Acts 24:1-27 "You Have Already (Been) Chosen"

                This past weekend my whole family went to Vicksburg, MS for a presbytery meeting.  No, that’s not really our idea of a good time, although we did have one.  Amy grew up in Vicksburg and wanted to go see her home church that we haven’t set foot in in probably 5 years.  When we travel in the car, our kids all watch movies in the backseat together.  What’s funny is that no matter how long the trip, each one of them wants to watch just one movie.  It’s a different movie each time, but they just want to watch the same one on repeat.  We’ve often sat in the front seat and thought, “When are they going to get tired of this movie?”  We’ve even used some of them so often that the discs quit working and we’ve had to buy new ones.  As I listened to the same movie for the 5^th time in 2 days yesterday I thought about my own childhood and if I had a movie that I liked that much as a kid.  I have several that I can quote almost verbatim, but there was one that myself and my parents used to always watch together.  Ok, it wasn’t one movie, but a collection of them.  You see, we used to love Ernest P. Worrell.  For some reason, that character, played by actor Jim Varney, always had a way of keeping us laughing no matter what was going on in the world around us.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, well I’m sorry.

                One of our favorite ones was called Ernest Goes to Jail.  In that movie (you guessed it) Ernest was wrongfully sent to prison, and the movie follows him as he is let free and the rightful bank robbers arrested.  Well, as we bring our study of the book of Acts to a close, much of the final chapters could be entitled Paul Goes to Jail or more aptly, Paul Stands Trial.  You see, the Apostle Paul had, at this point, completed his third and final missionary journey.  He had become one of the leaders in the church.  He had become one of the primary missionaries of the church.  But he had also become one of the most hated men in the world by those outside of the Christian faith, particularly the Jews.  Since our time last Sunday looking at Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesian elders, Paul endured a lot of hardships.  Paul went to Jerusalem and while being there was arrested.  He spoke to some the tribune in an effort to gain his freedom, but it didn’t help.  While he was in custody, there were some Jews who devised a plot to kill Paul during a prisoner transport of sorts.  Finally, it became apparent that Paul couldn’t just be held without a trial.  Paul was one of those people that everyone had an opinion on, so they brought him before Felix, the governor of Jerusalem.  And it’s there where our text for today begins.

                We see that as the trial began, Tertullus, the one prosecuting Paul, spent as much time flattering Felix as he did actually presenting the case.  Now, amidst the flattery, he eventually laid out what were three charges against Paul.  He said that Paul was a plague, stirring up riots; he was the ringleader of a sect; and that he tried to profane the temple.  So, he was essentially charging him with disturbing the peace, cultivating heresy, and desecrating the holy temple of God.  You know, it’s kind of funny when you think about it.  These charges were essentially the same things that were brought against Jesus during his trial.  I have to think that Paul found great satisfaction in this fact.  Now, I’m sure that Paul didn’t enjoy his being arrested and put on trial, but at least he could take solace in the fact that he was facing the same charges that Jesus faced.  You can pretty much know that you’re doing something the right way when your actions lead to your being put in the same company as Jesus.  Also, it shows how the world really hadn’t changed that much from the time of Jesus’ trial to Paul’s imprisonment.  After all, it hadn’t been that long since Jesus’ time, but think about if it happened today where we live.  Yes, I know that the world is a completely different place, but I would be willing to bet that if we showed the same zeal for Christ that Paul showed, then we would gain a completely different opinion.  However, that is an entirely different discussion for a different day.

                After hearing the charges brought against him, Paul was given the chance to respond and defend himself. Beginning in verse 10 Paul goes through and debunks each of the charges against him, and notice that nowhere in his defense did he attempt to flatter Felix the way that Tertullus had before making his arguments.  Paul wasn’t concerned with his freedom, but his only concern was remaining true to the calling that God had placed upon his life, to share the gospel.  Summing up Paul argument, he simply stated that he most certainly was not a plague, not a troublemaker; he was merely a follower of the Way and not the ringleader of some heretical sect; and that he was not desecrating the temple but that he was performing the acts commanded of those prior to worship.  Paul even added that the only reason why he was on trial was because of the personal vendetta that some Jews had against him.

                After hearing both sides of the argument, Felix did his best impression of a politician during an election year and stalled.  I saw a commercial the other day for a race here in Louisiana and the candidate basically threw out a few topics, but said nothing other than that we need to fix them.  Well, he may be right, but how did he plan to fix them?  I don’t know, he never said.  Now he may have a plan and I may just be uninformed, but his commercial didn’t seem to really indicate any choices that he had made or would make going forward.  Perhaps an even better analogy would be to compare Felix to the Supreme Court of today and their selected inactivity on some cases recently.  You see, Felix knew that Paul was innocent of what he was being charged with.  He knew just as much as Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent.  However, like Pilate, Felix was also faced with outside pressure.  Felix was just a man trying to get by.  We know from historical records that Felix wasn’t really fit for this job.  The end of our text tells us that he lasted only two more years in this role before being removed.  You see, Felix was just trying to please everyone, but he knew that a decision (one way or the other) would cause him problems.  He knew that Paul was innocent, but he also wanted to make his constituents happy.

                A couple of weeks ago, Brian Houston, the senior pastor for Hillsong Church, which is based out of New York but has a network of churches across the globe, made national news by straddling the fence when it came to the issue of homosexuality.  What happened was that he was asked about the recent indecision of the Supreme Court that I referred to earlier and his response was that the issue of homosexual marriage was “an ongoing conversation.”  Of course this statement prompted follow-up questions about what he stance on the issue was and if it had changed from what he previously believed.  Houston tried to side-step the issue, but as he found out rather quickly, he couldn’t.  Back in June, Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, had stated that there is no third view of same-sex marriages.  You either view them as acceptable or they aren’t.  It’s the same thing that we said about C.S. Lewis’ view of Jesus in Mere Christianity; he is either Lord, a liar, or a lunatic.  There is no other way to view it.  In essence, everyone has to decide between a limited set of choices, and that just makes us mad because we don’t like having limits placed upon us.

I can remember my parents letting me choose my punishment when I was a kid.  “Tommy, you can either give up your car for a week or you can stay home for the entire weekend; those are your two choices.”  I remember many times trying to spring for a third option and come up with something that wasn’t nearly as harsh.  However, my father would always quickly correct me by saying, “I’m sorry, I could have sworn that there were only two choices, so pick one before you get both of them.”  You see, I really didn’t want to decide, but I had to make a choice.  Felix really didn’t want to decide here either.  However, his choice to not act was really a choice to act in favor of the Jews, even if it didn’t go as far as they might have wanted.  It’s just like the Supreme Court’s inaction, which favored one side over the other even though it wasn’t exactly what the winning side originally wanted.

You see, there is no such thing as indecision.  Even when we seek out neutrality, we still end up promoting one side over the other.  Even when we don’t want to make a choice, we’re making one.  We are all going to have to decide; WE MUST DECIDE.  However, the ultimate decision that we have to make isn’t between two bad choices.  It’s not like a political election where we’re just kind of picking between the lesser of two evils.  We are faced with a choice between life and death.  We’re faced with the choice between salvation and condemnation.  We’re faced with the choice between Jesus and the fallen world.  We’re faced with what the Apostle Paul refers to in his epistles as the spirit vs. the flesh.  Now, that may not seem like a difficult choice to you and I will acknowledge that some would say that my terminology stacks the deck for one side over the other, but that’s exactly the point.  You see, to me it’s not even really a choice.  To me it’s like if my parents had given me the choice between completely overlooking whatever it was that I had done or being punished rightly for it.  I wouldn’t hesitate for one second to take that deal before going with the forgiveness option and neither would you.

Well, those actually are our choices.  On the one hand we have Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the cross, and the salvation applied to us by the Holy Spirit.  Or on the other hand, we have  worldly desires, instant rewards, pursuits of the flesh, and the punishment that should rightly befall upon each of us.  You see, the problem doesn’t come in with us saying which one we choose; that’s easy.  The problem comes with our actual choosing of it, and that’s why I say that the choice of indecision is still a decision.  When we commit our lives to Christ, we commit to living the Christian life.  How that looks isn’t necessarily a list of do’s and don’ts, but a submission to God and to his Word.  It’s in essence an agreement that we make to submit ourselves to Scripture and God’s will of our lives.  The problem comes in when we find something in Scripture that we don’t like.  When this happens then we want to throw that part out or ignore that command, but we still want to have Jesus and all the benefits and blessings.  Well, in the words of my dad, “I’m sorry, I could have sworn that there were only two choices.”  We’re faced basically with the same options that Dr. Mohler put forth back in June, complete acceptance or denial.  You see, to commit our lives to Christ isn’t to commit ourselves to following him only when we want to because that wouldn’t be commitment at all.  That would be like saying that when I married my wife that I was agreeing to be her husband only when I wanted to be.  Instead of our vows saying for better or worse, in sickness or in health; they would have read “during times where you’re both healthy and everything is good and money isn’t tight and life is easy.”  That’s not what they said at all.  Amy and I made a commitment to each other that no matter what happened, we were going to be faithful to one another, love one another, and support one another.  We pledged to place each other, along with our marriage as a whole, above our own individual desires. 

My father has this friend who he and his wife were having problems.  They separated, saw a marriage counselor and seemed to be on the right track.  Then, they just suddenly filed for divorce.  I can remember me and my dad running into him at the golf course and my dad asked him what happened.  “Y’all seemed to be doing so good?” my dad asked him.  Dad’s friend replied, “Yeah, we were able to agree on pretty much everything except for one thing.”  My dad said, “One thing!  That’s not so bad, my wife and I disagree on at least one thing per day.”  His friend replied, “I know, but she just would not budge on me keeping my girlfriend.”

Now, we may want to laugh at my dad’s friend (which we did but it was mainly to cover up the shock that we were both feeling at the time), but that’s exactly what many of us do when it comes to our faith.  We want to have that marriage, that union with Christ, but we don’t want the true commitment that goes with it.  We don’t want the hard choices or the expectations that accompany that relationship.  However, when we are fully committed, we actually enjoy those expectations and don’t worry about them.  I’m committed to my spouse just as many of you are.  I don’t get upset at things I miss out on.  I’m committed to my God; I don’t worry about the things that I supposedly miss out on because of it.  You see, I’ve decided and am completely happy in my decision.  I wouldn’t change my mind for anything in this world.

But you see, there is another side to this notion of our making a decision.  Some of you probably know where I’m going with this and you’re probably the same ones who have had the same question ringing in your head since the words “choice” and “decision” got thrown out there.  I want to turn your attention very quickly to the Apostle Paul’s words at the beginning of his letter to the church in Ephesus.  He writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world…In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him works all things according to the counsel of his will.”  You see, we do have a choice to make, but the choice of whether or not we come to Christ is already made.  Now, I don’t really have enough time to flush this out like I probably need to, but let me just see if I can quickly elaborate on this. 

If we look at Paul’s words we find terms like “blessing, inheritance, and gift.”  You see, faith ultimately is not a virtue, it’s a gift.  Christ died for us upon a tree, satisfying the debt owed to God.  There’s nothing else to our salvation.  We don’t add one bit to our being saved; it’s completely a work of Christ.  Now, if it all ultimately hinged upon our acceptance of Christ’s offer then we would absolutely have something to do with it, but we don’t.  You see, (and I understand that it’s a tricky and confusing subject) this is the doctrine known as irresistible grace.  Irresistible grace means that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save (the elect) and, in God's timing, overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to faith in Christ.  So you see we do make the choice because God chooses us first.

Friends, Christ chooses whom he chooses for reasons that are known only to him.  To many this sounds cold; to many this sounds harsh.  To some of you it may sound cold and harsh, but Scripture isn’t just about making us feel good and warm inside; it’s about revealing God to us.  I know no other way to describe it other than to say that once you’ve felt that call, once you’ve received that gift of faith, there no longer stands before you a choice.  Give me life or give me death; give me Christ or give me nothing.  Use the gift of faith that you have been given; hold it dear.  Make your life one where the gift of God is on display at all times.  Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Acts 20:17-38 "Beware of Wolves"

                Well, we’ve only got a little over a month left in our study of the book of Acts.  I plan on finishing Acts the Sunday before we begin our Advent series, which only gives us this Sunday and the next five after that.  However, we have around nine chapters left to cover in the book of Acts.  I wanted to skip over a few chapters this week, but something in me led me to see a deep need for our hearing of the words that Paul spoke the Ephesian elders.  You see, Paul was nearing the end of his final missionary journey at this point.  We don’t know whether or not Paul knew that his days of traveling as much were coming to an end, but we see that he made sure that when he left Ephesus that he gave them some final instructions.  In verse 25 he tells the elders that this was to be their last physical encounter with each other.  We saw a riot in Ephesus last Sunday.  Well, Paul had to leave Ephesus for a bit after the riot was over and travel to some other areas.  After a time, Paul went back to Ephesus and called the leaders of the church together and gave them this farewell address.

                Paul did three things in this farewell address.  He gave a testimony about himself, charged the elders for their future work, and he prayed for them.  He spoke about how he had labored for the sake of the gospel since day one in Asia.  He spoke of how he never allowed the gospel to be hindered either by the ethnicity of the audience or the backlash that he received from it.  He made sure that the elders, the leaders of the church in Ephesus, understood just how much he had sacrificed for the sake of the gospel.  Verse 24 gives a great account of Paul’s view of his life, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”  You know; this notion of Paul not counting his life of any value and not seeing it as precious is confusing to us.  After all, we would view Paul’s life of great value and very precious.  He was one of (if not the) great teacher about God other than Jesus that has ever lived.  We also have a problem not viewing Paul’s life as valuable because we view every life as valuable.  The mere thought of someone giving up their life for any cause, even one as great as the gospel, seems horrible to us, but should it?

                No one likes to think about death.  No one likes to think about themselves, someone they love and care about, or even someone that they don’t really know dying.  It’s one of those funny things isn’t it?  In ministry, I’ve gone through seasons where I felt like things have come in abundance.  There have been seasons that seemed like endless weddings.  There have been times that were endless meetings, studies, and planning.  There have been seasons of constant health situations, and there have been those times of seeming like around every corner hid the passing of another brother or sister in Christ.  Now, I have told you before the story about the little girl who during the Columbine shooting professed faith in Christ and subsequently lost her life because of it.  I said at that time that I would hope that we would all make the same proclamation that young Cassie Bernall made that day.  However, I know that there are those who would rather have their own life, or the life of their loved one, preserved instead of proclaiming faith in Christ.  However, what Paul was telling the Ephesian elders here is that earthly life is secondary to gospel proclamation, regardless of who the person might be.

                Now, we may also want to think that Paul’s testimony about himself and his insisting that not his nor anyone else’s life is of account is a little odd, but there is a purpose for Paul going into this.  Well, what is that purpose?  It begins in verse 25, that same verse that I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, “And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.”  Paul was having to prepare this church to go on without him.  He was having to prepare the leadership of this church, the elders, to care for and shepherd the people of this congregation without him.  “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock...to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.  I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”  I don’t know about you, but when I read these words from the Apostle Paul my mind immediately shifts to the wolves in the church in 1 Peter 5 or the false prophets and teachers of 2 Peter 2.  In other words, the elders in Ephesus needed to be prepared for an attack upon the gospel from within the church.  It’s a warning that we need to heed today as well.  Many of the attempts to destroy the gospel have come from those who are considered to be leaders of the church.  Teachers and leaders who talk about prosperity as God’s approval, personal happiness being the primary thing God wants for His children, or salvation being something that we can earn as opposed to Christ achieving it for us.  Now, I’m not just speaking of pastors here, but any Christian who is considered to be among the church who promotes such atrocities.  Friends, such wolves must be stopped for the sake of the truth of the gospel.

                The question then becomes how we are to stop them, and Paul gives us the answer.  “Therefore, be alert, remembering for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.”  First off, we have to be alert; we have to be looking for it.  Secondly, we have to constantly be looking for it.  Paul spent three years without ceasing his defending the faith among them.  It’s not enough just to pay really close attention to the situation for a few weeks and then take a break.  We are to be constantly on guard for the truth of the gospel, ready to defend it at a moment’s notice.  I’ve got family in town celebrating Thomas’ birthday next week.  He’ll turn 4 on Wednesday.  His mama and I have spent 4 full years looking after him, protecting him, and trying to teach him the right way to live in accordance with God’s will for him.  Now despite our constant attention over the past for years, if we are to take a break for a week there’s a good chance that something bad is going to happen.  A week of nothing but French fries and donuts, loose change in an electrical outlet, or a week long without bathing; something is going to happen.  You see, as parents, we have to be constantly on guard until our children reach a certain level of maturity known as adulthood.  Well, in our faith, we don’t ever reach that adulthood until we enter into heaven.  Sure some of us grow to a more mature spiritual state of sorts, but that’s kind of like saying that Ashby, our 5 year old, is better equipped to take care of herself than Thomas is at 4.  Technically you’re right, but neither of them are really qualified for the job.

                The third thing that we know about how to care for God’s people and defend the gospel from Paul’s words comes from the words, “with tears”.  You see, Paul was emotional about the gospel.  I was reading an article the first part of this week about pastoral burnout and growth in preaching and it said that one of reasons why some preachers get better and some don’t is because of passion.  Well, you would think that all pastors would be passionate about the gospel (which most are but a shameful number don’t show it).  However, you would think that all Christians and Christian leaders would be equally as passionate.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  I see people all the time who profess faith in Christ, but can pick it up and put it down like they can a jacket or a pair of pants.  In order for us to be able to rightly defend something, there has to be no limit to which we would go to see its success or continuation.  Hence the language that Paul used earlier about his life being of no account or value when compared to the progress of the gospel.  In order for us to be willing to lay down our lives for something, we have to be passionate and completely consumed by our love for it, much like the young girl at Columbine.

                Finally, Paul prayed for the people of Ephesus, and especially of the elders of the church there.  He asked for God to bless them.  He asked that God would build them up and give them the strength to do the things that he had charged them to do.  He prayed that the future of the church would continue on just as strong (if not stronger) than the past had been with him there.  The people knelt with him, wept with him, and prayed with him.  They loved this man and he in turn loved them.  Their tears were just as much from the fact that he was leaving them as they were from the words that he had spoken to them.  Then they accompanied him to a boat where he would continue on his travels.

                Now, I briefly mentioned the ways that the gospel comes under attack in today’s world.  Sure there are the open attacks like ISIS, the burning of the churches of the Coptic Christians in Egypt several months back, or the persecution of Christians in North Korea.  However, these are attacks from outside the gospel, outside the Church.  We expect those.  We know those are going to happen.  Jesus told his disciples numerous times throughout his earthly ministry that they would be persecuted and hated for his namesake.  We may not like these hardships and persecutions, but we know to expect them.  However, the persecutions that Paul told the Ephesian elders about, the ones that we mentioned Peter writing about, those are the ones that in my mind do the most damage.  I’ve briefly hinted at this over the past few months as we’ve look through the book of Acts, that the greatest threat and enemy of the gospel is found within the church itself.  I can promise you (and I’ve seen this with my own eyes) that more Christians stray from the gospel because of other Christians than anything else.  Whether it’s the folks that are overly harsh and turn Scripture into a mere moralistic rule book, or the line of teaching that just promotes that God loves us and Jesus died for us so we can do whatever we want without fear of losing that, great danger can be found within the Church.

                I want you to hear the words of Paul again, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock...to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”  I want us to notice some things here.  First off, if we are to pay careful attention to ourselves and all of Christ’s Church, then it must very much matter how we conduct ourselves.  If there’s nothing that we can do to find ourselves not “caring for the church of God” then they would be no reason to pay attention to our actions.  And secondly, we have been purchased at a great price.  Just think about that statement for a second, “which he obtained with his own blood.”  Christ bled for us.  Christ died for us.  And many of us won’t even sacrifice one thing or even one minute for him.  Yes, God loves us, but his love has come at great cost to himself.  Lucky for us, God is the only one who has the means by which to pay the cost, the debt that we owe to God.  Being a Christian isn’t just about doing the right thing from a morality perspective.  It isn’t about just shouting God is love and John 3:16 and then doing whatever we want.  Now, to a certain extent these teachings are true within the Christian faith, but they are woefully short of the entirety and the central message of the Christian faith, the gospel.  When we see people teaching these types of messages, we have to heed the words of Paul to the Ephesian elders and be willing to stop them at all costs.  But ultimately, the greatest way to stop them isn’t just by rebuking them, but by proclaiming the one true message.  It’s by teaching the actual gospel, completely unhindered and without agenda.  When one of my children make a mistake, it does little good to simply fuss at them and tell them what they did was wrong, but it does a world of good for us to show them why they were wrong and teach them what they should have done instead.  Let us all be on alert and arm ourselves to proclaim the right gospel this day and in the days ahead.  Let us be on guard, ready to defend the world from the false gospels that arise, even from within the church.  And let us know that God will give us strength for the task ahead, because “he obtained [us] with his own blood.”  Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.W

A Response to Mayor Parker's Subpoenas

So the mayor of Houston has issued subpoenas for all sermons preached from the pulpit of (what I would assume are) conservative evangelical churches.  My response to her claims is not the norm; I happen to be excited by this news.  Now, let me take a moment to explain my excitement.  First off, I’m not a pastor in Houston, so I don’t have to fool with this non-sense.  I’m sure that if I were in Houston and had to comply with mayor Annise Parker’s request I would be highly irritated; especially since not complying could render me being held in contempt of court. 

                The second reason why I’m so excited about this turn of events is that I think it is a golden opportunity for lots of us to have fun with it.  First off, I would go well beyond the boundaries of just “sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity, or the city’s first openly lesbian mayor herself”.  I would send in every sermon that I have a manuscript for and just state that the same principle (i.e. the gospel) that was behind those sermons speaking out against these particular sins is the same principle behind all other sermons.  After all, my mother always taught me that it’s better to be over-prepared and give too much information than not enough.  I wouldn’t want to accidentally miss sending something that the mayor could find offensive and be held in contempt.  After all, aren’t we always begging people to really pay attention to and dissect our sermons?  I can think of no better way for the gospel to convict this woman and her associates than by reading some really gospel-centered sermons that had been preached by some really Godly folks.

                Alright…enough picking on Mayor Parker and her foolish ideas.  Ultimately I think that this will turn out, much like Y2K did back nearly 15 years ago, to be much ado about nothing.  Clearly this is an infringement upon the First Amendment rights of the pastors and churches.  The First Amendment states:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  One website that I read added: 

“The city’s subpoena of sermons and other pastoral communications is both needless and unprecedented,” Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Christina Holcomb said in a statement.  “The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions.”  ADF, a nationally-known law firm specializing in religious liberty cases, is representing five Houston pastors.  They filed a motion in Harris County court to stop the subpoenas arguing they are “overbroad, unduly burdensome, harassing, and vexatious.” 

                Now regardless of how angry we may get at the mere notion of this subpoena taking place or how laughable we might find all of this, there is a greater message to be taken from all of this.  Later on in the same article referenced earlier (taken from Fox News) we find this statement, “However, ADF attorney Stanley suspects the mayor wants to publicly shame the ministers. He said he anticipates they will hold up their sermons for public scrutiny. In other words – the city is rummaging for evidence to “out” the pastors as anti-gay bigots.”  And there is the ultimate threat that I see in all of this:  the attempt to paint all pastors as anti-gay bigots.  Make no mistake about it, there are attacks out there.  We are constantly in a time of spiritual warfare.

                The Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 6, talks about the Armor of God.  Remember that Paul was no stranger to political and government oppression.  There were even times where his rights as a Roman citizen were completely trampled on and overlooked by those in positions of authority.

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6:10-20 ESV)

                One of the things that I have always taken from this text on the Armor of God is to look at the types of weapons that are mentioned.  We have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of readiness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the SWORD of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  Notice that every piece of the Armor of God that is mentioned is a defensive weapon except for the word of God.  Friends, the word of God is the only offense that we have against the dark world that surrounds us and seems to be drawing closer each day.  If the mayor of Houston, the city council, or any other group of people opposed to the Christian message want to invite the word of God into their lives to study it and spend time with it…LET THEM!  I can think of no better way to change the world than by taking the one thing that has the power to change it and placing it in the hands of those who are most in need of it.

                In the meantime, let's all be in prayer for Houston and the rest of our country.  I can promise you that if this is occurring in Texas, it is only a matter of time before it is attempted in other parts of the country.  Pray for your pastors.  Pray that they would have the strength and courage to proclaim the gospel faithfully and truthfully regardless of the legal outcome.

Acts 19:21-41 "Reasons for Rioting"

                So often when we think of early churches in the Bible or some of the early churches of that era and the cities that they resided in, we think that it was more like a theocracy than anything else.  When we hear about the churches in Philippi or Galatia, we just imagine that nearly everyone there was at least somewhat a part of the church.  Well, the picture that Luke gives us today in Acts 19 tells us that that was far from the truth.  This text, which could be broken down into three parts, shows us the volatility that existed specifically in Ephesus during this time, just as it existed everywhere else as well.  While our text for last Sunday spoke about Apollos being an effective witness in Corinth, we’re told that during that same time Paul was having great success in Ephesus.  Paul was healing people, baptizing folks, teaching, preaching, and evangelizing.  This is the type of stuff that pastors dream of; having a ministry period like Paul was having in Ephesus.  Seemingly nothing was going wrong for him.  Even when some of the Jews who traveled around trying to discredit him attempted to drive out demons from a man, that turned out poorly for them and led to even more people coming to believe Paul’s message and confirm the gospel of Jesus Christ.  You know things are going well when other people’s mistakes are driving people to you.  And so often that is the extent of the image that we have of the early New Testament church.

                However, things weren’t always so positive for Christians during this time.  I remember sitting in Church History I on my first day of seminary and my professor talking about how the history of Christianity, while very much there in Scripture, really finds its fuller expression in other historical accounts.  I remember him talking to us about what were called “Roman Streetlights”.   These were Christians who were dipped in some sort of flammable material and hung on posts while being lit on fire.  They glowed like streetlights in the night.  It was the first time that I can remember thinking, “Man, I guess things really were rough back then.”  Now, part of that was my naivety and part of that was that we just don’t talk much about the early church, period.  That’s a lot of the reason why I felt it crucial to undertake this study of the book of Acts in the first place. 

When we look at our text we see the response to all of the gospel expansion in Ephesus experienced by Paul.  Verse 23 says, “About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way.”  I’m just going to point out that from this verse we know that it was much more than a few disgruntled folks sitting over in the corner.  This may or may not have been a minority, but it was much more than just an insignificant few.  There was a guy named Demetrius who was a silversmith; in particular he was a silversmith who made statues for the shrines to Artemis, who was Greek goddess of hunting, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity, and the protector of young girls.  She was said to be the daughter of Zeus.  She was one of the more venerated gods of the time, so statues of her were always in high demand.  After all, every time a child was born, either you wanted your boy to have a successful hunt or you wanted your little girl to stay pure and be protected.  And don’t forget that the mother was in need of Artemis’ protection too since she was the goddess of childbirth also.

Well, Demetrius got upset at Paul’s teachings.  You see, as Paul was going around proclaiming the gospel, what he was also doing (without having to explicitly do so) was proclaiming the falseness of the Greek gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.  I’m going to make a modern-day correlation in just a moment, but I want to finish this thought first.  Demetrius gathered up all of his silversmith contemporaries and folks in similar trades that relied upon the belief in and worship of these gods and he turned them against Paul and the Christian message.  “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 deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”  Now, I’m not going to say that the reason why Demetrius was upset at Paul concerned income.  He really may have been deeply troubled that Artemis would no longer be worshipped by the people.  He may have really thought that spiritually and morally for the people of Ephesus to abandon Artemis and the worship of the Greek gods was to seek their destruction.  However, I’ll just say this:  Demetrius didn’t lead with anything about beliefs or spirituality or worship.  What he led with was talk about the pocketbooks of the silversmiths and other merchants being hurt.

What happened from that point is that Demetrius got all the folks riled up and a riot broke out.  Now, I’ve never been in a riot, but I’ve been in something close.  Last week when that college football team I don’t like to talk about that shares a state with my alma mater won and stormed the field, it was pure chaos.  I loved seeing pictures and videos from my friends who were there and I even heard some stories about husbands just telling their wives they loved them and running onto the field.  Back in 2004, I was at the Mississippi State game when we beat Florida and stormed the field and took the goalpost.  It was pure chaos and pandemonium, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come to a riot. The funny thing about it was that our “rioting” on the football field that day resembled (somewhat) the rioting of the folks in Ephesus that day.  We weren’t leaving Scott Field until the administration made us.  After all, that win brought our record to 10-32 since the beginning of the 2001 season.  Well, the rioting in Ephesus really doesn’t seem to have any order to it (probably because it’s a riot) until the town clerk stepped in.  He told the people of Ephesus that they weren’t doing away with Artemis, that Paul and his men had done nothing wrong, that if there was a disagreement then it could be handled in court, and that they were close to being found guilty of rioting.  Well, maybe that last one had already happened, but it was that the official charge of rioting was about to be issued.  Either way, it’s really kind of difficult to tell who came out on the “winning” end of this riot.  Was it Paul and the Christians, or was it Demetrius and those seeking to keep Artemis in her place of worship?  Well, we’ll just say for now that both groups took positive things away from this scuffle.

I mentioned a second ago that I was going to make a modern-day comparison to this situation that existed in Ephesus.  You see, people hate Christians.  No, I don’t mean that everyone hates us because we are Christians (although there are some folks who fit that description), but that people hate what it is that we teach.  Primarily it’s because what we teach by its very nature and definition goes against what most of the world teaches.  One of the fascinating things that I have seen at work in this world really over the last 10 or 20 years is the hatred of the Christian message.  Notice that I said only the Christian message.  You see, people still believe in God.  They believe that someone created the universe and all that is in it.  They may not want to use the name God, but their description sounds an awful lot like the one we have unfolded for us in Scripture.  People even like Jesus.  They talk about his earthly ministry and his teachings and parables and they say that there’s some really good stuff there.  However, many of these folks are only speaking about Jesus from a morality point of view.  And part of this has come because of our preaching and teaching morality more than Jesus.  Of this point, I think that C.S. Lewis in his famous work Mere Christianity put it best when he said that Jesus was one of three things:  Lord, liar, or lunatic.  In other words, Jesus was either exactly who he said he was and who Christians profess him to be, he was a liar who was completely aware of the falsities he was saying, or he was a crazy person who thought he was the Son of God but really wasn’t.  Of these three choices, none of them leave us with the option of simply taking Jesus as only a really good moral teacher.  None of these options leave us being able to say that he was merely a prophet or a really good guy, because if he were a prophet then he would have known for certain if he was or was not the Son of God.  We either have to have the view of Christ that he was 100% right or that he was completely wrong.

You see, what we fight in this world today is not really the problem of different religions.  Sure, they’re out there and occasionally we come in contact with them, but they are not our biggest concern.  Like I said, don’t think that I don’t view ISIS and other groups like them as not being enemies, because I do.  I just happen to think that there is a much greater enemy even closer to home.  To me, our biggest concern (and this is just my humble opinion) is the belief of self over all other things.  Now, let me explain this for just a moment.  This is nothing new.  In fact, this is really the oldest heresy or problem for the Christian faith.  This belief was around even before Paul began his ministry.  It’s the idea that the individual person decides what is right and wrong for them.  It’s taken many names over the years.  It’s been called by numerous different titles, most recently postmodernism.  It’s the sin that Satan preyed upon with Adam in the garden.  It’s the sin that Satan still preys upon with us today.  According to Scripture, there are things that are right and wrong.  It is right to worship God, it is right to defend oneself, it is right to marry and have children (these are just a few).  It’s wrong to murder.  It’s wrong for someone to be in a homosexual relationship of any kind.  It’s wrong for two individuals to have sexual relations outside the covenant bond of marriage.  Now, I happen to affirm all the things that I have said today as being truthful, but I haven’t done so on my own accord.  I do so because they are affirmed by God in His holy, inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word.  It doesn’t matter what I think.  However, to the person who places themselves and their thinking above anything else, ask them what they think of what Scripture does and doesn’t command.  I’m almost willing to bet that somewhere in the response, the first few words will contain the phrase “I think.”  But you see, it’s not about what we think, it’s about what is right and what is wrong.

You know, I wonder how many attacks upon the gospel that we see today are out of disbelief and how many are out of fear.  I get why someone of a different faith may reject the Christian message.  I don’t agree with it, but I understand why.  Maybe the time just hasn’t come for God to reveal himself to them and I pray that that day comes soon for them.  However, I think that many of the attacks that we find upon the gospel today come about much like the one led by Demetrius in Ephesus.  He was motivated (at least primarily) by something other than religious beliefs.  I think that a lot of the attacks that we see today aren’t because of religious matters, but other things.  Whether its lifestyle choices, political opinions, social causes, or something else entirely, much of the attacks upon the gospel are for reasons that have nothing to do with religion.  They are because the Christian message and the things that we are called to do in light of that message are in many case contradictory to how someone wants to live their life.  Now, instead of conforming one’s life to the gospel, many have just taken up the cause of attacking and destroying the gospel. 

Friends, this a dangerous and slippery road.  Y’all want a bit honesty?  Do I get excited when I read the things that Scripture calls me to do?  Nope.  I don’t want to pray for my enemies or clothe and feed the wicked.  However, that’s what we’re called to do in Scripture.  And that’s the difference between those who profess faith in Christ and those who don’t.  We know that it is us who are in need of being changed and transformed.  It is us who are in need of being conformed to a more perfect image.  It’s not the other way around.  The gospel doesn’t need to be changed or torn down so that it looks more like we think it ought to look.  You want to know what salvation looks like?  It looks like our Savior upon the cross; it looks like the table that sits before us.  When I read all the things in Scripture that I’m commanded to do, I come away with an even greater thankfulness for my Savior and the sacrificed he made on my behalf.  Because I know how woefully short of those standards I fall.  Know this, persecutions aren’t going to stop.  People looking down upon Christians and calling the Bible ignorant aren’t going to stop either.  However, what we must continue to do is exactly what Paul did in Ephesus.  We must continue to focus upon the task at hand.  We must continue to defend the faith, which requires us to grow in our understanding.  We must continue to proclaim the gospel, which requires our unbridled willingness to speak out.  We must continue to call upon and rely upon God to give us strength for the task at hand.  Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Acts 18:18-28 "The Incomplete Gospel"

                One of the saddest things that you can possibly imagine is to worship in a place where Jesus Christ isn’t present.  Now, that thought may seem a little strange to you at first.  After all, if it’s a group of Christians and they’re gathered together, then we just assume that Christ is present.  We go back to our old default verse of Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”; a verse that actually has more to do with repentance and church discipline than Christ’s presence during a prayer meeting, but that’s a whole different discussion.  No, what I’m talking about is when we’re in worship or Christian fellowship, and the gospel is nowhere to be found.  I’ve seen these types of Christians, pastors, churches, and services of worship.  I’ve seen really smart, intelligent, and articulate folks not come anywhere close to hitting the mark.  My professor of preaching in seminary used to say that a sermon that never made it to the gospel was like a plane that just kept circling the airport.  Eventually, the gas (or in the case of the sermon, time) ran out and there was just a chaotic collision.  Every time he would tell us that I would think of a plaque that sits in the home of my wife’s grandparents (him being a retired Air Force pilot) that says, “Flying is the second greatest joy known to man…landing is the first.”  To put it in terms of preaching and the gospel, digging away at Scripture and really getting to the “so what” and the nuts and bolts of it is exciting for the Christian.  However, finding Jesus, finding the gospel in a text truly is the greatest joy known to man.

                Since our text from last Sunday, Paul really kind of had a fairly routine road.  After leaving Athens he went to Corinth.  Now, he spent a good bit of time there, about a year and a half.  He planted a church there, evangelized, developed some new leaders in the persons of Aquila and Priscilla, a husband and wife team.  It’s there also that he wrote both his 1^st and 2^nd letters to the church in Thessalonica.  He was particularly evangelistic towards the Gentiles.  And seemingly for the first time, he actually garnered the support of someone in the civil government, a man named Gallio.  Now, he may not have fully endorsed Paul, but at least he tolerated him.  He knew that there was nothing vicious about what Paul was doing, so he allowed him to continue his ministry, which he did for some time.

                Then we come to our text, which we could really divide into two, but I won’t for the purpose of trying to paint a bigger picture here.  After Paul left Corinth, that’s where our text tells us that he went to Antioch.  Now, we’ve got some information there that if we had all the time in the world we would explore, but we don’t; Paul got a haircut because of a vow, most likely some sort of Nazirite vow.  There’s no other discussion about it, and he went off to Ephesus and went to the synagogue to evangelize.  This is the rather non-climactic end of his second missionary journey.  It ends in verse 22 and his third missionary journey starts in verse 23.  Now, why Luke, the author of this book, chose to shift the amount of details given about Paul’s journeys here is anyone’s guess.  It has been suggested that much of this is because the focus is being removed here from the fact that Paul was going to what was actually being done in these places.  Whatever the case may be, Luke’s attention turns for just a moment from Paul to Aquila and Priscilla, and that’s where we find this man named Apollos.

                You see, Apollos was an exceptionally bright man.  We’re told that “he was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.  He had been instructed in the way of the Lord.  And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.”  Wait a minute!  If all he knew about Jesus was up to John’s baptism then he hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.  How in the world can you preach Jesus without knowing anything past his baptism?  There’s no earthly ministry, no parables, no miracles, and especially no cross.  There’s no death, no resurrection, and no ascension.  I kind of wish I knew how in the heck he preached about Jesus without all that information.  Remember, he didn’t just timidly preach, but he spoke boldly.  Apollos was a very intelligent and incredibly articulate man.  He was the epitome of a public speaker.  However, what he actually taught of Jesus was the Old Testament.  I know some of you are sitting there saying that Jesus isn’t in the Old Testament.  Well, you’re wrong, he’s all over it.  The whole thing is about him.  All the prophecies are ultimately about him.  All of the major figures in the Old Testament find their greater fulfillment in Jesus.  And he was even there at the time of creation when God said “Let us make man in our image.”  One of the things that we as Christians are called to do when we read the Old Testament is to find Christ in the text.  He’s there; we just have to look for him.  When someone comes to me and they say that they really want to know Jesus and they ask me where in Scripture they should start reading, I tell them to read one of the Synoptic gospels and then go read the Old Testament.

                Aquila and Priscilla heard Apollos speaking and they could tell that he had talent.  They could tell that his logic and intellect and knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures were second-to-none.  However, they also had to tell him that he was missing a great deal.  Verse 26, “He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him way of God more accurately.”  And from there Luke goes on to write about how Apollos became an even more effective teacher and defender of the faith.  You see, Aquila and Priscilla saw the need for educating this man.  They saw that he had some knowledge, but he was still so lacking.  There isn’t anything in this text about debating over whether or not to educate this man because it may embarrass him or hurt his feelings.  No, they saw that he was in need of hearing, as the late Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”  Aquila and Priscilla didn’t water-down their gospel, but they helped Apollos to complete his.  There was no compromise in them, only truthful proclamation.

                As I’ve already said a few times, Apollos was a great speaker of biblical truths and knowledge, but it wasn’t the whole truth.  I want to take just a few minutes and relate this incomplete gospel that Apollos was preaching to what we find in many churches today.  You see, I’ve had the pleasure (and in some cases displeasure) of speaking with many folks with very skewed views of the gospel.  Amy and I used to eat breakfast with a coworker of her’s on a regular basis.  One time her husband joined us for breakfast and we began a somewhat gospel-driven conversation, although his knowledge of the gospel was about as vast as my knowledge of how a cell phone works.  I can push buttons.  He knew a few key things.  But his understanding of the gospel was that we are to just do our best to fulfill the Ten Commandments.  Now, not trying to diminish the moral law at all, and not trying to discard the Ten Commandments at all, but there’s more to the gospel that those ten words.  Another guy that I’ve had conversations with about the gospel and his view of it is along a similar line.  He believes in God, I think in the sense of the Christian God, but his view of heaven and hell is if you do good then you go to heaven and if you do bad you go to hell.  Now, again, I don’t want discredit the moral law.  I don’t want to cast out the very prominent contrast that we see in the Old Testament (especially in the wisdom literature) between the righteous and the wicked.  However, there’s something missing in both of these views of the Christian faith and the gospel itself.  Do you care to take a guess at what that might be?  Well, there are a lot of things that would be correct answers because there are a lot of things missing here.  However, I want point to two words that I think are the most notably absent:  faith and grace.

                You see, when a gospel is preached that is devoid of faith and grace, then it is an incomplete gospel.  Apollos, in our text, may have been able to truly tell some wonderful things about Jesus just from the prophecies and the promises that God made about him in the Old Testament.  However, what Jesus actually did is so much greater than what we could imagine simply from our looking to the Old Testament.  Guys, there’s a reason why so many of the prophecies about Christ were missed during his earthly ministry.  The fulfillment of many of them was so far beyond imagining.  The fact that God’s grace, His unmerited favor as we say in Reformed circles, would be so great that He would pay the price for a debt that we owe to Him is astounding; and not just that, but that the means by which He paid that price was through the sacrifice of His only begotten son.  We can take it even one step farther and say that all of this grace and mercy is counted as our own righteousness, our own complete obedience to the Law, and it’s not even based on our own keeping of the Law.

                Yes, we are called to fulfill the moral law, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments.  We’re called fulfill them and their summation, the Great Commandment.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love our neighbor as yourself.”  We’re called to do exactly that.  However, we have and will continue to fail at this.  We will continue to fall vastly short of the standard that God has set for us.  The bare minimum of what He wants us to do is so far out of our reach that it almost seems laughable, almost.  And that’s where faith comes in.  You see, this entire fulfillment of God’s will and the righteousness of Christ being counted as ours are because of faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  It’s not about our good works, at least as far as earning our salvation is concerned.  We’ve said numerous times that our good works are the right responses to God’s saving grace.  They are our “thank you” letters to God for what He has done on our behalf.  Far too often, the view that many people have taken of Scripture is that it is a big book of rules and regulations for how we are to live our lives.  If you meet that criteria then you get to enter into heaven and if you don’t, well you end up somewhere else (we’ve taken hell out of it).  Well, to a certain extent that is accurate, at least to the extent that there is some information about our desired actions in our Bibles.  Unfortunately, Christians have concerned themselves more with outward behaviors than inner faith.  We’ve focused so much on the way that people act and the things that they say and we have neglected the very source of these actions and words.

                I’ll put it like this, imagine that there is a well that we get our water from.  Well, that well has some type of mineral in it that makes the water unsafe for us to drink it.  So, we have to treat it.  We have to run in through a series of filters and electrical charges in order to get out the harmful mineral.  Sure, the water is then safe to drink, but we haven’t really gotten to the heart of the matter.  That’s what it’s like when we just think about the gospel in terms of outward actions.  The surface will be fine, and we may be able to get by, but something more is needed.  We might could say that this would be like those folks who are only concerned with morality.  Now imagine that there was something that we could do to the water once and for all that would cause that harmful mineral to dissipate from the well entirely, leaving us able to come to the well and freely drink.  In other words, there is some sort of change at the source that causes everything else to change.  Both options would leave us with drinkable water, but only one solves the problem of having this harmful mineral at the source.

                Boiling the gospel down to mere morality and right and wrong actions is just as problematic as Apollos’ preaching about Jesus without any of his earthly ministry.  Probably even more so, and that’s why Aquila and Priscilla saw as absolutely necessary to correct Apollos in his preaching.  They didn’t just take the approach that many would take today and just say, “Well, at least he’s preaching Jesus.  I know it’s not exactly correct, but it’s better than not preaching Jesus at all.”  Friends, what we teach and what we preach is more important that our simply preaching and teaching.  If what we are teaching is in error or incomplete, then we’re not having the type of impact upon the gospel that we ought to have.  When you see someone teaching an incomplete gospel, don’t be afraid to correct and teach them.  Now, the challenge in this first comes with the fact that we have to know what we ought to be teaching and preaching.  We accomplish that by spending time in God’s Word and studying the theology, the things that we have learned about Him.  Don’t just settle for Jesus to be preached and acknowledged, make sure that it is the right Jesus, the right God that is being proclaimed.  After all, remember that Satan and the demons acknowledged Jesus too.  Any gospel that is preached that is not the true gospel, is a gospel that brings about more destruction of God’s kingdom than construction.  Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.