PAUL in ATHENS – When Love Comes to Town
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PAUL IN ATHENS – When Love Came to Town Acts 17:16-34 On this Sunday before Christmas, for a second time, we want to take a look at Acts chapter 17, verses 16-34… Acts 17:16-34 Recently I was talking with a church member about a certain television preacher and how he really has taken on the mantle of Robert Schuller. For those of you who are younger, you may not even know the name Robert Schuller, but Schuller was one of the original television preachers. He got his start out in southern California back in the 1950s with a new idea: and that was that instead of having people come to church, why not just have them drive-in to church? And so, back in the era of drive-in movie theaters, Schuller began a drive-in church named Garden Grove Community Church. His idea took off and in time, as the number of people increased, he went on to preach from a building in which people could come inside or just remain in their cars. At that time there were around 500 cars of people who stayed in their cars for the morning service. Eventually Schuller began broadcasting over television and, in 1980, the church finished construction on what would be called "The Crystal Cathedral." Like Norman Vincent Peale, Schuller's preaching, like the books that he wrote, were full of "positive thinking." He made it a point to never preach against sin. I recall seeing him being interviewed back around 1990 and in that interview he said that the reason he didn't preach against sin was that he believed people felt badly enough about their lives already. So his was a message that was meant to encourage, to lift up, to help people feel better about themselves. Every preacher must, I think, at one time or another, take a good long look in the mirror and ask the question, "What kind of preacher am I? What is MY goal in preaching? Is it that people might feel better about themselves? Is that my goal? For many preachers today, that is indeed their goal. But not all preachers are Biblical preachers, and not all preachers are even pastors. I recall, some 12 or 13 years ago, visiting the church building of a well-known preacher in southern California. The building was very large, able to handle many thousands of people at the same time. The auditorium had a level floor with risers going up on the back. The platform from where this preacher preached was 2 about 5 ½ or 6' off the floor and here is the catch: there were no steps from the platform down. So the preacher couldn't get down to the people nor could the people get up to the preacher. Prior to his preaching and following his preaching, this preacher would come out from a back room and preach. I was able to tour the back room and saw there a couch, a refrigerator, a bathroom and a table for the serving of food. So he, in a sense, lived in this isolated space AWAY from the congregation. I thought at the time, "he may be a professional preacher, but he is not a pastor." Christ, our supreme example of a pastor, was so close to his followers that they could touch him and he could wash their feet. But who are we going to be? Who am I going to be? What is my goal in preaching and pastoring? If Robert Schuller could somehow come back from the dead, what would he think of Burning Hearts? Better yet, what does Jesus think of it all? Well here was Paul, and unlike so many times before, this time Paul was going to be preaching to those who knew nothing about Jesus. To speak of "Jesus of Nazareth" or "The Galilean" would have been meaningless. To even reference the Messiah, the Christ, would likewise have meant little to nothing. These were secular thinkers, secular philosophers. They didn't agree with each other on the meaning of life (what's new? In that way they were like modern psychologists, sociologists, or philosophers – all lacking a common, unifying theory regarding mankind). But here he was, speaking to them, and while he did a tremendous job of attempting to "bridge the gap" or "find some common ground" with his Greek audience, in the end he preached a message that did not go over all that well. As we said last week, some modern Bible commentators have taken "pot shots" at Paul in regards to his preaching in Athens. They have accused him of having lost his audience by bringing up the resurrection of Jesus…as if he would have had a much better hearing if he had just avoided THAT subject. But, also as we said last Sunday, Paul was much more concerned about being faithful to the gospel message (of Christ and him crucified and risen from the dead) than he was in having his listeners walk away feeling better about themselves than they did before. So Paul preached about Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead. 3 But there was a second part to Paul's message that likely also did not go over well. The text here in Acts 17 doesn't tell us just how well or poorly this part of his message received. But it is found in verse 30… Verse 30 "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." That is a verse that you ought to underline in your Bible. For that single verse underscores the fact that with the New Covenant – what we call a "covenant of grace" – we see that the God of the New Testament really is not unlike the God of the Old Testament. And that just as we have this perception that the God of the Old Testament was really concerned about sin, and wanting people to repent of their sins and live holy lives, when we come to the New Testament scriptures, it still reads the same. Now, if you do in fact have a pencil or pen out, here are some other verses that I also think you should underline… Let's read them… Matthew 3:1-2. John the Baptist was the last in the line of the Old Covenant prophets. But he was anticipating the coming of the Messiah and the entrance in of the New Covenant period. Matthew 4:17. In Matthew's gospel, apart from the earlier interaction that is recorded as taking place between Jesus and the devil (during the time of Christ's temptation in the wilderness), these are the very FIRST WORDS RECORDED as part of Jesus' time of adult ministry. And the very first word of these words was the same word that John used: REPENT So John said, "Repent." Then Jesus said, "Repent." Then along comes Peter, speaking to a Jewish audience… Acts 2:36-38 And now Peter says the same: "Repent." But we're not finished, for here in Acts 17, what did we read of Paul and his message to the Greeks? 4 Acts 17:30 Yep. The same message as was preached by John, Jesus and Peter: Repent. There is no change. In evangelicalism we have, I think, to some extent confused people's understanding of the gospel with our bumper stickers, our words of cheer, and so forth. We've been telling people things like "Smile, God loves you." Or maybe, "Just believe." And while the love of God is certainly more than enough to make any person smile. And while we affirm again and again the need for people to believe, there IS something more that we need to be saying. And what we have failed to often mention…indeed what we have often glossed over…is this call to repentance. Recently our son, Jonathan, has been helping me move into the 21st century technologically speaking. And when it comes to music – a real passion of Jonathan's – he has been pulling me away from Pandora and turning me on to Spotify. (This may mean nothing to some of you for either you are already there…or you have no idea what I'm talking about.) But part of what I have been doing over the past couple weeks, over Spotify, is making up a PLAYLIST of MY FAVORITE SONGS. What an eclectic list it is: everything from classical music, to jazz, to gospel, to rock. One of the more contemporary songs on my list is one that is now some 30 years old: When Love Comes to Town by U2. (And, yes, we're going to hear that song at the end of this service.) But in "When Love Comes to Town" singers like Bono and B.B. King sing about the things that they did "before love came to town." As in much of U2's music, the word "love" is used as a synonym for God. So in the song Bono and then B.B. King sing of the bad things they did…the sins of their youth…their hurting of people, their vicarious crucifying of Jesus, and of all the agony that they helped bring upon this earth. But, as they sing in the song, "I did what I did before love came to town." Meaning, these are the kinds of things that we did while we 5 were still IGNORANT. But once God came into our lives, then we quit. When Love Came to Town is ultimately a song about repentance.