A World of Worshippers
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Acts chapter 14.
If you don’t have a Bible just slip up your hand and one of our church members would be glad to bring you one.
We are following the footsteps of Paul and Barnabas as they continue their first missionary journey.
They are on the move again.
They were driven out of Antioch Pisidia because of persecution.
They were chased out of Iconium at the threat of being stoned to death.
and now they have fled to the the smaller city of Lystra.
New city, same mission.
Only this time Paul and Barnabas come face to face with false religion and pagan worship like they never have before.
We will begin reading in verse 8 and we will read all the way down to verse 18.
8 Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked.
9 He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well,
10 said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking.
11 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!”
12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
13 And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out,
15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.
17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
18 Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.
Lets Pray
All people are worshippers.
I’ll never forget standing in the largest mosque in Cairo Egypt as hundreds of people bowed before a god that doesn’t exist.
It was almost painful to watch people sacrifice their time and their lives to worship a false god.
Similarly, if you ever can visit our missionaries Matthew and Amanda Glass in Bali, Indonesia, you will find yourself surrounded all the time with idols made by human hands.
These idols are worshipped.
They are prayed to.
And as Matthew said in the video…, its all in hopes that the gods would bless their lives with prosperity.
Its not that these worshippers have a relationship with God.
Its more that they are hoping for and longing for whatever their version of the good life is, and they think that the Hindu gods will provide it to them so long as they go through the right steps.
All people are worshippers, the questions is not whether someone worships, the question is whether their worship is directed to the right place or not.
Paul and Barnabas flee from Iconiam to the smaller city of Lystra and they find themselves ministering very clearly in the midst of a different kind of worship war.
On the surface their world may feel like a very different world than ours, but in reality, we too are ministering and living in a world of worshippers.
As we work through the narrative, I want you to watch the steps that Paul and Barnabas take while ministering in such a context….
How do we as Christians minister and live on mission in a world of idol worshippers?
In this passage we can see at least three directives from Paul and Barnabas’ example.
#1 Watch for Opportunities
#1 Watch for Opportunities
Look again with me at verses 8-9.
8 Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked.
This man in Lystra is a man in need.
Crippled from birth, this man has never walked before.
He is experiencing the brokenness of our world through the brokenness of his own body.
but now, he finds himself hearing a message of good news from the lips of Paul and Barnabas.
He hears news about a new king and a new kingdom.
He hears news about hope and eternal life.
He hears news about the one who overcomes death.
And he longs for the fulfillment of what he is hearing…
And Paul notices him.
look at verse 9.
9 He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well,
Paul did not offer immediate healing to every sick, diseased, or disabled person he ministered to.
Paul did not have ultimate power to do any miracle he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it.
He, himself, pleaded with God in faith to remove the thorn from his own flesh three times according to 2 Corinthians 13, and the answer was no.
But, Paul did walk with a sensitivity to the workings and the leading of the Spirit of God.
And in this case, as Paul was preaching, there was one man in the crowd that Paul locked eyes on.
This man was listening.
This man was hurting.
This man was believing.
And as Paul looked intently at this man who had never used his legs…..,
a unique spiritual and prophetic intuition landed upon Paul so forcefully, that he loudly proclaimed, “Stand upright on your feet.”
And so the man did.
Now, its important to note that nowhere in Paul’s writings, does he instruct all believers everywhere to go around attempting to heal people in this way.
Miracles are God’s prerogative,
and God uniquely worked miracles through the apostles to confirm the truthfulness and authority of their message.
You are not an apostle.
But you are called to participate in the mission of God with the same kind of awareness and yieldedness to God’s leading as you seek to minister in this world.
Paul was in such communion with the Spirit of God that he knew exactly how to address the man, and what God might be doing in the moment.
Paul spoke the gospel and he was able to recognize when there was one man in particular who was truly listening.
How do we minister in a world of false worship?
Our first directive is that we need to be spiritually aware of the opportunities God has ordained.
#1 Watch for Opportunities
#1 Watch for Opportunities
They are all around you all the time
The question is whether you are watching for them?
Do you look intently at real people you interact with regularly and see the ways they long for what the gospel of Jesus provides?
Right now, think about a couple names and faces.
Maybe they aren’t crippled like this man in Lystra.
Maybe they aren’t suffering from physical ailments.
But they are longing for something.
They are worshipping something.
And they would be open to listening if you spoke the gospel.
And they might very well believe if you spoke to them.
Paul watched for this opportunity and he seized this opportunity but he was not prepared for what would happen next.
11 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!”
12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
13 And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.
The miracle was supposed to point them to the one true God.
but the people of Lystra ignore the message the miracle was supposed to point to,
And they simply revert to their false worship to try to get more miracles to happen…
I used this analogy a few years ago for the problem with obsessing over signs and wonders.
When Amelia was younger, I remember spotting a beautiful bird in our back yard.
And holding Amelia in one arm, I tried to point to the bird with my other hand encouraging her to look.
But every time I would point, Amelia would fixate on my pointer finger.
She was locked on to my hand as I kept gesturing toward the bird in the yard.
She was so distracted by my hand that she missed what my hand was actually pointing at.
And so it often is with miracles or with the blessings of this life.
Humanity gets so occupied with the miracle or the blessing itself, that they mis entirely what the blessing is pointing to.
That is the giver of all good gifts, God himself.
In Lystra, they worshipped Zeus, the Sky Father, the highest god of mythology, who they believed sent rain and thunder and lightning.
In Lystra, they worshipped Hermes, son of Zeus, the god who governs speech, and who functions as Zeus’ messenger.
Those at least were the names of the gods, but in reality they worshipped the health and the wealth and prosperity that they thought those gods could provide them.
When they saw the miraculous healing that took place, they ignored the message of the gospel,
and they immediately began to try to serve Paul and Barnabas as gods so that they could get from them more healings and more miracles like this.
The scene is a frantic one.
The crowd begins to lift their voices in a foreign tongue, apparently one that Barnabas and Paul did not know,
and they recruit the priest of Zeus to lead a parade of sacrifice.
These people were doing what all people do.
They were searching for something to worship so that they could have a better life….
In one sense, their example should be a warning to us….
Human nature is to worship something.
AW Tozer said it this way:
“Because we were created to worship, worship is the normal employment of moral beings.” - AW Tozer
We all are looking to sacrifice for what we believe to be valuable.
We can learn something about human nature from the response of the crowd, but we can also learn something from Paul and Barnabas’ response….
What will Paul and Barnabas do?
We shouldn’t take for granted that Paul and Barnabas had a golden opportunity here in Lystra.
The Iconians in the previous city had just tried to stone them and chase them out of town…
That was the kind of reception they got for preaching Jesus.
Now, a whole town is wanting to worship them.
What kind of perks might they enjoy if they were to let this narrative ride for a bit?
What kind of feasting and partying?
What kind of adoration?
What kind of lifestyle might Paul and Barnabas have gotten to live if they were to have just stopped here in Lystra and settled down as the local gods of the town?
If Paul and Barnabas worshipped recognition, power, possessions, affirmation, or popularity… then this is their shot.
They could be worshipped as gods, rather than persecuted for their worship of the one true God.
How tempting that could have been if it were not for
- a much stronger desire,
- a much stronger passion,
- a more consuming affection,
for the true and living God to be rightly worshipped.
Look at Paul and Barnabas’ response.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out,
How do we minister in a world of idol worshippers?
#1 Watch for Opportunities
#2 Expose the False Gods
#2 Expose the False Gods
There is a grief that Paul and Barnabas experience when they begin to understand whats going on.
They tear their garments
They rush into the crowd
They cry out
The Lyaconians are wanting to worship them.
They are wanting to exalt them.
They are wanting to give offerings to them and sacrifices for them.
But overwhelmed by a love for God,
Paul and Barnabas do everything in their power to stop them.
With ripped clothes and through what was certainly exasperated yelling…
Paul brings the corrective.
Look at verse 15.
15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
The corrective is clear.
We are not gods.
We are just men.
You should turn from these vain things.
You should turn from these empty things.
These things neither save nor satisfy.
They don’t create life, they destroy it.
This reminds me of God’s message to Israel through Jeremiah.
13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
In other words these false gods cannot provide what your soul is longing for.
They are vain.
They are empty.
They are useless.
Our life and ministry is both to recognize and expose the false gods both around us and in us.
Satan does not care what you worship so long as it is not the true God.
We don’t live in a culture of Zeus worship.
We don’t think that worshipping hermes will lead us to the coveted good life.
But we do live in a society of people who live and die worshipping vanity.
We sacrifice for the praise and approval of men.
We will throw it all away for a moment of sexual pleasure.
We will serve our bank accounts more faithfully then we will serve anything else.
We are always busy serving whatever god we think will make us most comfortable.
What is it for you?
What consumes your time?
What consumes your thought life?
If you really took a step back, what would you say that you live for?
For me its productivity dressed up in a veneer of godliness.
I want to accomplish things.
I want to produce things.
I want to do things… things that matter, things that are eternally significant, things that point to the glory of my God who saved me and loves me.
But If I am not careful the very things that are meant to point to God…, begin to take god’s place in my life.
I start to gaze that pointing hand gesturing toward God…, and I forget to behold God himself.
Calvin was right when he wrote 500 years ago:
“The human mind is a perpetual forge of idols… Every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, an expert in inventing idols.” - John Calvin
Our task, in the mission God has given us, is to expose the idols for what they are…
We should run into the depths of our own hearts with torn clothes crying out over the vanity and the emptiness of the things we worship?
We should rush into the crowds of loved ones with grieved hearts…
And we should not just expose the false gods…
Thats half the battle….,
We best expose the false Gods when we most clearly exalt the true god..
#1 Watch for Opportunities
#2 Expose the False Gods
#3 Exalt the True God
#3 Exalt the True God
Notice the double punch that Paul and Barnabas try to land.
They want to expose the vanity of their false gods…, and they want to exalt before them the greatness and the uniqueness of the true God.
15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
The true God is living.
The True God is creator.
He made the heaven, the earth, the Sea, and all that is in them.
Christian do not be afraid to look to creation for the fingerprints of God.
The Scriptures urge you to look and behold and to marvel.
They urge you to gaze upon the wonders of the world and then to stretch your mind to fathom the God who must be behind all of this.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.
14 “Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God.
15 Do you know how God lays his command upon them and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine?
16 Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge,
Christian, if your view of God is too small…
Firstly, open your bible and behold the God described in these pages.
Secondly, go outside and look around…
Someone created all this.
It is an absurd claim that the created order is a cosmic accident brought about by nothingness.
Paul and Barnabas want the hearer to understand that gods are not a part of the creation…
They are not finite feuding characters who sleep around and fight with each other like the pantheon of mythical Greek gods.
All of creation goes back to one singularity… one God who spoke all things into being.
And he alone is worthy of your exaltation.
And even when you reject him… you do so while enjoying the gifts of his grace.
look at verse 16.
16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.
17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
What is Paul’s point?
Everything good that anyone has ever experienced flows from the one true God worthy of exaltation.
If you reject the God of the universe… you only do so with the breath in your lungs that the true God graciously gave you.
Throughout Israel’s history God specifically revealed himself to and through the Nation of Israel…
the other nations went on rejecting him for their own man-made gods…
all the while…
they enjoyed the rain from heaven,
the harvest from the ground,
and the common grace of life which flows only from the true God.
Paul says that these things are a witness to the existence, and the character of the true God.
Good food says something about what God is like.
Gladness, and laughter, say something about what God is like.
And there is a sense in which you can enjoy the good gifts of this life even more when you realize that they are gifts from God for a purpose.
Paul is not saying that fruitful seasons, and rains from the heaven, and food, and gladness are bad….
He saying that all the joys of this world serve a particular purpose.
They are meant to point you to God.
You are meant to enjoy them as an act of worship.
Christians we aren’t a perpetually unhappy people.
We are an exalting people.
We enjoy the gifts of life as an act of praise.
Food and gladness and fruitful seasons bear witness to our God and can be enjoyed in relationship to our God, but only when the gifts themselves don’t become our gods.
They are only signs… they are only the pointing finger to the real deal, the real source of every good gift… the living God.
How do we minister in a world of idol worshippers?
#1 Watch for Opportunities
#2 Expose the False Gods
and
#3 Exalt the True God
Paul and Barnabas do exactly this…, but even still, look at the response of the people.
18 Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.
This is the nature of mankind.
Even when the guys who performed the miracles are clearly telling you, we aren’t the gods…
The human proclivity is to suppress the truth
The human tendency is to reduce God to something tangible and controllable
its a pride issue
its a spiritual blindness issue
Its a heart issue
Its a listening issue
its a sin issue that plagues every human being lest God bring them to repentance.
Conclusion:
Maybe this describes you.
Even with all these words I have spoken in this sermon… I can scarcely restrain you from worshipping the wrong things….
What you need is a miracle.
What you need is for the one true God to open your eyes to his beauty and his reality.
As we close I want everyone in the room both believers and unbelievers to pray this specifically
Lord expose the false gods in my life…
Lord exalt the true God in my life…
Lets spend a minute with the Lord praying those words.
Lord expose the false gods.
Lord exalt the true god.
Lord’s Supper
One of the very practical and meaningful ways that God combatted idolatry in the nation of Israel was by instituting the passover feast.
Every year, all the Israelites were to gather together to remember the mighty acts of God’s saving work.
They were to remember how the living God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt.
He crushed the most powerful empire in the world.
He proved his power over every other God.
He showed his covenant and promise keeping love for his people.
So every year they ate a meal of remembrance and they retold the story.
The night before Jesus was crucified, he celebrated the passover meal, and he assigned new meaning to the meal of remembrance.
Jesus is the new spotless lamb.
He shed his blood on the cross so that the wrath of God might passover sinners like us.
Jesus is the new moses.
He leads us out of the slavery of sin and death into the promised land of God’s presence.
And we, we who believe in Jesus, are the people of God.
He has chosen us, and has saved us, and has forgiven us, and made covenant promises to us.
In the midst of the passover meal Jesus says these words.
15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.
18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Jesus instituted a new symbolic meal of worship, so that his people might always remember what the true and living God has done for them.
Eating of the symbolic bread together and drinking of the symbolic cup together helps us to tangibly remember what Jesus did for us.
Its a moment in the life of the church where together we repent of any false worship in our lives…
and rejoice in the forgiveness we have in Jesus.
If you are here this morning and you are not a born again, baptized, believer in Jesus…,
I do want to ask that you to simply pass the plate and spend some time praying for God to give you saving faith in Jesus.
This act of worship is reserved only for Christians.
And the Bible warns strongly against taking it in an unworthy manner.
We are going to spend some time in quiet prayer and reflection as the elements are passed out.
and then we are going to partake together
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Lets stand and worship together.