Coney Hill Baptist Church
Demonstrating God’s Love Together
Living with One Lord
Acts 17:1-9
1When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. 4Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.
5But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. 6But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: "These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus." 8When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. 9Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.
Intro: What is Discipleship?
- The Practice of Christian Faith.
Discipleship is about what we do more than what we believe, the large and the small things that make up the substance of our lives. These things might be affected by what we believe, by our faith, I hope they are. Honestly though, what actually has the greatest influence on what we do day by day, the decisions we make and choices we take, our personality, temperament, circumstances, culture, or the fact that we call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ? While being a Christian might be a definition of a decision made in the past, being a disciple is about our experience in the present.
- The Subject of the Bible.
As I look at the New Testament, more and more I notice how its message, the message of Jesus, is radical and challenging, not because it proposes an extraordinary new take on the nature and mission of God, a new doctrine or statement of faith, although it certainly does. Nor because it sets out a dramatic personal challenge to once and for all personal salvation to each individual, thought it definitely does that as well. No, what’s increasingly remarkable to me is that Jesus was, and is, about challenging, encouraging, growing disciples. People who want to shape every aspect of their lives in his image, who want to have his imprint stamped all over their very existence, moment by moment.
- The Hope for the Church.
If we’re honest church is a struggle often. It is for me and I’m a Minister! Even at it’s best its frustrating that it doesn’t seem to have the impact it should, or effect people, enough people, in the way we would hope. More often though it can just seem kind of routine, dull even. Emerging generations of people, and not only young people, dismiss the church as boring, and they have a point. To often lacking in real passion and struggling to keep a foothold in the crowded and complicated business of living.
Yet Jesus didn’t offer complex, intellectual theology, or other-wordly escapism but the bearing or our burdens and a way a living, that he called full, abundant.
Disciples summed up - Three Key Words:
Christianity’s oldest creed, its first baptismal statement or commitment, it’s most basic belief … Jesus is Lord.
Simple yet profound. I don’t believe we’ve begun to mine the depths of what that means .. to do so is to embark on that exciting journey of discipleship.
2 necessary and obvious consequences…
- If Jesus is Lord, no-one nor anything else is.
- If Jesus is Lord, then everyone, everything, everywhere comes with his remit and under his authority.
What might this mean? Well everything, but it has to mean something very practically, it’s not just another doctrinal lesson, that’s the point … take Jason from our passage (Acts 17:1-9).
- He opened his home.
- He took responsibility.
- He was willing to pay.
- He lived under an alternative King.
-His actions, more than Paul’s preaching, established the church in Thessalonica.
Conclusion:
The big danger of this sort of talk of discipleship is to build people like Jason up as great heroes, to imagine a sort of heavenly hierarchy where ‘disciples’ are way above ordinary Christians. Where an enthusiastic few try and serve with the whole of their lives while the rest of us make our commitment and cling on.
God knows this is a tough journey. He knows the answer to that question I asked earlier, about what influences us the most, is all to often the wrong stuff. But that’s why he’s come, that’s what he wants us to do together, to receive all that he has for us and to work out how to live it, not in church, but everywhere, to turn our lives into reservoirs of eternal excitement.
Office Address:
Coney Hill Road
West Wickham
Kent
BR4 9BU