Better Days X

Good evening. I'm Pastor Jay, for those of you who have forgotten. I've been at the Spook Lake Church for a number of weeks, and enjoying worship with those folks, and then the last couple of weeks I had my study break time, so I'm so glad to be back here with you, and sharing with all the church together, and enjoying God's Word as we study through the book of Acts. We mentioned today in our elders meeting this morning that this has been refreshing, and it's refreshing to go away maybe for a vacation, a little break, and then you come back, and you kind of still know, you know, kind of where the church is, and you can catch up. In fact, if you recall, one of the things I've done pretty regularly is to remind you when you go away, take a few minutes in your week and watch the message. At least you'll know the core of what the church has been talking about and where it's going. I would have been well served to do that this week. I knew that my teaching assignment was going to be Acts 17, that had been determined months ago, but I forgot to really hone in on the particular part of the passage that was mine, so I was working pretty diligently to get things ready, and Acts 17, well the first part of it's got this really interesting story about the church in Berea, and I had a really great point about the Berean church, how it was a more noble church than the church of Thessalonica. Now if you're not catching any of this, just because you weren't here last week, then Pastor Doug took my message. Not really, I didn't watch Pastor Doug's message, and so I called him, my secretary was filling in my outline and doing everything, and said, you know, Pastor Jack, I don't want to, you know, be presumptuous here, but Doug preached all this last week, and he used some of the same illustrations. It would look kind of bad for you if you did the same thing. That's when I heard it online, and realized, oh my gosh, I was supposed to hone in on the church at Athens. So, skip point one in your outline, and let's just go on to point two. No, I redid a lot of things, and I'm really actually grateful to have some time to focus on what I think is going to be, you know, it is said that the two things that people least want to hear about when they come to church are money and evangelism. Why? Because it's the two things that we seem to struggle with just about more than anything else, right? I mean, money's like the no-brainer clear winner of things we hate to talk about. Here's the good news, we're not talking about money tonight, but we are going to talk about evangelism, and I trust that as you listen in, and there'll be parts of this as happened to my own heart that brought conviction, but also brought a little sense of, you know, this is something I can't afford to just put aside. I can't afford to ignore how important this is, not just for the people out there, which is the prime motivation, but also for myself and what God wants to do with me. So, take a look at your outline, grab it out of your notes if you haven't done so already. All of Acts 17, 16-34 is listed there. That was to fill up where my notes were supposed to be. My notes are three little things in the back, so that's just because of what happened, but I have a lot more to say than is on that page. Let me just, let me jump in here. Let me talk about Paul's journey. Now, if you're new with us, we've been talking about his missionary journeys. We call them better days, days that he was going out with the gospel and traveling around in what we would basically call, you know, the European peninsula and so on right now. And he'd been in previous weeks, I think we have a slide, he'd been up at Epiphalus and there, and then he came down to Thessalonica, and that's where in Acts 17 we read last week, and Pastor Doug talked about how they sort of kicked him out. They said, these people who turned the world upside down are coming here. And then he went on to the church of Berea. Now, there's no pictures of Berea because it was not a well-developed city, but Paul moved along, he and Silas, and there's where they ended up. They ended up, there's a clear image of that on the screens. They ended up in Athens. That was quite a long hike. You can see it's on the other side, actually, the boot of Italy. And so, there's Athens, and there's some of the great cultural and architectural icons of Athens. Now, Greece had long since passed this peak. It was about 400 B.C. when Greek was at the peak of its power worldwide. Rome now ruled the world. But in Athens and Greece, the great monuments to their capabilities still stood. The Parthenon, you might have a photograph of that. The Parthenon stood. It was, you know, they'd been somewhat, they'd attacked it and so on, but at the end, it's still standing. It's this amazing expression of the intellect and the artistic capacity of these brilliant people who lived in Athens, the Greeks of that day. And Paul arrives there, and look at verse 17 on your island. Now, while Paul was walking, I'm sorry, waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. And I want to point out that the term there, in the Greek term, greatly distressed, means that he was upset with a deep emotional response. So, in other words, he wasn't just upset, like, this makes me mad. He was outraged. Paul felt deeply about this, and I examined that. Why would idols cause me to be upset? I'm going to talk about some of the idols I've seen. They didn't upset me, but why did it upset him? Well, here's my thought on that. Go back to the very first commandments. What are the first two commandments of the Bible? Here they are. They'll be up on the screen. I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. So, first of all, he was outraged because these idols represented other gods. And second, look at this one. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship for them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. So, the idols for Paul stirred up in him this... Remember, he had been trained as a Jew. He was a Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was trained. He knew these commandments inside out, and he knew that this display of other gods, these idols, was abhorrent to the God that he so loved, the one that revealed Himself in the person of Jesus. Make no mistake, friends, God is jealous for His glory. And if other things creep in and find their way in our lives that are, you know, they sort of... Listen, I'm probably smart enough to know that most of you don't have little tents put up in the back of your house that you go and light incense to, and you don't have a little plate that is your idol where you bow down. You know, I do understand. Although, you know what? I've been to India twice. Eighty-seven percent of the Indian population is Hindu, and they believe that God is in everything. So, they can go over to a tree in the center of the village, and that tree is their God, and they bow down and worship Him. Or they can literally have a pile of junk that they've assembled, and they can call that thing, that little statue that they created as an idol. Idols are everywhere. That's 1.2 billion people. Eighty-seven percent of them are Hindu, and they worship idols. They're lost. They don't know the living God. And see, idols in our culture have more to do with things that maybe our hearts go after. We wouldn't talk about them as, you know, little objects like that. They'd be more like things that would really pull at us. It might be relationships that, you know, become the focus of our heart. It might be all about who we are. It might be about our self-image. It might be about fitness or health or, you know, how we present ourselves. Or it might be about how much we've achieved, and our idol is our success, or our title, or who we are in the corporation, or who we've become known as, or whatever it is. It could be our stuff, our money, our bank account. That becomes what really occupies the thoughts of our heart. That, friends, listen, is an idol, because it's taken the place of the primary affection of your heart. And make no mistake, here's what Paul warns. This is right out of Romans, where Paul, after these journeys, writes this. This is a quote, Romans 1, ìFor although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. And they claimed to be wise, they became fools. And they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal men and birds and animals and reptiles.î Again, talking about idols. Now, look at verse 24, ìTherefore, God gave them over in their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things, rather than the Creator, who is forever praised.î I just want to ask a question. I mean, just a question. Are there times when maybe some created things become very important to you? You wouldn't worship them, would you? I don't know. I think the affections of our heart determine that. It's a moral drift that starts. You know, it starts very innocently, but can become a passion and obsession. And I would venture to say, some of us here today have spent more time thinking about other things, maybe part of the list that I named, or maybe I didn't get to it, but you know what I'm talking about. You spent way more time this week thinking about how to succeed or get ahead or do better in that than you have in your relationship with God. And I want to share with you, if that's the case, then beware of idols in your life, and beware of drifting away from your primary affection. God gave them over, it says. And that's why Jesus was so passionate when He said this, when He was asked by the disciples in the book of Mark, what's the greatest commandment? Here's what He said, ìThe most important one is this, ìHear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God,î why don't you read it with me, ìwith all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.î And the second is this, ìLove your neighbors as yourself. There's no commandment greater than these.î I love how simple that is. Friends, if you put that verse up and just keep it in the forefront of your thinking, if you remind yourself every day that that's what I live for, then you won't have to worry about idols creeping into your life. You'll have control of your heart and your thoughts. But Paul goes on and he's got this thing going about the idols, but he doesn't let it control how he responds to the people. Let's read on, next verse 17, ìSo he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.î I just want to point out, Paul is a person unlike most of us. He had an incredible intellect. He was a very brilliant man. Socrates, by the way, was Greek, if you didn't know that. And the whole concept of dialogue and learning by exchanging ideas came from Socrates' input. And Paul used that. He used that to engage the thinkers that were there. We'll see a little bit later that they loved to talk about stuff. And he went out into the marketplace and just talked to people. He did things that you and I would find very uncomfortable to do. He was willing to do that. Why? Because he cared about people. And the second point, and I just want to note this on the back, here are the three things I'm going to say. The first one is, it's a heart for the true God. And the second blank is this, a passionate heart for the lost. I wish you'd write that one down. If nothing else, write that one down, a passionate heart for the lost. Paul cared about people who didn't know God. He loved them because God loved them. And he did whatever he had to do to engage them. As part of my time away, Caroline went up just for a handful of days up into New England. And we hadn't ever been there in our whole marriage, and so it was kind of a fun trip. And we spent part of the day in Harvard Square. Now, interesting place. Harvard University is widely considered one of the best, if not the best, schools in the country. Did you know Harvard, and by the way, New England is 90% unchurched, very, very disinterested in spiritual things, very hard to get an inroad in the gospel. Harvard started as a seminary for training people for the ministry of the gospel. Did you know that? It was 16-something or 1705 or something like that, I mean, hundreds of years ago, that's how it started. It's far from that now. And as we walked into Harvard Square, which is like a big town square, there's all these different booths set up. People were selling things, and there was stuff, artifacts you could buy, and there was food to eat, and there was all kinds of people doing, you know, little stunts and all this, and it was an attraction. And we were just walking along, looking actually for a little place to get something to eat, and we walked by this one little booth that was entitled, Why the Bible is True in Three Minutes. Now, I wanted to take the three minutes and have the guy tell me why the Bible... First of all, it saddened me to think that that's how much time I had to know whether or not the Bible was true. And I could see that he had a gigantic graphic behind him full of verses and graphs and looked like one of those end-time posters, you know, with all these things converging down. And I knew what the gig was going to be, you know, and he was going to come down just saying, and if you don't believe, you're going to die. And I just... It hit my heart that just... The gospel now is just one of the little attractions in the big square of life. When the gospel was the only thing that drove the pilgrims to establish our nation, I mean, it affected me. Why is the Bible true? Because God breathed it. Friends, the big lie that's growing in our nation right now when it comes to people who don't know God is this, and it's a growing thing, I might add, is that, you know, this God that you guys have been talking to us about is a loving God, and certainly a loving God wouldn't consign people to an eternal separation from Him forever in hell. That just doesn't sound like the kind of God I'd want to know anyhow. And it's called universalism. And this little movement of universalism is growing in terms of people who are in different ways sort of proclaiming it and pushing it as a way to sort of have confidence that God is a God of love, and in the end, even after you die, if you respond to Him and His message while you live, you'll have what's called post-mortem opportunities to respond. During my break, I read a book by one of Pastor Kent's favorite authors and a couple other of the guys on our team by the name of Francis Chan, and here's what he wrote in his book called Erasing Hell. Here's what he said. It's a rather long quote, but it'll be up on the screen for you. I said at the beginning that the one thing that all Christian universalists agree upon, and that word Christian universalists, that's a sort of a contradiction, I mean, it's people who are universalists who espouse Christianity, is this, that after death there will be another chance or an endless string of chances to choose Jesus. The universalist view depends upon it. So we need to wrestle with all the post-mortem second-chance passages to see if they actually teach this view. The problem is, friends, there aren't any passages that say this. No passage in the Bible says that there will be a second chance after death to turn to Jesus, and that's frightening. Keep in mind that we're not simply trying to settle doctrinal issue. We're not here to talk about doctrine. We're talking about people's destinies. The thought that someone may end up banking on a second chance after they die, even though the biblical authors never explicitly said this, is, well, terrifying. There are eternal destinies we're talking about. We can't be wrong on this one. To make a compelling case that the love of God will melt every hard heart and even the most depraved sinners will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God without clear biblical evidence is incredibly dangerous. He's quoting another peer, whose name I'll leave out, but some of you know. Especially if you're one of the sinners and things don't turn out like this. I just want to pause there and let that sink in for a second. We're talking not about doctrine and just what I believe. We're talking about people we care about and eternal destinies. And, friends, if you mix together the marginalization of the Bible as the absolute authority of God, which is happening more and more in circles these days, with the idea of, in the end, God will just sort of let everybody be saved because after all, He's a loving God. You have a recipe for indifference toward evangelism. Why should you even bother to be concerned about people? In the end, everyone's going to get hit. So just go ahead and let it go. Let things happen. You know, your neighbors are nice people. They'll be fine, people you work with. God's not going to do anything. And it's a lie that is growing. It's a lie that I fear captures many of us. By any measurement, evangelism is dying in America. Church attendance is slumping. We've dropped down about 15% in the last 20 years. Consequently, the moral compass of our nation is drifting. I think that's very clear by what you see in the news every day. And I want to submit to you that the idea of, you know, just doing good things, and there's nothing wrong with projects and helping people in need and all that. I'm all for that. But to do that without proclaiming the gospel does not bring people to salvation. You know, and it's not that people aren't interested in this. You know what I found? Some folks are afraid to open the conversation because they're afraid someone will ask them a question they can't answer. It's always okay to say, you know what, I don't know the answer to that, but I think I can find out for you. I was talking to someone down from the Swickly Valley area that's a Ph.D. trained person in neuroscience, and they have a pretty big job selling pharmaceuticals to doctors and hospitals for brain matters, brain issues. And so they're a really bright person. And once we sat and had a cup of coffee and started to talk about a little bit of this, it was very interesting how hungry they were to understand the simplest thing that you, many of you, learned in Sunday school. And this person was way smarter than me. But they didn't know the very basics of what God did for them. And they didn't have any big hang-ups. They just had never heard it simply spelled out. I just want to suggest to you, many doors would open if we'd have the courage just to knock. Last thing there on your outline term, last point is, this takes a heart for the true gospel, a heart for the true gospel. Let me just clarify by a couple of phrases what I mean there. I use the word gospel, and I assume you know what that means. Take 15 seconds right now and turn to the nearest you and tell them what you think the gospel is. And if you don't know, just say, I'm not really sure. All right. Take 15 seconds. I think the gospel means this. There you go. Everyone's giving it a shot. If you're sitting by yourself, just move your lips fast. All right. I don't know if they can do this up in the booth, but I'm going to ask you to do me a favor if you can and up in the screens. I want you to put up the Romans 3 passage. This is what Paul said the gospel is. This is the last passage that we were going to use. Here it comes. Great. Martin Luther said this is the center of the whole Bible. I'd say that's a pretty impressive endorsement. Here it is. Now, God has shown us a different way to heaven, not by being good enough and trying to keep His laws, but by a new way, though not new really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago. Now, God says He will accept and acquit us and declare us not guilty if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in the same way by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we've been like. Yes, all have sinned. All fall short of God's glorious ideal. And yet now God declares us not guilty of offending Him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in His kindness freely takes away our sins. For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins, that's propitiation, and to end all of God's anger against us. He used Christ's blood and our faith as the means of saving us from His wrath. Friends, that's the good news. We are no longer objects of His wrath. We are objects of His love and eternal affection. Why? Because of what Christ did on the cross. And that's what I want you to take with you today. Think about the blessing of the cross. Think about the things that happened to you because of what Christ did on the cross. You know, it's very easy for us sometimes, in my humble view, to gloss over this stuff. But here's what D. A. Carson said. This is the next one. He had a summary in his wonderful little book called Scandalous about what the cross does for us. Everything that we know and appreciate and praise God for in all Christian experience, both in this life and the life to come, springs from the bloody cross. Do we have the gifts of the Spirit? It was secured by Christ in the cross. Do we enjoy the fellowship of the saints? Secured by Christ in the cross. Does He give us comfort in life and in death? Secured by Christ in the cross. Does He watch over us faithfully, providentially, graciously, covenantally? Secured by Christ in the cross. Do we have hope of a heaven to come? Hallelujah, somebody's saying. Secured by Christ in the cross. Do we anticipate resurrection bodies on the last day? Some more than others. Secured by Christ in the cross. Is there a new home, heaven rather, and a new earth, the home of righteousness, secured by Christ in the cross? And that's what the gospel is. Now, let me just sort of zoom out for one last point. And it's very difficult, and I wrestled with whether or not to share this in a few moments, but I'm going to do it anyhow, because I think you're capable of taking it in. Because behind all this is a cosmic issue. And cosmic is the unseen world. And I want to just encourage you, if you believe all that there is is just what you can see and touch and feel, then I feel sorry for you, because you can't see, touch, and feel love. I mean, you can give expressions of love, but love is something that is real, right? I mean, you get the picture. The cosmic world is the place where most of life is being carried out. We cannot see it right now, but God rules in the cosmic heavens. The Bible says that He created angels to worship Him, and He gave those angels this ability to love Him and worship Him. And one of the angels rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven. That angel's name was Lucifer, or Satan. And then for the last, we don't know how many eons, Lucifer has been doing battle with God, trying to take the place of God to rule on the earth. You all know this, right? I mean, this is what the Bible is all about. And this battle in the Old Testament, it's metaphorically referred to. In the New Testament, it comes right out. In the New Testament, Satan tempts Jesus himself and says, do this and this and this, and I'll give you authority. And Jesus doesn't have anything to do with Him. He recognizes Him for who He is. But in the end of your Bible, how many of you read the book of Revelation, or at least looked at it and said, I don't know if I understand this, but it sure is weird and very complex. But what it is, friends, it's the culmination of this cosmic battle between God and Lucifer. And the reason why this battle has taken eons to complete is because God has been raising up a people, you and me, who will freely come to Him as Lord and Savior and worship Him from a heart that has received the gospel, the gift of salvation from Christ Jesus. Now, in the midst of this, however, we have an enemy that we're fighting. How many of you believe there's an enemy that seems to get in your way day by day? How many of you believe that there's an enemy that causes things to happen in your life that you, you didn't do that, but it tripped you up? Bill Cosby got it right for the devil made me do it and all that. But how many believe that you're fighting against something more than just, you know, like, you know, I'm not very good at this. Anybody? Well, almost every hand went up here. I will tell you categorically in my life, I can point to times when I knew I was up against something more powerful than just I wasn't good enough or smart enough or wealthy enough. It was, it was a cosmic issue. There were, there was a spiritual battle. We call it in the Bible spiritual warfare. Read about it in Ephesians 6. Paul says there's warfare going on for our lives, things in our lives. In fact, in Acts chapter 5 that we read in our first round, the Bible says that Satan put it in the mind of Ananias and Sapphira to, to lie about, you know, where they had gotten the money and how much they had gotten, how much they gave back, and Satan put it in their mind. So I want to warn you up front that this life that we're living has a cosmic dimension, whether you want to know it or not. And the sooner you come to grips with it, the wiser you will become in how to do battle. And you'll put on the full armor of God, as described in Ephesians 6, and fight the enemy. But where I want to draw your attention to for the passage and closure to the message is this. In the end of this, this battle, we read that Satan is defeated. And he's defeated by two things. And this is what's so incredibly powerful. We'll put up Revelation 12, verse 10, 11. Look at this. It says, then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, Now have come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority, go ahead, of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, that's Satan, who accused them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. What has been cosmic and up in heaven is now hurled down to the earth. And that's why the last chapters of Revelation are so graphic in their destruction. Look, they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. And I want you just to leave that up, please. How did they overcome Him? By the blood of the Lamb. What is that? That's the cross of Christ. So Jesus did His part. And what was the other part? Your word, the word of your testimony. And loved ones, I want to submit to you that the gospel does not advance unless you open your mouth and speak of what God has done in your life and give the word of your testimony. You're not responsible for how people would answer back. But you are responsible to say to people, let me tell you about something that's changed my life. And I'm embarrassed to say, I'm like many of you, I've not shared the gospel as I should. Don't put your hand up. But how many of you have told one person specifically face to face about the gospel and how it's changed your life in the last year? Or if I flip the question around and said, how many of you have not shared the gospel? Or three years? Or five years? You know what we do? We become very comfortable with the friends that we have. And to be honest, I'd much rather hang out with many of you that I know and be, you know, just, we just would connect than to engage some folks who don't know God and maybe are a little rough around the edges. One reason I love the car cruise, you know, we had seven or eight thousand people on the campus last night here at Wexford from all over the city and way beyond. And I had multiple conversations with people just about why we do this and what it's about and what the church is about. And I meet people that way and we connect. Why? Because I want to keep myself in touch with the reality that there are people who need Jesus. And I need to tell them what I know. Because the word of my testimony is one of the things that advances the gospel and causes the evil one to be overcome. Let me end with this. How many of you would love to see Jesus come now and just end this whole mess? You know, get the budget, debt ceiling ended, the whole thing. I'm ready for God to come and display His glory and to take us up and be with Him. I'm ready to see what the scripture promises for those of us who know Him. Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man, but God's prepared for those who love Him. But it will happen when we overcome Him by the blood of the Lamb. That's been done. And the word of our testimony, sharing our faith, being evangelistic. Yes, it's for those who don't know God. That's what Paul did. That's what he did all through Athens. They even, you know, they confronted him. They said, you know, this guy's babbling. We're not sure we But listen, it says in the end, even some of their smart leaders follow the gospel. And I want to say to you, friend, if you lead one person, one to Christ, it so changes and affects your heart. You're a different person. And I just want to leave you with this thought. Somebody cared enough one day to share the gospel with you. I want to challenge you. Share the gospel. Find a way. Build a bridge and share the gospel. You don't earn salvation. You're not born into salvation. You don't inherit salvation because you know you receive it as a gift from what Christ did on the cross. Let's bow our head in prayer. Father, thank you for the brilliance of Paul's passion for the gospel. Thank you for the way that he affected the lives of the people in Athens and then beyond. And eventually in his writings, even here today, we know him, the Christ, because of what Paul has written. And we thank you for the gospel that's changed us. But most of all, we thank you for the Father's love and for justice and love meeting on the cross so that our sin would be paid for because you allowed Christ to receive our punishment. Remind us of that, Lord, and how profound it is in Jesus' name. I want you to remain seated for just a few moments and listen. You can close your eyes if it helps. We're going to just dim the lights a little bit.