Does Everybody Really Need Jesus? - Life of Paul Part 44

Hey, I want you to take a Bible this morning, and I want you to open it with me to Acts chapter 17.

Acts chapter 17, we're going to be continuing in our study of that great man of God, the apostle Paul, his life. But many of us here, I'm sure, know the name John Wesley. John Wesley lived between 1703 and 1790, and John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church. But what you may not know about John Wesley is that he was one of the most passionate open-air evangelists in all of church history. Between the years of 1738 and 1790, John Wesley rode more than a quarter of a million miles on horseback going throughout Great Britain doing itinerant preaching.

He averaged five miles an hour on this horse. He often would fall asleep on his horse and would often fall off and injure himself, actually, when he fell on the ground. Wesley would preach several times a day at coal mines, town squares, open fields, food markets, anywhere he could get a crowd. He preached in the rain, the cold, the wind, the snow, the fog. People often interrupted him with shouts. They often interrupted him with screams. They threw rocks at him, vegetables at him, eggs at him.

In fact, there's one recorded incident where they killed a cat in the audience and threw pieces of dead cat at him up on the stage. Several times in his career during the middle of a sermon, angry mobs grabbed him and dragged him off the platform where he was, taking him away by his hair, threatening to kill him so he could stop his preaching altogether. And Wesley wrote in his journal, June 1774, he said, Today is my 72nd birthday. I was thinking how it is that I still have the same strength I did 30 years ago. The chief reasons are, number one, for 50 years, I have arisen at 4 a.m. every morning. Number two, I generally begin preaching by 5 a.m., which is one of the healthiest exercises in the world.

And number three, in God's service, I never travel less than 4,500 miles a year, end of quote. You know, when I think of John Wesley, you know who I think of? I think of the Energizer Bunny.

I mean, I think of a guy who just keeps going and going and going. And today we want to look at another man that very aptly could be called the Energizer Bunny, a fellow named the Apostle Paul, who had the same grit and the same kind of tenacity that we see in John Wesley. And we want to ask and answer two questions this morning. Question number one is exactly what was it that drove these two men to live the way they lived, to act the way they acted? And number two, we want to ask the question, in light of that, what difference does that make for you and me here as followers of Christ in the 21st century?

So let's dig in. We'll give you a little bit of background as we start. Remember the Apostle Paul is on his second missionary journey. He's with his teammates Timothy, Silas, and Dr. Luke.

And let's show you a map, so we'll show you where they've come from. They've come from the northwestern corner of modern day Turkey, sailed across the Aegean Sea to Philippi in northern Greece. Here in Philippi for several weeks Paul ministered. He was able to start a small church there. And here in Philippi, Paul split his team. He left Timothy and Dr. Luke behind in Philippi to work with the church there while he and Silas walked 100 miles to the south down the Ignatian Way, the famous Roman road you see in yellow here, to the town of Thessalonica. Here in Thessalonica, Paul spent six months in ministry being very successful in leading both Gentiles and Jewish people to Christ. However, as we saw last week, the unbelieving Jewish community in the town of Thessalonica began to develop a seething hatred for the Apostle Paul. And eventually they succeeded in getting a mob together and running him out of town. Now that's where we've been, here in Acts 17, where I ask you to turn.

Let's look at verse 10. It says, As soon as it was night, the brothers in Thessalonica sent Paul and Silas away to Berea, and on arriving there, Paul went into the Jewish synagogue. Now let's go back to the map and show you the town of Berea.

Here it is. It's along the Ignatian Way as you see, and it's about 45 miles from the town of Thessalonica. And this small town is where Paul went, and he began right away going to the synagogue, which we know was his normal practice. We're going to come back in our next message and talk about what happened in the synagogue. But what I want you to see is what happened in verse 13. It says here when the unbelieving Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, and they began agitating the crowds and stirring them up against Paul. And so the brothers in Berea immediately sent Paul to the coast to go to Athens.

You understand what's happening here, right? That Paul's opponents in Thessalonica, the ones that ran him out of town, hated him so much that just running him out of Thessalonica wasn't good enough. They wanted to run him out of everywhere.

And so these people actually went the 45 miles to the town of Berea, got a mob going there and ran him out of town there too. And yet Paul just kept right on going. In fact, he mentions this whole affair in his letter that he wrote to the church at Thessalonica.

Here's what he said. 1 Thessalonians 2, 1. Paul says, You know, brothers, you guys in Thessalonica know that our visit to you was not a failure. For after we had suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, and how did he suffer in Philippi?

Well, remember they beat him with rods that tore the flesh right off his back, and then they threw him in jail overnight. After that happened, as you know, we had the boldness to speak the Word of God to you amid strong opposition from your own countrymen. Those very countrymen drove us out of Thessalonica, and then they kept trying to hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved.

But you remember that when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted, and this is exactly what happened. Now, friends, the point of all of this is Paul just kept right on going in spite of all the persecution. Remember, so far Paul has been abused in Pisidian Antioch on his first missionary journey. He's had his life threatened in Iconium on his first missionary journey. He's been stoned and left for dead at Lystra on his first missionary journey. Now, on his second journey, he's been unjustly beaten and imprisoned in Philippi. And finally, he's been run out of town by mobs in both Thessalonica and Berea. And oh, by the way, there's a whole lot more of this kind of treatment to come before Paul's career is over. And yet, in spite of all of the persecution, all of the hostility, all of the physical abuse, in spite of that, just like John Wesley, what did the Apostle Paul do?

Friends, he just kept going and going and going. Now, that brings us to the end of the passage that we want to look at today, but there is a question we need to ask, and I think everybody knows what it is. But just in case you don't, let me whisper to you what it is. So what? So now that you all know what it is, here we go, nice and loud.

You ready? One, two, three. Ah, right. You say, Lon, so what? Say, this is wonderful.

I love the Energizer Bunny. What difference does this make for me? Well, let me just tell you, my wife and I, Brenda, we were with another couple not long ago, and the lady that we were with was three months, she was pregnant, rather, with her third child. And so I was just trying to make conversation with her, and I said to her, so, you know, how long before you do? And she said a couple months, and I said, oh, that's nice. So then just trying to make conversation with her, I said, well, are your labors hard? You know, I mean, and she said, well, they're not really all that hard.

They're just long. And then she went ahead and made this comment. She said, you know, I start out every time saying I can do this without any help. I can make it myself. Don't give me an epidural.

I can do this. And she said, then by the time I get to 10, 12, 15 hours, I'm like, okay, just give me the drugs. Well, I didn't think poorly of this lady for saying that, because I just got to tell you, if men had to do this labor and delivery thing, the human race would have been over centuries ago. Well, men, would we do this? No, we would not. Ladies, take it. We're telling you the truth.

We would not do this. Now you say, well, so what's the point of all this? The point of all of this is that this lady's comment reminded me of a basic truth of human nature, and that truth is that none of us likes pain, and that given the chance to avoid it, we will. Now, if that's true, and it is, then how do we explain people like the Apostle Paul? How do we explain people like John Wesley?

In fact, this is our first question we want to answer today. Why did these men act the way they did? Why did these men keep taking pain? Why did these men keep taking abuse rather than just shutting up and stopping all that pain? All they got to do is shut up and stop talking about Jesus Christ. So why didn't they?

Well, friends, the answer to this question is very simple. The Apostle Paul and John Wesley believed something. They believed something so completely, so fully, and so utterly that it drove them to a level of commitment that is rarely seen in our world today. And what is this something that they believe? What they believe with all of their heart is that apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, people cannot and will not ever have eternal life.

People cannot and will not ever see the shores of heaven. Now, friends, this is the sine qua non, without which nothing of biblical Christianity. That is, this is the absolute conviction that apart from the redemption God offers people in Jesus Christ, every human being alive is alienated from God, under the judgment of God, condemned and headed for a horrible eternity. You say, Lon, you know, it's interesting you bring that up because I got to tell you that even as a follower of Christ, I've got some real trouble with this Jesus is the only way deal.

Well, okay, I hear that. So you came to the right place this morning because we're going to try to fix that trouble once and for all while you're here this morning. What exactly does the Bible say about Jesus being the only way to get eternal life and get to heaven? Well, listen, Jesus said, John 336, whoever believes in the sun himself has eternal life, but whoever rejects the sun will not see eternal life. But God's wrath remains literally sits or rests on that person. Jesus said, John 318, whoever does not believe in Jesus Christ stands condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father. Nobody gets eternal life. Nobody gets to heaven except through me. Now let's stop for a minute and ask a question. Could you say it any simpler than that?

I mean, how? How could you say it any plainer than that? Nobody gets eternal life or gets in the heaven unless they get it through me. Let's go on. First John chapter five, verse 11.

And this is the record. John writes that God has given us eternal life in this life is in his son, Jesus Christ. He who has the son has eternal life. But he who does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life.

How much plainer could you say it? Friends, Philippians chapter four, verse three says that every follower of Jesus Christ and only followers of Jesus Christ have their names written in the Book of Life. And then Revelation chapter 20 says if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire, which is why Acts 4-12 says salvation is found in no other, for there is no other name under heaven, not Buddha, not Confucius, not Mohammed, not Joseph Smith, not Barry Baker Eddy, not Rabbi Schneerson.

There is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we can be delivered. You say, Lon, I got to tell you, I got some real heartburn with this and I got some real objections to this whole line of thinking here. Well, I'd love to hear them.

What are they? Well, Lon, my first objection is this. Why would a loving God be so cruel and be so unfair? Well, friends, just asking such a question as this shows that spiritually we've got the emphasis on the wrong syllable. You understand what I'm saying?

Let me tell you why. Romans chapter five says this. It says that we're in a predicament. Therefore, sin entered into the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, and so death passed on to all men. The Bible teaches that when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, they brought a flaw on the entire human race. It's called our sin nature.

It's like a defective gene that we all inherit. And the result of this, look at Romans five, is that every one of us comes into the world dead. We come into the world, Ephesians three, one says, spiritually dead, alienated from God, separated from God, disconnected from God. And the Bible says if we don't fix that situation before we leave this world, we go out into eternity to face eternity separated and alienated from God. We have a predicament. Now, God in His mercy made a way for us to escape this predicament. God in His mercy made a way out of this predicament through having a relationship with Jesus Christ, through trusting what His blood did for us, the blood He shed on the cross did for us, and paying for our wrongdoing. But friends, if a person rejects God's way out, if a person rejects God's escape plan, and then ends up experiencing God's judgment, hey, is God unfair?

Hey, was God cruel and mean if a person chose not to take the escape plan? No. You know, as you know, I do trips overseas, trips to Israel and other places. And back in the year 2000, we had a lady that was signed up to go with us.

And you know, a lot of trouble started over there in the fall of 2000. And she called me up two days before we were scheduled to leave and said, I don't want to go. I'm scared.

My family's scared. I don't want to go. I said, Well, you don't have to go.

She said, Well, I want all my money back. I said, Well, ma'am, there are published cancellation policies that the tour company has and two days before we leave, it's 100%. You know, they bought all the tickets, they paid for all the hotels. I mean, you know, that's why we tell you, get travel insurance. Now we write we were the tour company wrote people four different times that year and said, Protect yourself, get travel insurance four times. And I asked her, so you got four letters saying get travel insurance.

Why didn't you do it? She said, Well, I was waiting till the last minute to purchase it because I didn't want to stress out my visa bill. Well, I said, That's wonderful. But the problem is you don't have it.

And if you don't have it, these cancellation penalties with you know, they warned you they're firm. She said, Well, you know what? She said, Is there no option? I said, Yeah, we're letting people who don't want to go this year, flip back and credit their money to 01.

So they don't lose any money. She said, I don't want to go into one. And I don't want to go this year. I want my money back. And then she said, How could this tour company be so cruel and so unfair that they won't give me back my money?

Now let's stop for a second. Was this tour company cruel and unfair? They wrote the lady four times and said, Protect yourself, get an escape plan. The lady chose not to do it. And now that she's experiencing the penalties that she was warned about, let me ask you, was the tour company unfair? Well, I don't think so. Now we eventually got this worked out.

She eventually flipped back to 01. We all ended as friends by the time this was all over. But you see, a lot of people use this very same logic about God. They say, You know, God is unfair if people end up experiencing the judgment of God.

And I say, No way. God writes us over and over again in the Bible and doesn't tell us four times. He tells us hundreds of times in the Bible, there's an escape plan. Take it. There's an escape plan.

Use it. Friends, if somebody spurns that and somebody rejects that and decides to take their own chances, and then they end up experiencing the judgment of God, was God unfair? No, he wasn't unfair. You say, All right, Lon, I got another objection. And what about people who've never heard of Jesus Christ? Okay, well, you know what the Bible addresses that it says Romans Chapter one, verse 20 for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and His divine nature have been clearly on display so that all men are without excuse. The Bible says that God's eternal power and divine nature are there for everybody to see in creation in our natural world.

We can look around at the trees, the clouds, the stars, our own human bodies. And you know, we know we didn't make this. We know that no one else we're aware of is capable of making all this.

So who made all this? Well, the Bible says it should lead us to acknowledge at that point that there must be an almighty creator God. And once we do that, God then makes it his personal responsibility to get us information about Jesus Christ.

Doesn't matter whether you live in the darkest jungles of Africa, South America, if you live in the communist world, the Muslim world doesn't make any difference. You take that first step by acknowledging that there's got to be a God and you wish you knew him. And God takes it upon himself to make sure you get the information about Jesus Christ that you need. He said, Lon, that doesn't really work that process.

Well, yeah, it does. The whole reason I'm standing in front of you today as a follower of Christ is because of this exact process. You know, I was born and raised Jewish right here in the United States of America, but I didn't know one single thing about Jesus or what he did. I mean, I knew he kind of died on a cross.

I had some idea of that. But if you'd have said to me when I was a teenager, Lon, I will give you $1 million right now if you can tell me why Jesus died on the cross. I couldn't have told you. Now, if I knew you were serious, I'd have gone and tried to find out, but I didn't have a clue why Jesus died on the cross. And you said, well, you grew up in America and didn't know.

That's right. I might as well have grown up in the jungles of South America, friends, as much as I knew about Jesus Christ. But I was in 1965, the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. I was invited to participate in a National Science Foundation program down at Virginia Tech.

And I'll never forget we were down there. In the afternoon we did research projects. In the morning we studied enzymes in the human body.

That was the subject for that year. Did you know that right as you sit here today, you've got millions of enzymes running around in your body doing all kinds of chemical reactions? You do. And did you know that every single enzyme is code specific, meaning it'll only do the one reaction that it's supposed to do. And if some enzyme breaks down or is missing and not working, do you know none of the other enzymes in your body will pick up for that one and make up for it? See, the enzymes in your body have a union contract, if you understand what I'm saying. And nobody does anybody else's job in your body with those enzymes.

You can be a very sick human being missing one of a million enzymes. And when I learned all of this at Virginia Tech, I'll never forget walking back, it was a bright sunny day about noon in July 1965, I stood on the steps of the dorm that I was staying in. And I remember saying out loud, there has got to be a God. Well, there's Romans one for you. There's got to be a God. Now, did I go looking for him? No. Did I go searching to see if Jesus Christ was this God? No. Was I even interested in hearing about Jesus Christ?

No. But I had taken the first step. God heard what I said in July 1965. And he made it his personal responsibility to get me the information I needed, even though I wasn't even looking for it.

So that six years later, I was able to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. Friends, don't tell me this process doesn't work. Of course it works. You say, all right, Lon, all right, wait a minute, then. My next objection is so let's say a person looks around the natural world, and they acknowledge there's a God, let's say they do that. But they live in a culture, not America, but they live in a culture where the closest religion is Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism or Judaism or Shintoism or animism or whatever. So let's say they recognize there's a God from the natural world, but then they turn to one of these religions, because it's closest to them, to seek God. Won't that be okay?

Friends, the answer is no, no, 1000 times no. Didn't you hear what the Bible said? Jesus said no one comes to the Father unless they come through me. Romans chapter three says that the only way a person can be redeemed is through faith, through reliance on the blood of Jesus Christ. You say, well, then I got one last objection, and that is if these people are sincere in seeking God through Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, whatever, why couldn't the God just kind of credit the blood of Jesus to them, even though they don't know about the blood of Jesus? Why couldn't God look at him and go, well, you know, you're being sincere and you're looking for me, so you can only come to me through the blood of Christ.

But here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the blood payment of Christ, and I'm just going to kind of credit to you, even though you don't know about it. Friends, God can do anything he wants. But he said in the Bible, he doesn't do this. Romans chapter 10, verse nine, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, not if we confess with our mouth that Buddha is nice, not if we confess with our mouth that Muhammad was a prophet, not if we confess with our mouth that Joseph Smith saw an angel or Rabbi Schneerson thought he was the Messiah, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and the verse goes on to say, if we believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, it's then, friends, it is only then that we will be delivered. Listen, what this means is that in order for people to complete the deal, in order for people to access this escape plan that God has, they've got to hear and know cognitive information about Jesus Christ. They've got to hear about his virgin birth, his sinless life, his deity. They've got to hear and understand about his death on the cross, his blood payment for our wrongdoing, his resurrection from the dead. That's the only way they can believe Jesus is Lord and believe he was raised from the dead. They've got to hear the cognitive information about Christ and respond.

God doesn't credit the blood of Jesus to anybody. Listen, if people could get to heaven outside of Jesus Christ, friends, then every missionary that ever lived wasted his life. If people could get to heaven outside of Jesus Christ, then Billy Graham and Mother Teresa were fools. If people could get to heaven outside of Jesus Christ, then that man who stood on the street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, letting people spit on him, ridicule him and yell obscenities at him, all so he could tell me about Jesus Christ, that guy was an idiot. And friends, if people could get to heaven in some other way than Jesus Christ, then John Wesley and the Apostle Paul were misguided buffoons. But let me just say to you, they weren't buffoons. Billy Graham and Mother Teresa were not fools.

That man who stood on the street in Chapel Hill was not an idiot because they all knew something. They all knew and believed that the only hope I had and everybody else have in this world is to trust Jesus Christ. That's the only way people can get to heaven. And this is why they were so driven. Remember, we asked the question, how do you explain the behavior of Paul and Wesley? This is why they were so driven, because they believe with all their heart that they needed to keep telling people about Jesus Christ because it was people's only way out of their predicament.

And they were willing to put up with the most brutal treatment, if that's what it took, in order to do that. Now, that's the answer to question number one. That brings us to our last question, number two, and that is, what difference does this make to me? Well, friends, what this means for you and me is that apart from Jesus Christ, every single person you and I pass every single day on the Metro, at Starbucks, in the hallway at school, in the hallway at work, every one of those people is separated from God, under the judgment of God, headed for a disaster when they go into eternity. And it also means that the only hope these people have is for you and I to open our mouths and lovingly tell them what we know about Jesus Christ.

Friends, the only way, however, you and I are going to do that is if we really believe what Paul believed, if we really believe what Wesley believed. You see, every one of us here knows there's a price to being vocal about our faith. Every one of us here knows if we open our mouth and we start talking to people about Jesus Christ, it's going to cost us something. It'll cost us ridicule. It'll cost us ostracism. It may even cost us our job. It'll cost us persecution.

It may cost us offended relationships with friends and with family. And there's only one reason in the world that you and I are going to be willing to pay that kind of price to share Christ. And that reason is that we believe there is no other way in the universe that people can get out of their predicament and get to heaven.

If there's any other way, then we're stupid to pay this price. Friends, I just need to say to you that sharing Jesus Christ is the apex, it's the climax of all that the Christian life is about. Remove sharing Christ with people from the Christian experience and you don't have the Christian experience. We can read the Bible all day long. We can memorize scripture all day long. We can pray all day long.

We can fast once a week. But unless it all results in our being witnesses for Jesus Christ, we miss the whole point. And so I hope today you'll walk out of here with two things. Number one, with an absolute confidence that Jesus is not just a way to heaven, but He is the only way to heaven. And number two, with a willingness to follow what Paul told Timothy when he said 2 Timothy 1-8, do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord. Friends, the information you and I know is the only hope people have.

And the only way they're ever going to find out about it is if you and I open our mouth and lovingly tell them. Now, may I close by saying if you're here today and you've never asked Jesus Christ to be your personal Savior, you've never surrendered your life to Him, the one thing I hope that you understand from being here today is that you're in a predicament. And the other thing I hope you understand is that there's a way out. It's free. It's easy. You don't have to go anywhere.

You don't have to purchase anything. You don't have to go through any religious motions. You can access it right where you sit this morning. And so what I want to do as we close this morning is if you're here in that predicament, I want to give you a chance right before we leave to get out of it by asking Jesus Christ into your life. So let's bow our heads together.

Let's close our eyes. And if you're here and you're willing to surrender your heart and life to Jesus today, you're willing to trust His blood on the cross as the only payment God requires for your wrongdoing. And what I want you to do is I'm going to say a little prayer. I want you to say it one phrase at a time to yourself silently, right as I say it. And let's access that way out that God in His mercy gave us. Let's do it right now for you.

So here we go. You say silently one phrase after me, Lord Jesus, I come to you today because I understand that I have a predicament. And I understand that in your mercy you made a way out for me.

And so today I want to take that way out. I ask you right now to come into my life to be my personal Savior. I put my complete trust in what you did for me on the cross as my total payment for wrongdoing.

Forgive my wrongdoing today. Give me eternal life and grant me a place in heaven. I surrender my life to you and I embrace you as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name I pray. And Lord, I want to pray for these people who prayed that prayer that you would confirm in their heart right at where they sit that a great transaction has happened as the Bible says they have passed from death into eternal life. Lord, thank you for making a way out for us that's so easy. And I pray for the rest of us here who are followers of Christ that you might motivate us and inspire us to go out and share with people in spite of the price we may have to pay, to share with people what the escape plan is.

Because Lord, it's their only hope. Inspire us with the example of John Wesley. Inspire us with the example of the apostle Paul. Lord, help us to believe as deeply as they did that without Jesus Christ people are hopelessly lost. And help us to go out into this city tomorrow morning. Determine that as you open the doors we're going to step through it and tell people the way out, the only way out. Help us make an impact on this city because of our willingness to open our mouth and share Christ. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.