The King's Church in Ilford
Reading: Acts 17:1-15
How do you follow the SOTM? That's the question that's been exercising me for some weeks. How about by looking in on a church that's living it out? As I've sought the Lord, gradually He's drawn me to the church at Thessalonica. It's a young, growing, vibrant church, living in the power of the Holy Spirit. One of its major characteristics is that it's an End-Time church. They lived in the daily expectancy of Christ's return. This had a radical effect on the way they lived out their lives. So there's a lot we can learn from the church at Thessalonica. There's a lot we can learn from Revelation too on this. Incidently, I didn't plan our studies in Revelation to coincide with this series in Thessalonians; but I'm beginning to think the Holy Spirit is wanting to say something here!
But we're going to start in the Book of Acts, and how the church came to be planted. Thessalonica still exists as a city today, but sadly I expect the church there today bears little resemblance to the one Paul planted on his second missionary journey.
Paul had a clear mission strategy in his journeys. His aim was to preach the gospel in all the major cities throughout the Roman world. Get a church going in the cities, and local people would take the Gospel into the surrounding countryside. So he went from one city to the next, preaching for as long as he was allowed to. He had a number of things in the natural that were helping him:
1. Pax Romana This was the Roman peace brought about by the Roman Empire. It meant he could cross borders freely from one country to another. He didn't need a visa. He could stay as long as he liked, where he liked.
Note that we can do this in all the 26 countries of the European Union.
2. He was a Roman Citizen. In spite of being born a Jew, he had certain privileges like the right not to be flogged or tortured, the right to a trial, and to appeal to Caesar if he didn't get justice - and he made full use of them.
We too have the right to justice, and can appeal to the law.
3. The Romans built roads throughout their empire, which meant that travel was relatively easy. Why, you could travel from Jerusalem to Rome in less than a month! Today you could do it a couple of hours!
4. There was a common language - Greek. It was the cultural language of the Roman empire. Today, English is spoken by 26% of the world's population.
5. Lastly people were tiring of the licentious religions of Roman times. The morality of the Christian faith had great appeal.
My point is that we have access to all of this and more; but while it is helpful, it is no substitute for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, faith to step out in the face of the impossible, courage that was prepared to be flogged, stoned, imprisoned, and even die for the sake of the Gospel. We don't go looking for persecution, but if we're preaching the Gospel as pro-actively as Paul was, we can expect a negative reaction. More of that in a minute.
Paul also had a strategy for what to do when he got to a town. He went to the Synagogue first. Now he may have had a biblical reason for this in that salvation was for the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But also, he was more likely to find people there who were open to the gospel. The people in the Synagogues were not just Jews. There were God-fearing Greeks there as well. But all of them would know the Scriptures. He had a head-start with them.
Mark Driscoll, in his book, "Confessions of A Reformission Rev" - which I heartily recommend - talks of how he developed his strategy for growing church. It might seem obvious, but his first line of approach was to go for the "fruit nearest the ground" - ie visitors to the church, people who attended but weren't necessarily members. So if that's you this morning - we love you!
Paul likewise started with the fruit nearest the ground. And for three weeks, he reasoned from the Scriptures with those people in the Synagogue, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. Of course he didn't have the NT. This was all what we call the OT. To a Jew, they were the Scriptures. The singer, Helen Shapiro, went into a Jewish bookshop to buy a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, and asked, "Do you have a copy of the OT?" "How old do you want it?" - came the reply.
Back in 1909, A.W. Hodgkin wrote a book called, "Christ In All The Scriptures". You don't even have to buy it - you can read it on the Internet. But he went through every book in the Hebrew Scriptures, and showed how every one of the books in the OT contains prophetic references to Christ. There are over 300 prophecies concerning Christ's first coming in the OT, and 500 referring to his Second Coming.
Gen 3:15 speaks of the one coming who will crush Satan's head
Micah 5:2 speaks of Christ's birthplace
Isaiah 7:14 speaks of the virgin birth
9:6 speaks of his everlasting kingdom
53 speaks of his suffering and death for our sins, and his burial in a rich man's tomb.
Psalm 16:10-11 speaks of his resurrection. See also Ps 30:3; 31:17; 86:13
Psalm 22 describes the crucifiction in graphic detail.
These are some of the better known ones, but all 300 were fulfilled in Christ's earthly life; and many of the prophecies concerning his 2nd Coming have already been fulfilled. This inevitably tells us that it is not going to be long before He comes again. We need to be an End-Time church also - one that lives in the expectation of Christ's return at any time. In the light of this, how are we to live? What can we expect life to be like in the times before His return? These questions are ones that Paul sets out to answer in these letters. But we get a even fuller picture as we read through Revelation.
Paul would no doubt have wanted to explain all this to the new Believers at Thessalonica, but he never got the chance. He was there three weeks only before his preaching stirred up so much opposition, it caused a riot! That three weeks had been very fruitful and had made quite an impact. We're told some of the Jews had been persuaded along with a large number of God-fearing Greeks, and not a few prominent women. It was enough for a church plant. Presumably most of these had been going to the Synagogue up till then, so we shouldn't be surprised that the remaining Jews got jealous.
If we start trying to reach people from the Jewish or Muslim communities today, we can expect a similar reaction - but we shouldn't let it deter us. That's the challenge. We've been conditioned by our society into not doing or saying anything that will give offence; but the Gospel will give offence if we preach it urgently. We may end up in court for harrassment, or discrimination, or whatever other subtle ways our secular government may come up with to muzzle the Gospel. But Paul saw these people as lost and going to hell, and the only thing that would prevent that is the Gospel. More than that, Paul had been sent by the King of Kings to make disciples of all nations. Christ's authority and mandate is far greater than man's authority; and governments exceed their authority when they make laws that muzzle the Gospel.
In the AV, the Jews complain of "These men who have turned the world upside- down..." Turned it the right way up - more like; but would that the church in Ilford had a reputation for turning Redbridge upside-down." In Acts 4:29, the church's response to threats was, "Lord, make us bolder." In Eph 6:19, Paul asks them to pray for him, that he might be fearless in making known the Gospel. And in 2Thess 3:2 he prays for deliverance and protection from evil men and the evil one so that message of the Lord would spread rapidly and be honoured.
We can afford to be a lot more outspoken and assertive in our preaching of the Gospel. We need wisdom in this - as always. There's a time to speak and a time not to. (illustration)We don't want to be Gospel Bores - turning more people off the Gospel who might have otherwise come. On the other hand, Jesus encouraged us to believe that the harvest is ripe and ready for reaping. There's a lot more people out there wanting to hear the Gospel than we often think. So let's ask the Lord to make us ready, alert to the opportunities, and to give us the boldness to go for them. Who knows? We might find ourselves planting a church in Barking, Dagenham, Chigwell, Romford. Why not?