Hot Buttons
Series: Acts
Chuck Sligh
January 21, 2018
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
TEXT: Acts 22:17-24 - "And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; 18 And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. 19 And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee: 20 And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. 21 And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. 22 And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 23 And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24 The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him."
INTRODUCTION
The last time we were in the book of Acts, we saw that Paul was in a heap of trouble! After a misunderstanding while coming out of the Temple, he manages to cause a riot, get himself beaten by an angry mob, be rescued by a Roman guard, whose captain mistakes him for a notorious criminal, leading to his arrest. All in a day's work for Paul. But before being led away to prison, Paul was granted permission to address the crowd, which gave him the opportunity to tell the story of how God saved him They gave him a respectful hearing on the first part, but when he got to a certain point in his sermon, the crowd went berserk!
Paul had pushed what I call a "hot button." You know you've pushed hot button in a conversation or a sermon when you make a certain statement, and all of a sudden, the listener throws up his defenses, closes his mind to you, and dismisses anything else you have to say.
It's interesting that there are several instances in the Bible in which preachers pressed hot buttons and people got turned off or angry, and each of them is instructive for us. Let's look at three of them today, one in our text and see what we learn.
I. FIRST WAS WHEN JESUS PRESSED THE HOT BUTTON OF GENUINE FAITH AND TOTAL COMMITMENT.
Up until John 6, Jesus had performed several stunning miracles:
* In chapter 2 He turned the water into wine.
* In chapter 4 He healed the nobleman's son.
* In chapter 5 He healed the invalid man by the pool of Bethesda.
* And in the first part of chapter 6 Jesus fed the 5,000.
Then in the rest of chapter 6, Jesus taught the crowd who He really was and the true nature of salvation.
But in verse 66, after He had taught these things, we read these sad words: "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."
So long as there were parables to hear, and loaves and fishes to be divided and miracles to be wondered at, there was no turning away of many in the multitude. But when the Lord became intensely SPIRITUAL in His teaching (as in the verses prior to verse 66), they left Him.
We don't have time to look at his teaching in John 6, but essentially He called them out for their preoccupation with how He could feed them and heal them and perform miracles and then He said, "Look, following me is not about that stuff; it's not about what you get out of it: following me is about being drawn to God; and recognizing that I am the bread of life; and believing that the way to God is through me."
You know what folks?-When you get off the fluff and get down to the real business of solid Bible teaching and God's demands upon our lives, you'll start hitting some people's hot buttons and they'll turn you off like a water tap.
We're often told, "Just preach like Jesus, and the people will hear you gladly." Well that's not true-because they didn't hear HIM gladly.
John 1:11 says, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not."
The truth is that the moment Jesus got down to business and came to deal with the real and eternal purpose of His life and teachings-many people left Him.
Some people are drawn to Christ because of the benefits of the Christian life, or how God can bless them, or any number of wrong motivations. But sooner or later, our job is to confront folks with the demands of Christ upon their lives, and when you do that, you start hitting some hot buttons. Then they'll either embrace it, or like these people in John 6, they'll walk away.
II. ANOTHER INCIDENT OF PRESSING A HOT BUTTON WAS WHEN PAUL PRESSED THE HOT BUTTON OF BIBLICAL SUPERNATURALISM.
In Acts 17, Paul preached to the philosophers in Athens about God as Creator and Ruler of all things. But then he started preaching about Jesus and one particular tenet of the Gospel.
In Acts 17:32 we read "And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked…"
The Athenians listened to Paul with interest for a while, but the moment he began to speak about the resurrection, the Bible says, "some mocked."
They didn't want to hear about the resurrection. They wanted philosophy, speculation, high discourse, intellectual stimulation. But this stuff about the supernatural and the miraculous-they didn't want that.
You know, it's no different today. You mention Bible Christianity today to some people, and they'll mock you like you just came out of an insane asylum!
But do you know what's ironic about this?-Many in the media, Hollywood and academia try to discredit Christianity and say that the miraculous things in the Bible are just expressions of ancient ignorance and superstition. No attempt is spared to discredit miracles and supernatural events in the Bible. Of course, sometimes it's a little difficult for them.
Illus. - The late J. Vernon McGee told about a professor with a student in his class who seemed to be kind of a country bumpkin. When the professor found out that this young man believed the Bible, he thought he would have a little fun at his expense. In front of the whole class, he asked, "John, do you believe that God miraculously parted the waters of the Red Sea and the Israelits crossed over on dry land?"
"I shore do, sir," came his countrified reply. He, of course, was talking about how Moses parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross it on dry land, after which the pursuing Egyptian army followed, only to be drowned when the waters came back together.
"Well," said the professor patronizingly, "suppose I tell you that it wasn't the Red Sea they crossed, but the 'Reed Sea,' and that it was no deeper than one foot all the way across? That's what the latest scholarship says. So, what do you have to say about THAT?"
The country bumpkin thought about it for a moment and then all of a sudden burst out laughing and said, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle; if that don't beat all! That's more of a miracle than I thought!"
Puzzled, the professor asked, "How's that?"
"That God could drown the whole Egyptian army in one foot of water must be one of the greatest miracles in the Bible!"
Sometimes attempts to discredit the supernatural in the Bible reach absurd levels. But here's the irony of the whole thing: All too often, those who discount the supernatural element in Christianity are the very same ones who believe in ghosts, and spirit guides, and channelers, and the power of crystals, and horoscopes, and all kinds of SUPERNATURAL things.-Hello!
You see, it's just CHRISTIAN supernatural things that can't be true.
Well, what about these supernatural events in the Bible? If the miracles in the Bible trouble you, your god is too small. For YOU or I to perform a miracle would be something really incredible, but it would be "peanuts" for GOD. Once you see God in all His glory and majesty and power and authority and sovereignty-then things like the supernatural creation of the universe at God's mere command, or a worldwide flood, or a specially designed fish to swallow Jonah, and for Jonah to live through it, or God raising His Son from the dead-all these are just a "piece of cake" with my God!
When I was a kid, if someone was showing off and we wanted to show him up, we used to say, "Aw, I can do that with my little finger!" Well, I want to tell you something: God can do all those things with His little finger.
Let me ask you a question: How big is your God?
* Is He big enough for the miracles of the Bible?-The God of the Bible is big enough for any miracle; the true God of eternity can do them with ease. If your god isn't big enough for the miraculous, your god is too small. Forget your puny, impotent god and accept by faith the God of the Bible.
* Christian, is your God big enough to know what's going on in your life?…and to know how to handle your problems?…and to help you in your greatest time of trial and struggle? OF COURSE, HE IS! He can do that with His little finger! Of course, he doesn't have a physical finger; He's even more powerful than that: He can do ANYTHING He pleases merely by SPEAKING it!
The question is not "how big is God"-He's plenty big for the great big things of this life, and all those easy miracles recorded in the Bible. The question is "How big is your faith in that God?"
III. A THIRD TIME A HOT BUTTON WAS PRESSED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS WHEN PAUL PRESSED THE HOT BUTTON OF PREJUDICES AND UPBRINGING.
In our text, Acts 22, we saw how the Jews listened to Paul…so long as he confined himself more or less to what they had been taught and reared with.
What was it that sent them into a blind rage? These devout Jews were quiet as church mice until Paul said one simple phrase. He told them in verse 17 how years before he had come to Jerusalem and while in the temple, God put him into a trance. And in verse 21 Paul told the crowd "And he [the Lord] said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles."
That's all he said that send them into orbit. Verses 22-23 say, "And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 23 And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air."
Good grief!-That's a little bit of an overreaction, wouldn't you say? Here they are-listening, quiet, well-behaved, and then BOOM- they're wild as a cat whose tail was just run over by a rocking chair!
What was the problem with these people? Very simply-THEY WERE NOT TEACHABLE. They were not open to a different perspective. They simply could not conceive of God working to reach out to the Gentiles.
Today it's hard to understand, but Jews viewed all Gentiles as enemies. A devoted Jew would not step foot in a Gentile's house. He would not eat with a Gentile. He avoided contact with Gentiles as much as was possible.
In conversation, referring to Gentiles, they would often substitute the words "swine" or "dog," as in, "I met a Gentile swine while traveling to town today" or "a Gentile dog came to my shop this morning."
Now, so long as Paul had a tale to tell, this crowd listened to him. But the moment he told them something that went against their prejudices, it was like a spark thrown into a keg of gunpowder.
But you see, reaching the Gentiles wasn't PAUL'S idea!-This was GOD'S plan! God had ALWAYS meant to include the Gentiles in His plan. The Old Testament is full of verses teaching it.
The problem was that these people had been taught wrong interpretations of the Old Testament writings, and they weren't teachable about another a different interpretation.
Folks, one of the greatest things you can learn is teachability. Don't get me wrong, anytime you hear something new, you ought to be skeptical. Take it with a grain of salt until you've heard the whole argument and the scriptural justification for it.
That's what the Bereans did in Acts 17, whom Luke describes as "noble" because of it. Acts 17:11 says "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they [the Bereans] received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."
The Bereans heard Paul preach things they had never heard before. So what did they do?-THEY DOVE INTO THE SCRIPTURES! And once they saw that what Paul preached lined up with the scriptures, they embraced it-even though it went against what they had been previously taught.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 - "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Here Paul tells us two simple commands:
* First, "prove all things" - That will keep you from being tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
* But then he said, "hold fast that which is good." The words "hold fast" speak of EARNESTLY CLINGING TO IT. It was a military term that described a militant, defensive stance to guard and protect something of great importance at all costs.
So, if you hear something new to you, don't necessarily dismiss it out of hand unless you already sure what the Bible says about it. First "prove" it-that is, test it, evaluate it, compare it with the scriptures. If it's true-EMBRACE it! If not-REJECT it, I don't care who teaches it!
Illus. - Years ago, in the earliest days of our church, an older couple attended our church for a few weeks from a strict, old-fashioned church. I sensed really quickly that they were not happy with our church. Later he sent me an email stating that he didn't like the modern songs we sing; or that if we had special music, it was DURING the offertory instead of AFTER the offering (Wow!, I thought; there's a lot of Scripture about THAT!); and he definitely did not like homegroups.
He said we were departing from the "old paths." But by the "old paths" he meant old man-made traditions of the church he had come from, like those things I just mentioned, not the God-given instructions Jeremiah meant when he used that phrase.
But he said something that I never thought I would hear from a believer. I told him that song styles and special music are not once addressed in the Bible. These were just personal preferences, and not important ones either.
About homegroups, I had previously told him that I would like to share with him from the Bible why we believed in homegroups and he wrote this in response, "Please understand that we do not want to be convinced that homegroup sessions are the 'in' thing now even if it can be proven in the Bible."
Well, whether they are the "in" thing or not is immaterial to us (we never do anything because it's "in"), but how ANY believer could say he didn't want to accept something proven from the Bible is beyond my understanding. This man was not teachable, and he would not have been very happy in our church that is not built on man's tradition, but on the Word of God.
I've seen it time and time again. Maybe you come from a different background, or even a different culture. My question for you is this: Are you teachable? Can your views be changed by God's Word? Or if something isn't addressed one way or the other by Scripture, are you teachable enough to adapt to new ways, new methods, new ideas to advance God's?
Maybe some things we do or emphasize here are different than what you grew up in. The key issue is not "This is what I was taught" or "This is what we did in my old church," but "Is that teaching or emphasis consistent with the Word of God?" If so, embrace it; be teachable; If not, don't embrace it. Just begin with a spirit of teachability.
CONCLUSION
This morning we have examined three "hot buttons" in the New Testament. Are any of these hot buttons in your own life?
* What about the hot button of faith and total commitment to Christ? Has there been a time in your life when you turned to Christ to save you? Believer, did you ever come to a place where you were finished with a half-hearted devotion to God-and decided to serve God with your WHOLE heart? I hope you didn't put up your defenses when I talked about that, but if you did, let me urge you to give yourself to Christ and serve Him with ALL your heart.
* What about the hot button of A BIG GOD OF THE MIRACULOUS? Take God at His Word! Believe every miracle in this Book. (HOLD UP BIBLE) Nothing's too hard for God. No miracle in the Bible was too hard, and neither are any of the problems you face in your life that are too hard for God. God's a big God-WAY bigger than you even realize. And He's big enough to handle your every need if you'll just trust Him. And He can do it with just His little finger-actually with just His WORD.
* And what about the hot button of different teaching than what you're used to? Oh no-don't believe it because I teach it, or because this church believes it. Test it by the Word. But if it's in the Book-discard what you learned before and embrace truth. And if it's not addressed clearly in the Word; don't be dogmatic. Learn that famous saying, "In essential, let there be unity; in non-essentials, let there be liberty; in all things, let there be charity (love). Brethren, be teachable.
