You're listening to audio from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now, here's the teaching. Hey. Good morning, everyone.

There we go. Alright. It's good to see you all. I'm excited to open up, Acts 19, look into it today with you. I know it's just a couple of verses, just as, Ellie was up here reading it.

My wife, who sometimes hosts, turned to me and was like, how come she gets a short passage to read? I always get the long ones. It's like, well, it's just, yeah, it's a couple of verses, but there's a lot in here. We're gonna dig into it. You know, we've been walking through acts together, this history of the Jesus movement, watching as the good news of the kingdom of God has expanded beyond the borders of Israel, into the whole of the Greek and Roman world.

We're not all the way to the ends of the earth yet. We'll get there, but we're getting closer. We're getting closer and closer. In these couple of verses we're looking at today, we're picking up in a uncharacteristically stable period of peace, where we actually get to see Paul's kinda strategy and way of thinking about church planning. We we get to see it lived out, so we're we're gonna jump in.

Now how many of you live and or work in the Nora neighborhood area, like up here near where the church is? Okay. Oh, only a few. Okay. Well, so since I work in this area, I was thrilled about a year and a half or so ago when I discovered that Nora, our neighborhood, has finally gotten its very own 3rd wave coffee shop.

Anybody with me? Okay. Let me explain what it means. If you've never heard the phrase 3rd wave coffee shop before, 1st wave coffee is like the powdered stuff you buy at the grocery store. You really don't care where it comes from or even that it tastes horrible.

You're just like, hey. It's hot in the morning, so I'm gonna drink that. Right? 2nd wave coffee is like Starbucks, fast food kind. Am I the only person interested in this sort of thing?

Yep. Okay. Alright. Well, I I mean, this is a 30 minute long illustration, so you're just gonna have to bear with me. 3rd wave coffee is like post Starbucks.

Okay? It's where you actually care about the quality of the beans and the roast and the and the things like that. So it's a local shop or a or a chain or well, anyway, we have one now. This is good. You should be excited.

I'm there a couple of mornings every week getting their 3 doll thank you. I see one head nodding. Getting their $3 cup of coffee. And if that sounds expensive, keep in mind, they'll refill it all day long. Right?

So if I if I'm feeling flush with cash, like, if I brought my own mug and saved 25¢ on that cup of coffee, then I won't just get the coffee. I'll also get a muffin. It's an amazing muffin. It's the French toast muffin. It's got the perfect hint of maple and cinnamon, big sugar crystals on top.

I mean, it's it's a big muffin. It's it's chewy. It's moist. It's anyone who I meet there for coffee, I tell them, you have to try the French toast muffin. You have to buy one of these.

If you don't wanna spend the $4 on it, I will buy it for you. It's that good. I I was telling a friend I met there a couple weeks ago, I have probably introduced more people to the French toast muffin than I have introduced to Jesus in this last year, because the muffin is that good. And, also, unlike Jesus, very easy to convince people they should give it a try. Right?

Very easy to talk about. I'm, like, just buy the muffin and take a bite. You'll understand what I'm talking about. That kind of, like, marketing, you know, word-of-mouth marketing, it's the gold standard, of course, if you're running a coffee shop or trying to move pastries or something like that. It's, like, get people to tell other people about it, invite them, bring them along.

You gotta try that. In in church world, the equivalent we call evangelism, You know, telling somebody good news. It's telling the people we love about the muffin that about the God that we love. It's going to a friend and say, hey. I I I would I would love to introduce you to this person that I know, in the name named Jesus.

So easy to do with a muffin. So much harder to do when we're talking about asking somebody to change the story they live by, the direction their life is going in, the fundamental things they believe, and asking them to submit to the god of the universe, which means it takes a little bit more practice, training, coaching to figure out how to talk to people about Jesus, but that is exactly what we're seeing happening in today's passage. The church is expanding in the region of Asia, not because of the work of professional missionaries, but because the church has figured out how to unleash everyday missionaries into the places where they live and learn, and into the places where they work and play. It's all right in there in just 3 short verses. I think as we go through it, you'll be surprised to see how much is actually packed into these verses.

And as we walk through them, as we go through these verses, as we watch Paul's ministry in Ephesus expand, I'm hoping one one kind of one main point or one big idea or one bottom line or whatever you wanna call it comes through really clearly. If we want to reach the world, if we wanna make an impact, if we wanna make a difference, we need more than missionaries. We need everyday missionaries. If we wanna make an impact, if we wanna change Indianapolis, if we wanna reach the north side, if we wanna change people's lives, we don't need more professional pastors and professional clergy, or even professional missionaries. We need everyday missionaries sharing the gospel every day.

Let let's jump in. Let me show you what I mean. See, these three little verses that we've read here, verses 8 through 10, they're they're sandwiched between more dramatic stories on either side. You know, last couple of weeks, we were looking at at two stories Luke told us that kinda related how Jesus' ministry interacted with a guy who had come before him and announced his coming, a guy named John the Baptist. In the verses after these three, we're gonna see opposition, again, rise up against Paul to a degree that we've not seen before.

But these three short verses in the middle recount Paul's longest, stable, peaceful period of church planting. Actually, it's the last church planting work that he's going to do as a free man before, the rest of his ministry is in chains. In other words, if we wanna see a model of what church looks like in a pluralistic, polytheistic, you know, religiously mixed, worshiping the nationalistic context, this is where we go. If we wanna see a strategy of church planning and and evangelism of telling people you love about the God you love as an everyday missionary, this is where we go. We go to Ephesus.

Pick it up in verse 8. And and he, Paul, entered the synagogue for 3 months, spoke boldly, reasoning, persuading them about the kingdom of God. We've heard some variation on this verse, it seems like a dozen times so far, right? As Paul's gone on these church planting journeys, every time he goes to a new city, he engages first in the synagogues, he's working with the Jewish followers of the God of Israel, the ones who are anticipating and waiting for a messiah to come, and he's there, he proclaims, like, the messiah has come, Jesus is that messiah, he he's come, he's offering you life. But in this particular synagogue, it's a little bit different, because he's been here before.

You might remember a year before this, as he was working his way back home to Jerusalem at the end of that second big church planting trip, he stopped in Ephesus, just long enough to drop off Priscilla and Aquila, 2 of his church planting coworkers. And he was there long enough to, at least once, teach or preach in the synagogue, and they asked him to stay longer. He chose instead to keep moving, keep heading home. But while he was gone, Priscilla and Aquila were attending the synagogue. They were talking to people about the Messiah, about Jesus.

You may remember a few weeks ago, we watched as a dynamic young preacher named Apollos, he came through town, and in this synagogue, he's passionately, he's forcefully teaching and preaching Jesus. So the people who worship here are familiar with the claim that Jesus is the messiah. Some have come to believe even, most don't. But now Paul is back. The guy they'd asked to stay before after a year is now back.

And so for a period of of 3 months, we're told, he he spoke boldly, he reasoned, argued, dialogue, he persuaded about the kingdom of God. Kingdom of God, it's another way of saying, you know, the whole big story of the Bible, how it points to Jesus, how God is bringing salvation to the world through Israel's Messiah, through Jesus, the king of the kingdom. And so in this synagogue, while Paul was gone, and now that he's back for these 3 months, there are Jewish people who hear his preaching, there are Gentiles who have converted to Judaism, they're hearing it, there are Gentiles there who are exploring. Like, I wonder what faith in the God of Israel would look like. They're hearing him as well.

But we're not surprised when we get to verse 9. Over the course of those 3 months, the the mood slowly sours. Verse 9 says, but when some became stubborn and and continued in unbelief, even speaking evil of the way, in front of the whole congregation, Paul withdrew from them and took the disciples with him and began reasoning daily in the Hall of Tyrannus. It seems to be pretty typical of Paul's work. He works in a synagogue telling people about Jesus, sometimes a couple of weeks, sometimes a couple of months.

He's preaching, he's teaching, but eventually, the synagogue attenders or the leaders or someone turns on him one way or another, he ends up being forced to leave, but this time is a little bit different. It's the first time that Luke has used words like, you know, the opposition became stubborn. They hardened themselves against Paul's teaching, dug in their heels, persistently, willfully remaining in in unbelief. You know? It's like it it got to the point where they just refused to give him a hearing.

It's also the first time that Luke has used words like they were speaking evil of the way of Jesus. I mean, they're it's a, like, maliciously insulting, degrading the actions of of the people, the character of the people who have chosen to follow Jesus. They're willfully choosing to misunderstand what followers of Jesus believe, what they do, what they teach. Imagine it was something like the the charges that were brought against Christians a couple 100 years later. You know, we have church fathers and letters that they've written, and there's this one guy named Athanagoras, which I do regret.

I never named a pet Athanagoras. Gus, for short, I suppose. But, anyway, this guy, Athanagris, had to write a letter saying, hey, we're actually not guilty of the things you accuse us of. Just look at us. You can tell we're not guilty.

We are not atheists. Christians were accused of being atheists because they only believed in 1 god, not all of them. They rejected the vast majority in favor of the one. He had to write and say, like, we are not cannibals. I know we talk about eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus who was sacrificed for us, but you're misunderstanding it.

It's symbolic. And he also had to write, and he'd say, and I know, contrary to popular belief, we are not incestuous. We call each other brother and sister because we're all equal before Jesus, not because we're all marrying our siblings. Okay? It was that kind of, like, willful misunderstanding of what the the followers of Jesus believed, what they taught, what they did, that is also going on here in this synagogue.

So Paul had had enough of the ongoing insults, the opposition in, you know, in front of the whole congregation. Maybe the verbal attacks had just gotten so relentless, he could never kinda stay on message, but had to just keep addressing people with whatever they were lobbying at him at the moment. Or maybe the leaders of the synagogue were like, Paul, for the love, would you just move on? We would like to have one service without threatening a riot. Okay.

Just one. Whatever happened, Paul leaves, takes the the disciples with him. This kind of fledgling church goes with him. And the church itself, we know from some of the letters, it kinda relocates into various believers' homes. Priscilla and Aquila use their house as a a location of one of these churches.

And as the church spreads out there, Paul actually takes his weekday ministry into this place called the Hall of Tyrannus. Picture a a lecture hall, almost like an auditorium, kind of like this. This one was, either run by a guy named Taranis, or maybe he was probably the the professional lecturer, like, this was his place. He'd he'd present his own talks, he would host guest lecturers, they would speak on, you know, important topics like the arts and virtue and government and education and and things like that. By the way, I just I loved this when I found out, you know, Taranis is probably not this guy's given name, because it means tyrant.

Most people guess it's probably his student's nickname for him. See, I thought that was funny, and last hour, no one laughed. I was like, it's been too long since you've been in school. But, yeah. It's like, alright.

We're gonna go to the Tyrant's Hall, where that one guy Anyway, Paul was not one of the main speakers, or one of the invited lecturers, speaking in this particular location. The historical tradition tells us that Paul would teach in the hall after the workday was over. So once people, you know, people who couldn't afford to take off work to listen to a lecture were able to then attend because, yeah, their workday was over. And also, the rent was cheaper, after the hall was being used for its kind of professional workday purposes. So this is where Paul set up.

He's spending these 2 years teaching and preaching. He's working out the arguments and the theology that would eventually you know, we would start to read about in letters, like Romans and Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians. This is where he's he's trying out all trying out these ideas. He's trying to figure out how best to communicate these ideas to people who are just learning what life in Jesus looks like. So picture the scene, we've got the church gathering weekly in in homes, in small settings to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, to encourage one another from the scriptures.

We've got Paul focusing the majority of his work, at least during the week. He's reasoning, and persuading, and lecturing, and arguing, and teaching, kind of in a professional environment, where he's given the credibility of being a professional teacher. And the church is growing. It's growing so rapidly that Luke, follows up in verse 10. He's able to say, with probably on just a touch of hyperbole, he's saying that this ministry arrangement continued, this strategy, this way of doing church and education continued for 2 years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the lord.

No one excluded, both Jews and Greeks, all the residents of Asia. Now the the first thing there in that verse that kinda surprises us is 2 years. Like, that's huge. 2 years is great. I know it doesn't sound like a long time to us, but it's the longest that Paul's been in any one place.

You know, actively working as a missionary church planter, it's the longest he's gone without major opposition, without conflict or riots, without getting run out of town or beaten or stoned. You know, I'm sure Paul's in the lecture hall. He's got one of those signs up that says it's been 740 days since my last stoning. Right? Like, this is great.

And it's the longest he's been able to sit in one place and work out a strategy, A, how are we going to reach this region with the gospel? See, Asia is a region of about 70,000 square miles. That's twice the size of Indiana. There's 100 of Greek city states. They are spread out across the mountainous terrain of the mainland of the continent.

There's almost 50 islands off the coast, and Ephesus is the is the main hub for travel among all of these different places. It's the it's the perfect place to, to try out a strategy to reach 100 of thousands of Jews and Greeks, who have never heard about Jesus. And Paul's work here, his strategy was effective enough that Luke can say, again, with a hint of hyperbole, that that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Luke doesn't say that about any other region. He never once says, because of this church or that missionary, all of Galatia, or all of Pamphylia, or all of Pontus, or all of Bithynia, or all of Macedonia, or all of Greece heard the word of the Lord.

But here, all Asia. Now, it doesn't mean that Paul individually talked to every individual. It doesn't mean that he went to every town. It doesn't even mean, because it's a little bit of hyperbole, that every single person heard a clear gospel presentation and was given an invitation to respond in faith to Jesus. What it means is that every significant city state in this region had some sort of gospel presence, some sort of small group assembled into a church, teaching one another how to live out this new community of faith in Jesus and working their way out into the communities and the cities around them.

But these 2 years are the most fruitful of any of of the years that Paul was working. Somewhere in the midst of this, he wrote a letter to Corinth, that city across the Aegean that he had been, you know, there a year before, a year or 2 before, and he tells them that even though there yeah. There's some opposition, still, he says a great door for effective work has opened. Man, it's like the door is just wide open. Because the church was just doing basically 2 things.

The church was first building small groups of followers of Jesus into connected and supported and self sufficient small groups that gathered weekly to sing and pray and read and obey scripture together, to tell the story of the gospel. If that arrangement sounds familiar, it's because we call that church. It's what we're doing right now. Those churches help people figure out, how do I understand the whole big story of scripture? How does it all work together?

How do I live in this new life in Jesus? How does this community hold together without tearing each other apart? We're so different. That was the one main thing the church was doing, building these little churches. But the second huge thing the church was doing, the second part of the strategy, if you wanna call it that, is teaching members of the church how to put words to what they'd experienced when they found new life in Jesus.

Like, how do you talk about that? How do you talk about that in a way that makes sense to people who've never even considered following the God of Israel? How do you help people learn to share the good news for themselves so that in their families or their workplaces or their schools or where they go to just hang out and relax, they can be part of the Jesus movement moving into the world. And then the third thing that happened is just kind of a corollary of those 2. It's like, well, you know how to share the gospel, so move out into your community.

Go do it. You're you're an everyday missionary. And when your work or your travel takes you to a new community down the valley or up the hill or wherever you're going or out to one of the islands, just go, as in everyday missionary. You don't have to be a professional. Just introduce people you love to the god that you love.

It's how God reaches people, through his people. We know this is what Paul's doing because no professional missionary or pastor could reach 100 of city states spread out over dozens of islands and thousands of square miles in just 2 years. No pastor is that good. No missionary is that good. I don't even think social media would make that possible today, But this is what happens in 2 years in Ephesus.

See, if if we wanna make an impact like that, we need more than missionaries. We need everyday missionaries, people who are just walking the way of Jesus for the sake of those who are wandering without him. It it makes me wonder, what what would it take for us to look up 2 years from now, we're gonna finish we'll finally have finished going through Acts. And we look up, and we're able to say with maybe a little bit of hyperbole, but we're able to say, you know, all Indy has heard the word of the Lord. All indie has heard the word of the Lord in in just just 2 years.

If we if we want to make an impact like that, we need more than missionaries. We need everyday missionaries. We need to be walking the way of Jesus for the sake of those who are wandering without him. In both our actions, making the gospel plausible, believable, and in our words, inviting people to respond. That's my job, but that's also your job, which is why we're we're so passionate about the life to life groups.

There's the sign up link up there, so you can think about signing up for a group. It's not we're not passionate about these things because we're trying to, like, get big or fill every seat or get more money or become, you know, the hottest church in Indianapolis, or even because the staff wants an espresso machine in the staff kitchen. We're passionate about this because there's nothing more exciting than getting to share new life in Jesus with someone who's never than getting to share new life in Jesus with someone who's never met him before. And we want you to be part of that. Our job is to help teach and train and coach and equip you to be the everyday missionaries that Jesus is calling us to be.

So, this is the last week to sign up for life to life groups for this year. You know, they because they're they're gonna start meeting, and we gotta get 18 meetings in before summer. So if you have never considered this, never been part of one of these, check it out. Faithchurchind.com/lifetolife, and, hey, sign up today. I had a blast, with my group last year.

Anyway, let here's the thing about what Paul is doing and what the church is doing in these verses. It's pretty simple. Form churches, teach people to share their faith, head out and do it. We've got we've already got down the part about, you know, forming a group, learning to live into our new life in Jesus. That's that's church.

That's what we're doing right now. And we've got, you know, the the long form lectures and classes, like Paul teaching in the hall of Taranis. You know? If you had gotten here at 9, you could have jumped into a couple of those classes. But if we wanna make an impact in Indy with the gospel, we don't need to commission more pastors, or more clergy, or more professional missionaries.

What we need are more everyday missionaries. So if you wanna become 1, we can help with that. Let's pray together. Father, every time we open your word and read it together, we know we're called to obey it together. We're challenged, we're confronted, we see places where our own self centeredness, our own selfishness, our own pride gets in the way of us doing and becoming what you have dreamed for us to do, what you've planned ahead of time for us to do, who you have dreamed of us even becoming.

Father, even in just these few verses, seeing what the church could do, we long to be part of something like that. So, father, for each of us, whether it's our fear or our pride or our anger or whatever it is that keeps us from being one of those that is part of telling people who you are, I pray that you would help us to repent, to turn back to you, and to be brought into the mission of your family. Use us, Lord, to reach people that they may know you. So that even one day we could say, everybody's heard. Everybody's heard the word.

But, Father, we need your help. We need your grace, and we need your spirit. Empower us with the message of Jesus, the one who died in our place for our sins, and in whose name we pray. Amen.