WORLD CHANGERS

ACTS 17:1-9 

            I want to start today by giving you an illustration taken from Knight’s Book of New Illustrations.  It is called “Higher Orders” and goes like this.  “In Formosa, a young missionary met and ministered to an aboriginal woman who was wonderfully saved.  After the missionary left the woman continued to study the Bible a little while, then she went back up into the hills to preach the Gospel.  The Japanese police said to her, ‘You cannot preach.  If you preach you will be thrown into prison.’  She replied, ‘You won’t catch me.”  She traveled by night up into the native villages and sent her runners to gather the people.  They studied the scriptures from 1 to 3 by candle light.  At 3 o’clock, while it was still dark they would go back so that when day dawned and the Japanese police checked they would find everybody doing his work in the fields.  As a result, when the missionary returned to Formosa, he found several thousand aboriginal people had turned to Christ and his work had been carried on.  Today over 150,000 aboriginal people have turned to Jesus.  A whole society has been changed by the courage and persistence of this young woman.  I want to talk today about World Changers.

          In the Acts 17 text that we read, how did the people refer to Paul and Silas?  In verse 6 they described Paul and Silas as “they who had turned the world upside down”.  Certainly this is a bit of an exaggeration since Paul and Silas had not even seen the whole world, let alone visited it.  However, they had made such an impact that it appeared to these men that they were causing problems everywhere.  Let’s take a few minutes and see why they are described in such a way.  Exactly what did they do that caused others to want to kill them and to get themselves labeled as trouble makers?

ACTS 9:20-23

          Immediately upon accepting Christ as his savior, Paul started preaching the Gospel.  In the Jewish synagogues of Damascus he began to preach Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Messiah of the Jews.  The Jewish leaders did not like this because they saw Christianity as a new religion, taking the Jews away from their laws and customs.  Many of the leaders felt threatened because many were turning to this new belief.  The synagogues were quickly losing members.  Things were changing and people hate change even when the change is good.  The Jews and even the gentiles of that day wanted to maintain the status quo.  They wanted life to go on as it had gone on in the past.  The Jews wanted to continue following the laws of Moses; fulfilling their ritual requirements, without entering true relationship with God.  But Paul and Silas were teaching relationship with God through Jesus Christ and many of the Jews were ready to enter into relationship with the God of their forefathers.

          Preaching Christ, the Son of God right now will not cause too much of an uproar.  Most Americans at least half-heartedly believe this.  However, if every church minister started to preach on living a life of true holiness and total commitment to Christ, many in the church would act just like the Jews.  We would hear talk of ministers losing their jobs.  We would hear statements like, “it don’t take all that to be save”.  Deacons and members would be talking of people being sanctified and living holy as if it was a crime or a new fad for Christians.  When in actuality, preachers would only be preaching the Word of God and asking Christians to live up to the standard presented in the Word.  Imagine what an uproar there would be if preachers all over America began to tell “good Sunday church goers” that they had to live holy in order to be saved.  Image the uproar if Christians really began to speak out against abortion, the use of alcohol, drugs and tobacco products, homosexual lifestyles and false religions.  Those four topics alone we too could be seen as “those who turned the world upside down.”  What else did Paul do?

ACTS 13:6-12, ACTS 14:1-10, 19

          In Paphos, Iconium, and Lystra the disciples performed great signs and wonders, causing a seeing man to become blind and a crippled man to walk.  What could be so wrong with healing a crippled man, or stopping a devil worshipper from influencing a town official?  Of course there was nothing wrong with their actions.  Yet again they were branded as trouble makers and were punished.

          Many church goers’ today struggle with believing in miracles.  We proclaim that God is a miracle working God, but many do not believe that He still works miracles.  People flock to see signs and wonders, though most believe it to be a con show.  TV movies and shows have left many skeptical about claims of miracles being performed.  Even many church goers are likely to think of a miracle as a scam or a fake.  If indeed, God was to do miracles in and through the church as He did with Jesus and the first century Christian, imagine the talk that would go on.  There would be more discussion about whether it really happened or not than there would be testifying of the actual miracle.  Imagine what would happen if we in the church lived and surrendered ourselves to the will of God in such a way as to allow the Spirit of God to really work through us.  We too could turn the world upside down.

ACTS 13:38-39, 44-45, 50

          Here in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul preaches Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  Paul taught against salvation through works of the law which was the accepted belief of Jews.  This again caused an up roar.  The accepted belief in America is as long as you are a good person, not hurting anyone else and generous to others then you are alright.  That’s the wisdom and doctrine of man, not the Word of God.  Jesus told the rich young ruler in Mark 10:18, “There is none that is good; no not one, only God”.  There will be many who will die and go to hell, thinking themselves to be good enough to make it into heaven.  The problem is they are using the wrong measuring stick.  Human beings tend to use other human beings as the standard for comparison and thus we think we are doing well as long as we are not as bad as those we believe to be really evil and wicked. 

ISAIAH 64:6

          What God is saying here is if we gather up all of our righteous deeds in one pile, the pile would still look like a filthy rag.  No matter how big our pile is it can never compare with Jesus.  Besides that, for every righteous deed we put on the pile, we must talk off one or more deeds for the unrighteous deeds we do.  What that boils down to is that we are always in the hole.  Trying to judge ourselves based on our good deeds is like the Children of Israel judging themselves by the Law.  They could never do it all right so they were always in need of forgiveness.  Because we can never measure up to Jesus who is the yardstick by which God will judge the world, we stand in need of God’s mercy, grace and forgiveness.  Recognizing that we could never measure up on our own, God did not lower the bar or reduce the standard.  Instead, He sent the standard, Jesus Christ, to be a ladder for us.  We can climb on the back of Jesus and have him carry us to God.  All we need to do is hold on.  But holding on my not always be easy.  The storms of life will try to blow us off.  Friends, family and enemies will try to pull us off.  We will have to drop the weights and sins we are carrying so that we can hold on tighter.  Jesus may not always go the way that we want him to go, but we cannot get down and travel another road.  He may pass by some things that we want, but we can not let go to reach for them.  We must cling to Jesus wrapping both our arms and legs tightly around Him, recognizing that only He knows the way back to God.

          Imagine what would happen if every born again believer in America took one day a week and stood on a corner yelling that Jesus is Christ is the standard by which God will judge the world, but be not afraid because God has made a way for us to meet His standard.  Some would turn to Christ.  Others would talk about us, mock, jeer, and throw rotten vegetables at us.  Still others will cause an uproar and may even try to have us arrested.  We could turn the world upside down.

ACTS 16:16-19

          Here Paul got tired of this nagging demon and cast him out of the girl.  This caused her owner to lose money.  Imagine what would happen if Christians all across America began to speak out against the use of alcohol, tobacco products, guns, and any TV show that promoted violence, sex or drug use.  The American Business men’s Society would have a fit.  They may let it go for a day or so, but when profits start to drop we would see an uproar across America.

ACTS 16:20-22

          Paul taught against idolatry, the religion of the Romans.  They had gods for everything.  But Paul taught one true God, creator and ruler over all.  Suppose Christians started to speak out against the false religions of the world.  If we spoke out against every group that does not teach that Jesus Christ is the son of God who came into this world to save mankind from its sin.  Christians can change the world by preaching the Word of God, letting people know the standard of God.

There is one more point I want to make here.  Notice that in most of the cases we have read today it was the Jews who were chasing Paul and making accusations against him.  If the true people of God behaved in any way like Paul, Silas and Timothy, you can bet that church goers, religious people who called themselves Christians would be among the first to stand against us.  However, we should not let that stop us.  Like the early disciples we should turn this world upside down and be world changers.  I challenge you to be radical and do your part to change the world.  If you cannot change it for the large masses, then fix as your goal to change it each day for one single soul and in that way be a world changer.