Planting Jesus Seeds

June 4th 2023

Series: The Book of Acts

Sermon Title: Planting Jesus Seeds

Topic: Journey through the book of Acts.

Key Passages: Acts 17: 1-34

Sermon Blurb: In today’s message we will see the Apostle Paul traveling from town to town planting more churches. We will also learn some valuable lessons from how each town responds.

Sermon:

Hello Family Church!!!!!

Family Moment

Welcome back to our study through the book of Acts!

Today we get to jump right back into the book of Acts.

Grab your Bible and open it up to where we left off….

Acts 17

As you are getting there….

Let me catch up any guests we have today.

The book of Acts is this amazing book in the Bible that is all about how the first church’s and it’s leaders lived and tried to do everything they could to reach their communities for Jesus.

We have seen all kinds of attacks happen to try and stop the growth of the church from inside and out.

And we will see a bunch more of those in Chapter 17!

But no matter what happens God’s movement continues!

We will see attack after attack coming today.

We will also see God’s movement continuing to grow!

In this chapter alone we will see 3 more times where God talks about the growth of the church.

BUT for the church to keep growing….

It took courageous faith….

Faith that did NOT back down when things got HARD.

Faith that did NOT give up when people challenged them.

Faith that did NOT throw in the towel we people started falsely accusing them….

Courageous faith is why the early church grew.

They did not bow down to culture.

They did not allow ANYTHING to stop them sharing the Good News of Jesus….

PAUSE

And that is our hope for all of you…

That as you learn from the early church….

You will become bolder at living out your faith wherever God has you….

PAUSE

Let’s dive into chapter 17…..

Acts 17: 1-34 When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

Let’s pause here for a minute and unpack some things….

So Paul continues on his missionary / church planting life.

Let me show you a map so, we can all see where this happened in the world.

If you were here last week you might remember that last week Paul was in the city of Philippi teaching and leading people toward Jesus.

And that went good and bad…..

They left Philippi and traveled south to Thessalonica (Thess-Ahh-Low-Neye-Ka).

And let’s keep things in context….

They didn’t have modern travel…so that meant most likely several days walking to get there.

Or maybe far longer because remember in chapter 16 they were beaten with rods AND flogged AND chained up in jail.

So this was likely a slow walk as they healed up…

Because again….

It took courageous faith to not give up….

It took courageous faith to keep traveling from town to town to try and lead people to Jesus and NOT stopping when it got hard.

PAUSE

So, they get to Thessalonica (Thess-Ahh-Low-Neye-Ka)…

And look in your Bibles at verse 2 & 3.

2 As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said.

Paul did what he normally did.

He started preaching out the truth the Bible showed to people that had some background in faith….the Jews….

He started with the common group of the Old Testament, the first ½ of our Bibles, to show them things.

And it says…look at verse 4….

4 Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.

That marks the 24th time in the book of Acts it talks about the church growing.

And growing with men and prominent women.

Because the church is not a male only movement.

But again….look at verse 5…

It talks about what we have seen OVER and OVER again in the book of Acts.

Others trying to STOP the growth of the church!

5 But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd.

Sounds like summer of 2020 to me….

6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, 7 and Jason has welcomed them into his house.

And as we have seen before…

They will drum up fake accusations and charges to try and get these Christians in trouble…

Just like both sides of the political isle do today!

PAUSE

Church I say this all the time….

History just repeats itself over and over….

And if you want to learn how to respond when culture is crazy just study your Bible!

I mean look in your Bible…

This guy named Jason is just welcoming Paul into his house….and they go after him for it…to the point where it will cost him money!

Let’s hear their false accusations….

They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” 8 When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. 9 Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.

Let’s pause there…

Before we jump to verse 10 I want to make sure you all realize how important what happened in these 9 verses is….

Paul just planted a church that even though right here it looks NOT good.

Right here it looks like this church planting trip failed.

They are being kicked out of the town.

The guy who helped them had to post bail so they could leave…

If I were in this situation….

I would assume that church is going to fail….

There is NO way they will keep seeking Jesus…

Being 100% honest….that is what I would think….

PAUSE

But guess what church……I would be 100% wrong!

That little church did NOT fail!

It begin grow and began reaching their city for Jesus.

After this short trip to this city…..Paul would go on to write 2 letters to this church that are in your Bible!

Anyone want to guess what those books are?

Ya…1st and 2nd Thessalonians

This is the pre-cursor to 1st and 2nd Thessalonians!

Which one day we will walk through those letters as well.

And let me say this as well….maybe read those two letters later today in your Bible…

But Paul wrote those letters because he was concerned or this young church…

And his concern is that they would not STAY STRONG with all the opposition in their town….

But as you will see in those letters, when you read them later today, that he is happy because he got a GOOD report that they are staying courageous in their faith!!!!

PAUSE

Here is the point….write this down…..

We have no idea what God will do to grow seed we plant!

Repeat

Students….You have no idea what you just being a real Christian at school will do to change someone’s life!

Adults….You have no idea what you just being a real Christian who maybe reads his or her Bible in the lunch room will do to change someone’s life!

Grandparents….You have no idea what being a loving Christian grandparents who shows their grandkids the good part of God will do to lead your wayward grandchildren to him!

We all have NO idea what God will do after we are courageous enough to just plant seeds for Jesus….

PAUSE

And Paul & Silas….just keep doing that….

They head to the next town…

Put that map back up…

So, they leave and head to Berea (Burr-EEE-Ah)

They walk for a couple days to the next town…

To tell more people about Jesus….

Because it does NOT matter how many times people kick them out….they are going to keep sharing the Good News of Jesus….

Verse 10….

10 As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Stop here….

Do you hear what it just said?

These Jewish people responded differently.

They EXAMINED…circle that in your Bible….

They did what I say to you guys to do ALL the time….

Make sure anything I say…

Anything a leader says….

Anything a politicians says…

Anything a teacher says….

Make SURE that the people you follow are leading out of the truth of the Bible!!!

That is what these Bereans did!

They made sure that what Paul was teaching aligned with God’s Word..

And what did they find????

Verse 12…

12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

People came to faith….

Another church is planted….

Another town has a Seed for Jesus planted.

Greek women and men come to faith….

Here is the point…

The Bible is the lens through which we evaluate all things.

Repeat

That is what they did right here in the Bible…

And that is what we need to continue to do today!

Truth is NOT defined by your experiences.

Truth is NOT defined by your friends.

Truth is NOT defined by your feelings.

Truth is NOT defined by you in any way!

Truth has to be absolute, or it is NOT truth!

The only absolute, and unchanging, thing is God!

So, truth is defined by God and God alone.

And we learn that through God’s Word, the Bible!

PAUSE

And I know as I say that….likly some of you disagree with me…

I know out culture would define what I just said as hateful speech.

But that is nothing new…..look at what happens…yet again…verse 13…

13 But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, some of them went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up.

Same old….

People try and stop what God is doing!

Just like today….

You should EXPECT to get attacked by the enemy when you are trying to grow closer to Jesus!

You should EXPECT to have people say bad things about you when you are living for Jesus!

We need to realize…..

If the world attacked and trashed Jesus.

If the world attacked and trashed the early church.

The world will do the SAME THING to us!

And we should NOT be shocked when it happens….

And we should also NOT give up when it happens!

Because Jesus did not give up and neither did the early church.

PAUSE

So….verse 14….

14 The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. 15 Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

Go back to the map….

LONG journey now!

This one would take weeks or longer….

But Paul is off to plant the next church.

And his guys stay behind….

And if you study that most scholars will note that this is when Timothy went back to check on the church in Thessalonica to bring word back to Paul about how it was going…

And then in Athens is where Paul would write 1 Thessalonians to that church to encourage them.

Just some cool things to know!!!

PAUSE

Let’s keep reading….verse 16…

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Let me just quickly pause here….

To explain who these two groups are because I would doubt 99% of us know what these groups taught…

But you will quickly find…that again NOTHING is new under the sun!

The Epicureans where the people back in this day that taught pleasure, or your happiness, was the GREATEST good in life.

Today this sounds like the “you do you” movement.

Today this is the whole if it makes you happy it is good and ALL others should affirm you..

Again….same struggles we have today….they had back then!

The Stoic’s were the harmony with nature people…..

Do we have those people today….

CLIMATE CHANGE is EVERYTHING!

This is like the people today who say….sacrifice ANYTHING to stop global warming, or saving the whales matters more than anything else….and so on…

Nature was MOST important to them….

Just like there is nothing new under the sun and there is a TON of people that think climate change is the MOST important thing in our world today…..

PAUSE

Do you see it yet church???

If we would really study our Bibles we would be prepared with how to respond to any group in culture!

And the answer we find in the Bible is ALWAYS the same!

The answer is NOT what they think it is…

The answer is ALWAYS Jesus!

PAUSE

Let’s keep reading…because another powerful truth nugget is coming!

19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.”

21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Sounds like too many people today!!!

And look at what Paul does….

And compare this to how you respond to people who you think waste all their time on crazy new ideas…

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.

30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”

33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Thus ends chapter 17….

But there is so much more to learn….

Let me rewind…..

Centuries before Paul’s visit to Athens, there lived a man named Thales.

You can look him up later….but he is the man who today is often acknowledged as the father not only of Western philosophy but also of Western science.

The word science originally meant “knowledge.”

The task of the scientist, philosopher, or the theologian was to pursue knowledge wherever it may be found and whatever the consequences of that search may be.

Unlike today….where we start with the conclusion we want…

Then use science to try and prove our conclusion…

Understand students that is NOT true science!

It wasn’t true science thousands of years ago to Thales and still is NOT today!

But see…..

Thales was captivated by a problem….

He was plagued with the question of: “How can I make sense of all of the diversity of my experience in this world? I see a variety of things. I see trees, horses, bushes, people, the moon, the stars, and myriad other things in their vast variety. How do they all fit together? How can I have a coherent or unified sense of my knowledge and of my experience?”

In other words, the quest was for a “universal truth.”

The word universe is a hybrid term.

It comes from the combination of two distinct words — the word unity and the word diversity.

This was the goal that preoccupied Thales and others like him.

They wanted to find the unity that would make sense of all of the diversity they experienced.

So, Thales was trying to solve the problem of what we call unity and diversity, sounds a lot like the problem we are struggling with in America today….does it not….

PAUSE

Later comes a more common name….

Socrates….Plato….Aristotle….In Athens…

Socrates in Athens, and his famous student Plato….said we cannot have a coherent view of science, of philosophy, or of any kind of knowledge itself unless we account both for being and for becoming.

They believed both are necessary.

Aristotle said that there had to be a being who is the source of all motion, but who is not the result of someone else’s motion.

PAUSE

Philosophers are still seeking to unravel the conundrum of metaphysics and the mystery of life.

Plato and Aristotle did not resolve these questions.

In fact, when Plato and Aristotle could not come to an agreement, a new wave of skepticism swept over ancient Greece and brought forth the minor philosophical schools of the Stoics and the Epicureans.

Yes….we just read about in our Bibles!!!!

PAUSE

And Paul walks into this world….

Paul came to the cultural center of the ancient world, the city of Socrates, of Plato, of Aristotle, of so many great minds of the ancient world within the fields of medicine, political theory, philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics.

The city had become a factory devoted to the manufacturing of pagan idols.

And when he saw that, Paul was moved to action.

The philosophers Paul encountered two thousand years ago in Athens were just as interested in hearing something new as we are today.

So, Paul took advantage of that and began to teach them, and he said, while he was standing on the Areopagus, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious” (verse 22).”

He could say that because he had seen their idols everywhere he went in Athens.

And just in case they had missed a god, they had an altar devoted to “the unknown god” (verse 23).

They were hedging their bets so as not to offend a potential real God out there…..

Paul used their altar to an unknown god as a jumping-off point to tell them that the one whom they were worshiping in ignorance was the same God he had been sent to tell them about!

That is verses 24–27.

PAUSE

Then Paul gave what may be the most profound philosophical statement anywhere in the New Testament.

Quoting pagan philosophers, he said of God,

“For in him we live and move and have our being.” (verse 28)

Did you hear that!!!!

He answers the question they all have been seeking!!!

Ultimate reality is found in God and only in God, who is the creator of everything.

He is an absolutely pure being.

PAUSE

Church….

God is always the answer.

Jesus is always the answer.

The Holy Spirit is always the answer….

PAUSE

Church let’s wrap this up today….

As I study timelines and history what I have found is that all this we are talking about today is somewhere around 18 years after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension.

They church just kept planting more and more locations for Jesus.

PAUSE

Let’s wrap this up with a life application today…..

And for those of you who are new, or newer, to Family Church.

We love to end our messages with an application point to your life.

Something that you can take away from the message and apply to your life this week.

This week’s life application says this……

Life Application: Paul kept his focus on sharing the Good News of Jesus with everyone. How could I do the same in my daily life? I will ____________________________.

Let me encourage you to write down one simple thing you WILL do as a result of what you learned this week….

And watch what God does!!!!

Let’s Pray…..

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