Does Everybody Really Need Jesus? - Life of Paul Part 44

Transcript

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Hey, I want you to take

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A Bible this morning, and I want you to open it with me to acts chapter 17, acts chapter 17. We're going to be continuing in our study of that great man of God, the apostle Paul, his life, but to many of us here, I'm sure know the name. John Wesley, John Wesley lived between 1703 and 1790. And John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist church. But what you may not know about John Wesley is that he was one of the most passionate open air evangelists in all of church history. Between the years of 1738 and 1790 John Wesley road, more than a quarter of a million miles on horseback going throughout great Britain, doing itinerant preaching. He averaged five miles an hour on this horse. He often would fall asleep on his horse and would often fall off and injure himself. Actually, when he fell on the ground, Wesley would preach several times a day at coal mines, town squares, open fields, food markets, anywhere he could get a crowd. He preached in the rain, the cold, the wind, the snow, the fog people offered in often interrupted him with shouts. They often interrupted him with screens. They threw rocks at him, vegetables at him, eggs at him. In fact, there's one recorded incident where they killed a cat in the audience and threw pieces of dead cat at him up on the stage several times in his career during the middle of a sermon angry mobs, grabbed him and dragged him off the platform where he was taking him away by his hair, threatening to kill him so he could stop. They stop his preaching altogether. And Wesley wrote in his journal, June, 1774. He said, today is my 72nd birthday. I was thinking how it is that I still have the same strength I did 30 years ago. The chief reasons are number one for 50 years. I have a risen at 4:00 AM every morning. Number two, I generally begin preaching by 5:00 AM, which is one of the healthiest exercises in the world. And number three in God's service, I never travel less than 4,500 miles a year and have quote, you know, when I think of John Wesley, you know, I think of, I think of the Energizer bunny. I mean, I think of a guy who just keeps going and go in and go in. And today we want to look at another man that very aptly could be called the Energizer bunny, a fellow named the apostle Paul who had the same grit and the same kind of tenacity that we see in John Wesley. And we want to ask and answer two questions this morning. Question number one is exactly what was it that drove these two men to live the way they live to act the way they act acted. And number two, we want to ask the question in light of that. What difference does that make for you and me here as followers of Christ in the 21st century? So let's dig in, we'll give you a little bit of background as we start. Remember the apostle Paul is on his second missionary journey. He's with his teammates, Timothy, Silas, and dr. Luke. And let's show you a map. So we'll show you where they've come from. They've come from the Northwestern corner of modern day. Turkey sailed across the GNC to fill a pie in Northern Greece here in Philippi for several weeks, Paul ministered, he was able to start a small church there and here in Phillip Hoss, Paul split his team. He left Timothy and dr. Luke behind in Philippa to work with the church there while he and Silas walked a hundred miles to the South down the Ignation way, the famous Roman road, you see in yellow, here to the town of decile, Annika here in decile, Annika, Paul spent six months in ministry being very successful in leading both Gentiles and Jewish people to Christ. However, as we saw last week, the unbelieving Jewish community in the town of Desola Nika began to develop a seething hatred for the apostle Paul. And eventually they succeeded in getting a mob together and running him out of town. Now that's where we've been here in acts 17, where I ask you to turn, let's look at verse 10. It says as soon as it was night, the brothers and Tesla and sent Paul and Silas away to Berea and on arriving there, Paul went into the Jewish synagogue. Then let's go back to the map and show you the town of Berea. Here it is. It's a long, the Ignation way as you see, and it's about 45 miles from the town of decile Anika. And this small town is where Paul went and he began right away going to the synagogue, which we know was his normal practice. We're going to come back in our next message and talk about what happened in the synagogue. But what I want you to see is what happened in verse 13. It says here when the unbelieving Jews and festival, and I go learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea. They went there too, and they began agitating the crowds and stirring them up against Paul. And so the brothers in Berea immediately sent Paul to the coast to go to Athens. You understand what's happening here, right? That Paul's opponents. And Desola, Nikah the ones that ran him out of town, hated him so much that just running him out of Tesla, Nika wasn't good enough. They wanted to run him out of everywhere. And so these people actually went to 45 miles to the town of Berea, got a mob go in there and random out of town there too. And yet Paul just kept right on going. In fact, he mentioned this whole affair in his letter that he wrote to the church intestinal Nika. Here's what he said. First Thessalonians two, one. Paul says, you know, brothers, you guys in Desola Micah know that our visit to you was not a failure for after we had suffered and been mistreated Philippines. And how did he suffer? And in Philippines will remember they beat him with rods, tore the flesh right off his back. And then they threw him in jail overnight. After that happened is, you know, we had the boldness to speak the word of God, to you amid strong opposition from your own countrymen. Those very country men drove us out of festival Anika. And then they kept trying to hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved. But you remember that when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And this is exactly what happened. Now, friends, the point of all of this is Paul just kept right on going in spite of all the persecution. Remember so far, Paul has been abused in pacinian Antioch on his first missionary journey. He's had his life threatened and I conium on his first missionary journey. He's been stoned and left for dead and lifts DRA on his first missionary journey. Now in his second journey, he's been unjustly beaten and imprisoned in Philippa. And finally, he's been run out of town by mobs in both festival, Annika and Berea. And Oh, by the way, there's a whole lot more of this kind of treatment to come before Paul's career's over and yet, in spite of all of the persecution, all of the hostility, all of the physical abuse in spite of that, just like John Wesley, what did the apostle Paul do? Frenzy just kept going and going and going. Now that brings us to the end of the passage that we want to look at today. But there is a question we need to ask and I think everybody knows what it is, but just in case you don't let me whisper to you what it is. So what, so now all know what it is. Here we go. Nice and loud. You ready? One, two, three, right? You say lawn. So what say this is wonderful. I love the Energizer bunny. What difference does this make for me? Well, let me just tell you my wife and I, Brenda, we were with another couple not long ago. And the lady that we were with was, um, um, three months, uh, she was pregnant rather with her third child. And so I was just trying to make conversation with her. And I said to her, so you know, how long before you do? And she said a couple months and I said, Oh, that's nice. And so then just trying to make conversation with her. I said, well, are your labors hard? You know, I mean, and she said, well, they're not really all that hard. They're just long. And then she went ahead and made this comment. She said, you know, I start out every time saying I can do this without any help. I can make it myself. Don't give me an epidural. I can do this. And she said, then by the time I get to 10, 12, 15 hours, I'm like, okay, just give me the drugs. Well, I didn't think poorly of this lady for saying that, because I just got to tell you, if men had to do this labor and delivery thing, the human race would have been over centuries ago. What men would we do? No, we would not ladies take it. We're telling you the truth. We would not do this. Now you say, well on, so what's the point of all this? The point of all of this is that this lady's comment reminded me of a basic truth of human nature. And that truth is that none of us likes pain and that given the chance to avoid it, we will. Now, if that's true and it is then how do we explain people like the apostle Paul? How do we explain people like John Wesley? In fact, this is our first question we want to answer today. Why did these men act the way they did? Why did these men keep taking pain? Why do these men keep taking abuse rather than just shutting up and stopping all that pain? All they got to do is shut up. Stop talking about Jesus Christ. So why didn't they? Well, friends? The answer to this question is very simple. The apostle Paul and John Wesley believed something. They believe something so completely, so fully and so utterly that it drove them to a level of commitment that is rarely seen in our world today. And what is this? Something that they believe, what they believe with all of their heart is that apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, people cannot and will not ever have eternal life. People cannot and will not ever see the shores of heaven. Now, friends, this is the cynic Kwano, without which nothing of biblical Christianity, that is, this is the absolute conviction that apart from the redemption, God offers people in Jesus Christ. Every human being alive is alienated from God under the judgment of God, condemned and headed for a horrible eternity. You say lawn, you know, it's interesting. You bring that up because I got to tell you that even as a follower of Christ, I've S I got some real trouble with this. Jesus is the only way deal. Well, okay. I hear that. So you came to the right place this morning, cause we're going to try to fix that trouble once. And for all, while you were here this morning, what exactly does the Bible say about Jesus being the only way to get eternal life and get to heaven? Well, listen, Jesus said John, three 36, whoever believes in the son himself has eternal life, but whoever rejects, the son will not see eternal life, but God's wrath remains, literally sits or arrests on that person. Jesus said John three 18, whoever does not believe in Jesus Christ stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one. And only son. Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father. Nobody gets eternal life. Nobody gets to heaven except through me. Now let's stop for a minute and ask a question. Could you say it any simpler than that? I mean, how, how could you say it any plainer than that? Nobody gets eternal life or gets into heaven unless they get it through me. Let's go on. Okay. First John chapter five, verse 11, and this is the record. John writes that God has given us eternal life in this life is in his son. Jesus Christ. He who has the son has eternal life, but he who does not have the son of God, does not have eternal life. How much plainer could you say it? Philippians chapter four, verse three says that every follower of Jesus Christ and only followers of Jesus Christ have their names written in the book of life. And then revelation chapter 20 says if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the Lake of fire, which is why acts four. 12 says salvation is found in no other four. There is no other name under heaven. Not Buddha, not Confucius, not Muhammad, not Joseph Smith, not Barry Baker, Eddy, not rabbi Schneerson. There is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we can be delivered. You said law. And I got to tell you, I got some real heartburn with this. And I got some real objections to this whole line of thinking here. Well, I'd love to hear them. What are they? Well lawn? My first objection is this. Why would a loving God be so cruel and be so unfair? Well, friends just asking such a question is this shows that spiritually we've got the fastest on the wrong syllable. You understand what I'm saying? Let me tell you why. Romans chapter five says this, that says that we're in a predicament. Therefore sin entered into the world through one man, Adam and death to sin. And so death passed on to all men. The Bible teaches that when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, they brought a flaw on the entire human race. It's called our sin nature. It's like a defective gene that we all inherit. And the result of this look at Romans five is that every one of us comes into the world. Did we come into the world of fusions? Three one says spiritually did alienated from God, separated from God, disconnected from God. And the Bible says, if we don't fix that situation before we leave this world, we go out into eternity to face eternity, separated and alienated from God. We have a predicament. Now God, in his mercy made a way for us to escape this predicament God in his mercy made a way out of this predicament through having a relationship with Jesus Christ, to trusting what his blood did for us. The blood is shed on the cross, did for us and paying for our wrongdoing. But friends, if a person God's way out, if a person rejects God's escape plan and then ends up experiencing God's judgment, Hey, is God unfair? Hey, was God cruel and mean if a person chose not to take the escape plan? No. You know, as you know, I do trips, overseas trips to Israel and other places. And, uh, back in the year, 2000, we had a lady that was signed up to go with this. And you know, a lot of trouble started over there in the fall of 2000. And she called me up two days before we were scheduled to leave and said, I don't want to go. I'm scared. My family is scared. I don't want to go. I said, well, you don't have to go. She said, well, I want all my money back. I said, well, ma'am, there are published cancellation policies that the tour company has. And two days before we leave, it's a hundred percent. You know, they bought all the tickets. They paid for all the hotels. I mean, you know, that's why we tell you get travel insurance. Now we re we were, the tour company wrote people four different times that year and said, protect yourself, get travel insurance four times. And I asked her, so you got four letters saying, get travel insurance. Why didn't you do it? She said, well, I was waiting until the last minute to purchase it because I didn't want to stress out my visa bill. Well, I said, that's wonderful, but the problem is you don't want to have it. And if you don't have it, these cancellation penalties, you know, they warned you they're from, she said, well, you know what she said, is there no option? I said, yeah, we're letting people who don't want to go this year, flipped back and credit their money to Oh one. So they don't lose any money. She said, I don't want to go in Oh one and I don't want to go this year. I want my money back. And then she said, how could this tour company be so cruel and so unfair that they won't give me back? My money now let's stop for a second. Was this tour company cruel and unfair. They wrote the lady four times and said, protect yourself, get an escape plan. The lady chose not to do it. And now that she's experiencing the penalties that she was warned about, let me ask it was the tour company unfair. Well, I don't think so. Now we eventually got this worked out. She eventually flipped back to Oh one. We all ended as friends by the time this was all over. But you see a lot of people use this very same logic about God. They say, you know, God is unfair. If people end up experiencing the judgment of God and I say, no way, God writes this over and over again in the Bible. And doesn't tell us four times he tells us hundreds of times in the Bible, there's an escape plan. Take it. There's an escape plan. Use it friends. If somebody spurns that and somebody rejects that and decides to take their own chances. And then they end up experiencing the judgment of God. Was God unfair? No, he wasn't unfair. You say, all right lawn. I got another objection in. What about people? Who've never heard of Jesus Christ. Okay. Well, you know what? The Bible addresses that. It says Romans chapter one, verse 20 for, since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly on display so that all men are without excuse. The Bible says that God's eternal power and divine nature are there for everybody to see in creation in our natural world, we can look around at the trees, the clouds, the stars, our own human bodies. And you know, we know we didn't make this. We know that no one else we're we're aware of is capable of making all this. So who made all this? Well, the Bible says it should lead us to acknowledge at that point that there must be an almighty creator God. And once we do that, God then makes it his personal responsibility to get us information about Jesus Christ. Doesn't matter whether you live in the darkest jungles of Africa, South America, if you live in the communist world, the Muslim world doesn't make any difference. You take that first step by acknowledging that there's gotta be a God and you wish you knew him and God takes it upon himself to make sure you get the information about Jesus Christ that you need. He said, lawn, that doesn't really work that process. Well, yeah, it does. The whole reason I'm standing in front of you today as a follower of Christ is because of this exact process. You know, I was born and raised Jewish right here in the United States of America, but I didn't know one single thing about Jesus or what he did. I mean, I knew he kind of died on a cross. I had some idea that, but if you'd have said to me, when I was a teenager lawn, I will give you$1 million right now. If you can tell me why Jesus died on the cross, I couldn't have told you now, if I knew you were serious out of going and tried to find out, but I didn't have a clue why Jesus died on the cross. And, and you said, well, you grew up in American. Didn't know that's right. I might as well have grown up in the jungles of South America, friends as much as I knew about Jesus Christ, but I was in 1965, the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I was invited to participate in a national science foundation program down at Virginia tech. And I'll never forget we were down there when the afternoon we did research projects in the morning, we studied, uh, enzymes in the human body. That was the subject for that year. Did you know that right? As you sit here today, you've got millions of enzymes running around in your body, doing all kinds of chemical reactions you do. And did you know that every single enzyme is code specific? Meaning it lonely. Do the one reaction that it's supposed to do. And if some enzyme breaks down or is missing and not working, do you know none of the other enzymes in your body will pick up for that one and make up for it? See the enzymes in your body are have a union contract. If you understand what I'm saying and nobody does anybody else's job in your body. With those enzymes, you can be a very sick, human being missing. One of a million enzymes. And when I learned all of this in, at Virginia tech, I'll never forget walking back. It was a, Oh, it was a bright sunny day about noon in July, 1965. I stood on the steps of the dorm that I was staying in. And I remember saying out loud, there has got to be a God. Well, there's Romans one for you. There's got to be a God. Now, did I go looking for him? No. Then I go searching to see if Jesus Christ was this God. No. Was I even interested in hearing about Jesus Christ? No, but I had taken the first step. God heard what I said in July of 1965. And he made it his personal responsibility to get me the information I needed, even though I wasn't even looking for it. So that six years later, I was able to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. Friends. Don't tell me this process doesn't work. Of course it works. He said, all right, lawn. All right, wait a minute. Then my next objection is, so let's say a person looks around the natural world and they acknowledged there's a God. Let's say they do that. But they live in a culture, not America, but they live in a culture where the closest religion is Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism or Judaism or Shintoism or animism or whatever. So let's say they recognize there's a God from the natural world. But then they turn to one of these religions because it's closest to them to see God, won't that be okay? Friends? The answer is no, no. A thousand times, no, didn't you hear what the Bible said? Jesus said, no one comes to the father unless they come through me. Romans chapter three says that the only way a person can be redeemed is through faith, through reliance, on the blood of Jesus Christ. You say, well, then I got one last objection. And that is, if these people are sincere in seeking God through Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, whatever, why couldn't the God just conduct credit the blood of Jesus to them, even though they don't know about the blood of Jesus, why couldn't God look at them and go, well, you know, you're being sincere and you're looking for me. So you could only come to me through the blood of Christ, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the buck payment of Christ. And I'm just going to kind of credit to you. Even though you don't know about it, friends, God can do anything he wants, but he said in the Bible, he doesn't do this Romans chapter 10, verse nine. If we confess with our mouth, that Jesus is Lord. Not if we confess with our mouth, that Buddha is nice. Not if we confess with our mouth, that Muhammad was a prophet, not if we confess with our mouth that Joseph Smith saw on angel or rabbi, Schneerson thought he was the Messiah. If we confess with our mouth, that Jesus is Lord. And the verse goes on to say, if we believe in our heart, that God raised Jesus from the dead it's then and friends, it is only then that we will be delivered. Listen, what this means is that in order for people to complete the deal, in order for people to access this escape plan that God has, they've got to hear and know cognitive information about Jesus Christ. They've got to hear about his Virgin birth, his sinless life, his deity. They've got to hear and understand about his death on the cross, his blood payment for our wrongdoing, his resurrection from the dead. That's the only way they can believe Jesus is Lord and believe he was raised from the dead. They've got to hear the cognitive information about Christ and respond. God doesn't credit the blood of Jesus to anybody. Listen. If people could get to cry, a ticket to heaven outside of Jesus Christ, friends than every missionary that ever lived wasted his life. If people could get to heaven outside of Jesus Christ and Billy Graham and mother Theresa were fools. If people could get to heaven outside of Jesus Christ and that man who stood on the street in chapel Hill, North Carolina, letting people spit on him, ridicule him and yell obscenities at him. Also, he could tell me about Jesus Christ. That guy was an idiot and friends. If people could get to heaven in some other way than Jesus Christ, then John Wesley and the apostle Paul were misguided buffoons. But let me just say to you, they weren't buffoons. Billy Graham and mother Theresa were not fools. That man was stood on the street in chapel Hill was not an idiot because they all knew something. They all knew and believed that the only hope I had and everybody else have in this world is to trust Jesus Christ. That's the only way people can get to heaven. And this is why they were so driven. Remember we asked the question, how do you explain the behavior of all Paul and Wesley? This is why they were so driven because they believe with all their heart that they needed to keep telling people about Jesus Christ, because it was, people's only way out of their predicament. And they were willing to put up with the most brutal treatment. If that's what it took in order to do that. Now that's the answer to question number one, that brings us to our last question. Number two. And that is what difference does this make to me? Well, friends, what this means for you and me is that apart from Jesus Christ, every single person, you and I pass every single day on the Metro at Starbucks, in the hallway, at school, in the hallway at work. Every one of those people is separated from God under the judgment of God, headed for a disaster when they go into eternity. And it also means that the only hope these people have is for you and I to open our mouth and lovingly tell them what we know about Jesus Christ, friends, the only way, however you and I are going to do that is if we really believe would Paul believed if we really believe what Wesley believed you, every one of us here knows there's a price to being vocal about our faith. Every one of us here knows if we open our mouth and we start talking to people about Jesus Christ, it's going to cost us something. It'll cost us ridicule. It'll cost us ostracism. It may even cost us our job. It'll cost us persecution. It may cost us offended relationships with friends and with family. And there's only one reason in the world that you and I are going to be willing to pay that kind of price to share Christ. And that reason is that we believe there is no other way in the universe that people can get out of their predicament and get to heaven. If there's any other way that we're stupid to pay this price brands. I just need to say to you that that sharing Jesus Christ is the apex. It's the climax of all that the Christian life is about remove sharing Christ with people from the Christian experience. And you don't want to have the Christian experience. We can read the Bible all day long. We can memorize scripture all day long. We can pray all day long. We can fast once a week, but in, unless it all results in our being witnesses for Jesus Christ, we miss the whole point. And so I hope today you'll walk out of here with two things. Number one, with an absolute confidence that Jesus is not just a way to heaven, but he is the only way to heaven. And number two, with a willingness to follow what Paul told Timothy, when he said second, Timothy one eight, do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord friends with the information you and I know is the only hope people have. And the only way they're ever going to find out about it is if you and I open our mouth and lovingly tell them now, may I close by saying, if you're here today and you've never asked Jesus Christ to be your personal savior, you've never surrendered your life to him. The one thing I hope that you understand from being here today is that you're in a predicament. And the other thing I hope you understand is that there's a way out. It's free. It's easy. You don't have to go anywhere. You don't have to purchase anything. You don't have to go any through any religious motions. You can access it right where you sit this morning. And so what I want to do as we close this morning is if you're here in that predicament, I want to give you a chance right before we leave to get out of it, by asking Jesus Christ into your life. So let's bow our heads together. Let's close our eyes. And if you're here and you're willing to surrender your heart and life to Jesus today, you're willing to trust his blood on the cross. As the only payment God requires for your wrongdoing. Then what I want you to do is I'm going to say a little prayer. I want you to say at one phrase at a time to yourself silently, right? As I say it, and let's access that way out, that God in his mercy gave us. Let's do it right now for you. So here we go. You say silently one phrase after me, Lord Jesus. I come to you today because I understand that I have a predicament and I understand that in your mercy, you made a way out for me. And so today I want to take that way out. I ask you right now to come into my life, to be my personal savior. I put my complete trust in what you did for me on the cross, as my total payment for wrongdoing. Forgive my wrongdoing today. Give me eternal life and grant me a place in heaven. I surrender my life to you and I embrace you as my Lord and savior in Jesus name. I pray and Lord, I want to pray for these people who prayed that prayer that you would confirm in their heart, right at where they sit that a great transaction has happened. As the Bible says, they have passed from death into eternal life, or thank you for making a way out for us. That's so easy. And I pray for the rest of us here who are followers of Christ that you might motivate us and inspire us to go out and share with people. In spite of the price mean we may have to pay to share with people what the escape plan is because Lord it's, their only hope inspire us with the example of John Wesley inspire us with the example of the apostle Paul Lord, help us to believe as deeply as they did that without Jesus Christ, people are hopelessly lost and help us to go out into this city tomorrow morning, determine that as you open the doors, we're going to step through it and tell people the way out, the only way out help us make an impact on this city because of our willingness to open our mouth and share Christ. And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.