The sermon by Mala Chindongo, titled 'The Profile of an Authentic Gospel Ministry,' draws on Acts 17:1-15 to explore the essence of true gospel ministry through the actions of Apostle Paul. Paul consistently preached a message rooted in the Scriptures, emphasizing the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The sermon addresses the challenge of identifying authentic gospel ministries, especially in regions like Africa, where missionary work is abundant yet not always gospel-centered. Chindongo underscores the importance of being personally persuaded by the gospel and the necessity of faithfulness to Scripture in preaching. He warns against altering the gospel message to fit different audiences and stresses the power of the gospel to transform lives, as evidenced by the Bereans' eagerness to search the Scriptures. The sermon also calls for active engagement in furthering the gospel, highlighting the role of partnerships with faithful ministries and the responsibility of every believer to be prepared to share the gospel authentically.

Acts 17 verses 1 through 15. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded, and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and, gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people.

But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying, There is another king, Jesus. And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.

When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word of the All-Readyness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away to go to the sea, but both Silas and Timothy remained there.

So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens, and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed. Lord, I thank you for giving us your word and for giving us this day set aside to worship you. I pray that you would be with Mala as he preaches the word. I pray that He would do it faithfully, that your words would be preached, and that you would give us soft and receptive hearts. In Christ's name, amen.

Good morning. I want to thank you for the partnership that we have in the preaching of the gospel. Our church has really been encouraged by your prayers and in many ways your support for the work there. And we continue to pray for what God is doing here and as you seek to extend the gospel in your own country. Acts chapter 17 will be in verse 1 through verse 15 titled The Message, the profile of an authentic gospel ministry because we want to learn from the apostle Paul as we look at his message and how God blesses ministry with power and the fruit that came out of His ministry.

I come from a country, a landlocked country, Malawi, with a population of about 16 million people. And some of you maybe have ideas about Africa and Malawi, just like most of the African countries have the majority of the people living under 50 cents a day. And when you look at some of these statistics, for many years they've driven a large number of missionaries into Africa. I spent last year some time with a missionary who had come from America who told me and said, you know, I think the biggest problem with your country is that you have too many missionaries. And I said, we should be celebrating that we have too many missionaries, but he said it's a big problem.

And I've been working on Acts chapter 17. One of the biggest challenges is to actually identify missionaries that are really preaching the gospel, missionaries that have come into Africa and are running gospel-centered ministries. Those that truly love the Lord and are there to save Christ, are there to see the gospel grow and gospel churches being planted all over Africa. And so our challenge is to be able to identify among the many missionaries we have to identify authentic gospel ministries that we can partner with as we further the gospel there. And I've always thought that it's not always a challenge for us in Malawi, in Africa, it's a challenge for you as you desire to love the Lord in your service to seek to send men to the rest of the world who are qualified, send ministries that will go into these parts of the world and make a difference as they preach the true gospel.

And so, our love for Jesus is not just we are here, we love Him, we worship Him, but it's also that we want to see His name great among the nations. That's part of loving our Lord Jesus Christ. He left us with a command to go out into all the world, into all the nations, preaching the gospel. And love for Him means that we take the Great Commission very seriously. In this passage in Acts 17, 1 to 15, we see what faithfulness to the gospel looks like.

The apostle Paul went out with a message, went out praying and asking other churches that they would pray for him, that God would bless his ministry with power. And We see that as we read the book of Acts and some of the letters that he wrote. And we also see the long-term fruit that God gave him as he went out. And I want to suspend some time in these few verses. If you look at verse 1 to verse 4, now when they had passed through Anthropolus in Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews, then Paul as his custom was went into them and for three sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures explaining – I love these words – explaining and demonstrating that Christ, that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.

I want us to look at the message of an authentic gospel ministry. The message. Gospel ministry. The message. Paul had a message and he spent all his time explaining and demonstrating this message.

Verse 5 through verse 9, you see, but the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and, gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. How would you like it if a multitude attacked the house of your Jason because he was preaching the gospel? But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of their brethren to the rulers of the city crying out, look at, listen to the accusation, the reputation of Paul's ministry. These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. That was the accusation.

That was the reputation of Paul's ministry. Jerson has harbored them and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there is another King, Jesus. Those who know you're a Christian and probably don't like your Christianity, what kind of accusations do they make of you? What kind of accusations do they make of us? They don't have to like us.

They don't have to like our message. But what kind of accusations do they make of us? And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Look at verse 10 through verse 15.

Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they had arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all redness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Paul is not disappointed that, why are you checking me out? Why are you doubting?

And this is not them doubting whether the things Paul had been saying were true or were from the Scriptures. They went back to the Bible, studying with all redness, studying and searched the Scriptures daily. And so, there was a practice and Paul would preach, they would hear the gospel and there would be a practice, a long-term practice that His preaching provoked these believers to study the Scriptures. We'll talk about this more, but one of the things that should concern all of us is when we preach and people begin to admire us and to follow us and to be so consumed with us and our personalities, instead of We preach in such a way that people begin to be consumed with the Word of God. If you look at Paul's ministry, this is not limited to chapter 17 of the book of Acts.

If you read many places in the book of Acts, in other places, you see that this was true about Paul's ministry throughout. It is the kind of ministry that will remain faithful, and we've seen that. We see that with Paul reading through the book of Acts that this is the kind of ministry that will stand the times, especially when there is persecution involved. Luke shows us, at least when we look at chapter 15, going into chapter 16, he shows us that Paul is on his second missionary journey. So he started in Acts chapter 13, he goes out with Bannebos preaching the gospel, and here they end up back, they are back in Asia around 49 AD preaching the gospel there.

They have brought with them the decision that had been made at the Jerusalem council, and Paul and Barnabas, they basically speak to the church and say, we want to go back and encourage the churches we had planted. And a disagreement over Mark, Rose, and Barnabas and Paul went into two separate ways. Paul is determined to preach the gospel, to continue preaching the gospel in Asia Minor. The Bible tells us that twice the Holy Spirit would not allow Paul to continue preaching the gospel in Asia Minor, followed by a vision, a man of Macedonia calling Paul to come and help them. For the first time the gospel, at least as it is recorded in Scripture, the gospel entered Europe.

We see in chapter 16 that they preached, they entered Europe, Neapolitan, Philippi, in Macedonia, they went through Amphipolis, Apollonia, as we see in our text this morning, Berea and Thessalonica. And God blesses Paul's ministry. But one thing I want to point out is that Thessalonica was, being the capital city of Macedonia, this whole region was not just a neutral place, and so Paul is going into place, preaching the gospel into places where everyone was welcoming his message. It wasn't like that. And so Paul is preaching the gospel in the midst of suffering, in the midst of persecution.

They end up in Tezronica, which is the economic hub of Macedonia in that part of region, a version of Silicon Valley, as you may understand it. Tessaroneika is also consumed with the worship of idols, and so they are passionate, devoted to their goddess Artemis. They believe that she was in charge of all creation and she ruled the day. Artemis shaped the way people looked at life. Artemis shaped and controlled what they would have called worship.

One Bible scholar points out that in this part of the world you could easily find a God than a man. There's still many parts, and I can think of one in Malawi, many parts in the world today where people have more gods than people, populations within their own tribes. The Lord blesses Paul's ministry as we see in verse four, and some of them were persuaded as Paul is preaching, and the Bible says a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. We see in 1 Thessalonians in chapter 1, for from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. And it's clear that God poured out His Spirit upon His post-ministry and a church and churches are established.

Paul could have come in this part of the world, he's in Europe now, he could have come and changed his message. He could have come and changed his strategy. But I like that the apostle is faithful to the Scriptures. Look at what he says, what Luke says in verse 2 of Acts chapter 17. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures.

So his message was rooted in the Scriptures. Paul could have come and say, I'm an apostle of Christ. I hear directly from the Spirit And I am here with a message to you." He could have done that. But his message was rooted in Scripture, was founded upon the Holy Scriptures. If we as Christians cannot preach from the Bible, we have nothing to say and we have no authority.

It's so tempting today to come into places where we believe that people are post, we believe that this is a society that is post-Christian. And so we need to change our strategy. We need to change the message. We need to change the way Christianity has been understood so that they can welcome us, so they can receive us. Paul is in Europe.

They have more gods than people. But Paul understands that if I'm going to make a difference here, if I'm going to be faithful to Christ, my message must be rooted in Scripture. And I can understand the difficulty, even from where I am in Malawi, I can understand the difficulty that sometimes you can come before a group of people, and sometimes you can sit down with Muslims, and it just feels a bit different to actually open the Bible. They don't read the Bible, they read the Koran, to begin to reason with them from Scripture. We want to reason from Scripture with people who already read Scripture.

But Paul is reasoning from Scripture, yes, with Jews, but the Bible tells us that there were also devout Greeks. And throughout Asia Minor, Paul was reasoning, persuading from Scripture. Whether our persuasion begins with persuading people that the Bible is the Word of God and in the Bible is Christ who has died for us and for our sins, but Paul reasoned from scripture. You open the Bible and the first thing that comes out of people's mouth is that, you know what, that's not the weight of God, this is the weight of man. Okay, then begin to persuade them that this is the weight of God.

God. If we close our Bibles, because we believe that we live in a post-Christian society, so we need to close our Bible and find other better ways to reason with people. It will end up with convincing them that yes, you know, they need to consider the Scriptures, but we'll never persuade them concerning the gospel of Christ. Because only the Bible gives us that power and ability to be able to do that. Look at his message.

What was his message? His reasoning from scripture. What was his message? The Bible tells us in verse 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. So Paul had a message, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

He was explaining, demonstrating, seeing the atonement, redemption, propitiation, expiation, justification, he was demonstrating these things from the Scriptures. And there are many places where we see Paul striving to show people these things, the gospel, to show Christ from the Scriptures. One of the things that I've been sharing with a lot of missionaries, at least in Malawi in Africa, is just how the West is really good at identifying things and being able to classify them. And so one group of, one generation comes, we look at it, we look at its appetites, and we say, These are millennials. They have different appetites.

They have got different struggles with sin, and so we must find better ways to reach them with the gospel, but not the apostle Paul. Whether it was millennials, whether it was Greeks, whoever he was speaking to, Paul spends time explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer for our sins. His message doesn't change. He wants them to see that their sin is not just a sin against their neighbor or someone around them. He wants them to see that their sins, their worship of idols is an offense to a holy God.

He wants them to see that. Whether you believe that there is A God in heaven, he wants them to see that they have offended God. And so he wants them to see their sin. He wants them to see the wrath of God hanging upon their heads. At the same time, He wants them to see the mercy of God that God has been gracious that God is merciful That God has sent his son Jesus Christ who has died on the cross For our sins and because of our sins But God has not let him in the grave.

His reason. His reason for their justification that if they believe in Jesus, they will be saved. Luke continues to record that Paul did not just end it there, but he continues that he was explaining and demonstrating, saying, this Jesus who died and was buried and rose again, whom I preach to you is the Christ. That's a very important element as Poe is preaching in this part of the world, just like ours, that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the one who holds the scepter. He is the King of kings, He is the Lord of lords, that if they do not bow before Him, they will perish.

He is not just hanging there for their sins, but he is also the chosen of God, the judge of all the earth. And when we're out there, we are talking to a society that we believe is post-Christian we need to remind them that not only is this message of death, burial and resurrection that you look at and you say it's so weak and has nothing to do with me it's got everything to do with each one of us because this king of kings is going to come back and judge all of us. No one is post-Christ's judgment. Amen? We need to erase them.

We need to, when we speak to them, we need to tell them that this is about you in every way possible. Paul's style was to persuade them of these historical spiritual facts. You say you are post this and post that, what are you going to do with Christ? Somehow you have to reckon with Him. What are you going to do with Him?

You can go about your life. You can ignore Him. Paul says, there is something you have to do about it Because Christ is a historical fact that the Son of God came into this world and He was crucified for our sins. You need to do something about that. You and I live in a very interesting times where there is so much talk about the recovery of the gospel, and this has been a great concern of mine that we talk about the gospel and concerned about the recovery of the gospel, but what I've noticed that it's possible to talk about the gospel but not preaching the gospel.

To talk about gospel centeredness but not really preach the gospel. And so we want to be there saying to them that truly he, the Son of God, bore your sins in his own body on the tree. He died for your sins. That you might be set free and live unto righteousness by his stripes you are healed. But we don't want to leave it there, we want like Paul to be able to say, but remember He owns you both in salvation and in judgment He owns you.

We can be, We can know the language, talk about expositor preaching, reform theologies, sovereign, to read all the right books. And it's possible to do all those things but not be able To be faithful to the gospel of Christ, and it's happening in our generation. Think of His reputation, Verse 5 to 9. They say it in verse 6, but when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down. Paul's ministry had a reputation.

As people traveled, as news spread, it was known that his message changed, transformed people. He had a reputation. Whether they appreciated the change or not, they understood that there was transformation that followed His message. In Luke 735, but Wisdom is justified by all her children. If we remain faithful to the gospel like the apostle, they will accuse us of transforming and changing people.

Part of the drive to invent methods to bring people in the church is our lack of confidence in the power of the gospel. We don't have, at least in today's church, and we don't want to take away from what God is doing, but there is little confidence in the power of the gospel. If people would accuse us, what would they say? Those who know that we are Christians, what would they say about us? We must pray and preach like the apostle in such a way that we have a reputation.

And that reputation is that wherever we go, wherever we preach, God uses His Word to transform lives. To transform lives. They don't have to appreciate that transformation, but they have to see it. Our fear and our lack of evangelistic zeal is not from the fact that we live in a post-Christian society, it's our lack of confidence in the power of the gospel. How, let's think about this, How do you convince a Malawian who has come to America, how do you convince him that apple pie is good?

If you have confidence in apple pie that is good because you've tested it, you just have to make him one. Let him test it. If we are persuaded and fully convinced of the gospel, we just have to give it to them. Because we have confidence in the gospel that it has power to change, it has power to transform, and so we preach it and give it to them. Our confidence is not in the ability of people to change.

No one is able to change themselves. We are dead and trespasses in our sins. Can a Malawian change his skin color? Jeremiah says no. Amen.

We are not able and so our confidence is not in the ability for people to change themselves, our confidence is in the gospel, that the gospel is able to change. It's able to transform lives. Paul had a reputation. Paul had a reputation. Look at the fruit of his ministry.

When he preached, he provoked his hearers to search the Scriptures daily. It's one of the most interesting things is that when you read the Scriptures, you will find that either when poor priests either they – people were transformed, a church was planted and they stayed there, or they would stone him and kick him out of their territory. You don't hear, you might find a few places where when Paul preached they followed him. We have a big problem in the church that when we preach, people begin to follow us. People begin to be so consumed, to be… people begin to be amazed by our way of doing things, our personalities and communication.

And the things we do and the things we say not being provoked to go back home to open their Bibles and to begin to search the Scriptures. We especially those who preach and those who listen, we should be looking at the Bereans and being able to say, you know, this is the kind of ministry we need. It's when people hear us preach, they go back to the scriptures and they say, he talked about God's love for me, the kindness of God upon my life. Where else is that talked about in scripture? I need to grow in grace.

He talked about that even a sinner like me can't be set free. Where is that in the Bible? And they go back home and they begin to search the scriptures. There's a story of a preacher who once met one of his church members drunk, and as he was walking and passing by the church member said, Pastor, I'm one of your members. And the pastor says, yes, you are, but not of Christ.

And we better be praying that our churches are not filled by our followers, but followers of Christ. We better be preaching and laboring and waking and seeking and desiring that we have churches that are filled with Christ and have a zeal for the Bible. And this is the same thing with parenting, is that we're not parenting so that children can be, can look like us. We want them to look like Christ, man. If we are parenting and I'm a young parent so I say that with all fear, we're parenting and saying, God, we don't want our children to grow up and be like us.

That's a very low view of parenting. We want them to grow up and be like your son Jesus Christ. When Paul preached, they went to the Bible. We want our ministries, our churches to be filled, our ministries, our families to be filled with men and women who have their minds set on the way of God. Think with me.

If you are presented today with an opportunity to share the gospel with others. What would be your message? What would be your style? Would you be opening the Bible and persuading and reasoning and demonstrating and showing Christ that this Jesus has died for you, for your sins. That is Jesus has overcome death because death couldn't keep Him in the grave.

That is same Jesus is the Christ And not only has He died and He's been raised from the grave, but this Jesus is coming back to judge the 12 What would be your message? If you are young and you are here and you are thinking, how does this, how does this, How does this wake out for me? I want you to think of something with me. Because very soon your whole life is going to change. Are you going to end up with a church in your house?

It happened to us so fast. We have two, we have four members, two are believers, two are non-believers. It's tough as it is, amen. If you're young and are not married, it's going to happen to you very soon. You're going to end up with members in your family, in your home.

And you need to be prayerfully studying the Scriptures and be equipped and be ready so that when the time comes you are persuading members of your family. You are demonstrating in the way you live, in the way you speak, in the way you do things, you are demonstrating Christ before them. You are showing them the Lord Jesus Christ. I always tell the guys in our church in Malawi that don't be sitting as a young person who's not married and saying, ah, you know, this is not for me. I still have time.

I'll have time to get ready. It doesn't work like that. If you're not setting time, spending time in the Word as you hear the Word being preached Sunday in, Sunday out, you go to midweek meetings, you listen to the Word of God, and that does not provoke you like the Bereans to go back home on your own, searching the Scriptures, learning and growing to love the Lord, so when the time comes, you can be a faithful minister of God's Word in your own capacity. You will be surprised how challenging and difficult it is. Be ready.

When the time comes let it find you ready and faithful to do what the Lord requires. As a church collectively, probably one of the things we need to be thinking is how Are we as a church collectively feathering the gospel among the nations? Are we doing what we need to be doing? Are we doing enough? Are we partnering with ministries that are authentic and faithful in their preaching of the gospel.

We need to be asking ourselves these questions because I will tell you this, in Africa most heretical ministries are funded by American dollars. We need to be laboring and asking ourselves and saying, we want to further the gospel. We want to be involved in feathering the gospel among the nations. That means we want to partner with faithful brothers and sisters preaching the gospel in their own lands. Much of the prosperity gospel in the majority world is sustained today by American dollars.

Save your penny, amen? I learned these few words. Save your dime, amen? Save your nickel. Now You say it.

You want to be partnering. You want to be sustaining. You want to be furthering the gospel among the nations. You want to do that as you go yourself, but also as you partner with other gospel preaching ministries, men and women that are faithful in the preaching of the gospel. It's easy to be a part of a family where dad and mom and other family members are persuaded about Christ, are persuaded about His death, His burial and resurrection.

It's easy to be in a family like that and to feel safe by you yourself not being persuaded about these things. Isn't that a dangerous place to be in that you can have people around you persuaded and their hearts warm as they think of Christ, as they think of His death, His burial, His resurrection, as they think of His second coming as the King of Kings and they look at Him with hope while you look at him with fear but comfortable in that family without repentance. I pray that you yourself would be persuaded that the son of God in love, in pain, in death has paid the penalty of your sins. That that would be your persuasion, not just a persuasion of mom and dad, not just a persuasion of your brother or your sister, not just a persuasion of your wife, not just a persuasion of your husband, but that you yourself would be persuaded of these things. Again, those who are young, and I close with this, those who are young and here, be known in your home as one of the children Who knows how to live a secret life, but that secret life that's consumed with searching the Scriptures and growing in grace and understanding the Gospel, Be known in your family to be one of those.

Fully persuaded in your heart that when the Son of God descends, I'm gonna look at him not as an enemy coming in wrath for me, but I'm going to look at him not as an enemy coming in wrath for me, but I'm going to look at him as a friend and I'm going to be able to say, my Lord, it's time. It's time, It's time, my Lord, take me." Now you will be able to say that. Now you will not be there trembling in fear as you face the judge, but trembling with joy in your heart that the King of Kings, Your Lord has come for you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your goodness.

Thank you for your kindness. Thank you that we see in Scripture, O God, Your servant Paul, being faithful to the gospel, having been persuaded himself on the road to Damascus of these facts and spiritual truths, Maintaining, O God, faithfulness as You sent him out among the nations preaching the gospel. Lord, we want some of that to be said of us. We pray, O God, that you would work in our hearts, O God, that truly you would awaken us and cause us, O God, to be faithful, being persuaded ourselves individually first, cooperatively, individually faced, cooperately being persuaded of your son's death, barrier and resurrection, and going out, O Lord, among the nations explaining, reasoning, demonstrating, persuading others, concerning your love in Jesus name. Amen.