More Blessed

Acts 19:23-41

October 16, 2016 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Tom Wright sums up what happened well: “A huge gathering, assembled in the street and the public square. Faces flushed with excitement and anger…The chanting gets louder and louder, rhythmic and strong, summoning up the energy of blood, tribal identity and local pride. It’s designed to give energy to those going out to fight their battles, and to strike terror into their enemies. It often works” (Acts for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 120). And while Wright is describing a football (or soccer) game in the United Kingdom, he could just as easily be describing a recent miracle here in the United States: the Cubs in post-season play! The energy and passion—not to mention the money—we as a culture put into our sports is truly amazing by any standard. And while I’m not knocking the Cubs or any other team, I often wonder why that same passion is not evident when it comes to matters of faith, things that last for eternity.

This is not a sermon to bash sports; diversions and entertainment are fine in their place. I’m simply asking the question: what might happen if we were as passionate about Jesus as we are about those games? Why do we know more about the records of our favorite teams than we do the Bible we profess to believe? I’m just asking questions this morning, but I do know what it looks like when a whole city gets excited or passionate about their faith. So does Paul, because he saw it happen in Ephesus.

This morning, we are continuing our series on the life and the message of the Apostle Paul. Today, we will follow Paul on his third missionary journey, and next Sunday we will be looking at the end of his life. Paul has been preaching Jesus now for many years, and what has come to be known as his third missionary journey begins near the end of Acts 18 and continues to Acts 21, where Paul ends up in Jerusalem and begins what most believe was his final journey to Rome. During this third journey, he passes through Macedonia and Greece, and he spends quite a bit of time (in Acts 20, he says three years) in a prominent city in modern-day Turkey named Ephesus. There, Paul’s preaching of the Gospel began to have an economic impact on the whole city. As people turned to Jesus, their priorities changed and they began to see their life in a whole new light.

Ephesus today is a beautifully preserved city; it’s one of the best archaeological sites I’ve been privileged to visit. Only a small portion of the city from Paul’s day has been unearthed, but enough that we can get a sense of how important and wealthy this city was. It’s estimated that, in Paul’s day, the city probably had a population of somewhere around 80,000 to 100,000, although some estimates range up to 250,000 (that’s unlikely). An ancient historian referred to Ephesus as the “second largest city in the eastern part of the Empire” (qtd. in Hamilton, The Call, pg. 157). Still today, when you walk through the ruins, you see altars to the emperor, public baths, wealthy apartments with decorative mosaics that were located above the city streets, and the great theater of Ephesus that would seat 25,000 people. It is so well preserved that concerts were still held in the actual theater until Sting performed there and the volume and crowd did damage to the theater itself. They do still hold smaller, quieter concerts, however, in the nearby Odeon, a smaller theater which seats 1,500 people; we had a chance to attend such a concert there two years ago. Now, Ephesus had a harbor in Paul’s day, but it has since silted in and the ruins are now about 5 miles inland. The most well-known landmark in Ephesus, aside from the theater, is the Library of Celsus, but that was not yet built in Paul’s day. What Paul would have found, though, is a place of learning, culture, and spirituality.

That “spirituality” in Ephesus revolved around worship of the goddess Artemis. Artemis of Ephesus was different than the Artemis of Greek mythology. Artemis of Ephesus was a mother-goddess of fertility, as you can probably assume from the statue depicting her likeness. There was an ancient statue of her at Ephesus that had fallen from the sky; most scholars today believe it was a meteorite that hit near the city that somehow looked like Artemis; eventually, it became an object of worship. Similar things happened in nearby cities. Every place wanted to have its own god or goddess, and the Ephesians outdid themselves. The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a place where thousands of worshippers would come every year. It served as both a house of worship and a major bank; merchants, kings and cities made deposits here for safe-keeping because no one would try to rob a house of worship—right? And since there were tourists who came here to the house of worship, guess what else built up around the Temple. You guessed it—souvenir stands. All over the city, hucksters and merchants tried to sell little silver statues of the goddess for people to take home. They fed off of the devotion to the goddess. After all, the deeper a person’s devotion, the more likely they are to buy Artemis-branded merchandise (cf. Longenecker, “The Acts of the Apostles,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pgs. 502-503). By the way, there are still many, many souvenir stands around Ephesus yet today (those have not fallen into ruin), and it was here that one of the merchants asked me how many camels I would trade for Rachel. For some reason, she turned away and said to me, “Let’s get to the bus. This is creepy.” I never did find out how many camels I could have gotten!

So, camels aside, this is the Ephesus Paul comes to, one deeply, religiously and economically devoted to the worship of a Roman goddess, Artemis. As was his habit, Paul began teaching in the Jewish synagogue, but after about three months, he moved his teaching to a local lecture hall. For two years, he taught there to anyone who would listen, and the faith began to spread and to grow. One evidence of this growth: people who had scrolls that centered on the practice of sorcery brought them and burned them publicly as a way of denouncing their past. Then, as Paul is making plans to go toward Jerusalem, the silversmiths get upset about all that’s been going on. He’s been there somewhere between two and three years, and just now, as he’s making plans to move on, they get upset? But, just like what we saw last week in Corinth, the issue here is shrouded in religious terms but it’s really an economic issue. Demetrius, head of the silversmith trade guild (the ancient equivalent of today’s labor unions), calls people together to complain about Paul. Can you believe what he’s doing here? He is leading people away from the worship of Artemis and toward the worship of Jesus. Our Temple is going to suffer, and our goddess is going to be discredited. She will be robbed of her divine majesty! I always wonder about a faith that can be so easily discredited or defamed. If Artemis really was who they said she was, would fewer statues sold really mean she wasn’t a goddess anymore? As a slight tangent, I also want to say that to people who worry and fear that this candidate or that one will be dangerous to our faith. Friends, no matter who wins on November 8, God will still be on the throne. If God is who we know him to be, there is nothing and no one that can threaten his status. There is no one who can discredit him, and therefore we have have confidence even in uncertain times.

But I think Demetrius also realizes Paul is leading people to worship a God who forbids image-making. Way back in Exodus, God told Moses that there would be no images made of him (cf. Exodus 20:4). If it were just trading one Roman god for another, it would be no big deal. They’d just change what kind of statues they were making; re-tool, you might say. But if the people turn toward this no-image God, the business of the silversmiths will be threatened. No one will buy statues from them! The issue, as I’ve said, is not religious. It’s economic. If these people convert to Jesus, what’s going to become of their business?

And that’s when we see the Ephesians’ passion for the goddess come out as a riot forms. Demetrius has whipped them up into a frenzy, so they gather up Paul’s traveling companions and drag them into the theater. When I was in Ephesus two years ago, I took this picture from the top of what remains and tried to picture this place filled with a crowd, Paul’s companions down on the stage, and all this shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Luke says they shouted this for two solid hours. Can you imagine? Can you imagine that kind of passion for a faith? Sure, we get all worked up over sports, but all this energy and shouting for a faith, let alone a false faith? Who could have seen Paul making this kind of an impact? And yet, I believe there are some clues here in Paul’s experience about how we can impact our culture today.

It’s important to notice, of course, that what Paul and his companions are accused of they did not do. Even the city clerk, when he sets out to stop the riot, reminds the people, “They have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess” (19:37). Paul and his companions simply stood firm for what they believed, boldly proclaimed it, and didn’t spend their time tearing down the worship of Artemis. Jesus can stand on his own. He said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Many people see in that statement a reference to the crucifixion, a lifting up by being on the cross, and while that’s possible, I think there’s another meaning here as well. When we lift up Jesus, when we represent him well, people will be drawn to his beauty, to the life he offers. We don’t have to tear down other people, other gods, other religions. We simply have to stand for and lift up Jesus. A couple of weeks ago, several of us from here and from other churches in Terre Haute went to Indianapolis for Franklin Graham’s “Decision America” tour stop. I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest, but I was pleased to be part of a crowd of over 8,400 people gathered on the statehouse lawn, praying for forgiveness and praying for our country. In the midst of that rally, Rev. Graham also took just three minutes and proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He didn’t spend time tearing down anyone else. He didn’t spend time bashing other belief systems. He simply lifted Jesus up, allowed those gathered there to see and hear of the beauty of Jesus. And you know what? 473 people that day made a choice to follow Jesus as their Savior and Lord. We follow the example of Paul: we don’t have to tear down Artemis to lift up Jesus. We simply lift Jesus up, and people will be drawn to him.

Another thing to notice is that Paul was aware of what the gods were in the culture he was working. We need to know what our culture’s gods are so that we can lift Jesus up above those. There are a lot of individual gods we could probably name, but several years ago, Richard Foster identified the three main altars we bow down to as money, sex and power. We talked last week about how Corinth was struggling at the altar of sex, held captive to a religion that relied on temple prostitutes, though they certainly were not unique in their world. Nor would many in our world find their way of thinking all that odd, as we currently live in a world where sex and pleasure have become the highest good, the main pursuit for many people. Our entertainment, our social media, even print media use sexuality to boost sales and there is an ongoing struggle between the church and the world—as well as within the church itself—as to what it means to understand our sexuality. We would find ourselves at home in Corinth, worshipping that particular god.

And power? Has anyone watched the politics of the day? It’s all about power. Someone posted this on Facebook this past week, and it seems to sum up the current election cycle: “I feel like Trump and Clinton are two divorced parents, fighting for custody of us. And we just wanna go live with grandma.” It’s all about power. Republicans want it. Democrats want it. It’s not about the issues or what is best for the country. Politics has become about gaining power and holding onto power—being in control. But it’s not just politicians that worship at this altar. So do we, whenever we begin to exercise control or power over someone else, whenever we insist on our own way being the only right way, whenever we have the need to assert our rights or our preferences, we will find ourselves bowing at the altar of power.

And then there’s the other god, the one that transcends time and culture, the god of money. We put “In God We Trust” on our money, but most of us really trust in money itself—which makes us not all that different from anyone else in history. We can certainly see ourselves in the streets of Ephesus with Demetrius, can’t we? When our economic livelihood is threatened, it can cause all sorts of reactions. I went to seminary in Kentucky, and while I did not serve as a preaching pastor at a church while there, I had several friends who did. Many of them would talk about wanting to preach about the dangers of tobacco because, in the area Asbury was in, anyone who had a small plot of land would use it to make extra income by growing tobacco. It was and is a huge part of the economy. One friend of mine, Richard, did preach such a sermon, and as soon as the worship service was over, a leader in the church pulled him aside and not-so-gently reminded him that his salary was paid by tobacco money. This is not meant as a statement about tobacco, but rather about how economics—money—very easily becomes our god, determining what we do and even at times what we say.

We demonstrate what is important by the ways we use the resources we have, especially our money, in this culture. Now, this is not the stewardship sermon—that’s coming in a few weeks—but I want to challenge you this morning to think about the ways your money speaks, the way it tells others what is really important to you. They used to say if you wanted to know a person’s priorities, you only had to look at their checkbooks. But since many folks, my kids included, don’t write checks anymore, today you have to look at a person’s debit and credit card statements. Where does our money go? The choices we make determine what is important. Just one small example: think about the entertainment choices we make. For many years, I’ve listened to Christian people complain about the amount of blood, sex and violence movies and television shows contain. But we know that Hollywood is completely driven by money. They make movies and television shows based on what people will pay to see. For instance, if good films are supported at the cinema, more of them will be made; look at the rush to make Biblically-themed movies after The Passion of the Christ did so well. Granted, not all of those were worth the time to see them, but here’s my point: what we choose to see, what we choose to spend our money on, determines the culture’s priorities. We can make an impact with our money, just as the new Christians in Ephesus did. They stopped buying the statues of Artemis and people noticed. We stop supporting what is junk and people will notice. Money speaks, and as a god, it speaks loudly.

So we have numerous choices each and every day how we will either participate in the worship of the god of money or whether we will work against that god and break its power over us. One way we break the power of this god over us is by giving of what we have to causes that are bigger than we are, causes that will outlast us. Here’s just one example: in just a couple of weeks, on November 6, we’re going to have a packing party for Operation Christmas Child. Many of you have participated all year long, bringing in supplies for the shoeboxes, and others of you have filled shoeboxes and brought them in during Vacation Bible School. Our goal this year is to pack 500 shoeboxes that will go to brighten the life of a child somewhere in the world, as we heard in the video earlier. That’s one way we can begin to break the hold the god of money has on us, but do you know that those shoeboxes don’t ship themselves? They don’t travel from here to there on their own. How do they get there? Take a listen to this video.

So this morning, when you leave worship, some of our children will be at the doors, collecting a special offering for Operation Christmas Child so that we can provide shipping for these boxes, so that they can reach children and possibly change their lives. If we pack 500 boxes as we plan to, that means we need $3,500 to send them out. I’m confident you can do that, Mount Pleasant, and that because of you, 500 children we may never meet will have a chance to hear about the love of Jesus that is just for them. If each person here this morning gives about $10, which is probably less than many of us would spend on lunch today, we’ll more than meet our goal.

In our family, another way we seek to break the hold of this god over our lives is through our giving to the local church and to missionaries beyond the local church. There has never been an easier time to give to God’s work, with online options available even here at the church. For Cathy and I, it’s vital that that money is given away first, so that we don’t spend it on other things. We give ten percent to the church, then we give to several missionaries beyond that, and then we remain thankful that God lets us keep the rest for the needs in our own lives. And we give whether we’re “feeling it” or not. I had a friend that, every time he got mad at his church, he would quit giving, but I’ve always tried to have the attitude that I’m not really giving to the church. I’m giving to God. And sometimes we in the church get it right and sometimes we don’t. But my giving is still to God, even when the church—local or otherwise—gets it wrong. I’ve cultivated that attitude over a lot of years, and it’s especially challenged and confirmed by Paul. One of the things Paul is doing on this third missionary journey is collecting an offering for the “saints in Jerusalem,” who were going through some difficult times. Now, we know from the Acts account and from his own writing that Paul did not always agree with what happened in the Jerusalem church. He went toe to toe against Peter, the leader of the church, on some issues. And yet, he asks the churches he founded, Gentile churches largely, to give to the church in Jerusalem because they are brothers and sisters. They are bound together in Jesus, even when they disagree. It’s a matter of being the body of Christ, the church. And, in fact, when Paul is saying his final farewell to the leaders at Ephesus, when he is on his way to Jerusalem, he reminds them of what Jesus said about giving. It’s a quote we hear often, but it’s not one that is included in the Gospels. The only place this saying of Jesus is preserved is in Acts 20:35, where Paul is reminding the Ephesians of his work: “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Obviously, Paul (and Jesus) is talking about more than money here, but our giving at least includes that, overpowering the god that had threatened to undo Paul at Ephesus. Without giving, Paul implies, we cannot be more blessed. Our Christian faith has economic impact in the world, and in our own personal lives. If it does not, it is not the faith Paul preached and lived out. So—does the Gospel make an economic impact in your life?

One more thing I want to point out in this story from Ephesus, one that I briefly touched on a few moments ago, and that is this: when it came time to accuse Paul and his companions of a crime, there is nothing to say. The mob can only riot about their god being defamed, but that isn’t a crime. In fact, it’s kind of funny the way Luke describes the beginning of what happens in the theater: “The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there” (19:32). It really does sound like a modern political rally! But when it came down to it, there were no charges to bring against the preachers. They had not robbed the temple, nor had they spoken against Artemis. The only “crime” they were guilty of was believing and sharing their faith. And so it should be with us (cf. Wright 123). We should be people who learn to share our faith without being obnoxious, share our faith with integrity, share our faith the way Peter tells us to: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their behavior” (1 Peter 3:15-16). If ever there was a word for this day and time, perhaps that is it. We need people who make an impact on the culture, who boldly face the task unfinished, but who do so with integrity, truth and holiness, with gentleness and respect. We need people who are like Jesus, like Paul, who know they are more blessed and long to share that blessing with the world around them. May it be so for us, that when they accuse us, the only thing that can be said it this: “They lived their faith well.” Toward that end, let’s pray.