THE MATTERS OF EVANGELISM

INTRO IDEAS

Good morning!

Have you noticed that it seems like more and more people have more and more strong opinions lately? The fact that we’re in an election cycle might have something to do with it, but it just seems like there’s less for people to agree on these days. And you know, strong opinions are fine as far as they go, but sometimes they can make it harder to bring things up with people.

Like for example, I remember as a young parent it seemed like every single parenting issue was like this minefield just waiting to be stepped on. Are you going to swaddle or not swaddle? Are you going to do formula or not do formula? Red food dye or no red food dye, screen time or no screen time? It was like everybody had an idea and a contradictory opinion, and because of the Internet, everybody has a study or an article or a book to back it up.

As time goes on, it seems like there are fewer and fewer things that we all agree on. It’s true for all kinds of things, but it’s also true when it comes to the things of God. Decades ago, at least on the surface, there seemed to be more of an agreement about certain truths, but nowadays that agreement is harder and harder to find. And as a result, many Christians have chosen to go silent about God, because we’re afraid of how people are going to respond.

And actually, that’s something that was picked up on by a man named Tim Keller, who in life was a Pastor in New York City. As we get going, I want to show you *this video* where he talks about this shift in our culture—check it out.

According to Tim Keller, we’re moving into a time where we no longer have this web of agreement to lean on as we seek to share Christ with those around us. We’ve been studying the Book of Acts as a church all summer, and we’ve been reading these incredible stories about sharing our faith, and about preaching in the streets, and about thousands coming to Christ. But if we take a step back, as we look at how things are going, it’s getting harder and harder to imagine that happening in Elyria, in Avon Lake, in Lorain, in Vermilion.

We want to live our lives on mission, but as we live our lives on mission, how can we be a witness to Christ in a world where we’ve lost the dots to connect? If we’re going to take seriously this idea of God “Acting Now” in our lives, then we need to answer the question, “How can we share Christ in a post-Christian culture?” —a culture that doesn’t know Jesus. And what we find in our passage today is one of my favorite examples of the Apostle Paul doing just that.

PASSAGE SET UP

So if you’ve got your Bibles, you can start navigating your way to Acts 17—that’s where we’re going to be continuing our study today—But before we jump right into the passage let me just set the scene for you a little bit and walk through the story of what’s going on. Last week Pastor Jason gave us a little overview of the [[Missionary Journeys of Paul,]] and mentioned that Paul is on his second missionary journey. What Luke is showing us that the Gospel is continuing to go out from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and now, through Paul, to the ends of the Earth, and to the Gentiles—people who were non-Jews, and you can see this movement on the map here.

But let me zoom in on the map, because when we pick things up in our story, Paul has been rejected, beaten, imprisoned, and chased out of town after town in this region called Macedonia, and now he finds himself all alone in the city of Athens, which is one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. Athens was known for its art, for its architecture, for its culture, for its temples, and especially for its university and its great philosophical thinkers. And in verses 16-17 we see that “While Paul was waiting for [his companions to join him] in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So, [as a result of his distress], 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… Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.” So what we see in the example of the Apostle Paul is that, even in the midst of persecution and discouragment, even when he’s alone in the fight, even when he’s in the season of waiting, even when he’s in one of the most beautiful destination cities in the ancient world where he could live it up and relax and enjoy fine wine and art and culture, Paul continues to live his life on mission by meeting people where they’re at. In the midst of their mess. In the midst of their confusion. Wherever they can be found. Whether they’re in the Synagogue, or in the Marketplace, Paul shares Christ.

And as he’s doing so, as the story unfolds, Paul runs into what to many of us would be one of our worst nightmares when it comes to evangelism.

You know, I’ve got a friend who used to sell insurance (which sounds like a fake thing to say, but it’s very true!). And he used to be terrified to go door to door with people to try to make sales. And as we’ve talked about evangelism over the years, he passed on to me some advice that was given to him: Whether we’re talking about selling insurance or sharing Christ, you may not know everything, but you probably know more than the person you’re talking to. And for the most part, I think that’s true! You share out of what you have, and if you know Christ, then you certainly know enough to share Him with others.

[[But as we pick things up in verse 18,]] what we read is that “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.’ ” So to translate what’s going on here, Paul is having conversations with people about Jesus, and along come groups of professional philosophers, who spend their whole life thinking about God and the things of God, and who disagree completely with what Paul is saying.

When it comes to sharing your faith, this is pure nightmare material! Most Christians find it hard enough to talk about Jesus as it is, and if you ask most people why, nine times out of ten it’s because they feel like they don’t know enough. They are afraid they’ll get asked questions they don’t know the answer to. And yet here we have the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest missionaries and theologians in the history of the world, and he’s talking about Jesus and they effectively say, “this guys is full of nonsense.”

[[But not only that, they also say “He seems to be advocating foreign gods,”]] which in that day in Athens was a crime punishable by death! Some of you may have heard of this guy named Socrates—you know, the father of Western Philosophy! Socrates was put to death in Athens for, and I quote, “corrupting the youth, and introducing foreign gods.” So this is escalating quickly. And the reason it’s escalating is because “Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.” See, in ancient Greek philosophy, there were a lot of different ways of thinking about the gods, but there was really only one way of thinking about the idea of resurrection: It was ridiculous. To them, it was an unthinkable idea. See, in their eyes, the physical world was basically bad, and our bodies were like a trap for the soul, which was basically good. So in their eyes, if you had escaped the physical world, why would you ever want to come back! They had no concept for this, and it was considered a totally ignorant way of thinking. And yet this is what Paul is preaching!

So what happens next is that we read in verse 19 that “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? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.’ ” So here is where the plot begins to thicken. Paul is taken to the Areopagus, which is both the name of a PLACE, and a group of PEOPLE. “Areopagus” literally just means “Mars Hill,” and it’s what they called this outcropping of rock that formed a hill right near the marketplace that Paul was preaching in. You climb up these stone steps onto this platform, and back in the day it gave this beautiful view of the marketplace, and of all the amazing temples that were around in that city.

So it’s this breathtaking place, and as we read, Luke notes for us in verse 21 that “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” They loved to talk about new ideas, and so they had set this space apart for curiosity and discussion. Pretty cool! It was sort of like an ancient podcasting network for philosophers.

But like I said before, it was also the name of a group of people—this council of philosophers that met on the hill. And on the one hand, the council was like a philosophical and religious think tank, but on the other hand, they were like a court that made sure that people weren’t getting too out of line and threatening their traditions. And actually, if you remember that guy Socrates, Socrates was sentenced to death by this same council that Paul is being taken before several hundred years earlier!

So Paul is being taken before the highest court in the land, the elite intellectuals of his day, and he’s being asked to share about and give a defense for the gospel. [[So now,]] let’s hear what he says, and consider what we can learn from Paul’s example. So, if you’ve got Acts 17:22, why don’t you stand up with me to honor the reading of God’s Word. It says…

Read Acts 17:22–31

“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. 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. 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. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 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. 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. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 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. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 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.’ ”

This is the Word of the Lord! You may be seated.

BODY

As we get into things, I want to help you notice that Paul’s speech has three sections. First, he greets the people and gives a little bit of an introduction, then he talks about who God is and builds an arguement, and then at the end he challenges the people who are listening to him to repent. And we’re going to walk through these sections because what we’re going to find is that Paul demonstrates what really matters when it comes to sharing Christ with people who don’t agree with us.

Let’s look back at this first verse to begin. As Paul begins his speech, just in these first couple of sentences, notice with me all the verbs that are used of Paul: He saw, he walked, he looked carefully, and he found. What I want to point out here is that as Paul was waiting in Athens, he spent time getting to know the city, and getting to know its people. He spent time talking, walking around, and like we learned last week, [paying attention.] So the impression we get here is not that Paul marched right up to the Areopagus and demanded a hearing; rather it’s that he slowed down and spent time with people. He did what we talk about so often and he Built a relationship with this city. So the first thing that I want to point out as we’re thinking about sharing Christ with others is that Paul slowed down to see people.

Paul noticed his way into a spiritual conversation. And as we read back in verse 16, when Paul slowed down to notice people, what he noticed impacted him. Because when we notice people, we find that we actually began to care about them. See, this is the missionary heart of the apostle Paul. He was angered at idolatry, but he was also broken over the blindness of these people to their own sin. And I think we would do well to take a page out of Paul’s book here. See, some of us are so slow to engage others, and part of the reason is a heart issue on our parts, because we don’t care enough about people to be moved in the ways that Paul was moved. [[So this is the first lesson]] we need to learn from Paul about what matters in evangelism: He slowed down to see people, and he was impacted by what he saw, because people matter.

See, way too often in evangelism we get it into our minds that what really matters is defending God or to winning the argument. And this is often where all the stress and all the pressure comes from!

And yet what we learn from Paul’s example is that evangelism isn’t about winning arguments, it’s about winning people. And every single time we win the arugment, but lose the person, we’ve totally missed the point. As Christians, we are not merely defenders of the truth; we’re fishers of men. So let me just remind us that Jesus did not go to the cross to settle arguments; He went to save people. And if we want to call ourselves followers of Christ, then there needs to be a willingness in us to slow down, to see people—not to look down on them, but to genuinely love them and be moved in compassion to reach them.

[[Back in our text,]] not only does Paul see these people, but we also see that Paul begins his speech by talking about this altar that he found to an unknown god. So, what’s going on here, and why does Paul choose this as a starting point? Well, in Athens, they had an altar to just about any god that you could hope to find in the ancient world. I even read that one ancient writer went so far as to say that it was easier to find a god in Athens than it was to find a man. And when something was going wrong, or when you were in need, you would know which altar to go to. You would go and sacrifice to the gods to try to appease them so that your life would go well.

But in this culture that worshiped all these different gods, they were haunted by the thought that there was a god that they had missed. And so for fear of accidentally missing this great god, they created these altars to the god that they didn’t know. And so Paul sees these altars, and Paul chooses them as a starting point because in them, Paul saw something that they had gotten right.

See, whenever we come into a situation like this, there are basically two options. On the one hand, we can focus on all the things that people are getting wrong. We can focus on their twisted view of sex, we can focus on their lack of understanding when it comes to the gospel, we can point out the gaps in what they know about the Bible and theology. We can focus on all the things that they get wrong and begin to nit pick them— [[OR]], we can look for the one thing that they have right, and we can use it as a point of connection. We can use it as an open door. See, what Paul saw in the Athenians, in the midst of all the things they had wrong, was this one spark of truth: The fact that there was a great God out there that they had missed, and that they didn’t yet know.

[[And so he begins by using this one spark of truth to build a bridge to the gospel.]]

See, it would have been easy for Paul to walk in and just start quoting from the Old Testament about all the ways they fall short— but that would have gone absolutely nowhere. Because when we roll in with our Scripture guns blazing, it turns people off so fast. It’s a spiritual conversation killer. Instead, as he’s walking around in this city, he finds a spark of truth and begins to drop kindling on it and fan it into the flame of faith. He finds a point of connection, he tries to build a bridge.

[[And while we’re on this idea of building bridges,]] I want to help you see that actually, if we look at the speech as a whole, Paul does this in a couple of other ways.

First, as we’ve seen, he keeps an eye out for the one thing they have right. But if you look in verses 27-28, there are two other things that Paul does. Notice that, as Paul is talking with them about God, he says “God is not far from any one of us. In him we live and move and have our being. We are his offspring.” Paul is using all these first person pronouns. So rather than standing far off and point his finger saying “you all need to get your act together,” Paul is actually stepping in and identifying with these people, he’s lumping himself in with them. He puts them on the same playing field.

See, what Paul understands, and what we need to remember when we share Christ, is that all human beings are in the same place before God. Every single one of, regarless of race, gender, social class, education, or anything else come to the cross on a level playing field. For all our differences, we are the same in that we are all in need of Jesus. Like Paul says, every single one of us is made by God and made for God! And this means that there is room for us to identify with the people that we’re talking to.

So Paul finds what they’ve got right, he identifies with them, but also, notice how as Paul is building his argument, he says, “ ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ ” What’s interesting to me here is that, rather than quoting the Old Testament Scriptures, which Paul looked to as God’s Word, Paul actually quotes the people who [[they]] would have seen as an authority. This is incredible to me.

See, if you pay close attention to Paul’s teaching throughout Acts, he actually caters it specifically to whoever he’s speaking to. This is exactly what he’s talking about in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 where he says, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.... to those not having the law I became like one not having the law… so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

So what we see is that Paul finds a point of agreement, he identifies with them, and he steps into their world and works with their sources of authority, so that by all possible means he might save some. See, Paul understands that when it comes to sharing Christ, we need to build bridges because connection matters. And so Paul steps into their world, and uses the things in their world to point them to Christ.

This is an idea that, if we can grasp it, will totally transform the way that we approach evangelism. You know, earlier in that video by Tim Keller, he begs the question, “What happens if you can’t get people to show up for church to hear the gospel?” And this is such an important question for us to wrestle with, because the reality is that people are becoming less and less open to the church.

For many years people were less suspicious, and more willing to give church a shot. And because of that, we would get sort of like what we call a “home court advantage” in the world of sports.

And whenever I think about a home court advantage, I can’t help but to think back to my time at Taylor University, where every winter we would have what’s called the Silent Night Game. The Silent Night Game is considered one of the greatest traditions in all of college sports. It was a time when we would pack out the stadium to a totally irresponsible level, dress in crazy costumes, wait until the home team scores the tenth point, and then go certifiably insane for the next 35 minutes of regulation play.

The Silent Night Game at Taylor University is the definition of a home court advantage. You’re in a place that’s familiar, you’re surrounded by people who love you who are cheering you on, everyone wants you to win! It’s your announcer, your court, your locker room. You’re at home! But we’ve gotten so used to playing home games in the church that we fail to remember that if we’re at home, then that means that the person we’re trying to share Christ with is not.

And if we want to follow Paul’s example, our generation is going to have to learn to move from playing with a home court advantage to playing “Away Games.” I was introduced to this whole idea of home games and away games recently by a man I quoted in one of my sermons, Doug Pollock, and he compared and contrasted Home games and Away Games when it comes to sharing Christ. And I found this comparison so helpful and I wanted to share it with our church—so you can take a look at the screen to see this chart.

And when we think about our passage in particular,

what I see Paul doing for most of the time he’s in Athens is not giving monologues, but he’s having dialogues with people.

He doesn’t start out by trying to get them to sit down and understand what he’s saying; he starts by seeking to understand them.

He’s not trying to just tell them what to think off the bat; he’s focusing on questions that they’re asking that point to Jesus.

He’s using their language, their poets, and being sensitive to their context.

And just like the apostle Paul, we need to step outside of our comfort zone and into their world, and to use their world to point them to Christ.

[[Because after all friends, this is exactly what Jesus did for us.]] When Jesus was enthroned in heaven, He didn’t sit up there and shout down to us and demand that we get on His level! Rather, He left the throne of heaven, He took on our very flesh, He literally stepped into our world, and He moved into our neighborhood to show us what the Father is like. And if we want to share Christ with others, then we need to be willing to do the same.

[[But notice Paul doesn’t end with seeing people and building bridges.]] That’s just how he begins!

Because at the end of the day, the Gospel is about so much more than just meeting people where they’re at. It’s true that Paul brings the gospel into their context, but what I want to help you see next is that Paul contextualized the gospel without compromising the gospel.

So if we look back in our text at verse 24, after his introduction, Paul begins building his argument like this: “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.” And what I want you to see is that, in this one sentence, Paul has risked offending every single person listening to him at the Areopagus that day. He proclaims not one god among many, but THE God who created the heavens and the Earth—He’s Lord of all! And we can look around at these temples that you’ve built and that you sacrifice in, but they’re missing the point! God isn’t served by human hands, as though He needed anything. As a matter of fact, God is the one who gives us life, who gives us the breath that allows us to keep on living, and if that weren’t enough He gives us everything else along with it! In other words—Paul is telling them that they’re wrong about who God is and what He’s like. He’s made the point of connection, and then he moves on to address misconceptions about who God is in the people around him.

See, the danger in focusing too much on connecting with people is that when that’s our whole focus, we’re afraid to say anything that could risk that connection, that relationship. But Paul shows us that while making the connection is important, we need to be willing to preach a gospel that is by its very nature offensive to those who don’t know Christ. Or as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:23–25, “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews [who only wanted a victorious Messiah], and foolishness to Gentiles [who couldn’t pallet the idea of the resurrection], but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Paul understands that what he is presenting is an unpopular message, and one that these people would disagree with; but he doesn’t shy away from it. Paul is not afraid to talk about the One True God, even if it means that the gods of these intellectuals and philosophers are false.

To put it differently, Paul tells them about the One True God because truth matters. See, if God is real, then who He is is not up for grabs. When it comes to who God is and what He’s done, this can’t be a “you have your truth and I’ll have mine” kind of thing. [[And at least part of the reason why that’s true is because of what Paul says next in our passage.]]

In verse 29, Paul says, “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.” In other words, Paul is coming to the conclusion of his argument, and his point is that God alone is God, that He is creator, and as a result we should reject this whole idea of idolatry. And this matters because “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.”

See, in the end, Paul’s message is this: that God is the Creator, and therefore that He is the rightful and righteous judge. That God made us, and that we’re all accountable to Him. We owe God everything, and the day is coming when God will judge the world by the standard of His own character. This was an unpopular teaching in Paul’s day, and it’s an unpopular teaching in our day, but it’s one that we cannot shy away from, because every person that we encounter will one day stand before Christ. And Paul understood that in that moment, their pantheon of gods would be helpless to save them. Their philosophies and their religious thinking could not save them. Their moral pursuits couldn’t save them. Their good life and their sacrifices could not save them. Rather, only a living relationship with the God of the Universe through His Son Jesus Christ can save them.

And so Paul’s challenge is clear: He challenges them to repent—That is, metanoia, which literally means, “to turn!” See, we need to be willing to preach a gospel that’s offensive; and yet we should never forget than in the midst of that offense, the Gospel is the greatest news that we could possibly share with someone. And as we come close to the end of our time here, I want to remind you all of what you know if you’re a believer: Repentence is not a message of condemnation; rather it’s a message of hope in God. Repentence says that whatever deception, whatever ignorance, whatever sin, whatever addiction, whatever has separated us from God in the past, because of Christ we can turn away from that brokenness and turn to God! That those barriers don't have to divide anymore!

But, if you keep reading, what happens next is that the philosophers basically laugh Paul off the stage. In his last words before this council, he says “[God] has given proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.” They stop him in his tracks, because like I mentioned at the begining, to them the resurrection was just too ridiculous to consider.

And what amazes me is that Paul knows this, but he preaches Christ anyway. He proclaims Christ, crucified and risen, because he knows that the message matters. Paul knows that the blood of Jesus is our only hope!

CONCLUSION

So as we wrap things up, this is the approach we learn from Paul: We see the people that God loves, and we build bridges, and we enter into their lives and their space because we know God, and so that we can point to Christ. Even when the message is unpopular, and even when we’re going to be ridiculed, we lift up Christ because He is the One who will draw people to Himself. After all, he’s the one who drew us! What’s amazing to me is that for the vast majority of people who come to know Christ, they don’t come to know Him through arguments; they come to know Him through an encounter with Him. It’s not something we get argued into; it’s someting we get drawn into by the goodness of who God is! You don’t need a college degree to share Christ; all you need is one finger, and a cross.

So we don’t need to have all the answers. We don’t need to have the magnetic personality. We need to see people, to step into their lives, and to point to the goodness of who God is and what He’s done through Jesus. To the fact that, just like we read this week in our devotions in the parable of the prodigal son, “While we were still a long way off,” God ran to meet us on the path. When we were still lost and dead in sin, the same Jesus who was present in our Creation came to take our place on the cross.

And that’s the Jesus that we celebrate when we come to the table. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here and in all of our campuses as we close. Because the God who ran out to meet us is the same God who is pursuing our neighbors. And if we want to share Christ with others, then one of the very best things we can do is to return to that level playing field at the foot of the cross, and to remember that we are just as in need of Jesus today as we were then. To let everything else fade away, and to remember that there is no other name by which we’re saved, and to be captured again by the grace of a God who sought us out. Because that’s the grace that will fill us us up and send us out to be a witness for Christ in the world around us.

Let’s pray.