Speaker 1: And as we make our way through Acts, occasionally we come across these sermons and there are differences in each context, but they're basically the same message.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but I have to admit sometimes I come to these sermons just as I'm reading through Acts and I think, okay, I know all this already, luke, why are you telling me again?
Speaker 1: You sort of said it at the beginning and again and again, and I don't know, maybe you feel like that when the preacher gets up every Sunday and keeps repeating stuff Sorry, not sorry.
Speaker 1: Why does Luke keep repeating this core message all the time?
Speaker 1: Well, I think he has a few purposes.
Speaker 1: First, it simply keeps the gospel front and center.
Speaker 1: Acts is the story of the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, and there are a lot of exciting stories in there.
Speaker 1: But if you were here last week, we saw that Paul was presenting the gospel, made an opponent someone who was opposing him go blind, and the governor who he'd been speaking to was astonished, not at the miracle, but at the message that Paul and Barnabas were presenting.
Speaker 1: And so it's important that we never lose sight of the gospel, and you know there are so many important issues that cry for our attention, but as Christians, we always need to see them through the lens of the gospel, and we always need to take action shaped by the gospel and because that's simply friends, where our power lies, as God's people.
Speaker 1: That's what brings transformation to lives and communities.
Speaker 1: In this particular case, paul and Barnabas are entering a new phase of the mission, so they're taking the gospel into previously unreached regions.
Speaker 1: So you can see the map up there and the big arrow pointing roughly at Antioch in Pisidia, not to be confused with Antioch in Syria, which was actually their base, and there was a very strong church in Syrian Antioch, and so Pisidian Antioch is in what's now current-day Turkey.
Speaker 1: So Luke tells us this particular story, I think, also to introduce us to what will be Paul's general strategy.
Speaker 1: He forms a base among the Jewish community in each city he goes to and with the God-fearing Gentiles, but he also shows us that Paul is preaching the same gospel to them as the apostles in Jerusalem were preaching.
Speaker 1: See, there is only one gospel and one church wherever the gospel is preached.
Speaker 1: It's not about different cultures or denominations.
Speaker 1: It's about the gospel and the lordship of Jesus that make us one.
Speaker 1: This sermon, I think, though, also gives us a helpful pattern for sharing the gospel ourselves.
Speaker 1: You may not be called to preach a sermon, but if you have the opportunity to share the gospel with someone, how do you do that?
Speaker 1: And that's what I want to look at this morning as we go through this sermon.
Speaker 1: So the synagogue leaders invite Paul and Barnabas to bring the sermon for the day.
Speaker 1: It was an impromptu invitation, but Paul was so ready and he tells us elsewhere to always be ready in season and out of season.
Speaker 1: I have to confess I haven't always been ready out of season.
Speaker 1: I was asked to share the gospel with someone once.
Speaker 1: We were on a mission trip in India actually.
Speaker 1: So remember this I am going on a mission trip to share the gospel and I'm asked to talk to an individual.
Speaker 1: Now I had all my in-season talk.
Speaker 1: We were going to be talking to pastors as well.
Speaker 1: I had all of that prepared and it went really well actually.
Speaker 1: But this out-of-season, in-the-moment opportunity, friends, I croaked.
Speaker 1: It was really embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, I had a friend with me who was able to take over and do that.
Speaker 1: But be ready in season and out of season.
Speaker 1: Now, as I said, you may not have to preach a sermon, but if someone asked you to explain why you're a Christian, why you believe, would you be able to give an answer?
Speaker 1: So let's look at how Paul handles this, because it's kind of helpful.
Speaker 1: The thing is, first of all, he connects with his audience and actually he connects the gospel with his audience's story.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, it's kind of easy for Paul.
Speaker 1: He's a Jew, he's preaching to a largely Jewish or God-fearing audience.
Speaker 1: So the Gentiles there were very warm to Judaism and had been learning about it, and so they're deeply rooted in the story of God's people and there, as Gentiles living in foreign lands oh sorry, as Jews living in foreign Gentile lands, they were, and they still are, deeply concerned with maintaining their identity and faithfully following God in foreign lands.
Speaker 1: And so Paul connects the gospel story to their story, which fits very naturally for these Jewish people.
Speaker 1: The question for us is how can we connect the gospel story to the story of the people we're talking to See?
Speaker 1: What are their concerns that the gospel speaks to, what are their pain points, their fears, their hopes?
Speaker 1: How does the gospel address these, their hopes?
Speaker 1: How does the gospel address these?
Speaker 1: How does the gospel connect to the person who's struggling with broken relationships?
Speaker 1: Or how does it connect with people struggling with chronic illness I know some of you can give testimony about these things the person who's just lost their job, or just a person whose life hasn't quite worked out the way they dreamed.
Speaker 1: You know, if they're questions that you wrestle with or someone you know wrestles with, then the Bible is for you, because the story of the Bible is a story of a God who comes down into brokenness and pain.
Speaker 1: It is the story of a God who made us to know and love him, and that's the story of the Garden of Eden to be in relationship with him and one another without any barriers.
Speaker 1: But it's also the story of our rejection of God, of God and God's ways, and the disaster that followed when we followed our own path.
Speaker 1: But God stepped into our turmoil in the man Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to overcome death and bring life to all who believe in him.
Speaker 1: And when we turn from following our own way to following God's way, as shown in Jesus, he fills us with new life and new hope, with forgiveness, healing hope in our broken relationships, our pain and our disappointment.
Speaker 1: Well, after connecting to his listener's story and at this stage that's all Paul's done then Paul transitions into the Jesus story.
Speaker 1: The gospel beginning with John the Baptist Now, if you're not familiar with John the Baptist, he was a fiery preacher who came.
Speaker 1: He was Jesus' cousin, about six months older appears in the gospels as a herald for Jesus, just as Jesus is about to break into the scene.
Speaker 1: And he's significant for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: One is that he was Jesus' herald.
Speaker 1: The other is that he was the first prophet that Israel had seen for centuries and he was actually a big deal for decades after his death.
Speaker 1: So I think what Paul is doing here by citing John the Baptist which seems a little bit irrelevant, but these people knew about him and Paul is lending credibility to the gospel story by citing a commonly recognised authority.
Speaker 1: These people would have recognized John as someone.
Speaker 1: Now, as Christians, don't we make some outlandish claims?
Speaker 1: If you've been a Christian a long time, it probably just seems pretty normal.
Speaker 1: God became human in Jesus.
Speaker 1: He died and rose again.
Speaker 1: Same human in Jesus.
Speaker 1: He died and rose again, died for our sins, rose again and we will rise with him.
Speaker 1: But step back.
Speaker 1: That's a ridiculous claim to make, unless it's true.
Speaker 1: It offends the materialist because of its supernatural claims and it often offends the spiritual person, because our claim is that Jesus is the only way to eternal life, and so being able to provide some support to our claims can sometimes help.
Speaker 1: And there are many arguments for the existence of God, and I could this morning appeal to science, logic, history, morality, many more things to support the truth of the gospel.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into them now.
Speaker 1: I have put a couple of links on our website.
Speaker 1: So if you go onto our website, click on the grow tab and then there's a subheading Defending Christianity and some links to that if you are interested in looking at defences for Christianity.
Speaker 1: But you know you don't have to memorise all that.
Speaker 1: I think it's helpful if you go through and look at that.
Speaker 1: But there's a better argument, even for the gospel.
Speaker 1: That's you, it's your story.
Speaker 1: If you were to ask me why I'm a Christian, I might say it's you know, when I look at Jesus and I look at his life and story, I see something in someone compelling, I see something beautiful and good.
Speaker 1: And you know what, when I met Jesus, he changed my life.
Speaker 1: He took my guilt and gave me freedom.
Speaker 1: He took my dark thoughts and gave me peace.
Speaker 1: He took my cynicism and gave me joy.
Speaker 1: I'm still on a journey with some of those things, but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What's your Jesus story?
Speaker 1: What does it look like?
Speaker 1: Why do you believe?
Speaker 1: What does it look like?
Speaker 1: Why do you believe?
Speaker 1: It's not enough, though, just to tell people why you believe.
Speaker 1: They also need to know what you believe, and so Paul presents the message of the gospel.
Speaker 1: Now, if I were to ask you to explain to me the core message of the gospel, would you be able to do that?
Speaker 1: Would you have confidence to do that?
Speaker 1: I'll give you a little hint.
Speaker 1: I just told it to you a minute ago.
Speaker 1: So here's the guts of it.
Speaker 1: God made a good world.
Speaker 1: We broke the world by disobeying God, and sin, evil and death entered into our experience, but Jesus died and rose again.
Speaker 1: So we can be forgiven and the world can be made new, and when we turn to Jesus, he gives us a glorious new life.
Speaker 1: Now, you might want to put it in slightly different words, but that's the heart of the gospel, and that's great news.
Speaker 1: But you know what Great news is really only great news for me if I respond to it.
Speaker 1: And the gospel demands a response.
Speaker 1: And Paul urges his listeners to it.
Speaker 1: And the gospel demands a response and Paul urges his listeners to believe.
Speaker 1: So he does this by giving them a promise and a warning.
Speaker 1: So it may not be quite as obvious for us as we read this as Gentiles, but remember, these people were steeped in the Scriptures.
Speaker 1: I mean, these people had.
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 1: I'm told Jewish mothers, the really full-on Jews, the Jewish mothers do by the time a child is a few years old, because mum is there as she feeds her child, she's reciting the scriptures.
Speaker 1: Jewish children learn Leviticus by heart.
Speaker 1: Have you ever read Leviticus?
Speaker 1: They're steeped in this stuff, so it's not as obvious for us.
Speaker 1: But the promise is that everyone who believes is justified.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, his Jewish listeners would have understood that to mean being made right with God.
Speaker 1: And to be made right, paul says in a way that their law we read in the Old Testament, the Torah, that the law couldn't do law we read in the Old Testament, the Torah, that the law couldn't do.
Speaker 1: And the Jewish law is still a big dividing line between Jews and non-Jews.
Speaker 1: But Paul's message was this dividing line has been rubbed out in Jesus and we're all on equal footing.
Speaker 1: No one can be made right with God by any other means than Jesus, and so we must follow him, not just by obeying a bunch of rules, and we call that propensity to rely on rules and regulations to be made right with God.
Speaker 1: Legalism, you know what?
Speaker 1: It may not be so much about spiritual things, but don't we live in a legalistic society?
Speaker 1: So think about these.
Speaker 1: If you have the wrong views on climate change or sexuality or migration, social welfare or a host of other topics, you're in for a world of hurt.
Speaker 1: If you say the wrong thing to the wrong crowd of people, aren't you?
Speaker 1: One side or the other is going to cancel you.
Speaker 1: Different law, different people, same problem and the same God who says you don't actually have to have it all right all the time.
Speaker 1: You're imperfect.
Speaker 1: He says I know that.
Speaker 1: That's why you need my grace.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be perfect.
Speaker 1: Do you know what?
Speaker 1: To become a Christian, you don't even need to be particularly good.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you think you're good enough to become a Christian, that almost disqualifies you.
Speaker 1: You just need to believe in the right person, jesus Christ, and you need to trust him.
Speaker 1: You need to hitch your wagon to his train and he says the whole world will be yours in him.
Speaker 1: But Paul invites his audience with a warning as well, and he quotes his verse at the end of this passage.
Speaker 1: You know, look, you scoffers, marvel and vanish away, and so on.
Speaker 1: And his listeners would have recognized the passage that verse came from, because that was a passage about how God was going to judge, to bring the Babylonians to bring judgment on his enemies.
Speaker 1: So it's a warning of judgment, and there's a warning of judgment for us as well, because, remember, I said that the gospel begins with God creating a good world, but then we stuffed it up.
Speaker 1: Well, god is going to clean up that mess, and there's two ways he does this.
Speaker 1: And the way he's doing it now is through the blood of his son, jesus, and all who believe in Jesus are cleaned up by him and set right with God.
Speaker 1: And the other way he's going to do it is through fire, and the biblical image of that judgment is literally hell.
Speaker 1: And so the question for us is what will we do with Jesus?
Speaker 1: Will we choose Jesus or will we choose judgment?
Speaker 1: Will we go God's way or continue to go our own way, which isn't working out so well for the world at the moment?
Speaker 1: Is it so?
Speaker 1: The sermon Paul preaches at Pisidian Antioch is the same message that's been preached down through the centuries and that has brought life to people in every age.
Speaker 1: It's a message for you, it's a message for me and it's a message for the people in your life.
Speaker 1: There might be people in your life who need to know that message.
Speaker 1: Are you confident to tell them?
Speaker 1: And if you're not, well, what do you do?
Speaker 1: And look, folks, I can preach the message from up here, but when it comes to sharing it with individuals, I'm as chicken as a lot of you.
Speaker 1: A lot of you are more bold than me, I can tell you.
Speaker 1: So what do we do?
Speaker 1: Well, of course, we pray.
Speaker 1: We pray for them and we pray for ourselves, that the Lord will give us boldness and clarity, and so on.
Speaker 1: But here's another question, a practical thing, aside from who you tell it to, can you articulate your testimony?
Speaker 1: Do you know how to share, why you believe, how you became a Christian?
Speaker 1: If I was to ask you in a completely non-threatening there's nothing on the line here would you be able to tell me.
Speaker 1: And so, if you're not quite sure about that, why don't you just start by having a think about that and writing it down, maybe getting it clear in your head, maybe sharing it with a friend or your home group, just to start.
Speaker 1: Not that you then have to go and tell everyone, but some questions that might be helpful.
Speaker 1: Why do you believe in Jesus?
Speaker 1: How did you meet him?
Speaker 1: What changed after you met him?
Speaker 1: So can you express your testimony, your story of meeting Jesus?
Speaker 1: And secondly, can you articulate or can you explain the gospel?
Speaker 1: Like I've said a couple of times and again, if you're not quite sure, why don't you just go and write it down, get it clear in your head and then maybe practice it to yourself a few times so that you become just again?
Speaker 1: If I was to sit down with you and say, hey, can you tell me the gospel, you can just come out with a skeleton.
Speaker 1: That may not be what you tell people, but at least it's clear in your own mind and you've got a bit more confidence.
Speaker 1: You know when soldiers or warriors train for battle, one of the things they do is they repeat the same moves.
Speaker 1: Maybe if you've ever done martial arts or something, it's like this you repeat the same moves over and over, and, over and over again until it just becomes muscle memory.
Speaker 1: You don't even need to think about it, it's just there in your body and it's the same with these gospel truths.
Speaker 1: It's why we do certain things.
Speaker 1: In a moment we're going to have communion again, just like we did last week, because we just want these things to seep into our hearts and just become part of us so that when someone says it just comes out, so repeat these things to yourself until they become automatic.
Speaker 1: And doing that will build your faith and it'll build your confidence.
Speaker 1: But look, even if you struggle with that, all is not lost.
Speaker 1: If you still feel as chicken as I usually do, even after all that, you can invite someone to Alpha and we've got it this week, we're going to be doing it again later in the year and there they'll hear the gospel in an engaging and an understandable way.
Speaker 1: And if you're here today and you haven't put your trust in Jesus, can I invite you to do that, to think about the claims of Jesus that I've been talking largely to Christians this morning, but I've tried to do it in a way that will be clear to everyone.
Speaker 1: And if you're interested in finding out more, if you're interested in giving your heart to Jesus, I would love to pray with you after the service God wants to give you eternal life.
Speaker 1: Will you say yes to Jesus?
Speaker 1: Gary comes up to lead us in communion.
Speaker 1: I just want to pray, father.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your grace to us, thank you for the story of the gospel, thank you that the invitation is there to be shaped by love and life and hope and the joy of the gospel.
Speaker 1: So help us to step into that Lord.
Speaker 1: Just give us a confidence to share your gospel with our friends, with people who need that life and love and joy and hope as well.
Speaker 1: And, father, we just pray that you pour out your spirit on us and that your gospel may be vibrant among us.
Speaker 1: In Jesus' name.