I preached this sermon two Sundays ago. The sermon reflects an ongoing question of mine - why do some people respond to Jesus and give their lives over to following him and other do not. It also invited people to look beyond their like or dislike of Paul and see the call to follow Jesus.
“Yes of No?” Acts 17: 10-15; 2 Corinthians 1: 15-22; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church; August 9, 2026; Footsteps of Paul series; Richard B. Culp
2 Corinthians 1: 15-22 15 Since I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double favor;[a] 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on to Judea. 17 Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards,[b] ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you is not[c] “Yes and No.” 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” 20 For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God. 21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, 22 who has put his seal on us and given[d] us his Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.
Introduction: As this passage from Acts points out, Paul had a way of making people join with him,
change their lives based on this message Paul brought to them;
or people rejected Paul and his message.
Imagine the difference:
in Beroea, “they welcomed the message very eagerly,” examined the scripture, and many believed - not just the Jews in the synagogue, but even Greek men and women of high standing!
A preacher’s dream - people believe, study more, the message reach all sorts of different people.
On the other hand, the people back in Thessalonica (who we remember ran Paul off),
they are so infuriated by him,
or scared by him,
or think he is so wrong with his message,
they take it upon themselves to go to Bereoa and incite the crowds.
A preacher’s nightmare - people who so reject the preacher and his or her message that they follow him or her wherever to ensure failure.
I continue to be Fascinated by the variety of responses to Paul,
both in the stories we read in Acts
and as we have read and herd Paul each week this summer.
fascinated by the way Paul can compel The “Yes” that leads to commitment,
or the “no” that leads away from Paul and his message.
why did you or do you say “yes?” To God
Or why have you said “No” and resisted God?
Move 1: let’s take a moment and look at the message Paul proclaimed and invited people to respond with a yes” in their own lives.
a. Paul’s primary question to everyone he met and to us who read his words today:
“do you believe Jesus is raised from the dead?”
1. Notice that the question is not “do you accept Jesus into your heart”
or “do you want Jesus to be your friend.”
As much as we, particularly in American Christianity, emphasize a personal relationship with Christ,
for Paul is it not so much “What a friend we have in Jesus” as if Jesus is his best friend,
But more like “do you believe in the resurrected Christ, who has the power to blind me and push me to my knees on the road to Damascus and demand that I change my life?”
The ask is not to join a friends’ club, but to lay claim to the life-changing power found only in the God of resurrection.
3. Paul also does not bring a message that lists a series of theological tenets the early Christians must agree to as they profess their faith in Jesus Christ.
Certainly, Paul has lots of thoughts on how their belief calls them to live their lives,
his letter address issue after issue,
but he does not have a checklist of essential tenets they have to believe to call themselves followers of Christ.
b. Paul simply (well, maybe not so simply) asks the people,
asks us
Do you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead?
Yes. or No?
1. Behind the question is the God of resurrection.
If we say “yes” that Jesus is raised from the dead,
we say “yes” to the God who resurrects.
we give ourselves over to the God who continues to be at work transforming the world.
We commit to a life of discipleship in which we follow and serve the Resurrected one.
2. The “yes” may not be fully understood.
it may a tentative yes with lots of questions,
but it means choosing to put our hope in the God of resurrection.
Move 2: Why did you say “yes” to believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and becoming one of his followers?
or what is keeping you from making that commitment?
a. You, of course, know St. Augustine, one of the great thinkers of the church.
1. do you remember his story?
an intellectual who had a wild lifestyle and no desire to give his life over to Christ as his mother would have liked.
but he also had this desire for something more that gnawed at him
he was I conflict within himself.
yes to the ways of the world and no to something different:
or no to the ways of the world and yes to something else.
One day, overcome by this struggle, he went to a quiet garden.
Quiet, except for the sound of a child singing, "Pick it up and read it, pick it up and read it.”
Augustine took that as a sign, picked up his bible and opened it - it happened to open to 13th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans in which Paul calls the Romans to give up their wild lifestyle and put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
that day, Augustine said “yes” and never looked back.
His life was changed when he gave his life over to Jesus christ, the resurrected one.
d. Henry Sloan Coffin, the great Presbyterian preacher, liked to tell the story of a college student who went to the wild side when he got to college.
All that mattered was having fun and pleasing himself in lots of different ways.
Suddenly, he changed.
it was noticeable to those around him
A friend asked him what changed. He replied, “I just had to quit. Something out of my Christian training rose up and grabbed me.” (John McCoy, “The Church in Their House.”
I sort of like that image - all the things he had heard and learned about the God of resurrection had grabbed him and said, “if you believe in the God of resurrection, here is the new life to which I am calling you!”
b. Some heard Paul teach and preach about the resurrection and found themselves compelled to say “Yes.”
others heard Paul teach and preach and found themselves saying, “no.”
1. it probably was not a simple choice like flipping a switch and suddenly everything is changed.
2. As I suspect most of us know, it is fluid - we commit to following the resurrected Christ again and again;
there are moments we seemingly get it right;
moments we miss the mark;
and continual opportunities that call us back to to the resurrected one.
c. I recently read about the phenomenon of Christians posting "before and after" photos on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) to visualize their conversion to faith in Jesus
it has drawn significant attention from cultural critics and theologians, including coverage in publications like The Christian Century.
In these posts, users typically pair a photo or video snippet from their past—often showing them partying, drinking, wearing revealing clothing, or visibly unhappy—with a present image showing them dressed modestly, attending church, holding a Bible, or posing with a family, captioned with statements about being "saved by grace" or "transformed by Christ.”
I wonder what St. Augustine’s before and after photos would have looked like?
1. What does it look like to give your life over to the God of resurrection who calls you to new life?
2. Peter Gomes’, who was a professor at Harvard Divinity school and presided over their chapel, definition of a Christian: “To be a Christian is to be a changed person man or a changed woman in an unchanged world. Anyone can be a Christian in a Christian world, but, in case you haven’t noticed it, this is not a Christian world” Strength for the Journey, 297.
3. To say “yes” to the God of resurrection means changing how we see the world;
believing in the possibilities of what God can do;
imagining how we can be the hands and feet of Christ in the world
as we know from Paul’s letters, saying “yes” is just the beginning of changed life and the call to life as people of the resurrection.
Move 4: A final thought,
God has already said “yes” to us
and continues to say “yes”
a. As Paul would tell it in his letter to the Corinthians: in Christ, every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.”
b. We may waver in our faithfulness to God;
we may wonder what could it possibly mean to follow the God of resurrection.
We may be trying to figure out if we want to say “yes” or “no” to God.
But God never wavers in saying “yes” to us.
the God of resurrection sent Jesus Christ, the resurrected one, to live among us and save the world.
God’s “Yes” is and will be the final word.
Conclusion: Amen.
Acts 17: 10-15. That very night the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas off to Beroea, and when they arrived they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 These Jews were more receptive than those in Thessalonica, for they welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing. 13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well, they came there, too, to stir up and incite the crowds. 14 Then the brothers and sisters immediately sent Paul away to the coast, but Silas and Timothy remained behind. 15 Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and, after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him.
