Five People, One Gospel

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We are gonna be continuing our series on Acts. We are taking our whole year to look at the book of Acts, and we've kind of broken it up into different series, and so this is our third of four. Nope, this is our fourth of four, something like that. Maybe it's our third. We'll see, we'll see what the year brings. It's gonna be a good year. In this particular series, we've called this the gospel movement, and in part, what we've been looking at is these different phases of how the gospel movement began with a guy with 12 disciples, and then that moved to kind of a regional kind of movement within Judaism sort of, but different. And then what we've seen in Acts 13 through 18, we've seen it really go from local to global, that it really is beginning to reach kind of the known world. We saw hints of that earlier in Acts 1 through 12, but really in 13 through 18, you see it happening.

We've also been talking about this in terms of contextualization. We've been throwing that word around a lot, contextualization, here's a quick way to kind of think of it because we're gonna be talking about it again today. Here's a quick way to think about it. You explain something in a way that clicks for other people. Explaining something in a way that clicks for other people, that's contextualization. So on a, you know, an everyday example would be something like teaching children, okay? You aren't gonna teach 10th graders the same way you're gonna teach kindergartners. It's not the same, at least you shouldn't. If you try, that will be very frustrating, okay, for both you and the kindergartners. You adjust your approach to the needs that they have, right, this is what, we kind of see this in like an everyday thing. And with the gospel, whenever you are explaining

the gospel to somebody, it can either click or not click. And so in a way particular to Burleson that it's not going to click. Let me just give you an example of something not clicking. If you pull up to somebody in Burleson and you kind of, maybe you just started talking to them and you say, hey, did you know that Jesus died for your sins? Although that is gospel truth, that will not click for them, for most people in Burleson, it won't click. The reason it won't click is because they've heard it so many times, it almost means nothing. Okay, it's not to say that the truth means nothing. Hear me, hear me, that is powerful truth, but it's not communicated in a way that is significant. It doesn't click for other people in Burleson. Now, maybe you change the context and you say it that way and it just suddenly clicks. I've heard of missionaries going to other places

and they tell the gospel in like a story form and it really clicks for them. So here's a couple of examples, maybe that it could click in Burleson. Maybe you go to a coworker, this is the way that the gospel could click for them. And you say, hey, I've been trying to, I've been praying for my son to come back to the Lord and God gave me this piece of scripture and here's some of the fruit that I'm seeing in my life from that, okay? If that, obviously you cannot be lying when you say those things, but if that's true and you are saying that to a coworker, I guarantee you, if they don't know the Lord, if the gospel hasn't clicked for them, the gospel might click whenever you're talking that way. It might click when people hear about the gospel kind of happening in an everyday context. Another way the gospel could click is maybe, you're talking with a friend, you're like,

hey, there's a lot of fake Christians out there. And let me tell you, if you say there's a lot of fake Christians out there, I mean, it is almost a uniform response in Burleson text and be like, oh yeah, let me tell you about it, man. Okay, they're anxious, chomping at the bit, right, to talk about, oh yeah, there's fake Christians out there, man, and you say, yeah, there's some fake Christians out there, there's also some true ones, and Jesus actually makes a distinction between them and then you begin to talk a little bit more about it. The reason that's going to click is because that's how a lot of people, I'm not gonna speak for every single person in Burleson, obviously, but that is how, when you're in the culture that we're kind of in,

if you just start in with, have you heard the gospel before? They're gonna say, yeah, I've heard it like 50 times, in whatever, I know what you believe, okay? But if you start a different way, it can be kind of clicking. The difference between something clicking or not is its connection within a culture, not how true it is, not how false it is. If it clicks, it's connecting with culture. Even Old Testament prophets, right? So you see people that are like, yeah, we should go out like Isaiah and like Ezekiel and like Jeremiah and just be like, just proclaim the gospel everywhere to everybody. Even those Old Testament prophets used metaphors and illustrations that people understood in that time.

So even what we would consider to be the fire breathers, the guys who were just yelling at, spit flying, you're all going to hell unless you repent, they were still using metaphors and illustrations from their time to communicate gospel truth, okay? Today, today as we get into Acts 16 and 17, first part of 17 is where we're gonna stop it, we're gonna see the gospel click for five different kinds of people, five different kinds of people. You have a dual heritage kid, you have a professional business woman, you have a police officer, you have a social melting pot and you have academics and you see all five and more than just seeing all five, what we're gonna see is that Luke, who's the author of Acts, actually puts all of them together on purpose in sequence to show us something, okay? And we're gonna be kinda finding out what that is today and here's kinda what I want you to see.

I want you to see this, when the gospel clicks for you, when the gospel kinda makes sense in a significant way, no matter who you are, Jesus is going to take that and turn your life upside down with it. When the gospel clicks for you in a significant way and for some of you, for some of you, that hasn't ever happened. For some of you, you've been in church a while, you understand kind of gospel facts, but it hasn't clicked. And maybe, maybe, and we all kinda go through seasons of this where you're thinking like, man, I'm just not feeling anything, this isn't like connecting, this isn't, and what you're trying to express, what's going on inside is that the gospel's not clicking, it's like it's misfiring, right? And so what happens is when the gospel begins to misfire in your own life or when you have somebody with whom the gospel has never clicked, right, it's always misfired,

there is a dryness there, because what you're trying to do is do spiritual things without any power. And so when the gospel clicks for somebody, there's a kind of a power that's infused in that, right? There's an energy that comes from that, that comes from the Holy Spirit through that. So we're gonna look at these different kinds of, these five different kinds of people, we're gonna watch and see how the gospel clicks. Let's start with the dual heritage kid, Acts 16, one through two, Paul also came to Derbe and Lystra, a disciple who was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Okay, Paul is on his missionary journey, okay? So he's on, this is missionary journey number two, there's gonna be three of them, and he meets Timothy. Timothy is a dual heritage kid,

meaning he has a Jewish mom who's probably, well, who is a believer, but he has a Greek dad who is probably not a believer. Okay, because the way it's worded, it kind of helps us kind of see that. What we don't understand though, is that in this day and time, that is advantageous to a person, okay? Typically, typically, when you had Gentile connections, I don't wanna get too far in the weeds on this, but it's a safe assumption to make that Timothy comes from money, that Timothy's Gentile father was well connected, okay? So he had Gentile connections, so in other words, he had social mobility. He could kind of hang out with whoever he wanted to hang out with, and then on top of that, he had a Jewish mom. What you may not know is that Jewish heritage, even today, is traced through the mom, not the dad. And so if you have a Jewish mom and a non-Jewish dad, you're still Jewish, okay?

Timothy here is full Jewish and effectively full Gentile, okay? He has advantage, he has money, he has opportunity, okay? So look at the next verse. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew his father was a Greek. Let's push pause. Why in the world is Paul circumcising Timothy now? Now, if you weren't here last week, you might not understand my outrage. Last week, we looked at this whole thing. It was a whole thing in Acts 15, a whole council meeting where Paul and many others fought tooth and nail to say you don't need to be circumcised to be saved. You don't need to complete your salvation by being physically circumcised, okay? Whole deal, we just went through that whole battle. And then like three verses later, okay, into 16, Paul is taking Timothy. So why is Paul doing this,

and why is Timothy allowing this? They both understand what's going on. And moreover, it actually says that he did it because of the Jews, okay? This is, it seems like we just fought this battle. Feel like we just went here. Look at the next verse. Verse four, it says, as they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So let's just lay the irony on one more layer, okay? Because he's making Timothy. Timothy is allowing himself to be circumcised, and they're delivering the actual news that says you don't need to be circumcised to be saved. Okay, what's going on? Why does this seem a little incongruous? What is happening? In Acts 15, like I said, Paul and others are fighting for circumcision, and what they were fighting for was, they weren't fighting circumcision.

They were fighting to detach circumcision from salvation. And that, and it's a little ironic, but that very detachment, the way that it's separated now allows for circumcision. It allows for somebody to be circumcised or not, because you can be circumcised to serve the gospel and to love others in Jesus' name without having to be circumcised to be saved, okay? So those are two different kind of, so Paul is saying, we don't need to be circumcised to be saved, however, we still can be circumcised

for other reasons. And so Timothy allows this circumcision to limit gospel interference. And this is kind of an important point, so I wanna camp here for just a second. The gospel specifically says to Timothy that you are, Timothy, you are free to be circumcised or not. You're free. You don't have to be circumcised. Even though your mom was a Jew, even though you have Jewish heritage, you don't have to be circumcised. But when the gospel clicks for Timothy, Timothy uses his freedom to serve other people. He uses all the freedom that he has, and he doesn't say kind of like what's celebrated in our culture, which is like, hey, you're free, do whatever you want. When you do something that somebody else doesn't like, an often repeated response is, hey, it's a free country. I can do what I want. Free country. Well, okay, smug American. Yeah, it is a free country. But how are you using your freedom?

Timothy, when the gospel clicks for him, uses his freedom to serve other people. He takes all of his wealth, all of his influence, all of his social mobility, all of his advantage, all of his bright future, and he uses that for the benefit of other people so that they will hear the gospel without interference. So the Jews, whenever they're listening to Timothy, and they're saying, oh, okay, Timothy, his dad's a Greek, but his mom's a Jew,

what's he got, what's he got going on? I don't know how they check circumcision. I don't really wanna know. But word gets around. It was important for Timothy to be circumcised so that they could preach the gospel without interference to Jews because they knew about his dad. Look, not all of you are like Timothy. I'm not like Timothy. There's a couple people like Timothy. We don't all have that kind of influence and wealth and advantage, but some of us do. And what you need to see is that the gospel frees you to use that influence you already have, all that freedom that you have, all that mobility that you have, all that influence over other people that you have to love and serve others in Jesus's name and when you do this, when you do this, it has a profound effect on people. When you say, hey, I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use everything I've got, I'm gonna use all of my resources,

I'm gonna use all my clout, I'm gonna use all of my kind of like, my professional gravitas, and I'm gonna use that to bless other people. And these are the stories that we tell, right? These are the, there's a guy named, he's long past, but he was a higher up at Walmart. His name is Don Sodorquist, okay? Don Sodorquist was there kind of at the beginning with Sam Walton, kind of making some things happen. And the stories they would always tell on Don Sodorquist is anytime he was in a Walmart store and he heard a cleanup, he always went to that aisle and cleaned it up every time. This is a guy that didn't need to do that, right? Why is that story powerful? The story's not powerful if it's like, hey, Don Sodorquist is a Walmart employee and he got called to aisle six for a cleanup and he cleaned it up. It's like, okay, he did his job. This is not news. Why is it news when the CEO does it?

He wasn't a CEO, but he's close. When a chief officer, why is it news? It's because he's using his influence, his power, his gravitas, his advantage over others to serve people. That's why it's a big deal. That's why people take note. Not all of you have that, but some of you do and you need to hear that, that the gospel frees you. The gospel frees you. You're not chained to the fact that you have to keep this image going to where you have to keep your authority. You have to make sure that people respect you. You have to make sure that you put people in their place. You have to make sure, you don't need to do that. The gospel says you're free from that. You're free to love and to serve people and to use your influence and your advantage to do so. This is what happened when the gospel clicked for Timothy. Let's move on to Lydia. In verse 13, real quick, it just says that Paul and Silas,

they went outside the gate to the riverside to some women that were there. Verse 14, let's pick it up there. It says, one who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart, this is interesting, Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. So Lydia is like Timothy, she's probably rich. She sold purple, which was a very lucrative thing to do. Okay, not everybody was selling purple. Purple didn't come from a lot of places, but Thyatira was one of them. And you could sell it at a pretty high price. Lydia was also religious. She was a religious woman, she was a worshiper of God. We'll also see in the next verse whenever she's like, hey, come and stay at my house. And it says that she prevailed upon them so we can assume safely that Lydia is assertive. Okay, and you know, you've met these women

that says, come to my house, and you're like, no, that's okay. And they're like, come to my house. Okay, I'm coming to your house. I'm afraid not to come to your house now. So that was kind of the, that's Lydia. Lydia is this assertive, professional business woman, right? Who knows how to find a spot in the market and sell purple goods, make it happen, okay? And it says also specifically that the Lord opened her heart to pay attention. Now this, technically, this is true for everybody. Opened Timothy's heart, opened other people's heart. I mean, people have, the Lord has to open their heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. Why does it say it here specifically for Lydia? Well, we have a couple of options. Either it is true that professional business people were usually resistant to the gospel, or it is true that people from Thyatira were usually resistant to the gospel,

or it could be true, it's probably not, that women were resistant to the gospel. We don't really know, we don't really know, but we know that when the gospel clicks for Lydia, that she begins to take seriously something that she previously ignored. When the gospel clicks for Lydia, she begins to take seriously something that she previously ignored. She was already a worshipper of God, right? She's already religious, she's already professional, she's already got her life in order, she's got some things going on, but she begins to take it seriously. And not like she didn't think her career was serious before, that's not what I mean. I mean that she now understands, oh, I have all of these gifts, all these abilities at my disposal, and that I can now use them for the Lord. Jesus is going to use her gifts to establish, we'll see at the end of this chapter, Jesus is gonna use her gifts to establish

the first church in Europe in her home. Okay, this is Philippi, it's the first church in Europe, and it's gonna be established in her home by the end of this chapter, like verse 40. Some of us hear the gospel a thousand times. We hear the gospel, we've heard the gospel a thousand times, we hear it over and over and over and over and over again, but something happens and the Lord opens your heart to something. You've heard it a thousand times, but the gospel begins to click for you in a way that it didn't click before. And here's how you know. You know because you start thinking of all those things that you have, all those things that you know, and you start applying it to ministry. You start applying it. Listen, I've seen a lot of people come to faith, and there's always one type of guy that when he comes to faith, you can just tell, and it's the guy who works with his hands, right?

The guy who works with his hands, and maybe that guy is like electrician plumber, maybe that guy installs, sprinkler systems, I have no idea, but he works with his hands. And the way you know that that guy has come to the Lord or that the gospel's clicking for that guy is because he wants to do something with his hands for the Lord. And so he comes to me and he's like, Drew, I tell you, I've got like, he rattles off his gifts and he's not bragging, but he's like, look, I can do these things. I can do these things. Is there anything the church needs?

Because when it clicks for you, and you have those gifts, and they kind of define who you are a little bit, right? You then want to use those gifts for the Lord. Lydia was a professional, assertive business woman. And she was probably very savvy. She was probably very street smart, and she begins to apply those things to ministry, and she's able to do some amazing things for the Lord. Look, for some of you, you have this, man, maybe you weren't raised in church. In fact, this is actually true for a lot of people that weren't raised in church or don't have a lot of religious background or anything. They have a set of skills, okay? They're not Liam Neeson, but they have a certain set of skills, okay? They're not often people, but they like doing stuff, they're really talented at doing stuff, maybe they're really street smart, maybe they're really savvy, maybe they're really good at negotiating contracts,

maybe just a really kind of a specialized skill set, and it's really good. And they start thinking, okay, how can I apply this to ministry? And what ends up happening in their lives and in the lives of the church that they're a part of is that the church begins to explore new avenues of ministry because they never thought about it that way before. They begin to explore new avenues of serving people, people they didn't even think existed, but this person with the skill set said, oh, no, I see these people all the time in my line of work, and they're in Burleson, and they need help, and they're, okay. Like, I don't need any more convincing. Yes, let's do that. Let's make that thing happen. I believe that some of you, when the gospel begins to click for you, you're going to see new avenues for ministry in our immediate context. My loving encouragement to you is tell somebody.

It doesn't have to be me, that's fine. I'm okay with that. Doesn't have to be Daniel Oster, that's okay. Doesn't have to be a deacon. Tell somebody and begin to use those gifts for the Lord. Begin to find ways to see that happen. Maybe you only have half the puzzle, and somebody else has the other half, but when you begin talking about that, when you begin to say, like, how can I take all these specific skill sets that I have and work it toward the Lord? Man, some of you are very compelling teachers. Like, you would win teacher of the year if somebody noticed. Like, you're really good. Some of you are good salesmen. Some of you are good contract negotiators. Some of you really love kids. You're not just like good with kids, like you're the pied piper. Like, you're really good with kids. Some of you are great leaders. Some of you are great planners. Part of my job, part of the thing that kind of keeps me

up at night is, man, I want to help you use those gifts for the Lord. Some of you are just like Lydia, and the gospel's clicking for you, and what I want to help, what I want our church to be, a culture of, is helping people find ways to get their hands on the gospel. Okay, so we've seen the gospel click for a dual heritage kid, a professional businesswoman who's next.

And in the following verses, it's a lot that's going on. Paul and Silas exercise a demon from a girl, then they get thrown in jail for that. It's a really long story. We're gonna skip all that. You can read it later if you want to. We're gonna go down to verse 23. When Paul and Silas are in prison, okay. It says, when they had inflicted many blows upon them, this is kind of the counsel that's arresting them, they threw them in prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he, the jailer, put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. So the Philippian jailer here is making sure, this guy's a, he's like a police officer, almost like military police officer, like he's a big deal and he's making sure he'd been given instructions and he's making double sure. He's putting them in the prison in the prison, okay.

They're not getting out. He's gonna do his job. And we're gonna find out more about him in a second. Look at verse 26. It says, and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfastened. This is this jailer's worst nightmare. He's just put them in double prison and now the whole prison just broke, okay. And he knows like I'm in trouble. This is his worst nightmare playing out. Look at the next verse. It says, when the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing the prisoners had escaped, okay. This tells us everything we need to know about this guy. This guy is going to end his life

and look, I don't wanna spoil too much. He doesn't, okay. And we don't get his name but we do know that this Philippian jailer is like honor bound. This guy is following a strict code. This guy is like a samurai, okay. He is not, he's on the line. He's holding the line. Nobody's getting past him because he's there. That's this guy, okay. This guy is a police officer to the highest order. And Paul and Silas in 28 and 29, they say, don't do it. Don't do it, we're still here. None of us left. We're all still here. Don't commit suicide. We're still here, okay. That's how serious this guy took his job. That's how serious he was. Look at Acts 16, 30 through 32. Says, then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

So this guy, this police officer, he's honor bound, we know, he's straightforward. He's like, hey, what do I need to do to be saved? Okay, he's trembling, he's freaking out. But he's staying on mission, right. He's like, look, if I just saw what I just saw, because the gospel just clicked for me. If I just saw that, I need that. Because I was gonna end my life. I was living for something else completely. A strict, moral, honorable code. I was living for that. And that essentially failed me. Because I was living for that, but I just realized in that one instant, I realized, this is the Philippian jailer talking, I realized that if that's how I'm living my life, then whenever the big mistake happens, my life's over. My life's gone.

And so he sees something different. He sees something happen. What must I do to be saved? The next couple verses we can see, he's a family-oriented guy. He takes most of the prisoners back to his family, and they have a big meal, and they're rejoicing and such. This guy's very different than Timothy, very different than Lydia. And it doesn't say, for example, it doesn't say that, and the Lord opened his heart to pay attention to what was being said by Paul. Like, no, he had his attention, okay. When the gospel clicks for the Philippian jailer, his doors are blown off, literally and metaphorically. His doors are blown off, and the stakes are high. This amounts to, for the Philippian jailer, this amounts to a near-death experience. His career was over.

His life was over, but Jesus saved me. If the Philippian jailer were standing here right now and giving his testimony, he would say, my career was over, my life was over, but Jesus rescued me from that. Some of you, you don't have a, maybe you don't have a near-death experience story, but you have a dramatic turnaround in your own life. And it might not be something that they'd make a movie out of, okay. I'm not trying to just be overly dramatic here, but when the gospel clicked for you, the gospel came to you and it blew your doors off. It came to you in a spot where you, if you didn't have the gospel, you'd have been gone. I know a few of your stories, and I know some of you are like that, where you're just like, I was at rock bottom. I was further down than rock bottom. I hit rock bottom and then kept digging, and I was there. But then Jesus came and saved me.

And that's part of your story. Look, my encouragement for you is like, man, your story is gonna help the gospel click for other people. You telling that story, as dramatic as that is, as maybe as exceptional, as one-off, as your story is, okay. Because you can say to yourself, well, I mean, that's my story, but like, maybe somebody's, they wouldn't have that kind of story. Or maybe they would expect something dramatic to happen whenever they followed you. Look, don't try to overthink it, man. Just tell your story. Just bear witness, man. Just say what happened. Tell your story. Let people ask you all the questions. You can say, yeah, man, I hit rock bottom, and then Jesus found me. You're like, what do you mean you hit rock bottom? Well, let me tell you. And then just go on. Just talk about it. What do you mean Jesus found you? Let me just tell you about that, too.

Your story's a gift, man. The Philippine jailer had a great story. He made his whole family listen to it. Right after that, they were all baptized. They all believed. Now in the text, we're gonna switch gears a little bit. We're gonna turn to a group of people. So we've been on a person, but gonna go to a group of people. Look at Acts 17, verse one. It says, now when they had passed through

Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Okay, so this is the Thessalonians. And Paul follows kinda his normal religious practice, go into the synagogue. And then look who Luke mentions specifically. He's preaching in the synagogue. And then in verse four, look what it says. It says, and some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did many of the devout Greeks and not a few leading women. Not a few of the leading women. Yeah, the wording on that is really funny. Not a few of the leading women means a lot of leading women. But for some reason, it kind of goes, it's like there's many devout Greeks and not a few of the, okay. So it's kinda hard to quantify, but effectively, what we should begin to understand in Thessalonica, the Thessalonians were a social melting pot. There were all kinds of people there.

Some Jews, many devout Greeks, many leading women, from the jump, this is a decidedly diverse church. Okay, this is like, maybe we're talking, I don't know, 100 people here, and they're all super different from each other, Jews, Greeks, leading women. So maybe a lot of Lydias, I don't know, right. And what we know from other places in scripture, Thessalonians, they had incredible relational and spiritual strength, okay. And I'm gonna just hit a few verses in Thessalonians. I'm not gonna put any of them up, but I just wanna hit them really quick. First Thessalonians, they're all from first Thessalonians. First Thessalonians 1:7 says that Thessalonian church became an example to the believers, not just in Philippi, not just in the greater region of Macedonia, but even to the church in Jerusalem. They became an example all over, to where they didn't even, Paul said, in the book of the first Thessalonians,

he said, we didn't even need to say anything more about you. We just dropped Thessalonian church, and everybody's like, oh yeah, I know that, yeah, the Lord's doing some great things there, they're so cool. Your reputation preceded you, so they have a lot of spiritual strength. And this is a relatively new church, even when this is happening. In first Thessalonians 2:8, it says, we are ready to share our lives with you because you became very dear to us. So in this church that's very diverse, that holds all these different kinds of people, there's this powerful family going on, to where even when a repulsed share in the gospel with him and kind of teaching them and discipling them, that his heart is just melted, and it's just this family. 4.9, 1 Thessalonians 4:9 says, concerning brotherly love, I have, you have no need for anybody to write to you about it. Meaning, like, you guys have brotherly love on lockdown,

so much so, that I can't really, I can't even add to it. I can't even encourage you in it because you're just living and breathing this family, this brotherly love. In the Thessalonian church, you have a dramatically diverse group of people, and in that day, it wasn't just that they were diverse, like we think of diversity or inclusion or something. No, no, in that day, Jews and non-Jews did not get along.

A lot of times, they would not do business with each other. So, for a church to see this, to embody this, it's rare and it was revolutionary and radical. When the gospel clicks for the Thessalonians, their relationships were central. Their relationships were central. In other words, when they saw their brother or sister out, they didn't treat them like they were, if one was a Jew and the other was a Gentile, if one was a leading woman and one wasn't, like, they didn't have friction there, or if they did, they worked through it. They were family first. And so, what you see in the Thessalonian church, you see this church growing along the lines of relationships. And maybe, when the gospel clicked for you, it was along the lines of family relationships. Maybe when the gospel clicked for you, it clicked for you because you saw the gospel lived out among the people in your house,

like among your mom and dad, among your brothers and sisters, among your grandparents, aunts, uncles. It clicked for you because you saw it lived out. In fact, it clicked for you so much, you couldn't even articulate it. You're like 10 and you're like, I think I'm a Christian. Why? Well, I mean, because it was the soup you grew up in, man. It wasn't just religion, it wasn't just because they were dragging you to church every week. It's because you saw the gospel play out as your dad spoke to your mom, as your mom spoke to your dad, as they spoke to you guys. Like, you saw that live out. What a heritage, what a good thing. But whenever you came to the gospel, it's because you just, literally, you were grown up into it. And maybe some of you, if that's your story, you're like, I kinda feel bad, because I don't have some dramatic story where I got a blinding light or whatever.

That's my wife's testimony. She's like, I mean, look, I don't remember a time not knowing Jesus. And it's because your parents are fantastic. It's because they love the Lord and they love each other and they do that according to the gospel. What a great thing. And maybe for some of you, that's how the gospel clicked. And let me just, shameless plug. This is why we have home groups. Because not everybody grew up in that house.

Right? Not everybody grew up in that house. Not everybody had my in-laws for parents. Okay? Not everybody had that. In fact, most people don't. Most people don't. What a lot of people see in their home, even if it's believing parents, sometimes the parents don't know how to show them the gospel as they parent them. I don't know, they parent them according to the world or something, but they just don't. It didn't click. Parenting and gospel didn't click for the parents. Okay? They were still Christians, but it just didn't click for them. We have home groups so that people can see the gospel click between people. Between a family of people. And you might be like, well, I don't know if I'm family with these people yet. Well, look, you're probably not on the first week granted. Okay? But I tell you, the Spirit does something. I don't know why, but I don't even know how.

But the Spirit does something. When you meet together with people, you study Scripture, you pray together, you share needs, the Lord just binds you to those people, man. This past summer, our home group, that Daniel and Caroline Souter led, we met in the home of Sean and Kim Webb. And man, you know, Kim, I'm not gonna put you on the spot so nobody look at Kim. Don't you dare look at her, don't you do it. She doesn't like it when you look at her. But man, I feel like, not just that I know you better, Kim, not just that I know your family better, but man, I really feel just personally like we're more family now. Like I can share things differently with you now than I could at the beginning of the summer. Which is kinda wild. Like there's not a whole lot of reason for that. I'm sure you feel the same way. I'm just gonna assume that. You don't need to over show that too much.

You can't now, it's too overdone. We have home groups so that people can see the gospel lived out in relationships. Because when people see the gospel lived out in relationship, it clicks for them in a new way. In a new way that is encouraging. Okay, dual heritage kid, savvy business woman, blue collar police officer with a near death experience and a social melting pot who's last.

Look at verse 10. Acts 17 verse 10. Says the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. So again, this is just normal practice here. Look at the next verse. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. Why, you say? They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. The Bereans are the academics. They wanted to know that they knew for sure. They wanted to know that they know that they know for sure. They wanted confidence from the outside to bolster their experience. They weren't satisfied with something like fun or something emotional or all that's great. They wanted to know why. And then look at the next verse. It says many of them therefore believed with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

Okay, so you also have a melting pot. And we see that distinction, right? Because when the gospel clicks for the Bereans, they are looking before they are leaping. Does that make sense? It's very convincing to them. They see, they experience, they see, okay Paul, I see you, I see this happening, this is powerful. It's clicking with me emotionally. I'm there, but I'm definitely not gonna leap until I look. I'm gonna triple check before I get there. I'm gonna 360 that thing. And for some of you, that is exactly how you came to the gospel. It was a 360 tour before you got there. The Spirit had to slowly prick your conscience. If you would have had some kind of wonderful, crazy near-death experience, the Lord knew, like you would have been kind of skeptical about that. This is something that you need to kind of walk through systematically. Some of you, like you plan out every minute

of your vacation. This might be you, okay? But you need, like you need the gospel to kind of sneak up on you a little bit. To kind of creep into your thoughts slowly so that you begin to kind of connect it with reality. Slowly. What does this all show us? What does this all show us? I'm gonna say it just shows us two big things. The first is that the gospel is not just for people like you. Sometimes whenever we show the gospel, when we share our story, when we look at somebody and if they're really different from us, we're like, I don't know if that's gonna take. Like we kind of do the Spirit's job. You're like, I don't know.

They're not from here. They don't have my experience. They won't believe me. But look, we see right here in Acts 16 and 17, the gospel affects a big city, professional business woman and a blue collar police officer. It affects Timothy's, a two heritage rich kid with the Bereans who are academics who are pulling out the magnifying glass. The gospel affects like we see in Thessalonica, Jews, Greeks, men, women, high, low social order, all the same. The gospel is not just for people like you. The gospel is for everybody. And let me just say, just to kind of piggyback on what I said last time, where I said there's 833 million Christians in the global north and there's 1.7 billion people, 0.7 Christians in the global south. The idea that the gospel is going out in the nation of Africa and that you don't even have a foundation to understand that. Like the gospel, the same gospel that you believe,

some guy on the Serengeti who has been there his whole life and will die there, he's heard the same gospel you've heard and believes just like you do. That is wild. The gospel's not just for Burleson, not just for small town America, or not just for, you know, evangelicals are not a voting block, man. We are people that have seen the Lord and are following after him. And yes, we have a particularly American expression of that, but let's not lull us into thinking that the gospel is not going worldwide and changing people, man. People are coming to the Lord.

The gospel's not just for people like you. The other thing I wanna say is why. Why? Why all these five different people? It's because, and why the guy on the Serengeti and me, it's because the gospel speaks to our fundamental problem. The gospel speaks to our fundamental problem whether we're in Walmart or on the Serengeti, we are all spiritually lost, we are all spiritually homeless. The gospel message is that Jesus is reaching out to us and that he wants us. Jesus, the one who knows us best, the one who's directing our whole life, the same one who has made the heavens and the earth, also desires a relationship with us. And Jesus, in all of his wisdom, has spoken to us in our context. And for me, I was a latchkey kid from Louisiana, man. And for Daniel, he was a coal miner's son from West Virginia, amen? Yeah, man. Look, on one level, man, we're not special. We're just people.

On another level, we're exceptional because we serve the king. So what's your story? Which one are you? How's the gospel come to you? Has the gospel come to you? Is the gospel clicking for you? Maybe for some of you, it's not. Maybe for some of you, it just started. I'm not sure. I'm not gonna pretend to know. In the middle of Acts 17, it kinda has this little verse. It's as they're getting strung up, as they're getting arrested and beaten, and this is before the earthquake in the Philippian jail. These are what people are saying about Paul and Silas and everybody that follow him. It says, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. They turn the world upside down. What a great thing to put on your headstone. What a great legacy to have. What part could you play in turning Burleson upside down? You think that if you would start to utilize those gifts a little bit,

do you think that if you would start to say, okay, Lord, I made this way, I have these gifts, how can you help me to use this for the gospel? If we're gonna see the gospel go out in power, in Burleson and in the surrounding area, if we're gonna plant churches in this area and beyond, if we're gonna do any of that, then we need to see the people around us, to understand that they are part of the plan and to ask ourselves seriously, how can they hear the gospel? What can I say? How can I help them understand? How can I help the gospel click for them in a way that hadn't clicked before? And for some of you, certain people are coming to mind. Maybe it's the neighborhood kids, maybe it's the coworker. For some of you, maybe it's the spouse. Maybe it's the dad or the mom. Maybe it's just the friend. How? How can they hear the gospel? How can they hear the gospel in a way that clicks?

The good news is, you and I don't have to be master presenters to make that happen. We have to pray and we have to listen to the Spirit and we have to open our mouths. Let's do that. For some of you, for some of you, that's a couple of steps down the road. You're like, Drew, I don't even know if I believe this thing yet. I don't even know if I'm there. I don't know if the gospel's clicking for me. Well, here's our encouragement. It can. It actually isn't that hard, but the Lord has to do a work. You have to pray toward that end. You have to want to.

During our time of response, and I'm gonna call the band back up. During our time of response, I want you guys to consider who the Lord is directing you toward. To consider if the Lord is calling you. If the gospel's clicking for you. If you need help doing that, we have a couch and a couple chairs back there, a couple lamps. I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to help you kind of figure it out. Any question is great. No questions are dumb. And so if you just want to start that process, if it just clicked for you, man, tell somebody. Tell me I'll be back there.

Let me pray for us. Lord, thank you for this morning. I pray that you would help us to listen to what you're saying, that the gospel would indeed click for us. That we'd hear your truth, and that it would speak to our hearts in a particular way. That we'd know. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to worship you. Help us to do that by giving our lives to you even more. Help us to see our community, to follow you more truly. Follow you even more. That's your name that we pray, amen.