SPEAKER_00: Well, James gave me such a great introduction, so I have to strip down all of my introduction that I had and just say what a blessing it is to be here at Taylor Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is now the third opportunity I've come to partner with you guys in the ministry of the gospel and see what God's doing here in Taylor.
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to just take a second and encourage you all that it's not well for us at Life Story, as we're launching out, it's very easy for us to get laser focused on us and the launch and where we are right now.
SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to take a second and just share, we're part of a bigger network of what God is doing in the greater Austin area and globally.
SPEAKER_00: Our church is partnered with a church that came out of the network uh two years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that they're in London, England.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say globally, there is movements of what God is doing around the world.
SPEAKER_00: And that is so cool to see because we're on mission together to plant the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Not just plant churches, but plant the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, you see churches come alive and you see lives transformed, and you see men and women freed.
SPEAKER_00: And the biggest important part of all that is you see the unknown God made known.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the beauty of being part of a network.
SPEAKER_00: So what I'd like to do, uh, and I'm old, uh, so I'll have to use my glasses, I do apologize, but what I'd like to do is just read a part portion of scripture that we'll be in, will be in Acts chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: Um read a portion of scripture, pray, and then jump in.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 17, verse 22 through 25.
SPEAKER_00: So uh so Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very righteous.
SPEAKER_00: For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
SPEAKER_00: What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
SPEAKER_00: 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 the human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me, please?
SPEAKER_00: Mighty God, I just thank you so much for the for this time that we could come together as your church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you allow me to be your messenger this evening?
SPEAKER_00: Would you move in our hearts and our minds to hear what you would have for us tonight?
SPEAKER_00: Would you take that message and carry that out into wherever we go, wherever we work, play, live, and learn?
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, would we be making known the gospel to every man, woman, and child?
SPEAKER_00: So Lord, we love you, we trust you, we praise you in your mind and we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh a little bit about me.
SPEAKER_00: I served in the Navy for 16 years.
SPEAKER_00: I've traveled around the world, uh, and that has been in a unique endeavor and uh gotten to see a lot of amazing places.
SPEAKER_00: One of those is Padia Thailand.
SPEAKER_00: And when I went to Patti of Thailand, uh I've been there about 15 times, got to see so many different spaces there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I was introduced to this place called the Temple of Truth.
SPEAKER_00: So if you come to the Temple of Truth, I think there's a picture of it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh there it is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's the Temple of Truth.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you go to this place, you can see it from the waterfront as your ships are coming in.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and when you're in the space, uh you can uh just see the beauty and the architecture uh of that space.
SPEAKER_00: Um as you get a little bit closer and you can't really tell, but you can see a little bit in the high, uh, there's idols everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: But yet they sit there and they say that we are a place that wants to commune with all faiths.
SPEAKER_00: Because our focus is not about faith, but our focus is giving you a philosophy of how to live your life.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a beautiful space.
SPEAKER_00: If you walk in, uh you walk into this uh main entranceway, it's all built out of wood.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they say that there's no metal objects in there, so no nails or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, although I did find a couple of nails, so I don't know if they were telling the truth or not, but um, it's gorgeous.
SPEAKER_00: And you walk into this space and you walk down the first corridor.
SPEAKER_00: If you can see there's three corridors, there's one facing the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: You walk down one, it's the Christian corridor with all these idols going up and down it.
SPEAKER_00: You walk down the next one, and it's the Hindu corridor.
SPEAKER_00: You walk down the next one, it's the Muslim corridor.
SPEAKER_00: If you walk down the next one, it's the Buddhist corridor.
SPEAKER_00: With the central area, if you notice, it is the most uh uh big area with the spire.
SPEAKER_00: It is where everybody comes to get this message of morality through philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: And what you see in this is something beautiful but deeply tragic because it's a representation of human effort to build a temple that is focused on philosophy and morals rather than being focused on the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: And see, our world today looks a lot like this temple.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a society filled with competing voices, worldviews, and promises of meaning.
SPEAKER_00: Daily, people search for identity, purpose, and peace, right?
SPEAKER_00: But in places that they can never truly be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And the question I want us to think through tonight is how do we engage this culture without losing our own identity?
SPEAKER_00: And see, this is the exact same environment that Paul was arriving to in Athens when he was on his missionary journey.
SPEAKER_00: He came into a marketplace of competing ideas, uh, modern idols that were coming around, spiritual confusion that was coming around, and he was asking the same question: how do I engage this culture without losing my identity?
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a very important thing when we're talking about church planning as well.
SPEAKER_00: How do we engage our culture without losing our identity?
SPEAKER_00: Now I need to set the stage for you all because uh we haven't been in a series on Acts recently.
SPEAKER_00: So where we are right this second is Paul and uh some compadres are on a missionary journey, on his first missionary journey, which should be the first map.
SPEAKER_00: Yep, there it is.
SPEAKER_00: They are going from Iconium, uh, Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.
SPEAKER_00: This is uh Acts chapter 13 to Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: Uh while they're there, uh uh Paul is stoned, considered to death, uh, and yet he walks out of that situation and comes back into the space and continues to preach.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we see churches established through prayer and fasting and elders raised up.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we see as these churches are established, um whenever you have a church established, sometimes you have some disagreements.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so how do we uh step into uh what we're called to do as the church?
SPEAKER_00: And so some had some legal thought process going on, everybody should be circumcised, and in other spaces, they're like, no, it's the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're seeing this happen in the first missionary journey of where Paul is going.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of this, you see Paul and Barnabas uh coming together, getting ready to set on their second missionary journey, which is the next map.
SPEAKER_00: And uh as they're getting ready to go, Barnabas says to Paul, I want to take John Mark.
SPEAKER_00: And if you looked at Acts uh in the earlier chapters, John Mark uh uh left Paul and Barnabas when they were facing persecution and uh was nowhere to be seen.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh Paul said, I don't want to take John Mark.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Paul and Barnabas started handing it out over John Mark.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and what looks to be one of these most unforgivable areas of life God is using for his glory and his name uh because uh Paul and Barnabas split off.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas takes John Mark and they go out to church plant, and Paul takes Silas and eventually Timothy and they go out to church plant, and what you see is the beginning of multiplication of church planting happen.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a beautiful picture.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just one team now going, it's two teams going.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like what we're doing now with Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: We've been uh at Parkway for the last two years.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for some families that are coming with us in Life Story, a lot longer than that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we've been on this journey for about two years, and now we're getting ready to step out and launch Life Story Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord willing, in a few years, we're gonna have a church planner that we're gonna see go out.
SPEAKER_00: And this is exactly what's going out, uh, what going on with Paul uh and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul sets out on this missionary journey.
SPEAKER_00: He's got Silas and uh Timothy there, they're going all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: Lives are being transformed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the gospel is moving in ways that you can't even uh perceive.
SPEAKER_00: One of those being a demon-possessed young lady.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she is freed from being uh having this demon over her, and the people who are making money off of her get angry and they imprison Paul and Silas uh after beating them up.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that evening uh after they got beat up and put in prison in chains, uh there's an earthquake that happens.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you have gone through an earthquake.
SPEAKER_00: My wife and I lived in Japan.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we've also lived in uh California, and they have a lot of earthquakes in those areas.
SPEAKER_00: When they happen, you're awoken.
SPEAKER_00: Awaken, awoken, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh you're you are stirred with that uh moment of time, and it's not a small deal.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this earthquake happens, the doors are open, the chains are off, and the guard is awakened to the sound of all that.
SPEAKER_00: And he's about to kill himself because he thinks all of these prisoners have left, and yet Paul and Silas yell from inside the prison, the same prison that they were in, that they had been beaten up in, the same prison that they were singing psalms of who God was and praying to who God was.
SPEAKER_00: They said, We're still here, we're still right here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't kill yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The guard takes them out, brings them home, dresses their wounds, and they come to the whole entire household of this guard comes to faith.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the movement of the church, and this is the stage for where we are right here, right now.
SPEAKER_00: See, we are at a pivotal time of church planting because God is on the move in Acts.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul leaves Silas and goes on ahead into Athens, and as he is there, he is met with attention that he's never really seen before.
SPEAKER_00: He's at the crossroads of the ancient world, a city that is filled with historic achievements yet overflowing with idols.
SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting, and what we'll see tonight is Paul neither retreats from the city nor compromises with it.
SPEAKER_00: He engages it with the truth and grace.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe he gives us three beautiful examples that are modeled for us for how we're called to engage our culture today with the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe the first way that he models this for us is this he looks at the culture with a broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 17, verses 16 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, talking about Silas and Timothy, because he had gone on ahead, his spirit was provoked within him.
SPEAKER_00: He saw that the city was full of idols.
SPEAKER_00: So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him.
SPEAKER_00: And some said, What does this babbler wish to say?
SPEAKER_00: Others said he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities, because he is uh he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And they took him and they brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting, for you are bringing some strange things to our ears.
SPEAKER_00: We wish to know, therefore, what these th what these mean.
SPEAKER_00: Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling and hearing something new.
SPEAKER_00: So as Paul walks into Athens, his heart is provoked, and he has this identity focus of having eyes to see what's going on, and he's seeing all these idols and all these false gods being worshipped.
SPEAKER_00: It was rampant.
SPEAKER_00: Why did he have this viewpoint?
SPEAKER_00: Because his heart is first and foremost focused on his God.
SPEAKER_00: The God who has given him life, life eternal, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And as he walks in, he has this Christian world view that's changed his perception, not to be focusing in on all that's going on around him, or all the culture that's right there, or all the beautiful architecture that's going on, but he's focused in on what they're missing.
SPEAKER_00: Having a relationship with the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: It's like when we were, I've again I've been able to travel all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh two places that I've been able to go in my lifetime was Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: and London, England.
SPEAKER_00: And if you go to either one of these spaces, you are met with history.
SPEAKER_00: You're met with beauty that's been formed out of the hands of man.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy to get lost in what you see.
SPEAKER_00: And that for most people, that's exactly what happened there.
SPEAKER_00: But for Paul, he said, I see not as the world sees, but I see as crises because as Christ does, he's looking at people.
SPEAKER_00: I love what Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew define worldview as.
SPEAKER_00: It's an articulation of the basic beliefs embedded in a shared grand story that are rooted in a faith commitment and that gives shape and direction to the whole of our individual and corporate lives.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Christian worldview perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And see, Paul came in and he saw all of this going on, and his heart was provoked.
SPEAKER_00: It was stirred, is what the word really means.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's he has that feeling in the pit of his stomach.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever gotten that feeling when you're looking at something, you're like, this isn't right, this isn't what it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm kind of concerned about that.
SPEAKER_00: You had that pit in the uh bit of your stomach, or maybe you're not catching me on that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's like if you remember going to high school and there's that homework assignment you were supposed to do, or that uh, you know, test that was coming today, and you forgot to study for it, and you had that pit in the bottom of your stomach going, this is about to be a big mess up.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what Paul's got because he's looking at all of what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: Because he didn't come to Athens for a vacation.
SPEAKER_00: He came on a mission.
SPEAKER_00: And the mission was where God placed him, he wanted to carry the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He saw a city caught in false idols, he saw a people clinging to no hope, and a spiritual rescue mission that needed to happen.
SPEAKER_00: I think also in our culture, we're full of modern idols.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just take a second and think about it.
SPEAKER_00: We can see in our own culture us chasing identity and career.
SPEAKER_00: That's an easy one to fall into.
SPEAKER_00: Or for some, it might be finding worth in social media.
SPEAKER_00: The validation of somebody else on my social feeds, on my on my Facebook or my Instagram or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It's finding that.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's making this a big, grand achievement.
SPEAKER_00: This can become an idol for you.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's materialism.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's holding on to the things that are going on.
SPEAKER_00: But we can find modern parallels that our culture is caught in idolism.
SPEAKER_00: See, Paul, he looks and his heart is pricked.
SPEAKER_00: And notice what he does, he does next.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't hide from that.
SPEAKER_00: He has a heart that longs to reason.
SPEAKER_00: He comes in and he starts to have discussions or debates.
SPEAKER_00: And notice where he has discussions and debates with.
SPEAKER_00: He starts first in the synagogue and then goes into the marketplace, right?
SPEAKER_00: So he starts with those who are closest to him.
SPEAKER_00: The people who he calls family, the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Hey, I want you to hear this first.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is come.
SPEAKER_00: This is the one who is promised, the one that we've been waiting with anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: You need to connect with him.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: He goes into the marketplace and carries this on.
SPEAKER_00: And what's beautiful is what I believe in this thought process is he's stepping into what we call apologetics.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving a defense of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I love how Vody Bachman says it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, apologetics is knowing what you believe, why you believe it, and being able to communicate that in an effective and winsome manner.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming in and he's having these conversations every single day in the marketplace to anyone who would hear that in an effective and winsome manner.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see out of that is we see that he's not just sharing these things, but now he's having conversations because he's getting to speak to the Epicureans and the Stoics.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who the Epicureans or the Stoics are, the Epicureans are these individuals who taught that life's ultimate goal was pleasure, comfort, and freedom from fear.
SPEAKER_00: And the Stoics are people who valued self-sufficient reason, viewing God as a vague world soul.
SPEAKER_00: So here comes Paul into Athens.
SPEAKER_00: He sees all these idols.
SPEAKER_00: He sees people worshiping down, and he comes into the synagogue, into the marketplace, and he carries the gospel message, and all of a sudden the people start to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Really, two influential groups, the Epicureans and the Stoics, but everybody else is hearing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting is the Epicureans and the Stoics, they come out and they say, Hey, wait, this guy is saying some cool things, but man, we think he's a uh a babbler.
SPEAKER_00: That word literally means a scavenger bird pecking at random scraps for ideas.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't view him as a person in their league, they viewed him as a novice because they're always thinking through of how can we get more intellect, how can we get more thought process?
SPEAKER_00: What are the things that are driving us?
SPEAKER_00: But see, there were others that were there that invited Paul up to the Areopagus or Mars Hill because that was the place where a council of people would come together and talk about morals and education and religion.
SPEAKER_00: And they were always talking about the latest thing.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to hear the latest idea.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're inviting Paul to come up and have this conversation because their ears are hearing Jesus Christ and him crucified, him rising from the dead, and they're like, man, this is something new.
SPEAKER_00: We want to hear what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And isn't that like our culture today?
SPEAKER_00: Give us the latest and greatest news feed.
SPEAKER_00: Let me hear this most updated thought process.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even in our Christian circles, and I'm even guilty of this, I'm like, hey, I want to know what the latest book says about X, Y, and Z within my walk with Jesus, without oftentimes going to the book to get the information.
SPEAKER_00: Let me get the latest information.
SPEAKER_00: Let me get what this author says versus what the Lord says.
SPEAKER_00: I love what uh Cleon, who was an ancient politician in this time, in this space when Paul was there, said about the these this group of people.
SPEAKER_00: It says, You are the best people at being deceived by something new that is said.
SPEAKER_00: That should strike us as we're thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00: So, Taylor Bible life story.
SPEAKER_00: When you look at our secular world, does its confusion make you angry or does it break your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see people to be fought or a mission field to be wrestless?
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what Paul did when he came in.
SPEAKER_00: He saw a beautiful space to carry the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Man, we need to be here because his heart was stirred or provoked to be there.
SPEAKER_00: And it moved him toward a people, not a way.
SPEAKER_00: He listened to be, he observed and he learned as he was there, and he started building a bridge to carry the gospel out.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second point.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the culture to build a bridge.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 17, verses 23, 22 through 28.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
SPEAKER_00: For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
SPEAKER_00: What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
SPEAKER_00: 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 needs anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breadth and everything, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined an allotted periods and the very boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps feel fear their feel their way toward him and find him.
SPEAKER_00: Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: For in him we live and move and have our being.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul, having his heart provoked, starts to listen to a culture and to build a bridge.
SPEAKER_00: See, he starts to walk around, he starts to study, and he sees that in Athens everybody is here and they are very religious.
SPEAKER_00: Anne dies, I always love when she comes in because she talks about Go Huto so much.
SPEAKER_00: She loves Go Huto because it's an opportunity to get out into our culture.
SPEAKER_00: And what's beautiful about that when I hear the stories of Go Huto is it's not just coming with a focus and a mission of doing the gospel work, although that is part of it.
SPEAKER_00: It is learning the culture.
SPEAKER_00: It's having the opportunity, have ears to hear, eyes open, hearts ready to receive, and minds ready to engage with the people that are right in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what Paul does.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I see all these idols that are going on in all these different spaces, and I've observed all these objects of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have this one inscription to an unknown God, what therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
SPEAKER_00: And see, we need to have these inroads to build bridges with the lost.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things to do when I was a Navy chaplain was to build bridges with unbelievers.
SPEAKER_00: 90% of my work on a Navy ship or a Marine Corps installation was with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: And I would find interesting conversations from bull riding to surfing to axe throwing to find a bridge in some form or fashion that I might be able to carry the gospel message to their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what Paul is doing right here.
SPEAKER_00: He is watching and he is seeing, and all of a sudden he sees these idols in this one inscription, and he's able to then step into this gospel presentation.
SPEAKER_00: This reminds me of one of the greatest books that was ever written.
SPEAKER_00: It's called The Peace Child.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've never read it, I would encourage you to read it.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a reader, I know they have an audio book, I would encourage you to listen to it.
SPEAKER_00: But it's about the true story of a missionary named Don Richardson that goes into a culture in Africa and he goes to share with this African culture the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: And as he's sharing, he gets to this gospel presentation and he lays it all down for them.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about that is as he's sharing this gospel presentation, he's struck with for the first time something he's never been struck with.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not the hero of the story to this tribe.
SPEAKER_00: Judas is.
SPEAKER_00: Because in this tribal culture, somebody who is deceptive is the hero.
SPEAKER_00: And see, they had a misunderstanding of this biblical narrative.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul, in looking at his culture and context, he wanted to make sure that he came around where they were, their identity, how they identified their spiritual longing, their unmet spiritual longing, the admission that they didn't know everything, even though they were all about philosophy and morals.
SPEAKER_00: He used that to step into a gospel presentation.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you read the book of the Peace Child, what you find out is Don Richardson pauses for a moment with the gospel, takes a step back, looks at the culture, and realizes in the culture they have a deal with two warring tribes that if they're at war with one another, if the tribe that started the war, the king of that tribe, gives their child to the other tribe, that's known as the peace child.
SPEAKER_00: And as long as that child is alive, there's a truce between those two tribes.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as Don Richardson saw that and heard that, he said, This is exactly what I need to share.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand anything else, but they do understand this peace child idea.
SPEAKER_00: And he was able to step into a redemptive analogy with them, understanding that in the same way, God offered his very son for our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, you see lives transformed in this tribe.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's interesting about Paul is he sees this inscription that said, to an unknown God, because this people group had was very worried about where who God was and what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: Did we miss somebody?
SPEAKER_00: Did we not get all the gods on there?
SPEAKER_00: We have all these idols, but we need to make sure.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, No, I want you to know about the unknown God, the one true God, the one who transforms lives, the one who gives life to you.
SPEAKER_00: And what's beautiful about verses 22 through 28 is Paul gives us four truths about who God is.
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost, God is the creator.
SPEAKER_00: He made the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't live in a temple made by human hands, he created everything.
SPEAKER_00: God is the sustainer, he gives all mankind life, breath, and everything.
SPEAKER_00: God is the ruler of nations.
SPEAKER_00: He has made every ethnic group, determining their historic eras and their geographical boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: And God is knowable.
SPEAKER_00: He set the boundaries so that people would seek him, feel their way toward him, and find him.
SPEAKER_00: He indeeply engages his creation.
SPEAKER_00: And see, every culture has an altar to an unknown God.
SPEAKER_00: See, God-given desire is directed, uh can be oftentimes directed at the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_00: And we can see this in our social media feeds, we can see this in our news, but maybe it's the focus of an unknown God is how we care about justice.
SPEAKER_00: Or how we care about a community.
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, maybe it's this area of how we care about how I'm doing in the face of other people.
SPEAKER_00: And really, these are arrows pointing to the Creator, but never really getting people there.
SPEAKER_00: I love how John Piper puts this.
SPEAKER_00: Love is the overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others.
SPEAKER_00: Paul walks into Athens, he sees this going on, and his heart is stirred, he sees a bridge, and he gladly carries the gospel to him.
SPEAKER_00: And my question for us tonight is are we willing to listen to the culture long enough to find the spiritual entry point, or are we content giving answers to questions that maybe your neighbors aren't even asking?
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite books that transformed my thought process in this is uh this book called Questioning Evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And it's by Randy Newman.
SPEAKER_00: It's an older book.
SPEAKER_00: This is the newer, updated version of it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm I'm, you know, I could save you$9.99 on Apple iTunes books.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the premise of the book is this: learn the art of asking the right type of question.
SPEAKER_00: See, Paul didn't come in guns blazing, he came in being heart-provoked and eyes open to seeing a culture and asking the right types of questions to get to the right type of gospel explanation.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's goal was never merely cultural engagement, it was getting the culture to connect with the risen Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the third point.
SPEAKER_00: Lead the culture to the risen Savior.
SPEAKER_00: 29 through 34.
SPEAKER_00: Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, any image formed by art of imagination of man, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now when they heard this of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, We will hear you again about this.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined and believed.
SPEAKER_00: So he has this bridge that comes together for the Athenians.
SPEAKER_00: And as he's declaring this, he's declaring boldly the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: He does it in a soft but firm way.
SPEAKER_00: And I love what Proverbs 15, one through two say about this.
SPEAKER_00: It says, A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of fools pours out folly.
SPEAKER_00: See, Paul used wise words but didn't compromise the message at all.
SPEAKER_00: He called out the Athenians in their spiritual ignorance, saying, Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is coming.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to hide that fact.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Here's how you know this.
SPEAKER_00: Because the God who created every man, woman, and child, who created every living thing, he sent his son to die on the cross and is now raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the promise of life eternal, but he also is going to bring the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: See, Paul didn't dilute or refuse to preach the gospel, but he pressed on and he carried out this idea that everybody needed to repent or they were going to perish.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about this, as we think about church planting, as we think about where we're going with the gospel, is we're going to see three groups of people that Paul comes to connection with.
SPEAKER_00: The first group is the scoffers.
SPEAKER_00: After Paul shares all this, there's a group that just starts to scoff him and who he is and everything that he's about.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You know, I'm telling you, you need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: And they're saying, get away from me.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to run into that as we engage our culture, as we plant churches, as we make disciples, we're going to find men and women who come up with as scoffers.
SPEAKER_00: Second, we see these procrastinators, those who will delay, saying, Hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Come back tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Share with me this story tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's interesting of what you're sharing, but I don't want to listen to it because I love where I'm living right here, right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm love how I'm engaging my life.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just stay here.
SPEAKER_00: I love what Proverbs 14, 12 says about this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where these procrastinators are.
SPEAKER_00: But notice that there is a small group who believes.
SPEAKER_00: Lives are transformed because Paul didn't compromise the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Paul first had his heart pricked for a lost area.
SPEAKER_00: Second, his focus and his drive was carrying a bridge so that he could carry the gospel to their hearts and their minds.
SPEAKER_00: And third, he gave the gospel message in a way that was unmistakable.
SPEAKER_00: And for us today, when we build relationships with non-believers, are we so comfortable to stay on the bridge of friendship?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we have the courage to cross over and clearly share the urgent truth of repentance and resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: See, being culturally relevant is useless if we never actually preach Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Our job isn't to make the gospel comfortable, it's to make it clear.
SPEAKER_00: We can't control how people will respond, but we are called to point them to the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe this is what we're called to do.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is why I am so excited about church planting, we get to bring the church to a culture and share with that culture the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to continue on mission.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I love being connected with Taylor Bible Church and Huddle Bible Church and the network at Parkway and just seeing how we're carrying out this gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: This right here is what we need to be focused on every single day and how we live on mission.
SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
SPEAKER_00: So where do we go from here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think in three ways.
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost, we need to shift our eyes from tourist to a missionary mindset.
SPEAKER_00: We need to stop looking at our city or our neighborhood just on the surface level.
SPEAKER_00: We need to look at the people around us with a gospel perspective, having identified the idols and the things that are going on in our culture and maybe even conversations with our neighbors, and have a holy stir in our heart to carry the gospel message out to them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's so hard to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to get into this tourist mindset or this comfortable mindset, but we need to live on mission every single day where we live, work, play, and learn.
SPEAKER_00: I love D.A.
SPEAKER_00: Carson tells a story of a missionary that was in India, and when he came to India, he started sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And in that culture, they all came to faith in Jesus, but they just put Jesus in their pantheon focus of God's.
SPEAKER_00: And so this missionary said, Man, I've just failed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: So he took a step back and he said, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: I need to have the missionary mindset.
SPEAKER_00: I've had just one track mindset, which is the gospel and planning a church.
SPEAKER_00: I need to wake up and realize that not everybody's at the same spot that I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what he did?
SPEAKER_00: He started with Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, and walked this culture in this area through that.
SPEAKER_00: He had this basic missionary mindset, and this whole entire village came to faith in Christ, and he saw two solid churches planted in that area because of that faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: We need to shift from tourist to a missionary mindset.
SPEAKER_00: Second, we need to engage our marketplace daily.
SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't say in isolation.
SPEAKER_00: He looked for everyday opportunities in the work spot, in the coffee shops, in the gym conversations to talk to people and pray with them about who Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: We need to engage our marketplace.
SPEAKER_00: We need to engage our schools.
SPEAKER_00: We need to engage our workplaces and carry on the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: We need to have missional mindset everywhere we go.
SPEAKER_00: God, how are you in calling me to engage this person today?
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I do every single day is when I get up in the morning after I yawn for about five minutes, my next thing is, Lord, who's that one person that you want me to share the gospel with today?
SPEAKER_00: Not who are 10, who are 20, who are 30, who's that one?
SPEAKER_00: And once you give me that one, give me two and three and four.
SPEAKER_00: But I start with that one.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to step into that thought process.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, we need to establish the framework before the call.
SPEAKER_00: We need to find bridges to bridge the gospel message into lives.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we don't know where people are coming from.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what their background is, what they think about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I talked to somebody when I was on a Navy ship and I said, Hey, uh, you know, I'm a chaplain, I'm a Christian chaplain.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me tell you a little bit about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, I hate the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If I just stopped there, I wouldn't, I would miss the mark.
SPEAKER_00: But I said, Well, why do you hate the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: And we worked back from that question and that question and that question, and finally we found out that in their home, their parents use the Bible as a weapon.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why they hate the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So I need to deal with that first before I can ever share the truth of love of Christ in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: We need to understand the framework before we step into the call.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to carry out the gospel message, but we want to make sure that ears are receptive, ready to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: That we're not this uh we're not this uh area that creates a wall, but we open doors for the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So my final challenge to Taylor Bible, life story Bible, and the church itself is to step off the sidelines of cultural criticism and step into the marketplace with gospel engagement.
SPEAKER_00: Stop shouting at the world from a safe distance of who Christ is, but start building bridges of compassion and uh that give both truth and grace and help people who are dying physically and spiritually, without hope, to hear the gospel message and come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we plant churches, that's why we make disciples, and that's why I am excited for what Taylor Bible Church is doing here in this area, and I'm excited for your next journey as you guys are continuing to pray for where God has you guys going.