Noble Bereans

SERMON: 2015-02-08--ac15153--noble-bereans SOURCE DURATION: 00:34:47.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 4 ('Amen.') is the final spoken word of the sermon/closing remarks (a theological or ritual conclusion). Candidate 5 marks a clear transition to non-sermon music. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:30:06.820-00:30:11.940, 00:30:15.180-00:34:08.500, 00:34:12.100-00:34:46.000 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- The contrast between the Jews at Berea and the Jews at Thessalonica is, I think, extremely striking. In Thessalonica, Paul managed to preach for three weeks before he got chased out of town by the Jews. In Berea, the Jews not only listened to his message with great eagerness, but the Bible goes on to say that they examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul was saying is true. And so the results of his ministry in each of these places was very different. We read in chapter 17, verse 4, that in Thessalonica only some of the Jews were persuaded to come to faith. And then we read later on in verse 12 that many of the Jews believed. Quite a contrast, and it's no wonder then that Luke makes the observation in this particular passage that the Jews in Berea were of much more noble character than the Jews in Thessalonica. The Jews in Thessalonica just rejected it. The Jews in Berea studied it, embraced it, and many came to faith. And this morning, as we take a little time to prepare for the celebration of communion, I want to try to address three lessons that I think we can learn from these noble Bereans. Lesson number one, we need to be careful never to stereotype people. To stereotype, of course, means to paint people with one brush. It's to attribute to a whole group of people the qualities that you see in a particular individual. And given Paul's track record with the Jews everywhere he had gone, it wouldn't have been hard for Paul to become extremely cynical about the Jewish people. After all, most of them didn't want to come to faith. Most of them persecuted him. And yet, everywhere he goes, he starts his ministry by going to the Jews in the synagogue if there is a synagogue in that particular community. And as you know, he does that for two reasons. Number one, God said that the Jews have first dibs on the gospel. Only when they reject it does the gospel go to the Gentiles. But number two, he knows that while many of the Jews want nothing to do with the Lord Jesus and the gospel, there are always some that are willing to come to faith. And so those are the ones that he focuses on and he resists the temptation to paint everybody with the same brush. He continues to minister to the Jews knowing that while many want nothing to do with the gospel, there's always the occasional individual who really wants to come to faith. And I think there's a profound lesson there for us because none of us is immune to painting people with the same brush. I was thinking of that, for example, this past week with the radical nature of Islam. Just this past week, if you're following the news, the Jordanian pilot was burned to death live by ISIS. It was a horrific picture. And when you hear all of those stories about radical Islam, it's very easy from there to move into a place where you become suspicious of all Muslims as a group. And we can easily paint them with the same brush. But that's unfair because there are many Muslims, of course, who do not share those kinds of radical belief systems. Stereotyping is always dangerous. Think of the many people in the world, for example, who have authority issues because they were raised with an authoritarian parent and they assume all authority figures by definition are going to be just like their old man. Or think about all the men who are suspicious of women or all the women who are suspicious of men because they've had a bad relationship somewhere along the line. And so now they attribute that kind of cynicism to a much larger body. In the city of Toronto, just this past month, the police department has suspended the practice of what they call carding. I don't know if you've heard about carding, but carding is the policy where a policeman, if he didn't like the looks of you on the street, could detain you, question you, write down the information, put it on a card, and that will get logged into a database. And the reason for that is that if a crime happened then in that particular neighbourhood, you've got a database that you're working from in order to try to solve the crime. Sounds like a plausible solution. The problem is, of course, that in a lot of neighbourhoods, the majority of the people who are being carded are Blacks. Partly because that demographic in some areas is responsible for a great many of the crimes, but also partly because the police develop that kind of suspicion towards Black people. Black people are being carded at a rate of 10 times the white population. Now imagine yourself being a law-abiding Black person, and you get pushed into a corner, and you get hauled over, and you get quizzed, and you get recorded. How long before resentment towards policemen becomes a major social problem? We've heard of the riots in Ferguson. We've heard of the police shooting in New York. You know, we hear the stories. We understand the dynamics. But unless you're part of a culture where racial profiling happens, you don't really understand the narrative of other people. And so for you and me, as we do life, it's very important to recognize you cannot paint everybody with the same brush. What the Lord wants us to do is give us discernment so that we can actually judge people in a way that is fair and appropriate. We're not served well by being blind to people's faults. We're not served well by having a Pollyanna attitude that says, "Well, everybody's really nice." And if we would only treat them that way, you know, we have to have right distinction. I love the way the Apostle Paul puts it in Philippians chapter 1, the verses 9 and 10. He says this, "And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless, having love that abounds in knowledge and depth of insight." I try to make it a practice in my life to focus in other people's lives on their strong points as opposed to just their weak points. Yes, weak points often need to be addressed, they need to be cultivated, they need to be abandoned, they need to be strengthened. But if all we ever do is beat each other up in the places where we're weak, community falls apart. And what I look for, and I trust what you look for in somebody's life, is a place where people are yielded to the Lord, where they are surrendered knowing that we're all under construction, we're all in process, and the Lord Himself will call us forth to bear fruit for the glory of God. First lesson, be careful about stereotyping. Paul does not judge the Jews in every community the same way just because he got beat up by them in another situation. Lesson number two, we must know the scriptures, we must know the scriptures. Why does Paul call these Bereans more noble than the Thessalodians? Well, two reasons, we've talked about it. Number one, they received the word with gladness and eager anticipation. But number two, they went to the effort of studying the Old Testament scriptures. It says every day. And why did they go to the scriptures? To study them every day? Because they wanted to see for themselves that what Paul was saying was true. And there is a powerful lesson there for us because, as you know, just as well as I do, we live in a world where there are just so many competing truth claims. Isn't that true? I mean, there are some people who believe in a God, and there are some people who are equally convinced that there is no God. There are some people who are convinced that there are two genders, male and female, in the world, and there are many people increasingly now convinced that there are multiple genders in the world. It's whatever we make it to be. There are people who believe there is only one way to God, and there are people who believe all religions lead to God. And the danger with the competing truth claims that come at us through the media, that come at us through the newspapers, and just all the interactions in society, the problem is twofold, they always say. The danger on the one hand is that we embrace that which is not true, and that will lead us astray. And the danger on the other hand is to reject that which is true, because it doesn't line up with our experience or with our culture. Both are deadly, because from God's perspective, truth is truth. It's the way it is from God's perspective, and all the philosophies and all the theories of mankind aren't going to change the truth from God's point of view. And so the antidote to the day and age in which we live is for God's people to know the scriptures. The psalmist puts it this way, Psalm 119, verse 11, "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." Scripture is God's word, it is God's self-revelation, whereby he tells us the truth about who he is, he tells us the truth about who we are, and he tells us the truth about how the two parties can come back together. And I'm often astonished by how readily even good Christian people get caught up in philosophies that are way out of lunch, because simply they do not know the scriptures, they haven't taken the time to read the Bible, they aren't filled with the word of God, and they are like children tossed to and fro, and they lose their way because they haven't bothered to even sit down to read or to study the scriptures. Again, Psalm 119, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." And of course we all know 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17, all scripture is God-breathed, the word is inspired, God breathes his life into it, is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, that the man or the woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. God inspired the saints of old by his spirit, and though they write in their own style, and they write in their own particular emphases, their words are God-breathed, and safety lies in knowing the scriptures. Now practically speaking, that means work. You know, these Bereans made an effort at studying scripture. That's why all over North America you have churches called Berean Bible churches, because a lot of people capture this nobility of the Bereans and they say, "That's the kind of church we want to be where we can study scripture." And you and I, we need to take the effort and the time, particularly in this day and age, to be acquainted with scripture. It means reading it, it means studying it, it means expounding it, it means digesting it, it means sharing it with our children. And as many of you know, in earlier generations it was very common for families to sit around the table at dinnertime and read a chapter of scripture. I've told you my story how in my youth at our dinner and anytime we had a family meal, we'd read a chapter of scripture. If you read three chapters of scripture a day and five on Sunday, you get through the whole Bible in one year. And even if you stretch that out a little bit, you can get through the whole Bible in two years or in three years. And if you've never read through scripture from one end to the other, I strongly suggest that you do because God's wisdom needs to be imparted to God's people. And I would particularly encourage you to do that with your children. And if at all possible, I would encourage your children to memorize significant portions of scripture. My father used to say, "Learn the Bible while you're young because when you're older, it's a lot harder to memorize." And I have to tell you, he was right. Most every verse of the Bible that I know by heart, I learned before I was 20 years of age. After that, it's much, much tougher. And so I really encourage our children's programs, for example, to incorporate scripture memory because once that word is laid up in your heart, the Holy Spirit can call it forth when it's needed. And you have a lot of wisdom by which to measure the spirit of the age. We need to avoid stereotyping. We need to be serious about the pursuit of scripture. And a third lesson that I think we learned from this passage, and I think the most important one, is that the purpose of scripture is to lead to Jesus. Why were these Bereans so dedicated to studying the scripture? Because they wanted to see if what Paul was saying was true. What was Paul saying? He is saying, "Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and raised by God on the third day, is the long-promised Messiah of which the prophets spoke, of which Moses spoke. He is the fulfillment of everything that you find in the Old Testament. He is the judgment of God upon the nations, and he is the reward of God upon the righteous. And it is by faith in him that you come to salvation." So these Bereans weren't just taking his word for it. No, they dug into the scriptures. They were willing to take their own world and life view shaped by many, many centuries of Jewish thought. And they were willing to subject it to Paul's teaching and cross-check it with the references of scripture. And they discovered that what Paul was saying was true. And they embraced Jesus and came to faith. And that's a profoundly important lesson there. Because as you well know, there are many reasons why people study the Bible. You can study the Bible for its history. And the Bible gives us an incredible insight into ancient history. In fact, just this week in Jerusalem, in the Bible Ends Museum in Jerusalem, there is a display of 200 clay tablets that are 2,500 years old that hail back to the time of the Jewish exile in Babylon. And here is a picture of what that looks like. There's the tablet sort of in focus. I think it looks a little bit like my shredded wheat when I eat it in the morning. But these clay tablets record the history of Jewish transactions during the time of the exile. And they contain a significant number of names that you find in the Old Testament minor prophets. Scholars are saying this is the second most important archaeological discovery since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls back in the 1940s. So yes, there's a lot of history in the Bible. And it's perfectly valid to be reading the Bible for its historical value. Some people read the Bible for its literature because it qualifies as some of the grandest literature in the world. Some people read the Bible because they want moral guidelines. How should I live? And for encouragement and inspiration. And again, all of these are very valid reasons for reading and studying the Bible. But they pale in comparison to the single most important reason for reading the Bible. And that is that scripture leads to Jesus. Because at the end of the day, it's not scripture that saves you. It's not your knowledge of history that's going to make you a better man or a woman. It's not your being enamored by the prose of literature that will change your life. And it's not knowing what it is that God wants that's ultimately going to make you a holy man or a holy woman. The only one who can change you is Jesus. And the purpose of scripture is to point us to Jesus to show the truth about God, the truth about ourselves, and how Jesus bridges the gap that brings the two of us together. And so Jesus puts it this way, addressing the religious teachers of his day in John 5, 39, and 40. He says, "You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." The Apostle Paul echoes that same thought in 2 Timothy 3, 15, where he says, "From infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ." Very important for us to understand that at the end of the day, it is Jesus who saves. And honestly, I don't care how much or how little you know about the Bible. I don't care how deeply doctrinal or profoundly theological you are. The world is filled with people who know far more about the Bible than any of us will ever know in the course of our lives. And they are just as cold-hearted and as pagan as ever. Because the scripture is only valid if it brings us to Jesus. And it does that by showing us our sin. It does that by showing how Jesus is the answer to that sin. And it does that by changing and transforming our lives from the inside out. And as in a few moments we turn to communion, I want to share with you a true story taken from an email that both Valerie and I received from a young woman just this past week. This is a young woman that I've had the privilege of walking with for a number of years now. Comes out of a history of radical abuse, sexual abuse. It's a very, very bad story. And as is so often the case, that has broken things in her that has led her to make very unwise decisions. And one very unwise decision that she made quite a number of years ago was to enter into an adulterous relationship with a married man. And over the last number of years we've been walking through the flashbacks, the guilt and the shame. And we have called on the Lord Jesus for forgiveness and at many levels of her life that's been taking root. But still deep down there is that sense of shame. How could I do some of the things that I have done? Roll the clock forward two weeks ago when Valerie was preaching about chasing away the birds of prey. She lives in another community. She was watching her service online and was powerfully gripped by this image of it is finished. And writing this on the stick to chase away the birds of prey. A lot of you are here. You remember the message. It was profoundly powerful in the Holy Spirit, I believe. Roll the clock forward to next week. She's now attending her own worship service in the church that she is a part of. And in the middle of the praise and worship section of that service, she has one of those moments of revelation where Jesus by his Holy Spirit makes himself real. And I want to share her description of it in her own words. She says today in church I had one of those moments, those moments of I know God's here. We were singing a song that we've sung a hundred times, a song I've cried over plenty of times before. A song I've more than once put on repeat because it reverberates so powerfully with my soul. But today it was a line that I've not spent a lot of emotional energy on before. It's the song How Deep the Father's Love for Us. You will recall we sang that earlier this morning here. And the line I know that it is finished. Of course she says the curse of sin is finished. Jesus himself said it on the cross. But today I know it is finished. Today I felt a peace inside of me. Now that it is finished. She goes on to describe how the pastor in her church has been inviting her to step into a leadership position. And every time she responds by saying, I'm not ready. I'm way too broken. I can't even consider it. I can't even look at myself in the mirror without thinking about the fact that I committed adultery with a married man. I had painted myself a bright red A that seemed to shine a bit brighter when these sorts of churchy leadership discussions came up. She goes on to describe as she began to reflect on it that she was much stronger this year than she had been in other years. And goes on to relate that and so today in church when we sang those words I know that it is finished. I felt like a light was shining on this spot where the red A used to be and it was gone. I think somewhere along the way I knew I'd lost it. But today I really knew the shame I've carried about that whole relationship all tied up with pain and pride and desire. It's finished. It's finished. And I know it. And then I sat there in church with a stupid little grin on my face because it's finished and I know it. I almost laughed out loud. I wanted to stand up and shout, hey people, it's finished. That junk that I've been carrying mostly in secret, it's gone. Let's be joyful together. And then she goes on to relate that as she came forward to communion the song that was being sung as she came forward is the song unashamed because of mercy. That's my Jesus. And that's your Jesus. Pray with me. Father, we're so grateful for Jesus. And we're so grateful for the scriptures that point us to Jesus. And as now we enter into the celebration of communion we pray, Father, that the Lord Jesus would meet us in the places where we most need him. You know those places where we feel alone or those places where we feel ashamed or those places where we have long settled for the status quo. Those places where our dreams have died. Those places where we have numbed out indeed. Those places where we have just posted along. But Lord, you also know those places where there's a flickering of light. Those places where you've rekindled hope. Where you've given us a glimpse of the future. Where you've shown us that you're real. That you care. That you have compassion for each one of us. That you know our frame. You know that we're dust. You know our limitations. You know the things that we hate about ourselves. You know the places of our pride and the places of our arrogance. The places where we can't even get hold of ourselves to surrender to you because it's just too deep and it's just too far gone. But Lord, in Christ you've done everything. You've made us alive by faith in him. And we're joined to him by faith. You grant us the Holy Spirit. And you've promised that if we ask we will receive. If we seek we will find. If we knock it will be opened. And so Lord, we pray this morning that you surprise us with joy. That as we sing our songs of praise to you. That in the deepest places of our hearts and lives you will impart a measure of your grace. Because Lord, it is grace. You tell us it's not because of work. So we're not coming to you because we've been good. We're not coming to you because we've kept all your laws and we have obeyed you. If anything, that hinders our coming to you. And so we come just as we are with our places of sin and with our places of brokenness and we acknowledge that we are what we are. But Lord, we believe you. We believe Jesus. We believe that he died and that he arose to give us new life. And so as we share this time together in the quietness of these moments Lord, embrace our hearts. Give us through your spirit out of the rich abundance of Jesus that which we need. To love you more perfectly. To serve you better. And to be to our family and our friends and to our communities. The kind of loving disciples of Jesus that only he can make us. And then Father, we will leave this place with gladness and joy knowing that we have met with you and we have met with each other. And all is well with our souls because you are our God and we are your people. And Father, we'll be careful to give you the praise through Jesus. Amen. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:30:06.820; remove through 00:34:47.000] [Music] Let the weak say, "I am strong." Let the poor say, "I am rich." Let the blind say, "I can see." It's what the Lord has done in me. Let the weak say, "I am strong." Let the poor say, "I am rich." Let the blind say, "I can see." It's what the Lord has done in me. Hosanna, hosanna to the Lamb that was slain. Hosanna, hosanna, Jesus died and rose again. Into the river I will wait. There my sins are washed away from the Heaven's mercy stream of the Savior's love for me. Hosanna, hosanna to the Lamb that was slain. Hosanna, hosanna, Jesus died and rose again. And I will rise from waters deep into the saving arms of God. I will sing salvation songs. Jesus Christ has set me free. Hosanna, hosanna to the Lamb that was slain. Hosanna, hosanna, Jesus died and rose again. Hosanna, hosanna to the Lamb that was slain. Hosanna, hosanna, Jesus died and rose again. [music] [music] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:34:47.000; resume after this marked segment]