When New Life Springs

INTRODUCTION

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Good morning CrossPointe

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Today we are going to be in Acts 19:21-41

BACKGROUND

CONNECTION

QUESTION:

1) How do people change?

2) What should be our expectation as the gospel transforms people and culture?

Today’s passage from describes for us:

How people and culture are changed?

It also should help to shape our expectations as well.

Appropriate expectations are helpful right:

Marriage or when you’re starting a new job.

Marriage: Whose going to take out the trash? Doing laundry? Cooking? Killing the cockroach or spider?

Whose cooking? Laundry? Ironing of clothes?

Job: How many hours do they expect you to work? What exactly are their expectations?

Assumptions are NOT helpful, in marriage or in the workplace? Yet, sometimes we can be at fault for assuming we understand and know how to apply spiritual truths.

How do people change?

Today’s passage is a description of what we too can expect when the idols of our culture are threatened.

How will culture respond when the gospel is preached?

How should christians act and speak in a culture that opposes the gospel?

PRAY

BACKGROUND

Previously in the Book of Acts

1:8 “empowered by the Holy Spirit, you will be my witness in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth

Chapters 1 - 7: Jerusalem

Chapters 8 - 12: Judea & Samaria

Chapters 13 - 28: Ends of the Earth

Last week we were in as the Apostle Paul was in Athens.

We saw how Paul engaged a culture full of idols - seeing and feeling the weight of a city saturated with idols

Paul proclaimed Jesus and the Resurrection - To the religious, the the everyday person standing in line at the market, to the intellectual professors of the day. The message was the same.

We also learned that idolatry is more than images of false gods and goddesses carved into stone and precious metals, but they are also things we worship in our heart, according to .

DEFINITION of IDOLATRY:

“Is anything more important to you thank God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give”

Ephesus (Background)

Population of 100,000, this is 10x larger than Athens at the time.

It’s temple to Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the world… four times larger than the Athenian Parthenon.

Parthenon

230 x 100 ft.

58 columns

Temple to Artemis

425 x 225 ft.

127 Columns, each was 60 feet high

In the first account, Antipater of Sidon describes seeing the temple to Artemis this way, “I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand"

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand"

The temple attracted many thousands of visitors each year, bringing additional wealth into the city.

EXPECT TRANSFORMATION

THE TRANSFORMATION (19:17-20)

19:1-10

Paul begins preaching for 3 months in the synagogue in Ephesus - the religious people continued in unbelief and began speaking evil of Christians.

Paul then spends two years preaching in a public hall and verse 10 says that all the residents of Asia heard the gospel.

19:11-16

God was doing miracles through Paul but then 7 sons of the Jewish high priest decided they wanted in on the action so they begin trying to rebuke evil spirits saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus that Paul proclaims.”

The evil spirit were like, “I know Jesus and I recognize Paul but not you.”

Attacked the men, tore the clothes off their body and the 7 sons became the 7 streakers that day.

READ 19:17-20

A story like this gets around town, even a town of 100,000 people.

More than just the humor of the situation, the bible says that fear and awe fell upon the people

There is power in the name of Jesus.

So much so that people bring their idols and books and burned them in the site of everyone.

Valued at 50,000 pieces of silves

Modern evaluation = $6 million

What caused the change???? - This is a dramatic transformation…

1 Piece of silver = 1 day’s wage

$15 per hour x 8 hours =

THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF NEW AFFECTIONS

New life in Jesus leads to transformation.

THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION

I pray that we have an expectation that as the gospel is proclaimed - people’s lives will be transformed.

I also hope we understand how people change.

A story I read this week of Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

Preaching the Word: Acts—The Church Afire 31: When the Leaves Fall Away

Shortly after the Armistice of World War I, Dr. Barnhouse visited the battlefields of Belgium. In the first year of the war the area around the city of Mons was the scene of the great British retreat; in the last year of the war it was the scene of the greater German retreat. For miles to the west of the city the roads were lined with artillery, tanks, trucks, and other materials of war which the Germans had abandoned in their hasty flight.

It was a lovely day in spring; the sun was shining; not a breath of wind was blowing. As Dr. Barnhouse walked along examining the German war material, he noticed that leaves were falling from the great trees that arched above the road. He brushed at a leaf that had blown against his chest; it became caught in the belt of his uniform. As he picked it out he pressed it in his fingers and it disintegrated. Dr. Barnhouse looked up curiously and saw several other leaves falling from the trees. It was not autumn. There was no wind to blow them off. They were the leaves that had outlived the winds of autumn and the frosts of winter.

Now they were falling, seemingly without cause. Then he realized that the most potent force of all was causing them to fall. It was spring; the sap was beginning to run; the buds were beginning to push from within. From down beneath the dark earth, the roots were taking life and sending it along trunk, branch and twig, until that life expelled every bit of deadness that remained from the previous year. It was, as a great Scottish preacher termed it, “the expulsive power of a new affection.” 1

This is a beautiful picture of how the new life in Christ expels the old and dead shell.

This new life in jesus caused believers to come together and confess their sins.

They brought with them symbols of their false worship and made a bonfire.

$6 million dollars worth of false worship - they didn’t resell it on ebay or on etsy - they lit a match and watched it burn.

EXPECT RESISTANCE TO THE GOSPEL

PAUL IS PRETTY SATISFIED (19:21)

Paul resolved in the Spirit to keep moving.

Then the city goes into an uproar.

TRANSFORMATION CHANGES THE CULTURAL DEMAND

The cultural affections being disregarded are dollar signs

Not only did they burn the equivalent of $6 million, they also weren’t buying new idols and new books of black magic.

This causes major problems

READ 19:21-34

Demetrius is a silversmith who makes his living crafting idols of Artemis.

Every Spring their was a special festival for Artemis called, Artemesia

This was a month of debauchery - pilgrims from all over would participate in athletic competitions, drink, and have the ritual fling with the temple prostitutes.

Achilles Tatius, an eye-witness to these celebrations said this, “It was the festival of Artemis, and every place was full of drunken men, and all the market-place was full of a multitude of men through the whole night.”

It isn’t particularly hard to get a group of drunken men to do something dumb. It even says that “most of them did not know why they had come together...”

Poor Alexander - the crowd pushes him forward to talk with this drunken riot but when they see he is a Jew they shout for the next 2 hours.

EXPECT RESISTANCE TO THE GOSPEL

The Gospel transforms lives

As lives are transformed the culture is changed.

People make money off the sinful appetites of the culture

TOURISM

2017 we had 72 million people visit Orlando

SEX TRAFFICKING

Orlando, our city beautiful, is 3rd in the nation for human-trafficking based on population size

Institute Against Human Trafficking says that 90% of victims of human trafficking are arrested for selling sex but only 10% of buyers are arrested.

The Gospel has the power to end the trafficking and enslavement of people.

It isn’t just a fight for justice or something outside of ourselves. It is internal - the transformation of our affections that dries up the demand.

A recent Barna group research says that 68% of church-going men view porn on a regular basis. This goes up to 76% for those 18-24 years old. Women aren’t excluded at 33% in the last month.

The porn industry’s annual revenue exceeds the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined.

Thes annual revenue exceeds the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined.

ABORTION

Maybe we could talk about the 70,083 abortions that took place in Florida in 2018

In 2015 the CDC reported that 24.3% of pregnancies ended in abortion.

Sometimes we think that most abortions are frightened teenagers who choose to have an abortion after an unexpected pregnancy but this only accounts for 17% of abortions in the US according to a NBC News article.

The majority already have one child and more than half are over the age of 25.

THESE TWO ISSUES

Let’s just take this two issues for now and apply how people change and the impact it has on culture.

What can we learn from the Apostle Paul and this text?

EXPECT POWER IN THE GOSPEL

BE ASSURED OF GOD’S PRESENCE

DID NOT SPEAK AGAINST ARTEMIS - SPOKE FOR/ABOUT JESUS

READ 19:35-41

The city clerk

Be quiet and don’t be rash

(37) These men here are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess.

I find this interesting - even the Ephesian leader recognized that the believers did not attack Artemis but rather they proclaimed the truth of Jesus and this changed the affections and lives of the believers.

THE MESSAGE (Pattern from Athens)

God created the heavens and the earth. He doesn’t live in the temples we build and he isn’t served by human hands.

Mankind has rebelled against God and we live in separation from God because of our rebellion

God drew near in the person and work of Jesus. He was God is human flesh - he lived a perfect life and died on the cross, paying the penalty of God’s anger for our sins - Jesus rose from the died. By grace, through faith in Jesus - we are covered in the perfection of Jesus.

We are given a new heart with new affections

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Do we really believe this in such a way that it reshapes our expectations.

The expulsive power of new affections - God’s spirit in us, changing our desires - renewing our culture

ILLUSTRATION:

Don’t think about a purple monkey with pink polka-dots, bouncing a yellow ball

Think about the sun rising over the beach, the sound of the waves crashes, the salty air. Picture a red umbrella providing shade with a little running along the beach flying a yellow kite.

What is the answer to human trafficking in our city?

The Gospel

Laws will not change people’s hearts though I do believe we should have and seek just laws

Only the Gospel can produce true transformation in people’s lives and in our city

What if there was no demand (Johns)

What if men’s heart (Pimps) were changed to see that every person is created in the image of God

What is the answer to abortion in our city?

What if 70,000 unborn children didn’t die in Florida this year. Over 6,000 of those were in Orange County.

Do we believe that the gospel is truly the answer. The Jesus gives new lives. This new life changes are affections.

Sometimes I fear that we see the power being in the hands of politicians and we are powerless. Candidates weave their words to play to a particular audience in their pursuit for power.

Jesus is our King and he is establishing his Kingdom.

True and lasting change is only produced through the transformational power of the Gospel of Jesus.

Do we want to see abortion clinics close? Do we want to see human life valued? - Jesus

We can speak against

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I pray you take with you these thoughts from this morning:

Jesus Transforms Lives

This transformation from the inside creates an expulsive power of new affections

People Don’t Like Change

The culture won’t always be happy with the outcome of this gospel transformation

People in power who make money off people’s sinful appetites will be upset so don’t be surprised

Proclaim Jesus / Don’t JUST Protest Sin

Jesus transforms so proclaim Jesus and the resurrection

Proclaim salvation through Jesus

Don’t just speak against what is wrong

Creatively and passionately share why Jesus is better

PRAY

PARTNERSHIP

This morning we have the joy of celebrating how God is growing our church family.

We we recently had a partnership class with about 10 people who desire to partner with CrossPointe.

Partnership is not about receiving special privileges or anything like that

Partnership is a commitment before God and to the Church family

Introductions

COVENANT

For those joining today, “ In response to the gospel, have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. In obedience to Jesus, have you been baptized in the name of the father, son, and Holy spirit.”

Have all the partners stand together - the next 4 statements are based on the 59 one another statements we find in the Bible. I want us to start something new as a church and whenever we have new people join, I want this to be an opportunity to publicly commit to living out these truths together.

LOVE | Relying on God’s help, will we seek to love each other in the same way that God unconditional and sacrificially loves us?

We will

UNITY | Relying on God’s help, will we pray and work together for unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?

We will

ENCOURAGEMENT | Relying on God’s help, will we pray and encourage each other as we grow in grace, faith, love, and good deeds?

We will

HUMILITY | Relying on God’s help, will we humbly work together as a church family in generosity and service for the glory of God from our neighborhoods to the nations?

We will

BENEDICTION: Have everyone stand

In the knowledge that the Gospel alone has the power to transform us and give us new and better affections...

“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.”

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand".[2]