Acts 17:10-15
They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Sermon Transcript:
I invite you to take your Bibles to the Book of Acts. As we return to our series acts, the spirit at work to the ends of the Earth.
We’re gonna look at Acts chapter 17 this morning, beginning at verse 10, down through verse 15. While you’re turning, I want to highlight what Jared mentioned earlier. This is, uh, the book that he was talking about. It is, uh, 58 59 pages long. It is called Following Jesus Through Passion Week. It is a guide to lead you over the next seven Sundays.
And during those seven weeks in preparation for the celebration of Easter, it has in it, um, we have a team of people that have written a number of articles. There are daily readings, five days a week, all related to the particular day of passion Week, for instance. The first week is all about the events of the, of Sunday Palm Sunday.
The second one is about Monday and so forth, all the way up till Easter Sunday. And so each of the weeks have different readings. There are, for those of you that are like me, that like maps, there’s maps of Jerusalem when it talks about Jesus did this on Monday. Well, where is that and how does that fit in the, in the, uh, the whole Jerusalem scene?
Where did these things take place? That happened on Monday and so forth each day of the week. Um, there are, there are pictures. There are, there is activities in here that you can do with your kids now. To be honest with you, we are not going to die if you don’t contribute the $3. Uh, our church won’t go under.
That is the cost that it was to produce these. But it’s been my experience that if we put a little money out, it matters to us. And that’s why I always charge when we do those Friday night, Saturday night seminars, uh, that I’ve done a number of over the years, I charge $5. Uh, we don’t make anything on those things, but I just think it’s a way of saying, yeah, I okay this, this is worth it.
I hope you’ll feel that way. They’re at the counter, what are they called? The hub this morning. Uh, I think you’ll find this a guide that will lead you effectively if you are someone that follow. Uh, uh, the readings of Lent, uh, that begins this Wednesday historically. And again, this is a perfect week to begin this se This study will take you right up through Easter Sunday.
I hope you’ll at least take a look at it. Love to have you, uh, following along in it. Uh, you might want to get one for if you’re married, for both of you. I would suggest that I know Marian and I are not gonna fight over one copy. Um, and just hope it’ll really be a tool. A lot of work has gone into it.
Some of the people probably gonna forget some of the people that have wrote, written in this. I wrote in it also, um, pastor Ben, um, uh, uh, faith Parker, my wife Marion, um, uh, dogs. I knew I shouldn’t have done this off the Sly . Uh, I know Randy Pittman, Mike Candy have had a part in this. Um, there are other, uh, Lisa Myers has written an art.
Some of these, uh, anyway. There’s, uh, they’re, they’re good. I mean, I, I, at least I’ll say this, the ones I didn’t write I think are fantastic. Um, alright, let’s go to Acts chapter 17. I’m gonna read verse 10 through 15. Here’s what we read.
The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to be, and when they arrived, they went into the Jew Jewish synagogue. Now, there were Jew. These Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonika. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so many of them, therefore believed with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.
But when the Jews from Thessalonika learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at be also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea. But Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted, Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.
Let’s pray together. Lord, we come to the Word of God. We come to be taught Lord and God, I pray as we consider this passage and these people in this little city of Berea, that Lord, we might embrace the reason for which I believe this passage is put there to, and it would be used to speak into our lives as well and our response to the scriptures.
So, Lord, be our teacher today, I pray. I also pray for the men’s retreat as they’re finishing up at 10 o’clock. Their. Their final session of four. Lord, do continue your work in guys’ lives up there, even as we ask that you would be moving among us this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen. I wanna bring up a map this morning.
Just give context to where we are. Uh, basically what we’re doing here is we are following the Apostle Paul and some of his friends. Uh, I’m gonna take, choose this map and this one, or I’m gonna go, actually he didn’t travel from here to here, but if you look up there, actually right up there is the city of Philippi.
Um, Then they have the city of Thessalonica. Then we’re coming to this more of a town really, of bere. And Paul has been traveling, uh, through, this is modern day Turkey, way over to the right here, this stuff. Um, and that is, uh, called Asia in that time. And Paul has come up through there. Up there is a location called, uh, Cho as, or we know it as Troy historically.
And basically they have embarked, gone across the agency and have come to Philippi, then Thea, then now to Berea. It’s an interesting thing that as we follow Paul, uh, and, and particularly the record of Luke who wrote the book of Acts, he gives us the story. Uh, what happened in Philippi and the founding of the church, which is really cool because Paul then writes a letter to the Philippians in order that we can get a snapshot of, okay, we read in the book of Acts how this church started, now what’s going on in the church.
And Paul addresses a lot of the people by name. He gives experiences. So we see not only the founding the church, but you also see the life and practice of the church. We do the same thing with Thessalonica. You come to the city of Thessalonica, as Joe, pastor Joe mentioned last Sunday, a city of 200,000 people, uh, the capital city of, uh, part of northern Greece.
And. Again, we have two letters to the Thessalonians as we again see Paul, which he wrote very soon, not, not long after, uh, he visited Thessalonika. And we see again the starting of the church. And then we see the development of church. It all makes sense. We’re gonna see that in other cities as well.
Ephesus, Colossi, um, uh, uh, Corinth. And now we come to this town called Bea. And so we excitedly look in the New Testament to the letter of the be to the Bri. An of course there is no letter to the Bri. So we said, why did Luke include this little story about this little town, which probably was among a number that Paul went in, but he’s giving us a record here of this town.
And the question very simply is why? , why? Tell us about the brands. You’re not even gonna write a letter to them later on. You’re not gonna have lots of contact. Um, although certainly there’s probably some, but he’s traveled 50 miles from Thessalonica, so 50 miles walking is a, is a big separating thing. So it’s a, it’s a little town in itself.
And I think the clear answer is found in the first couple of verses. It is the be’s response to the scripture and to the preaching of Paul and the other men with him that is both unique and compelling. Last week, pastor Joe preached about the many ways Paul and his team had proclaimed the scriptures in Thessalonica.
That’s the first nine verses of first, uh, of chapter 17. We saw words like he used reasoning and explaining and dialoguing and, and, and proving all different ways. As Joe, really, I felt. Effectively pointed out of communicating the truth and the gospel. Now we come to the bres and we see the other side of the story.
Here we see people who responded to the scriptures in a particular way. Now, it’s interesting that the ones he’s talking about in verse 11 and and and 12, it says, of the Jews that were in Thessalonica, they were there in Bea. And it’s a direct contrast to the Jews in Thessalonica. And he says, he makes a statement.
He says, the Jews in Berea responded differently. To the Jews and Thesal and Iah to the, to the scriptures. Both of them knew the Old Testament. Paul is gonna be preaching from the Old Testament. That’s all you had. You didn’t have any New Testament yet. He is preaching from the Old Testament and he is telling them about how the Old Testament pointed the way to Christ.
And he, and what we read about the Thessalonian Jews, their response was one of, uh, close-mindedness. Basically, as you look at that passage, you see that they are individuals that are debating Paul every step of the way. They are protecting their own religious church, ch their own religious turf. They’re not really interested to hear.
But here in Bria, Luke describes them by the term they are more noble. The word noble or honorable actually here is the exact Greek word eugenics. They have the right eugenics. If you don’t, the study eugenics is you means good. And gen is genes. They had the right genes. No, it’s not talking. A study of eugenics, of course, is trying to, to inbreed in such a way that you, you know, you keep the right genes, you, it’s a way of doing it with animals.
It certainly is a way some people have talked, um, can be done with humans, that you’re trying to get people with the best genes to have the best race. The, the Nazis were known for trying to, uh, do experiments to that. But here we’re talking about spiritual genes. They’re saying these are, these are noble people.
The way they responded has the, the endorsement of heaven upon them, that God looks favorably the way these bes responded to the scriptures. So our simple focus this morning is, What are the characteristics of people that have God’s endorsement for the way they approach and read the Bible? And that’s what I’d like to share this morning.
Four characteristics of people that have God’s endorsement for their Bible reading. Number one, they approach the scriptures with a teachable spirit. They’re open to being taught. If you’ll notice here in verse 11, it says, well, I’ll start at verse 10. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.
Now, these Jews were more noble than those. In Thea. They received the word with all eagerness. They received the word. This word is, is they were open to be taught. It’s interesting. This is a particular phrase that is used in the Book of Acts. As a matter of fact, in Acts chapter eight, it says The, the believers in Jerusalem were shocked to hear.
That the Samaritans received the word they were buying in, they were embracing it. In chapter 11, it says again, the J, the Judean believers were amazed to hear that the Gentiles were receiving the word, that they were embracing it. Later, Paul will write to some of the believers in Thessalonika. In First Thessalonians tur through two 13, he’ll use this phrase again and he’ll say, when you receive the word of God, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is.
The word of God, which is at work and you believers. Now, maybe this is an interesting concept to you. That’s so important about how people receive the word of God. Maybe you hear and, and you’re thinking, well, you know, I, this is a question I have about Christianity, especially you Born again or you, you guys that, that are all carrying your Bible and talking.
I mean, do you know that most religious groups, or at least a lot of them have their own book too? I mean, it’s great to have a holy book, you know, a book that gives you the rules and the regulations and principles and the concepts of, of how to do your religion. I mean, the Mormons have the Book of Mormon.
The Muslims have the Korean, the Hindus have the gida. But you Christians act like it is not just a record of directives and worship and religious lifestyle, but like God routed or something.
We really do. We really look at this. As not the words of men. Yes, men were led by the spirit. Matter of fact, it says in first Peter that that that holy men of God spoke by the, the breathing of God. And the word there actually talks about how they were it. It says, and they were moved by the spirit. The word moved is used of a sail that has its wind.
The wind comes and fills the sail and moves it forward. We really believe that God move. These individuals use their personalities, how they’re wired, their background, their vocabulary, all that stuff, but that the spirit of God move them to right the very words of God. We really believe that the living God, the creator of the universe, the one who controls tsunamis and meteor showers, the one who is aware of every bird that falls from a telephone wire and that counts the hairs of your head, has chosen to talk.
To humans, and there’s lots of ways he could have done it. I mean, he could have done it with this thunderous V voice that was loud enough to be heard all over the planet. He could have done it with a thousand mile billboard in the sky and written what he wanted to have said. He could have done it by some cosmic mind power that spoke his information into our brains.
He could have done all those things and a million dollar that you could come up with,
but he chose to give scripture to speak it into a book, a book that he describes as living as something that that speaks even to millennia later into our lives. and those who know him as their father have found it to be the guiding source of light and life to our daily experience. We embrace it. We receive the word, but it says something else that says, those who really come with the endorsement of heaven on the way they approach the scripture, they don’t come just with a heart to be taught.
They are eager to be taught. He says they come with all eagerness. Uh, there is an eagerness. There is an anticipation. They receive the word of God with this eagerness, we do it because we have found the scripture. are fathomless. They are bottomless in what they offer. I’ve told this story before about my father-in-law.
He led a guy named Zeke up in northern Michigan. And this guy, it was the beginning of winter or it was actually into winter, and winter’s up there, a serious stuff, 200 inches of snow is not uncommon. And so Zeke had a small house, almost a, like a cabin. Uh, and, and so my dad led Zeke to the Lord and Ze, and he gave him a Bible, and Zeke disappeared into the cabin had, and Dad didn’t see him for seven weeks.
And they came across each other and he said to Zeke, he said, Zeke, hey, you’ve been reading that Bible I gave you? He says, oh, yeah, yeah, I finished. He said, he says, you finished the Bible. I mean, I mean the Bible, the whole Bible, the whole book, you know? And he said, oh yeah, I read the whole thing. He said, he said, so my father didn’t even know what to say.
So he said, well, yeah, I finished the whole book, but I’m gonna read it again. I think I missed a few points.
if you’re a Christian, you laugh because you know the Bible is there. There’s no way to plumb the depths of this truth that even the scriptures, you know, you come to it again and, and you see in your Bible how God spoke to you on this date and this way with this verse. But you find out, here it is again, I’m here and there’s a new application of this, this, this verse of among tens of thousands of verses.
Why? Because it’s alive. Because it is God still speaking through his word. And so God’s people come to the scriptures with an eagerness. That noble approaches to truth means that you come knowing there is a bottomless cache of truth to draw from. You know that here today, I might find a promise to claim or an example to follow, or ASC sin to confess, or a lesson to learn or a truth about God to delight and worship him for.
And we come to the scriptures eager for God to speak. This cosmic ruling transcendent God to speak personally into our lives. These bes Jews that had been waiting for the Messiah were hungry to hear the scriptures spoken to them, and I’m gonna come back to that because this was not a small thing for them.
The first thing we find, we come with a teachable spirit. Secondly, We come with questions. You’ll notice it says in the next phrase, they came examining the scriptures. I love this. The word examining is used in Luke 23 verse thir 14. You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people, and after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him.
What’s he saying? He says, you brought me Jesus. And I’ve questioned him, man, I’ve, I’ve worked him over, I’ve, I’ve drilled him with my questions and I, I’ve heard what you said. And this guy is not what you say. His goals are not the way you’re talking. I, I just don’t see it. I don’t see, after my examination journaling with all my questions, I, I don’t see it.
God endorsed Noble Bible reading is to come with a questioning spirit to the scripture all the time. My favorite preacher of actually the last 40 years is Tim Keller in Manhattan, Redeemer Church. I’m very excited that Tim Keller, uh, grudgingly has allowed a biography to be written about him. It’s now out and I’ve been reading it, and the biography is, I, I love it.
Uh, I hope you’ll love it if you get it. Um, but basically one of the chapters was fascinating to me because in one of the chapters it’s talking about the individual that helped him. Know how to, to get into the scriptures. It’s called, uh, the woman who taught Tim to study the Bible. It’s a woman named Barbara Boyd.
And Barbara Boyd was on the inner varsity staff. Um, he, uh, Tim was a student at Bucknell University in college and Boyd in a, a particular group. When she gathered a bunch of the students together in the inner varsity group, which of which he was a leader of on the campus as just a college kid. She was teaching them how to get into the scriptures.
And so she brought them together one time, and what she did was she gave them a verse, and the verse was, mark one 17, where it says, and Jesus said to them, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men. And she said, I want you to find 50 things from that passage in the next 30 minutes. Well, that’s not a long verse.
But she, and so after 10 minutes, most of the kids would be like, most of us, you know, they just thought, ah, I’m done. I’m, I’m a fast learner. I, I move quick. And I, I didn’t come up with 50 of course, but I’ve, I’ve, I, I have reached the, the bottom of this baby. And she said, no, stay at it. And they stayed at it, and then 10 minutes more.
And they stayed all the way to 30 minutes. And finally they got done. And Tim Keller records the story. And at the end of it, Barbara Boyd asked this question. She said, did any of you record your most powerful takeaway during the opening few minutes of the exercise? And Tim said, I didn’t, but I looked around the room and he said, I was stunned.
Nobody raised their hand. He said, every one of us had looked at it and we read it and we processed it and we thought we had it. But he used this analogy. He said, no one finds the deepest veins of gold at the mouth of the cave. You find the greatest treasures. After thorough exploration, Boyd challenged them to read through the passage at least twice.
In the second reading, she said, slow down and observe what’s there. Start asking questions. Where is this happening? When? Who are these people? How would they feel with what’s going on? What’s the big focus of the passage? What is God saying here? What is he saying to you right now through it? What do you learn about God, about yourself?
She question, question, question, question, question, question, question, question.
You can come to your Bible reading and you can zip through and you can check the chart off, and you can read through the Bible two times a year. You can be Zeke and read through in seven weeks, but you’re gonna miss a lot of points. You’re gonna miss a lot of points out of the passage. We come with questions.
We, we get involved in it, we process it. We think about what’s going on. This past week in our community group, we started a study in the book of Mark and I just, uh, started it by giving an overview of the, the purpose of the book of Mark in comparison with the other gospels. And I just quickly said, you know, here are the four gospels and I did different characteristics.
I said the bo gospel of Matthew was written, um, and basically it was written to the juice. In contrast to the other gospels, it has 60 different Old Testament prophecies that point to Christ. What he’s trying to say is, this is the guy, this is the guy to you Jews who have been waiting all your life. This is the king in the, in the genealogy of Matthew.
It’s pointing about the, the, the royal heritage of Jesus to take the, be the claimant for the throne. I talked about how it was, was written for the Jew. Uh, Jesus is the king, is the focus. I talked about the Gospel of Luke, how the Gospel of Luke focuses particularly on the humanity of Christ and his approachableness.
And, and Luke is writing primarily for a grand ti a, a Greek and Gentile audience. He’s trying to say salvation is for everybody, but he’s talking about the approachableness of Christ. It’s interesting, most of the films, the, the chosen, the, uh, The Jesus film are built on the gospel of Luke because it presents Christ in his humanity as a reflection of the Godhead in human form the most.
I talked about the Gospel of John written 30 years after the other gospels, and how it really isn’t a history book like the others are. It is more presenting a theology. It’s presenting not Jesus the man so much as Jesus got. It’s where those seven great I am chapters are. I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd.
I am the light of the world. All those realities he’s talking about, he’s showing the greatness of God and it is a gospel track. He says there these things are written that you might believe that Jesus of Christ and and that believing you might have life through His name. John says the purpose of this book, and he was writing there for all peoples at that time.
So we come to the gospel of Mark, and here’s this gospel that is, is written by John Mark, but it’s written with the, the testimony and the stories of Peter speaking into him. And he’s writing about a Jesus that a Roman world most identifies with the book is active very immediately. Romans were not people that tended to be readers or thinkers, certainly philosophizer or processors like the Greeks.
And so he is writing an action book. There’s not many teachings of Jesus in the gospel of Mark compared to some of the others. It’s an action book. But what is the focus of the gospel of Mark is Jesus as the servant that he is not. Again, who’s he speaking to? The Romans. What do they worship? Power, strength.
And he said he didn’t come to be served. He came to served to me. Gospel Mark is, is. What every American should memorize. It’s just every Christian should memorize. In America where we are, we are, we are looking at power and we have embraced the cultural value of power and, and lust and greed. And it’s why we wonder why the church isn’t making a difference in the world.
Well, gospel Mark is saying no. The, the theme of the gospel of Mark is he’s the servant. So we said all this and, and uh, so we’re in the group and I’ve presented all this and one of the guys in our group says he’s a strategic thinker. And he says, so, so did these guys talk with each other? Like, you got the Jews, I got the Romans.
You speak to the Greeks. It was a great question. So we spent some time thinking about, we’re processing, we were looking at the timeframes when they wrote, where they ministered. Just trying to think about a little bit. And in my mind we didn’t really come to a conclusion. We just had some. Then somebody else asked, one of our girls asked, um, a question, when was Mark written exactly in light of what’s taking place in the book of Acts?
You know, where does it fit with what Paul’s doing in taking the gospel? And so we talked about that historically, where that was and what was going on in the churches when he’s writing this gospel. So we’re asking questions and I’m, I’m excited cause I’m thinking this is what it is. This is what Bible reading and Bible reflection is about.
The best part of the story was, we’re about 10 minutes after the original question. You know, how do these guys relate to each other? We’ve long since left that and all of a sudden we, this guy comes back and he says, I’m sure they did talk to each other, how to know. I mean, somewhere he’d taken an exit out, the whole conversation.
He was over here still with Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. This is what Bible reading is. We climb in, we say, I wanna think with these guys, I wanna feel with these people. I wanna understand, I wanna embrace, as Paul is writing these theological concepts, what are they thinking? What is he saying? Why is he saying that to them?
At this point, these bes examined stuff, they said, oh, thanks Paul. You say Jesus is Messiah. We’re in, by the way, who’s Jesus? What Old Testament passage you talking about? No, they wanted to see. They wanted to process. They asked their questions. If you’re not a question asker, you’re not a Bible reader.
You’re not really, I don’t mean to be this caustically, but. You’re not approaching it. Noble, noble, honorably with, with the right genes is to ask our questions and, and get in there and process in here. Okay? The third one with consistency, notice what it says. They examine these, the things daily. You know the reason, there’s a reason the scriptures are called the Food of the Christian.
In one Peter two, Peter talks about it when you’re a new Christian. He says, you need the milk of the word. In Hebrews five, the author is rebuking Christians, and he says, when for the amount of time you’ve been Christians, you ought to be eating the meat of the word. You’re still having to drink milk because you’re not exercising yourself with the truth and growing by it.
Jesus said it this way in Matthew chapter four. Men shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Every parent knows that when their child isn’t eating and they’re losing weight, that it’s serious. There’s something wrong. They’re malnourished. They may end up back in the hospital having to be stuck on an IV to, to build their strength.
We will be malnourished Christians if we don’t come regularly to the scriptures regularly allowing the Bible to speak into. I love the story of the Billy Graham crusade team, where they had a principle, again, taking this idea that the scriptures were the bread of God and they had a practice and they all agreed on it together.
These were the prime leaders, the George Beverly Sha, the Latent Ford, and uh, well Billy, and basically they had no bread before bread. That was just their covenant with each other before we eat breakfast. We’re gonna be in the word. We’re just gonna let God speak into our lives. The psalmist says it this way, the very first verse of the very first Psalm, and it’s laying the groundwork for the whole book of Psalms.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night. Without regular time in the scriptures, we won’t even be able to distinguish what in the Bible, what is in the Bible and what’s not will do things like this.
My mother always quoted it, quoted the verse, cleanliness is next to godliness, and I know it’s in the Bible. The book of, uh, well, I’ll tell you the book. It’s the book of Ben Franklin. Or there may be the phrase, God helps those who help themselves. Well, that’s right. Out of second cute quotes, nine one that’s not in the Bible.
How do we know we’re in it? We’re imbibing it. We’re drinking it. We’re living in it. Just like the brilliant, the last thing with a passion to see and apply. They did this to see if these things were so, these guys were excited to hear what Paul had to say. He was expounding the Old Testament scriptures to them pointing to Jesus as the fulfillment of those scriptures.
If Paul is right, It changes the whole trajectory of their lives, which change how they viewed their system of religious practice, the sacrifices, the feast, dayss, the Sabbath, their view of Gentiles. Everything would be topsy turvy, just like it became for the Jewish believers in Christ in Judea, thess were not game.
They felt threatened. They were contentious. They got jealous. Noble Bible reading is courageous. It says this,
I’m coming to this Bible and I want to hear God today. I want him to speak into my life. I’m willing to be ruffled. I’m willing to be challenged. I’m willing to be scared with what I’m being asked. If God wants me to start tithing my money as I read the scripture, of course I will. I don’t know how I will, but I will.
If God shows me to break up with my boyfriend, of course I will. Whatever God shows me, whatever God wants of me, whatever he calls me to do, when I see it, I’ll do it. And I am determined to be connected to God’s voice, so he is leading me, directing me so he can then use me. It’s reading a story recently.
It’s from World War ii. It’s a story of the battleship, the big Bismarck. It was the most powerful naval vessel in the world, the German vessel. The Nazis now control. And in 1939, the Bismarck was off the coast of, of England. It was in North Sea and basically was a new ship. And it was a ship, uh, uh, uh, totally dominating in, in the world, in the naval world.
It had 15 inch guns. Its top speed was 30 knots, which as I researched it means this ship, this giant ship goes 35 miles an hour. I mean, that’s fast. Going to 35 miles an hour on the water and on no, on May 24th, 1941. After continually defeating numerous, uh, particularly British ships cuz they had had the naval power in the world.
A British reconnaissance plane identified the, the Bismarck and. Contacted Naval Headquarters and they got a ship, a battleship for the British, the hood to go after it. And in a one-on-one conflict, the hood was completely obliterated, sunk, and it sunk so quickly. Out of the 2000 sailors, three survived.
Bismarck was a scary ship, but as the Bismarck continued and now they again tried to send, uh, more British ships after it, they noticed from the aerial reconnaissance that it was, it was following, uh, a illogical course. It just seemed to sort of go one way and then another way. And an actu. So, as a matter of fact, as the British ships now came upon them, uh, what the Bismarck always had been able to do before, it was not only the biggest baddest of the ships, it was the fastest.
So when it was completely outnumbered, it just got away. , but it had speed and it started to go, but then it actually turned and came back towards the British squadron of ships. What no one knew was that after the hood had been defeated by the Bismarck, a recon complain that also was a torpedo plane, had a couple of torpedoes and just shot ’em at the Bismarck.
It, it was so big, nobody knew that would never sink it. But what nobody knew was that one of the torpedoes hit the rudder and the rudder was disconnected from the ship. And so the Bismarck was now a rudderless monster ship surrounded by others. Too many ships to take on all at once, but it could not escape because they could not control themselves.
They were a sitting duck. And actually the Bismarck was sunk because of it all because it’s rudder. Was disconnected.
There’s a lot of us Christians that are living rudderless. We are not connected to the thing that can turn our lives and change our lives and direct our lives and bring control to our lives. We’re more like a fat party boat, just sort of going along, living life, moving forward. But we’re not in a party.
We’re in a war and we have an enemy that is again, and we are called to be the Church of Christ called to make a difference in our generation. And if you know Christ is your savior and you’re not in heaven yet, which if you’re here is likely. You are in war. You are still in the fatigues and, and, and, and are Arsenal.
And God is saying to you, you know what? I still can do it through you. You’re still on my list. But we have to be connected to the rudder of the scriptures in what direct our lives, in what controls our lives.
There has to be a passion, a renewed passion at God. I’ll come to the scriptures and I’m willing to do whatever you’re telling me to do. I wanna orient my life. I wanna live my life under the scriptures, and I’m gonna make it the primary voice into my life. And I’m gonna stop the priority of having time for sports radio or the market reports, or the political hot takes, or the pop culture of gossip.
We’re not wanting to miss the next episode of which flicks series I’m on, say, God, I want to be a noble Christian. I wanna be a Christian. That’s like theses that just says, God, I hunger to hear you. I hunger to be connected to the rudder of truth, that you can direct me in this generation to make a difference for your kingdom to your glory.
These people were all in. We have no sense that they were anything special. and some of the other places, they talk all about this and that these individuals were just people, these Jewish people in these synagogues that just said, I want the scriptures to speak into my life. I’m gonna embrace it every day.
I’m gonna come with my questions and eagerly say, God, I make time to brush my teeth every day. Everybody’s glad I make time to, to catch the reports. I make time to get there on work, at work every day so I don’t lose my job. I make time to catch the bus so I don’t get in trouble with my parents that I missed the bus for the ninth day again, uh, this semester, and they’re gonna drive me.
I will place you and your voice as a priority in my life. I’ll be eager, I’ll be responsive. These people wanted to hear God, obey God, be connected to God, so they sought the voice of God every day. He was a rudder. He led them and he used them. God help us to want to be that way. Lord, we come to you this morning.
I think for me, Lord, often when I hear the word bes, I think of every adult Sunday school class that’s named themselves after them. And I forget that this was just a group of people that love to hear you speak into their lives. I want to be like that, Lord. It’s not a person in this room that knows Christ is their savior, that you do not still plan to use their lives for your glory.
God, connect us to the rudder of the scriptures. Let us be listeners. Let us be o bears.
Lord, to thank you. You want us? Thank you for the scriptures. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now go on. Peace to love and serve. Enjoy the.