Good morning, everybody. Thank you for just inviting myself and my family to come visit. As we talked about earlier, or that was mentioned earlier, we're from Sheboygan. So, took the hour and 20 minute trek down here this morning. Yesterday, as I was planning and expecting on coming on down here, you know, it was 65 degrees yesterday. I'm like, oh, it'll be an easy trip. We can leave the house at 7.30. Wake up this morning, I squint and look outside and I'm like, is that snow? You know, I'm like, thank you, Lord. You know, only in Wisconsin can we go from 65 to 30 degrees and snow. So, it's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. So, as was mentioned, we're from Sheboygan. I've been in Sheboygan for 20 plus years. I'm a former school teacher and administrator of a public charter school. I left that about three years ago and now am a HR director at a local manufacturer in Sheboygan. And it's amazing how the Lord moves. Many, you know, I had a nice little ministry at the school for many years and Lord changed some things along the way. Then when I decided to leave the school system, no idea where the Lord wanted me to go. I was open to anything. I was ready to move. And the Lord said, no, you're going to stay here. You're going to stay here." And I'm like, but what am I going to do, Lord? What are my skills? And the Lord said, I will provide. I will provide. He provided a position. And like I said, at a local manufacturer. Local manufacturer that has many, many individuals that are new to this country. You know, individuals that are Hmong, Burmese, Hispanic. You know, so it's interesting to have this group, a bunch of people that probably have never heard the gospel. and opportunities that I've had to share the gospel at my workplace. And so again, it's seeing the Lord move in many different ways. So what I want to share with you today is a message out of Acts 17. Now, back at our home assembly, we're going through methodically through the book of Acts. So this is something I shared recently, and it was a charge to our group in Sheboygan. We're a very small group of adults, probably numbering at about 15. When we factor in our children, we're at about 30. So we're a very small group. But this was a message I shared about sharing Christ in a Christless society. I shared it to our group and with a charge, a charge to be ever present in sharing the gospel. And so what I wanna look at today is here in Acts 17 at how Paul shared the gospel. So we're gonna really dig into this today. So being a recovering teacher, recovery administrator, I have a handout. I asked Brian, I'm like, Brian, how many people should I make copies for? And he's like, ah, 30, 30. I'm like, okay. And I think I did a head count and I think we have about 30 here. So I'm gonna give this to Brian. I think I have one for everybody. So, and this is just a simple handout with some things I'm gonna be referring to through the message. So, as we're handing that out, I wanted to get into a story, and I love using stories. It helps illustrate things, helps us understand things. But several years ago, several years ago, I should say, probably in the 1980s, there was a gentleman named Lawn Chair Larry Walters. At the time, Lawn Chair Larry Walters, 33-year-old man, he decided he wanted to see his locality from a new perspective. So Lawn Chair Larry went to his local army surplus store, and he bought 45 weather balloons. So he buys these 45 weather balloons, and sometime in the afternoon, couple weeks later, he straps himself to a lawn chair. Well, several of his friends tie these now helium-filled balloons to the chair. And volunteer Larry had a plan. He's like, I'm going to bring myself a parachute, a camera, a CB radio, two liters of Coca-Cola, a six-pack of beer, a sandwich, and a BB gun. Some odd things to be taken with you, but he's got himself in this chair and his plan. is to control his flight, he's gonna shoot a balloon, one at a time, to control his altitude. So he figured, eh, maybe 100 feet in the air is what he'll go. So they're tying everything to the launch air, and suddenly the rope that's tethering them down breaks, and Launch Air Larry takes off. He gets to about 16,000 feet in the air. Now, this would take him smack dab in the middle of the air traffic pattern of Long Beach Airport, okay? So, Larry had a plan, right? He's like, I'll start shooting out some of these balloons to control my height. Well, he starts to take out a couple of them, and then suddenly he drops his BB gun. So here we are, Launch Air Larry, and he's diverting the traffic from the airport. Well, eventually, he starts to descend. As he descends, he gets stuck in the power lines, and he cuts power for more than 20 minutes in his community. Soon, he gets safely back to the ground, and the police cite him with a small citation. And suddenly, you know, because he caused quite the commotion in the neighborhood, you know, the group of reporters would find him, and they would ask him three questions. Were you scared? Yes. Would you do it again? No. Why did you do it? Because I can't just sit there. It was something I had to do. It was something I had to do. This is the theme we're gonna use today as we look at Acts 17. There's something we have to do as we look at this passage. Now, we need to understand that the book of Acts is a message, and it's a constant reminder of what is before us. It's the story of the early church, but as we're gonna see here, there's a message, and there is a, doesn't know Christ. There is a world before us that doesn't know who the real Jesus is. The world before us today has no idea what the real message of Christianity is. The world before us today does not know what the good news of the gospel is. And the book of Acts is that constant reminder for us that we can't just sit there We have to do something. Reaching people for Jesus requires action. We can't just sit there. Now, before you have the handout, I have a lot of statistics I wanna share with you quickly. This is from a recent Pew Religious Landscape Study. This was published February 26th, 2025. This is some pretty real, some pretty significant and relevant data for us to look at real quickly. When I say preaching Christ in a Christless society, this data shows us this. So after many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians is starting to level off, at least temporarily. Roughly six in 10 Americans identify as being Christians. To give you some context, in 2007, 78% of U.S. adults identified as Christians. In 2024, 62%. 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christians. So it's a decline of nine percentage points since 2014 and a 16-point drop since 2007. Now, if you look at some subgroups of who identify as Christians, the largest subgroup are Protestants at 40% of U.S. adults, 19% Catholic, And then all others who identify other Christian groups, which include Greek, Roman, Russian Orthodox, Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, so on and so forth, 3%. That's how its subgroups break down. For those of us who meet as a New Testament assembly, that number would be less than 1%. Less than 1% of U.S. adults meet the way you and I meet. Now, what becomes even more telling are some of the other things that I have listed on this sheet of paper. Adults that now identify with a religion other than Christianity. 2007, it was 4.7%, 2014, 5.9%, 2024, 7.1% of adults identify as a religion other than Christianity. And I have that broken down for you there. Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and other religions. Different percentage points there. Now, this is where it gets really crazy. Religiously unaffiliated, we see a growth in US adults that are religiously unaffiliated. In 2007, that number was 16%. 2014, 23%. 2024, which was where this latest study comes from, 29%. And what does that make up? That number of religiously unaffiliated are people that would identify as an atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular. we are seeing the growth of a Christless, religiousless society. Now, one last data point I wanna touch on. Young adults versus older adults. This is where these findings really start to hit home. When I say young adults, I'm saying 18 to 24. When I say older adults, I'm saying 74 and up. Of those different subgroups, identifying as Christian, we see in the young adults, 46%. In the older, 80%. Pray daily. You know, this is just in general. Now, I'm not saying Christian prayer. Just praying daily, 27%. 74 and up, 58%. Attend religious service at least once a month. 25%. One in four younger adults say they attend a religious service once a month. Roughly 50% of the 74 and up group. And then finally, religiously unaffiliated. You see 43% of young adults are identifying as religiously unaffiliated. These are some telling numbers. This is showing us that our youth today are growing, growing, and growing more and more unaffiliated with religion. Religion! I'm not even speaking just to Christianity. So when I say preaching Christ in a Christless society, that's what we see today. Quote by J.K. Johnston. He says, Christ met unbelievers where they were. He realized that many Christians today still don't seem to understand. Cultivators have to get out in the field. According to one count, the Gospels record 132 contacts that Jesus had with people. Six were in the temple, four in the synagogues, and 122 were with people in the mainstream of life. The book of Acts, which is the history book of the early church, is a constant reminder for us that we can't just sit there. Reaching people for Jesus requires action. We need to be out there with people in the mainstream of life. And if we want an example of that, let's look at Acts 17, verses one through 10. Let's look at what Paul and Silas did in their journey. So in here, Acts 17, verse one, now when they have passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Now, we know that the Apostle Paul was one of the first people to travel widely telling people about Jesus. Now, he's considered, many would consider him the first missionary. Now, let's define what that word missionary means. That word missionary means a person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country. The Apostle Paul was certainly the first missionary to the Gentile people. Now, the title apostle also means one who is sent out. So both of these titles, I would say, suggest that going and sharing the gospel, and the good news of Jesus, brightly fit the apostle Paul, okay? So, as we know, as a review, Paul had three missionary journeys, right? If we read the previous couple chapters, chapters 13 and 14, that was his first missionary journey, roughly about two years. The second missionary journey covers 16, 17, and 18. That trip likely concerned about three years, and then his third missionary journey in Acts 19, 20, 21, about five years. So, we here have a history telling of Paul's journey and how he reached out to others for Christ. Now, what's interesting here in this first verse of chapter 17, is we're told that he had passed through two groups, two communities, to get to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue for the Jews. Now, we need to understand how long this journey is. It's roughly about 100 miles of walking that Paul and Silas went through. And he went through these two communities. But we also need to notice that he seemed not to stop there, nor did he do any preaching. Now, wouldn't we all say that the people in Thuplis and Apollina, they need to hear the message of Christ? Wouldn't we all say they need to hear the gospel? I would, I would think. Well, the answer would be yeah, they would. So why didn't they? Why didn't they stop there? And I think the answer's twofold. First, Paul's strategy, as we read here, is to get to the larger cities. He was focused and he prioritized. He expected the new converts in the bigger city to go and reach, with the gospel, the surrounding villages and the other communities. Now, you may be saying, Sean, how do you know this happened? Well, in 1 Thessalonians chapter one, verse eight, Paul writes, the Lord's message rang out from not only in Macedonia and Achaia, where your faith in God has become known everywhere. So we know that after Paul got to Thessalonica, he preached the gospel, and those believers there went forth and shared the gospel with the communities around him. Second, whenever Paul went on his journey, we see that he had a plan to start preaching in the synagogue. That's what we see here in the second part of our verse one, okay? It says, where there was a Jewish synagogue, he would start preaching there, okay? Now, it is believed that the two cities that he bypassed most likely did not have a synagogue because that was his strategy. So let's talk a little bit about Thessalonica. Thessalonica was a very key city. It's known as Thessalonica today. It's become the second largest city in Greece today, with over one million people. In Paul's day, it was the capital of Macedonia. And it was the center for business only rivaled by Corinth in importance. The main street of Thessalonica was part of the Ignatian Way. The Ignatian Way was the road that connected the eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire. So living in Thessalonica was like living next to a superhighway. And it also had a very busy seaport. because it had all of this going on and it was found along major trade routes, it would make an ideal place to start Ones of Angelism. Very easy hub to start spreading the word of the gospel. We also need to talk about how unusual this city is. Now, it was controlled by Rome, and we know the Roman Empire, vastly huge empire at this time, but the city of Thessalonica was predominantly Greek, and it had very special privileges as a city at the time. It was considered a free city. What does that mean? It means that it elected its own citizens' assembly. All right, it could also mint its own coins and it did not have a Roman garrison within its city walls. So it's a very free-spirited, very influential backdrop and a very key place to see Paul start his latest adventure and to share the gospel in this very unique city. So in verses two and three, we get into the heart of what Paul and what Paul's message is. We read, and Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. If we wanna be effective in our ministry, we need to prioritize, we need to plan. Now, all evangelism is good, right? But planned evangelism can be so much better. It is good to have a plan and a strategy. You know, the old saying, if you fail to plan, then plan to fail, okay? Paul had a plan, okay? So when he would arrive in a city, he would go, like I said, to the synagogue. Okay, why did he go there? Well, he knew he was going to a group that had common ground, a common understanding, a basic understanding. He would find godly Jews and God-fearing Greeks in that group, okay? This was a group of individuals that probably had some interest in religious things. They were familiar, potentially familiar, with the word of God that they knew at that time and that they had at that time, what we would call, obviously, the Old Testament. So what is his strategy? And what we see here in these two verses is his strategy. And on the back, on the bottom side of the sheet of paper, I kind of wrote that out there. I call it rep. Paul's strategy is to rep the gospel. Okay? There are four key words in these two verses that we can see how Paul strategizes and shares the gospel. The first, the letter R. He reasoned with them. Okay? He reasoned with them from the scriptures. That means he had a dialogue with them. Okay? Through questions and answers. He would open up the scriptures that they had for them with them at the time and use logical, rational debate with them at the time. He reasoned with them. Second, he explained or opened these passages. Okay, sometimes we all need things explained. I know I do at times. I sometimes need things explained to me. And sometimes we need to explain to others the message of Jesus Christ. We need to explain it to others. And that's what Paul would do. In fact, the Greek word translated here as explaining means to open the mind of one, to cause to understand a thing. I like this next kind of definition, to open one's soul, to arouse in one the faculty of understanding or the desire of learning. Paul sat before them. one Old Testament passage after another, boom, boom, boom, showing them again and again how Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah God, how Jesus fulfilled Scripture. He wasn't giving his opinion. He was giving the truth based on the written evidence before him. He did it again today, still. Third, he would give evidence, or proving. The nuance of this word communicates the idea, and it means to lay down alongside, to prove by presenting the evidence, to deposit, to entrust, to commit to one's charge. He would use illustrations alongside scripture to strengthen his argument. The same word used here about giving evidence of proving is translated actually in Matthew 13, 24 and 31 as the word parable. We know that Jesus would use parables. A definition of a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. an illustration that teaches in a story or an extended figure of speech. So Paul would use illustrations alongside scripture to help further his argument and his discussion with these individuals. Fourth, he announced, or as I have the second P, proclaimed, This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ. He would preach the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And is that not the heart of the gospel? Simply, Christ died, Christ arose, We worship a risen Savior. We don't worship a dead man. We worship a man who is alive today. That is the message of the gospel. In fact, the five E's of the resurrection, I found this as I was studying, I love this, the five E's of the resurrection. The first E, execution. Jesus actually died. We know that. It's historical fact. He died, and we can read in our Bible how he died, whether it's in the Gospels or even in Isaiah 53, how we can get that gruesome detail of Jesus' execution. Second E, the empty tomb. He's not in that tomb. That tomb is empty. there. How do we know that tomb is empty? Because the third E, eyewitnesses. There were numerous people that day at that tomb that witnessed that it was empty. The fourth, early records. We have internal evidence of these accounts, internal evidence, which, what do I mean by that? The Gospels, Book of Acts. That's internal evidence of the resurrected Christ. We also have external evidence. What do I mean by external evidence? Evidence as found outside the Bible by historians such as Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, or Tacitus, a Roman historian and politician. We have early records of the resurrected Christ. And the fifth E, the emergence of the church. The book of Acts and the spread of Christianity, we see in the early 100, 200 AD, we see the explosion of Christianity. The five Es of the resurrection. So as Paul and Silas preached this message, they got a response. They got a response. Let's look quickly at what that response was. First and foremost, there was a positive one. So after three weeks of his ministry, he saw a mixed response. And like I said, the first in verse four, we see the positive. Three groups were attracted to this message. A large number of Gentiles, a number of the prominent women, and some of the Jews were persuaded to follow Christ. That is a positive thing, to see these three groups respond to the gospel. But there were others that had a response. They had critics, and verse six tells us what they said. In verse six, they say, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. Now, we don't know if they were saying this mockingly, okay, because there wasn't exactly a citywide revival in Thessalonica. Maybe they said it prophetically, these detractors. But we do know, we do know Christianity would spread throughout the world. It would change the world. We do, even despite the statistics I showed earlier, Christianity is still the world's largest religion today, with over two billion people worldwide. Christianity would turn the world upside down. So he did have opposition though. They did see opposition. But the Jews were jealous and they formed a mob, scripture tells us. Set the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring Paul and Silas out to the crowd. This is a tough situation for Paul and Silas and the early believers in Thessalonica. Because this preaching of the gospel provoked anger, a very angry reaction, and it caused an uproar. And dare I say, it still does today. Preaching the gospel still produces an uproar. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, used to ask the young men that wanted to become preachers, He'd ask them two questions after they'd go out and share the gospel. He asked them, was anyone converted and did anyone get mad? If their answer was no, John Wesley would tell them he didn't think the Lord was calling them to become full-time in the ministry. He would set them about their business, their normal business. He believed that when we preach and the Holy Spirit's at work convicting of sin, People are either converted or they don't like what they hear and they get mad. The message of Jesus Christ often divides. There are those who believe and those who oppose. That was the case in Thessalonica, okay? And we see that this message caused an uproar and a riot in this city. verses six through nine. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authority, shouting, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. And Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. And the people in the city authorities were they heard these things, and when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Easily manipulated by public opinion, the city authorities accused or accepted these false accusations. Where have we heard this before? Well, in Luke 23. It's the same tactic the Pharisees used against Jesus. The Jewish leaders accused these missionaries of high treason. They said that these believers in Jesus had turned the world upside down. Now, there's truth to this. But the thing is, Christianity wasn't upsetting the world. It wasn't turning people upside down. It was turning them right side up. So with no day in court, these missionaries were pronounced guilty. Now, the only way that Jason could protect them and the future of the Thessalonian church was to sign an agreement that they would leave and never return. This would satisfy the crowd. So when they had received this pledge from Jason, and the others, they were released. This is an interesting, interesting passage for us to study, to see the opposition to the Bible. Now, here's a challenge I have for all of us, and I say this as a collective, from my own personal battles that I may have, Am I going forth and preaching the gospel to everyone? Am I just staying in my own little holy huddle? Or am I being a witness for Christ in all that I do? There are many Christians that only meet with believers and keep that message to themselves and are afraid to share the message of the gospel with others. We need to be speaking forth the truth of Christ, sharing Christ in a Christless society. We need to be proclaiming his death and his resurrection to all around us. We know what lies before those that do not put their faith in Christ. We know that those who die without Christ will spend an eternity separated from him. That should drive us to want to share the gospel, to know that their eternity lies in the separation of the one who loves them. Are we sharing Christ in all that we do? And this is the challenge. Am I being used of the Lord in all that I do? Maybe I have to join a bowling league or the Moose Lodge or something local. Get myself out and more and more sharing and talking to others. When we started this morning, When I started, I was talking about lawn chair Larry, right? I shared that silly story. And in a different context, he said, I can't just sit there. I had to do something. Paul, Silas, and the believers in Thessalonica didn't just sit there. They did something. They put their lives at risk for the gospel. Are we doing the same? Or am I afraid? Am I afraid to get yelled at? Am I afraid to look different because I'm not like the rest of the world? Paul and Silas didn't care. Quick story, Mercedes Benz. was the first car company who produced a car body design that absorbed the force of a collision on impact. One Mercedes-Benz TV commercial showed their car colliding with a cement wall during a safety test to show how superior their car body design was. Shortly thereafter, many other car companies would copy this design. When a Mercedes-Benz spokesman was being interviewed, he was asked, why don't you enforce the patent on the Mercedes-Benz energy-absorbing car body? Why don't you enforce it? He replied, because some things in life are too important not to share. Some things in life are too important not to share. Is that not the gospel? Is that not the story of salvation, of what Jesus did on the cross for us? Should we not be sharing that with everyone? Are we willing to risk ridicule and anger to share Christ in a Christless society? Frankly, I'm going to say, there are some things in life that are too important not to share. like where a person will spend their eternity. So let us go forth. Let us go forth and be like Paul and Silas and share that message of Jesus Christ, of what he did for us, what he did for mankind, died on the cross for you and for others. That, my friends, is an important message that we need to share. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this message here in Acts 17.