Paul's Philosophy of Strategic Cities - Life of Paul Part 43

Well, we're so glad to see you today. I want you to take a Bible if you brought one. And I'd like you to open that Bible to the letter that Paul wrote, the Church of Thessalonica, 1 Thessalonians Chapter 1.

We'll be coming there in just a few moments. But as many of you know, I lead biblical tours to Israel, Greece, Turkey, Italy. And I don't organize those tours myself. I don't organize the airplanes, the hotels, the cruises, the buses, the guides.

I mean, I wouldn't even know how to do all that. I work with a tour company in Jerusalem that does all that. Well, this summer, I needed to get in touch with the owner of the company. So I called him up on his cell phone, you know, Israel, country code 972, by the way. The phone rang for a minute. It stopped. It rang again for a minute. He picked up the phone, hello, shalom, he says.

And I heard this really weird music in the background. So I said to him, where are you? And he said, well, I'm in St. Petersburg, Russia. And I said, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm on a little vacation. He said, and you know what's really neat? He said, I program, I got one of these cell phones that you can program. So no matter where you are in the world, by satellite, it shoots your calls to you.

I couldn't believe it. I thought, wow, isn't technology wonderful? And all of us here understand, I think, how modern technology has revolutionized communication in our world. In fact, I look back and I wonder how people ever made it without the communication aids that we have today. How did war generals ever coordinate their army's movement without walkie talkies and radios and cell phones and computers? How did Wall Street brokers ever make it without the internet? How did modern business ever survive without overnight delivery and email and voicemail and beepers? And how did teenagers ever survive without instant messaging? I don't know.

But all of that leads us to ask a very important question this morning, and that's this. If you lived in the first century AD and you had a message that you wanted to spread all over the Roman Empire and all over the world, how would you do it? You don't have television. You don't have radio. You don't have cell phones. You don't have the internet. You don't have newspapers and you don't have the modern publishing industry.

In fact, you don't have any mass communication system of any kind. How would you get that message spread? That's what we want to talk about today because we want to see how the Apostle Paul found the answer and solve this problem. But let me give us a little background before we dig in and look at this. Remember the Apostle Paul is on his second missionary journey. He's with Timothy, he's with Silas, and he's with Dr. Luke.

And let me show you. He has crossed over from Northwestern, modern day Turkey, across the Aegean Sea to the town in northern Greece of Philippi. Here in Philippi, after a few weeks, he has started a church. And you know we saw that he divided his team, Paul did. He left Timothy and Luke in Philippi to work with that church.

And he and Silas moved on. Let's show you. They walked 100 miles south along the Ignatian Way, the famous Roman road.

You see it here in yellow. They walked 100 miles south to the town of Thessalonica. And here in Thessalonica, the Bible says Paul went into the synagogue for three straight weeks, preaching about Jesus as the Messiah. The result, Acts 17 4, is that some of the Jews were persuaded and they joined Paul as did a number of God-fearing Gentiles. Then, as we saw last week, a mob, the unbelieving Jewish community in Thessalonica, put a mob together and succeeded in running Paul out of the town of Thessalonica. Now you say, wow, wow, Lon, that's really too bad. You know that Paul only got three weeks in this city?

That's really sad. Well, the truth is, friends, he got a lot more than three weeks in this city. You know, one of the key principles of interpreting the Bible is a hermeneutical principle we call comparing Scripture with Scripture. And what we mean by this is that we take other passages of Scripture and we bring them to bear on the passage we're looking at in order to make sure that we interpret the passage we're looking at properly. Now, when we do this, when we compare Scripture with Scripture, what we find is that actually the Bible tells us Paul was in Thessalonica a lot longer than three weeks. Watch, right here, 1 Thessalonians 1, where I ask you to turn, verse 9. It says, People everywhere, Paul says, tell how you turned to God, you Thessalonians did, from idols to serve the living and the true God. Now, remember, we saw Acts 17, 4, that in the synagogue for three weeks, Paul reached a lot of God-fearing Gentiles. Friends, these were Gentile converts to Judaism who had already given up every form of idolatry and came to the synagogue every single week. These are not the Gentiles Paul's talking about here in 1 Thessalonians 1.

The Gentiles he's talking about there turned from idols to serve the living and true God. These are pagan Gentiles he's talking about here whom Paul reached in ministry work completely outside of his three weeks in the Jewish synagogue. Obviously, the language of 1 Thessalonians 1 indicates that Paul had a much longer stay and a much more fruitful ministry in Thessalonica than just three weeks. Let's compare another verse, Philippians 4, 16. Paul says to the Philippian believers, For even when I was in Thessalonica, you guys sent me financial gifts again and again when I was in need. The Bible tells us that the believers that were left behind in Philippi, when they heard Paul was in need in his ministry work in Thessalonica, they would take up an offering and they'd send it 100 miles south to give to him. But notice Paul's language.

He says you did it again and again when you realized I was in need. There's obviously a time interval between these gifts that they sent and there's no way we can fit all of that into three weeks. Sir William Ramsey, writer of the book St. Paul Traveler and Roman Citizen said this, and I quote, He said, Paul's writings clearly refer to a long and very successful work in Thessalonica. December 50 to May 51 AD seems a probable estimate of his residence in Thessalonica.

Therefore, he was here probably as long as six months, not three weeks. Now all of that begs the question, and the question is, we know there was a high level of hostility against Paul here in this town. There was enough hostility that Acts 17 tells us his enemies were able to even put a mob together to run him out of the city. So the question is, if there was this much hostility against Paul in Thessalonica, physical persecution, even mob action against him, why did Paul insist on trying to stay in this town for at least six months? Well the answer to that, you may find it hard to believe, but the answer to that question is found by looking at a road map of the Roman Empire in the days of Paul. Remember we said Paul walked the Ignatian Way between Philippi and Thessalonica.

Let's show you a picture. These are all the Roman roads that existed throughout the Roman Empire and this is only a small part of it. If you saw a wider map, you would see that these roads stretched through North Africa, they stretched through Spain, they stretched through, isn't that wonderful?

You say it and it happens. Britain. And you can see there was over 50,000 miles of Roman road at the time of the Apostle Paul. You say, that's not all that much. Well friends, you know how many miles of the interstate there are in the United States? 42,000 miles total of all the interstates in the United States. This is 20% more than the total interstate highway system put together. And in fact, some of these Roman roads are still here to this day.

Let me show you a picture. This is a picture of the Ignatian Way running through Philippi and as you can see, huge blocks of stone were laid down and these roads were made so that they worked in any weather, they worked at any time of year. You say, well why in the world would the Romans go to the trouble to carry these big old blocks around and build all these roads?

Very simple. If you're trying to run an empire as big as the Roman Empire, you've got to have a way to get goods and even more importantly, armies anywhere in that empire quickly that you need to get them to. And so that's why the Romans built these roads so that they could facilitate the movement of their armies anywhere in the empire in any kind of weather at any kind of year. However, there was a side benefit that developed that the Romans didn't plan on. And that is, now common people in the empire suddenly had an easy, safe way to travel on these roads. And so, in the Roman Empire as a result of these roads, a huge amount of people traffic began to develop throughout all the Roman Empire.

The truth is, because of their road system, the Roman Empire created the first truly mobile society in all of world history. Now why was this a factor in Paul's decision to stay in Thessalonica? Well remember our question. We ask it at the beginning. Here's our question. If you lived in the first century A.D. and you had a message that you wanted to spread to the whole Roman Empire and you had no TVs, no radios, no cell phones, no internet, no publishing, no newspapers of any kind, how would you spread that message?

That's our question. And the answer is, you would use all of this people traffic moving along in the Roman Empire. You would set yourself up in strategic cities, commercial cities, where lots of Roman roads converged and where lots of people traffic was moving through. And then what you would do is you would go out and you would share Christ, your message with all of these people. You'd go down to the docks where ships were coming in and you'd share Christ. You'd stand on the road as people were walking by and you'd share Christ. You'd go into the hotels, the bed and breakfasts, the restaurants, the bars and you'd share Christ.

And the hope would be that people moving through this town, going someplace else, would pick up the message, believe the message and carry the message with them as they fanned out on Roman roads all throughout the Roman Empire. We might call this the honeybee strategy. And the reason we call it this is because you know how honeybees work.

They pick up pollen as they're flying around and they end up taking that pollen with them and pollinating flowers miles away from where they originally picked up the honey. And what Paul did, his strategy was to pollinate people spiritually with the message of Jesus Christ and then to trust them to spread out like honeybees on all of these Roman roads, taking the pollen of the message of Christ with them as they went back to their cities, their people in the far flung regions of the empire and that's how Paul planned on spreading the message of Christ through the whole empire. You say, so Lon, tell me, is one of these, was Thessalonica one of these strategic centers?

Was it one of these strategic cities? Well, friends, the Sodom Hussein need life insurance. I mean, come on.

That's actually funny. You'll get it later. But anyway, yes, Thessalonica was one of these cities. Let me show you here on a map.

Let's go back and look. The star that you see here is where Thessalonica is. And what I want you to notice is that inside the black circle is all of the roads that spread out north, northeast and northwest, all emanating and starting at this port city of Thessalonica. All of the Balkans, countries we know today as Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Serbia, all of these countries were reached by roads that came out of Thessalonica. All of southern Europe today, people that we think of as being living in Austria, living in Hungary, living in Czechoslovakia, all of those lands were reached by roads that spread out coming from Thessalonica.

All of northern Greece was reached by these roads and even into the Ukraine and southern Russia were all reached by roads that converged at one point the city of Thessalonica. And this is why Paul set up shop there because he knew if he could reach the people traffic moving through that city, he could affect all of this area for Jesus Christ. In fact, look at verse 8 right here in 1 Thessalonians 1. It says the Lord's message rang out from you not only to the people in Greece, but your faith in God has become known everywhere. In fact, Paul says, people everywhere tell us how you turn from idols to serve the living and the true God. Folks, today the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Albanian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Church of Bulgaria, all of these churches trace their beginnings back to the first century AD and all of this can be traced back to Paul's ministry here in Thessalonica where as a result of him reaching people coming through that city, all of this area was reached for Jesus Christ. Now, you know, Paul followed this same strategy when he spent two years in Ephesus.

And listen to what the Bible says about his two-year stay. It says, as a result of Paul's stay there, all the Jews and Gentiles who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. Let me show you a map. This is the Roman province of Asia, which is western Turkey, right here, western Turkey. Here's the city of Ephesus, this port city, the third most important city in the Roman Empire at the time. And Paul says that as a result of that, all of these green dots and red dots that you see, all these cities, Smyrna, Sardis, Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Hierapolis, Laodicea, Colossae, all these cities heard about Jesus Christ and had churches that developed because the book of Revelation, all these churches have letters written to them. In fact, in the book of Colossians, Paul says, I've never even been to Colossae, but a friend of mine named Epaphras, who I met in Ephesus, was the one who brought the message to you and now there's a wonderful church there.

Friends, Paul reached this entire province and never left the city of Ephesus because it was a strategic city. He just reached the honeybees moving through town and the honeybees took the message all over the province. Now this is not just an ancient strategy.

You know, it's been used in modern times. I think of a fellow named Adoniram Judson. I don't know if you know that name. He was an American missionary who in 1817 landed in the country of Burma. Well, he looked around at the country and he realized how many thousands of people lived up in the jungles, but it didn't seem reasonable for him as a foreigner to go tromping through the jungles trying to reach them. So he said, you know what I'll do?

He said, I'll use the strategy Paul used. And what he did, let's show you a map of Burma. He set up in the city of Rangoon, the capital city right here on the Bay of Bengal, and he said, you know, there's enough people traffic moving through this city going back up into the hills of Burma.

I'll just reach them when they come through Rangoon. Twelve years later, there was a young man. His name was Kothai Bew, who was moving through Rangoon. He met Adoniram Judson. He gave his life to Christ. Adoniram Judson worked with him and discipled him. And then he left Rangoon as a honeybee and went home to his tribe, the Karen tribe, K-A-R-E-N, living up in the eastern hills and jungles of Burma, the western jungles of Thailand. And as a honeybee, he took the message of Christ with him, Kothai Bew did. Do you know today, 150 years later or more, today, not only was there a great revival there in the days of Adoniram Judson, but today there are hundreds of Christian village schools, Christian high schools, over 850 self-supporting churches, and over 150,000 followers of Christ that live in that red square you see on your screen. And it all started with Adoniram Judson never leaving Rangoon, but he met a honeybee named Kothai Bew, who he pollinated, and this man took the message of Jesus back to his tribe, and you see what's happened today. Now, I want to stop there because everything we've said so far begs a very important question, and you know what our very important question is, so let's go, here we go, come on now, nice deep breath, real nice and loud here, one, two, three.

So what? Ah, yeah, you say, Lon, so what, this is great, always wanted to know where the Karen tribe is, I went trivial pursuit now, what difference does this make to my life? Well, friends, you know this philosophy of strategic cities that Paul followed is still a key strategy for reaching our world today. When it comes to strategic cities, by the way, we live in the most strategic city in the world.

You know what we say, we say change Washington, change the world, and that's probably the only city left in the world that you can say that about. You say, but Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, you just said earlier that we've got modern communication and modern technology like none of these people had, Adoniram Judson didn't have it, this strategic city thing, I mean, this is an anachronism, we don't need this anymore, it's irrelevant. Oh, no, no, no, no, friends, do you realize there are large segments of our world's population, like China, Indonesia, the Muslim world, the communist world, that are all prohibited from access to our modern technological means of communication. They're not allowed to watch Christian television, they're not allowed to listen to Christian radio, they're not allowed to read Christian publications in those countries.

Do you realize there's a whole other segment of the world that for economic reasons can't access all of this, places like India, places in Africa, and other third world countries where people are so poor, they can't afford televisions, they can't afford personal computers to access the internet. You know, still in our world today, this strategy that Paul followed is an extremely important strategy, the honeybee strategy, because there's probably 50% of the world's population that are close to our modern means of communication. And the best way of reaching them is using the strategy Paul used in this city, in other words, pollinating significant members from these cultures while they're here in Washington, foreign students, diplomats, military attachés, people working at the World Bank, pollinating them for Jesus Christ when they're here in Washington, and then helping them to return home like Kai-Fei-Biu did to their own people to pollinate their own people. You say, oh, this is great. This is a great strategy then for world missions, right, Lon?

No, no, no, this is also a great American strategy. You say, really, how do you see that? Folks, do you realize the brightest young talent in America moves through this city every single year? People graduate from Harvard, Yale, some of us common people go other places, but whatever, young students who are graduating and coming through this town, they're coming through to work two or three years on Capitol Hill to intern at the Supreme Court, to intern at some business or some law firm here in the city, to be a junior officer at the Pentagon, and they're off to change the world. These people have dreams of changing the world.

Well, you know what? If we can pollinate these young folks as they come through town with Jesus Christ and then let them go off, they'll go off to change the world, hopefully not for themselves anymore, but they'll go off to change America for Jesus Christ. This is an American strategy as well as a foreign strategy. And this is why our mission is what it is, to make an impact on this city, the secular people in this city, to rock Washington, D.C. with the message of Jesus Christ, just like Paul rocked Thessalonica, to pollinate hundreds and thousands of honeybees as they're moving through this town, just like Paul did in Thessalonica, just like Adoniram Judson did in Rangoon, and then to dispatch these people back to their own cultures as honeybees carrying the message of Jesus Christ with them and getting to people and to cultures that we can't get to any other way. So we're out to pollinate American honeybees and Chinese honeybees and Israeli honeybees and Arab honeybees and Indonesian honeybees and African honeybees and Tahiti honeybees. We'll pollinate them all.

We don't care. And this is what we're trying to do here in this city. You say, well, this is great. This is wonderful. I'm so excited about what we're doing here.

Well, wait a minute, folks, hold on. The big so what here is not about what we're doing globally as a church. I mean, we are doing some things globally as a church. Yeah, we're on the radio and we have public services and we do Angel Tree Christmas and we do turkey outreach and we have the house.

Yeah, that's wonderful. But you know what? The big so what here is not about what we're doing as a church institutionally. The big so what here is about you and me personally and the role we have in all of this. You see, the most effective way to pollinate honeybees always has been and always will be people to people, not institutional church programs to people, but people to people. The way Paul pollinated people in Thessalonica was he did it person to person.

The way Adoniram Judson pollinated people in Rangoon is he did it person to person. And if we're going to really achieve our mission in this city, it's not going to be through church programs we run. It's going to be through hundreds and thousands of us as the people of McLean Bible Church fanning out through this city and pollinating people one person at a time for Jesus Christ. First Peter Chapter three.

Listen to what Peter says. He says always be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks you why you're living the way that you are. To put it another way, as we move around Washington, D.C. as followers of Christ, we have to see it as our personal mission to be honeybees and pollinate people at our office, in our neighborhood, at our school, everywhere we go if we're going to be able to achieve our mission in this city. Now we can share Christ respectfully. We can share him courteously.

We can share him kindly. But friends, if we're going to get the job done, we're going to have to share Jesus boldly and without apology in this city to get this job done. And you know what I like to say is what are we ashamed of? What are we afraid of? We have the one message in the universe that will not only alter people's eternal destiny, but will transform their lives.

What are we afraid of? I love what Paul said. He said, I am not ashamed of the message of Jesus Christ. Why, Paul?

Because it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. And friends, this is what I want to challenge you and me to do. Yes, we want to follow Paul's strategy in this city. Yes, we want to pollinate honeybees moving through this city. That's how we can reach our country and reach our world.

But you know, there's a personal element here. That means you and I have to be honeybees. We've got to step out. We've got to share our faith.

We've got to pollinate the people everywhere we go or it's not going to happen. I don't know if any of you guys have ever heard of John Hyde. You say, is that the guy from Jekyll?

No, no, no. This is a different guy. This guy was a missionary. He was an English missionary to the country of India. And John Hyde was about halfway through his missionary career and he woke up one morning and he was praying. And he and he asked God for something very unique. He'd never done this before. He said, Now, God, as I go out today into the streets of India, I'm going to ask you give me one person today that I can share my faith with.

And you know what? He went out and God gave him somebody. So he said, wow, that's so cool. So the next day, you know what he did? He woke up in the morning before he went out, he prayed and said, God, give me one person I can share my faith with. He got it. Every day he began praying. God, give me one person I can share my faith with.

You know what? He got them. So after a while, he started saying, Hey, God, give me two people I can share my faith with. He got them. Then he started praying.

God, give me three people I can share my faith with. He got them. By the end of his missionary career, John Hyde was praying every morning for four people a day that he could share his faith with. And every day God gave them to him and sometimes more. In fact, he acquired a nickname because of all this. His friends began calling him praying Hyde. Praying Hyde. Now, friends, just think what would happen if every single one of us here today, every single person that comes to McLean Bible Church, every teenager, every adult, every child, would pray and ask God that every day to give us one person we could share our faith with. Just think. That means we would be sharing Jesus Christ with over 8,000 people a day in Washington, D.C. And if we did this seven days a week, sharing Jesus with a new person every single day, do you know how long it would take us to share Jesus with every single individual in metropolitan Washington? A million people. It would take us, do the math, 612 days.

Now, that's not even two years. And we, by sharing Christ, every one of us, one person a day, we could share Christ with every single person in this city in less than two years. You say, Lon.

Lon, God bless you, son. You are such a preacher. This kind of stuff doesn't happen today.

And this is a pipe dream. God doesn't do this. I mean, John Hyde was a missionary. You know, God does different things for missionaries than he does for normal people. He doesn't do this kind of stuff.

You don't think so? My middle son, Justin, who's a senior at JMU, was home this weekend and was telling me the story on Friday night. He said, Dad, you know, I was reading in the Bible having devotions. I was reading the story of Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts and how God took Philip down just for this one guy.

And I began thinking, you know what, if God took this guy, Philip, and had one divine appointment for him with this eunuch, well, why couldn't God do that for me? So he said, I got up that morning before I went to class and I said, God, give me one person today I could share my faith with. He said, well, we went through the day and nothing seemed to happen. And he said that evening he's doing some tutoring for freshmen in some subjects that he's good at. And he said, I had this guy over my house and I'm tutoring him. And as part of the conversation, he turns to me and he says, so tell me, he says, here at JMU, he said, you party a lot? And Justin said, well, I used to do some of that, but I don't I don't really much anymore. And the guy said, well, why not? And Justin said, I could not believe it.

Here this guy is sitting here asking me why I don't. And I said, well, you if I want to be perfectly honest with you, it's because of Jesus Christ and what he's done in my life. And the kid said, what? And Justin said, if you want to hear about it, I'll tell you. And the kid said, yeah, I'd love to hear about it. And so for a half an hour, he sat there. I don't think he charged him for that half hour, but for a half an hour, he sat there and he shared Christ with this young freshman. And he said, when the guy left and shut the door, Justin, he said, I sat down in the chair and I said, well, would you look at that?

Is that unbelievable? He said to himself, I asked for one and God gave me one. And friends, don't tell me God doesn't do this today. Let me tell you, if you want somebody to share Jesus with on Monday, you'll get it. And if you want somebody on Tuesday, you'll get it. God will see to that.

And it'll be effortless. You watch what God does. You say, well, Lon, I'd love to do this.

I'd love to do this. But you know what? I don't know how. I don't know how to share my story succinctly. I don't know how to defend my faith.

I don't know how to explain to somebody else how they can ask Jesus into their life. Oh, we got something for you. It's called Christianity 301. It's part of our McLean University series. And in eight weeks, we'll teach you how to succinctly share your story. We'll teach you how to defend your faith. We'll teach you how to build bridges with people and how to share Christ with people.

If you want to know, we'll help you. But friends, I want to take seriously the challenge of John Hyde. I want you to take seriously the challenge of John Hyde. Just think if we ask the Lord to give every one of us one person a day that we could share the Lord with. Just think what we could do in this city. Just think how we could impact this city for Jesus Christ. And all you have to do, every one of us, is share with one person a day.

And we could blow this city apart. Well, I want to challenge you to think about that. In fact, I want to challenge you to do more.

I want to challenge you to either go sign up for 301 in the lobby as soon as we're done if you need help in getting prepared. Or if you already know how to share your faith, I want to challenge you tomorrow morning when you walk out of your house to say, OK, God, if Lon's son can do it, I can do it. Give me one today, Lord.

And just help me have the courage when the one comes to open my mouth. And folks, if we do that 612 days from now, we can blow this whole city up. I hope you'll take that challenge seriously because I am. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for reminding us today that we live in the most strategic city in the world. And forgive us, Lord, for taking for granted this incredible opportunity you've given us living in Washington as followers of Christ. Right here in this city, we have the opportunity to change the world without ever leaving town. And God, my prayer is that you would inspire us today. You would motivate us today. You would help us to understand that we are following this very same strategy that the apostle Paul himself followed in seeking to pollinate the people of this city for Jesus Christ. Lord, make us faithful in doing that as many of us wake up tomorrow morning and say, Lord, give me one.

Give me one today. I pray you would honor that, God, and that you would give us the courage and you would give us the graciousness to share Christ with people in a way that would make sense to them. Lord, help us to go out as honeybees into this city and help us to pollinate the people of this city so that we can see the world change for Jesus. And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.