The New Soil

Are you all ready to hear the good news? And I don’t simply mean the good news about Jesus… I mean the good news about the future. Are you ready?

Today is the final sermon in our sermon series “How to Start a Fire.” Yeah you can celebrate that if you want. Over the past 3 months we have looked at the book of Acts, particularly focusing on the elements that were present that allowed the church to spread across the known world like a wildfire.

And much like this sermon series and the book of Acts, a fire can only go on for so long. Every fire eventually meets the end of its life. Every fire eventually burns out. Which is a really good thing in almost every case.

But when we are talking about the church, and the movement of Jesus’s mission in the world, or most close to home: ministries of our own church… we don’t like to watch a fire burn out.

But here’s even more good news… the work of a fire isn’t done when it’s run its course and burned out. And this is because fire fundamentally alters the landscape that it previously moved through. Particularly, fire changes the soil.

Though this is not always the case, often when a fire is finished burning, the soil that is left behind is left rife with nutrients. And soil that has a high concentration of avaliable nutrients is the perfect place for new growth to occur. It is fertile ground.

This is the case as we approach the end of the book of Acts. Now as a whole, the fire of the Jesus movement is still burning all over the place. But the fire of the ministry of one man is beginning to burn out.

The Apostle Paul spent years traveling all over the world, bringing the gospel message of Jesus to cities all over the Roman Empire. He planted and nurtured churches and is generally regarded as the most influential person in Christian history — save for Jesus Christ himself. But Paul’s work was not done without a fair amount of resistance. On many occasions mobs or individual citizens would run him out of town or worse have him placed into Jail. Over the course of his ministry he became public enemy number 1 back in Jerusalem.

The religious court of Israel, whom Paul was once a staunch ally of, became his greatest enemy. And eventually Paul came face to face with them… just as Jesus had. Paul travelled to Jerusalem and was immediately detained and brought up on charges for blaspheming the God of Israel with his Gospel of Jesus Christ and his active ministry of convincing other Jews to follow Jesus.

They charged him and sentenced him to death — a broad overstep of their authority. But Paul was no ordinary Jewish citizen. And so he appealed to an aspect of his life that he had never before leaned on for influence.

Paul revealed to the high council that he was a Roman citizen. His name Paul of Tarsus revealed that he came from the Roman province of Cilicia, and his family was part of the very small minority of Rome that actually held citizenship.

You see when Rome annexed territories, those people did not just become Roman citizens with the citizenship rights afforded to them. Generally those persons just became subjects of the empire, ruled over by citizens and authorities of Rome.

Roman citizens had a different set of rules, especially when it came to criminal proceedings. It turned out that the non-citizen Jewish high council had no authority to prosecute Paul. He needed to be handed over to the Roman authorities. And so he was. And he appealed his case to the Emperor. On the way to Rome, Paul climbed the hierarchy of the Roman system, having his case heard before city and regional governors and kings. All of them passing him off to the next highest appeals court so to speak.

After a long and treacherous voyage that included shipwreck and being stranded on an island, Paul arrived at his destination. The capital city of the Empire. Rome itself.

And this was how he was treated when he got there.

Acts 28:16 NRSV

When we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him.

Basically they gave Paul a house and put him on house arrest. Paul’s traveling ministry was over. The fire that had driven his life for the past several years was burning out. But Paul knew that his work was not yet done. It was simply entering into a new season while he awaited his ultimate fate in Rome. So he got to work.

Acts 28:17–22 NRSV

Three days later he called together the local leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, he said to them, “Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, yet I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. When they had examined me, the Romans wanted to release me, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to the emperor—even though I had no charge to bring against my nation. For this reason therefore I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is for the sake of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.” They replied, “We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken anything evil about you. But we would like to hear from you what you think, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.”

Paul gets right to work, in almost the same way that he always did. But this time he has people come to him.

Acts 28:23 NRSV

After they had set a day to meet with him, they came to him at his lodgings in great numbers. From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets.

So basically all of these folks who are no doubt very devout Jewish leaders are willing to hear what Paul has to say. Who knows their motives, perhaps they want to find some means of discrediting him, perhaps they are generally interested or even being prompted by the Holy Spirit to come and find out about this new teaching that has Jewish folks around the empire up in a tizzy.

And Paul launches into teaching them about how this idea of the Kingdom of God and the person of Jesus Christ are absolutely in line with what the law and the prophets teach (which is simply a short hand way of saying the Hebrew Scriptures).

Paul is essentially saying to them that Jesus and the Kingdom of God are the fulfillment and the new fruit that are springing up from the soil of the teachings and story of Israel. The law and the prophets aren’t obsolete, we aren’t trying to replace them Paul says. Rather, they are all pointing us to this new thing that God has done and is continuing to do through Jesus.

And now it’s your time to embrace this new thing, or choose to be stuck in your old way of thinking. We’ll find that both happened:

Acts 28:24–27 NRSV

Some were convinced by what he had said, while others refused to believe. So they disagreed with each other; and as they were leaving, Paul made one further statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah, ‘Go to this people and say, You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’

Paul’s words are specifically said towards those who refuse to see that God is doing something new here, and he quotes the prophet Isaiah who spoke out against the unwillingness of Israel to turn back to God after years of lawless idolatry. Now the irony is that Paul is using this quote against those whose strict adherence to law and their idea of how God works won’t allow them to see what is happening all around them.

And so Paul let’s them know:

Acts 28:28–31 NRSV

Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.” He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

Eventually Paul was put to death. Tradition tells us he was beheaded many years later — possibly during the reign of Nero who persecuted the Christians in Rome. But regardless, Paul’s work continued in a new way while he was under house arrest.

New Seasons

While both the fire of Paul’s traveling ministry and the fire so to speak of the traditional activity of God through Israel were burning out, both provided fertile soil for new fruit to grow. In the wake of Paul’s missionary travels the church spread into what we now see as a global reality.

In the wake of Israel’s fire burning out, the seedbed for the salvation of the entire earth was made avaliable.

Those who benefit from this new soil on both fronts are those who choose to recognize the potential for the future.

Surely there were those who heard that Paul was imprisoned in Rome and thought: well that’s it. It’s over. Without Paul we can go on no more. This is how it’s always been done: Paul goes and plants the church and then things get rolling. Without him we are done.

But we know that something amazing happened well after Paul stopped planting churches. His disciples began planting churches. Something new occured because of the work that Paul had done.

Something new came to this world also, because of the work that God had done through the nation of Israel. The mission of God came into its worldwide fullness. Those who opposed Paul and the church were sitting around saying “we can’t allow this to happen! this goes against how we’ve always done it!”

And yet here we are today. 2000 years later. The living fruit of the new soil that was cultivated millennia ago.

The church in our day and age faces a similar situation no? We’ve outlived the golden age of Christianity. We are fading more and more to the sidelines of American culture. Some might say our fire is burning out. And maybe thats true. But fires create new soil.

Even at the local church level. We are nearly 130 years old. Certainly this church has had eras of greater influence, or greater attendance, of children and youth groups and all of the things that have always symbolized growth and vitality.

As we watch both of these realities: The greater church in culture and our own local church we simply need to ask ourselves: what is God going to do in this new soil?

The fire may run its course, but we have been continuously given the gift of new soil to grow new fruit, new ministries, new ideas on the foundation of what the past has established.

But our greatest enemy is this: not being willing or able to see the potential. To have an attitude that says “that’s not how its ever been done here. We’ve always done it this way.”

And that way probably worked for a long time. And that’s wonderful. We celebrate that. Because that way is what led us to where we are today. So the question is: Are you excited for what’s coming? Are you excited for where ever God is calling First Church to go? For whoever First Church is called to be? Are you willing to plant seeds you might not ever see fully grow? Are you ready to start a new fire that you might never get to warm your hands by? Are you willing to do what we have never done before for the glory of Jesus Christ?

God is up to something big here. And I for one can’t wait to see what it is. And I hope you’re all coming with me.