Running with the Pagans

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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With that said, I'd like to introduce the text and I like it because when we come together

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I recognize that we've got a lot of things, how many of you would say you have a busy life? Okay, so you come here and how many of you maybe have some stuff on your mind when you walk through these doors that you've carried some things with you from the week, right?

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Some of you have carried things from the last half an hour where you've been arguing and bickering in the car on the way here, okay?

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So we carry all kinds of things through these doors with us and I like to start off with a focus on what we're going to hear from God's Word so that we can take that in and maybe reorient us.

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And I think it's kind of funny because sometimes people think of the worship in songs as preparation from hearing from God's Word, but I think it's kind of a catch -22, like it's like which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

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Like singing songs of worship to God I think flows out of the truth of what we hear from God's Word and obviously it's kind of like it's a big circle, a big cycle.

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As we worship God, we are more prepared and more prone to hear from His Word, but as we hear from His Word, we're more prone to worship

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Him. Does that make sense to you? So I like to start with just a focus on reading God's Word, talking about it, and seeing where we're going this morning so that we can be prepared in our hearts just for everything that God has to offer for us this morning, including worship and song and hearing from His Word.

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We only have two more messages in the Book of Acts. It's been quite a journey. God has given us a history of the early church.

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Ultimately the sermon series has been called Solid Foundations because He has shown how He is, how

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the foundation of the early church. And it recasts, it really has been no different.

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We desire for the glory of Jesus to be exalted in us, through us, and ultimately in our community because our community sees

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God living in us and in the love that we have for each other and in the love that we have for our community out there as well.

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The title of my message this morning is Running with the Pagans. And in this text we're going to see Paul and company encounter a group of idolaters on the island of Malta.

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And I think we might be challenged and maybe even initially confused as I read this text about the way that Paul interacts with people who prove themselves to not be in with God, but in with a multitude of gods.

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They literally worship a bunch of idols. One thing shines clear though in this text.

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Paul does not wait for them to believe what he believes before he demonstrates compassion for them.

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I fear that many churches and many Christians today reserve their time, their energy, their concern for those who look like them, think like them, believe like them, worship like them, and that's not the way that it ought to be.

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And everyone else feels out there like they need to come on our terms and look like us and act like us and think like us before they're going to be welcomed by us.

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Do you hear what I'm saying? And we're going to see Paul respond differently to a group of idolaters, a group who literally bow before idols and worship this pantheon of Roman gods.

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And he's going to respond a little different. He's going to show kindness and compassion to them indiscriminately.

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And sometimes that can rub us the wrong way. We think that, well, wait a minute, Paul, why are you doing these miracles and doing these kind things for people who don't even believe in your

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God? And hopefully the text challenges us that way. So before we come to worship,

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I want us all to consider the reality that our God came to us when we couldn't get to him. When we were lost and confused and ultimately our hearts were in a state of idolatry, he broke into our history to redeem us.

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He didn't wait for us to conform to his image. He didn't wait for us to act like him or to be like him. He came down as one of us and engaged us where we live.

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So I want you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 28, a little bit shorter text than we've been taking the last few weeks,

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Acts 28, 1 through 10. That's page 802 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, 802.

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If you want to use that Bible, you can open up quickly there. And if you don't own a Bible, you can take that one with you. I say that every week.

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But follow along as I read Acts chapter 28, verses 1 to 10. After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called

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Malta. The native people showed us an unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold.

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When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on fire, a viper came out and because of the heat, because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

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Pleasant, right? When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, No doubt this man is a murderer.

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Though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live. He however shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.

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They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

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Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days.

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It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery, and Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hand on him healed him.

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And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to set sail, they put on board whatever we needed.

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Let's pray. Father, as we come to this text this morning,

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I praise you that you are not a god who waited for us to conform to your image before you came and redeemed us.

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And then as we see in the example in the model of Paul, the way that he loved this community and loved these people and showed compassion on them even to the extent of healing their sick, and yet in the end we see no evidence that they came to understand you or to embrace you.

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And Father, I pray that this church would have an impact on our community and genuinely love because you have loved us and genuinely forgive because you have forgiven us, and to shine light out into this community of genuine compassion, not as just a means to an end or some chintzy cheap kind of friendship that we offer to people in the case that they might embrace you, but that we would genuinely love because of the great love that has been lavished upon us at the cross.

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And then Father, as we have an opportunity to worship you, that we would worship you as you really are, that you would open our eyes to see you in the great redemption that we have through your son,

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Jesus Christ, and let our hearts rejoice and real joy flow out of our hearts, recognizing that we're coming from busy weeks and a lot of stuff coming at us, some having good weeks, some having bad weeks, but Father, let us lay all of that aside and focus on you this morning,

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I ask this in Jesus' name. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us. Did you guys enjoy the new song? Something a little new, an old song set to a new tune, but I appreciate their work on things like that, so big thanks to them for putting all that together.

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Go ahead and get comfortable, there are more coffee, there's more donuts up here it looks like, I don't know if there's any more back there.

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So it looks like while supplies last, that kind of situation going on here. Last week, if you were here, we saw a shipwreck, right?

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Paul was involved in a shipwreck and it was pretty crazy, a literal shipwreck. We talked about sometimes in life we experience figurative shipwrecks as well, but Paul was on a voyage from Caesarea near Jerusalem and he was crossing the

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Mediterranean Sea to Rome, they were caught in a storm, it got kind of crazy. All hope was lost, but an angel appeared to Paul encouraging him, saying everybody was going to be saved, don't worry about it, the ship is going to go down, but everybody's going to survive and that's exactly what we saw, 276 people on board all made it to land safely in the midst of the storm.

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And it all went down just like the angel said and they hit a sandbar right off of the island of Malta and that's where we start our text this morning.

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So it makes sense of the phrase, after we were all brought safely through, if this was your first week with us, you might go safely through what?

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Safely through a shipwreck in a storm. So that brings us right up to speed and then they didn't even know what island they had landed on until eventually they met some of the people that lived there and they were like, oh, we're on Malta and it's quite likely that these are seasoned sailors, so they would have known the island of Malta, they just didn't recognize the land when they were coming in in the middle of a storm.

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And so now they know basically where they are and where they are in relationship to Rome and they're going to end up spending three months there on the island of Malta.

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I would imagine that there was a lot of the kissing of the ground going on at this point, okay, like you've been through a shipwreck, you were pretty sure you were going to end up being shark food and then you end up safely on the ground,

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I would be like, yes, I will kiss the ground, glad to be here. And so they're going to hang out there for a while.

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The native people of Malta are of Phoenician descent, so that we see the word in verse two, let's see, native people, it actually is the

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Greek word barbarian, so that's where we get our word barbarian and yet in our mind that might not be an accurate, really good translation because we think

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Stone Age people are hostile people when we think of the word barbarian, right? It couldn't be further from the truth, these are actually quite civilized people who we're going to see demonstrate unusual hospitality, it says in our text, to the people from the shipwreck.

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Now, the Romans used the word barbarian for anybody who didn't speak either Latin or Greek, so you could be a very intelligent individual, but if you didn't speak

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Latin or Greek, you were a barbarian to them and so that was their mindset, so what we have here is actually a bit of a language barrier when they crash this ship and they're there on the island, there's going to need to be some translation that happens, but Malta has been a

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Roman province for over 200 years, so it's quite likely that translation is going to be possible. There's going to be someone in the vicinity, someone in the area who speaks some

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Latin or some Greek and is able to translate for the sailors and the people on the ship to be able to communicate, but you need to understand that everything that happens in this text is a little bit dicey, it's all done, it's going to be done through translators and so the communication flow isn't quite as easy.

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Have you ever been in a situation where you needed a translator or you're listening to somebody speak and there's a translator and there's always something lost in the translation, there's a reality to that phrase and so we've got to consider that that's what's going on in our text.

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If 276 people showed up on your doorstep in a storm, what kind of preparations would you need to make to help take care of them or even just in your neighborhood, 276 people showed up in your neighborhood and were looking for some kind of shelter, some things that you'd need to do to get prepared and to work that out.

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I think that's why we see the word unusual kindness in verse 2. It's not unusual that they would show hospitality, it's unusual that they would take great efforts to take care of 276 people, does that make sense?

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Because hospitality was a big deal in that culture, so don't think that it's unusual that they show hospitality, it's unusual because of the scope of that hospitality that's given.

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It was very, very important socially in that time, if somebody knocked on your door you fed them, that was key, okay,

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I mean otherwise, in particular in Greek culture where they believed that the gods might come down and things like that, you might curse your entire tribe or your entire group or your city by not showing hospitality, so that was very, very steeped in their mindset and in the

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Jewish culture as well, so culture in that time was very, very hospitable. Somebody shows up on your door right now, it's not even probably 50 -50 whether you answer the door at this point, right,

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I mean it's probably a salesman, you know, everybody shut the lights off and dim it, you know, we're not going to answer. It's a little bit different in those times.

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A fire was very important, can you imagine why? Okay, put yourself in that situation, it says it's starting to rain again, the storm isn't over yet, and are you thinking about hypothermia, don't know what the water temperature was, but it's going to be,

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I mean these people have all just come out of the sea, every single one of them got wet in the process of trying to get in and so they start a fire.

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Now a rain in the summer is fine, right, like is that okay, anybody here like to kind of just be out in the rain when it's kind of,

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I like to go for a run in the rain in the summer, it's nice and hot and that water cools you down, that's fun.

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But rain and cold, my wife and I lived in England for a couple of years, we've been there, done that, the cold, the rain, and the winter, and we don't even want the t -shirt, okay, it's not fun to be in the cold and the rain together and that's the way it was for months and months on end there in England.

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Paul helps then, and I imagine everybody's kind of up and walking around the fire, I don't imagine that anybody's just sitting in one spot, but he begins to gather sticks and apparently he was a pyro just like most of us.

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Isn't there something about getting a big fire together that makes everybody want to throw something in the fire?

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And then there's the person who started the fire that is in charge of fire management, does anybody know what

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I'm talking about, like don't throw anything in my fire, okay, has anybody ever been there, okay,

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I think that's the way that we go, but Paul is out gathering sticks and he's going to throw this into the fire, he's not the one who started it so he's kind of breaking the rules,

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I don't know, but it's unclear whether the snake that we see in the text, this viper, was in the pile of sticks that he gathers, it seems like it's most likely to me, but the text would also leave room for it to have actually been down in some of the wood in the edge of the fire and the heat from the fire begins to warm it up and it's probably been hibernating, it's still, but when it gets that heat it starts to move and it latches onto his hand, anybody freaked out by that phrase in the text?

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How many of you love snakes? Okay, like four of you and the rest of you, I'm going to just guess don't like snakes, that's what happens here is it latches onto his hand, it doesn't just strike him, it doesn't just bite him, it fastens itself on, delivering the full dose of venom, it's there and it's pumping, okay, it's trying to get, it's getting him, okay.

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The native people naturally recognize what kind of snake this is, they know that it's a viper,

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Luke probably as a medical doctor has some knowledge of what kind of snake this is, so there's no need to really question whether or not, and we see them even anticipate the way that he's going to die later in the text, everybody knows what the snake is, it's interesting to note that they call it a wild beast in the text, a creature hanging from his hand, they immediately jump to some conclusions because of this viper, and it's interesting, we get a glimpse of who these people are on Malta by the assumptions that they make because they see this snake hanging from Paul's hand.

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The first assumption is that they assume that bad things happen to a person because they have committed bad sins, now that's an ancient understanding about the reality of the reason why bad things happen to people, if you go back into the book of Job, way, way back to one of the earliest writings in the

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Old Testament, you actually encounter this notion, this idea that bad things happen because somebody has sinned greatly.

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Now do bad things happen because of sin? Can we say that, blanket statement, yes, but it's in a general sense, because Adam and Eve sinned, the world is broken and therefore bad things happen to us, there's earthquakes, there's devastation, there's hurricanes, there's bad things, there's cancer, all of those things are a result of sin, would you agree with me on that?

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But can you point to a specific sin and say, you've got to figure out why you've offended God because God has thrown this into your life and once you figure out and you confess and everything will be taken care of, no, you see, that's what

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Job's friend said and that's what's condemned in the book of Job is the notion that you have sinned specifically and you need to get down to the root of why have you offended

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God and why has he thrown this thing, are you getting what I'm saying, that's what their assumption was, is that making sense to you guys, you getting that?

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Every worldview though needs to account for why bad things happen, if you're going to have a watertight understanding or if your worldview is going to be consistent then you're going to have to explain why there's bad things because are there bad things?

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Yeah, so you need to take into account and consider and maybe you haven't completely bought into the notion that this is true yet, maybe you're here and you're wrestling with that but my challenge to you is to think through all of these different facets of your worldview and say why are there bad things and ultimately scripture identifies that it's because Adam and Eve sinned, that humanity has broken this place and that it's all going to be restored through Jesus Christ and there's a solution to the problem as well.

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But that's their assumption, they saw the snake and assumed that an angry

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God was punishing Paul for a specific sin, specifically they say murder and so that comes to their second assumption and that is that a person can run from their punishment but it's going to eventually catch up with them.

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So you can run from your fate if you will or run from justice and there were a lot of legends and myths surrounding the

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Greek and Roman gods at this time that were about somebody running from fate and fate catching up with them and finally doing them in because they were a murderer or they had done wrong and eventually they were just given over to their fate.

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Well it's interesting to note that we actually have the name of a Roman god in this text and we might miss it if it were not for the translation in the

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English Standard Version but do you see the word justice in your text, go ahead and look down at the Bible, the word justice, do you notice something different about the way that that's represented, it's capital

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J, that's the actual name in Greek, Deike is the name of a Roman goddess.

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Anybody ever hear of that goddess before, a couple of you? It's not one that I had ever heard of before this and I don't know a lot about Roman mythology but she was the daughter of Zeus and the idea was that Deike kept records, she's a record keeper, she's justice and she's weighing out the deeds of humanity and looking and identifying you've done wrong and then she takes that to daddy and daddy says you know what this is going to be the punishment and he meets out the justice and then she carries it out.

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So they're actually seeing this snake as going through the chain of command of these Roman gods and goddesses down to the point where Zeus has weighed in and said this dude's a murderer and now he gets the snake, okay is that making sense, so that's their mindset that you're getting a little bit of the way that they think about things.

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Now it's interesting to note they accused Paul of being a murderer, do you see that in the text, he was, did you think about that, did you think about that as you were reading it and walking through it,

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I didn't think about it when I first read it and then it came back to me later as I was studying, I was like they accused him of something that's accurate, it sticks, what we know about Paul's past, he murdered people, like whoa, like they're accusing him of this and they're saying well the gods have identified you as a murderer and they're cursing you and that could stand if the story goes differently, if he dies from this, they assume that that's the case, but the interesting thing is

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Paul was a murderer but his murders have already been punished on the cross, murderer, and the punishment for his sins have been doled out and paid in full, where, at the cross,

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God is not holding him liable for those things, God is not pursuing him to punish him, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, anybody want to say amen to that, are we sinners, are those sins punished, yes they've been punished and they've been taken by the son of God on his shoulders at the cross, praise

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God, some of us in our hearts have been murderers, we've been adulterers, we have done all kinds of sins, we are liars to our core, and those things have been washed and we are no longer pursued by justice anymore, fate is not against us,

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God, the true God is not against us anymore, but he has called us friends, praise

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God that that is covered, so their assumptions are wrong, Paul's a murderer but his murder has been taken care of, their last assumption doesn't show up until verse 6 and we'll get there here in a minute but I'll just share it right now, they assume that God sometimes come down in human form, a big deal in Roman and Greek mythology that the gods might come down and visit and we're going to see how that plays out in the story, but notice how

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Paul responds at this point, snake still hanging from his hand, he has to detach that thing, how many of you like touching snakes, he's got to remove that thing, shakes it off into the fire, the snake dies we assume, and he suffers no harm, the natives, probably the soldiers, the sailors, the other prisoners, everybody that's there around this fire are going to watch

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Paul with great interest over the next hour or two, everybody loves a little bit of adventure and this is like their reality

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TV right now, they're watching and they're expecting Paul to swell up, fall over dead from the neurotoxins and they know how a person who gets bit by this viper dies so they're anticipating this.

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So my question is, what do you do while you're waiting for somebody to die like this, like what's everybody doing, you know just kind of sitting around like hmm, how's this going to come down, taking bets,

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I don't know, cooking the final meal, like dude what do you want to eat because this is going to be your last meal, are you praying for him, what's going on, it says in the text what's going on, they're waiting, they're waiting, and I don't know how long do you have to wait in this situation before you finally decide he's going to be okay,

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I mean think about that, okay I guess maybe two hours we're out of the woods, I don't know.

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But it's interesting to note, it is apparent that after nothing bad happens to Paul, they decide he's a god, okay, why not, he goes from murderer under a curse from the gods to being a god in like an afternoon, like think about the whiplash on that, okay, all of a sudden he's been declared to be a god, he's been deified.

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Now I want to point out how prone the human heart is to idolatry, we are all prone to idolatry,

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John Calvin the French reformer once said, the human heart is a forge for idols, it is a place where we manufacture idols, in other words, we invent stuff to worship, can you relate to that?

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Is that true about our culture? We invent stuff to worship like iPods and iPads and all different kinds of things that we worship and flat screen

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TVs and technology and we are in the process of inventing stuff to invest our lives into worship.

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And although we might not be able to relate well to Roman mythology, I'm not an idolater, I don't bow down to little golden statues and stuff like that, right?

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The landscape of our hearts is not that different from theirs on Malta. I would say that in America we have our own pantheon of gods and the one that we have elevated to the level of Zeus, the chief of gods in our culture, anybody want to take a stab at what that might be?

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Self, right here, ourselves, we worship ourselves above all other things and then all of these other things swirl around what it takes to placate and appease the god of self.

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Think about the way that money and entertainment and all these other things play in and they're the lesser gods that serve the one god of self.

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And one thing that I've identified is the more that I've gotten to know my culture, the more I've gotten to know myself, I see that there is a new god in America that has completely displaced money.

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I've been reading articles about this and I'm seeing a shift in our culture. Tell me if you think that I'm wrong on this, but I would have said 20 years ago money was the god of America.

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I would now say money serves the god of entertainment and what I desire most is to be entertained and money is subservient to entertainment.

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So that if I could work less hours, and I'm reading articles about this from young people, if I could work less hours so that I could play more video games or I could be entertained more,

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I could go to more concerts, I could have more fun, then I would work fewer hours. But it's all that the money, making money, serves in the end my entertainment.

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Does that make sense? Do you see that in our culture? Do you see that in yourselves? That we are a people who worship entertainment and we love that and it's a major problem in our culture.

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We worship the goddess of beauty or sex or drugs and rock and roll. I had to get sex, drugs, and rock and roll in there somewhere.

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But for real, in the end it's not really a laughing matter, is it? Because our hearts forge idols.

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We are constantly looking for things to worship. Look how quick they are to deify

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Paul. Quick to call him a god. And I would never do that.

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I would never worship a person as god. Or would I? There is something as I said, one person in my life that I have regularly elevated to the position of greatest importance.

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Myself. And I think if we're all honest, we've been there. There are times when we elevate ourselves to the place of most importance.

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And I believe that our lives, in our lives, we are always worshiping. Now you could challenge me on that and if you don't agree with it you can come and talk with me afterwards.

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I think everything that we do comes down to at its base level an act of worship. And either we are worshiping the one true

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God, or we are worshiping ourselves, or we are worshiping some created thing.

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But every act of our lives is in essence an act of worship.

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So sin therefore always comes down to a problem of what are we worshiping.

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Putting something else above God equals sin. And I think every sin filters down to that notion that we are broken in our capacity to worship

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God as we ought. And worship is the central issue of the human heart. There are some things that I want

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Luke to write that are just not in this account. A couple of different things. I kind of want this, I want to retool this passage.

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And as I was studying I was like, I want him to say this and I want this to happen. Right now what I really want is I want

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Paul to freak out and go nuts because they just called him a God. Okay, that's what I want the text to say. But does it say it?

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Look for it. You see it in there? It doesn't say that. I want him to just be shouting at the top of his lungs,

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I'm not a God. Now I wouldn't be surprised if he did that. Luke doesn't record that he did that.

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But if you were to go back to Acts 14, and you don't need to turn there, but if you were to read the account there, he was in a town called

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Lystra in modern day Turkey. And there he was with Barnabas, a traveling companion with him.

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So it's Barnabas and Paul, and the people in Lystra said, Paul and Barnabas, you're gods.

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He healed this guy who had been lame. So he heals him, and then they're like, well, you're gods.

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And they actually accused Paul of being Hermes. They actually identified which gods they thought he was. Paul is

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Hermes, Barnabas, who's the older, more stately one, who's silent and quiet, he's Zeus. And so they actually bring out some bulls and they're going to begin to sacrifice these bulls to Paul and Barnabas.

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And they tear their cloak in a sign of blasphemy, saying, this is blasphemy. And they're shouting, they're going nuts out in the crowd to the degree that the crowd thinks that they're going insane.

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And they actually divert and begin to say, oh no, they must not be gods. And then they stone him. So we see the exact flip side of this, how quick people turn.

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But so I can't help but think that the guy who responded that way in Lystra ten years earlier is probably pretty eager to say he's not a god in our situation, even though it doesn't say that.

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And it is also possible that one of the reasons it's not recorded in here is that there was a language barrier that was so strong that it wasn't until later that Luke actually found out what they were saying at that time about Paul, that eventually they got a translator and they were able to figure out, oh, dude, they actually thought you were a god when that happened.

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Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, it's possible that Luke, writing this a few years down the road, is able to reflect back on things and know what they were thinking at that time or saying at that time.

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But either way, the place where the ship landed, the text tells us, was close to the estate of the highest man in authority on the island, the chief man named

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Publius. He took them in for three days and gave them hospitality. Paul points out that Publius' father was sick with dysentery.

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Interesting, just side note, dysentery is a Greek word. That's exactly what the word is in the

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Greek New Testament, dysentery. Paul visited him, prayed for him, and healed him.

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Like, that would be awesome. I've mentioned many times that I wish I had that gift. I wish that I, and I would do something different if I had that gift of Osdable to just heal somebody at will.

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I would just camp out at the hospital. Like, you know what I'm saying? How many of you would just, if you had that gift and you were just able to at will heal people, you'd just be like, put me in the hospital and I'll hang out there.

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That's where I'd want to live if I had that gift. Anytime I see in the book of Acts a healing miracle,

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I kind of chuckle to myself because the author of the book of Acts is a doctor.

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He's a medical doctor, and yet he records these miracles. So Luke is present. We know that verse one started off, and we were brought safely through.

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Luke is there. He's present at Malta. He doesn't get to administer antibiotics, which haven't been invented yet. He doesn't get to try an herbal remedy.

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Paul prays for the dude, and the dude is healed. I mean, Luke doesn't even get to be a part of that.

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Paul has been declared to be a God in verse six, and he heals someone in verse eight. Then all the island's sick people begin to pour in, and he begins to heal them too, and he shows compassion on these people.

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You might be able to make a case against the wisdom of Paul on this. I can imagine a church committee gathering together to discuss

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Paul's ministry at this case and giving him some advice and saying something like, but Paul, if you keep healing people, they're going to think you're a

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God. They've already voiced that they think you're a God, and now you're healing people? You're just playing into their hand and making them think more so.

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But Paul, they haven't become followers of Jesus yet. Wait until they're in, and then heal them. But Paul, don't cast your pearls before swine.

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Can you hear people say things like that? In a church committee meeting, kind of like,

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I don't know if this is the wisest way to go about this ministry.

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There's Paul in the middle of it, looking just like Jesus, showing compassion on the masses of broken and messed up pagans.

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Just loving them, showing compassion and care and concern for them. Loving people despite their understanding, despite their commitments, despite their ethnicity, despite the language barrier, despite the fact that their creed looks different than his.

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Do you see the love that he's showing to them and the compassion that he's having on the masses? Do you see it? But I need to say this at the risk of being accused of arguing something that isn't in the text.

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So listen up and think through this. I think I'm very solid ground in saying that Paul proclaimed the gospel in Malta.

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Now sure, you can look at the text and say, Don, where is it? I don't see it. I don't see it in this text, these 10 verses.

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He's in Malta for three months, and I don't see any indication in the text itself that he shares the gospel.

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It's not in there. So I can take care of that for you. You don't even need to look. It's just not there.

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But I really believe if you were to read the book of Acts, which many of us have as you've been here through this series, read the book of Acts, get to know

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Paul, and as you get to know Paul, the burden would be on you to prove to me that this man who could not be stopped, could not be shut up in proclaiming the gospel, would then in turn heal a bunch of people on Malta and never open his mouth about his

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And the burden would be on you to prove that a man like that would not be proclaiming the gospel in Malta.

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If it's true that Paul proclaimed the gospel, which I really believe, then we still would be left with the question, why isn't it recorded here, right?

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Why wouldn't Luke actually record it if it happened? But I think that there's a subtle clue in verse 10.

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And here Luke records, if you look at verse 10, our last verse, they also honored who greatly?

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Us. Who are they honoring? I don't think the people of Malta responded well to the gospel.

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Although it was proclaimed by the end of the three months on the island, they are still honoring Paul and Luke and his entourage.

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I want the text to read, they honored God greatly. But it doesn't say that, does it?

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They honored the follower of God, but not God himself. The people of Malta supply the needs for the last leg of the journey to Rome.

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The generosity of these idolaters has furthered the ministry of Paul along, and he's actually pushed along in ministry by their generosity and their kindness, but they have not believed.

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They have not put their trust in Christ. At various times in my life, I have thought, I just wish

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I could see you, God. Have you ever been there? I wish I could see a miracle from you. I wish you would just write me a note and put it in the mail, or I wish

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I could just get a miracle from you. Maybe you could heal someone miraculously through me.

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Maybe you could let me walk on water sometime. Maybe, like just last night, I was sitting on the couch, the remote control was over there, and maybe you could just give me the force to pull that remote control over here just one time.

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Any of you ever tried to do that, by the way? You're like, oh, come here. Oh, you're already under your blanket. You're there right here.

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Okay, come on. Control, remote control. I wish you could just do a miracle sometimes.

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Just one little thing that would just be like verifiable. You know, it's there. But miracles do not produce faith like we think they would.

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How many of you know that as the miracles in the Bible occur, there are other explanations out there for these things, and people will come up with a multitude, and you have different people that respond in different ways to seeing the same data, right?

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You can see the same event, and some people are moved towards faith, and others are moved away from faith by seeing the same exact thing.

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I account for the difference is the Holy Spirit in a person working in them or working on them to bring them to a place of faith.

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Miracles do not cause conversion. We see that. These people are seeing miracles, and they interpret them in a totally different way.

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Only the truth of the Word of God has the real power to transform and change our hearts from the inside out, and it's as we understand the gospel, we believe the gospel, and we trust the gospel that our lives are changed.

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There's not much difference really between Malta and Madawan. We're a community of broken people, and the reality is there are only broken people, and our role as the people of God here in this community is to be a people of compassion.

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We may not be called to a healing ministry, but we are still called to minister to the needs that we see around us in our community.

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There's a significant movement that I fear has stunted the growth of compassion in the church in the past 50 years.

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A little bit of a soapbox for me, but it was this thing called friendship evangelism. Has anybody here heard of friendship evangelism?

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Okay, a handful of you. Okay, friendship evangelism, the basic gist was that I become friends with people so I can share the gospel with them.

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A means to an end, so I will befriend someone in order to tell them about Jesus Christ.

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The main problem is not in the idea. That's not a horrible idea, but it's in the application.

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So what we had for about 20 or 30 years is a bunch of unfriendly people who didn't care using friendship as a means to an end to proclaim the good news to people.

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Do you see what I'm saying? If you're unfriendly to begin with, and you're befriending people as a means to an end, that's not very cool, and people will smell that out.

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Are you getting what I'm saying on that? People will weigh your motives.

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Like it or not, they will, right? And they can see through faking friendship a mile away.

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You're pretty good at that, aren't you? At least we all tend to think we're good at it. So that was backwards, but Paul was not very discriminating in his miracles and his compassion and his friendliness towards people.

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Jesus wasn't either. He loved people. And in that love, he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom.

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And so it's not that I'm saying, don't proclaim the gospel. It's be friendly and proclaim the gospel and still be friendly.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? It's not friendship for a means to an end. It's love because you love people, like real, like loving.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? Not just a tool in my belt where I'm going to become friends with this person so that I can share.

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And boy, if they reject Christ, I'm out. I don't really care about you. I just care about a notch in my belt and one more chance to share the gospel with someone and one more person, a scalp for Jesus.

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You getting what I'm saying? Have any of you experienced that in the church? Okay, a couple of you. I'm only preaching to you then. So I'll skip along and we can talk one -on -one later.

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I really love Recast. I love this church. And by the way, when I say I love Recast, I don't love this building.

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I love you. You are Recast. The people are Recast. And I love this.

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God has afforded us an opportunity to minister to the needs of this community out here. I love that.

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Through the food pantry, through Thanksgiving meals, through Christmas donations. And he has certainly placed people in your path who need things from you.

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Things like friendship, genuine, real love and care and concern for them. Things like maybe a listening ear, maybe some financial assistance from time to time.

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But you also know equally many people who need forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ.

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And being a friend to people is bringing all of those things to bear. Because it would be a lack of compassion that would not share the gospel with somebody.

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Do you understand that equally? I mean, there's the other side of the equation. It is that, yes, we are friends with people, and we are friendly, and we're kind, and we're compassionate, but we share the gospel.

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That would be the loving thing to do, right? I mean, if you really genuinely believe that Jesus Christ is the way to heaven, and that he is the way of forgiveness and reconciliation with God, and you're not sharing that with people,

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I think there's something faulty about that love. Would you agree with me on that? That says, oh,

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I'm afraid of ruining the friendship, so I'm not going to talk about Jesus. That friendship is going to be destroyed and annihilated at some point, right?

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So let's just be compassionate, and kind, and loving, and direct, and honest.

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Not offensive. See, you can slide into the other side too, right? Just be offensive with a bullhorn in your friend's ear, just shouting

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Jesus at them. Hellfire and brimstone, and all that business. I'm looking for opportunities to just genuinely talk about your love for Jesus Christ, and his love for you.

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But let's get rid of any notions that they need to look like us, act like us, or believe like us before we love them.

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I fear that we've thought that way many times. And then let's, in turn, just love them, not merely as a means to an end, but out of a desire to fulfill the clear commandment in scripture to God's people, to love our neighbors as ourselves.

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I'm so glad that Jesus didn't wait for me to conform to him before he came to save me. He didn't say, you have to look like me, and act like me, and be perfect like me before I'll save you.

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Anybody else glad for that? He would still be waiting for us. Instead, he was proactive, making it happen by coming from heaven to earth, by loving us and demonstrating compassion on our helplessness, our hopelessness, our brokenness, by dying on the cross.

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And we remember that each week by coming to communion. We take a cracker to remember the body of Jesus that was broken for us.

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We drink a cup of juice to remember the shed blood of Jesus on our behalf. On the cross, he took the punishment that we deserved.

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He conquered sin, and he turned away the wrath of the father from us. If you believe that Jesus is

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Lord, and you've asked him to save you, then feel free to join us in communion this morning. We're going to be passing this communion out.

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You can take it, or you can pass it on. Take in the words of the song. Think about this message. This is a time for us to reflect on the joy that we have in Christ.

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I think sometimes this can become a solemn, somber thing, and I recognize there are times in life where it kind of goes back and forth between those, but equally it is completely an appropriate response to have joy as we come to communion.

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It seems like, okay, you're remembering a guy died on the cross. God in flesh died on the cross for you.

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Is there some solemnity in that? Is there some somberness in that? Yes, but is that the plan that God made for us to be made reconciled with God?

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Do we have forgiveness, and wholeness, and completeness because of that? Yes. Is that worthy of rejoicing over? Absolutely.

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So it's a little bit of something that we try to bear and keep in tension. But let's pray as we come to this time of reflection.

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Father, I thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus. I thank you that you are a God who is proactive, that you did not expect us to conform to you doing things that we could not do.

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I thank you for the example of Paul on Malta, that we just have another angle from his life and another understanding of the way that he interacted with people, that he showed compassion and kindness even to those who were pagans, that were idolaters, that were worshiping, and even at risk of them worshiping him and seeing him as a

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God, that he still demonstrated compassion, and care, and concern for them. Father, I pray that you would help us to have an impact on this community.

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And as we get an opportunity to reflect on the cross, that the cross would flavor each point along the way of our lives this week.

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And it would be involved in our decisions. It would be involved in our waking up in the morning, and in our going to bed at night.

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And Father, that everything that we do throughout the week would be ultimately for your honor, and glory, and reflection of understanding of the gospel, the good news that we are reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ.