Pastor Jonah preached from Acts 17. He said that we are becoming a people of curiosity, community, and conviction, because that is what Jesus has invited us to become. Lector: Mary Margaret Sparks
Pastor Jonah preached from Acts 17. He said that we are becoming a people of curiosity, community, and conviction, because that is what Jesus has invited us to become.
Lector: Mary Margaret Sparks
I was talking with a friend several years ago contemplating a job change
He was tired of the endless reorganization at the company
Exhausted, he looked at me and said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
That’s a famous quote from a leadership consultant named Peter Drucker
His point is not that strategy is unimportant…but rather that it’s not as powerful as we tend to think it is in the United States.
We think the right plans and answers will get us what we want…when they don’t, we’re angry/disappointed/exhausted and look for better answers.
Culture is a shared way of being, often unspoken. And it’s infectious.
We learn culture without being taught. We absorb it, become it, perpetuate it.
Ever notice children often behave like their parents more so than do what they’re told?
Culture eats strategy for breakfast!
Last week, we talked about a strategy we’re embracing as a church to learn the scriptures, pray, and experience fellowship together
The over-arching goal is to become like Jesus and play our part in his body
So, we have these 3 pillars: bible/prayer/fellowship.
Sunday belongs to the Lord, Bible Fellowship starting 2/20.
All of this is a strategy. And we think it’s a good, important one.
BUT…if our culture is not healthy…our culture will eat our strategy for breakfast.
So we’re going to talk about the kind of culture we are cultivating here looking at a famous passage in Acts 17. Three words will guide our time:
Curiosity
Conviction
Community
Let’s start with 17:11:
And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica
-Acts 17:11
“Open-minded” is a fascinating word here.
Originally, this word meant “of noble birth.”
Over time, it morphed, referred to the way those people were expected to act
Willing to learning, fair, open minded. It was generosity of mind, a posture of curiosity
We are building a curious culture here.
As James would say, we are quick to listen, slow to speak. That’s curiosity.
Curiosity loves questions. It asks questions like:
“what could I learn from you?”
“what am I not seeing?”
Curiosity is willing to believe we might be wrong and curiosity is excited to learn.
Listen to the posture of the Bereans:
They listened eagerly to Paul’s message
-Acts 17:11
“Eagerly” is willingness, readiness, goodwill. They were curious!
They listened with an open mind, not an ear towards criticism.
When we are together we come with curiosity, eager to participate.
We come to receive and learn, not to critique.
This is a posture we embody…not saying we never evaluate or critique.
But there’s a difference when you show up curious rather than critical
Have you noticed what happens when you show up looking for problems?
You always find something to be upset about
This fuels an idealistic sense of the church, as if we’ll ever be perfect or free from flaw
When we don’t find that perfect church, we become skeptical
Skepticism can be helpful, sometimes its justified, but it’s poison as a way of life.
Trust and relationship are impossible when our posture assumes the worst
Here, we are becoming like the Bereans. A culture of curiosity.
We are learning how to ask questions, to assume the best of each other, to be generous and encouraging. Consider what Paul would later say in Ephesians:
Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.
-Ephesians 4:29
That’s who we’re becoming. Curious, encouraging, open and eager to learn.
Now…curiosity left to itself can be poison, too!
If we are open to everything, if we accept everything, we will believe nothing.
Curiosity must be married to CONVICTION.
Hear what this looked like for the Bereans:
They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
-Acts 17:11
Another way to translate the end would be “agreed with the scriptures”
They listened with open mind and hearts. They were curious.
But they were not overly emotional in their response.
They did not let their curiosity get the best of them!
This is a danger of podcast preachers or the YouTube clip.
Those people get famous because they’re REALLY GOOD. They pique our interest.
Too many of us get swept up in the curiosity or emotion of it. What did the B’s do?
They listened to powerful sermons, then they asked, “does this agree with the Bible?”
Their curiosity was tempered by conviction.
We are a Bible church, and we are becoming a Bible church
TRUTH is one of our core values. We believe that all truth belongs to God, and that life’s most important truths are communicated to us in the Bible.
So…we cannot accept any teaching about God, about humanity, about our value or our purpose, if it does not agree with the scriptures.
When we get curious about something someone has said, whether it be a news anchor or an author or an old friend or a preacher on the internet…we must ask, “is this in agreement with the scriptures?”
one of the worst things that could happen to us as a church is if you all start believing what’s said behind this pulpit just because someone said it behind this pulpit.
We MUST love the truth and God’s kingdom more than any individual person or position
We must love the Scriptures more than our culture or tradition.
Every truth must come under the authority of God, and his authority is most clearly communicated to us in the Bible.
We’re putting a lot of effort into becoming a people who love and understand the Bible
In the lobby during every series, you’ll find great resources for further study
Every Sunday, there’s opportunity for further study in Bible Fellowship
So, our curiosity must learn to dance with our conviction.
We cannot have the one without the other. And there is yet a third word we need.
Look back at Acts 17:11 again:
They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
-Acts 17:11
Who searched the Scriptures? They did.
A large group of people, coming with curiosity and conviction, were listening.
They were TOGETHER.
We need to become a culture that is more we and less me.
Meaning, we see the rhythms of our life in Christ as happening together.
We are building a culture here that says, “this is our Sojourn. Our church.”
They were not lone-ranger Bible interpreters. They were together.
So, we must learn to do this together.
It’s dangerous to go alone in this. It’s dangerous to only read your Bible alone.
Do you know why they’re called blind spots? You can’t see them!
If you study/interpret the Bible alone, you won’t be able to see the log in your own eye
And you cannot find this kind of community with strangers on the internet
It’s dangerous to let someone on Twitter/Facebook/YouTube interpret for you
Our curiosity and conviction is directed chiefly towards this community.
If it’s not, curiosity and conviction will just make us crazy.
We’ll latch on to what we want to hear without even knowing it.
We bring our questions here, to each other.
We read and interpret the Bible here, together.
This is what the bereans were doing…curiosity And conviction within community.
Our strategy will only work in this kind of culture, and this kind of culture will protect us from one of Satan’s favorite schemes. Verse 13:
When some Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea, they went there and stirred up trouble.
-Acts 17:13
Notice it was not what Paul was saying that they had issue with
It was who Paul was saying it to.
Verse 12 says before this:
As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men.
Acts 17:12
Not only is Greeks/Gentiles who are hearing, but the text puts women first.
Historians estimate 2/3rds of the early church was women.
They were prominent and treated differently in this new group called the Church.
Paul’s content was not their problem, it was their culture.
The Thessalonians came to Stir up trouble.
It was a culture that was being violated. It was a culture change they didn’t like.
CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST.
When you become committed to a culture, but it’s divorced from curiosity, community, or conviction…we will miss the movement of God.
We will become quarrelsome, bitter, DIVISIVE people.
I have been doing this for almost 2 decades now…i have seen this so many times.
It’s rarely a radical departure from doctrine that brings down a church.
It’s rarely bad information…it’s bad culture.
It’s people more committed to their agenda than the Kingdom of God, more committed to politics or economics or preferences than the Kingdom of God.
These people become rigid, skeptical, and angry…and so they come to church to critique and evaluate. They come to stir up trouble
They do not listen, they do not participate, they divide and damage.
They do not ask questions, they make assumptions.
And the only way to protect each other from this, protect ourselves from this, is to have a Kingdom Culture.
Curiosity. Community. Conviction.
This is who we are becoming, and I think this is who the gospel demands we become
The gospel itself FREES us to be curious
It announces that we are sinful, we are needy, our vision clouded by sin and suffering
So, it does not offend the gospel-believing Christian to think about being wrong.
We ARE wrong! And we want the truth, we want to be healed and whole
Because our sins are forgiven, because we are united with Christ, we can embrace a posture of curiosity.
Into our confusion, Jesus provides the clarity of conviction.
We are saved by his life, his death, his resurrection.
He says he is the way, the truth, the life.
He has preserved the scriptures for us, there he provides us with clarity.
So, our curiosity is armed with the truth of God. We believe he leads, he speaks, he teaches, so we come to the scriptures eager to hear what our Savior says to us.
And Jesus gives us all of these gifts as part of a new family, the church.
We are not people who say, “I don’t need anyone, just me and my Bible.”
Listen to what Peter, one of Jesus’ best friends, says about this:
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
-1 Peter 2:10
Jesus did not just save you, he saved us and he saved us for us.
The gospel announces to us that the kingdom of God is at hand
That, through Christ, we are one with each other just as we are one with God.
We are a gospel-people. We are Christians, and this is our Sojourn.
We are becoming a people of curiosity, of community, and conviction, because this is what Jesus has invited us to become, and this is what his gospel frees us to become.
COMMUNION