The singing of the doxology by the PCC student body begins Pensacola Christian College Chapel. At each chapel service, students have an opportunity to receive spiritual exhortation and enrichment during a time of music and meditation on God's word. This podcast shares selected recent chapel messages from guest speakers, faculty, and staff. Welcome to the PCC Chapel Podcast. Acts chapter 17 this morning, please. Let me invite you to take your Bibles and turn there. Acts chapter 17. And let's begin reading at verse number 16 this morning. Acts chapter 17, verse number 16. The Bible says, now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him, and some said, what will this babbler say? Other some, he seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. Let's pray together, shall we? Father God, we love you today and we thank you for the opportunity we have to spend a few moments in your word. I pray that you give me the freedom of mind to interpret your scripture the way it ought to be interpreted, to say what ought to be said in the way that it ought to be said. And I pray that you'll use the Bible today to forge in us a desire to take the gospel to people who need to hear it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. The last command that Jesus gave us was to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And if last words are important, and certainly they are, then you and I might ask ourselves, if that was such an important commission, we refer to it as the great commission, then why is it that we are so seldom involved in the process? Why don't we do it? Well, immediately I think there would be several reasons that come to mind. First of all, I think for most of us, we feel awkward soul winning. The soul winner feels awkward. It's just weird going up to somebody's door on a Thursday night, ringing their doorbell, interrupting them from watching primetime television and say, hi, I'm Jeff, and this is my friend Fred, and we're from the First Baptist Church. And oh, by the way, if you died today, are you 100% sure you're ready to go to heaven? That's just an awkward thing. There are just difficult bridges to make concerning what people are doing in their average day life and, you know, introducing Christ. Oh, I see you're eating Fritos. You know, Fritos will kill you. And if you were to die today, I mean, it's just hard to build those bridges. I was reminded of a fellow who was a barber and was really convicted about the fact that people came into his barber shop and he never witnessed to anybody. So he got under conviction about it. He said, the next guy that comes in, I'm going to witness to him. So he got the guy all lathered up and took out a straight razor to shave him. And as soon as he got the straight razor open, he says, now, if you were to die today, and the guy went, and he ran out of the barber shop, you know, down the street with his face all lathered up. It's just awkward sometimes to make that transition from what's going on in the world to bringing up the important considerations of sin, salvation, heaven and hell. Soul winning just sometimes just feels awkward. Sometimes the soul winner not only is awkward, but he feels afraid. I mean, we lack knowledge of what the gospel is sometimes. We're not sure that we'll be able to answer all of the objections that people may raise. Sometimes we're intimidated by people, either because of their intelligence or because of their wealth. We feel intimidated taking the gospel to them. And it's often a fearful thing to do. To be honest with you, even for us who've been pastors, you know, it's difficult for us. Sometimes, you know, in leather-lung preaching we can, you know, decry what's going on in the world, but it's difficult to then engage that world. I've heard many preachers pray, hide me behind the cross, but really what most of us do is we hide behind our pulpits. And we just stay there and denounce what's going on in the world but do very little to engage that world and seek to make a difference. We can feel awkward, we can feel afraid, sometimes we feel ashamed. Evangelism sometimes is just not in season. It's not a politically correct thing to do to say, I have certain truth claims that I believe. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that the only way to heaven is death, burial, and resurrection. And I believe that if you don't accept that, you're on your way to hell. And when we make those type of claims to people in our pluralistic society, they think that we're strange or weird or part of some eccentric cult and we feel ashamed. Now often what pastors do to help us overcome all of this is they impose guilt upon us. You no good, sorry Christians sitting around not telling anybody about Jesus Christ and they feel put us on this tremendous guilt trip about not taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, and then immediately followed that up with some courses that we offer in our churches to help make it easier for you to engage in an evangelistic strategy, and you take this 13-week course, and then all of a sudden you become the predominant soul winner that God wanted you to be. Now what often happens in this regard is that churches often get involved in what I would call guerrilla raids. After this is done, we leave our citadel, we quickly go into the city, we snatch a sinner from the flames of the damned, and then immediately retreat back into our church houses in a guerrilla raid. Now, the problem with that should be self-evident. First of all, you understand that usually those type of evangelistic tactics don't share the joy of the Lord. You know, usually we're almost, you know, how do you go to war with joy? You know, it's a difficult thing to do. And then sometimes it just seems artificial. It's something that we're going to do quickly and then we're going to get back into our normal way of life. It doesn't seem real to us. And to be quite honest with you, that type of guilt trip has a very short shelf life. And so what we do is a preacher puts guilt on us. We take a big mound of seed and we throw it at our city and then we go back to church until we're preached again on soul winning. And then we take another mound of seed and throw it Instead of leaving a trail of seed as the natural thing that we should be doing as soul winners, we're just chunking mounds at a lost world every time that we're put on a guilt trip about it. My question to you this morning is how do we get to the place where we're like the Apostle Paul, where sharing our faith seems an important thing and a natural thing to do with our life? What if you, like Paul in this text, were left alone in a totally pagan city, completely by yourself, with nothing to do, what would you do? How would you engage the culture? Would you engage the culture? And if you engage the culture, exactly how would you do it? Paul's motivation was not predominantly social. It was not because he felt pressure that this is something he had to do that he engaged in evangelism. nor was it emotional. He wasn't predominantly feeling guilty. There was some emotion involved in it, but he wasn't predominantly feeling guilty, and that's why he engaged in this. I submit to you that Paul's primary motivation for sharing the gospel was a theological consideration. Now this is important. Back in 1957, George W. Peters wrote a book entitled, A Biblical Philosophy of Mission, and it's still used in missions classes today all across America, in spite of the fact that it was written in 1957. Here's what Peter's argued in that book. He argued that our evangelism is predominantly too man-centered rather than God-centered. He uses, for example, the idea of Isaiah in Isaiah 6. It was not when Isaiah saw the natives with bones in their ears and through their nose that he said, here am I, Lord, send me. Now to be sure, he saw the world in its condition. He said, I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. There's no denying that he saw the condition of man, but that was not his primary motivation. What was his primary motivation was the fact that he saw the Lord high and lifted up. And ladies and gentlemen, I want to submit to you that when you and I see God for who He is, when you and I see God in all of His effulgence, the natural response of that is we've got to tell somebody about how wonderful this God is. Back in 1987, as I was a student on the campus of Tennessee Temple University, it was a summer school, and I meandered into McGilvery Gymnasium to play volleyball. And there she was. I had never seen her before. If I had seen her before, I would have remembered. I rotated into that volleyball game, and when she rotated out, I rotated out, and the stalk was on. We've been married now for decades. May I say to you that I'd never had any problem bringing up Karen in any conversation because something had conquered my heart. I wanna tell you that if you and I allow God in all of his greatness to conquer our heart, it's amazing how it will become more and more natural for us to talk about him to people. It's interesting that it appears from our text that this was Paul's motivation. He had some core values about God. Paul believed Genesis 1. He said in verse 24 of our text that God made everything. Paul believed in Genesis 2. He said that in verse number 27 that God gave, 25 rather, that God gave humans their life. Paul believed in Genesis chapter 3. He said that God seeks a relationship with us, verse 27. Paul believed in Genesis chapter 4 because he said that God demands men to repent, in verse number 30. And Paul believed in Genesis chapters 9 through 11 because he says in verse number 26 that God establishes nations. Paul just started at the very beginning of the Bible and had some core values that he believed about God. Those opening chapters of Genesis shaped every warp and woof of his life, and because they did, Paul wanted to talk about Jesus. These values shaped the Apostle Paul. And I say it again, his primary motivation for evangelism was not social, it was not emotional, it was theological. He believed something to be true about God. And because he believed something to be true about God, he had to share it with other people. This is all the more remarkable when you consider the city that he's in. He's in Athens. Athens is not exactly a bastion of fundamentalism. There are not churches on every corner. You can't go to a local, independent, fundamental Bible-believing, sin-shunning, preaching-the-book-the-blood-the-blessed-hope-badness church in Athens. It's not happening. You understand, this was one tough place to go soul winning. It was ethnically diverse, it was culturally diverse, it was religiously diverse. It was one of the leading cosmopolitan centers in the world at that particular time. When I pastored in Washington, D.C., you could go into any Starbucks and there would probably be at any time 12 different nationalities existing there from various cultures around the world. And as you would watch those students sitting in the Starbucks using their Wi-Fi and drinking their coffee, your heart could not help but be stirred about how many of them really know Jesus. And that's exactly what Paul was feeling here in Athens. And it was into this market, verse 17, that Paul took the gospel. This little preacher went to market. And I submit to you that you and I need to be God's little preachers who will break out of the citadel and go to the city and go to the marketplaces of this world and take the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Please understand, this was not turf with which the Apostle Paul was familiar. He was raised within the citadel of the faith. He spent his time growing up in synagogues. He was very comfortable standing behind a lectern or in a teaching position at a synagogue and reasoning with people there. That would have been in his alley. What motivated him to leave the citadel and enter the city? What motivated him to do that? What made this little preacher go to market? Let me suggest to you three things this morning. Number one, there's no place where Jesus is irrelevant. There is no place where Jesus is irrelevant. This place where Paul went, people were unfamiliar with the Bible. Paul says, you all worship all these gods, but there's an unknown God. You don't know about Him. They were unfamiliar with the Bible. Secondly, this place where Paul went had numerous religious options. Paul said, I looked at all of your devotions, all these things that you're devoted to religiously. I mean, it was old MacDonald theology. Here a God, there a God. Everywhere a God, God. It was all over the place. And it was people who basically were not willing to be converted. There's a few people who convert at the end of this, but not many people. Though the converts were significant, they were minimal. But none of this affected Paul from initiating ministry and going into this particular town. You see, Paul could not stomach the fact that Christ was so dishonored. That word stirred when he saw the whole, his heart was stirred when he saw the whole city given to idolatry. That's a word that was used of fits, it was used of epileptic seizures. The Lord of heaven and earth had been sidelined into a marginal place and Paul could not stomach that. He could not put up with that. And he's going to be misunderstood, verse 18. He's going to be mocked, verse 32. But Paul was convinced, ladies and gentlemen, that this was a place that needed Jesus. I submit to you that there are many parallels between Athens and our western culture. In our pluralistic society, not many people are converting to Christianity these days. But Paul's example encourages us that we, as God's children, need to take evangelism seriously. Listen to me very carefully. There is no culture where Jesus Christ should not be shared. There is no place where Jesus Christ is not relevant. At times, we are barred by law. At times, we are discouraged by society. But we are in the place where God has placed us, and because that is true, you and I must remain firm in our commitment to Jesus Christ. Proclaiming Christ is not an option for those of us who are Christians. We can't build barricades and retreat into our own little Christian subcultures. You know what's happened? We have abandoned the cities and then we've complained about the mess that they're in. You understand that there aren't so many God-forsaken places on this earth as there are church-forsaken places. I want to submit to you that there's no town, no town in the United States or around the world where Jesus Christ is not relevant. There's nothing wrong in any town in America today that Jesus couldn't fix if people would come to him. There's no place where he's not relevant. Think with me secondly, not only is there no place where he's not relevant, but think with me secondly, that there is no philosophy to which Jesus is not relevant. There's no philosophy to which Jesus is not relevant. Paul, when he enters this town, encounters two prevalent philosophies. The first philosophy that he encounters are the Epicureans. The Epicureans were into detachment. They believed that there was a God, but God was very remote. God was removed. God had nothing to do with the world in which you and I live. They believed that the world was the result of just some collision of atoms that happened to take place. That being the case, because God's removed, there's no afterlife. There's no judgment. When you die, your atoms just diffuse into the atmosphere, and that's the end of it. You're placed in the ground like a dog. And because that's true, live for today. Eat, drink. Tomorrow you die, live hearty. Carpe diem. Seize the day. The second group were the Stoics. They were largely pantheists. They didn't believe that God was remote. They believed God was in everything. God's in this pulpit. God's in that chair. God's in that tree. God's in you. A spark of divinity, they believe, existed in every single solitary individual. And upon death, you're not diffused into the atmosphere. Upon death, they believe that you're diffused into the divine. You become like God when you die. That being the case, just live apathetically. Don't give a rip about anything because it's all going to turn out okay in the end. You're going to be God when it all comes to summation. Just submit to fate. Now listen, Paul could have taken either one of these philosophies and he could have condemned them from the pulpit of the local synagogue. He could have also avoided them because he feared that if he engaged them, what they believed might rub off on him. Or he could have feared that they might ask him a question, a question that he was unprepared to answer and that he couldn't give a question, a reasonable answer for. But whatever the case, Paul went to where they were and on their turf went into the market. Notice the Bible says in verse 17, he went there daily. And it was from there that he was invited to come to the Areopagus. He was invited to come to their turf and actually give a lecture on what he believed. And he went full well knowing that they were going to accuse him of being a babbler. Now to be sure, Paul did his homework, both by observation. He said, I observed your devotions. He watched what they were doing. He watched what was going on. And also by research, because in verse 28, he quoted their poets. But Paul was unafraid to march into their turf. And I want to ask you a question this morning. Does not Paul's example encourage you and I to be willing to engage today's religions? If Christianity is true, and we believe that it is, then shouldn't you and I not be worried? Should you and I refuse to be defensive about it? To the contrary, you and I should be willing to go into our world, wherever that world is, and preach the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, many people are content to let Christians do their thing. Christianity is okay so long as you keep it as a private hobby and keep it to yourself. There's no denying that some people will sneer at us the same way they sneered at the Apostle Paul in this passage. But we must be convinced, ladies and gentlemen, that not only is there no place where Jesus is not relevant, there is no philosophy to which Jesus Christ is not relevant. Jesus Christ straightens out the warped thinking of our world. Let me give you one final thing and we'll be done. Not only is there no place where Jesus is not relevant, not only is there no philosophy where Jesus is not relevant, but think with me finally that there is no person to whom Jesus is not relevant. There's no person to whom Jesus is not relevant. Paul was concerned that all people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Paul shared the gospel with whoever he met in the market, verse 17. And he believed that all people, verse 28, were God's offspring. He believed that God was not far from any of us, verse number 27. God, Paul believed that God was concerned about everybody and because he believed that God was concerned about everybody, he was concerned about everybody. There's not, this is not to say that everybody's going to receive the message. We don't believe in universalism that everybody's going to be saved. And certainly the response is going to be mixed just as it was in Paul's day. Some people emphatically refused it. Some people stiff-armed it and said we have to think about this and we'll get back to you. And other people though embraced it. Some will mock, some will postpone, some will embrace. My question to you is, regardless of the response, Paul engaged the culture, let me ask you this question this morning, who is the person that God is asking you to connect with? What cousin do you have that's going to this state school and is completely at variance with the way you think? And you're gonna see them at Thanksgiving. What if you work off campus, that person that you work with Who is God asking you to engage with concerning the matters of Christ? You see, God had orchestrated circumstances so that Paul was treated rough at Berea and Thessalonica and found himself in Athens by himself. That was all part of the strategic plan of God to bring him to this particular city at this particular time for this particular reason. Let me ask you a question, what has God been working in your life to bring you to this particular time, in this particular place, to reach this particular culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Listen to me very carefully, no person is unimportant to Jesus. This institution for years has made a very strong statement against Calvinism because we believe that all lives matter. Now let me tell you something, being anti-Calvinistic is not just a neat thing for people to talk about in a Bible classroom. If we really believe that God wants everybody to be saved, then you and I ought to want everybody to be saved. Now let me ask you a question, what would happen if our churches started reaching out to people like this? Often what happens is, OK, I'm going to be a church planner. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go buy a building. And then I'm going to send out an advance group. And I'm going to raise support. And oh, by the way, I need to purchase some publicity, yes, so that when visitors come into my building, every one of them will have four sheets of paper to be able to be handed to them. And that's what we do. We open our doors. We invite people to our stereotyped worship services. And there's nothing wrong with that. But you understand that we're asking people to come to a place that they've never been, to sit with people they've never met, to sing songs they've never heard. Now again, I say there's nothing wrong with that. But Paul went into authority structures where he was not in control. Because his Lord did not dwell in a temple made with hands, neither did he. Now that's easy, man. We're at Pensacola Christian College. We're at the citadel of fundamentalism. It's easy, and we should be here. I'm not saying that. I'm saying though, however, that evangelism does not take place by us staying entrenched within the citadel. There's a city out there that needs to know about Jesus. This little preacher went to market. My question is, do we? Push away from the table. Look out through the windowpane. Just beyond this house of plenty lies a field of golden grain, and it's wine in the harvest, but the reapers, where are they? From the house, oh, can't the children hear the father sadly say, my house is full, but my fields are empty. Who will go and work for me today? It seems my children all want to stay around my table, but no one wants to work in my field. Not everybody's gonna get it, but some will. The old time worn illustration still stands true. A man was walking down the beach one day, picking up starfish and throwing them back in the water. The beach was literally peppered with starfish. And a man watched him do this and he said, look at you. He said, you'll never make a difference. He says, you're only, no matter how much you stay here, you're not gonna rescue all of them. Most of them are going to die. And the man, without the slightest hesitation, reached down and picked up one more starfish and threw it into the water and said, made a difference in the life of that one. My question is, who are you making a difference with? What starfish will be able to say, I made it because that person cared. You have a market, my friend. There is somebody that you know that's lost. And if you don't know somebody who's lost, you need to get out more. There ought to be somebody on your to-do list, on your target, somebody in your market that God says, hey, go get them tiger. I want to use you to help that person know about me. You've been listening to a message from Pensacola Christian College Chapel. You're welcome to pass this sermon along to others. Please don't charge for it or alter it without written permission from Pensacola Christian College. For additional information about PCC, visit us online at pcci.edu. Pensacola Christian College, empowering Christian leaders to influence the world for Christ.