Living Questionable Lives – Pt 1
(Acts 16:29-34)
Intro:
A. I grew up with some great tools like the Jule Miller filmstrips, Open Bible Study, and teachings about Friendship Evangelism. All them had a great place in the ministry of reconciliation, but they didn’t all work for me. Maybe it was me, maybe it was the approach, but the truth is I never felt like an evangelist. I felt shame, because I believe I needed to be doing more to bring the message of salvation to people who were lost and dying in sin. And worse, I was a preacher.
B. Then I read this small booklet that changed my viewpoint. (Surprise the World! By Michael Frost) It was not a method really, it was more about living Jesus in a way that others wanted to know more about who I was and why I behaved the way I did. The booklet was called “Surprise the World” by Michael Frost.
C. His teaching was “not all Christians are gifted by the HS to be evangelists, but all Christians are gifted by the HS to live Jesus which becomes evangelistic.” While I won’t get into his five ways he seeks to bring Jesus into the conversation and lives of people around him, I do want to share his opening about living questionable lives.
I. Living Questionable Lives
A. Ever had “one of those days?” You know what I am talking about. It is what my family calls and “Alexander Day.” One of those “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days” where you just want to move to Australia.
B. Acts 16 tell us that Paul and Silas arrived in Philippi and were teaching the good news of Jesus. They were followed by a girl who was possessed by a demon, but this girl was a slave, and her owners used her ability to tell the future to make money. Paul cast the demon out of girl; her owners realized their money-making days were over. So they brought Paul and Silas up on charges of breaking Roman law.
C. So influential were these men, that we read how they incited the crowd (Acts 16:22-24). What do you do with that type of injustice! It was a terrible, no good, very bad day, but Paul and Silas didn’t respond like many would. Instead, we read (Acts 16:25) - they were “praying and singing hymns to God.” But I want you to hear the rest of that verse, “and the prisoners were listening to them.”
D. You may know this scripture well, but I want us to focus on application. Many adults have, at some point in their life, faced some type of injustice. It might be at your work, in your family, in your neighborhood, or even a political or judicial environment. As adults we have learned that life is not fair as we describe as fair. I get it and don’t make light of what you have been through or are going through. This sermon is not about what’s fair, it is about how do I live my life when others are watching me, and life is not fair.
E. Paul and Silas are singing and praying, and everyone is watching or listening – including the prison guard. READ Acts 16:26-28. Did you catch that all the doors were opened, and everyone’s shackles were unfastened. And did you catch Paul shouting as the jailor was about to take his own life that EVERYONE was still there. No left when they had the chance. It begs the question, why?
II. Personal Application
A. Acts 16:29-30. This is what I mean when I teach that we need to live questionable lives, lives that cause someone to ask us a spiritual question. I want to live a life that so reflects the character of Jesus, that is so different than the sinful world in which I live that people want to know why I act the way I do. I want to live a life to where they will ask me, “What must I do to have the contentment you have?”
B. The way Paul and Silas handled the situation that they were unjustly placed in generated spiritual conversation. If you take with today one point, let it be that “living a questionable life generates spiritual conversation.”
C. That jailor, and I would guess other prisoners, want to know the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” I know we don’t have everything that happened, but what I find interesting is they didn’t tell the jailor how bad he was, how sinful he was, how much he needed to change. Instead, they praised God and God touched lives that night.
D. When I lead a life of praise in a world of negativity, people notice. It’s not fake optimism. It’s not “everything is always great and there is no pain or sorrow.” It is in spite of pain, sorrow, injustice, heartache, death, addiction, troubled marriages and children wrapped up in sinful activity – in spite of all that, my God is still creator of heaven and earth. He is still living and active. He is still working in me and on me and I am a better person because my God loves me and gave himself for me and is worthy of my praise. So, I will praise him in the storm.
Conclusion:
A. People do know you. Strangers do interact with you, even for just a minute or two. What do they see in you that would make them want what you have? I love the saying, “Only God can turn a mess into a message, a test into a testimony, a trial into a triumph and victim into a victor.”
B. Acts 16:31-34. Live in such a way that they will ask you what they can do to live life the way you do. And when they do, answer like a disciple of Jesus – direct them to Jesus. Let them know that only a relationship lived in the light of God can produce a life of contentment.
