This week was held before my eyes a tale of two different congregations. You'll recognize the research here. The congregation I want to tell you about is a 17th century congregation. The other congregation is one that Sandy brought to my notice that's a 21st century congregation. The first was the church pastored by the great 17th century Anglican poet and pastor George Herbert. He wrote in his diary tearfully one Sunday night at the close of the Lord's Day, I do not know which is harder, the marble pews in my cathedral or the hearts of my people when it comes to receiving the word. The second congregation, Sandy brought me an article this week about Capitol Hill Baptist Church. It's a glorious congregation, pastored by Dr. Mark Dever in Washington, D.C. It's very much like this church. And the writer who wrote the piece about it was amazed that here was a congregation, a thousand people jammed into a small space, And that they, week after week, morning and evening, came with their Bibles open. The author of the article said, I struggled to find one person who walked in the door who didn't have a Bible with them. And for over an hour, Dr. Dever preached this very close, tightly reasoned, applicatory, expository sermon. And the writer was astounded that in the 21st century, people would listen, sit still, and be actively engaged for well over 60 minutes. This morning, we're going to see a congregation that is exactly like that. Their hearts are soft and pliable. They are eager to receive the Word of God. And we'll look deeply at them, seeking to be instructed by their model, conformed to their pattern. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are profoundly aware today that if you do not send the Holy Spirit in power to open our eyes and give us understanding of this text, we will remain in a spiritual slumber. We will leave no better than we came, in fact, more hardened if you do not assist us by giving us concentration and remembrance and even opening our minds and hearts. And so, Lord, we especially plead that you would enable us to carefully grasp how this word applies to us at Woodrow Fred in our homes, on our jobs, in our relationships, especially in your church. We pray with great expectation of blessing, and grace and growth. We pray in the name of our only Savior and mediator, Jesus. Amen. Look with me at Acts 17 as we continue our ongoing exposition of this glorious book. If you'll remember, if you've been with us The Apostle Paul has just left part of his mission team in Philippi. He left Luke there. The Apostle Paul is on his second lengthy missionary journey. We could better call it an evangelism and church planting tour. And now he has with him still part of his team, Silas and Timothy. Paul and Silas, as they leave Philippi and they head for Thessalonica, they are bruised and battered. They were beaten with rods and in prison in Philippi. And so as they limp along to Thessalonica, they do so with broken bones, severe contusions, blood loss, and much more. Their time in Philippi was certainly not encouraging to them, but they're undaunted. Jesus told them to expect persecution and opposition and hardship, and so they continue. They press on, headed for Thessalonica, a hundred miles away. One of the things that always encourages me as I study the missionary journeys of Paul is the sheer perseverance of Paul and his teammates as they're beaten rejected and run out of town and they simply go to the next place and do it all over again. These men had courage and stamina. Our age is so quick to give up on gospel tasks. But these men had stamina, physical stamina, mental stamina, emotional stamina, and of course, all that was the work of the Holy Spirit. They head toward Thessalonica, a city of 200,000 people, an incredibly strategic city. And I want to think about Paul's strategy, first of all, why he goes to Thessalonica. Paul goes right through, if you look at our text in verse 1, he goes right through two major cities, Amphipolis and Apollonia. And he doesn't slow down. Both cities were full of people needing the gospel. But Paul has a strategy. These cities would hear the gospel as it radiated out from an effective church plan in Thessalonica. Being appointed as the apostle to the Gentiles meant that Paul was faced with the whole world as his mission field. There's no way he could reach it all in his lifetime. So he had a strategy. His strategy was to go to the key population centers of his day and then encourage those churches to radiate out in their region and plant daughter churches in the whole Balkan Peninsula. And part of what made Thessalonica where he's headed so strategic, it was a business center. It was a commerce center. It was the Wall Street of the Greek world, rivaled only by Corinth. And it was located on several important trade routes. It had an excellent harbor. And you'll notice that as Paul comes to Thessalonica, what he does in verse 1 is he goes straight to the synagogue. Even though he's the apostle to the Gentiles, he always goes to the Jewish population of any city first. Remember what he says in Romans 1, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God for everyone who believes to the Jew first and then to the Greek. Part of this strategy of going to the synagogue first is driven by Paul's sheer love for his fellow Jews and his desire that they be converted. You remember what he says in Romans 11.1, brothers, my heart's desire for Israel is that they might be saved. And part of this, the reason why he goes to the synagogue first, is an acknowledgment of their unique role in redemptive history. The Jews are the recipients, the guardians of God's revealed Word. They also have the moral law, the covenants and the promises. He also goes to the Jews first, because he knows he has that point of common connection. He can open the Old Testament and appeal to that authoritative document. The synagogue system, of course, served in the first century as sort of an extension campus of the temple in Jerusalem until that temple was destroyed in 70 AD. In synagogues all over the Mediterranean in North Africa, no sacrifices could be done. That could only be done in the temple. But Jews could assemble for prayer, to hear the Old Testament scriptures read and explained, and even to exercise church discipline. Any city where there were 10 Jewish men could have a synagogue. So look at what Paul does. Look at his message, his model, his method when he comes to Thessalonica. Look at what he does. And I want you to look at the whole context, verses 1-14, and notice several things about his method and his message with me. The first thing I want you to notice is Paul's method was verbal. Look at the key verbs in verses 2-4. They sound like this. Reasoning. Explaining. demonstrating, persuading. Those are the active verbs in verses 2 through 4. Paul's approach is orderly, systematic, and intelligent. And so look at these verbs. The word translated reasoned means that Paul presented careful arguments from Scripture. The word translated explained means to open up. So Paul takes what was formerly closed and he makes it transparent. He doesn't fall into the trap of weak point, shout louder. No, he appeals to their minds. He knows that you reach the person through the mind. That's the way God has designed us. Paul doesn't fall for the bumper sticker cliche, preach the gospel, use words if necessary. No. He knows that the only way that you preach the gospel is verbally, by words, by propositions. He knows that men are only saved through hearing the verbal declaration of the facts of the gospel and then believing them. And so the first thing that you should notice about Paul's method is he is constantly verbal. Over the years, we've had people come here and say, Well, you guys do so much word ministry. Morning, you preach the word. Evening, you preach the word. Wednesday night, you do a Bible study. Then there are Bible studies through the weeks. Don't you get tired of the word? No. That's all we have. This is the biblical method, is to be saturated continuously, regularly in the teaching, preaching, studying, explanation, reasoning of the word. And then notice, that we could say about Paul's method, not only is it verbal, but it's biblical. Look at verses 11 through 13 when Paul comes to Berea. Look at all the words that are clues that tell us that Paul is biblical. These are more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness, they search the scriptures, and then we read that Paul preached. And so what we are to see is that Paul is not only verbal, but he's not just a talker. He's talking about the Scriptures. He's biblical. He began and ended with the Scriptures. He knew that only the Scriptures have power and authority. He knew there was nothing more effective that he could do than open up the Word. So he opens up the Old Testament. That's the only Bible he would have had. and showed them text after text, just as Jesus had done on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Paul was an Old Testament scholar of the first rank, and he had mastered the Word of God, and that's what he had to give them. Now I want you to look at the content of his message. It was largely Christocentric. Look at verse 3, and you can get a clue, once again, of what Paul's message was. Now what's interesting is, is neither he nor Peter, when we've seen his sermons earlier, nor Stephen, when we've seen his sermons earlier, did this. They don't tell stories about themselves and their kids. In the last few years, Sandy and I worshipped at a church where the minister, I kept count, I know you're going to say, Carl, come on. Thirteen stories in one sermon. Thirteen. I'm sitting there making checks. Thirteen. At the end of that sermon, I knew an awful lot about him and his kids, and I knew nothing about Jesus. It was tragic. And I thought, as Cindy and I left the building, I said, you know, Cindy, I don't think we're that interesting. I don't have, if you ask me, I couldn't put together four stories about us, and maybe two about my kids. And my thought was, after I heard this sermon, I thought, you know, the scriptures are always far more interesting than stories about you and your kids. And look at verse 3. What does Paul major on? He doesn't tell stories about his boyhood and his feelings and the struggles he's going through. He talks about Jesus. That's the apostolic message. Look, for example, in verse 3. Here's what Paul zooms in like a laser beam on. He zooms in on the death and resurrection of Christ. In fact, technically, look what Paul does. He deals with the necessity of the death and resurrection of Christ. He explained and demonstrated that the Christ had, He must suffer and rise again. So, technically what Paul focuses in on is the necessity of the substitutionary atoning work of Christ and the necessity of the visible bodily resurrection. By the way, Paul is simply repeating what Jesus had said in Luke 9.22. Why is the death of Christ a necessity? Why did Paul do that? Well, to fulfill prophecy, it's a necessity to accomplish God's decree. It's a necessity to atone for the sins of men. Why is the resurrection a necessity? To fulfill prophecy, to prove that Christ's atoning death was acceptable. But notice what else Jesus does. He doesn't just focus on the death and resurrection. Look at verse 7. We can get a hint about what else Paul had been preaching about Christ. He had been preaching about the kingship of Christ. Look at verse 7. We read that the rulers of the city make this charge against Paul. Jason has harbored them, and they are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, namely Jesus. Even though the charge was falsely informed, as though Paul and Silas and Timothy are engaging in sedition, even though Jesus had clearly said his kingdom was not of this world, It shows that Paul had been talking about the kingship of Christ. Paul would have talked about the three offices of Christ, that Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. Remember, Paul was consumed with Christ. And so he would have talked about the death and resurrection, the three offices, Christ as creator, Christ as judge. That would have been what filled his time. He would have spoken of Christ as king, as one who is sovereign. One who had a kingdom, whose kingdom extended to all nations. One whose kingdom lasts to eternity. One whose kingdom is a kingdom of peace and righteousness. Notice what else is part of Paul's message. Not only does he talk about Christ, the death and resurrection of Christ, the kingship of Christ, he talks about relentlessly the Bible and its authority. Look at verse 2. Verse 2, we read that he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. And again in verse 11, when he comes to Berea, he is with the Bereans, searching the Scriptures. And so I hope you are starting to get a filled out picture of what Paul's method is. As he is going to be standing there, I start to say, Bible in hand, scroll in hand. driving his hearers back to the Scripture relentlessly, always pushing the primacy, the exclusivity of Scripture. That's his method. There's one other thing you should notice about Paul's method and that is his pastoral model. Look at verse 14. Paul now is getting run out of the second place, Thessalonica and Berea. And as he's getting run out, what is his great concern? Paul doesn't evangelize people and then just leave a bunch of new Christians in town. No. Notice what he does. In verse 14, he leaves pastors in place for churches who are not yet ready to stand on their own. So he doesn't leave one, but two, Silas and Timothy in Berea to shepherd this large congregation. We know it's a large congregation because look at verse 12. Therefore, many of them believe. So Paul says, I'm not going to leave. I don't know what that is, hundreds maybe. I'm not going to leave this large congregation of new believers alone, so he leaves them two pastors. This is the same thing Paul just did with Luke, leaving him in Philippi. You see, the apostles' great concern is not just to make converts, but to see them in their households baptized, and then to see them taught and shepherded. Isn't that the threefold mandate of Jesus in the Great Commission? Make disciples, that's evangelism. Baptize them that's the sacraments and teach them everything that Christ has commanded. That's ongoing pastoral Christian education But I wouldn't be telling you the whole story if I didn't show you what comes with the gospel look at verses 5 through 8 Paul's in Thessalonica. He's having gospel success. We read in verse 4 that a great multitude of people are coming to saving faith Jews Gentile God fears and so out of envy and Envy, we are told, in verse 5. The Jewish leadership incites a mob, wicked men, probably hires them. Envy, of course, was what incited Joseph, in the book of Genesis, brothers to attempt to kill him. Envy was what drove the Sanhedrin to arrest and murder Jesus. And in this picture of trouble in verses 5 through 8, we have introduced to us Jason. in verse 5, one of the unsung heroes of the New Testament. He's a supporter of the missionaries, a native of Thessalonica, and one who's been hosting, according to verse 7, look what we're told there, Jason has harbored them. He's been hosting Paul, Silas, and Timothy. And he's the one who, in verse 9, posts Baal. for the apostles, probably guaranteeing that Paul will leave town without causing any further trouble. What is fascinating in verses 5 through 8 is how these Jewish leaders, just like the Sanhedrin did with Jesus, will resort to all kinds of lies, we see that in verse 7, and wicked methods, rounding them up with a mob in verse 5, in order to suppress the truth. They charged the apostolic team with sedition, which is false, but if proven was a death penalty offense. The lesson we should learn is never be surprised if you're proclaiming Christ and others will lie about you and make false accusations and use wicked methods against you. And then look at verse 13. The trouble follows Paul. He goes to Berea. The same exact strategy is employed again. The Jewish leaders follow the missionary team. Isn't this amazing? Here are these Jewish leaders in Thessalonica. They have nothing better to do than to go from town to town. This week Sandy and I were watching the World Cup. I know that lowers us in many of your eyes, but we actually were watching the World Cup. We kept looking at each other and saying, who are these people who can fly all the way to Brazil and spend a month watching soccer? But here are these people who, when you look at the text, you want to say, who are these people who have nothing better to do than to leave their vocations and their homes and follow Paul around and harass him? They have nothing better to do. Don't they have families? Don't they have jobs? But these Jewish leaders follow the missionary team 45 miles. from Thessalonica to Berea, and they do the same thing. They stir up mobs and have them run out of town. But I want you to notice the trouble, how the trouble is now shifting as the book of Acts goes on. At the early part of the book of Acts, before the Jewish leaders, anytime somebody would dare to preach Christ, they would drag and beat and attack apostles or leaders. Stephen, Peter, John, Barnabas, Paul. Now, notice very carefully because you should mark this, this represents a shift in the book. Now the attack moves to rank and file Christians. Look at verse 5 and 6. Now we have Jason being attacked and we have lay people being attacked. And what we have is the systematic, extensive persecution of the church going on. Why is this? Well, Jesus taught this in John chapter 15. He taught that the world is going to hate the believer because the believer is associated with Christ and the world hates Christ. And they also hate the believer because the believer's message turns the world upside down. That's what we're told in verse 6. It changes values and beliefs and behaviors and hopes and family systems and cultures. You'll notice that our context ends in verse 14 with Paul being run out of town. Now for the third time on this mission trip, on this single trip, Paul has been run out of town. First Philippi, then Thessalonica, now Berea. And this region, Macedonia, was where Paul received a divine call to go. So does he give up and go home? Unthinkable. Paul presses on to the next location, Athens, the center of Greco-Roman culture. Paul's progress is like wildfire. Trying to stamp it out in one place just sent the embers flying to ignite elsewhere. Paul had the same attitude as that great 19th century missionary to the center of Africa, David Livingston, who said, I am prepared to go anywhere with the gospel of Jesus as long as it is forward. That was Paul's model. But what I want us to do for the next few of our remaining moments is to study these Berean Christians in verse 11 and 12. I've intentionally saved them for the last. Something very rare happens in our text. I can't impress upon you how unusual this is. Look at verse 11 and 12. The Holy Spirit pays a compliment to a specific group of people in verse 11. These, meaning the people at the synagogue in Berea, were more fair-minded. Many of older translations say they were more noble than those in Thessalonica. When that happens, when the spirit pays such a compliment, I would urge you to sit up and take notice. This compliment is paid to them because of the attitude and the practice they display. And I want you to think with me why the spirit does this. The Jewish synagogue attendees in Berea received the Word, the Old Testament, with readiness. They didn't immediately dismiss Paul's preaching just because it didn't agree with their traditional understandings. Then, they searched the Scriptures. Look carefully at verse 11. They received the Word with all readiness and they searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. They, they, the congregation, searched the Scriptures for verification. They were not gullible. They were researchers. This would have involved, since they didn't possess their own personal scrolls of the Old Testament, most of you probably have your own Bible at home. If you're like me, I counted, it's been a couple of years ago, I counted, I own 13 Bibles. You're probably like me. It's no trouble. I've got a Bible sitting on my nightstand, a couple in my office at home, about 10 or so in my office at the church. It's never a problem for me to do research. These people, to do what we read in verse 11, it would involve them getting up, getting out of bed, walking down to the synagogue, opening the scroll and doing research there, checking and cross-checking. By the way, without an index, a concordance, and many of them, according to verse 11, would have been involved in this. The loveliest sound to me in all the world is when I'm preaching and hear people researching, checking, pages of Bibles turning. And notice what we're told about them as well in verse 11. Daily that means on Monday. They were up at the synagogue checking the scroll Tuesday. There they are back again They were consumed by their desire to know the truth and this was a daily preoccupation and then look at verse 12 What's the result of the starts of the scriptures many? There's that word that drumbeat through the book of Acts many many many Many of them believe the bottom line all their hearing and study and research was to embrace the Christ they found there in the Old Testament and to trust Him fully. They didn't search the Scriptures to doubt or to argue, but to believe. Now notice what's said of these Bereans. They weren't moved by emotional stories or tear-jerking music, but by the Word. I want to make one application to us from this text. How can you and I be more like these noble Bereans? How can we learn from their example? And I want to give several answers to that question by way of application. First of all, listen to the preaching of the word with an open Bible. There is no authority that we have in this pulpit insofar, except as it is derived from the word of God. It worries me. It worries me greatly, actually, when I speak at different places, and I'll open the Bible, and I'll read the text, and I'll begin to preach, and I'll look out, and people don't have a Bible, and the ones who do don't have it open. And I want to say to them, you don't know me. You don't know if you should listen to me. You don't know if anything I have to say is worthwhile. I hope you didn't come to hear me. God is the one worth listening to, and He only speaks by His Word, so I'll wait a few seconds while you grab a Bible. Incidentally, you don't want to be at a church where you can listen to sermon after sermon and it doesn't matter if your Bible is open. You don't want to be at a church where the preaching is not pulling you into the text to see it, to listen to it, to find connections. The best stuff in every sermon should arise from the truth you see in the text, not from illustrations, stories, or the preacher's own enlightenment. Second, how can you be more like these noble Bereans Don't rush on from the Word of God to the rest of your life. The Bereans saw the Scriptures as something that deserved their attention. It merited time and effort. They examined it daily. They weren't skimming. They were searching. And to do that, you have to give yourself unhurried time in the Word. Third, how can you be more like these noble Bereans? Get in the Word as a way of life. The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily. They came to the Bible and they kept coming back. So I would ask, is there a frequency and a consistency to your spiritual consumption? You will not make progress in godliness without persistence in God's Word. Why did the Bereans go every day? Presumably because they wanted to know the truth. They believed they would learn something from the Scriptures they couldn't learn anywhere else. Fourthly, how can we be like these noble Bereans? You must approach the Bible, the reading and preaching of it with eager expectation. The Bereans, we are told, receive the word with all readiness, eagerness. You can tell, by the way, when somebody's in a conversation or you can read their body language, if somebody is tipped back, arms crossed. You know what that says, don't you? It says bored, disinterested. But if somebody's leaning forward, whether in a conversation, in the preaching of the Word, your posture says something. It indicates whether you're ready to learn or whether you're distracted. The Bereans had, we would say, good posture. They were on the edge of their seat, ready to receive the Word. There's been no movement of the Holy Spirit in the history of the Church. that didn't result in a hunger for God's Word. I've seen it many times. When God grabs a hold of someone's life, you see it in their newfound eagerness for the Word. They're excited to read, to study, to learn, to grow, to hear the preaching of the Word. And they get into the Word whenever they can. Sunday morning, yes. Sunday night, yes. Bible study, Sunday school, yes, yes, yes. I want the Word. I'm eager for it. The fifth way that you can be like these noble Bereans. Be prepared to study the Word deeply. These Bereans examined the Scriptures. Look at the Word in verse 11. We are told that they searched the Scriptures. The word that's translated here, searched, refers to a legal research process like a trial. It's an in-depth, intelligent sorting out of the scripture. Many of you will work so hard in many other areas. You'll work hard to learn a language, to get a degree, to practice an instrument, to study for your engineering boards or your medical boards or your law boards, or train for sport. But how hard will you work to understand and dig and examine the scripture? My friend, I'm not calling you to be the smartest person. It doesn't say that the Bereans were more noble because they were all 4.0 students. It's not about being smarter. It's about digging deeper and studying. A sixth way you can be like these noble Bereans is be confident, that you are able to study the Bible and discover the truth of God's Word. Some of you have questions about this. Scripture is a closed book. My friends, this is one of the things that the Reformers fought and died for is the perspicuity of Scripture. The Reformers taught us that the Bible is an open book to the Christian. There's the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Sure, we have to be diligent with means. We need to learn good habits of study and exegesis. We need to learn from gifted teachers that God puts in our midst. But we need to always remember the Word of God is accessible to ordinary people. That's what the Bereans were convinced of. They were ordinary people 2,000 years ago who believed they could study the Scripture and come to the meaning of it. If we're to learn from them, we must be confident we are able to study the Bible and discover the truth of God's Word, that He's not trying to hide truth from us. The seventh lesson we can learn from these noble Bereans Be humble enough to take the Bible at its word no matter who you are. One of the interesting things that we see twice in this text, look at verse 4. We read there that some of the leading women came to saving faith. And then again in verse 12, prominent women as well as men. What we are being taught here is it doesn't matter your social station. that the people who are commended are those people who, no matter their station in life, they might have been the CEO, they might have been the mayor or the president of the bank. But real nobility, Luke is reminding us, is being humble enough to submit to the Word no matter who you are. It is our pride that keeps us from believing. It is our pride that will not admit God's Word is the most important Word we need to hear. It's our pride which imagines we know who we are and how to be saved and how to live apart from the Bible. It takes great humility to submit yourself unreservedly to the Word of God. Finally, what we can learn from these noble Bereans is give the Bible the final say in every matter. Sometimes here the people say that the Bible is a conversation starter. Now suppose that's true in one sense. There can be a lot of good conversations after you read the Bible or hear an expository sermon. But if the Bible's a conversation starter, it's to start a conversation about the God of the Bible as the final word in all our conversation. All religion rests on authority. For that matter, every academic discipline and every sphere of human inquiry rests on authority. And for Christians, that authority must be the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Well, my friends, as you stare at verse 11 and 12, this is my prayer for Woodruff Road. is this would be the Spirit's assessment of Woodruff Road, that this is a noble, a fair-minded congregation for one simple reason, that we diligently, lovingly, consistently, perseveringly stay in and study and cling to the Word of God. Let's pray together. Our Father, how we thank You that You have given us this precious gift, the Word of God that is living and active and true. That by this Word, hearing it, will come saving faith. By this Word, will come maturity. By this Word, we know how to live in our families, on our jobs, in our homes, in our relationships. By this Word, you tell us our origins and our future. And so, Lord, renew once again a deep love for, a submission to, a hunger for this Word. Oh Lord, our prayer for this congregation is that we would never outgrow our absolute dependence on this word, that we would be Bible-centric both now and evermore. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.