my house, so I don't need to feel like I'm doing something illegal, but it looks like I'm breaking in.

Like it looks like I'm breaking into my house.

Um and so I'm you know trying to break the door open, and I would turn around every few seconds to smile at the people, to like let them know it's my house, even though I didn't owe them that, but I I gave it to them um to prove that I wasn't doing anything illegal.

So I'm I'm over it, I'm fed up, so I call my wife Grace, and I'm like, hey, what am I gonna do?

I I have work to do, I need I need things to do, and I I was stressed.

It wasn't my best moment as a husband on the phone call, I'll confess that.

But Grace, thinking very quick on her feet, is like, hey, I think the dining room window is unlocked.

So you go unlock that, break in that way.

And I was like, amazing.

So I was so focused, I didn't even say bye, I just hung up.

And it's like, I run I run around the house, I'm like, great, okay.

So I dive in, I oh, I opened the door, um, and sure enough, it was unlocked.

My wife's right.

And much like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, I dove right through this window, did not land on my feet.

Uh, I realized how unathletic I was in that moment.

Uh you know, uh, and it must have been a painful sight.

So, step one, all right, step one, I'm in the house, but we have a door issue, okay?

We have a doorknob issue that I need to figure out, okay?

So that's step two.

Doorknob and the lock.

I don't know how to fix this, okay?

So I pull up YouTube, some dude on YouTube tells me this is the doorknob and lock you need to get for this specific door.

So I'm like, great.

So I head to Home Depot, and like the rest of us guys, didn't know what to do in Home Depot, didn't know how to how to figure out Home Depot, but none of us confess to that because we're too prideful, so going to Home Depot, pretend like I know I'm going, wander for like 20 minutes, find the lock finally, uh, bring it home, it's great, set it up on the door.

So I get home and I'm ready, dial it in, got the screwdriver, all my tools.

But in the heat of the day, I forgot that I had a guy that was supposed to come over and we're gonna hang out and catch up.

And so I'm like, shoot, okay.

So he comes over and I'm like, hey, we're just gonna have a certain refreshing beverage and work on this door together.

Okay, that'll be our catching up time.

Okay.

So he comes over, we catch up uh while putting the lock on the door.

The word of wisdom is to not have a deep catch-up conversation with a friend as you're putting a lock on the door.

Okay, see why in a second.

So we're talking, having a great time, measuring the door, screwing in all the things, right, getting it all dialed in.

Um we get it, it works together, the lock turns, I can get in and out of my house now.

We finished, it's great.

I mean, it looks great, right?

Brand new, nice worn brass color, you know.

It was great.

We have a little toast and then go close the door, make sure it's all working great.

It's dialed in, it's working well.

I'm standing inside my house and I turn the key and it works great.

Um, the issue is that the outside of the house, where the key's supposed to be, is where the knob is, right?

It's where the latch is.

So perfectly I put the thing in backwards for people to break in and out as they pleased.

Okay.

The best part is that the screw was stripped, so I couldn't get it off.

Okay?

So here's what happened: I took the doorknob part off and put the old lock in the doorknob hole.

So I had two doorknob, uh, two locks in the door that I had to get in and out of my that was my doorknob, was the lock latch, right?

So for two days, I had two locks on my door, no knob.

You know me, I was not happy.

Okay, so finally, uh I get it done, it was great.

Got uh my guy Roger Balko to help me out, it was great.

But I'm not a great homeowner, okay?

I know that.

I'm not proud of it, but I I know that about myself, but I am committed.

That's one thing I know about myself to my fault.

I am very committed.

I was gonna get in that house, dad gummit.

I was gonna dive into the window, I was gonna fix the door, even if I did it wrong a couple times, but I was committed.

I was in.

I could not function until the doorknob was fixed.

You can ask my wife.

I was not a great husband those two days, but we figured it out.

In a much different yet similar way, God is incredibly committed to his church.

Incredibly committed to his church.

I'm gonna put my cards on the table right now.

All my type A's, you're welcome.

It's my two main points that I believe in Acts 18 and 19, the word of God has for us.

And I've been praying this week that the Spirit of God would open our eyes to believe this.

So here's my two main points we're gonna hit on today.

Number one, God will build his church, and no earthly or spiritual power can stop him.

And then point number two that we're gonna hit on today God in his grace to us exposes idolatry in our hearts to ultimately deepen our identity in him.

So we'll keep those up on the screen for a sec so y'all can look at those.

We're continuing our series through the book of Acts this morning.

The book of Acts was written by the physician Luke, and he wrote this book under the inspiration of the Spirit to give these brand new Christians hope that Jesus is going to build his church.

That this church that the risen Christ has built will be victorious.

This church will be victorious over Satan, over those who are enemies to the gospel, over those who revile Christians, over kings, nations, political leaders.

And in all the ways the church is pressed down upon in this book, we see Jesus continuing to show his faithfulness, continuing to build his church in spite of it, and that there's nothing that can keep him from his mission.

Another major theme in the book of Acts is seen in what I would argue is Luke's thesis verse.

And so what I mean by that is that we read the whole book through this one verse, and it's Acts 1.8.

This is what it says.

But 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 ends of the earth.

So the promise here from the risen Christ is that the gospel is not limited to a temple, a town, a nation, a people group, and ethnicity.

It will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be set aflame and spread in this ever-expanding circle, beginning in Jerusalem and then expanding all the way here to Marietta, Georgia.

We exist because the book of Acts was fulfilled.

So we find ourselves in an interesting stretch here in the middle of the book.

We're gonna be camped out in Acts 18 and 19.

And last week, Russ talked about from Acts 17 that righteousness is given to us from Jesus.

That we have faith, we are acceptable to God, not because we hold it all together, not because we check off all these religious boxes, but because our substitute Jesus, who stood in our place, has given his righteousness to us.

And so there's nothing we can add to that.

We are perfectly acceptable to God because of the blood of Jesus for us.

And that's the good news.

Now, this morning, our main text, Acts 18 and 19, following this, we're gonna see some challenges at the kingdom advancing.

In the book of Acts, our guy Paul, he's traveling all throughout the ancient world.

So in Acts 18 and 19, we find ourselves at this place where Paul is finishing his second missionary journey and then going into his third, which is his final one, where he's going throughout the ancient world, ministering to these churches, planting churches, and then discipling and pastoring these people.

So here's what we're gonna do this morning.

We have almost 70 verses to cover, okay?

So I'm gonna summarize chapter 18, and then we'll do a deep dive into 18 to help us see what the Word of God has for us.

So Acts 18 brings us again to the end of Paul's second missionary journey.

Paul's in Corinth, which is about 50 miles west of Athens, and he's doing what he typically does.

He's teaching in the synagogue.

Um, and he's trying to persuade these Jewish men and women that the Christ they are waiting for has been perfectly fulfilled in the personal work of Jesus, which the Old Testament said he would.

And as usual, the Jews get mad.

And so Paul leaves.

He doesn't make it very far though, as uh Acts 18, 7 tells us.

He tells us he left the synagogue and ended up next door.

Right?

So he's teaching there, and we see that a couple Jewish leaders end up coming to faith right after these guys get mad at him, and then Paul has a dream, and it's almost as if this dream kind of caps off this missionary journey.

So I want to read this for us.

This is Acts 18, 9 and 10.

And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in the city who are my people.

Paul gets this affirmation that his ministry will continue to expand, not because Paul is amazing, but because God will be faithful to the word that he promised, that the church will be built.

So Paul stays in Corinth for a little while, sees a lot of people come to faith, and then he returns to Antioch.

And Antioch is where the main mother church of Acts was planted, where Paul would be sent from and then returned to often throughout the book of Acts.

And then after this, Paul travels throughout the ancient world, visiting the churches that he planted, discipling them, pasturing them, and then that brings us right into Acts 19.

So Paul has just arrived in Ephesus.

Ephesus was this big cultural religious hub with business, economics, and again religion.

And this is the kind of city that like we're thinking LA, New York.

Like this is an epicenter of the ancient world, right?

So we learn that Paul arrives and he meets these uh twelve people who were disciples, but not quite of Jesus.

And so Paul comes in, he meets them, he uh teaches them the right way, I guess.

We learn that they know about baptism, but they have never heard about the Holy Spirit.

And so it wasn't this moment where Paul had to start from scratch, but he just kind of had to redirect a little bit.

And then they receive the Holy Spirit, they're baptized.

And we learn in this passage that Paul's ministry in Ephesus, this sparking of the third missionary journey, begins with a violent and amazing outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Because that's how the kingdom of God advances over earthly powers.

The power of the Holy Spirit coming in and being at work.

So Paul baptizes these guys, and then we learn that Paul goes to this big lecture hall called the Hall of Tyrnanus.

And in this place, Paul teaches for two years.

And it's estimated that he taught about two million people over the course of these two years, because people would travel to come hear people give lectures.

So he's lecturing in this place.

It's an amazing missionary strategy.

And we learn from the text that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

So as we continue on, just keep that little nugget in mind.

So let's read again what Grace just read.

It's crazy enough, I wanted to read it again.

This is Acts 19, 11 through 20.

And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even the handkerchiefs or aprons that he touched, that touched his skin, were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you, by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skeva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?

And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks.

And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.

And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted the value of them, and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

So this passage begins with an interesting note.

Right after Paul baptizes these guys, we see that God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.

Another way this word extraordinary could be translated is unusual miracles.

In other words, these miracles weren't a primary part of Paul's missionary strategy, because his primary strategy was the proclamation of the Word of God to the people of God.

These miracles were a way for God to bring significant affirmation to the ministry of Paul, much like Jesus in the Gospels, who would perform miracles to show that he was the Christ.

Right.

Very similar way.

He's doing, God's doing this.

He's performing supernatural things in a supernatural city.

That's what we're gonna learn here in a second.

So the next, uh in verse 13, we see this phrase, itinerant Jewish exorcists.

Didn't think you'd hear that today, I'm thinking.

Book of Acts.

So in our story, we have these seven men who are Jewish exorcists, and they're the sons of a Jewish high priest named Skeba.

So these men see the ministry success of Paul.

They see Paul healing people even without him noting because his handkerchief were falling on them.

And so these people, these Jewish exorcists, get jealous and they start trying to do the same thing as Paul, but with false motives.

Because they're Jewish.

They don't believe that Jesus is the Christ.

So they call on the name of Jesus, but falsely, so that rather than healing the man, that we learned in the passage with the unclean spirit, the man attacks them so aggressively that they run out of the house beaten and naked.

The word of the Lord.

Amen.

So in Ephesus, as we'll continue to see, the supernatural was a very, very present thing in their culture.

They were a supernatural people.

This is something noticeably lacking in our American culture, isn't it?

Even in Christian circles.

Our natural inclination is to be hyper-focused on what we can see, touch, feel, smell, and that that's normal.

But in this Ephesian context, the supernatural was more real to them than the natural.

And so that's important for us to recognize.

And God here, as he is continuing to expand his kingdom, is using supernatural means.

Paul, empowered by the Spirit, heals people, and these Jewish exorcists, not empowered by the Spirit, are overcome.

And this again echoes our big point.

God will build his church.

But it doesn't take long to look around and feel the opposite, does it?

We look on social media, we hear the news, we hear people saying horrible things about the church, saying that the church is dying.

We see terrible things happening all around us.

We see incredible suffering.

We see people die often at unimaginably young ages, and then we get discouraged, and rightfully so.

Perhaps in these moments we sit and look and think, Lord, are you are you here?

How are you letting these things happen?

Lord, how are you letting our culture disintegrate around us?

Are you even working?

And I want to take a moment to let the word of God encourage us today.

God will build his church, and no earthly or spiritual power can hinder that.

It's been 2,000 years since this book, and we're still sitting here.

And that's evidence of that.

So this has both universal, corporate, and individual implications for us, meaning God is as committed to his worldwide church, big sea church, as he is to you individually in your sea today.

God is far more committed to you than you are to him, and no matter what comes your way, whether that's suffering, immense doubts in your faith, things that you're wrestling with, life circumstance, he will hold on to you.

That's good news.

So what do we see happening immediately after these exorcists run out of the house naked?

The name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

So much so that we see men and women across the Ephesian landscape coming and forsaking their practices of sorcery, selling their magic books, not talking Harry Potter here, and bow the knee to Jesus.

And Luke lands us at this conclusion, and this is notably with Luke, a flex of the power of God over evil.

This is Acts 19, 20.

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

And we got one more passage for the day, so let's read it together.

Acts 19, 21 through 27.

Now, after these events that we just read, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaea and go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.

And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.

About that time there rose no little disturbance concerning the way.

The way was how they referred to as Christians at this time.

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen.

These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades, and said, Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth.

And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be dis deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.

So Paul is here in Ephesus, that's what he means by Asia, and we meet a new character in the story, Demetrius.

Demetrius, we learn, is a silversmith, and his particular uh job was to literally make idols.

And these idols weren't to some JV god or goddess, this was to the five-star All-American QB Artemis, who I'm sure you're all familiar with.

Artemis was a big deal in Ephesus.

She had a temple, and this temple was so beautiful, so magnificent that it was actually considered one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.

It was a centerpiece of Ephesian worship and culture.

And here's a picture of what it likely looked like.

It was beautiful.

It was unbelievable.

I want to show a picture of it today, next.

This is what it looks like today.

People are still bowing the knee to Jesus in faith, and for ten bucks you can go walk through this temple now.

Now we learned in the passage that Demetrius is upset.

And he's upset because through the preaching of Paul, people are coming to faith in Jesus.

And this is resulting in Demetrius losing business.

Paul's preaching had been so effective that it was literally transforming an economy.

In the Hall of Tyrinus, again, he taught over two million people.

Then he met the sons of Sceva, and after that, the name of Jesus was presented to be the one true God.

So many people who were practicing witchcraft and dark arts were converted.

And this affected the Ephesian economy so much that the dude who made idols for Artemis was noticing a difference.

So what does Demetrius do?

As one would, he incites a riot.

It's in this moment that God is exposing the rampant idolatry in this city.

And as this idolatry is exposed, the people whom it is affecting get mad.

Now I mentioned earlier, I live right across the street from Session Stand, right?

It's a coffee shop over there.

Sometimes it's a lot of fun.

When I'm feeling extroverted, I see a lot of people I love.

I get to go give them a hug.

Hey, it's great.

Those days are great.

Other days, when I'm feeling introverted, it's not as great when I see a lot of people.

So I'm gonna just tell a little story.

Maybe uh I've learned that I am the most introverted at the worst times.

Okay, maybe something annoyed me that morning, maybe I'm just looking for a quiet walk, and it always happens.

Get my shoes on, get my AirPods in, podcast rolling, and I go up to my front door, got a little window in the front door, I look out, and I see, I just get getting a grip on who's there, right?

And I know what I do is I'm planning, right?

I look outside, I see, I see a hundred people, I'm like, okay, social preparation time, right?

I gotta rally myself up, uh, I gotta get ready.

Now I feel like my typical walk time is about 1015, right?

Especially on Fridays.

I love a 1015 a.m.

walk because that by then I've got some good reading in, I got my coffee done, I'm I'm feeling good for the day.

But you know what's happening at 1015 on Fridays is the 915 Lulu Bell class just got out, okay?

And much like clockwork, I look out the front door and there are 47 extroverts at session stand, okay?

So in this moment, I'm at my front door making decisions, okay?

I'm thinking, I got three sides of my brain going on at this moment.

I'm like, Sam, you do work at a church.

Like, you should go say hey, right?

Then the other half of me is like, no, I have earned this quiet walk.

Podcast is going, I want a quiet walk.

But then the other half of me is like, ah, you do have three or four kids in the youth group, so you probably should say hey to her, right?

Now I know this is silly and it exposes my selfishness and how introverted I am.

But the point I'm trying to get at is that safety and comfort are huge heart idols to me.

And whenever those are threatened or exposed, my heart fights a little bit, or at least maybe negotiates.

Because that's what happened whenever our idols are exposed in our hearts.

We we like to fight a little bit.

We talk about this a lot.

Idols work sort of like this.

Idols say, I will be okay, whole, satisfied, as long as you fill in the blank.

But then the gospel, to contrast to that, says this I am okay, whole, satisfied, because of my beloved identity in Jesus.

What we know and believe about idols is that they're not external habits or sins or whatever.

Idols are deep core identifying beliefs about ourselves.

And we're ultimately getting at this whenever we place faith in them.

We want to be justified in a specific way, and in idolatry, we are not finding that in the saving work of Jesus in that specific way.

And whenever we have a deep core identifying belief exposed, as we see in Ephesus, it hurts.

There's a little fight.

And this is what God is doing to the city of Ephesus.

He's doing surgery on it, he's exposing where this city is hurting, ultimately so that he can heal the city.

He's building a church there.

But in order to build it through his servant Paul, again, he wants to expose the idolatry there.

And as he does this, people in the city freak out, beginning with Demetrius.

So much so that there's a full blown riot.

But there's something notable within the riot.

People rioting were so confused by the riot that they didn't even know why they were rioting in the first place.

And this is what idols do in our heart.

They can't fulfill what they promise, and so we're always left confused, blinded.

What we believe through the Word of God is that true joy and life come from the presence of Jesus as he moves towards us.

And even as we continue to fall back into these idolatrous beliefs, we too become blinded and confused.

But often, whenever our heart idols are exposed, our first instinct perhaps might be to fight, to self-justify, to negotiate.

But we see that the God of the Bible is committed.

That even as we wander, as we stray, he always returns.

He always seeks to bring our hearts back because he is far more committed to us than we are to him.

I want to close with this.

Artemis was a primary goddess in the Greek religious system.

Her temple was four times the size of the Parthenon and was the cultural and religious centerpiece of this city.

And to win at the souls of the people of this city, God went after the city's center to poke at it, to do a little surgery on it, to show them how fragile their faith in Artemis was, so that they could see how sufficient the cross of Christ was for them.

My favorite story in the whole Bible is the story of the woman at the well in John 4.

We talk about it at students on Sunday nights all the time.

This woman, a Samaritan, which was unheard of for Jesus to be talking to her, was the first person that Jesus reveals himself as the Son of God to in the book of John.

There's one thing I love and hate about this story.

Jesus, to heal this woman, to give her the redemption and restoration that her heart most needs, he pokes at her deepest heart wound.

This woman gets poked at by Jesus at the very place that she feels the most shame, at the very place that she is trying with all of her energy to hide from, and that's her sexual past.

Because he knows that that is what is keeping her from full life found in him.

He knows that.

She believes she's too far gone.

She believes that the Messiah couldn't possibly love her.

She believes that the rivers of living water that Jesus is promising to her are just out of her grasp.

But what does Jesus do?

He moves towards her.

What does the God of the Bible do?

He moves towards his people.

So maybe you find yourself this morning like the woman at the well.

Maybe this morning you've had a season you felt far from the Lord.

You've had a season where you feel exhausted from getting beat up by life.

Perhaps you just find yourself at the end of yourself this morning.

The invitation right now is to just collapse into the arms of Jesus.

Perhaps for the first time, but if not, perhaps for the millionth time.

That's the invitation this morning.

And what I want you to believe is that Jesus is so committed to you.

He looks at you with such empathy, with such tenderness, never with an eye of judgment.

And he just is always inviting you back into his arms because that is where full life and full joy come.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you that it is sufficient for all things concerning life and salvation.

Thank you, Lord, that you have upheld your story.

That even 2,000 years later, as culture is pressing down on the church, as the world looks down on Christianity, Lord, you are still committed to us.

Lord, we look forward to the day where we get to be with you in heaven.

But even now, as we live in this in-between, the already finished work of Jesus, but the not yet fully finished new heavens and new earth, Lord, we grieve that life is not the way it's supposed to be.

We experience a lot of heartache, a lot of trial.

And so, Lord, we ask that you would come quickly.

We need you, we need your grace.

We confess that we have a lot of things in our heart that are far from you.

But Lord, I'm thankful for the gospel that it moves towards us, that the heart of Jesus moves into our lives even as we wander.

Pray that as we heard from your word and as we received the sacraments, Lord, I pray that you would speak to our hearts even now.

We pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.