Everyday Life

Introduction

If you would please open your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 17, we will begin there shortly. But before we get there, I would like to read a passage out of the book of Mark Chapter 8 starting in verse 27 it says.

English Standard Version Chapter 8

27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”

These questions are at the very heart of the message of Christianity. If we were to boil down any interaction on a mission trip or evangelistic outreach, these are the two questions that must be answered. If we are to take this a step further though, these are also questions that we must ask ourselves each and everyday when we put our feet on the floor. As we read at the end of the Gospels, there is no room for us not proclaiming the Good news of Jesus Christ to the world we find ourselves in. The Great Commission in our lifetime has become more what I would like to call the great omission. For most of us, we have been told that it should be evident that we are Christians by the way we act. The common and well meaning quote “ preach the Gospel, if necessary use words” was never actually said by St. Francis of Assisi yet, we cling to it like wet clothes cling to your body.

Even I as a pastor can fall into this trap of trying to look like I am living a “ Christian” or “Gospel centered” life by DOING certain things, but this, in essence, is only a shallow form of legalism that if it does not have the right heart behind its action will surely lead unbelievers and church goers alike to hell. For the Gospel is something that cannot be merely lived out. If that was so then Jesus would never have had to preach to anyone for He lived his life perfectly. ‘

Therefore we must conclude that if our Lord and Savior had to preach to people then we to are called to pick up that burden as well and speak to the unbelievers about Christ. In doing so we will talk to them and find out what they think about Jesus and why they believe that. It is then after listening that we are then to tell them who Jesus is. In Chapter 17 of Acts we get a glimpse of Paul doing this very thing. Let us open up and read God’s Word together.

Main Point

Normally when reading such an extensive passage of Scripture you might expect me to take my time and build up to the main point of the sermon, but tonight I want to start off with this so that it does not get lost over the course of our time together.

No matter who God has placed us around we are called to preach the Gospel.

No matter what God has placed us with we are called to preach the Gospel.

No matter when God has placed us we are called to preach the Gospel.

No matter where God has placed us we are called to preach the Gospel.

No matter why God has placed us there we are called to preach the Gospel.

You may be thinking to yourself at this time that this is not a fair expectation, Paul was of course called to be an apostle and called to be a missionary. But as we have already seen from the scriptures that no matter what God’s specific calling is on our life, we are all called to generally preach the Gospel.

Now just as you saw me use the traditional 5 W’s of journalism to show our main point let us also use it to see what is happening in the text to see what led to this conclusion.

When

Now these are going to be a bit out of order than the normal saying but bear with me. In our opening verse we see that this narrative takes place when Paul is waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy to arrive. While it may be cliche to say, the common phrase of everywhere is a mission field is absolutely correct. Just as the Bible and the message of the Gospel always has been we should realize that it will always be counter cultural so there is never a moment when we will not have an opportunity to talk about Jesus with others. Whether you are a school teacher, retiree, parent, grandparent, student, etc, etc. Even in the Bible belt we have the opportunity to preach the true Jesus.

What

When Paul was anywhere what was his main goal? To preach the Gospel. Later on in the book of 1st Corinthians he states “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified”. We also know that Paul, despite his calling as an apostle knew an actual trade, a tent maker, and used that to his advantage so that he could spread the gospel. The whole idea of this text is that Paul went and discussed Christ with people and so to should we leverage every area of our own lives to do the same.

Who

When we look at who Paul talked to in Athens we catch a glimpse at not just the audience that he addressed but the audience that we are also called to address.

The religious

Vs 17 As we see Paul do with the Jews over and over and over again throughout his travels, we also see that he interacts with other religious people .

The commoners

Vs 17 Besides the specificity with which he talked with the religious people, he also made sure to talk to just the ordinary people.

The intellectuals

Vs 18. We also see that Paul gets involved with the intelligentsia of the day not because he was picking a fight, rather because they found what he was saying as odd.

Each one of these sections of people may require you to do some extra homework to have conversations with, but ours is a Gospel that is meant for everyone. There is not a single person that we should ever exclude, for any reason, from hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. e

Where

The simple answer to this questions is everywhere. There is never a place that should be devoid of the possibility of showing and telling who Jesus is. This means that the people that we spend the most time with, not only will see us being our most sinful and our worst but they should also be the people we should be talking about Jesus with the most. If we were to think of this as concentric circles from in to out we would see a lessening in the depth of which we talk about Jesus and yet he is still going to be at the forefront of our mind when we are in these spots.

Home

As I said, those who we are closest with will not only see our most sinful side, but they should also see us be our most gracious, loving, confessing, and obedient in our walks to Christ

Work

We have all been given a calling with which to fulfill while we are on the planet. Whether you think it is a temporary job or it is your full time calling. We must utilize our profession for Christ. Yes we may not be able to outright proselytize but there are many ways that if we were to think long and hard about how to convey Jesus we could.

Social Media

Now this is the place where I think we could use a lot more Jesus and a lot less politics and personal opinion. It should go without saying that if we spent less time posting pro-america or jesus only supports my viewpoint type of posts and actually using the platforms for real conversations where we actually think through them we would show Jesus much better.

Why

Now beyond the obvious commandments from Jesus to preach the Gospel, we tell people about Jesus because we see them as lost people. Just as Paul was provoked that he saw all of the Idols and idol worship in the city how can we not feel the same way when we look at our family, friends, and acquaintances and see them going astray. If we do not have the burning in our hearts to talk to them, it is my prayer that we all would go home and pray for that Kind of fire to burn within us.

How

Now the last question that we need to ask ourselves is how we do this and the passage provides us with at least two ways in which we can interject Jesus into our conversations. The first of these is

Everyday aspects of life (market)

These are the things that we all go through that we can relate with one another on. Parenting, relationships,common issues. We have so many connections that we share with people it should be easy for us to relate with one another.

The other way in which we can find an entry point is with

News and Current events (Always telling new ideas)

Just as we talked about having a Christian worldview a few weeks ago, we must use that worldview for us to interpret and examine the things that are going on in the world. For instance, How are we going to view the explosion in Beirut that happened? How will we answer questions about it?

When we finally get an opportunity to discuss the Gospel I have three simple pieces of advice. That we can get from our text

We assume God’s existence

Even though we need to understand the other sides argument we can never give up our footing of God existing.

We talk about His power

We serve an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent God. When we speak of Him we can speak of him knowing that there is none greater than him.

We talk about His Justice, mercy, and Grace.

This is the Gospel. Just as Paul alludes to in verses 30 and 31

Justice- Anyone who opposes God and sins deserves his wrath

Mercy-Not being immediately judged and condemned for our sins

Grace- Giving us an opportunity to repent and trust in his son Jesus

The fearless and relevant witness that follows models an approach that some Christians in every society must take. They must engage the opinion-makers and shapers of thought and “do battle with contemporary non-Christian philosophies and ideologies and philosophies in a way which resonates with thoughtful, modern men and women, and so at least gain a hearing for the gospel by the reasonableness of its presentation” (Stott 1990:281).