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Good morning, Christ Church.
My name is Anita Scribner, and I attend the El Cerrito Community Group.
Will you read with me from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 14?
In Lystra, there sat a man who was lame.
He had been that way from birth and had never walked.
He listened to Paul as he was speaking.
Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed, and called out,
Stand up on your feet.
At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Laconian language,
The gods have come down to us in human form.
Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates,
because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd,
shouting,
Friends, why are you doing this?
We too are only human like you.
We are bringing the good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God,
who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them.
In the past, he let all nations go their own way, yet he has not left himself without testimony.
He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons.
He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.
Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over.
They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.
But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city.
The next day, he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples.
Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples
and encouraging them to remain true to the faith.
We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, they said.
Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and with prayer and fasting,
committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thank you for that, Anita.
Good morning, Christ Church.
My name is Andrew.
I'm one of the pastors here.
Will you join me in prayer as we come to hear what God has to say to us?
Father, we love you, and we are amazed at your deep love for us,
your incomprehensible, immeasurable love for us.
And Lord, we want to be people who bear witness to that love,
so show us how to do that in a place like this, the East Bay Area.
And would we do it for the glory of your name and for the good of our neighbors.
Be honored in the preaching of your word this morning, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, Christ Church, we are now at the point in the story of the Christian Scriptures,
in this book of Acts, where the first multi-ethnic, predominantly Gentile-led church has boomed, right?
And this unlikely church of Antioch in Syria, just north of Israel,
has actually become a resource church, a sending church,
sharing their wealth of resources with the mother church in Jerusalem,
and then also sending out Paul and Barnabas to extend Christ's witness across the Mediterranean.
And as much as we might think it's so cool, right?
It's so cool how this Jesus movement was crossing cultural boundaries and uniting once divided peoples,
we can't ignore the real challenges, though, that this must have presented.
I want you to think about this.
Think about this.
What was the apostles' initial strategy of mission in the early church?
Their initial strategy was to go into what?
Jewish synagogues in every city.
In every city they entered, they would go first into the Jewish synagogue,
and they'd preach that Israel's longed-for Messiah was the crucified and resurrected Jesus of Nazareth,
and that he was actually the Lord Yahweh himself.
Now, surely this was a radical message for a Jewish audience to receive,
but at least they had a framework for it, right?
They had a framework to receive this kind of message.
They already had an implicit trust in the Hebrew Scriptures.
They already shared a monotheistic conception of Yahweh.
They shared a moral, ethical framework, and they had an expectation already of a Messiah.
But where do you even start with people like these?
In Acts chapter 14, in Lystra, even further north above the Mediterranean in modern-day Turkey.
People who had never read the Jewish Scriptures,
people who believed in a whole pantheon of Greek gods,
people who believed that their own sexual activities far outside the boundaries of marriage
were actually acts of worship.
Where do you even start with people like these?
And I bring this conundrum up to us today, Christ Church,
because our situation here in the Bay Area, it's not so different.
While Paul was bringing the message of Christ to non-Jewish, pre-Christian cultures,
here in the Bay Area, we are called in the Bay to bring the message of Christ
to both Jewish and non-Jewish peoples, to both pre- and post-Christian cultures.
Gone are the days when we could safely assume some kind of, at least cultural,
Judeo-Christian background to work with when we're sharing about Jesus with a stranger.
At least here in the West, right?
We are now living in a pluralistic, international, cosmopolitan region of the world.
You know, in just my second month here serving at Christ Church back in 2018,
I remember meeting a visiting scholar from China.
I was tabling on Sproul Plaza at Cal, and I remember him saying to me,
he just came to our table, and he said,
you know, I don't know anything about Christianity,
but I'd like to learn more.
What kind of church are you?
And I kind of froze for a second,
because it took me a while to think, you know,
where do I even start?
Right before me, standing before me, was this guy,
this completely blank slate,
and I needed to take a second to think about where to even start.
And you know, it's not just my job to know where to start.
If you are a follower of Jesus, it's your job too,
and my job is to equip you to understand how to share the gospel in such a context as ours.
Because as the world is constantly changing around us,
as our culture is constantly changing around us,
it's incumbent upon us, the church,
to constantly evaluate how God's eternal word interfaces with God's ever-changing world.
And so the question that I want us to consider today is,
how does the church bear witness in a pluralistic city as diverse as ours?
Okay, how does the church bear witness to Christ in pluralistic cities as diverse as ours?
And from this early church example in Acts chapter 14,
I want to suggest that we bear witness in at least two ways.
I had a third point.
Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to get to the last five or six verses of this text.
So here are my two, from verses 8 to like 18.
First, we must bear witness in word and deed.
Okay?
First, we must bear witness in word and deed.
And second, we must bear witness of what is worthless and what is worthy.
All right?
So first, the church, we the church, particularly in this pluralistic context,
we must bear witness in word and deed.
Now, I honestly struggled here with how to say this, how much to say,
because the principle is extremely simple, but at the same time, super complicated.
So I'm going to do my best.
Let's look at verse 8.
Now, the very first thing we should notice is that Paul came here preaching.
He came here bearing witness to Christ in word.
This is the context in which this miraculous healing happens.
He's preaching the word of Christ.
And yet, when he sees an opportunity and looks into the eyes of a suffering human being,
lame from birth, he doesn't just see someone to convert with informational words,
but it says he looks directly at this man.
And he sees a person to love, a person to love with deeds of service.
He sees a whole person who needs a whole salvation.
You know, when it says that he saw that he had faith to be healed,
the word for healed is actually the same word as saved.
And so even as he is preaching, he does not hesitate to pause mid-sermon to bear witness,
not just to Jesus' saving words of truth, but also to Jesus' saving deeds of power.
And his witness in word is accompanied by a witness in deed.
And what does he do?
He miraculously heals this listener.
Now, to those of us who are acquainted with the New Testament scriptures,
this pattern should sound kind of familiar to us, right?
This model.
In Luke chapter 5, we have Jesus in the middle of teaching in a full house, right?
And then, boom, a paralytic just busts through the roof, right?
And Jesus says, rise, take up your mat, and walk.
And what?
He's saved.
Then in Acts chapter 3, Jesus has now descended,
and his followers are trying to figure out how to do church and be the people of God
while they wait for him to return, and Peter's on his way to the temple.
And on his way, he commands a lame beggar to stand up and walk,
and boom, he's saved as well.
And then what does Peter do?
He launches into a sermon to explain what happened.
See, this was the pattern of Jesus.
This was the pattern of his apostles in Jerusalem and beyond.
And this has got to be our pattern, Christ Church, as well.
This has got to be our pattern as well, bearing witness of Christ in word and deed.
But, of course, I'm aware that, you know, depending on our personalities and our dispositions,
this probably irks most of us because each of us has our own individual bents, right?
Our own individual bents toward either words or deeds.
For example, on the one hand, you know, you have right-leaning Christians,
or for you, it's right-leaning Christians,
who have tended to emphasize witnessing in word while neglecting to witness in deed.
After all, they say, how will others hear and know the good news of Christ
if we do not preach the truths and the doctrines of the faith with clear words?
Why show when we can tell?
We aren't a social services agency.
We aren't an orphanage.
We aren't a homeless shelter.
We're not a hospital.
Those are all fine and good.
But the church's distinct role is to preach Christ.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, you have your left-leaning Christians,
who have tended to emphasize witnessing in deed and to neglect witnessing in word.
After all, they say, how will others see and experience the good news of Christ
if we do not display the good fruits and the implications of the faith
with demonstrative deeds of service?
Why tell when we can show?
We're not all pastors.
We're not all preachers and theologians.
We're not all called to be teachers and evangelists.
Yes, that's good for some people in the church,
but the church, as the diversely gifted people of God,
is called to do so much more, right, than just preach.
So let me ask, who's right?
Who's right?
The Christians to the right or the Christians to the left?
Well, they're both right, right?
They're both right and yet they're both incomplete.
See, Scripture seems to talk about the church in two distinct ways.
In some instances, it speaks about the church organically,
simply as the whole people of God who are called to do everything God has called us to do,
to love God and to love our neighbor.
And yet in other instances in Scripture,
it speaks about the church as a more distinct institution,
with more distinct functions and the purpose of being a pillar of truth in the world
and organized, worshiping, even location-specific covenant community.
So this means that, yes, right-leaning Christians,
right-leaning Christians are absolutely right.
The church is an institution.
It does have a distinct role and calling to preach Christ.
So a church, you know, it might not have a specific program to serve refugees
and those seeking asylum.
It might not have a food pantry,
but that doesn't necessarily mean it's an unfaithful church.
A church that is not preaching the good news of Jesus, however,
now that is an unfaithful church,
no matter how many social services it offers.
And yet at the same time,
left-leaning Christians are absolutely right
that the church as an organism,
as the wide-ranging people of God,
we have a diverse calling to imitate Christ in a variety of ways
according to our gifts and our callings and our context.
While every single local church as an institution
must at least, at the very least,
be preaching the gospel and baptizing
and gathering around the Lord's table,
if these churches are not producing disciples
who are taught in the words of Jesus
to do everything,
everything that he commanded,
to do justice and to love mercy,
to walk humbly before their God,
to love God and neighbor in every way imaginable,
there's something off about that church.
A church that only produces Sunday worshipers
who don't engage their culture
and love their neighbors and communities
with their diversity of gifts.
A church that just preaches the gospel
in such a way that its people are not filled
with compassion for the unsheltered,
and orphans, and foster families,
and those who are differently abled,
and the many marginalized and oppressed peoples
that will always be amongst us.
Such a church is getting something miserably wrong
when it preaches a gospel that does not bear fruit
and make a movement in the city.
Faithful followers of Jesus,
the church as an institution
and as an organic people of God,
we have to bear witness of Christ in both,
in word and deed.
And this is why every Sunday here at Christ Church,
no matter what has happened in our city,
in this world, we will worship,
and we will pray,
and we will preach the truth of Christ.
And yet the burden of our entire mission of a church
does not simply rest on Sunday worship.
We want to form people,
we want to develop people
to be Monday through Saturday followers of Jesus
who are crushing it in their communities,
who are crushing it in their vocations
and in their spheres of influence,
not necessarily as, you know,
institutional reps of Christ Church East Bay,
but as the church, the church Catholic,
the people of God, followers of Christ.
And this is especially important
in a pluralistic context like ours.
It's imperative for us to witness in Christ,
to witness to Christ both in word and deed.
We can't just major on one or the other,
word or deed.
Yes, there may be a time
where it's better to witness in deed.
Yes, there may be a time
where it's better to witness in word,
but on the whole,
on the whole,
in such a diverse context as ours,
where people literally and figuratively
speak, you know,
countless cultural languages that are different,
we need to be conveying the good news of Christ
in both languages of word and deed,
to both show and tell the good news about Jesus
with the clarity of speech
and the visibility of action,
conveying to, you know,
a multiplicity of observers the truth
and the power of Christ.
So if your relationship with God,
if your relationship with God
and your outward engagement in the world
merely consists of, you know,
showing up at Project Peace
or serving at your local food bank,
then I want to challenge you
to equip yourself
to bear witness in word.
This coming fall,
we will be extending invitations
to a deeper,
more intentional mentoring
in the way of Jesus.
Let me know if you're interested.
Or just jump into Jonathan's Bavink group
or my Bavink systematic theology group.
Or maybe next time you're serving
alongside your neighbor
at your kid's school event,
serving alongside a neighbor
who doesn't know Jesus,
maybe try leading them
into a conversation about your faith
and about why Jesus means so much to you.
Try bearing witness to Christ in word.
But then if your relationship with God
and your outward engagement in the world
merely consists of, you know,
Bible reading
and getting your theology right
and getting into theological
and religious debates in person,
or maybe you're that person
who does it online on those forums,
I want to challenge you
to equip yourself
to bear witness in deed as well.
Put Project Peace Days of Service
on your calendar.
Chat with Sharon Pipkin
and Shea Gilbert
and our guest preacher
in a couple weeks
from Foster the Bay
to learn about how we can care
about foster families.
Join Catherine St. Clair and myself
and Bill Barnes and some others
on our Care Portal team,
which is going to directly
connect us to the needs
of hurting families
in Alameda County.
Get excited about this initiative
that Jonathan and Denise Yon
are launching
to help our professionals
integrate their faith
and their work.
See, Christchurch,
this is the kind of faithful witness
that our city requires.
Word and deed,
show and tell,
truth and power,
knowledge and experience.
Because if we ever only witness
in word but not deed,
no one's ever going to listen
to the truth of Christ on our lips.
And if we ever only witness
in deed but not word,
no one will ever understand
the power of Christ
in our lives.
So now with the remainder
of our time,
let's move on from the mode
of bearing witness
to the content
of bearing witness
in a city as diverse as ours.
We must bear witness
both in word and deed
and we must bear witness
of the worthless
and the worthy.
Look with me at verse 11.
When the crowd saw
what Paul had done,
they shouted in the Lycanian language,
the gods have come down
to us in human form.
Barnabas they called Zeus
and Paul they called Hermes
because he was the chief speaker.
The priest of Zeus,
whose temple was just
outside the city,
brought bulls and wreaths
to the city gates
because he and the crowd
wanted to offer sacrifices
to them.
Okay, so Paul,
he's bearing witness
to Christ in word and deed,
and the crowd goes wild.
In their minds,
this is something
only a god can do
and the only gods
that they knew about
were the Greek gods.
So they assumed
that Barnabas is Zeus
and that Paul is Hermes
and they prepared
to sacrifice bull offerings
to these two men.
But this is the exact opposite
of what Paul and Barnabas want.
They don't want
themselves to be worshipped.
They don't want Zeus
and Hermes to be worshipped.
They want Jesus to be worshipped.
So verse 14 says,
But when the apostles,
Barnabas and Paul,
heard of this,
they tore their clothes
and rushed out into the crowd
shouting,
Friends,
why are you doing this?
We too are only human like you.
We are bringing you good news,
telling you to turn
from these worthless things
to the living God.
Now again,
they aren't in a Jewish synagogue.
They're in a completely
different context here
in Leicester, right?
So I want us to notice
this approach that they take
in this place
where they didn't have
the same framework
that they were operating out of
with the people
they're speaking to.
I want us to notice
this approach.
They don't start with,
you know,
they don't start with
sinners,
fools.
They don't say,
stop sinning.
They don't say,
stop worshipping
your false gods.
You're breaking the Torah.
Did you know that?
You're breaking the Torah.
You're breaking the first
of the Ten Commandments.
Shame on you.
No.
What do they say?
They say,
friends.
Friends.
They approach these
pagan worshippers
as friends.
And they engage them
not by clobbering them
over the head
with their Christian doctrines
and telling them
how wrong they are,
but they simply ask a question.
Why?
Why are you doing this?
I mean,
can you imagine
if the history
of Christian outreach
was filled with this
kind of more gentle
spirit?
Why?
Can you tell me about that?
Like,
what if we treated those
who don't know Jesus,
what if we treated them
as friends,
right?
As rational human beings,
what if we pursued
good and deep conversations
with those who were
religious others
in our lives
simply using the
why question?
Not seeking to clobber
those who worship
differently than us,
but to genuinely
understand.
Understand those
who are different
than us.
Like,
oh,
you worship Zeus.
Huh.
Well,
you tell me about that.
Why?
Why do you worship Zeus?
How do you choose
in your great pantheon
of gods
who you worship?
What do you value?
Or how might this look
in our present-day context?
Where we've,
you know,
we've traded our
Greco-Roman pantheon
for the unholy trinity
of sex,
money,
and power,
haven't we?
Bowing down
to the altars
of approval
and appetite
and ambition.
What if we had deep
and meaningful
conversations
with our friends
and our families
exploring the gods
that we are all
tempted to worship?
Hey,
you seem really,
really invested.
You seem to have
really invested
a lot of your time
and your talent
and your treasure
in this or that,
right?
Your career,
your partner,
your children,
your hobby,
that life goal
that you have,
this lifestyle
that you want.
Can you tell me
about that?
Do you feel
it's been worth it?
Why do you value
what you value?
And how's that
working out for you?
Simple questions.
Get to know you questions.
See,
Paul and Barnabas,
they didn't need
to convince
their religious others
that the Torah
was God's word
right off the bat.
They didn't need
to do that.
They didn't need
to convince others
that they were sinners
for worshiping other gods
and neither do we.
That's not the first move
that we need to make.
As we go about
bearing witness to Christ
here in the Bay Area,
a powerful first step
is just to genuinely seek
to understand
the why question
amongst the people
we're engaging.
And what I found
is that as we listen
to others answer
that why question,
why do you value
what you value?
It opens doors.
It opens doors
for us to share
our answer
to the why question.
Why do I worship Jesus
above all else?
Look right here.
After Paul and Barnabas
ask why,
they're unafraid
to enter their own beliefs
into the arena, right?
They're unafraid
to enter their own good news
into this pluralistic
sea of ideas.
Hey, I'm curious
why you worship
Zeus and Hermes,
why you worship
what you worship.
And I'd also love
to share with you
why I worship
the one that I worship.
Verse 15,
friends,
why are you doing this?
We too are only human
like you.
They establish
common ground
and then they go ahead
and they speak their truth.
We are bringing you
our good news
telling you
to turn from these
worthless things
to the living God.
That's all they do.
Now, it does sound
a little bit offensive
though, right?
And that's because
it kind of is.
It kind of is.
But at the end of the day,
no one can be
completely neutral.
No one's going to be
completely neutral
at the end of the day.
If you're convinced
that one thing is true,
then you will necessarily
disagree with claims
that refute
what you're convinced of.
And after all,
if Barnabas,
not Barnabas,
sorry,
if Paul and Barnabas'
news to share
was the truth,
then it truly was
good news
to tell the crowd
to turn from
these worthless things
and unto
the living God.
They were just
speaking their truth
here with authenticity
and compassion.
And again, see,
we have to appreciate
that they're not
bringing this news
of condemnation
like, hey,
you're all going to hell
for worshiping
the wrong God.
They truly believe
that they are bringing
good news,
an invitation
to stop wasting
one's time
with what is worthless,
an invitation
to turn to the one
who is truly
worthy of worship.
For them,
it's not about
convincing others
of doctrines to believe,
but they're bearing
witness to what is
worthless
and to what is worthy.
They're doing it
out of compassion.
They're doing it
out of compassion.
The Greek word
for worthless
here could be
translated empty
or fruitless,
useless,
powerless,
futile.
And this is intentional.
This is an intentional
juxtaposition
to the living God.
It's really quite simple
for Paul and Barnabas
in Lystra.
And it can be quite simple
for us here
in the Bay as well.
They simply saw themselves
as bearers
of better news.
That's it.
They simply believed
that they had better news,
a better God.
God,
worship worthless things
or worship the worthy one,
the living God.
See,
bearing witness about Christ,
we don't need to be afraid of
or we don't need to get
hung up upon,
you know,
what if these people
I'm talking to,
what if they question
why they even need Jesus?
What if they don't believe
the Bible?
Or what if they disagree
about the Ten Commandments
or that they need
to be forgiven
or that there is judgment
for what the Bible
calls sin?
We don't need to worry
about those questions
right off the bat.
But simply,
we need to be convinced
that we have better news
of a better God.
That's all it takes
to be a witness of Christ,
to be convinced
that we have better news
of a better God.
But the question is,
are we convinced?
Are we convinced?
Is our God,
is the God of the Scriptures,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
is He truly better?
Is He?
Before I wrap up,
I want to share a story
that was well known
in Lystra,
and that the whole region
of what is now
modern-day Turkey,
they would have been
familiar with this
during the time of Paul.
It's a Greek hospitality myth
of Philemon and Bosis.
See, as legend had it,
Zeus and Hermes
had entered a city
not unlike Lystra,
and not far from Lystra,
but they had done so
disguised as ordinary peasants.
And they go into the city
seeking shelter,
but as these ordinary peasants,
they are rejected by
everyone in the entire city
until they come to this
humble cottage
owned by this old couple
named Philemon and Bosis.
And then after receiving
generous hospitality
from this poor couple,
they revealed to them
who they were.
And they told this couple,
Philemon and Bosis,
you need to go flee
up on the mountain.
So Philemon and Bosis,
they go flee on the mountain,
and from that mountain,
they watch the entire city
just wiped out,
destroyed by a flood,
and then they see
their humble little cottage
transformed into
a marvelous temple.
So I hope that
after hearing this story,
you can imagine
what was likely going on
in the minds
of the Lyconians
in seeking to offer
sacrifices here
to Paul and Barnabas,
whom they presumed
to be Hermes and Zeus.
These Lyconians were
simply seeking
to protect themselves.
They were acting
out of self-interest
and maybe even trying
to merit for themselves
ornate temples
through the sacrifice
of bulls
to their Greek gods.
So let me ask again,
are these Greek gods
whose existence
and history
threatened disaster
upon a lack
of hospitality
and a lack
of bloody sacrifice,
are these gods
better than the God
of the Scriptures?
are they?
Or are there any gods
that we all worship
and offer sacrifices to
now in the 21st century?
Are any of these gods
any better?
Like the God of money
who threatens disaster
upon us,
upon our insatiable appetites
if we do not sacrifice
to Him enough.
Or the God of sex
who threatens disaster
upon our need
for approval
if we do not sacrifice
to her enough.
Or the God of power
who threatens disaster
upon our ambitions
if we do not sacrifice
to Him enough.
See, to quote
the late atheist author
David Foster Wallace,
there is no such thing
as not worshiping.
Everybody worships.
The only choice we get
is what to worship.
And pretty much
anything you worship,
he says,
will eat you alive.
If you worship money
and things,
if they are where you tap
real meaning in life,
then you will never
have enough,
never feel you have enough.
Worship your body
and beauty
and sexual allure
and you will always feel
ugly.
And Wallace's point,
and he's absolutely right,
is that whatever we worship
will always be our master
and we will always be
his, her, or its
suffering slave.
But you know,
there is a God
whom we can worship,
whom we can bow down to
as our master
and yet who will not
eat us alive.
A master who is,
who even when we fail him,
is always wanting
to forgive us.
A master whose yoke is easy
and whose burden
is light
and who declares
that we are not just servants
but liberated children
of a good king.
A master who paid
for our very own liberation,
not through our own
bloody sacrifices,
but through the sacrifice
of his own blood.
And this is the living God
of Paul and Barnabas.
In verse 15,
who made the heavens
and the earth
and the sea
and everything in them,
who in the past
let all nations
go their own way.
Yet he has not left himself
without testimony,
but has shown kindness
by giving us rain from heaven
and crops in their seasons
and provides us
with plenty of food
and fills our hearts
with joy.
In short,
not a God
who always takes from us
far more
than he actually gives,
but quite the opposite.
Quite the opposite
of every other worthless God,
the one true worthy God
who has always given us
far more
than what he requires of us
and even wants us
to have all things
in Christ.
Christ Church,
this is the gospel.
This is the gospel,
the good news
that we get to bear witness to
in both word and deed.
Will you pray with me?