Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning.
Speaker 1: Welcome to church.
Speaker 1: So glad that you're here.
Speaker 1: Kids, why don't y'all go ahead and stand to your feet and head down the hall to kids men?
Speaker 1: Let's give it up.
Speaker 1: For our kids and their teachers this morning.
Speaker 1: It's a good place to be back there on the kids hall.
Speaker 1: So, if you have a Bible, go ahead and flip to Acts, chapter 17.
Speaker 1: And we're going to be there in just a moment.
Speaker 1: The official title of this message this morning is how to talk about your faith.
Speaker 1: How to talk about your faith If you're a subtitle person.
Speaker 1: The subtitle this morning is From Athens in Rome to me and you.
Speaker 1: From Athens in Rome to me and you.
Speaker 1: And so, as we begin, I think we need to pray, and we need to pray that God would speak to us, but we're also going to pray for a moment this morning for our world, for our downtown campus and for one another.
Speaker 1: So if you'll just bow your head where you are, I'm going to guide us through a little bit of a time of prayer this morning.
Speaker 1: Let's first take a moment and thank God for who he is, for his goodness, his graciousness, his righteousness, his praise, and for who he is.
Speaker 1: Spend a moment and pray for our world, for God to bring peace and justice and hope, to preserve innocent life across the world, but particularly in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: We continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for the lives of innocent people on both sides of the conflict.
Speaker 1: That God would bring justice and righteousness and would preserve good and triumph over evil.
Speaker 1: Let's pray for our downtown campus, as they're entering into their teaching time this morning, that God would speak to their hearts through his word this morning.
Speaker 1: And then I want you to pray for you that God would open your heart, your ears to hear, your eyes to see as we go to his word.
Speaker 1: Father, your name is holy and God, we're gathered here today because of who you are and because of what you've accomplished for us on the cross and the person of Christ.
Speaker 1: So, god, we're grateful, we're humbled, we're in all of who you are.
Speaker 1: Father, light, a spark, a fire in our hearts for the good news about Jesus.
Speaker 1: Father, help us to see the beauty of Christ, the beauty of the cross, the power of the resurrection.
Speaker 1: And, father, we ask that you would transform us from the inside out.
Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, everybody says together amen.
Speaker 1: Thanks for praying this morning we're gonna be in Acts 17.
Speaker 1: The context of our passage this morning Paul is on the second of three missionary journeys that he takes throughout his corner of the world, and he leaves from his home church in Antioch and he begins to travel to the north and where we're at in the scriptures.
Speaker 1: He has been in a city called Thessalonica.
Speaker 1: He stirred it up a little bit there and they ran him out of town.
Speaker 1: He stirred the pot again in Berea and the brothers and sisters in the church there escorted him out under the cover of night to get him out safely.
Speaker 1: And so he's come to this point in time by himself, to a city called Athens.
Speaker 1: It's the capital of modern day Greece.
Speaker 1: In Paul's day, athens was a city a little bit on the decline.
Speaker 1: In the past it had been a regional power, a political seat of power.
Speaker 1: It had been a thriving economic city.
Speaker 1: But by Paul's day the Roman Empire's in control of Athens, and so it's still an educational center and a center of like philosophy and thoughts and this mishmash of religious belief.
Speaker 1: But it's not the prominent city that it used to be or that it will be again.
Speaker 1: And so that's where Paul finds himself in Acts 17.
Speaker 1: In the city of Athens by himself.
Speaker 1: He's waiting on Silas and Timothy to join him there, and so in the meantime, we're gonna see what happens in Acts 17, starting in verse 16.
Speaker 1: Now, while Paul was waiting for them Paul or Silas and Timothy at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols, and so he reasoned in the synagogue, with the Jews and the devout persons, in the marketplace, every day, with those who happened to be there.
Speaker 1: Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him, and some said what does this babbler wish to say?
Speaker 1: Others said he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities, because he's preaching Jesus in the resurrection.
Speaker 1: And they took him and they brought him to the Areopagus, saying man, we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting, for you bring some strange things to our ears.
Speaker 1: We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean.
Speaker 1: Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Speaker 1: So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious, for as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship.
Speaker 1: I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
Speaker 1: What, therefore, you worship is unknown.
Speaker 1: This I proclaim to you the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined the lot of periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps fill their way toward him and find him.
Speaker 1: Yet he, god, is actually not far from each of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring, being then God's offspring.
Speaker 1: We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone and image formed by the art and imagination of man.
Speaker 1: The times of ignorance, god overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he's fixed the day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
Speaker 1: Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said we will hear you again about this.
Speaker 1: And so Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Demaris and others with them.
Speaker 1: I love this story in Acts 17.
Speaker 1: I love this scene.
Speaker 1: Now, before we begin to dive into it there, it makes sense of what's happening and what it means for me and for you.
Speaker 1: Today I got to talk about something that I haven't talked about like all fall, and the reason is because there's not been a lot to say.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk for a moment about football, and the reason I haven't talked about football a lot it's because the teams I pull for are combined like five and 17,.
Speaker 1: It's not been a good year.
Speaker 1: I'm really getting frustrated at this point in time.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about it anyway, just for a moment.
Speaker 1: They're bringing flag football to the Olympics in 2028.
Speaker 1: That excites me.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to the future in faith, believing that better days are ahead.
Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, I don't know if Jesus pulls for football teams.
Speaker 1: If he does.
Speaker 1: He's not pulling for mine this year, I'll just say it like that.
Speaker 1: But growing up, growing up, my first football jersey was a Furman Paladin football jersey.
Speaker 1: It was number 18, because I was a Peyton Manning fan growing up.
Speaker 1: Purple had the helmet.
Speaker 1: I was a Furman football player.
Speaker 1: Every year for either Halloween or trunk retreat, depending on which one makes you feel better.
Speaker 1: Today, for about three years in a row, I was a Furman football player.
Speaker 1: My sister was a Furman cheerleader and Sam was the referee.
Speaker 1: I think we've actually got a photo of this that we found in the archives.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you can get a glimpse.
Speaker 1: That's it, right, there Isn't that great, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I don't know, that's funny.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 1: But that was my costume and that helmet was about three sizes bigger than it should have been for my head, but I needed it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: And then grew up, furman football.
Speaker 1: My dad played ball for a year there in the 80s.
Speaker 1: My mom went to Furman.
Speaker 1: My grandfather on my dad's side went to Furman.
Speaker 1: My grandmother on my dad's side went to Furman.
Speaker 1: My uncle went to Furman.
Speaker 1: We were like a Furman family and went to the games growing up.
Speaker 1: And so, talking about Furman football.
Speaker 1: Growing up, furman football was a we right.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean by that.
Speaker 1: Like I was a Furman Paladin fan.
Speaker 1: Like I was, I went to their camps in the summer.
Speaker 1: It was a we thing.
Speaker 1: A long time I wanted to go to Furman but I didn't.
Speaker 1: I went to Wofford.
Speaker 1: And this is where the story gets interesting, because when I went to Wofford something happened Because, see, like you gotta understand, furman and Wofford are like Carolina Clemson, okay, like they don't like each other.
Speaker 1: Like, if you're a Wofford guy, like that is just a terrible color.
Speaker 1: Purple is just not good.
Speaker 1: And so when I went to Wofford College and began to be part of that program and buy into the vision of the short hair dog, the terrier, and something happened on the inside and Furman football stopped being we, it became they and they were the enemy.
Speaker 1: Wofford football became a we.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing about that.
Speaker 1: Like my last game of my college career was against Furman and they beat us.
Speaker 1: Not, it wasn't even close.
Speaker 1: And my last pass of my football career, I threw an interception in the end zone.
Speaker 1: And to this day I get sick.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about I don't wear purple, I don't own purple, I don't have purple in my house.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see it Because Furman is they and Wofford is we.
Speaker 1: I haven't played for Wofford in almost a decade.
Speaker 1: That's bad math.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's good math.
Speaker 1: I'm old.
Speaker 1: I haven't played for Wofford in almost 10 years.
Speaker 1: My shoulder hurts when I throw the Nerf ball in the backyard these days, but I'm still Wofford football for me is still we, still we.
Speaker 1: And the question that I have for us to collectively today, when you think about the local church, is the local church for you, is it they or we?
Speaker 1: In other words, is it a group of people for somebody else?
Speaker 1: Is it they, or do you see yourself as part of the team?
Speaker 1: Is it we?
Speaker 1: When you think about the mission, vision, the calling of the local church in the earth, is it they or we?
Speaker 1: What I love about where we're at in Acts 17 and where we're building on from last week is, as we're talking about this idea of the vision that God has given to the local church.
Speaker 1: Not just our local church we are a piece of this story but the local church.
Speaker 1: Taylor did a phenomenal job last weekend talking about what it means to build our lives on the foundation of Christ as the church, to fellowship with one another, to learn together to connect with God and with each other in community, to pray and to serve and to give Like.
Speaker 1: It was a phenomenal reminder that we're called to build our lives together as the local church, and today I want to talk about what it looks like for us to to now, because we're building our lives and our relationship with Jesus to bring other people to his love.
Speaker 1: Our mission statement as Somerville Baptist the thing that unites downtown and Pinewood together is that we exist to build vital relationships with Jesus and to bring others to his love.
Speaker 1: So we want to connect vertically with God.
Speaker 1: We want our faith to grow.
Speaker 1: We want to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: We want to use our gifts to serve and to grow the church and to build the kingdom of God and to love and serve one another.
Speaker 1: We want to build relationships with Jesus and to bring other people to experience the same love that has transformed our lives.
Speaker 1: And what I love about this mission vision statement is it comes right out of the scriptures.
Speaker 1: It's Acts, chapter 1, verse 8.
Speaker 1: Taylor read it last week.
Speaker 1: We're going to read it again together this morning.
Speaker 1: Acts, chapter 1, verse 8.
Speaker 1: Luke records the words of Christ right before Jesus goes back to be at the right hand of the Father.
Speaker 1: Jesus says this you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea, samaria and to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes.
Speaker 1: What does the Holy Spirit do?
Speaker 1: Well, the Holy Spirit reveals truth.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit helps us understand the scriptures.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts for the building up of the body of Christ.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit produces fruit as our lives are transformed and the Holy Spirit points us to Jesus.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit is the power source by which we build our lives and our relationship with Christ.
Speaker 1: But there's a really important and in Acts, chapter 1, verse 8, jesus says and you will be my witnesses Jerusalem, judea, samaria, to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: The word witness in the Greek is the Greek word martus and it literally means to lay down your life and carrying out the message, the calling of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So, empowered by the Holy Spirit, our calling as followers of Christ is to lay down our lives, to carry the gospel Jerusalem, judea, samaria, ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: And if you know the region that Jesus was speaking from, right outside of Jerusalem, jerusalem was the local context, judea was the regional area, samaria a little bit larger region and then to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: So for us, if we're going to put this in our language today, our calling as the church of Jesus Christ in the world in 2023 is to receive the power of the Holy Spirit through salvation, by grace, through faith, and then to be the carriers of the gospel in Somerville, in Dorchester County, in South Carolina and to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: And here's, here's why, here's the why Because God's plan A to reach the world is spirit filled followers of Jesus Christ whose lives are anchored in the local church and who carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: God's plan A to reach the world is me and you, empowered by the Holy Spirit, emboldened by the person and work of Jesus, with a message that, like Jeremiah said, it's like a fire burning on the inside that we just can't contain.
Speaker 1: And so today, that's the question like how do we do this, how do we talk about our faith?
Speaker 1: If this is plan A and there is no plan B?
Speaker 1: How do we carry the message of the gospel forth in a way that the goal is not just to fill this room or build our church, but to build the kingdom, to see people who are far from God meet Jesus, come to faith in Christ, have their lives transformed and then become carriers of the gospel as well.
Speaker 1: How do we see the gospel transform human lives?
Speaker 1: We can sit here today and we can talk about systems or processes or four steps to sharing your faith, and we're going to get practical at the end.
Speaker 1: But here's my personal conviction I think what we need is not a system or a process or do ABC and D to share your faith.
Speaker 1: What you and I need is to see the beauty of the resurrected Christ.
Speaker 1: What we need is to behold the power and the wonder and the majesty of Almighty God, to see the power of Christ and his crucifixion, his burial and his resurrection.
Speaker 1: We need to behold something that transforms our lives.
Speaker 1: We need to see the good news of Jesus as the greatest news, the greatest story that could ever be told.
Speaker 1: Because if we see the gospel as beautiful, if we see the story of Jesus as essential to our own lives, as the breath that we breathe, the oxygen that we intake the food that we eat.
Speaker 1: If we see the gospel as essential to who we are, we won't be able to stop telling the story, because the plan of God is spirit filled followers of Christ whose lives are anchored in the local church and who carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: This is the story of the apostle Paul, a spirit filled follower of Jesus whose life was anchored in the local church, who saw his calling and his mission as the calling to carry the gospel out.
Speaker 1: Paul's local church was Antioch.
Speaker 1: At the start of each of his missionary journeys, the leaders of the church at Antioch gather around Paul and they pray over him, they lay hands on him, they commission him, they bless him and they send him out.
Speaker 1: But I love that Paul had a home base.
Speaker 1: Right, paul had a home base.
Speaker 1: He was in community.
Speaker 1: He was gathering together with other believers to learn and to pray and to fellowship and to be encouraged and then to be sent forth into the earth.
Speaker 1: And in Acts 17, paul's sending has landed him in the city of Athens and it says that while Paul is alone in Athens, his spirit is provoked.
Speaker 1: This is a great phrase because it means two things.
Speaker 1: On one hand it means that Paul's heart is broken over the brokenness that he sees in the city.
Speaker 1: He mourns over the worship of idols that he sees happening all around him.
Speaker 1: But it also not only is he brokenhearted when it says that his spirit was provoked, it also means that he's a little bit agitated.
Speaker 1: Paul got a little bit ticked off in Acts, chapter 17.
Speaker 1: And I love that right.
Speaker 1: That's so encouraging to me.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get a little ticked off?
Speaker 1: So did Paul.
Speaker 1: You're in good company.
Speaker 1: But what we're gonna see in Acts 17 is how Paul handles this.
Speaker 1: He's provoked by the state of the world around him, and so he's like, hey, I'm in Athens, I've got an open door of opportunity, let me make the most of it.
Speaker 1: And so he goes into the synagogue and he begins to communicate the gospel of Jesus, the power of the resurrection, to the Jewish people in the synagogue.
Speaker 1: And he's also he's in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: He goes to where the non-Jewish people are, those who follow other systems of belief, other faiths, who have a different worldview, and he goes to where they are to preach the gospel there.
Speaker 1: And it causes a little bit of a stir, because then some Epicureans and some Stoic philosophers they come to Paul and they're like hey, we want you to come to the Areopagus, this is the place where they would gather and discuss new ideas.
Speaker 1: And so the Epicureans and the Stoics they come, they get Paul.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, what you're saying is weird and strange and we've never heard anything like it before.
Speaker 1: Tell us more.
Speaker 1: And so they bring Paul to the Areopagus and they stand, paul, in the center of the Areopagus, on the top of Mars Hill, and Paul begins to speak.
Speaker 1: Now, remember, paul is agitated and brokenhearted and in this moment, some of us maybe me might be tempted to tell him like, it is right, I'm just gonna lay the truth out there.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell him about how agitated I am right.
Speaker 1: Is that what Paul does?
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 1: Paul is brokenhearted and agitated, but yet in this moment he has the foresight, the wherewithal to know.
Speaker 1: I can't let my brokenheartedness and my agitation come through.
Speaker 1: Paul speaks with compassion, not condemnation, and he actually begins his sermon, his message to this group of non-believers, with a compliment.
Speaker 1: He says to them men of Athens, I perceive that in every way, you're very religious.
Speaker 1: He commends them for their religious belief and then he begins to build a bridge for the gospel and y'all.
Speaker 1: That's the place that every gospel conversation begins, not a place of condemnation, but a place of compassion.
Speaker 1: The cliche is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Speaker 1: And it is absolutely true.
Speaker 1: The greatest bridge for gospel conversation is genuine relationship.
Speaker 1: And so Paul takes a moment at the start of this to say hey, I see something in your life that I'm going to highlight as good, even if the object of your faith Paul would disagree with, even if the object of your faith doesn't come across as legitimate.
Speaker 1: Paul says I'm going to commend you for your faith.
Speaker 1: And then, from there, paul says hey, I also, I noticed something in your culture.
Speaker 1: It's another bridge.
Speaker 1: You have an altar with an inscription to an unknown God.
Speaker 1: Paul says the God that you worship is unknown, I want to make known to you.
Speaker 1: And he begins to explain to the Athenians hey, you worship gods in temples built by human hands.
Speaker 1: You worship gods made of gold and silver and stone, art and beauty that you have built yourself.
Speaker 1: But the unknown God, the one you don't know, he made it all.
Speaker 1: He's the reason you have breath in your lungs.
Speaker 1: You think that you're, you know you're worshiping all these gods just to try to cover your bases, but the one who made it all is the one you really need to know.
Speaker 1: And oh, don't think he's far from you, because Paul says I'm going to build another bridge and I'm going to quote your own poets.
Speaker 1: And he quotes a guy named Epaminides and a guy named Eradus and says in him we live and move and have our being.
Speaker 1: God is close to you, and not only that, you're his offspring, he made you, he knows you, he's calling you to himself.
Speaker 1: Paul speaks with compassion and with clarity, with conviction.
Speaker 1: But in all of this conversation, paul's goal is to build a bridge, to communicate the gospel in a way that calls people to a place where they have to make a decision.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 1: Paul says hey, in the past, the times of ignorance, god overlooked our worship of false gods.
Speaker 1: But then Paul says but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he's fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.
Speaker 1: And out of this he's given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
Speaker 1: And so he lands this presentation at the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Because what Paul knows and what we need to know is that the resurrection of Jesus demands a response from me and from you.
Speaker 1: See, here's the thing we are all wired to worship something.
Speaker 1: We're all wired to hold up something in our lives that we see as the paragon of beauty and importance and object worthy of our affections.
Speaker 1: Maybe we don't have idols made of gold and silver and stone, but we are all worshipers of something.
Speaker 1: Even the person who claims there is no God is worshiping something.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a career or money or resources or a specific level of achievement, but we are all pursuing worshiping, placing value and weight somewhere.
Speaker 1: And Paul says to the group gathered on Mars Hill in Acts 17, there is a man who was sent by God, who died on a cross, who resurrected from the dead.
Speaker 1: He's the Son of God, he's the Savior of the world, his blood was shed to forgive my sin and your sin, and he resurrected from the dead to prove he was God in flesh.
Speaker 1: Now we've got to decide.
Speaker 1: What do we do with Jesus?
Speaker 1: What do I say to Jesus?
Speaker 1: What do you say to the resurrected Son of God?
Speaker 1: Now, I would love if the next few verses of Acts, chapter 17, luke had written down that all the people in the areopagus, fell on their face, repented of their sin, placed their faith in Jesus and started the church, tore the temple down, started the church.
Speaker 1: But that is not what happens, right?
Speaker 1: What does Luke say?
Speaker 1: Well, luke says very clearly now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, they said Psalm mocked.
Speaker 1: This story begins with people mocking Paul and it ends with people mocking Paul.
Speaker 1: In fact, in Acts, chapter 17, when the Epicureans and the Stoics are mocking Paul, calling him a babbler, what they're saying is that Paul is like a bird picking up seed from a lot of different places.
Speaker 1: He's scavenging for ideas because he doesn't even know what he really believes.
Speaker 1: He's just pulling a bunch of weird thoughts from everywhere, putting them together.
Speaker 1: And that's this message Paul's presenting to you he's a babbler, he's crazy, out of his mind.
Speaker 1: And Paul preaches the gospel.
Speaker 1: And I don't know for me.
Speaker 1: I read Acts, chapter 17, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is powerful.
Speaker 1: But in that moment, in Acts chapter 17, some people heard Paul and like, yep, he's a babbler.
Speaker 1: We thought so before.
Speaker 1: We're more convinced now.
Speaker 1: But some said, hey, we'll hear you again on this, not ready to go all in and commit my life to Jesus right now, but I got some questions.
Speaker 1: Can we talk later?
Speaker 1: Can we get coffee later this week?
Speaker 1: Let's sit down and share a meal together.
Speaker 1: Let's text a little bit.
Speaker 1: Hey, like let's.
Speaker 1: You know, I got some questions about this book or this verse.
Speaker 1: Let's keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: But some believed, among them Dionysius, demerius and others, and here's the thing y'all we've got to be okay with a mixed response to the gospel proclamation.
Speaker 1: Some people you proclaim the gospel, you talk about what Jesus has done in your life.
Speaker 1: You might get made fun of to your face.
Speaker 1: You might get talked about behind your back, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Some people they're not going to be ready to make a decision the first time they hear the good news about Jesus.
Speaker 1: But maybe they'll invite you to their house to continue the conversation.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll stop by your office to talk a little bit further.
Speaker 1: Maybe the next time they see you they'll be like hey, I've been thinking a little bit and maybe what we all pray and hope happens.
Speaker 1: Maybe sometime, somewhere, someplace.
Speaker 1: Somebody and the gospels proclaim they're like, that makes sense, I'm ready to turn from my sin and place my faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: And what a beautiful moment that is.
Speaker 1: But here's the bottom line for me and for you.
Speaker 1: We can't let the opinions of others stop us from obedience to Christ.
Speaker 1: Jesus said in Acts 1, 8, you will be my witnesses, like.
Speaker 1: That's a primary component of who we are as followers of Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's witnesses to the gospel story of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We're proclaimers, we're storytellers, we're people who communicate who Jesus is and what he has done.
Speaker 1: Our job is to proclaim the gospel with our lips.
Speaker 1: You're like but I'm not a preacher, no, you are.
Speaker 1: It's what Acts 1, 8 says you will be my witnesses.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This is maybe the best news of the day.
Speaker 1: We are all great at proclaiming good news.
Speaker 1: When's the last time you went to a restaurant and had a meal that changed your life?
Speaker 1: What'd you do Next time?
Speaker 1: You saw somebody that liked the food that you went and ate?
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, listen, I had this meal at this restaurant.
Speaker 1: The lasagna was the best lasagna this side of Italy.
Speaker 1: You got to go try it.
Speaker 1: It'll change your life.
Speaker 1: I saw a movie in the theaters surround sound.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be the same on Netflix.
Speaker 1: I don't care how good your sound bar is, how great the system is in your house.
Speaker 1: You got to see this movie before it gets out of the theaters.
Speaker 1: Did you see the game?
Speaker 1: Oh, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: The last drive they thought it was over and then they got the ball back and the rest made this call.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it either, and the whole stadium was in awe and nobody knew what to do.
Speaker 1: But then they scored at the last second and the place erupted.
Speaker 1: The crowd went wild.
Speaker 1: It was the most incredible atmosphere I've ever… Can you imagine what that was?
Speaker 1: We're great at proclaiming good news.
Speaker 1: When something changes our lives, when something deeply impacts us, we naturally proclaim good news.
Speaker 1: I heard a pastor on a podcast recently say that… and it was incredibly convicting to me.
Speaker 1: The reason that we don't proclaim the gospel is because we're more concerned about the opinions of others than we are about obedience to God and y'all.
Speaker 1: I was like yep, that's me.
Speaker 1: I can proclaim the gospel on a Sunday morning in church, because that's where I'm supposed to be proclaiming the gospel.
Speaker 1: But how quick am I to talk about Jesus on a Tuesday afternoon at the grocery store and I'm not saying don't be weird, don't be weird, don't be weird.
Speaker 1: You know that, don't be weird.
Speaker 1: But just look for opportunities and conversations to build a bridge and hey, maybe you don't get to explain the whole story of the Bible or the whole story of Jesus in 30 seconds at the grocery store, but you can have spiritual conversations.
Speaker 1: You can be the farmer sowing the seed, trusting the God of the harvest to bring the sun, to bring the rain, to grow his crop.
Speaker 1: Maybe you get the chance to be the one that gets to harvest.
Speaker 1: You get to be the one in the room when somebody decides hey, I'm ready to place my faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Look for opportunities, build the bridge, have spiritual conversations.
Speaker 1: Proclaim the gospel with your lips, but also validate the gospel with your life.
Speaker 1: Words separated from a transformed life carry little weight.
Speaker 1: What changed the people in Athens?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the power of the Holy Spirit working through Paul, but it was also the confidence of Paul's life, his willingness to stand alone and boldly and confidently proclaim the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: The way you live speaks every bit as loudly as the words that you say.
Speaker 1: There's the old cliche saying preach the gospel at all times and use words if necessary, and it's attributed to St Francis of Assisi.
Speaker 1: It's not actually known if he actually said it or not.
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you today.
Speaker 1: It is necessary to use words, but your life will validate or invalidate the words that you proclaim.
Speaker 1: So may the way we live validate the words that we say.
Speaker 1: Paul left Athens a little while after this scene and he finished his second missionary journey.
Speaker 1: He took his third missionary journey.
Speaker 1: He later ended up in Rome, a place he always wanted to go.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about the center of power.
Speaker 1: Rome was the center of power.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about a city that was far from God.
Speaker 1: Rome was far from God.
Speaker 1: And Paul goes to Rome determined to confidently preach the gospel to the bitter end.
Speaker 1: And Paul ultimately dies in a Roman prison.
Speaker 1: Historians, usubians in particular, tell us he was probably beheaded at the behest of the emperor Nero.
Speaker 1: So Paul goes to Rome knowing he's not making it out of Rome, he's not getting back to his home church at Antioch, he's not going to get to travel back and see what happened in Athens or see the church at Ephesus or get back to Corinth.
Speaker 1: He goes to Rome knowing he's going to give his life.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm sure there's some in our world today that would say well, what a waste.
Speaker 1: Why didn't Paul stay away from Rome?
Speaker 1: Why didn't Paul stay where it was safer, played a little bit safer.
Speaker 1: Maybe he could have planted more churches.
Speaker 1: He maybe he died too soon.
Speaker 1: Maybe there was more that he could have accomplished.
Speaker 1: Cause Paul didn't see Rome transformed.
Speaker 1: In fact, rome, they only increased their persecution of Christians once the church in Rome began to grow.
Speaker 1: What a waste.
Speaker 1: But Paul proclaimed the gospel with his lips.
Speaker 1: He validated the gospel with his life and the church in Rome began to grow.
Speaker 1: Ben Steward, a pastor at Passion City, dc.
Speaker 1: He said this about the church in Rome In Rome, christians didn't take up the sword, but they took up radical love for their enemies.
Speaker 1: People mocked them, people maligned them, people misunderstood them, and then they followed them.
Speaker 1: 300 years later, rome became a Christian empire.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that happened after that, but the point is that Rome was transformed by the gospel, as the lives of ordinary Jesus followers validated the message that came from their lips.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because their lives were beautiful and compelling examples of love and generosity and service and the willingness to lay down their own lives for the good of someone else.
Speaker 1: And people in Rome saw that and they were like yep, that's what I want, and I'm believing that our lives in Somerville can be the same thing, and as we build our relationships with God Almighty and His Spirit works in us and we grow in boldness and confidence because of the power of Christ in our lives, that God can use our lives to bring people into His kingdom.
Speaker 1: So who in your circle today is far from God?
Speaker 1: They're close to you.
Speaker 1: We can pray, we can proclaim and we can validate.
Speaker 1: And who knows what God wants to do, as a room full of ordinary people say you know what this Acts 1-8, mission of the church, this build and bring.
Speaker 1: I want to be part of it.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna just be a they thing or a them thing, it's gonna be a we thing.
Speaker 1: I'm in, I want my life to count, not for my sake but for the glory of God and for the good of the person in my life that doesn't yet know God.
Speaker 1: You know, my grandparents on my mom's side of the family made a choice that they were gonna raise their family to know and love and serve Jesus, kind of chart a different trajectory for the future generations to come.
Speaker 1: My grandkids won't know their great, great grandparents' names.
Speaker 1: Highly unlikely that they'll know their names, but they'll know the name of Jesus because of a choice that they made 100 years from now, 150 years from now, ain't nobody gonna remember me and you.
Speaker 1: But it's possible that, because of the legacy of faith that you leave behind, generations to follow can know Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: And if they don't know my name, but they know Jesus' name, it's well worth whatever it cost.
Speaker 1: They don't know your name, but they know Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: It's well worth whatever it cost.
Speaker 1: So, father, help us to see the beauty and the wonder of the cross, the Savior's blood shed for us, his death, his burial, his resurrection, power.
Speaker 1: And, father, as we behold the beauty of the cross, as we see the compelling love of the cross, father, may that awaken in us this desire to say something about the goodness and the grace of Almighty God.
Speaker 1: Father, to leave a legacy of faith where it doesn't matter if people know our names, it matters if they know the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Father may know the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Father, help us to proclaim the good news with our lips and to validate it with our lives.
Speaker 1: We love you.
Speaker 1: We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1: As we stand and respond this morning, this is a moment for you to respond.
Speaker 1: If you need to pray, there's somebody in your life that needs to meet Jesus.
Speaker 1: I want to challenge you.
Speaker 1: Take a moment right now and pray for them.
Speaker 1: If you say today, for the first time, I want to give my life to Jesus, I'll be over here to the side.
Speaker 1: You can grab anybody in a green shirt.
Speaker 1: We'd love to have that conversation with you.
Speaker 1: If you say, today, I want this local church to go from Bay to we, I want to join this family here, we'd love to have that conversation with you.
Speaker 1: But this is a moment for you to respond as the Spirit leads.
Speaker 1: Let's stand and respond together.