Pastor Dan Eddy
Acts 17:16-31
How to be Jesus’
friends to others – How to have more BFFs
5-29-11
Let us pray: What a friend we have in You, O Jesus. You
chose us at our Baptism, are always loving us with Your Word, and You desire to
keep us as Your children, forever. So guide us this morning through Your
proclaimed Word so we can be that friend to our friends. In Your Name we pray.
Amen.
In Christ Jesus’
dear friends on this Friendship Sunday.
I.
Introduction – Think of your BFFs
Think of a group
of people you would like to spend eternity with…that you would like to live
with forever in the next life of Heaven.
Maybe it’s all
the members of your favorite sports team, or music band. TV shows or movies. Maybe
it’s most, if not all, of the people in your family. Maybe it’s the group of
people you hang out with at school, work, or on the summer softball team. Maybe
it’s the person sitting right next to you this morning.
Do all of them
believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Do they have faith in God,
given by the power of His Word and in the waters of baptism? Do they renew that
faith by regularly attending worship and partaking in the Sacrament of the
Altar?
What do they
know, believe, and trust about the one and only Lord God?
Discussing our faith
in Christ is a bit tricky in our culture.
After all weren’t you told never to discuss religion and politics with
others? “It’s just too divisive.”
Yet don’t you want your BFFs (Best Friends Forever) to be your Best Friends,
Forever?
So in this diverse
world how can we discuss our different beliefs about God and religion while
still maintaining our friendships?
In our text from
Acts 17, the Apostle Paul’s actions lay out a descriptive way to develop BFFs…Best
Friends, Forever. Please take out your insert and follow along this morning.
Now at this point
some of our Christ Lutheran members may be thinking, “Psst Pastor…it’s Friendship Sunday. Should you be talking about how to
make friends forever with our friends here? Shouldn’t you have covered that
last week?”
There are no
tricks of trade here. We’re not trying to hide anything. This isn’t a cult.
We’re not here manipulating people. This sermon will show you how to have BFFs
(Best Friends Forever) because Christ Jesus is your BFF, your Best Friend
Forever. And all who believe in Him who are your friends will be such, forever.
That means these friendships will not end with this life.
II. How to have BFFs.
1 – Have a caring attitude toward others.
First attribute
to having a BFF is to have a caring
attitude toward others.
Paul was walking
around
So miles away as
he is waiting…he is taking in the artistic beauty of the Greek capitol looking
at all the magnificent architecture and sculptures. Yet something kept provoking
his conscience. These people were worshipping all these false idols and gods.
There was something constantly unsettling about their religious beliefs. Many
did not have the saving faith of the risen Christ Jesus.
They did not have John 3:16 ESV “For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life.”
Paul tells us in
Colossians 4:3 ESV to pray that “God may
open a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…” Paul was
looking for that opening to share Christ and have new BFFs.
This means we
care for our friends needs today and where they will be spending eternity.
2- Be respectful by getting to know
someone
Second, Paul
shows us in Acts 17 to be respectful by
getting to know someone. This means building friendships on more than the
superficial, but learning more about their lives, their background, their
culture. What makes them tick?
Paul watched,
observed, obviously read, and knew much about the Greek culture, even though he
was raised as a Jew. In many ways their cultures were miles apart…Paul was like
a Bostonian walking in the middle of
So Paul educated
himself on the two major Greek philosophies of the day.
The Epicureans
originally believed supreme good is happiness, not mere momentary pleasure. But
by Paul’s time that philosophy had degenerated into a more sensual thought
system.
Stoic philosophers taught that people
should live in accordance with nature, recognize their own self-sufficiency and
independence, and suppress their desires. But by Paul’s time it had degenerated
into a system of pride.
Doesn’t this
sound a lot like how our culture has degenerated over the past half century?
What kind of
philosophies do your friends live by? We may not necessarily agree with them.
Paul wasn’t endorsing these ways of living, but he was being “quick to hear,” and “slow to speak” as James 1:19 ESV
commands of Christians, and “abounding
in steadfast love and faithfulness” as the Lord is described in many Bible
passages like Psalm 86:15 ESV
What more can you
learn about your friends? What makes them sad? Where do they find joy? What do
they find meaningful?
Also note that
Paul kept acting in a way to draw people to him. They had never heard anything
about this God named Jesus. And note that he didn’t start into a plethora of
details or begin filibustering.
But he kept
speaking about the Lord just enough so that this small group he met in the
marketplace wanted him to come and speak in front of a prominent and
influential religious gathering on the
hill of Ares, the Areopagus.
What things do
your friends not know about Christ or His love?
Do they know that
Heaven is a free of gift of God and that it is neither earned nor deserved?
(Ephesians 2:8-9) Do they know we are not saved by their good works? That we
can’t work our way to Heaven.
I remember one
time meeting a lady in her 60s who went to church often. And I was just talking
to a different lady yesterday. Both had
never that before, but both were relieved to know that they don’t have to earn
their way to Heaven.
Don’t assume what
people know about Christ and His love, but reveal it to them in such a way that
they want to know more.
3- Look for common ground with your BFF’s
beliefs
Now as Paul continued
to share his faith in God he took what he had learned form his friends and found
common ground with their beliefs.
Look at verses 22
and 23. Paul spoke with great respect. He showed appreciation for them being
religious people. And Paul connected their world to his world by mentioning the
inscription to the “unknown god.” The
Greeks were concerned that they hadn’t made an altar to all gods. So, they put
up this one just to cover all their bases. Paul wisely takes this treasured
part of their beliefs and opens the door to the truth of the one and only Lord
God.
What beliefs do
you have in common with your BFFs?
It’s amazing the
commonality we have with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and yes even
agnostics and atheists. What commonalties do you have to connect them to
Christ?
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:22 ESV: “I have become all things to all people,
that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel,
that I may share with them in its blessings.”
In other words,
develop “Best Friends, Forever.”
4-Speak the truth in love
When we care
about others, are respectful to them, look for commonalities, then we are ready
for doing as Ephesians 4:15 ESV says, “Speaking
the truth in love.” to appeal to people’s heartfelt desires to be loved. The
love that can only come from Christ.
Verses 24-28
summarize what Paul said when he spoke the truth in love to the Greeks. He said this unknown God is not created but is the Creator,
Who is not confined to space and time.
My guess is that there is not a god in the Greco-Roman mythology that
fits that description.
Paul is
basically saying this is the “unknown” God is without limits. He does not act
on the actions of humans but acts independent from us. He doesn’t need us, but we
need Him.
In Greek
thinking gods needed humans to keep revering and worshiping them if humans were
to get anything from them. Love was not really something you received from gods.
Instead you manipulated them to get rain, wealth, knowledge, etc.
Paul said this
unknown God is all powerful and all knowing.
God runs the show. He created the first human (Adam) from which we are
all related. God is the controller of history. Epicureans thought things were left to chance.
Paul is
emphatic about offering the reason for God’s existence. God is Who He is – because He desires us to seek Him, so that we
may really touch Him and really find Him.
Paul wanted to
make sure that they knew this God is above all gods that they may know this one
God as the most real God. The Lord wants to be their BFF.
In the perfect
creation, humankind was made in the image of God. We are His offspring because
He created us at birth. Yet, thanks to Adam and Eve’s sin, we were conceived in
sin as Psalm 51:5 says. Yet, He recreated us at our baptism. And will renew
that recreation by giving us His real body and blood in the bread and the cup
this morning. This is the God who loves you by forgiving your sins if you have
faith in Him.
In the
Greco-Roman systems gods were viewed as distant, not personal or even close.
The one real God is very close. He can be as close as your heart…inside of you….if
you let Him.
The Truths of
Scripture is what we speak in love. You don’t necessarily have to use what Paul
said. Your situation may different.
How can you speak
of God to others so that they know they are loved and that He can be inside of
them?
5-Draw the conversation to Christ
Finally, in the
remaining verses of this text, Paul ended where He began in the marketplace.
What caught the
Greek’s attention in the marketplace was this whole idea of coming back to life
in the flesh. Greco-Roman thought had people coming back to life spiritually,
but coming back to life in the flesh seemed a bit too out there for them.
In their mind,
people who believed that kind of stuff would be like today people who believe
that man really didn’t land on the moon. It was all done on a
But what’s ironic is that these Greeks saw idols as
appendices of gods, not representations of the real thing. And if people were
honest with themselves they would knew that idols were crafted by human hands
anyway. Look how the Israelites fashioned the golden calf out of all the gold
they dragged into the desert. And besides these gods never spoke or moved or
did anything. These gods weren’t really God.
You could see
Paul now beginning to connect God’s creation in His image to His ultimate offspring
of creation, the incarnation, the flesh and blood of God and man, Jesus Christ.
That allowed Paul to express with meaning the reason and the love of Jesus’ death, His resurrection of the dead,
and our resurrected bodies at the end of time.
In verse 30, repent here is used in the sense of changing one’s mind. God wants all
people to drawn to Him. He will no longer excuse not knowing or being ignorant.
Paul wanted to see his new BFFs with him
on the Last Day to live in the flesh the forever life forever with him and
Jesus.
How many of your
conversations with your BFFs begin and end with Christ?
Remember we can’t
convert a heart to faith in Christ, only the Holy Spirit can through the Word
of God.(1 Corinthians 6:11, 1 Corinthians
12:3, John 3:5-6, and Romans 10:17.) God in Christ Jesus chose you to be
His, and He is using you to choose others to be His BFFs.
What did we just
sing: “What a Friend we have in Jesus
all our sins and griefs to bear.” This is how you can be Jesus to your
friend. No, I am not saying they pray to you, but you can be there to listen to
them…to bear their burdens and share the joys of Christ.
By the way, Paul
did gain at least two friends, two BFFs, from this occasion. Tradition tells us
one eventually became the bishop of
God’s blessings
as you become Jesus’ friend to others to have more BFFs in Heaven forever and
ever. Amen.