"Sharing the Gospel in our Town" (Acts 17:22-31)

Sunday, May 17, 2020

*This message will be broadcast by Facebook and Instagram Live and posted to Youtube, but will not be preached to a live audience.  We – America, the world – are in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis which is causing people all over the world to avoid gathering in groups of larger than 10, and diligently maintain “social distance.”  It’s an effort to curb the rapid, worldwide spread of the Corona virus which can be deadly.

Watch here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKYbarhBXaI

            “Can the Gospel hold its own in the sophisticated, intellectual environment of a university town?”[i]  Our church is planted in Chapel Hill, home of the flagship school in North Carolina’s system of public institutions of higher learning.  Our home, Hillside Church’s home, is the home of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.  By faith, we believe we have inherited the commission the resurrected Jesus gave his disciples whom he told, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). 

Chapel Hill, North Carolina is quite far from Jerusalem.  Our home is one of the far ends of the earth.  God has planted us here to speak our testimony that Jesus is Lord, that in him the Kingdom of God has come near, and that all people can receive forgiveness of sins and have life in his name.  Does this message, this good news, hold up especially in a center of erudite learning like Chapel Hill?

Paul preached the Gospel first to Jews and then to Greeks in Thessalonica.  Some heard him and believed in Jesus.  Many others violently opposed his message.  Before harm came to him, the Thessalonian believers hurried him out of town and escorted him to Beroea.  He preached Jesus there and it started well; however, the Thessalonians who were angry with Paul followed him.  They stirred up trouble in Beroea.  The believers again had to hurry Paul out of town. 

He was ushered to Athens, where once again, he preached Jesus and the resurrection.  Athens was a very different city.  By the first century AD, Athens, once the crown jewel of Greece was well past its prime.[ii]  Still, philosophy reigned in the public thought of the citizenry as the city proudly stood on its fading glory.  The Athenians didn’t beat Paul up like his opponents in Thessalonica and Beroea.  They questioned him.  

When Paul preached the resurrection of Jesus, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers became confused.  They thought Jesus was one god and resurrection the name of another.  They did not know the one, Jesus, and they rejected the god ‘Resurrection.’  They called Paul a ‘babbler.’  But, these particular Athenians, like gadflies buzzing around campus, found themselves addicted to hearing new ideas that they might adopt the new or topple it.  Thus, the opening question.  Could the Gospel hold up in this intellectual environment?

At UNC this question about the Gospel’s staying power has been answered in different ways.  For several generations, there has been a street preacher who daily takes up his post in the “pit,” an area on campus surrounded by restaurants and the bookstore.  It’s where students hang out.  The Pit Preacher at UNC scorches passersby with damning threats of hellfire if they don’t repent of their sins and turn to Jesus.  With invectives laced with scripture references and ominous warnings, he uses confrontation as his strategy for leading people to Jesus.

It rarely works.  He’s considered a caricature.  Tar Heels going back many generations joke about the “Pit Preacher.”  One exception is Lon Solomon, founder of McClean Bible church in Northern Virginia, just outside of DC.  At one time, that congregation was one of the largest in America.  Solomon described himself as pot-smoking child of the 70’s who attended UNC, heard the Pit Preacher and accepted Jesus.  He gave up drugs, became a pastor, and was one of America’s most renowned church leaders in the 90’s and early 2000’s.  That example aside, the aggressive rantings of the Pit Preacher usually inspire eye rolls and mockery more than faith. 

Contrast that approach with Paul’s witness in Athens.  Instead of diving in with condemnations, Paul takes in his surroundings.  Fresh off witnessing efforts in Thessalonica and Beroea that nearly brought him bodily harm, Paul approaches the Athenians with a much softer hand.  It’s not that he fears for his own safety.  Paul frequently faced violence with little regard for his own wellbeing.  It’s just that in Athens, he took a different tack because he thought the more ecumenical, intellectual strategy would be effective. 

The bottom line is helping people give their lives over to Jesus.  When you or I bear witness to the Gospel, we have to keep in mind our own personality and style.  We have to be mindful of the needs and temperament of our audience.  And, we have to know our context.  Paul was an intellectual talking to intellectuals in an environment where the exchange of ideas was expected and encouraged. 

In Thessalonica and Beroea, Paul was a Jew among Jews in a Jewish place of worship.  In those cities, with the Jewish audience, he talked about the way Jesus fulfilled the messianic scriptures (17:2, 11-12).  With that approach, some in those cities became Christians after hearing Paul preach.  Other wanted to kill him.

In Athens, the results were similar; some become believers, while others remain scoffers.  Consider his approach.  He begins, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (v.22).  Ultimately, he’s going to tear their religion down, but before doing so, he acknowledges their faithful commitment to what they believe.  There’s something respectable about devotion, even misguided devotion and he shows them that he can see and respect that.

Next, he finds a point of connection.  When the Pit Preacher angrily names the sins of people stopping to gawk at him, they aren’t usually convicted by the Holy Spirit.  They are amused or annoyed.  Paul notices one of the statues, one of the idols on display at the Areopagus, the altar dedicated to the “Unknown God.”

Paul tells them he knows this ‘unknown god.’  It is the very God he proclaimed earlier, made manifest in Jesus.  But he doesn’t get to that yet.  Here, he appeals to their reason by discussing natural theology.   The unknown God is the creator of the world and everything in it, every man, woman, and child.  The Athenians can reject Paul’s premise.  But they understand it.  He has made his case on their terms.  Having done so, he expands his argument. 

This unknown god, creator of all that is, cannot possibly be contained by idols or shrines, or anything made by human hands.  On the contrary, this god Paul claims to represent is the one who gives breath and life.  From this claim, Paul moves to the unity among human beings that is grounded in our shared nature.  We are, each one of us, created beings, created by this god Paul knows but is unknown to the Athenians. 

Furthermore, this god has created the world in such a way that all people, of all cultures, will search for him.  We all have a built-in yearning for god.  This “Unknown God” statue is the Athenians’ attempt to find this god of which Paul speaks.  Every person on earth seeks this god.  It is our human nature to seek God, and, says Paul, God can be found.  How?

With a stroke of rhetorical genius, Paul quotes two Greek poets.  Normally Paul would quote Old Testament prophets, but normally Paul is speaking to a Jewish audience.  These Athenian Greeks would stare with blank-faced ignorance if Paul appealed to the Psalms or Isaiah or Deuteronomy.  So, he doesn’t.  He combines lines from Epimenides and Aratus.  “In him we live and move and have our being.  We too are his offspring.” Paul understands these Greek poets differently than his listeners do, but they will, at the very least, appreciate that he has taken time to learn their culture and speak to them in ideas familiar to them.

Thus, Paul stands among a people who build statues of gods, undercuts the practice of using statues to represent gods, and does so in the language and the logic of those who erected the statues in the first place.  Then he calls for a decision.  “God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, [but] now he calls all people everywhere to repent” because judgment is at hand” (17:30-31a).

The time to blindly grope for God through idol worship and philosophical prattle is over.  God has set the day of judgment and commissioned the man who will be the judge.  Remember, he’s already spoken about Jesus.  Greeks believed the soul is immortal but the body dies.  In Jesus, Paul shows the Athenians, that in fact, God has come among us in bodily form, and was killed and rose from the grave. 

Paul’s final point is the one he intends to be remembered.  The resurrection is not the name of a god.  The resurrection is an event that happened after God in human flesh was crucified.  He rose.  The resurrection is the sign that God has defeated both sin and death.  To share in God’s victory and be assured of our own resurrection, we human beings have to repent of our sins and turn in faith to Jesus.  It took a bit of maneuvering to get there, but finally, Paul calls the Athenians to repent of idol worship and idle philosophizing and to instead put their faith in Jesus. 

We are, each one of us, called to stop putting our confidence in things, in systems of thought, in standards of success, in money, and in other worldly expressions of value and power.  We are to turn away from these things and to turn away from our own sins. We are to turn to Jesus, receive forgiveness from him, and live our lives under his lordship.

After we take this step of faith, we next share the Gospel.  In whatever context we find ourselves, we are to love people in Jesus’ name and remove obstacles that block their pathway to faith.  Thinking creatively in the everyday places of our lives, we are to persuasively share Jesus with others. 

Some Athenians came to faith after listening to Paul.  Several more rejected the message and scoffed at Paul and all he had to say.  We are not responsible for how people respond to Jesus.  We are called by God to represent Jesus well and present the good news of salvation in Jesus coherently and patiently.  As it says in 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands an accounting of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

The Gospel most definitely holds up in a university town and wherever we find ourselves.  Trust in Jesus and, with love and grace, warmly share all that you know about him and the salvation he gives, and do it in a way that is gentle, genuine, and inviting.

AMEN

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[i] Willimon, William H. (1988), Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Acts, John Knox Press (Atlanta), p.142.

[ii] Williams, David J.(1990), New International Bible Commentary: Acts, Paternoster Press (Peabody, MA), p.302. 

“The Personal Gospel” (1 Timothy 1:8-17)

Sunday, September 1, 2019

            Allen Langham saw a flock of birds take off from the sill outside the window of his prison cell.  In that moment, he knew God was real.  How did this convict become a follower of Jesus?

            Growing up, he was abandoned by his father and, though his mother truly loved him, her discipline was severe.  He saw her abused, and he himself was abused by neighborhood bullies.  It filled the young man with anger. 

            He started skipping school.  He excelled in sports, especially the violent sport of rugby.  But, he constantly got in fights.  He ended up becoming a very tough scrapper who sold drugs and fought for money.  Landing in prison at 17, he became a hardened criminal.  Then came a series of incidents where he’d determine to turn his life around only to fall back into violent crime once he was out of jail.

            His safe place was the prison chapel worship service.  Church had been his refuge growing up and the prison chapel provided the same support.  So, when he landed back in custody again, he felt it was truly rock-bottom.  Through tears he cried out to God, “If you’re real … put a white dove outside my window.”  The next thing, he looked out and the birds took off and he gave his life to Christ. 

            His journey into salvation and the disciple life had some setbacks, but the three steps forward outnumbered the two back and today he has reconciled with his family.  He is now an author, a chaplain for several sports teams, and someone ready at a moment’s notice to tell you about Jesus.  

Allen went from violent brawler to passionate Jesus follower.  This journey from lost to saved is the heart of the message in 1 Timothy 1:8-17.  Paul writes that the law – the Law of Moses found in the Old Testament, Exodus – Deuteronomy, is good.  The law convicts us of sin.  Then Paul lists types of sins including idolatry, disobedience, sexual sin, kidnapping and slave trading, and dishonesty.  It’s a representative list, not an exhaustive one.  With this list, Paul makes two very clear points. 

First, we don’t tell God our lives are not sinful.  We look at where our own lives fail to conform to God’s standard and we confess.  When it comes to sin, we do not justify it.  We do not try to reframe our sins or say they aren’t sins.  We just confess them, ask for forgiveness, and turn away from the sin.

The second point established by Paul’s enumeration of sins is that when we talk about salvation, we have to talk about our sins. We have to take sin seriously.  Paul did.  In verse 13, he says, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.”  He’s referring to the days when he denied that Jesus is Lord.  He tried to have followers of Jesus arrested.  And when one of the original deacons, Stephen, was stoned to death by angry mob, Paul cheered and held the coats of the stone-throwers (Acts 7:58; 8:1).  For this reason, in 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners.  In his own mind, he truly believed he was the very worst.

Allen Langham, the rugby player and brawler from London I talked about to open the message would have said the same about himself.  He was not into justifying his sins.  He tearfully confessed them.  I read his story in the June 2019 issue of Christianity Today magazine.  The monthly has a back page feature that shares the story of how individuals become followers of Jesus.  Paul went from Pharisee and Christian-persecutor to tent-maker and apostle.  Allen went from criminal tough guy to sports team chaplain and Christian author.  What are some other stories of conversion?

Rosalind Picard is a scientist and professor at MIT.  She has always been academically gifted.  In high school, she loved science and actively opposed religion or the idea that there might be a God.  So, she was shocked when the family for whom she was a baby-sitter invited her to church.  She really respected this couple because of their intellect.  The dad was a doctor.  How could smart people go to church? 

She resisted going to church, so they tried convincing her to at least read the Bible.  She started with Proverbs.  She was amazed by the wisdom she found in the Bible.  It surprised her and forced her to think. She did not have a vision or any supernatural experience.  She just felt that as she read scripture, someone was speaking to her. 

She resisted God.  She resisted faith.  But when she got to college and reconnected with a high school friend, he invited her to church.  And he was so smart she actually needed his help with her physics homework.  So she went to church and resumed her exploration of faith until, many weeks later, something in the sermon brought her to a point of decision.  The pastor challenged the congregation to stop trying to be masters of their own lives and instead let the Lord be master.  She decided to accept the challenge and gave her life to Jesus.

She writes, “my world changed dramatically, as if a flat, black-and-white existence suddenly turned full color and three-dimensional” (Christianity Today, April 2019).  Becoming a disciple of Jesus actually made her a more curious scientist.  She says, “I once thought I was too smart to believe in God.  Now I know I was an arrogant fool who snubbed the greatest Mind in the cosmos – the Author of all science, mathematics, art, and everything else there is to know.”

Make note of these different salvation stories.  Allen’s story is of rough and tough guy whom God gave a sign – birds on the prison window sill.  The Apostle Paul’s conversion came in the context of religion.  He went from persecuting what he thought was a false messiah cult to realizing that Jesus truly was Israel’s Messiah and the Lord of all creation.  Allen left behind his life as a brawler and became a chaplain.  Paul left behind his life as an up-and-coming Pharisee and legal scholar to make tents and himself receive threats and beatings as he traveled about preaching that salvation is found in Jesus. 

Rosalind Picard did not leave anything behind except her skepticism.  Before she turned to Jesus, she was a brilliant scientist.  After she gave her life to Christ, she was still a brilliant scientist.  The point is every story of conversion to Christ is unique.  You story doesn’t have to be more or less dramatic than someone else’s.  It’s you story.  What every story does need is that moment when we make faith in Jesus our own – not our parents’ or best friends’.  We don’t become Christians to please a spouse or make a pastor or Sunday school teacher happy.  We turn to faith because we realize we are sinners and are lost without Jesus leading our lives.  His death on the cross and his resurrection are what each one of us needs no matter what life we live.

Casey Diaz was a high level gang-member in Los Angeles.  Within the gang’s system, he had the authority to order hits on people, and he did.  Then Jesus met him in a vision in his prison cell: a vision.  He turned his life from crime, drugs, and violence to faith.  Now, he is a part-time pastor and owns a sign-making company in LA. 

Kim Cash Tate is lawyer from DC who landed a really good job with a federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin.  Though she didn’t grow up in church, her mother instilled in her Christian values that stayed with her even as she strayed from those values in her young adult life.  She also attended Christian schools growing up, so she had some context for Christianity when she arrived in Wisconsin.

She hated living there.  An African American, she felt very disconnected from black culture.  All she saw around her was white people and white people are OK, but she felt isolated and just wanted to get back to DC.  She also felt something inside her was looking for something more and though she couldn’t clearly articulate it, that something more that she needed was God. 

She and her boyfriend decided living together outside of marriage was wrong.  So they got married.  It was the first time in her life she made a decision based on what she thought God wanted her to do.  Later, her husband found a new church while she was out of town and when she returned, she went with him.  She writes, “For the first time, I heard the true gospel preached and it rocked me.  Finally, I saw myself as God saw me – a sinner in need of redemption.  I asked God to forgive me, and I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  For all my prayers that God would save me from Madison, WI, his plan all along had been to save me in Madison” (Christianity Today, July/August, 2019).

A brawler, a Pharisee, a scientist, a gang member, and a black lawyer living in a town of mostly white people; each story is of someone coming to faith and new life in Jesus.  Some instances involve supernatural interventions, others invitations to church, and others recollections of morality instilled from childhood.  Each is a story of salvation.

What concerns me most this morning is the story of your salvation.  How would you write the “from this” to “that” as your think of your own faith journey?  I was an 11-year-old kid when I realized I could no longer live the faith of my parents.  I needed to take what they had taught me and claim it for my own.  I needed to give my life to Jesus.  I did that in the summer of 1981 and have never looked back.  An outsider might not be aware of the change that started in me, but I know from that moment, I lived in a God-awareness that has stayed with me.

Your conversion might be like this: From “church attendee” to “born-again follower of Jesus.”  As 1980’s Christian singer, Keith Green put it, “going to church makes one a Christian about as much as stepping into a McDonald’s makes you a hamburger.”  You’re not a Christian because you show up in church on Sundays.  Paul writes that “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are sure in Christ Jesus; … Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1:14, 16). 

We realize that grace, mercy, and love as we confess our sins, turn from them, and turn to Christ.  It’s a conscious step we must take.  We are among the saved when we actively turn to Jesus and receive the forgiveness and salvation he offers.  Until we take that step, we are not among the saved.

I invite you, if you know the Gospel but have never turned to Jesus and asked Him into your heart, to do so today.  This can be that moment when you receive new life in Christ.  If you have never made the decision to follow Him, I pray you will today.

If you have, tell your story as Paul did, as I have, and these writers in Christianity Today magazine have.  They aren’t famous, and we need not be.  Just tell your story.  The first act is coming for baptism.  Next, in our lives, we share with others who we are in Christ.  The Gospel is Jesus is Lord.  The personal Gospel is your own account of how Jesus is your Lord and Savior.  Share your personal Gospel with someone today.

AMEN           

"Those who Love God" (1 Corinthians 2:6-16)

            Facebook has been a joy for me the past three weeks because 2 years ago at this time, our family was on our big Sabbatical trip to Russia, Ethiopia, and Egypt.  On the anniversary of Candy and I posting the pictures from that trip, those pictures pop-up.  So, every day, Facebook’s daily memories feature has taken me back to a very happy and meaningful time.  I know not everyone uses Facebook, and what I have to share will probably reinforce your decision to stay off it, but I thank God for the way this technology has been a blessing.  However …

            Another use of Facebook is the comment thread, where arguments rage.  Person 1 posts a meme or a snarky quote.  Or, Person 1 posts an opinion.  Every one of his 400 friends sees his post, including those “friends,” he doesn’t really know.  He met this guy, Person 2, at a convention last year and they discussed business so when Person 2 sent Person 1 a friend request, Person 1 accepted. 

But he doesn’t really know Person 2 and has not seen him since that convention.  Of his 400 Facebook friends, 50 are people he doesn’t really know.  So now, he posts his silly meme that pokes fun at some political figure.  Business convention guy, Person 2, doesn’t like the joke, so, in the comments section he writes a message railing against this anti-American, racist, anti-Christian meme that Person 1 posted for a laugh. 

Person 1 is not online when Person 2 posts his angry comments.  Person 1 has gone to bed.  But, one of his other Facebook “friends,” someone from his high school days, someone he hasn’t seen in 15 years, snipes back. We’ll call this one Person 3.  With vitriol, he snaps back at what Person 2 wrote in the comments section of Person 1’s quote.  Persons 2 and 3 don’t know each other; they’ve never met.  Yet here they are fighting under Person 1’s post which was just meant to be silly. 

In fact before Person 1 gets back to his computer, 5 different people from his friends group – all five completely unknown to each other – have become embroiled in a no-holds-barred Facebook comments section donnybrook.  Under his silly meme, there are 20 comments that include profanity bad enough to make a sailor blush, accusations of treason, and prophecies of the end of days. 

This kind of conflict – I know we don’t use this word in church often, but I’m going to – is stupid.  Massively stupid.  And the even stupider thing is I get sucked into these things.  This is not hypothetical or something I’ve heard about.  I get sucked in even when I have vowed not to.

This week, I saw one of my friend post a meme and I spent about 10 good minutes typing up my fiery response.  Thank you Jesus, I deleted what I wrote without sending it.  Facebook, I have learned things through conversations I’ve had on your platform.  Because you remind me, I remember greats times in my life.  But Facebook, I am not going to allow you to make me develop enemies or lead me into pointless conflicts that accomplish nothing and go nowhere. 

Some of you who know me and know my Facebook activity are looking at me and thinking, “O Rob, you already do that.”  All I can say is I’m not going to … anymore.  At least I’ll try not to.  Non-Facebook users, don’t judget those of us who do use it.  There’s a lot of good to be done in that platform and even if you don’t use that form of social media, there are chances you too have been in disputes that are pointless and avoidable, just not there. The conflicts that develop in Facebook threads are not worth it. Many conflicts in which we find ourselves can minimized or altogether avoided. 

However, in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul, the author of this letter, sets up an “us versus them” conflict that he feels is very important.

Speaking of himself and the Christians with him he writes, “We do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age” (2:6).  On one side, in the conflict Paul identifies, stands the believers, those who, along with Paul, follow, serve, and worship God as God is revealed in Jesus.  Opposed to the Christ-followers are the rulers of this age.  In 1:18, Paul calls them “those who are perishing.”  They are lost, and without Christ, lost to God eternally.  In 1:19 he calls them “the wise,” in 1:20, “the debaters of this age,” and in 1:22-23 he implies that these are Jews and Gentiles who do not believe in Jesus.  Paul believes without Jesus, people are lost.  We can choose to reject God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and many do. 

In 1:25, Paul refers to “human wisdom” and “human strength,” which is weaker and less wise than God’s foolishness and weakness.  Paul calls them “rulers of this age” in 2:6 and again in 2:8.  That phrase is key for our understanding because it transports this teaching from Paul’s first century Roman-Corinthian context to our 20^th century American context.  We have rulers and trendsetters and influencers in our age who are as enamored with their own smarts, accomplishments, power, wealth, and position as were the rulers of the age in Paul’s day.  Like in Paul’s day, rulers of our age do not humble themselves before God.  They constantly seek glory for themselves.

Yelling with exclamation points, all-caps, and angry emojis on Facebook accomplishes little.  But seeing it and understanding that people are far from God, and often their lust for status is why they are far from God is important.  We don’t want to emulate this worldly pursuit of Earthly glory – the American dream or the good life or whatever you want to call it.  We don’t chase that.  In fact, for Paul, chasing after earthly things is destructive for our faith. 

Chapter 2 verse 7 indicates that “us versus them” mindset Paul has.  While “they” are doomed to perish, he writes in verse 7, “we speak God’s wisdom” and “none of the rulers of this age [understand]) (v.8).  Are Christians smarter than non-Christians?  Not by a long shot.  That we can see God in Jesus does not come about from our supreme intelligence.  In chapter 1 Paul wrote, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many of noble birth” (1:26).   So how do we who are in Christ understand who Jesus is and give Him the worship and allegiance he is due?

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that the wisdom of God is prepared “for those who love Him.”  I want the wisdom of God.  How do I get to be counted among “those who love him?”  Is it as simple as saying, I really love God, and meaning it?  Maybe.  But I don’t trust myself.  I know I can love something one minute, and then get caught up in something, like an inane Facebook argument or a minor annoyance or something bigger, and that love I professed for God recedes to the back of my mind.  As I tried to understand 1 Corinthians 2:9 and tried to grasp who it is that loves God and receives this knowledge, I looked to the Gospels.

In Mark 5, Jesus freed a man who was enslaved by 1000 demons.  They drove the man crazy.  When he was freed and made right by Jesus, he began to truly love God.  In Matthew 9, a woman who suffered non-stop bleeding for 12 years, possibly an obstetric fistula, was healed by Jesus.  She was regarded as “unclean;” Jesus called her “daughter” as he healed her.  She understood what it is to love God.  So did the wealthy, despised tax collectors, Levi in Mark 2 and Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Others hated these me.  Jesus welcomed them. 

This sent me on a journey into the gospels.  I went 11 different stories – rich and poor people, healthy and sick, Jewish and Gentile, powerful and peasant, innocent and guilty – all were marginalized by society and loved by Jesus.  Each one was aware of the need to humble himself or herself before God, revealed in Jesus.  When they lowered themselves and saw their own need, they were ready to receive the healing or forgiveness, to hear the call, and respond to God in faith.  These and so many others in the Gospels are those who love God.  I want to be part of that group. 

It is to this group that God has revealed all things through the Spirit.  Paul writes that the Spirit “searches everything, even the depths of God.  … No one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:10-11).  The Holy Spirit is in all places and possesses all knowledge.  The Holy Spirit sees into the deepest parts of each one of us.  Nothing is hidden from God the Spirit. 

Of course our way of experiencing the world is going to be different than people who have no relationship with Jesus.  Verses 12-13 say “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God.”  Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot understand God’s wisdom.  Once we have humbled ourselves before God and expressed faith in Christ, we are filled with the Spirit.  Then, we must not go back to seeing and acting in the flesh, from a worldly perspective, as if God had not acted in us. 

This is one more way Paul points out the conflict between Christians and the rulers of the age.  “Those who are unspiritual,” as it is worded in verse 15, “do not receive gifts of God’s Spirit.”  They cannot understand God’s ways and are cut off from God as their gaze is fixed on human ideas of power and wisdom and success.

So, if we want divine perspective, holy joy, and eternal life, we need to be among those who love God in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.  As we have already said, the first step is to humble ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness.  Humbled before God, we confess, repent, and receive Jesus.

But then what?  We are among those who are in Christ, the recipients of God’s wisdom through the Holy Spirit.  What about the world around us, the people still stuck in the world, still cut off from God?  Are they lost forever?

Of course not.  Jesus’ death on the cross is effective for the salvation of all sinners.  How do we help unbelievers turn to God?  Hint: we don’t do it through red-faced angry Facebook arguments.  We don’t get there through in-person arguments either.  We follow Jesus and our friends see Him in us.  The Holy Spirit has to reveal their sin to them and need for God.  We stand by as friends, invite them to church, love as Jesus has loved, and help them when they decide to turn to Him. 

God has given us his wisdom through His Spirit not to be hidden away or hoarded, but to be shared.  So that’s what we do.  We follow Jesus, we love our unchurched friends and co-workers and neighbors, and we help them turn from the vapid promises of our present age to eternal life as children of God, a life lived by all who have turned to Jesus.  We start by putting needless conflicts behind us and humbling ourselves before God.

AMEN

The Apostle Paul defends His Belief in Resurrection

Accused of Hope (Acts 23:6-11; Acts 26:6-19)

Sunday, May 5, 2019

            This is what I want to see happen: you, on trial!  And I hope you are convicted.  Guilty!  That’s my hope: that you know the full weight of standing utterly exposed, and with nowhere to turn, you have to face up to reality.  It’s true!

            Ok, what’s this about?

            Paul lived in the first century.  He traveled around the nations along the Eastern and Northern shorelines of the Mediterranean Sea, Israel, Lebanon, the independent city-states in what is today Turkey, Greece; why?  Paul was going from city to city talking about Jesus.  He felt driven to do this.  He made tents and sold them so he would have money to eat and travel and tell people about Jesus. 

Previously, Paul had been a dignified Pharisee rising rapidly in that Jewish religious sect.  He even acquired arrest papers from the temple authorities to bring followers of Jesus to trial for the crime of proclaiming Jesus “Lord” and declaring him to be the Messiah.  The high priest felt this message was so disruptive people preaching it had to be stopped, even if it meant execution by stoning. 

That happened to the leader of the first appointed deacons.  Stephen was stoned to death for preaching about Jesus. Paul, then a young and up-and-comer among the Pharisees approved of Stephen’s killing and even held the cloaks of those throwing the stones.  Then, with armed troops, he headed to Damascus to arrest more Christians.

On the road to that city, the risen Lord Jesus, appeared to Paul in a blinding flash of light.  Paul realized he was on the wrong side.  He stopped persecuting Christians and became one.  Being blinded by the light of Jesus helps one see and once Paul recovered his senses and his vision, everything was clear.  The Jesus who met him was the same as the one who had been crucified a few years earlier.  The claims his disciples made were absolutely true.  Jesus was Messiah!  Jesus was Lord!

That’s when Paul started going everywhere, telling whomever would listen what he had learned.  His adventures in following Jesus are told in the book of Acts beginning in chapter 9.  By chapter 23, we have gone with Paul all the way to the Greek city of Corinth, and all the way back to Jerusalem.  A group of Jews, upset with the message Paul preached, followed him to the city.  They riled up a mob at the temple with the false accusation that Paul had defiled the temple.  He did no such thing, but they convinced a crowd he had.  It’s the one crime the Romans allowed the Jews to punish by execution.  These crazies could kill Paul without repercussions from the Roman overlords who controlled Jerusalem.  And they tried. 

Acts 21 - “They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple; while they were trying to kill him word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.  Immediately he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to [investigate the ruckus]” (21:30-32).  The tribune was a Roman military commander charged by his superiors with maintaining order.  He did not care if the temple leaders, Jews, killed one person, but if a riot ensued, he would be punished, maybe himself executed.

Paul was taken into Roman custody.  The Jews demanded he be executed.  The Romans decided to examine Paul.  “Examine” means they were going to whip him with a thick knotted chord until he admitted what he had done.  That’s when Paul dropped his bomb.  He asked the centurion holding the whip, the one about to turn his body into a bloody pulp, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned” (22:25)?  Oh boy!

The centurion ran to the tribune, his superior, and demanded to know, “What are you doing?  This man is a citizen!”  The tribune didn’t have a very enviable job.  He would get in serious trouble if the nationals, the Jews, weren’t kept in order.  He would get in even more trouble if he mistreated a citizen, and Paul was a citizen.  He immediately halted all proceedings and interrogated Paul gently, but before the questioning was over, it was as if Paul had interrogated him.  Paul was a natural born citizen.  This tribune had had to bribe someone to buy his citizenship papers.

This improbable series of events is how Paul ended up on trial before the Romans accused of committing blasphemy against the Jewish god.  The mob of Jewish roughians could not slow down Paul’s preaching about Jesus.  The mighty Romans, feared by all, had no control and seemingly were controlled by this outcast Jesus-loving Pharisee.  How did this happen?

Paul gives an indication in the course of his numerous defenses.  When he revealed he was a Roman citizen, he then appealed his case to the emperor in Rome, which was his right.  The tribune moved him to the city of Caesarea, not far from Jerusalem.  There he was held for a couple of years, long enough for a new Tribune to come into the position and for Paul to have numerous opportunities to speak about his faith in Christ.  

In one of those speeches, to a primarily Jewish audience, he says, “I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead” (23:6).  Later, this time speaking before King Agrippa Herod and Roman Governor Portius Festus, he said, “It is for this hope, you excellency, that I am accused by the Jews!  Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead” (26:7-8)?

I am here, accused, because I believe God raised Jesus!

Why do you find it so hard to believe God resurrected the dead?

Paul believed the resurrection of Jesus is what led to him being attacked by both the Jews and the Romans.  And the resurrection is the reason he was so glad to be right where he was - testifying before the most powerful, influential leaders in society.

Our core confession is that Jesus is Lord.  He died on the cross for our sins and he rose from death in resurrection.  His resurrection is a prelude to the resurrection of all people, some raised to everlasting life with him and some to eternal separation from God and we call that eternal separation Hell.  

Seminary Professor Rodney Reeves tells of one of his fishing buddies from his days as a pastor.  This man said to him, “If it weren’t for the resurrection, I wouldn’t be a believer.”[i]  Have you ever thought about it that way?  Would you be a follower of Jesus if the resurrection had not happened?  

This friend of Pastor Rodney had lived a hard life.  His father murdered his mother and then took his own life.  He and his younger brother ended up growing up in poverty.  He was able to climb out of his painful beginnings and go to college and build a life.  His younger brother didn’t do so well.  He drifted from struggle to struggle, constantly battling substance abuse, and finally dying at a young age.  His death was connected to his own bad choices.  In spite of all the loss, this man lived with a cheerful, joyful outlook.  He told Pastor Rodney, “The Resurrection of Jesus is my only hope.”

We believe Jesus rose from death, and at the end of history, on the last day, all who have faith in Christ will rise as he did.  We believe that future hope, but what about today?  How does the resurrection empower Paul to take on Jerusalem temple authorities and Roman Tribunes and governors?  How does our belief in Jesus conquering death help someone like Pastor Rodney’s friend overcome such a tough life and live in joy, today?  How does resurrection fill our present with hope?

Theology professor Kelly Kapic of Covenant College wants Christians to understand this.  She writes, “The work of Christ ... is not just something done over our heads or merely long ago and far away.  United to Christ by the Spirit, we are to live as God’s children now. ... Christian devotion must always be shaped by the resurrection of Christ.”[ii]   The resurrection reminds us that God did not simply do something in the past but is also actively working in our individual lives and church lives now.

            The great reformer Martin Luther wrote that we Christians should live an eternal Easter life in which we continue in the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit as long as we remain on earth.[iii]  And I love Rodney Reeves’ way of putting it.  “The resurrection of Christ is an unstoppable work of God in the life of every believer.”[iv]

            I hope you’re feeling that unstoppable force!  I hope you have opened your heart to Jesus, received forgiveness of sins, and now are walking in a real relationship with the resurrected one.

            At our church leaders summit in March, all elders and deacons present agreed upon a mission statement for our church based upon what we do.  What do we at HillSong church do?

• We follow Jesus.
• We love others.
• We share hope.

            That’s what Paul was doing when he was on trial, sharing hope that he based on one reality.  Jesus had risen from death.  Because of the resurrection, he could position himself to talk to the Roman emperor about Jesus.  Because the Holy Spirit of the risen Christ was with him, he was empowered.  Because Jesus rose, we too are empowered.  At Christmas time, we sing Emmanuel, God with us.  Because of the resurrection, today, the first Sunday of May and every day, we have God with us. 

            No matter how hard or discouraging life becomes, I long for each and every one of us to live in hope.  I pray we will be found guilty - guilty of the hope of eternal life. And I pray that hope pours forth from us so that we draw people to Jesus.

AMEN

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[i] R.Reeves (2011), Spirituality According to Paul, InterVarsity Press (Downer’s Grove, IL), p.173.

[ii] K. Papic Christianity Today, “Is the Cross Enough” (April 2019), p.46-49.

[iii] M. Luther, Epistle Sermons Vol. II, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, translated by John Nicholas Lenker (1909), The Luther Press (Minneapolis), p.178.

[iv] Reeves, p.175.