Three Gospel Conversations

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. All mankind, the rich, the poor, the black, the white, the young, the old, the conservative, the liberal, religious, the irreligious, those from good families and those from broken families are united by one common problem, sin and one great hope, the salvation of Jesus Christ.

If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then you will be saved. A businesswoman, a slave girl and a jailer. There couldn't be three more distinctly different people, right? But interestingly, they have something in common.

No, they're not the punchline for a joke. But instead, our three unique stories that remind us that the Gospel message is for everyone. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Today, Pastor J.D. continues our study in the book of Acts, where he lays out some foundational principles for biblical salvation. So grab your Bible and turn to Acts chapter 16 as Pastor J.D. starts today's message with a history lesson. Our message today is titled Three Gospel Conversations.

Scholars say that literally over half of the Roman Empire by 325 A.D. was now identifying as Christian. And it's really remarkable when you consider the fact that it all started with 11 guys on a hillside who had no money, who had no power, no endowments, no celebrity recognition. I'm in the process right now of collecting endorsements for a book that I have coming out. And one of the things that you do when you collect endorsements is you look for, you know, famous people that will say, oh, this guy's cool.

I like his book so that other people will buy your book since they've never heard about you. Well, the apostles had none of that because no celebrities knew who they were. So it's remarkable when you consider the fact that their message spread faster than any other movement that's ever taken place in history, and they had none of that stuff. All they had was one absolute conviction that Jesus actually had risen from the dead, and then they had this strange power at work within them called the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let me show you this real quick because I really need you to feel how fast this happened. I'm going to put a map up here that shows you by Paul's first missionary journey where people were identifying as Christian. If you look right there around Rome a little bit and over in Jerusalem, Paul's first missionary trip, that's the only people in the world that identified as Christian in those sections there. Fast forward to 65 A.D. after Paul's second missionary journey, you'll see these are where people are beginning to identify as Christian. Fast forward just a little bit to 325 A.D., that is where people are now identifying as Christian.

So it's absolutely amazing how fast this message spread. And one of the keys I have told you throughout this series was that every person, not just a handful of specialized apostles, every person in this Christian movement saw themselves as a sent one, as a bearer of the message. I've tried to show you throughout this series that the author of the book of Acts, a guy named Luke, seems to go out of his way to show you that the greatest gospel advancements don't really come through the mouths of apostles.

It comes through just regular people. Stephen Neal, the noted Christian historian, points out that nothing is more notable than the anonymity of the spread of the early Christian movement. He said by the end of the first century there are three kind of big famous churches that are now church planting centers. One of them's in Antioch, one of them's in Alexandria, and one of them's in Rome. He said what's remarkable is that of all three of those great awesome churches that are now church planting centers, we don't have any idea who founded any of those those churches. You see the story of the founding of the church in Antioch and all it says is this. There were some brothers who showed up there and the hand of the Lord was with them.

Some unnamed brothers. Paul gets to Rome in Acts 28. He's going there to try to plant a church there. When he gets there, Acts 28, he is greeted by the brothers, another group of just, you know, unnamed Christians who got there and established the church before him. So you're touring around Christian history in the first century and you're like, whoa, who founded this huge church in Antioch and who founded this church in Rome? And they're like, some dudes, some dudes showed up here, we don't know their names, and they just brought the gospel with them and they established these churches. Here's the question for today. What does evangelism by normal people look like?

Since we're talking about that, what does it actually look like in practice? And evangelism, in case you're new, just means sharing the good news about Jesus. That's literally what the word means. Acts 16 is going to show you what that looks like. So if you have a Bible, I would invite you to open it to Acts 16. You're going to see a picture of what ordinary evangelism by ordinary people looks like. We're going to begin down around verse 13.

As you're turning there, I'll tell you that anytime we talk about a subject like this, I always feel like if you're not a Christian and this is the first time that you've come to church, you've finally relented to that person who invited you and invited you and invited you, and now you're finally here and I introduce a subject like this one and you're like, this is what I hate about you Christians. You're always trying to convert me. And the answer to that question is, yes, we are. But let me just ask you if you would to consider it from our perspective.

I feel like I just have to own that. Yes, listen to me. We're trying to convert you. But you need to think about it from our perspective.

If we really believe that Jesus rose from the dead and we really believe that he provided the way of salvation, how could we not be trying to convert you? Now we're going to do our best to respect you, to honor you, to not push it on you, not shove it down your throat. We're going to try to obey social cues and we're going to be friends with you even if you don't believe what we believe. But just understand that we couldn't call ourselves your friend if we weren't trying to persuade you to believe some of the things that we believe.

I would encourage you if you're a church member to take out something to take notes because I'm going to give you a few things that I think are going to be really helpful for you reaching out to people around you. So if you care about the people around you, take out something to take notes. If the person beside you doesn't have anything to take notes on, look at them right now and just judge them. Okay, just judge them.

Are you got that? No, no, I'm kidding. Look at the person next to you and say, I prayed all week long. I would get to sit next to you. Say that to them right now. All right. That's a great pickup line for some of you church guys.

All right. Acts chapter 16 verse 13. We're going to look at conversation number one. We're going to look at three gospel conversations with three persons of interest, shall we call them.

Conversation number one, Acts 16, 13. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside to the gate at the riverside where we suppose there was a place of prayer. And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together there. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia. She was from the city of Thyatira. She was a seller of purple goods and she was a worshiper of God.

The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was being said by Paul. Take a notes, write down Lydia. She is person number one. Now who was Lydia? Well, she's a wealthy businesswoman.

Think put together, driven, brilliant, well-known, well-respected. She's in a very prestigious business. She's a seller of purple.

So she's a fashionista and she's got a job on Madison Avenue. She is religious. She is religious. We know that because she's going to a prayer meeting, but she's not yet a Christ follower. How does she come to Christ? How does she get saved? Well, Paul engages her essentially in an evangelistic Bible study. And while he is speaking to her, verse 13 says, God opens her heart to pay attention to what's said by Paul. The word pay attention in Greek is the same word that's used when somebody is addicted to alcohol, which is kind of a great image. All of a sudden she starts to crave the message. She's like, I got to hear more about this. I got to know it. God is opening her heart.

Can I just add this real quick? That is exactly what is happening to some of you. You never thought you would find yourself in a church, but you came with a friend and you can't help yourself but coming back. You still think we're a little crazy, but there's something about this that is drawing you. And it is because the Lord is opening your heart to hear the things that he is saying. You may not have known what to call that.

You may have been, what's happening? It's the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Verse 15, after she got baptized and her household as well, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she was a persuasive woman, which is why she was successful in business. And so she prevailed upon us.

Conversation number two, verse 16, as we were going to the place of prayer, that's where they started their evangelism evidently with spiritually interested people. We were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and broader owners much gained by fortune telling. Now, this girl is the opposite of Lydia. Scholars say she's probably somewhere in her mid-teen years. She has a demon and she is a slave, which means she is both a spiritual and economic captive. She's not a wealthy businesswoman. She's a slave girl. She's busted up. She's taken advantage of. She is not on her way to the prayer meeting. I mean, first, she couldn't go if she wanted to because she's a slave. Second of all, she has no interest in a prayer meeting. Verse 17, she followed Paul and us crying out, these men are servants of the most high God who have come to us to proclaim the way of salvation.

Now, is she being sarcastic or is she being serious? Scholars say there's probably a little bit of both in there. She is simultaneously both attracted to the faith and antagonistic toward it as well. This is a common, listen, characteristic of people who are captives of different kinds. There's something about the message that attracts them.

They want it, but at the same time, they have so much hurt and mistrust in their heart that comes from abuse that they are antagonistic toward it as well. Verse 18, this she kept doing for many days, Paul having become greatly annoyed, which by the way, I love that. Shows me the Bible's not made up because it doesn't say, and Paul full of great compassion or Paul softly and tenderly looks at her and strokes her hair and says, daughter of Eve.

No, he doesn't say that. Paul ticked off. Paul is peeved is what it says. Paul turns and says to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

And it came out that very hour. So how does this girl come to Christ? Not through a Bible study, but through Paul performing an act of deliverance upon her. He throws out the demon, which also removes her as a circus act that her masters can make money on, which then leads us to conversation number three. But when her owner saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And the magistrates tore off the garments from them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. Here we meet person number three, the Philippian jailer. Now who is he? Jailers were usually highly decorated Roman soldiers who as a retirement gift were given by Caesar a jail to run.

So this guy is older. He is battle hardened. He's part of the ruling class.

I'm sure he's arrogant and cynical because of all the things that he's seen. He puts Paul and Silas into the inner prison, which was kind of the lowest, most internal part of the prison where they put their worst prisoners. It was the lowest elevation. So all the refuse and urine and fecal matter ran down in there. It was dark, dank, disgusting.

It was terrible. He puts their feet in stocks. Don't think, you know, modern stocks like you and your brother got your picture taken in at Williamsburg.

Don't think that. On these stocks, these stocks were little chains hung from the ceiling that they would lay you on your back, take your feet and pull them up to these chains. And then they would pull the chains so that your back, your shoulders were barely touching the ground and your feet were suspended in the air. And then they would take these rods and beat the bottom of your feet until they were bloody and they were bruised.

It was excruciatingly painful. Verse 25, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. The prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. In those days, if your prisoners escaped, then you pay with your life.

It was kind of their way of making sure you didn't let anybody go. Verse 28, well, Paul cried out with a loud voice. Paul cried out with a loud voice, eat it, you bigot, serves you right.

No, that's not what it says. Do not harm yourself for we're here. We're all still here. Now here's the question you should ask yourself at that point. Why is Paul still there? He's innocent, right?

He knows he shouldn't be in prison. The walls have fallen down. His chains are off. Wasn't that an act of God? Hadn't that just happened to Peter? In Acts 12, when Peter just walked out, why would Paul still be there? Paul recognizes, you see, listen, that this is part of the plan of God to reach Philippi. Isn't that why God had sent him to Philippi, was to reach people like this?

Hadn't he just prayed that God would use him to reach the people of Philippi? And Paul deduces that if part of God's plan to reach Philippi was to put him in a prison so that he could suffer well and worship well and hope in the glory of God well before a Philippian jailer and then have the reason to tell him why he was so happy, even in the midst of unfairness and pain, then that was a price he was willing to pay. So Paul literally stands there with his freedom, his deserved God-given freedom on his right hand and on his left hand, a cruel jailer that had tortured him unjustly the night before. And Paul turns his back on his freedom so he can go back in and proclaim the way of salvation to this jailer. No wonder the jailer was so moved. Y'all, it's not the earthquake that shook the jailer. It was what Paul and Silas did in the earthquake and after the earthquake that shook the jailer. Verse 29, so the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas and he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, do?

There's nothing you can do. Salvation is not something you do, something that has been done for you. And then in the shortest, most concise, most direct answer to the question ever answered, what must I do to be saved? They give this one line, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Salvation is not something you can do. You're asking the wrong question.

It's something that's been done. You just believe it. Around here at the Summit Church, we often describe it like sitting down in a chair. When you sat down on the chair that you are in at whatever campus you're at, you made a decision. Maybe it was an unconscious decision, but you decided that that chair would hold the weight of your body.

And so you shifted the weight of your body off of your legs onto that chair, right? To be saved means that you understand that Jesus has done everything necessary to save you and he can save you. And you decide to no longer trust in your own abilities to be righteous and you shift the weight of your hope of salvation from your righteousness to what he has finished for you. You can only be in one of two relationships to that chair.

You can either be standing beside it, hoping that you will, you know, keep yourself up or you can be reclining in the chair. You can only be in one of two relationships to Jesus Christ, either thinking you can be righteous enough to get to heaven and in charge of your own life or having sat down in his righteousness fully submitted to him. It is the most clear explanation of what must I do to be saved?

It is unbelievably simple. You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You believe that it is finished, that it is done for you. You sit down and trust in it and you will be saved at this very moment. Verse 32, and they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once.

Why do we do baptism spontaneously around here? Well, because of the New Testament, all right? He and all of his family. And then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. Now, this chapter gives you stories of three people who come to faith in Christ.

Surely lots of people during Paul's time there came to faith in Christ. So why include the stories of these three? You see, that's always the kind of question you ought to ask when you're studying the Bible. See, I not only want to teach you the Bible, I want to teach you how to study the Bible. So you got to ask, why these three stories? What is the author trying to show us with these three stories? All right? I'll tell you why. I'll give you two reasons.

Letter A is the first one. To show us, he records these three stories to show us something important about the gospel. Namely, listen, that the gospel is for everybody. You could not find three more different people than these three. You got a rich businesswoman, a religious woman. You got a slave girl who's demon-possessed, and you got a Philippian jailer.

These three people would never even speak to each other on the street. What's he trying to show you? Listen, there is no type for a person who becomes a Christian. People say that to me all the time. Well, I'm just not the Christian type. I'm not the religious type.

There is no type. We all have one creator and God. Shoot me, creator and father of God. We all have one problem, sin, which means we've rebelled against God, and there's only one hope for all of us, and that is Jesus' death in our place. Jesus did not die as a rich man. He did not die as a Jew. He did not die as a poor man. He did not die as a white man. He died as the representative of all humanity.

He died as your representative. And because of that, the church of people who believe in him is a place where people of vastly different types find unity in Christ that they wouldn't find anywhere else. You see, all of us have characteristics about us that give us an identity, and we typically like to hang out with other people that share that identity.

Sometimes those characteristics make us proud, feel like it kind of sets us apart from other people. Who does God bring to Christ in Acts 16? A woman, a slave, and a Gentile.

Why? Because in the church of Jesus Christ, women, slaves, Gentiles, and Hebrew rabbis sit down as brothers and sisters in Christ. All mankind, the rich, the poor, the black, the white, the young, the old, the conservative, the liberal, the religious, the irreligious, those from good families and those from broken families are united by one common problem, sin, and one great hope, the salvation of Jesus Christ. Which means I don't know who you are this weekend. I don't know what you've done. I don't know how far you've fallen, but I can tell you that you, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then you will be saved, right? Because you're not more lost than I am.

We got the same problem, sin. Jesus' work on your behalf is not less finished for you than it is for me. It's not about the Philippian jailer's ability to fix himself. It's not about the demon-possessed girl's ability to deliver herself. It is about what Christ has finished for you.

He finished it for you. And if you will believe it today, you can be saved. That is our great unity because there is no difference.

Paul says in the book of Romans, there's no difference in the Jew, or the Greek, or the black, or the white, or the rich, or the poor, or the young, or the old, or the religious, or the non-religious, or the male, or the female, the same Lord over all is rich in mercy to all who call upon Him for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So these stories are recorded to show you something about the gospel. Namely, that is for everybody. Second, they are recorded to give us, let her be, glimpses of different people in our city. And I believe to kind of give us a pattern for how we're supposed to reach them.

So it's to give us a glimpse of different kinds of people in our city and show us the different ways we reach them. We'll start with Lydia, who is the spiritually interested. She's a religious person. She calls herself a follower of God.

How do you engage a Lydia? Well, Paul just opens the Bible and engages her in a spiritual conversation. He studies the Bible with her. There are lots of people in our community and on our college campuses who fit this profile. Sometimes they have a Christian background. Sometimes they're just people of other religions who are open to having spiritual conversations. Sometimes they're active in church. Sometimes they are, you know, what we call CEO Christians, Christmas and Easter only Christians.

That's the only times they come. But they're open for whatever reason to having spiritual conversations. The best way to reach people like that? Engage them in the study of the Bible. Now, how do you do that?

I'm gonna try to make this as practical as I can. This is the part we should jot some stuff down, all right? You can first just invite them to church. One of the things we try to do here is we try to partner with you in reaching your friends. I look at my role often as kind of just raising questions that I hope you'll have a good time answering at lunch or dinner when you go out later. In fact, I'll say that sometimes, won't I? When I say, if you got questions about this, ask the person who brought you and they'll take you to dinner and they'll pay for it. They'll answer all your questions because they're smarter than I am, right?

That's my statement of faith in you. I sometimes will compare to air war and ground war. And what I do up here is air war. I fly over you and I just drop gospel bombs.

I carpet bomb. But your responsibility is to go later and to unpack these things. So my covenant to you is to always do my best to not embarrass you, to not say idiotic things that make you have to apologize for the next three hours about what I said, but to just say it in a way that raises questions that you will be able to then follow up with your friends so you can invite your friends.

That's probably the easiest way. Salvation belongs to God, but faith comes by hearing. So make sure that you're making some noise. You're listening to Pastor JD Greer and this is Summit Life. Throughout our study of Acts this year, JD, we've talked so much about the call to go and the mission of the church to multiply and plant and grow new churches. That's so important to us that we give a percentage of every dollar donated to Summit Life to this mission, right? Yeah, you know, Molly, one of the things I'm very grateful to be able to say is that we have set up our ministry here so that 10%, at least, in fact, sometimes it's a lot more, but at least 10% of every dollar given to Summit Life goes back out to plant and equip brand new churches.

You see, we don't get any revenue at Summit Life from advertising. We depend entirely on God's provision through the generosity of listeners like you. So when you support this ministry financially, you are joining in our mission and helping your fellow listeners dive deeper into the gospel. And in many cases, people who have no connection to the gospel hear about it for the first time. And at the same time, you're giving to help start new churches so that people that are being exposed to the gospel have a place where they can grow and multiply and reach new people. We'd love to have you partner with us today. When you give to Summit Life, you're helping us deliver these Bible teaching messages meant to take you deeper into the gospel.

But remember, you're also helping start and establish new churches all across the country. As our way of saying thanks, we'd like to send you a new resource created by the Summit Life team just for you. It's titled Scent, the Book of Acts, Volume Two.

It's a personal Bible study to help you process today's message, and it's chock full of interactive questions and insightful commentaries to help you think through your part in God's mission to reach the lost. Ask for Scent, the Book of Acts, Volume Two, when you donate at the suggested amount of $25 or more. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or go online and request the book when you visit us at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bedovitch, and that's a wrap on another strong week of teaching here on Summit Life. Enjoy worshiping with your church family this weekend, and we'll see you again Monday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.