Take It Or Leave It (Acts 17.1-13)

Introduction

Well, congratulations to Honor and Gary and Danny on your baptism. And Esme, congratulations to you too on the renewal of your baptismal vows.

It’s on occasions like this that I need to tell you the one little story that I never dared to tell when I lived in France. It’s about this Frenchman, we’ll call him Marcel, who has been living in Britain for a few years and, after a while, he decides to apply for British nationality. The thing is, Marcel still drinks red wine, still eats runny cheese, snails and frog legs (by the way, they taste like chicken). He still gestures with his hands when he talks to you. He still wears a beret and striped t-shirt. ‘e stiill speak wizz ze French accent, non? And so people say to him “Look, Marcel, you're no different now to what you were before you moved here. What is the point in changing your nationality?” And Marcel says, “Yes, I am stiill ze same, but now I ‘ave won ze Battle of Waterloo.”

The truth about becoming a Christian is that you’re still you. You have the same features, the same weaknesses, the same strengths… but now, you’re on Jesus’ side and he is invincible. He has defeated sin and death – and, therefore, so have you. Because you are in him, everything that’s true about Jesus becomes true of you.

Including the way people see you. Some people loved Jesus. Some people couldn’t stand him. Some people ignored him. Some people thought he was mad – including, at one point, his own family. A lot of people totally misunderstood him.

I became a Christian in my teenage years. I was 17. In my experience as a follower of Jesus (and obviously, that stretches to nearly fifteen years now) whenever the subject of Jesus or the Christian faith comes up, people react in one of three ways. And these three reactions begin with the first three letters of the alphabet - ABC.

Anger

First of all, Christians and what they believe makes some people angry. Stephen Fry was interviewed on Irish TV recently and was asked what he would say to God if he met him. And he started a rant that went viral when it was posted on YouTube.

He, like many other intelligent, educated, law-abiding people, get angry about Christianity.

All over the world, and since the beginning, any talk about Jesus is been resisted, smeared, misrepresented, ridiculed, driven out, despised and even outlawed. It always has been and it always will be. Jesus warned us it would be like this when he said “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

Even in Britain, where we are always saying how fair and tolerant we are, the only four events in Christian history that are ever mentioned in some circles are the Crusades, the witch hunts, the Spanish Inquisition and the Klu Klux Klan…

The only thing some people have heard about Christians is that we indoctrinate children in our schools, we oppress women, we abuse children, we rip off the sick, we victimise gays, we suppress science, and we frighten the elderly.

But of course every one of those things is the exact opposite of what Jesus said people should do; love the Lord with all your mind, soul, heart and strength and love your neighbour as yourself.

Boredom

So there’s plenty of anger out there. I’d say there’s more of that than there was when I became a Christian in 1979. It’s certainly louder than it was before. But it’s still a small minority really who get a lot of air time in the media who talk like that.

Most people though are just bored by the whole subject. They’re apathetic. They say things like, “That’s great for you but I haven’t got time.” Or “I’m just not interested.”

So many people think, without ever really taking the trouble to check, that Christianity is dull. It’s lame. It’s a turn-off. They think that to actually become a Christian you would need to be pretty desperate. And the losers who end up in the clergy, well, it’s because they probably have no chance at all of ever getting a proper job! It is so obviously uninteresting that it’s not worth even bothering to take a look to have all your suspicions confirmed.

To be fair, sometimes that is our fault. The way some Christians talk about what they believe is a bit weird.

An old Methodist preacher called W. E. Sangster used to talk about a very earnest woman evangelist who used to go round the air raid shelters in the Second World War and try and talk to people in Jesus. One day, she found a tramp sitting on a bench in an underground station. She looked at this poor chap and said the same thing to him that she said to everyone. “Now, you do realise that we are living a different dispensation? And if we are to be justified and sanctified we need the right propitiation.” That was her favourite chat up line! Anyway, she went rabbiting on in this vein for a few minutes. And at last when she finally stopped talking and paused for breath, the tramp took a swig on his bottle and said “Okeydoky.”

Disinterest and boredom about the Christian faith can be due to us making it weird and incomprehensible.

Curiosity

But a third group of people are neither angry, nor bored; they’re curious. They can’t help but notice that many Christians have something unusual about them. I have heard this said on too many occasions to count; “There is something about you Christians that makes you different.”

I met someone just last week who came here for the first time from a few miles away and said, “I want to know more about the Christian faith. I feel drawn to come to this church. How can I find out more?”

So I said, “Do you realise that we are living a different dispensation? And if we are to be justified and sanctified we need the right propitiation.” (No, not really).

Amphipolis, Apollonia Thessalonica and Berea

Well, these three responses, angry, bored and curious, are exactly what we find in our reading from Acts 17.

In v1, Paul and Silas go through two towns called Amphipolis and Apollonia - and there is no recorded response at all. Nothing. We’ve been following them since chapter 13 and they never miss an opportunity to tell others about who they are and why they are travelling. There is no way they would just walk through a town and say nothing to anyone about Jesus. But no one takes any interest in the gospel whatsoever, so it seems.

I’m speculating a bit but it appears from what we have here that in these two places everybody just yawns and says, “Yeah, whatever.” So Paul and his companions don’t waste any more time there, and go on to the next place.

Then they reach Thessalonica and it says this: “They reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.”

In v2-9 the main response to this talk about the resurrection is anger. Some people join them but the rest form an angry mob, start a riot, single out a guy called Jason, drag him out on the streets, make up false accusations and drive the rest of them out of town, running for their lives.

I think it’s sad that that anger is their basic response to hearing about the resurrection. I mean, if they had looked into it a little bit they might have spared their town all that aggro and public disorder.

Because the thing is, when people do look into the resurrection, when they take the time to do a bit of research, when they bother to study the evidence, they usually get a bit of a shock.

In the 18^th Century, there was a man called Gilbert West who didn’t like it that a lot of his friends were becoming Christians. So he decided that he would write a book to rubbish the resurrection because if you do that you destroy, in one go, the whole foundation Christianity is built on.

So he started his work and he began to write his book. It was so well researched and so painstakingly exhaustive that Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate for his work. Half way through writing the book, Gilbert West realised he had been completely wrong, met Jesus, and ended up writing something totally different to what he had first planned. His book is called Observations on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the 19^th Century, there was a famous atheist in the USA called Robert Ingersoll. He didn’t like it that Christianity was growing in America at that time. One day, quite by chance, on a train to Indianapolis, he met an Army General and writer called Lew Wallace.

Ingersoll wanted to strike a blow to Christianity, and damage the Church, so he said to Wallace, “Why don’t you write a book to discredit Christianity and discredit the resurrection?” So Wallace, who had never really given any serious thought to Christianity beforehand, began to write his book. But he had a wife who was a Christian who was praying all the time he was researching and writing his book. When he got to chapter 4, he met Jesus so he too ended up writing something completely different to what he had first planned. His book is called Ben Hur.

In the 20^th Century there was a lawyer and a journalist called Albert Henry Ross. His pen name was Frank Morison. He hated Christianity as well so he decided that he would attack it and show it to be nothing more than a silly superstition. He too started to write a book to show the resurrection was fiction. As a journalist he knew exactly how to research a story. As a lawyer he knew how to play around with the material. But he got so engrossed in the evidence that half way through writing his book, he met Jesus so he ended up writing something completely different to what he had first planned. His book is called Who Moved the Stone?

So, if you’re in a hurry to meet Jesus, just write a book to attack the resurrection! If those people in Thessalonica had done that it would stopped a whole lot of people getting angry and saved a whole lot of grief.

In v10, Paul and Silas, under the cover of darkness, head for the next town which is called Berea. And in Berea, what you mostly get is the third response – curiosity.

It says in v11 “They received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. And many of them believed.”

They looked into it. And they found that when they took the time to check it out, it made sense and was worth believing in.

Some people look into Christianity and come to faith because they find that it is true. The three authors I mentioned earlier were like that. Some people become Christians because when they investigate it carefully, they find that Christianity turns out to be true. The conversion happens mostly in the mind.

But most people come to faith because they are intrigued and attracted by what they see and what they feel when they get near it. The conversion happens mostly in the heart.

I learned last week at the 9.00am service that the word ‘mind is found in the Bible 120 times. The word ‘heart is found 1,000 times.

This is how it all started for me at the age of 17. It was a conversion of the heart. I saw the difference Jesus makes to peoples’ lives. I saw answers to prayer. I saw something real that I always wanted. I found that one good look at Jesus was enough to make you dissatisfied with anyone ad anything else.

And when I took a step of faith and said “Yes”, I had a feeling inside of complete elation and relief – like I had been lost for years and then finally found my way home.

Ending

I want to end with a word especially for the four of you who stood up this morning and stepped into that baptistery.

You will have days when you doubt. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. There will be weeks when you wobble. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. There will be seasons when you slide back, when you feel that you are running on empty. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.

The joy you have today won’t stay with you every day. At times like that, the devil will do all he can to lead you off the path you have chosen today for good. But remember, whenever the devil says, “Just look at your sin!” God says, “Just look at my Son!”

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 3rd May 2015