Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 17:1-15, emphasizing how the early church changed the world through the preaching of the gospel. He highlights the importance of connecting with people, communicating Scripture clearly, and being confident in the Spirit, as demonstrated by Paul and Silas in Thessalonica and Berea. The sermon encourages believers to eagerly receive and examine God's Word daily, leading to personal transformation and the ability to share the gospel effectively, ultimately impacting their communities for Christ.
Welcome and Housekeeping
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Thank you, young people. If you've got a child that wants to be dismissed to Children's Church, that's available at this time. Didn't they do a great job leading us this morning? And if you have your Bibles, we'll be in Acts chapter 17 today. Acts chapter 17, verses 1 through 15.
I'll give you some time to turn there. I contemplated this week and prayed about where the Lord would have me, if this would be the place with everything going on in the world.
And I just felt like after praying and studying that this fits exactly the context of where we're at right now in the culture and in the world. And so I think it'll be fitting by preaching through Acts 17.
It's almost like God already knew what was going to happen and had already had me in this location in Scripture already. So if you have your time and place to find there, Acts chapter 17, we'll read it together. Let's stand at the reading of God's Word.
It'll also be on the screen for you. Give you one last chance to stretch your legs before we preach this morning. The Bible says in Acts chapter 17, verse 1, after they passed through Ampelius and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica.
And there was a Jewish synagogue there. Verse 2, as usual, I love that little phrase, as usual, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from Scriptures and explained to them in proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead.
This Jesus that I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.
And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-feeling Greeks,
as well as a number of leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and they brought them together some Wiccan men from the marketplace, forming a mob, and started rioting in the city.
Attacking Jason's house, they searched for them to bring them out into a public assembly. When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too. I'm going to pause right there.
Would it not be great for it to be said that of us, this church who has turned the world upside down for Christ? I think it's a great admonishment that was given here to these people.
And Jason has welcomed them, verse 7, and they were all acting contrary to Caesar's decree, saying that there is another King Jesus.
In verse 8, The crowds and the city officials who heard these things were upset. And after taking a security bond from Jason and the others, they released them.
And as soon as it was night, the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.
Upon arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews, the people who were of more noble character than those at Thessalonica, since they received the word with eagerness and examined the scriptures daily to see if the things were so.
Consequently, many of them believed, including a number of prominent Greek women as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica found out the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul at Berea, they came there too, agitating and upsetting the crowds.
Then the brothers and sisters immediately sent Paul away to go to the coast. But Silas and Timothy stayed over there.
Those who were escorting Paul brought him as far as Athens. And after receiving restructions from Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.
Father, we thank you for this day. Pray that you be with the preaching of your word, be with the scripture that has been read today. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. It has been a tumultuous week this week in America.
And I think that those, of course, we pray for the family of Charlie Kirk. We pray for the shooting victims a couple of weeks ago, the stabbing that happened a couple of weeks ago, the congressperson that has passed away, that was killed tragically.
And I think that a lot of that that goes on in the world can, you can look back at scripture and you can see that these are not new events that happen.
Changing the World for the Gospel
History does repeat itself oftentimes. And when we begin to think of this morning, I've entitled it, how to change the world. And how do we change the world for the gospel's sake? And how the world over time has been changed?
And as you know me, I'm a history guy. I was at a conference this past weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I got home Saturday night, last night.
And I was talking to a guy that was there with me, a pastor that I had known on social media. And we met for the first time in person. And we were talking about a couple of things.
And I mentioned how much I love history and how I give a lot of history when I preach and stories. And he said, you know, I enjoy looking at that stuff too.
And so for this morning, the history story that we'll start out with is the German goldsmith by the name of Gohan Gutenberg.
And I think it's maybe said it a little different. But in the 1400s, Mr. Gutenberg began tinkering with the idea that would change the world forever. He began thinking how he could begin to change the way we receive information.
Up until this point, if you wanted a hymn book, if you wanted a book that was written, you would have to handwrite that book. They estimate that in order for someone to receive a Bible before the printing press, it was a one year endeavor. One year where someone would handwrite the scripture,
and then they would take that Bible, and then they would begin to give that Bible out. So again, today we don't go through that. We have copies of scripture everywhere you can imagine. And so this was a slow, painstaking process in order to deliver information to anyone in mass quality.
And so Gutenberg was convinced there had to be a better way.
There had to be something that I could do, some way that I could, in order to produce something. And so he began working with his skills and craftsmen to develop a movable typeset, what we call the printing press.
Suddenly, for the very first time, words could be mass produced, ideas could travel further and faster than ever before. And for the first time in history, ordinary people could have a copy of books in their hands.
In order to have the Bible, you would have to come to a church. The Bible would be literally locked to the pulpit,
and you would have to come in and ask the pastor, hey, can I read scripture? And he would say, sure.
And he would come up, and he would unlock it, and you could sit here, and you could read it. But it never left this place, because it was so valuable, and the pastor needed it.
And so the impact that the printing press had was explosive in the way that we have never seen before. Knowledge began to spread like wildfire. This is where we get the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution. All of these movements came as a spark of the printing press.
The printed material became so vastly popular. Most famously, you can look back, and you can see Martin Luther, when he nailed his 95 theses to the Catholic Church, to the door there in 1517. If the printing press would not have been there, this would have most likely just been a localized, centralized event.
But within a matter of weeks and months, people were printing what he had posted, and it began to spread all throughout Germany, and all throughout Europe, because the truth that he was proclaiming could no longer be connected. You see, it's hard for us to imagine that, right?
When we live in a world that information happens in our fingertips.
I'm sure you saw the video this week that happened. I was with Scott when Charlie Kirk's assassination happened, and I got to the church, and immediately when I got on my phone, I began to see it. Information traveled within seconds of this event that happened.
The communication that we have is instantaneous, and would not have even been possible if it wouldn't have started with the printing press and how that looked.
Most historians that I have read after, this is what they say, that one of the most significant inventions in all of history, it changed education, it changed religion, it changed politics,
and it changed society forever, was the printing press. The power that we were able to take words on a paper and mass distribute that began to change the way we live our life.
Words carry truth, words begin to stir the heart, and words shape the nations forever.
You can go with me in this thought experiment here, the time where you and your spouse began dating, and the words that they would write to you, those love letters.
I've got a box in my room upstairs of all the letters, and all the cards that Allie gave me while we were dating. And she's got one, and all the things that she has written down.
She tells me often, you used to write really good letters to me, and now you don't write letters anymore. And it just, you know, that's how life goes sometimes. As a bad husband, I probably should write more to her.
But when you begin to read through that, and you begin to see the impact of those words, and those letters that you have sent to them, it begins to change your heart.
It begins to allow you to fall in love with that person over and over and over again. And words have meaning, and words have truth that comes with that. And in Acts 17, we see this truth happen.
Paul and Silas, they didn't have a printing press, but what they had was something a lot more powerful. They had the living word of God that they were coming in, and they were preaching, and they were living their lives. And in Thessalonica and Berea, this impact began to ripple outward. And some believed,
and some got mad, and were opposed to what was going on.
But the truth is that no one remained the same after the preaching of God's word. They were either changed, or they got mad, and they got angry. And so we have to ask ourselves, as we begin to walk through this passage, how can we change the world for the sake of the gospel?
Preaching the Word
The first thing we must do as we look at in verses one through nine is we must preach the word. The gospel is going to change the world. I can get up, and I can spout my own theological ideas. I can get up and shout my own preferences.
I can tell you how I think you should do things. I can tell you how I think it's best to raise kids, but ultimately when God's word speaks, it changes lives forever, and it changes the world forever.
But in order for it to change the world, it must be spoken. The Bible says in Romans 10, 14, how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they hear the gospel, and how shall they hear the life-changing message that we have unless we go out and we tell them about what Jesus has done? Now, we are all called to preach the gospel.
This is not just a mandate for me to get up and preach.
This is a mandate for each and every one of us to be going out and telling others about what Jesus did and how Jesus came into this world, and he lived a perfect life, and he lived a perfect
death, and he had a sacrifice for you and me so that we could be forgiven of our sins because we have done wrong, and he didn't do anything wrong, and he died in our place. This is the gospel, and this is how lives are changed.
And as Paul begins to step into this passage, as Paul begins to come into this place called Thessalonica, he begins to preach the word, and he uses some tools, some things that we can model when we begin to preach the word. The first thing he does is he connects with people.
He looks around, and he sees what they're doing, and the Bible says that he reasoned with them. He sat down with them, and he began to reason with what they're doing. Oftentimes, and this happened just this last week,
we had a man who came by. I don't know if you know, but our Veterans Memorial is a stop for the honor of freedom. I think it's called the honor of freedom. Is that right, Vicki? Or tour of freedom or tour of honor or something.
And motorcyclists, they've got like seven different stops in North Carolina, and they'll come by, and they'll take a picture, and at the end of the year, they'll actually do a drawing for the person that goes to most of them, and I don't know, it's some big thing, but motorcyclists will come by.
And so this guy stopped by, and his motorcycle came in, and Vicki came down the hallway.
She said, hey, there's a guy out here. So I went out, and I talked with him, and I could have just been like, hey, do you know Jesus? I could have just started preaching to him, but you know what I did? I said, you know, my dad, he's got a motorcycle.
My dad's had a Harley Davidson since he was 18 years old. Oh, yeah, your dad's got a motorcycle? Yeah, I said, you know, I want a motorcycle. I've wanted a motorcycle since I was a little kid. I told him this.
I said, I want a motorcycle. I said, but I got a wife, and she won't let me have a motorcycle. And he started laughing, and I said, I'm not joking.
I said, I really want a motorcycle. I've wanted a motorcycle, and I said, but she won't let me have one because she's afraid I'm going to kill myself riding a motorcycle.
And so we're laughing, and we're talking, and I began talking to him about Jesus, but I started that conversation by connecting with him on a personal level.
And until we begin to connect with people where they're at, in their homes, in their workplaces, in the coffee shop, meeting people where they're at, what did Paul do?
It said that he went as he would, as usual, into the synagogue three Sabbath days and began reasoning with them with Scripture.
We must be to the place where we begin asking ourselves, who are the circle of people that we are around, and how can I connect with them?
How can I begin to share with them the gospel, the life-changing message that's going to change the world, that's going to change the way they live their life, that eventually when they pass away from life to death, they're going to be thankful that you shared the gospel with them.
So Paul comes in as he preaches the word, and he connects with the people, but then the Bible says he continues on with communicating the Scripture.
He doesn't just connect with them and talk about motorcycles and talk about the Miami Dolphins and how horrible they're going to be this year or how bad the Cowboys are going to be or whatever it may be with your favorite sports team. He doesn't just end there.
What does he begin to do? He begins to bring in Scripture. The Bible says he explained and proved that Jesus was the Christ. His message was Christ-centered. He pointed people to Jesus.
He said, this is not about me, this is not about my message, but this is about Jesus, the Messiah, who I am coming to proclaim to you is the Savior of the world. He did it with clarity.
He came in with laser-focused intelligence, not with fluff, not with things that were going to ruffle their feathers or tickle their ears, as he says later, but he comes in with clarity.
The Bible says that he speaks boldly, with courage. He didn't shrink back.
He didn't stop his message out of fear of persecution, but he continued to speak boldly of what he was going to say and he spoke it with character.
He spoke it with this integrity that was not hypocritical, that was not false, but he said, this is what says the Lord and this is how lives are going to be changed.
As I was reading through that, it reminded me of like a lawyer who steps up into a law case, into a judge courtroom, and he lays out the facts of why this person is innocent and why they had
done this investigation and why all these things were there and the skillfulness of the evidence that that lawyer lays out is what Paul did with Scripture.
He said, this is the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and I'm here to convince you of this by the sake of the Scripture.
When we share Christ, are we pointing people to Jesus or are we pointing people to our own opinions?
Are we pointing people to what we think is true or are we going back to Scripture and saying, thus saith the Lord, this is the Word of God and this is how lives are going to be changed.
So he connected with the people, he communicated the Scriptures, but then he was confident in the Spirit.
Oh, as he began to preach, as he began to go through here in verses five through nine, the Bible says that people came against him. There were some that were persuaded in verses four, but then others that began to be opposed at what he was saying.
Opposition arises, opposition begins to come up, and I'm here to tell you that preaching the gospel is going to cause division. Preaching the gospel is going to cause some to be converted, but others to have conflict against you.
Some that are going to say, hey, I believe with what you're saying, and how can I become a Christian? What must I do to be saved?
As we looked at last week with the Philippian jailer, we looked at last week with Lydia, we looked at that as we've been looking through this passages of Scripture, how some come and say, I need that example. I need to confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord.
But there's others that say, I don't like your message,
and I don't like what you have to say, and I'm going to have conflict against you. I think of the sun. I don't go out in the sun too often. I'm a ginger. I'm white.
I burn, and then I go back white. So I don't like the sun oftentimes, but as I think through the sun, and this illustration can be illustrated in many different ways, but the sun, if you take wax, and you put wax out in the sun, and you let it sit there for a
while, that wax will eventually melt and become a puddle of wax.
Now if you take that same sun, and you take a jar of clay that you modeled together, and you formed a cup out of clay, and you sit that same jar of clay outside in the hot sun, and
you come back in about the same amount of time, that clay that was once malleable will become hard and become something that you can use. And oftentimes, this is the spirit.
The spirit comes, and it softens some hearts, and the same spirit comes, and it hardens other hearts.
And hearts will begin to be opposed to what you have to say, but I'm thankful that we are told that we are told to go and preach to all people, and allow the gospel of Jesus Christ to be changing other people's lives, and it's not under my control.
The Power of the Word
The outcome is simply under Jesus as we preach the word.
So we see preaching the word happen, verses one through nine, but now we begin to see the power of the word, verses 10 through 12. There are things in this world that are weak in life.
There are things that if you build a house, and it's not built to a correct standard, and a wind begins to blow, that house will fall down. You build certain things to a proper standard, and it'll be strong.
I'm here to tell you this morning that the word of God is not weak. The word of God is powerful and stronger than any two-edged sword.
The Bible says that it transforms life, and it gives people life and liberty to live for Christ if we preach it rightly. If we stand up behind scripture, and we investigate scripture, and we expound scripture, and we preach the word right, it has the power to transform lives forever.
And the Bible says that as Paul began to go into this place called Berea, he met a group of people who loved the word of God.
He loved, they began to, they were preached to, and as they were preached to, all of a sudden, the word of God came out in ways that were transformational in their life.
The Bible says in verse 11 that the Bereans listened eagerly, and they were eagerly receiving the scripture. When is the last time that we were eager to hear the word of God?
When's the last time where we didn't just open our ears, we didn't just open our Bible, but we opened our hearts and we said, God, allow scripture to influence me in a way that is gonna change my life.
When's the last time we received the message with such eagerness that we became so hungry for truth that our lives, we couldn't wait until the next time we were able to open our Bible?
We couldn't wait until the next time we had a quiet time to open up our phone and pull out our phone and say, what scripture do you have for me today, Jesus? When's the last time we were so eager
to hear from God that we began to be like the Bereans who said, I want to hear God's word? You see, they were hunger for truth.
And I believe if we begin to ask ourselves, what are some marks of a good spiritual Christian is someone who can't wait to hear God's word?
Who can't wait for that next day, that next morning, that next evening when your phone alerts you that, hey, it's time to read your Bible or you get a message from your Bible app that sends you a verse of the day that you're just like, I gotta stop everything I'm doing.
I gotta pull the vehicle over.
I've gotta read scripture. I've gotta love what Jesus is telling me to do. I've gotta have this in my life. The Bible says in 1 Peter 2, 2 that newborns crave milk. And newborns, they do like three things, right?
They sleep, they drink milk, and they use the bathroom. That's all that newborns do.
And it's like every three or four hours, they've gotta have food again. They've gotta enjoy the milk of the mother and every couple hours, hey, it's time to eat again. Hey, it's time to eat again. Hey, mom, I'm hungry. I'm gonna start crying.
Hey, mom, it's time to eat again. This is a newborn.
And the Bible says that we should be the same way believers should crave the word of God in that same way. Every couple of hours, every couple of minutes, I've gotta get back in God's word. I've gotta allow God's word to work in my life.
I've gotta allow God's word to begin to go into my life.
The question we have to ask ourselves is when we come to church, are we coming to church hungry? As a newborn babe who hasn't eaten,
who's ready to hear the word of God, are we coming to church half asleep? We just show up because it's Sunday and it's what we've gotta do, or are we saying, God, I'm prepared in my heart and I'm ready for you to preach to me. I'm ready for you to speak to me.
How are you gonna energize me this week as I go into the world, as I go into my job, as I go into my family who's lost, as I go and I witness to these people on a football field, or as I go and I witness to people in a band room?
How are you going to empower me as I go into my workplace on Monday?
What are you gonna give me so that I can go and I can tell them about Jesus? What am I gonna do when I leave this place? And this is what the scripture says.
They were so eager to hear the word of God that they began to just, every single day they did this, they examined the scriptures. Not only were they eager to receive it, but now they began to sit down and say, you know what, let's begin to go through this daily.
The Bible says that they examined the scriptures daily to see what was true. They were carefully discerning
what was right and what was wrong to keep them from error. Now, my wife will tell you this, she will testify that I am not always right. I know. You guys, you were fooled. You thought I was always right. You thought I was always right.
I've got you fooled. My wife will tell you very clearly that I'm not always right. I'm gonna make errors. I'm gonna have spelling mistakes. I'm gonna say things that were wrong. And oftentimes, when we begin to study scripture, we are commanded that we must examine for ourselves what is true.
Don't just trust what I have to say. Don't just be a sponge who absorbs everything, but the Bible says be a Brian who examines everything. Okay, Pastor James, you said this this week that they eagerly received the word. How do you know that? How is that true?
And begin to open up your Bibles and begin to study what I have to say. Don't just take it from me once a week, but daily begin to say, okay, how can I apply this? How can I connect with people? How can I communicate the scripture with people?
Is this the truth that Pastor James is saying or was he wrong in this area?
And the only way we're gonna know if this is error or not is if we're truly studying for ourself. If we're truly allowing the intake of scripture that leads to an ongoing transformation of our life where we continue to examine what is going on. Now, I dare to say
that there's no one in here that eats one meal a week. Right?
Does anyone in here just eat like Sunday afternoon, you're gonna eat your meal today and you're not gonna eat again until next Sunday. Is there anyone in here that does that? Once a month? You're gonna eat once a month. Okay, so, so,
okay, so when we go through life, right, you're gonna get up and you're gonna get hungry and you're gonna eat breakfast. You're gonna maybe eat lunch and you're gonna eat dinner and you're gonna eat multiple times a day.
You're gonna, unless you're fasting or unless your doctor's telling you, hey, you've got a surgery coming up so you can't eat but normal people eat often. Okay, I eat often. I like to eat.
Food is a big part of my life. Okay, it's a huge part of my life. We have calendars on my wall that tell me what we're gonna have for the week of dinner. Okay, we have things that we're planning around. We plan around lunch.
I had a guy text me this past week and said, hey, can we get lunch on Tuesday? Yes, I'm gonna eat lunch on Tuesday. Yes, I would love to eat with you on Tuesday, right?
I tell people often, I've gotta eat. Why doesn't I eat with other people? So, if you're gonna eat multiple times a day and you're not just gonna eat one time a week,
the Word of God should be the same way. The Word of God is our spiritual food should not just be consumed on Sunday morning and then we fold our Bible up and we say, that was a great message, Pastor. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and go on home and I'm not gonna think about this Word of God.
I'm not gonna think about what God has done in my life until next Sunday.
This is how you become spiritually famined in your life because oftentimes we are not examining Scriptures daily as the Bereans did and we must get to the point where it is a daily reminder, a daily thought of every single day I'm gonna start with God's Word.
Every single day I'm gonna allow God's Word to work in my heart and work in my life as I begin to serve Him this week. Not only did they eagerly receive Scripture, not only did they examine the Scripture but they experienced transformation through the Scripture.
I think this is one of those awesome times as we begin to see because Luke writes it like this and I love how he writes it. He says, many of them believed.
Not a few Greek women but those that were of high standing as well as men. And he begins to connect them with, they eagerly received, they began to examine and now they experienced real life transformation.
There are people in my life that I view as spiritual heroes in my life because they have experienced this life transformation that happened through Scripture and it has spurred me on to continue to love God's Word, to continue
to allow God's Word to move in my life, to transform me from information and receiving information to saying, I want to be transformed by the information that I'm receiving. I spent two days with John this past Thursday and Friday.
I drove to his house there was a conference right beside his house and so we were outside on his front porch and we're hanging out last night or two nights ago and we're just sitting there talking and he
begins asking me what I'm preaching on and I begin talking to him about what he's preaching on and how the Lord's working in his life and how the Lord's working here in our church and we just begin to
talk about the transformation that's going on in his church and how God's working and everything. This should be a normal conversation for us. This should be the normal conversation of us moving from information to transformation.
The word of God should birth our faith into a stronger, greater understanding of who he is. Romans 10, 14 as I said as I opened up, how shall they hear without a preacher?
Eager to Hear the Word
It continues on in Romans 10, 17 and it says,
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, by the word of God. The Bereans here, they just didn't simply hear the word of God but they began to become seekers and followers of Christ.
And I'm here to tell us this morning that the word of God breaks all barriers. It breaks the barriers of gender, it breaks the barriers of color of our skin,
it breaks the barriers of ordinary and wealthy as we looked at last week. The faith of God comes to all who believe. The gospel is not a respecter of persons, the gospel transforms anyone who will receive it.
The Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And it is through the word of God that they hear this life transformation that happens.
The beautiful thing is we begin to see a life that's transformed is we begin to experience fruit from that.
We begin to see life that has changed and fruit that has changed and a church that is an example for those in their area.
The Bereans were a church that was an example, that was a light that was shining in this community. And now we as well can become a light in this dark world.
I gave an illustration last week and I want to go back to it for just a moment with seeds.
I talked about it and Dale came up to me and he said, hey, as a card-carrying horticulturalist, you did a really good job of that.
So I'm going to lean into it a little bit more and see if I don't preach heresy here. But I go through Lowe's and Home Depot every once in a while.
I enjoy walking through and seeing what kind of new tools are out. And to my knowledge, and maybe you've seen this, but I haven't seen it yet, they have these walls of seeds.
And they have all the seeds in the little containers and Allie's a school teacher that she teaches science and every once in a while she'll say, hey, go get me a cucumber seed. I've got to use it for an illustration for my class.
And I've walked up to this wall of seeds before and I've never seen a seed that's inside this plastic or a cardboard pouch that has grown into a plant inside that pouch. Inside that pouch is useless.
It's just sitting there. And the only way that it becomes useful is when that seed is planted in the ground and that seed is cultivated and it begins to grow and it begins to produce fruit.
The question we have to ask ourselves is are we the seed that's sitting on the wall that's inside of an example that says, look how pretty this seed is or are we willing to be dirty?
Are we willing to get our hands dirty and be put in soil and be watered and given sunlight and produce fruit for the sake of the gospel? Now it's a tough job. It's a hard job.
There's going to be persecution. There's going to be people that come against us but the power of God is great in our life. Too many people are stuck at this stage of information and they never want to go forward with the transformation stage.
The Bereans said we don't just want the information. We don't want to just be eager for the word of God but we want to allow the word of God to come in and change and mold our life.
Sowing Seeds of the Gospel
We want to see this world be changed for the gospel and the Bible says that if you read there it says that these people changed the world and flipped the world upside down. Would that be said of us this morning?
That we would be a church that we would be a people who changed the world for the sake of the gospel because we truly believe in what we have to say. We truly believe that what Jesus says we truly believe that this is what the power of the gospel is.
And as we begin to go through this for sake of time we begin to see not only did they preach the word and not only did the power of the word happen but there was a product of the word as well. When the gospel goes forth it always produces results.
Just as Jesus said
you're going to take a group of seed and you're going to throw it out and some of that seed's going to land on stony ground and some of that seed's going to land on thorny ground and some of that seed's going to land on fertile ground.
Your job is to preach the word and allow the word to go out and then look at what God does as he begins to produce things in this world. The gospel goes forth. The gospel produces results.
It is not up to us and this is the beauty of preaching the word is all we have to do and all we're commanded to do is go and preach and allow the spirit to take care of the rest.
The first thing that we see here is conversions happen. When the word is preached and the word is done right conversions happen.
The Bible says in Thessalonica some were persuaded. The Bible says in Bereans that many believed and I believe that God decides the harvest. Our job is to simply just go out and scatter as much seed as possible.
When you go out with your 50 pound bag of grass seed and you're sowing seed for your yard and you get half your yard done and you realize I've ran out of grass seed but I still have half
my yard to do you don't go well I hope I have enough out to take care of the rest even though I ran out of seed.
No when you run out of seed you go back to the store and you go get more seed and you go out and you finish the job and you continue to sow more seed until you completely ran out and everything has been done.
The Bible says the same thing we're to go out and we're to sow seed of the gospel.
We're to go out and tell people about Jesus and when you run out of that seed go back and say God is there more seed for me? Are there more people that need to hear about Jesus? Yes, give me another bag of seed. Let me go out and tell more people about Jesus.
Let me go out and spread the seed over here and spread the seed over here and God if you see fit for them to come to know Jesus if you see fit for them to respond allow them to
respond I'm just going to keep sowing I'm going to keep sowing I'm going to keep telling people about Jesus I'm going to keep going out I'm going to keep saying that Jesus is Lord I'm going to keep saying
until I'm blue in the face until I've sweat so much until I've given?
Are we so convinced that it was changing in our life that we have been transformed, that we've got to go tell other people about how they can know this man named Jesus and how their life can be transformed? The product of the word brings conversions.
And the people, we don't like to talk about the second product. The second product is it brings conflict as well.
We saw this in our world this week. We see it every day. It's more prevalent because it happened in America this week. But on average, hundreds of people die for their faith all across the world. In India, they're killing people right now because they say, do you believe in Jesus? No.
Chop your head off. Our missionary, we had come this past week, Todd Payne on Wednesday, he said that if people baptize people in their house and it's not a church, that the sentence for that is 10 years in prison.
Because you baptize someone in a house and not a church. And he said every day people go to prison because they share their faith, they baptize people, and they're sharing the gospel with other people. Opposition happens from city to city to city. These last couple of chapters, Paul comes, Paul preaches,
people are converted, people get mad. People stone Paul, people throw Paul out in the city to die. People chase Paul. He goes to another city. He preaches again.
They come to that city, stir up more riots, stir up more problems, and say, we've got to stop this man. We've got to stop what he's doing. We've got to stop what's happening because this is what is against what we believe. You see, the gospel confronts people.
It confronts people to say, listen, you've been afflicted, and there's a savior, or it afflicts them to say, we just want to continue to be comfortable.
Facing Opposition in Faith
We want to continue to be where we're at. When we preach the gospel, if we're not experiencing some type of pushback, we're probably not preaching the true gospel.
Because everywhere I read in scripture that the gospel is preached, there's conversions, and people say, I want to come know that. There's also people that say, hey, I don't like what you're doing. I don't like that you're trying to change people.
I don't like that you're trying to influence them in thinking a certain way. And all we can say is, this is what the Bible says. This is what my God has taught me.
This is how Jesus lived his life, and this is how I'm going to live my life. And if you don't like that, I'm sorry. I'm just preaching the word. It's not what I believe. It's not what I'm saying. This is what Jesus says.
And so therefore, because he says it, I believe it, and I'm going to live that way.
Oftentimes, when we begin to live our life, you'll begin to see if you go into a building where there's dark, and you flip on a light, there'll be bugs everywhere. And as soon as that light comes on, the bugs begin to scatter, and they run into the corners where it's dark.
This is us when we preach the gospel. Conflict happens, people scatter, but people need to see the joy of the Lord.
They need to see that their lives can be changed, and they don't have to live in a way that is self-pleasing, but they can live in a way that is self-gratifying to the Lord.
As Terry comes, I want to wrap up by going back to our beginning illustration of Gutenberg. When Gutenberg invented that printing press, he churned out hundreds and thousands and millions of copies of the Bible.
The very first book that came off the Gutenberg press was the Bible. Now, it was just ink on a page. That's all it was. But it became freedom for the soul. Because for the very first time, farmers, store owners, merchants,
Sunday school teachers, mothers, fathers, children could sit in their very home, and they could begin reading the words of God for themselves. This invention didn't just spark an educational revolution. It sparked a spiritual revolution. The Reformation happened.
It wasn't just about politics or power, but it was about putting God's word into the hands of ordinary people. Up until this time,
you could not have a Bible study at your house. If you were like me, if you were like us, we would not be able to afford a Bible. It was astronomical the amount of cost, years of salary that it took to buy a Bible.
And ordinary people just didn't have that type of money. But now, for the very first time, families were sitting around.
They didn't have a TV. They didn't have a radio. They didn't have some type of entertainment. They meant all they had was the word of God. And for the very first time, families began studying scripture together. And now, we fast forward 400 years later, there's multiple Bibles in this room.
I'm sure you've got multiple Bibles in your house. I've got about 10 or 12 Bibles on my bookshelf. I've got Bibles that people have given me. I've got Bibles that people have signed that I've never even read because they were, I've got other Bibles that I'm using. And eventually, I'll pull that one off. And I've got Bibles on my phone.
At any given time, if someone says, hey, there's a scripture that I'm thinking of.
There's a scripture that we talked about this morning. It talks about people covering truth up. You know, I don't really know the reference. Let me type it in real quick. Oh, it's Psalms 28.
I can go to it because it's on my phone. We have access to the word of God in ways that we never even thought possible. But yet, for some reason, it's worth less today than it ever has been.
We value it less today than anywhere else, even though it's more accessible. We treat it as priceless. We take it for granted.
I could only imagine if the scripture was read and someone came into the Bereans and they said, hey, would you like to have a copy of God's word that you can take home? I can do that.
I can take it home with me. I don't have to come to the church to study it.
You mean to tell me that I can read this at night with my family and I don't have to come to the synagogue to read it? I don't have to open up a scroll that's 20 pounds that someone wrote that I really, it's hard to read.
I can take this Bible home with me. Oh, the Bereans didn't have the printing press. They didn't have iPhones.
They didn't have a physical copy of God's word, but yet it said they opened it eagerly every single day and it changed them. Bible says that it changed the world and turned the world upside down for the gospel. And church, you've got it in your lap today. This changed the world forever.
It changed the reason that we live and it still has power. It still convicts people. It still saves people and people are still changed every single day.
Desire for Scripture
Are we that eager and that hungry for the word of God the way the Bereans were? Just as one man's invention reshaped the course of the world and it changed the history as we know it,
should it or could it be said that one church, one family, one community, dare I say one group of people could change the world today?
The challenge is simple. Don't just sit on the word of God. Don't just let it sit idle, but allow it, open it daily, share it boldly,
trust in the spirit that his power is going to go out, that it's not in my power, but it's in your power that you're going to change someone for the sake of the gospel. It's not just information.
I can get up and I can give transference of information all day long. I can tell you random facts that my wife tells me all the time.
How do you know that random fact? I don't know. I just know it. I know random things about history.
But shouldn't it be that we know scripture and we allow scripture to change and transform our lives in a way that the world says, I want what he's got.
I want what she's got. I want to be changed. I want to be transformed. And are we going out and are we telling the world how they can be changed?
As a little kid, we had a little pond out at my dad's work at COSA where he would go and we would go fishing there every once in a while. And we never really caught fish.
Listen, we would go and we would throw out our nets and we would throw out our fishing rods. But I can remember in the stillness of that pond, picking up little pebbles and just throwing them into the water.
My dad would get mad at me. James, what are you doing? You're going to scare the fish away. We can't do that.
But I was just mesmerized as I would throw that pebble in and it would land in the middle. It was a little bitty pebble, nothing big. I didn't pick up a boulder.
I didn't pick up the size of the speaker and chunk it in there. As I would throw it in and it would land, ripples would begin to flow.
And as those ripples got to the bank, it would be bigger and bigger and bigger. And that one little pebble caused the stillness of this lake to begin to be changed. That's the gospel.
One little pebble that's thrown in that someone says, I'm going to be willing to share my faith. Whether I get persecuted,
whether I get kicked out of my job, whether I get kicked out of the grocery store, or whether I get shot through the neck, I'm going to share my faith with those that will listen.
Leaving a Ripple for Jesus
The question we have to ask ourselves is what ripple are you leaving for Jesus? What ripple are you saying that I am going to stand on the word of God? I'm going to preach the truth.
And no matter what happens, I just want to tell people about Jesus. Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done.
God, I pray that you would help us to be bold for our faith. Lord, help us to be a Paul.
Help us to be a Silas and a Timothy and a Berean who says, I want to know more about you.
I don't want it just to be information that I know and I can share all the 17 different facts of scripture that I know, but I want it to be so real in my life that it changes me so much that I've got to go tell other people.
I can't just hold it in. If I hold it in, I'm going to explode because I've got to tell someone else about what Jesus has done. God, help us to be those people this morning.
Challenge our hearts, challenge our minds to be bold for our faith and to preach the word the way Paul and Silas did in this passage. Lord, we love you. In your name we pray. Amen.
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