Acts 17:1-10

Speaker 1: Well, good

Speaker 2: morning and welcome

Speaker 1: to the Baptist Tabernacle, we're so glad for you to be here today. And we're celebrating Father's Day and glad to see all the fathers that are here today. If you would, please, let's all stand together. We're going to open up by saying he lives in number three 60. He lives a wonderful song. All the reason why we're here today is because Jesus lives. Let's sing it out.

Speaker 2: I serve our ears and save

Unidentified: your the world today. I know that he is Libby. Whatever man may say. I see his and other sites,

Speaker 2: I hear his voice of change and just the time I need him, he's always

Unidentified: still little. Surprises us lives today.

Speaker 2: He walks with me and talks with me for less than an hour away. He lives in.

Unidentified: Salvation to all. You. Asked me how I know he lives in. My heart in all the world around me, I see his loving and the. My heart grows weary, I never will be. I know that he is leading all the stormy as. Welcome back. Last year. Faces us lives today.

Speaker 2: He walks with me and talks with me a long last, they're always.

Unidentified: Right. To Paul. You asked me how I know. Was. My heart will hold out on the

Speaker 2: last rejoice, rejoice, overpressured, lift up your voice and saying,

Unidentified: hey, turn off all this.

Speaker 2: Jesus Christ,

Unidentified: the king of all U.S. kids, help of all.

Speaker 2: So loving, so good and nice and. Lives, right? He walks with

Unidentified: me and talks with me along like Stero. Salvation to Paul. You. Ask me how I know.

Speaker 2: Because he

Unidentified: lives within my heart,

Speaker 1: a, he does live, doesn't he, a man at this time I have brother Jerry Prader come up and pray for our service here today. One of our fathers with his little girl.

Speaker 3: Let's pray the heavenly Father, thank you for this day, thank you for our opportunity to meet together and to worship you and to learn from your word. Uh, thank you for all the fathers that are here. Thank you for the gift of fatherhood. Please be with all our men, um, to help us grow as people and as fathers and husbands to be the men that we should be. And pray with you'll be with the pastor with this message in the service today and bless everyone who's here throughout their week in Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

Speaker 4: All right, you may be seated. Glad to have you here with us this morning and good to have guests with us as well, family in and visiting different folks. And I hope that you receive a warm welcome here at the Baptist Tabernacle this morning. If you are a guest with us today, you should have received one of our weekly bulletins as you came in the door. And inside of that, you'll find a connection card. We would sure appreciate it if you would fill that out with whatever information you feel comfortable with sharing. And if you'll do that and turn it into a welcome desk, then we'll give you a gift to show our appreciation for you being here with us today. It is good to be here on Father's Day and happy Father's Day to all of our fathers today. We have a gift for each one of you that you can grab on your way out. And I was trying to think, what is it that a dad can never have enough of? And I know for at least myself, I can never have enough tire pressure gauges. I've probably bought 15 of them and I have won this one. So anyways, after the service is over, guys, if you go by the welcome desk, we'll have one of these for each one of you. And of course, it is late. Is it laser etched? Yeah, it's laser etched with the console Baptist Tabernacle name on it. And he doesn't like something with lasers. Right. OK, real quick pause, timeout somebody I don't know which one of you did this, somebody donated laser pointers to the VBS store. We confiscated those. We did not give them out to the children for obvious reasons. They'd be going home, doing home LASIK surgery or something like that. So anyways, I know who did it, but thanks. All right. Uh huh. It was you. They are fun. It's all fun until somebody loses an eye. Anyway, OK, so grab one of these, there be enough for everybody, and hopefully that's just one little token of our appreciation for for all that fathers do. I read yesterday one of the greatest things that you know about fathers and fatherhood is so special is because when God chose the name for himself, what did he choose? God, the father. And so men, we have a great task in front of us of trying to be an example of God, the father, not only to our wives, but also to our children. And so I hope you'll think on that here today. Tonight, there will be no evening service like we normally do with Father's Day and Mother's Day. And so enjoy time tonight with your family, many of you probably traveling to go see them. I hope that you'll have a safe time there. Now, through July 11th, we are doing a special thing. We are looking forward to welcoming a new staff member here at the Baptist Tabernacle in just a couple of weeks for the Clarence and Miss. Brittany Nettles will be joining us to work with our teenagers. And we would like to show them a little bit of love as they get moved in here at the church and back in the parsonage. So what we're doing is we're having a food pounding. And I realized on Wednesday that that is not actually a term most people are familiar with. And so you can think of it as a a food shower. And so what we're doing is we're just collecting nonperishable food items from now until July 11th. You can drop those off at the church office and we will make sure that those are loaded up and loaded into the parsonage for them when they get here. I know the church did that for us when we moved here and it took us. Years, maybe to eat all of the stuff that was that was donated, that we did the same thing for him, they went through it a little bit faster than than we did. For obvious reasons, but we want to be a blessing to the Clarence Miss Britney is just one way we can do that. And so you can drop those off at the church office. And I know that would be appreciated. We've got a missionary coming this Wednesday, but Rob Kitchen and his family, they are new missionaries to our church and he is working with military missions. And so I hope that you'll be there for that. There is a mandatory camp meeting after the Wednesday night service this week. If you have a camper going to camp or the junior teens, it's very important for you and the camper to be here at that meeting. And Matt will be going over some last minute details as we prepare for camp next Monday morning, not tomorrow, next Monday morning. Very excited about that. Are retreads. Have a meeting June twenty fifth from ten to one and from June twenty eighth through July 3rd. We would like to ask you to pray for our teens as they head down to Ringgold, Louisiana, for Southland Christian Camp. And it's going to be a really wonderful time. We are so excited to be able to take them here. This be our first year going to this camp. Matt has been there to visit before. I've been there for Camp four. It's an excellent camp. Our kids are going to have a great time and they're going to be challenged spiritually. And so I hope you'll be praying for them that we'll see many good decisions come out of that week. And then July 17th, I mentioned this on Wednesday. We've got our next men's activity, man. We're going to be heading out to Brother Willie Short's house for some good barbecue. We've got a lot of barbecue going around here these days, but can you ever have enough? The answer is no. We're going to have good barbecue out there or the willies and we're going to shoot things. So what more do you want to sign up at the welcome desk? And there's a I think there's times in your bulletin, all of that. So those are the things that are coming up. Praise the Lord for the good offerings last week. And you can look on the back at the fundraising and you can see that our our fundraising goals are moving along steadily. And we are looking forward to getting started on these two projects here very soon. And so praise the Lord for that. Real quick, before we have a video, I have to thank you cards. So I'd like to read the first one is from, uh, Mrs. Joe Lightbody says, Dear Sebti family, thank you so very much for being so careful to meet our needs during this time. The calls, texts and meals have been greatly appreciated, especially the prayers. Love the light bodies. Miss Joe had shoulder surgery and is recovering and making some improvements, but dealing with a lot of pain. So please keep her in your prayers. And then, um, I don't think Beau wrote this. It's far too nice the handwriting for Beau to have written it, but it is signed. Beau and Lauren says, our dearest Sebti family, we wanted to say a sincere thank you for the beautiful wedding shower. We are overwhelmed with the love and generosity that was given to us. A special thank you to Miss Alicia and all the ladies and men that helped make the shower so special. We're so grateful for the many, many gifts we have received. Each gift will help us to get started on our new adventure. Thank you to all who came to celebrate us. We are looking forward to the big day. We love you all and are so thankful to belong to such a loving and caring church. Love Bo and Lauren and so appreciate those cards and know that those of you that were involved in those things, I appreciate as well. All right. Where are you going to come introduce this? You look like you were getting up. No. All right. Let's hit the lights up here on the on the stage. We've got a short video we'd like to show in honor of all of our dads.

Speaker 3: Hey, look, Dad, there's some footage with you in it, which is pretty rare since you like to be behind the camera. There you are feeding me some ice cream while something is definitely going on with that shirt collar. Hey, remember that time that you were filming us and Missy hit me with that jump rope thingy? See what he or she goes three to one boom. I doubt it really hurt, but I cried and said, Mercy hit me, see, watch my lips.

Speaker 2: May see me.

Speaker 3: What did you do? You pointed and said, go hit it right back. So I did look, it was in your best advice, and that's OK, and now she's coming after me, OK? OK, well, look, let's face it, you were balancing your career, a marriage in the most time consuming of all, being a dad. And we knew how to push your buttons. We were experts at crying for no reason. In the same way, there's no reason to spin that in front of me, it will make me come after you says. Anyway, I'm thankful that you stuck with us and didn't stop, you didn't stop showing Grace, you didn't stop loving us where we were, you didn't stop filming your son when he basically curled up into a ball of tears. But you honored the sacred dad rule. Keep the camera rolling. To all the dads out there, happy Father's Day. Thanks for letting us have a good cry for no reason and then run off.

Speaker 1: Thankful for all the dads. Let's all stand against him, No. One, my savior's love anyone else in the first or second.

Unidentified: And I said. And the Brad. Sorry. And wonder how economic forces. Mike. Our. Joe. Mean. Marvel is. Is my savior's love for me.

Speaker 2: For me, it was the. He braynon my

Unidentified: will. By. So drops of blood borne by. Marvelous. My songs tell everybody how marvelous. Is my savior's love for me.

Speaker 2: He took my sins and

Unidentified: my sorrow and his memory. Oh, boy.

Speaker 2: The other to Calvary

Unidentified: and some thirty nine oh. How marvelous. I saw some. Mean. Wonderful is my savior's love for me.

Speaker 1: Hey, man, good job singing. We'll continue singing another wonderful song, Wonderful, Merciful, Savior.

Speaker 2: All three versus. Wonderful, merciful, save your precious redeemer and Fred. And who would have thought that? Rescue the souls of an all you rescue the souls of. The one that we bring.

Unidentified: You are the one we adore you get. Hailing and praise our hearts,

Speaker 2: always hope for all our hearts, always hug.

Speaker 4: All right. I really like the song, I hope I hope it's a good song for you as well, but I think you can sing a little bit louder in here. How many of you enjoyed singing out in the gym? Wasn't that fun? A little bit of the echo. We've got 100000 sound panels in here that are preventing that from happening. And so you're going to sing out a little bit louder if you want the same experience. So let's sing it out on this second verse. I know you've got a little more in your

Speaker 2: counselor, comforter, keeper and council comforter, Cape, Spirit, Wielangta

Unidentified: and Ray. You either open our

Speaker 2: hearts have hopelessly lost weight or we hopelessly lost the. You are the one that we pray.

Unidentified: You are the one we adore, you are. And praise our hearts always for all our hearts, always on the floor.

Speaker 1: That was my mistake, by the way. All right. We're going to sing this third verse, but on the chorus, we'll go a cappella. That means no singing. In case you didn't know it, a cappella men are here all night. Infinite Father. Well, what was that song? Oh, yeah. No. Oh, no music. Sorry. All right, who else can do this? Who else is? You think it's Father's Day? Yes, I'm on the Internet, so no music.

Speaker 2: All right. We should try that one time, Nozick almighty, infinite father almighty and.

Unidentified: Faithfully love the. Here in our weakness, you find all the big.

Speaker 2: Oh, wait for

Unidentified: maybe for you. You are the one that we pray.

Speaker 2: You are the one we adore, you are healing and praise our hearts always for all our hearts, always hunger for

Speaker 4: thankful to our heavenly father. Amen. Well, good singing, thank you for playing along with, uh, with our stuff, you know, um, but I want to just thank each one of you for your faithfulness to give. And I do trust that God will bless you as you continue to support the ministry here. If you're a guest with us, please don't feel obligated to participate during this time. This is for our church folks, and we trust God to supply for the needs of our ministry here and ask for the same black star if he doesn't mind to come and pray, ask God's blessing on the offering. And once he's done, you may be seated.

Speaker 3: Christianity, we we can be for you thinking you praising you for this day, Lord, that we have to come to worship you, Lord, and just thank you for allowing us to be here, Lord. Just ask that you just. But the church to be used in the mission field or would you just thank you for all your blessings that have been bestowed upon us and not only as a church, but also individually, Lord, and that we continue to look to you for our help. And that, Lord, we know that there is an enemy out there and you just give us the courage that we need to be able to stand and to continue to fight Lord and just help to hold the truth and and to, uh, to not to compromise in any form or fashion concerning your word, just as is offering now that Jesus name.

Unidentified: Amen. He was awake

Speaker 2: before the sun with his Bible opened up seeking truth with every single page he turned, anyone could see my daddy lived what he believed with a gentle heart and passion for Jesus word. I know we've had our times. We've disagreed.

Unidentified: It's clear to me. I want to be. All this hard, just like. In Leeds, his especially as he holds the father's head. I want to be. Society would say there's a

Speaker 2: new ideal today and there's not much I care more about what you

Unidentified: can gain, but I want to live a life.

Speaker 2: It's marked by sacrifice, like the savior who died to show was soul.

Unidentified: Way, so I'll take off my cross and trace just.

Speaker 2: Surrendering is how I serve him.

Unidentified: I want to be. With all his heart, just like the work of. The. Both the fathers and I want to be that. Just like. All the Saints have days gone by. I love show the kind of things to those who come behind.

Speaker 2: Hard, just like

Unidentified: the work of. To. Sustainer. He leads his family as he holds a. I want to be. Yes, I hope the father's have. I want to be.

Speaker 4: Thank you for that, brother Matt, take your Bibles if you have them, and turn to the Book of Acts Acts, chapter number 17. Long lines with that song, want to read you a poem that I've read before, but I love this poem and so I don't feel bad about sharing it with you again. I wrote it in my little book of things that I like to remember. So anyway, it's not that you care, but. So as a careful man, I want to be a little fellow follows me, I do not dare to go astray for fear he'll go the selfsame way. I cannot once escape his eyes whenever he sees me do he tries like me, he says he's going to be that little chap who follows me. He knows that I am big and fine and believes in every word of mine, the base in me. He must not see that little chap who follows me. But after all, it's easier, that brighter road to climb with little hands behind me to push me all the time. I reckon I'm a better man than what I used to be, because I have this lad at home who thinks the world of me. The high calling to be a father to a little boy or a little girl. Realize that. Just about every person will base their idea of God off of their relationship with their father. That connection, God, the father, the father that God placed in your life. Whether they were godly, present, affectionate. Distant crude absent. However, your father was. That'll be a lot of how you base your idea of what God is like. There wasn't anything you could do about the father God placed in your life. But there is something that you can do about the kind of father that you're going to be. The Bible is filled with men who have set an example for us. His brother Matt, saying just a minute ago, Peter, Paul, all those saints that we read about in the Bible. There's another man that I want to look at today that isn't quite as well known, if you're there in Acts Chapter 17, you'll stand with me. We'll begin reading in verse number one. We'll read down to verse number 10. Act 17, verse number one. One should be looking for this name, a name that you. May not know a whole lot about. The Bible says now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonika. Where was the Synagogue of the Jews? And Paul, this is Maner was when it entered in. Three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. Some of them believed. Consorted with Paul and Silas and of the devout Greeks, a great multitude and of the chief women, not a few. But the Jews, which believe not moved with envy, took under them certain lood fellows of the baser sort, gathered a company, set all the city on an uproar and assaulted the house of Jason. Sought to bring them out to the people. When they found them, not they drew Jason, certain brethren under the rulers of the city crime. These that have turned the world upside down are coming come hither also, whom Jason hath received these all due contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people, rulers of the city when they heard these things, when they had taken security of Jason and of the other and let them go. The Brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night under Birria, who coming together went into the synagogue of the Jews. Let's pray. Or I ask that you would help us now as we look into your word. You give me the words you'd have me to say, you are the folks that are here to listen here to their lives in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you may be seated. There are three parts to the message this, this and that this evening, this morning, three different stages of what we're going to see. In this passage, and it kind of follows maybe a similar structure to what you might expect to find in a movie, there's the set up of all the players are introduced, the scene is set, the background information is given to you. But then there comes the problem. In this case, we're going to see the formulation of a mob here. Ever been a part of a mob? Me neither, but we're going to see one here in the Bible, OK? And then finally, like a good gangster movie, there's going to be a deal. There's an offer that you can't refuse. What is Father's Day godfather reference in there somewhere? All right, so the setup, the mob and the deal. And through all of this, we're going to see one character stands out, I think he probably caught the name Jason Jason, we've got Jason here. I had a friend that I had school with growing up. His name was Jason. His sister's name was Emily. You say, why do we care about that? Well, when we got a dog, our first dog after me and my brothers got to actually pick out, we've got a yellow lab. We were sitting there. We think, what are we gonna name this yellow lab? Well, my brother Micah. Had a girlfriend as much as you can have a girlfriend when you're four years old. Guess what her name was? Emily, so I guess what we named our dog. Emily. The next 15 years as this dog live, we were reminded that the four year old Michael had a girlfriend named Emily and that's how our dog got her name. Emily was a saint. She really was not the person. I don't know what happened to the person, but the dog was just excellent. Speaking of brothers, I say it's good that my brother Joseph here with us this morning, the baby of the family, of course, as I said before, couldn't handle sharing the attention last weekend with the rest of the family, came here to come all by himself so that he could get all the attention. But I'm glad to have him here with us this morning. All right. Verse number one through version before. That's where we'll find the setup. And if you remember from last week, we looked at Paul. He's there in Phillipi. He's in prison. The earthquake comes and the Philippine jailer and all his household get saved and baptized. And Paul then transitions away from Phillipi and makes his way to a new town. Now, the Bible mentions two other cities in verse number one, that Paul doesn't stop at Amphipolis and Apollonia. Both of these cities are situated on the Ignatian way. Are you familiar with the Ignatian way? It was a very, very famous Roman road that connected most of the empire. And it would have been kind of similar to our idea of an interstate, something that allowed the citizens of Rome to to be mobile, to move, to go and visit different places. It was great for the people. It was great for the economy. It was great for the gospel, because God is going to use this marvel of human engineering. And it really was you can go look at it, just absolutely amazing. Parts of it are still in use today. Think about that. Two thousand years later, parts of this road are still in use today. It was a it was a work of genius. God's going to use it to help the gospel spread across Europe. And so here Paul and his team go there, leaving Phillipi, traveling along this very famous highway, and he passes through different towns now, Amphipolis and Apollonia. There's nothing wrong with these two towns. They're just not very big. Well, what's wrong with a small town, I kind of happen to like the small towns. I do too. That's one of the reasons why we like living here so much. I like the lack of traffic. I do have to laugh sometimes coming from D.C. when I see people in Tulsa complaining about the traffic, I'm like, oh, if you only knew. But anyways, it doesn't take long before all of a sudden you get used to that. If I pull up to the stop sign and there's three people in front of me, I'm like, what's the deal? Why are there so many people out? But Amphipolis, Apollonian weren't very big, there weren't a lot of people there. And so since since Paul is taking the gospel for the first time into this part of the world, he's looking for the big cities, places where are there are the most people and there's the most opportunity to share the gospel with as many people as possible. Because what Paul knows, what God is using him to do is he's going to these big cities where people are coming and going. They're passing through. And he's he's establishing these centers of the gospel, these local churches, so that as people pass through, they'll hear the gospel as well and they'll take it to the small towns in the surrounding areas. And so the next city that's on Paul's radar is Thessalonika Destler. Nika's another large town. And just like with Phillipi, we get a book later on called Philippians. ICA is well known. Why? Well, because we have that Colonial's two, Thessalonians and so Thessalonica and Phillipi, we're not very far apart, about 70 miles, which wouldn't be that bad. Sixty five to 70 miles, which wouldn't be that bad. But there's a lot of mountain ranges in this area. And so the path to get from Phillipi to Thessalonika would've been very windy. It would have taken them about four or five days if they were on horses. But since they were not on horses, it probably took them over a week just to travel from Phillipi to Thessalonika. Now, Thessalonika, like Phillipi, was a very important city in the Macedonian region. It, too, like Phillipi, was the capital of its district. But unlike Phillipi, which was a colony Dussel, Annika was a free city. Remember we talked about when we were talking about Philippon, how they had certain privileges that other cities didn't have. Dussel Annika had all of those privileges, plus some more. Don't you love when you're having a shop for like a new service or something and they've got their plans set up in different levels. There's the silver plan and the gold plan and the platinum plan. But Jimi, I know you'd be familiar with this is kind of like a car wash. You know, you've got the basic wash, then you've got the the deluxe wash. And it comes with everything, the basic wash comes with, but a little bit more. And then there's the supreme wash and it comes everything the other two. But then there's more dazzling like that. It's like the platinum city because it's got everything that the colony has plus more. So this is where you want it to be as a free city. They were totally self-governing. They had their own leaders. They had their own governors. Rome was completely absent from everything going on inside Thessalonika. They were tax free, which is great. And on top of that, they actually got to choose their own form of government, so if you remember Phillipi, they had to model Roman government, they could not change, but Thessalonica could do whatever they wanted. And so, Thessalonika, you're like, I don't really care about this. Please, just the setup, OK? It's just drawing a picture. Dussel and I chose a Greek form of government. Scandalous. And so they're very proud of themselves. I mean, they did things their way. We're from Oklahoma. We kind of understand that and each got our own way of doing things. That's like it had its own way of doing things. Was the capital of Macedonia, was a large city, and so Thessalonica. I was like Phillipi, but it was a little bit different and there was one of the thing that differentiated Thessalonica from Phillipi, and that was that Thessalonika had a synagogue member. Phillipi didn't have a synagogue. There weren't enough Jews there. The Jews that were there had to go outside the city to a river to pray and worship. But in Thessalonica, there is a synagogue for Paul to visit. I want you to appreciate something for me real quick. Thessalonica is a hard word to type out in my notes so many times. Did you hear me saying Thessalonika know I had to type Dussel Annika? Now, upon his arrival, Paul and his team, of course, as was their custom, immediately make plans to attend the local synagogue. And the Bible tells us in verse number two that for three weeks they would go to the synagogue where the others were attending and they're interacting with the Jews and proselyte of their soul, like, say, what's a proselyte? A proselyte is a gentile who has been evangelized by a Jew. And so they have become part of the Jewish faith, even though they are not Jewish by heritage. And so Paul is there, and I want you to know just a couple of quick things about his tactics, the Bible says he's reasoning with them. Out of what? Those scriptures. What does that mean? Oh, means well, he's taken Romans and he's taking Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and he's sharing with them about Jesus. No, that can't be because none of those books have been written yet. And Mark, I think Mark was probably the first gospel that was written, Mark still has quite a while before he's going to write these things down. Luke is living at this time. He's not writing acts at this time. And so what are the scriptures that Paul is opening and reasoning with them out of? It's got to be the Old Testament. Can't be right, Old Testament doesn't have any any part New Testament Christianity. Now these are written for our example. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is what? Profitable. Why do you care to say that? Well, because there are people out there who say we live in the age of grace, we don't need the Old Testament. And the Old Testament is very, very helpful and beneficial to us. You should study the Old Testament fathers. There are a lot of men in the Old Testament who did really good things. There's a lot of really stinky fathers in the Old Testament to that you should be warned about. So Paul's using the Old Testament is opening and alleging, which means he's explaining and he is promoting a point he's trying to make a point from the Old Testament is all the point. Is he trying to make what the Bible tells us? And verse number three, he's opening and alleging that the Messiah has come and he came as a suffering savior. You see, this is totally antithetical, counterintuitive to what the Jews expected of their messiah. They expected a messiah to come in grandeur and military might to wipe out all of the enemies of Judaism. And that was the messiah they were looking for. And of course, we know that Jesus came and it was a glorious thing. He did exhibit great power, but he didn't come to overthrow political power. He came to overthrow Sin's power in the world. And he did that through his death, they were looking for someone to reign, Jesus came to die. Now, there are some things I could say up here. That would probably be very, very hard for some of you to listen to. I mean, you would just be like, nope, nope, nope, don't want to hear it. Nope, nope. That's kind of the way this was for them. This is a kind of statement, the way Paul is is speaking to them and reasoning with them, arguing with them. It's the kind of thing that it's like a watershed. You're either going to fall on this side or you're going to fall on this side. The Bible says that there were several there were many that believed they believed his report of who Jesus was, is that really I'm looking at verse number four right now. It doesn't say many. It says some. We got to read more of the verse. Now, over the course of three weeks, Paul did he saw varying degrees of success, the Bible says that some of them believe who is them? Well, if you go back to the context, it's talking about the Jews. There were a few Jews who believed but read on. Says And of the devout Greeks, those are the those are the proselyte, it's a great multitude. A great multitude, and it's frustrating, isn't it, frustrating, so I don't know what's frustrating. I'm going to tell you what's frustrating the people who should believe the Bible are so often the ones who question it the most and the people that you would look at. And that person will never accept the gospel. They're the ones that are like, yes, this is what I've been looking for. The Jews should have been the first ones jumping on the Jesus bandwagon, but instead they were always the ones lagging behind. Then you've got this proselyte who grew up worshiping Apollo and Mercury and going to these pagan ritual feasts and empowering before dead idols. And they hear about Judaism. So they accept that. And then Paul comes along and introduces them to Jesus and they're like, yes, I see it. I think it saved. And this would have been a good, good message for Mother's Day, too, because it goes on and says not only where there's a great multitude of the devout Greeks, but also of the chief women that a few there were ladies here in Thessaloniki who had been very successful. They had they had a little sort of. They're very powerful in town. I mean, they were the the the upper crust of society. Now in our in our culture, the upper crust of society are the ones that we think all these people don't need Jesus. They're not going to get saved. They don't want to hear this. They've got everything they need. But Paul says, hey, look, I just presented the gospel and here are these mighty women. And not only not a few of them, a lot of them believe that Jesus now I read different commentaries, were trying to explain this, except perhaps the women that were in the upper crust of society, they were not as superstitious as the the lower class people in the lower class. People back in this day were super, super, super superstitious. Perhaps the all the great women in the town were not as superstitious, there were more ready to receive the gospel. Some have said this would have been people on the council's people that ran different groups within the town. I mean, these were women with influence and they're getting saved. Which is pretty cool. I've said it before, I'll say it again, hopefully for a long time. Believing in Jesus, even the gospel, being a Christian is not an irrational thing. It's not a weird thing. Like, you realize when you become a Christian, you become a part of a group that numbers in the billions. Our society tries to make us feel like we're the oddballs. We're not we're the ones that have accepted the obvious. Anyway's. So he has a great success here, a lot of people getting saved. Influential people getting saved. And it moves the Jews who believe not to envy. And so we've got the setup, we see what has happened, Paul's come into town, he's had some success. So now we need to transition versus five through eight where we're going to be introduced to the mob. The mob that forms over people getting saved. Now, of course, there were those among the Jews who did not believe and as you could probably guess, they were not too happy with the reception in the popularity that Paul had received. So I can just see them sitting in each other's homes, fomenting hatred and disdain for these missionaries. Three weeks he shows up at the synagogue. Three weeks, people go home and talk about what he said. Can you believe? Did you hear did you catch the part where. Yeah, yeah, who's listening to him? Let me tell you so and so they're all about it. Oh, I never liked them. Now I know why. Don't you hate it when you don't like someone, you don't know why? But then they give you a reason, you're like, oh, yeah, I was justified. You know, drama and a group of people, whether it be a church or whatever, a family, it never happens, usually never happens. Usually it's rare that it just pops up with no groundwork being laid. Typically, there's been some undercurrents that were already flowing and something just happens to bring them to the surface. Right? Weddings and funerals usually. They bring out the worst in people. I'm always nervous there in those times, and you've been part of a wedding here, you know, I'll say something like, OK, everybody be on your best behavior when we do the rehearsal services, like nobody nobody is in competition. It's just about them. Let's not turn this into you. Anyway's. People talk. People will say things in the privacy of their home that they wouldn't say in public. Which is usually a good thing. But you need to be careful with your words. You may say something. Knowing full well you would never act on what you're saying. But you might inspire someone else to act. You might get riled up about something. And, you know, it's just words you're just venting, you're expressing your feelings, but you're never really going to do anything about them. But you're venting. Inspire someone else that will do something about it. Well, in this case, someone decides to act. By gathering up a certain segment of the city that could be relied upon to cause problems. If this person that we're looking at in a moment is the hero of our story, then the people we're going to see right here. They're the villains, they're the opposite of what our hero display's. At the protagonist and the antagonist, they're both at play here in this story, and so the Jews go out and gather these people that they knew they could rely on to cause an issue. The Bible calls these men lewd fellows of the baser sort. This term tells us a lot about the men that are gathered up to form this mob. Now, if you hear somebody being accused of lewd behavior, you probably have a picture that comes into your mind of what they're engaged in. Our idea of lewdness is not the idea of lewdness that we see in the Bible. OK, you think perversion, right? That's not exactly what this is. OK, so let me explain this to you just a little bit. This term tells us that these were the men who hung out in the market doing nothing productive, Lud did not mean what it has come to mean back then. It was more of an evil worthlessness and evil worthlessness. Old person was someone you could never count on to do the right thing. You see, these are the men who either couldn't hold on to a job or refused to take a job. Instead, they loafed around the market square, the gathering place for for the city, and they just piggybacked on whatever drama was taking place. Political arguments, these guys were there, what side did they take? Didn't matter. They were just there to stir up some drama. Family troubles, you know, uncles not getting along, grandpa, dad, sons all fighting over stuff, these guys would be there to take sides and stir the pot. You know, the pot stir. They never were a peacemaker. They just like coming and getting things riled up more. Religious drama. Oh, yeah, they were on board. The apparently it didn't matter if they had a personal stake in the issue at hand, if there was something going down, they had an opinion on it and they wanted to be right in the middle of it. The Jews go to these men to bring unrest to the city. It was the Jews who put the city in an uproar. They were the ones who instigate this mob, this mob that is going to go and try and capture Paul and Silas. What are they going to do? Appalling silence when they get them? I don't know. Kill them, bring them before the rulers of the city. We don't know. The mob is shepherded by the unbelieving Jews directed to the house of this man, Jason. Jason's house was being used by Paul and Silas as a kind of base of operations. They were definitely living there while they were in Thessalonica. They were probably holding meetings at Jason's house and they may have been making tents there because, remember, Paul was a tent maker. So Jason is this believer. He's one of the brethren. He's accepted the gospel. And so now he has opened his home as a tool to the ministry. His home is an extension of his ministry. Man's home is his. Kastle. A lot of you would be just fine if you had a moat around your castle. Monty says, don't tempt me. It was especially true back here, if you had a home, you were lucky. It was your special place, it probably had been in the family for generations, you had built on to it and built on to it, built onto it generation after generation after generation, had cared for this home and and contributed to this whole. Jason takes his home, and after accepting the gospel, he immediately opens it up to be used by God. Jason was allowing the missionaries to use his home, and I have to wonder. Do you think when Jason, Paul and Silas move in, Luke and Timothy and the others, do you think he knew the risk that he was taking? Letting these men into his house. Do you think he knew that there was a possibility that he might suffer some consequences for getting involved with Paul and Silas? Or you think he was just, like, blissfully naive, just a 30.

Speaker 2: They were.

Speaker 4: I think Jason was maybe a little more sober than that. There may be some some signs that, hey, if I throw my hat in with these guys, it might cost me something. I think he knew. I think he knew that there was a risk in. You know what I mean, but shacking up. With Paul and Silas Trouble seem to follow these guys, we're seeing in a minute that it appeared like the rest of the men in the city knew. Their reputation. Why? Because they said, hey, those days that have turned the world upside down have come here, they're also so obviously there was a bit of a reputation, but it would have taken long sitting there and talking to Paul. I mean, the guy was stoned to death and got back up. It would not have taken long being around Paul to realize, hey, everywhere this guy goes, he seems to get in trouble. I mean, they were just in Phillipi, remember, where they were beaten to an inch of their life. Her party had some pretty big scabs there. What happened? I was beat. Why preaching the gospel? Oh. Despite the risk, Jason still opened his home to the missionaries. Because of this, Jason stands in stark contrast with the lood men that are now on their way to attack his house in version of five. Is he Jason was a man that was willing to commit to something. These men were lewd there. There were some who said this is just sounds trite. I didn't want to put in my notes, but I'm going to say that they were lazy loafers. Jason is committed, Jason is willing to take a risk. Jason knows that there will be some sacrifices involved in standing for what he believes in. And so the mob shows up at his house looking for Paul and Silas and their version of the Bible says and when they found them not. On Silus, weren't there? I believe Jason had hidden them. I believe Jason had had stuck his neck out for them the same way that the Harlette did in Jericho for the two spies. Jason hit those men, he got them away from his home, and so when they found them, not guess who they turned their attention towards. Jason. These men are more than happy to haul Jason and some of the other believers away in place of Paul and Silas, and so because of their hospitality, because of their service for the Lord, because of their willingness to protect Paul, Jason and the others are arrested and brought to trial. That brings us to our last section. Versus nine and 10. A deal is made. Jason and the others are brought before the city rulers, the prosecution makes a peculiar case against them. It's interesting because their argument is more against Paul and Silas who aren't there, then it is against Jason and the others who are their. They allege. Verse number. First, no, I'm sorry, six, these have turned the world upside down. Come hither also. See? Since Jason lives there, they can't be talking about him. He didn't come there. This allegation speaks to the spread of the gospel. It also speaks to the disruption of the gospel. You see one true God empowered freedom breaks through into a society, it upends the power structures of the wicked. That's what got everybody bent out of shape and Phillipi. Those that are in control get antsy and agitated when men truly taste freedom. To them, it feels like everything is out of joint, but in reality, the gospel works to bring things back in line with what God intended. Jason had received these missionaries and he was assisting them in their very important work, and so in number seven, the accusers try to make them out to be criminals. They first say that they all do, contrary to the decrees of Ceder Cesar Ceder. These guys are they're they're anticommunists, they're against the law, they're just a bunch of criminals, they just if Caesar decides to do something, they do the opposite. Oh, really? Could you give me an example, what are they murdering people, robbing banks? Fighting the Roman outposts throughout the empire, what are they doing? Well, I mean, they say there's another king. This guy, Jesus. See their first. Accusation was not true. The second one is true, but it only matters if your earthly king places himself at the same level as your heavenly king. Which, of course, Caesar did. The Christians are not anarchists looking to overthrow the government that God has placed over them. Paul spoke to the opposite throughout his letters, but we do understand that we serve a higher authority than the government that's placed over us. And if it comes down to a choice between our earthly or heavenly king. Well. People heard these accusations, they were troubled, troubled. They were afraid that mass proliferation of these Christians would mean gaining the attention of Rome, it might put their status as a free city at risk. This was a serious matter, but they don't have the men in custody who are responsible for it. Paul and Silas aren't there in the market. All they have is who? Jason. This isn't fair to Jason. But you see what they make him do and verson or nine. So when they had taken security of Jason and of the other. They let them go. Basically, what this means is Jason is fined. There's nothing they can really accuse him of is just letting people stay in his home. They don't like the people staying in his home or doing, though. And so they they find him. He has to post bail so that he can go home. Of course, as soon as he's gone, Jason and the others immediately find Paul and send them away, not because they're scared of Christianity, but they were trying to save Paul's life. Jason and the others will continue to meet there, continue to evangelize, they'll continue to worship Jesus because we know that because Paul writes to them and Thessalonians and Cumins them for their continued faithfulness. But, Jason. In a city filled with lood men. Was used by God. To protect. God's servant. To perhaps lead this baby church. Why? Because he was willing to take a risk. He was willing to commit to something to stand up for what he believed in. Even if it was going to cost him. Jason was different than the men of his city all around him, there were loafers, but not Jason. Jason was even willing to suffer loss for the sake of the gospel. So this morning. When it comes to our church, our culture, our families. I believe we need more men just like Jason. Men that will be willing to commit to Jesus commitment, you understand, is not based on convenience, commitment oftentimes means being inconvenienced. We need men that are willing to take a risk for Jesus. Can you be honest with yourself for a moment and answer this question, what do you risk as an American to follow Jesus? What do you risk? I think the answer is not much. So many are unwilling to even risk a little for Jesus. We've got a multitude of reasons why. We don't want to miss out on what the unbelievers have. We're afraid of what people will think of us if we are, you know, serious and commit to Jesus. We need men that will be willing to suffer loss for the sake of the gospel mission. What if you got fined for coming to church? That will never happen. Would you still be here? Well, if your association with the Baptist Tabernacle meant the loss of your license. You realize that's a lot of these men were facing they'd be kicked out of their guild. There are a blacksmith to be kicked out of the blacksmith guild, they wouldn't be able to practice business in that town. What if you lost your license because you were associated, you were a member of this church? You're like, what license are you talking about? I don't care. Pick a license. Driver's license. Your concealed carry license. What if you were labeled as a religious extremist? And if you were caught with a gun. You would be fined because you're involved with that Christian group. Would you still participate in the church's gospel mission if it meant real consequences to your way of life? I hope after this last year, none of us are under the delusion that that would never happen to us in America. Because it's a question that we all need to be ready to answer. Right. Of course, last year we shut down for a few weeks when the pandemic first started. Grateful for a few of our men who said for the gallery, if you have services, you get arrested. We'll pay your bail. Great, thanks. It's not too distant for you to remember. We didn't know, right, you know, it was going to happen. We're very blessed. I think we were shut down for six weeks. Not very long. But what would have happened if? As things became more clear, we just said, you know what? We can't stay shut down like this. We've got to reopen churches essential. We decided to make a decision to reopen before the government told us we could. And the police showed up. It started handing out tickets. Arrested the leadership. Those of you that are officers don't think you're going to get away unscathed and that you'd be going with me. Or you'd be left holding the bag and holding services the next week. It's happening just to our north, you understand that, right? Are you familiar with Tim Stevens yet?

Unidentified: You should look him up.

Speaker 4: Tim Stephens is a Baptist preacher who was sitting in a Canadian jail right now. So, well, what did he do? Well. He believed his church should. Regathering. Worshiping together. In Alberta, they have a 15 percent occupancy. Well. You don't have to have that big of a church to make that pretty unreasonable. That's a lot of services to have. It's an hour people need to be together, worshiping together. So they continue to have services. June 5th or thereabouts. Canadian officials barricaded his church. Made it so that nobody could get in. Maybe you saw the pictures of the the eight foot fences with barbed wire and police vehicles parked all around the church couldn't even get into it. The next week, the church began meeting in an undisclosed outdoor location. Remember, that's the magic thing. We're outdoors. They're outdoors, meeting together, worshiping God. Yes, the Canadian police don't have anything better to do. They sent a police helicopter out looking for them. And they found. Officials allowed their service to continue and conclude that next Monday morning is Pastor Stevens was there eating breakfast with his family. The police showed up. And arrested him. He's awaiting a court date on June twenty eighth. Well, that's a little bit away, ways away, and you can stay in jail the whole time. Oh, they told him he could leave. They said if you leave, you have to promise not to hold any more church services. He said, guess you'll have to keep me then. I'm not sitting here saying that. Any of you wouldn't do that, wouldn't stay faithful if that became the case here in America. Why? Because. I hope I would. I don't know what I would do. You know. If it meant me being in the place of Jason and my boys crying in my front, my front yard saying, please don't take my dad just because we had a church service. I would hope that I would be like Tim. I would hope that if we said, hey, we're going to have church services, even though our government says we can't. That we'd have church members who would come. I hope you have Jason's. It was unwilling to commit to Jesus, I'm willing to take the risk, I'm willing to suffer loss. In order to serve Jesus. Isn't that what Jesus did for us? He suffered loss for us. By God's grace. When we're put in that position. Now we follow the examples of the men who've come before us. Bothers, we have a great responsibility to lead our families to serve Jesus. Sometimes that means commitment rather than convenience. Sometimes that means risk of loss rather than guarantees of safety. But that's the example that we've been given, and I hope that will all rise to the occasion when the time comes. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the families and the individuals that are here this morning. What I pray that we would all look at this passage here in Act's story of Jason and his boldness, his commitment to you, or that we would be challenged in our thinking today that we would go through the mental exercise of trying to search our hearts and search our own courage to find out whether or not we would be able to do the same. If the time came that we were faced with that decision. Well, I pray that you would strengthen our faith. Lord, that you would give us boldness and courage. That we would face what little opposition we we face today, Lord, with. With with bravery. Lord, that the. Small amounts of pushback that we have to deal with would not. Dissuade us from our faith, we would see it as an exercise of our faith or that we would become stronger and, Your Grace, be a better witness for you. Lord, I ask that you have your Holy Spirit be at work in our hearts during this time. It's in Jesus name, I pray, Aymen. Let's all stand, we're going to sing one, sing a verse of invitation, it's twenty six, just as I am. God has spoken your heart decision to make. There's something I need to pray about. Pray for now. Is that time to do that? God has spoken to you. It's only right that you would speak back to him there at you see or hear at the altar, as Brother Matt seems just.

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Speaker 2: Without one plea, but

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Speaker 2: Oh, lamb of God.

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Speaker 4: Oh, hey, man, well, thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for your good attention. And let me just say again, happy Father's Day to all of you men. And I know we went a little over, but I don't get to talk to you tonight, so I'm sorry. But anyways, I hope you get to go home and have a good meal. Hopefully you don't have to cook it yourself. Men, uh, Fathers Day seems to be day to grill and stuff. So anyways, um, but I hope you have a good rest of your day. Good to see Dad talk to him and. Oh yes. Yes. OK, can you guys make time for a baptism? All right, why don't you go ahead. Be seated. Uh, let's see Bristol, face my. OK, then Bristol came and she told me last week that she had gotten saved, and so we're praising the Lord for that. And now she'd like to come and get baptized, so we're very excited for that, our our children's workers, I believe, are going to bring our kids in so that make it easier for you. They can come in here and you'll be able to grab them right from here. But let's see, Dad, why don't you go ahead and take her to the back and we'll get one of our folks to help you back there. And I'll be there just a minute before the man's is going to lead us in the song. And we'll prepare for baptism.

Speaker 1: Before I leave, though, I like to tell all of our campers today's the last day to pay. Come see me. Write a check out to Sebti. You can pay. I prefer not cash, but that's all you got. That's fine. If you wait till Wednesday, we'll be able to, uh, ask for more money. And I'm just kidding. Uh, we'll have a card reader if you need to pay with a credit card. All right. We'll sing him number seventy seven. What a wonderful song to go along with a baptism trust and obey him. Seventy seven

Speaker 2: when we walk with

Unidentified: our. In the light of his words, what glory shines on our way?

Speaker 2: While we do his good with. Abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey,

Unidentified: trust and obey for this. Another way to be. Jesus, but to trust and all that.

Speaker 2: Verse two, not a shadow

Unidentified: can rise to the cloudy

Speaker 2: skies

Unidentified: quickly driving away. Not a doubt. Not a sign here and about why we trust and obey. Trust and faith for this. The way to be happy. Dzung.

Speaker 2: But to trust and obey, not other than we. Now, the sorrow we share on the other Ridgeley

Unidentified: remains not a grief nor.

Speaker 2: I was not a nor across borders last if we trust and obey.

Unidentified: Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy. Teaches us to trust and

Speaker 4: obey as the piano plays. Well, it's always very exciting when one of our children gets saved and then makes that decision to get baptized and especially excited for brother Jeffrey. Some of you would would know Brother Jeffrey was raising his three children on his own. And he's a single dad and doing a great job here. He, of course, you see land in Bristol. They're always here faithfully at church. Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Doesn't matter. They're here and they're always dressed so well and the girl's hair is combed and maybe grandma helps with that occasionally. But yes, she got a fist pump. But appreciate Brother Jeffrey. I was just thinking, I have three kids. I've got my wife to help me. Brother Jeffrey has three and he's taking care of them mostly on his own. And so definitely be praying for him. But we rejoice today in another one of his kids getting saved and now wanting to get baptized. So come on in here. It's a little warm bath tub. Good. All right. Come on. Yo, yo, over here. All right, stay right there. All right, look at them. All right, Bristol, you've accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, you're trusting in him alone to get you to heaven. Amen. All right, let me turn the turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. All right, Glenn, hold your nose. I'll take this on hold right here. Culturist, OK, you ready? All right, Russell, upon your profession of faith, I now baptize you, my little sister, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of his death rays in the likeness of his resurrection. All God's people said, hey, man, good job this way. All right, let's all stand and we'll be dismissed. I'll ask for the mat to close this in a word of prayer. Don't forget to grab your Father's Day gift on the way out. And we'll look forward to seeing you all back here on Wednesday.

Speaker 1: Let's pray together. Father in heaven, thank you again, Lord, for your word of at the time together in your house with your people. Lord help us to be like Jason committed to you, Lord, and all we do or be with our fathers today give an extra measure of grace and help. Thanks for their faithfulness to you, Lord. I pray. God bless our families, Lord. Those who are coming, Father. I pray that you would continue to work mightily through the Baptist Tabernacle. In Jesus name I pray.

Unidentified: Hey man, good job.

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