May 23, 2004

Upsetting Christians

Acts 16:16-34

Have you ever been around an upsetting Christian? Do you know what I’m talking about? There are some people who claim the name of Christianity who are just about as obnoxious as can be. They’re an embarrassment.

The other night my wife and I were out for dinner and afterward we were leaving the parking lot with about 500 other people. Two lines of cars formed trying to get out of one exit. So we began to take turns, first a car from this side and then the other side, it was working beautifully. Until it was my turn. Suddenly this guy refuses to let me have my proper turn and guns it right behind the other car to cut me off. And as i slammed on my brakes to avoid a collision I couldn’t help but notice the front license plate. It was one of those fake license deals you can buy. It said in bold letters: J-E-S-U-S. I wanted to go over and give that guy the right hand of fellowship, you know? Can I give you some friendly advice? If you’re going to drive like that, don’t go putting one of those fish on the back of your car, okay?

I’ll never forget back when I was in high school those bumper stickers were cropping up that said: “Honk if you love Jesus.” I was driving down the freeway one day and saw one of those so I honked. The guy waved back but it wasn’t a wave I would demonstrate for you this morning. Of course I like the sticker that says, “If you love Jesus tithe, anybody can honk.”

Christians can really be upsetting. Sometimes those who claim to be our brothers and sisters in Christ can be an embarrassment to the movement. Whenever I hear someone begin to bear witness to their faith on national television I always wince just a bit. I’ve heard some great ones where I’ve said, “Thanks be to God for that powerful witness.” And then I’ve heard others where I said, “Oh I wish they’d have kept their mouth shut.

So have you ever run into any upsetting Christians? Actually, there’s a good way and there’s a bad way to be an upsetting Christian. God never called us to be obnoxious but he did call us to confront a sinful world. There’s a big difference. He called us to be salt, not vinegar.

That’s what I see in this text as we read about Paul and Silas going through the city of Philippi. Their ministry, their message, their very presence was powerfully confrontive, but they were not obnoxious. They did not lose a hearing for the gospel, they gained it.

Sometimes I see Christians try to emulate the forceful model of the early missionaries but they don’t quite get the spirit. They just become kamikaze evangelists. They’re just going to witness for Jesus and they don’t much care if anybody comes out alive. That’s not the attitude that Paul and Silas emulate here, but they certainly did shake things up in this roman city. There were people in this city who were bondage to sin and to Satan, and all that Paul and Silas began to do was to announce that in Jesus freedom had come.

They set the slave girl free from her bondage. This poor girl who had been taken captive by an evil spirit was set free in the name of Jesus. Now we see that as good news, but those who thought they owned this girl weren’t very excited about it. They were about to lose revenue. She was a cash business and now it was gone. The world doesn’t like it when you start setting free what it thinks it owns. And the words that spoken by these merchants about Paul and Silas as they are trying to get them in trouble are so powerful and instructive:

“These men are throwing our city into an uproar.” They weren’t being obnoxious about it. They were just announcing that in Jesus forgiveness and freedom and real life had come. But to a world bent on its own destruction, that can be upsetting news, because it means things are about to change. And it didn’t end there. They do get thrown into jail but even then they are not defeated. They begin to sing and to praise God and as they do an amazing thing happens. The place literally blows apart with the Spirit’s power.

The jailer, knowing what happens to jailers who lose their prisoners, is about to do himself in. You see once again, Paul and Silas are upsetting things. But instead he finds freedom and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Paul and Silas were upsetting Christians. It’s all through the book of Acts. But they were upsetting Christians in the very best way. “These men are throwing our city into an uproar”

Could that ever be said of us? I’m not so sure it could be, at least not in the best ways. As I look at the American church, anyway, I certainly don’t see us throwing much of anything into an uproar except ourselves. We argue and fight over how things should be done inside the church and meanwhile the world yawns and writes us off as totally irrelevant. The only Christians who seem to be upsetting anything are the obnoxious ones.

In a recent message by one of our general superintendents in the Church of the Nazarene, he was talking about the dangerous separation that we have allowed to happen between the church and the world and said, “The church has become so disconnected from the world that even if there were to be a great revival of the church, the world might not even notice.”

Our vital connections are being lost. Jesus calls us to be in the world, just not of it. I think we’ve forgotten what that means and consequently we don’t upset and confront the world with the message of truth. They either just tolerate us or ignore us or write us off. In some cases we’ve become so much like the world that there is hardly any distinction. In many churches and pulpits of the nation the message has become, “God is really just a great guy who loves everybody, so try to be good but hey, don’t sweat it too much.” If that all the church has to offer, I might as well stay home and watch football on Sunday. So we’ve either become so much like the world there is no distinction, or we’ve become so isolated from the world that our witness has no effect.

Did you hear about what happened in Chicago recently? A 15-year-old boy shot by gang members while playing basketball, lay bleeding to death in an alley just steps away from a hospital emergency room. The emergency room personnel refused to treat him, saying it was against policy to go outside, they would have to call 911 instead. After waiting about 20 minutes, a frustrated police officer finally commandeered a wheelchair and brought the boy in himself, but it was too late and he died. Now I don’t understand about the hospital policy and all the circumstances of this case, but when I heard that story I thought, “That’s a picture of the church.” Here we are all safe and sound in our sterile environment. We’ve got the personnel and skill, the resources, the medicine. And we say to the world, “Come and get well. We have the answers, if you’ll just get yourself in here we’ll give them to you.” A few happen trickle in and we make charts and graphs to show how effective we are.

But just outside people lie dying because we won’t go out to where they are and help them in.

Jesus prayed for us: “Father, I do not pray that you take them out of the world but that you protect them as they work in the world.” That’s what Paul and Silas were doing. They were powerfully engaging their world. They were upsetting things not because they were pushing a personal agenda of confrontation. They were upsetting things because they were announcing the truth and people were being set free! And sometimes it got them in trouble! They got thrown into jail for it, but when the culture began to things tough for them, their response was not to retreat or to become bitter about the society. Their response was to praise God, to embrace their plight realizing that God can even work with a jail sentence.

What do we do when our culture begins to make things tough for us? I’ll tell you what we do. We complain, we get mad at politicians, and we either retreat or get obnoxious. Which just isolates us further from the very people we are trying to reach. Don’t be surprised when our society makes it tough on Christians. What do you expect? The church by its very nature is supposed to confront the fallenness of this world. Of course they’re not going to jump up and down with excitement when we do that.

Our mission as Christians is not to make sure society runs smoothly. That’s a killer for the gospel. Our mission is to upset things - to stand in the midst of a culture bent on self and announce that there is Another who must be reckoned with. Our mission is to do what Paul and Silas were doing. Proclaim to people in bondage and they can be free in the name of Jesus Christ. Our lives should be so powerful and so disconcerting to a lost world that people are regularly asking us the jailer’s question: “What must I do to be saved.” And then we announce the gospel: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and all your household.”

You see, a little religion kept in its place is okay. But when you start “disturbing the city” you’re out of bounds. You’re becoming an upsetting Christian. If you live authentically, you will be upsetting to the world.

My question for us this morning is: are you upsetting anything? Does anybody in the world notice that you are a Christian? Is anyone ever brought under conviction about their sin because of your pure life? Is anyone ever confronted about their selfishness because you proclaim the gospel of self-sacrifice? Is the world upset at all because you are a Christian? If not, we really need to ask ourselves why.

Have we become so much like the world that the threat has been taken away, there really is no difference? Or have we become so isolated from the world that even if we were to experience a revival of the spirit’s power, our connections are all gone and the world wouldn’t notice?

Are you an upsetting Christian? Are we an upsetting church? I want to be. I want us to be. But we must be fully surrendered to the lordship of Jesus so that it will be evident to the world that the power is from God and not from us.