Acts 14

Discussion Questions

• Like Paul and Barnabas in Iconium, have you ever had a challenging situation present itself that was due to the unwarranted actions of others? How did you feel, and how did you react to that situation?
• What can you do to show love to your church? What are the gifts that you have that can be used as fruit to others?
• Where are you showing or needing resilience in life? What are the areas of concern: family, relationships, school, work, society, or other?
• Has God put someone in your path that you feel you need to pay attention to or focus loving work on? How do you feel about the responsibility, and how are you doing with this?
• Do you have an example of a lesson learned as a result of suffering or tribulation in your life? Could this experience help others? Are there others who would benefit from your experience?

Transcript

Well, I invite you to turn with me, once you get your Bible in front of you, to Acts, Chapter 14.  We’ve been taking a closer look at the book of Acts this year. And the book of Acts really is the family tree of the church. It shows us the continuing mission of Jesus to seek and to save the lost, bringing forgiveness and life in His name for rebels like me and like you. When we look at Acts as a whole, and we’ve said this already before, but it can be broken up into two different sections. The first half begins with the Holy Spirit being poured out on the disciples, 120 of them turn into 3,000, turn into 5,000, they continue to grow and expand to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, those three different sections of Israel, and then to the ends of the Earth. We looked at this last week, but I’m going to put it up on the screen. I think it’s good for us to look at it again. At the beginning of Acts, Jesus actually lays out the trajectory of His mission and the mission He commissions His disciples on. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” And beginning last week and this morning, we find ourselves in the second half of Acts, which now turns its focus to the gospel of grace spreading to the ends of the Earth.

When we talk about going to the Gentiles, Paul is primarily sent to the Gentiles, we’re talking about to the ends of the Earth. So that’s where we are in Acts. And as we open up our Bibles this morning, we’ll walk with Paul, we’ll walk with Barnabas as they complete their first missionary journey. Just to orient us geographically, we’re going to put up a map on the screen. This is the trajectory that they set out on. I’ll remind you, last week on the far right there, you can see Antioch, Syrian Antioch, is kind of the home base of missions. Thus far in Acts has primarily been Jerusalem. Now it’s moved up to Antioch of Syria. And so last week they went from Syria to Cyprus. And then if you continue that line, go up to Pamphylia, Pisidia, they landed in Pisidian Antioch, a second Antioch, which for us would be modern-day Turkey, kind of right there in the middle of modern-day Turkey. And today they’re going to come down from Pisidian Antioch down to Iconium. If you go to the next map, you can see I’ve zoomed in a little bit to the three cities that we’re primarily going to look at today, Iconium, Lystra, and Derby. Now, we don’t know how long this entire journey took with certainty. Perhaps a year, two, three years, maybe longer, we don’t know. But I want us for a minute to think about the distance. This journey was 1,400 miles, give or take. 1,400 miles, some by rickety boat, most by walking. Most of it walking the Via Sebasti, which was a Roman road that you can actually visit today. 1400 miles as the crow flies, that would be like us here in Nashville walking to Phoenix. As the crow flies, 1,400 miles. This was an extensive and exhausting but fruitful journey. And I think it should beg the question, why?

Why would someone, why would a man or woman do something like this? What sustains the kind of resilience that we saw last week, and we’ll continue to see this week in Paul and Barnabas and his other companions? But flip the question around another way. What would it take to motivate you to endure this kind of journey, this kind of resistance at every turn, 1,400 miles walking to tell others about the good news of the gospel of grace? Well, see, for Paul, when he thinks about the Gospel, when he preaches about the gospel of grace, the grace of Jesus Christ, he thinks of it in a few different ways. One, he thinks of it as a cosmic plan, the master plan, this massive scope of God’s plan of redemption. If we look at Colossians, this was Paul’s letter in Colossians to the church at Colossae, he says, “For in him, [in Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” For Paul, the gospel of Christ was massive in its scope, but it was also very personal. If we go to the letter of Philippians, Philippians 3, which we’re going to study at our all-church retreat, Paul also says, “But whatever gain I had, I count it as loss for the sake of Christ, indeed, I count everything as loss.” Because of what? The surpassing worth, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. So, the gospel of Christ for Paul is massive in its scope, but it’s also eminently personal. It’s personal. We’re talking about heart motivations here.

Paul had found the most valuable treasure for his heart, the most valuable treasure every human heart longs for, every human heart’s hungry for, and that clarified things for him. And he goes on journeys like this, 1,400 miles facing resistance. I think he would agree with Warren Wearsby. He says this, “One of the reasons God saved you is that you might bear fruit in this world. You are living in a hungry world where people are starving for spiritual reality.” And Paul knew this, he knew this personally, and he wanted everyone else to come to the well to find forgiveness in life in Jesus. If you’ll allow me, let me pray for us, and we’ll get going to see how Paul works this out: Heavenly Father, we come to You with our Bibles open. We pray You’d open Your Word to us. And Lord, open us to Your Word. May Your Spirit convict. May Your Spirit comfort and point us to our only hope in life and death, Your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we all said. Amen. Acts, Chapter 14. And actually, if you keep your finger there, just go up one or two verses before that. So, the end of 13, this will kind of be a bridge. Verse 51 of Chapter 13: “But they [that’s Paul and Barnabas] shook off the dust from their feet against them.” That’s the people in Pisidian Antioch that are kicking them out. They shook off the dust from their feet against them, and they went to Iconium. “And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”

And so, from Pisidia and Antioch, we’re going to keep the map up here, is the whole time because we’re going to bounce around from place to place. Going from Pisidian Antioch down to Iconium would have been about a 90-mile journey. You can see that up there on the map. So, verse 1 to 14. “Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.” And that alone would have been remarkable. That they, this group, both of them, these groups, believed. Verse 2: “But the unbelieving Jews [those who had a hard heart] stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and they fled to Lystra and to Derby, cities of Lycaonia and to the surrounding country, and there they continued to preach the gospel.” All right, so we don’t we don’t learn a whole lot about what happens in Iconium, just a little bit here. And then this journey down to Lystra would have been about twenty miles, give or take. And Lycaonia would have been a region, but the Roman province there was Galatia.

And a lot of folks think that when Paul writes his letter to the Galatians, he may be writing, likely writing, to these churches that he’s about to plant. So, we want to keep that in our mind up here. You can see Galatia kind of right there in the middle of what we would call modern-day Turkey. They’re going down to Lystra. Now it’s interesting if you look there at verse 2. The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds. Who were embittering, that’s that word, poisoning their minds, embittering them towards Paul and towards Barnabas. And then verse 3, in the English translation I’m reading from, it says, “So they remained a long time.” What you could do is you could translate that a little differently. They poisoned their minds against them, “nevertheless,” they remained for a long time. Therefore, they remained a long time. It’s really quite an amazing thing. Why did they do that? They had all this resistance. Again, like Poseidon Antioch, they’re about to be kicked out, and in a little bit they’re going to learn that they’re going to be stoned. Why would they stay? Because Paul and Barnabas love this church. They love these new believers. And they realize that they’re going to continue to face this kind of persecution. They want to grow them up in the faith.

And Colossians, it says, “I toil with all of my effort to grow you, to mature you [telios] in the faith.” And I think that’s what we see here. Nevertheless, no matter the fact that they’re all poisoning their minds against them, we’re going to stay, at least for a little while. And this is where wisdom comes into play because they do flee to Lystra. Sometimes they don’t, sometimes they do. That requires wisdom. That requires paying attention to the Spirit of God. And we see that all over the pages of this story. Verse 8: “Now at Lystra, there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. And he listened to Paul speaking, and Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’ And he sprang up and he began walking.” Now earlier in Iconium, it said that the Lord was actually authenticating their ministry by granting signs and wonders, and we see that same kind of thing happen here in Lystra. And it’s interesting, it’s possible that Luke is just highlighting this one particular miracle. Paul may have also done other miracles in that area. This particular one, though, is important. It’s very similar to Peter. If you remember Peter in Chapter 3 of Acts, at the beautiful gate, a similar man who’d been crippled from birth, Peter says, “Rise up in the name of Jesus.” And I think Luke is doing something here important.

Remember, he’s writing to a man named Theophilus. And I think he’s trying to say, “Hey, I’m trying to show you that Paul is just as much as an apostle as Peter is.” He is a messenger for Jesus. Jesus did a similar miracle back in Luke in the gospel of Luke. This is Paul, this is the Lord authenticating the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. Verse 11. What happens next? “When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.’ And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.” Now, this is probably the funniest story in Acts, at least part of this is the funniest story in Acts. Think about this for a minute. There’s a reason why Luke says that they were shouting all of this the gods have come down in the likeness of men in Lycaonian. Likely Paul and Barnabas didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t really know what they were saying. So, they start calling Barnabas Zeus. Apparently, Barnabas had this kind of godlike look to him. He was probably the bigger guy, a little bit more dignified. Paul was the big talker. Zeus would have been the leader of the gods, essentially. Hermes would have been his son, who was the spokesman for the gods, and Paul being the one who was talking, so he’s Hermes. So, Paul and Barnabas don’t really know what’s going on.

And I’m just imagining that scene. The gods have come down the likeness of men, Zeus and Hermes. And what begins to happen? Barnabas, they called Zeus, Paul, Hermes. He was the chief speaker. Verse 13: “The priest of Zeus, [remember, this is a pagan region] whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowd.” Sacrifices to who? To Paul and Barnabas, who they thought were Zeus and Hermes. I’m just imagining Paul and Barnabas standing there. Man, this guy, you know, for the first time in his life, is walking home, this crippled man, and they see the crowd so exuberant and excited. Yeah, this is great. Isn’t this great, Barnabas? Isn’t this great, Paul? You know, it’s getting real weird. Why are the barbecue pits coming out? What are they doing with the garland there? What happens next? “When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and they rushed out. When they figured out what was going on, they rushed out into the crowd, crying out, ‘Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you.’” We’re flesh and blood, and we bring you good news, evangelion, “that you should turn from these vain things [these empty things] to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.’”

And that right there would have been very familiar to them. That would have been a trifold description of the creator God who created everything in Heaven and the Earth and the sea. Zeus would have been known as the weather God. And Paul’s saying, no, no, no. There’s one living God, and He controls it all. He’s sovereign over all. He’s the one who creates the weather. He keeps on going. This is his briefest sermon, by the way, of Paul. Verse 16: “In the past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness. For he did good. [He’s talking about the goodness of God.] He did good [common grace] by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” You see what Paul is doing there? They thought Zeus controlled the fruitful seasons. They thought Zeus controlled the weather and the rain. No, no, no, there’s a living God who’s made a witness for himself. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

It didn’t seem to work though at verse 18: “Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them. [Verse 19] But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul.” It would have been a brutal, torturous form of execution or attempted execution. “They dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.” Now they would have known what dead looks like. We don’t know for sure. I’m glad that Luke doesn’t exaggerate here. It’s possible that Paul had died. We have some reports in 2 Corinthians where he goes up into Heaven. Maybe that’s what this is talking about. Either way, he was either dead or nearly dead. And it’s amazing. If you look there at verse 19, some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium. Antioch was 110, 120 miles away. They were so incensed against Paul and Barnabas and the message of the gospel of grace of Jesus, they would walk 110, 120 miles to poison the minds of this community. Now, can you imagine that kind of resistance?

Verse 20: “But when the disciples gathered around him, [or about him, Paul] he rose up.” And what does he do next? Does he go away? No, no, no. He enters the city. He goes back to the city. “And on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derby. When they had preached the gospel to that city, [Derby] they had made many disciples.” Not just converts. Converts are good, but disciples. They were making disciples. “They returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.” Underline that. They went back to the place that tried to execute Paul. They went back to the place in Iconium where they were sent out. Their minds were poisoned against them. They went back to Pisidian Antioch where they were kicked out. Then when they had returned to Lystra, Iconium and to Antioch, verse 22, what did they do? “They strengthened the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, [Ah, so we’re planting churches now.] with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”

We don’t know how much time has passed, but not much. I’m just imagining as they’re choosing elders for these churches. Hey, you’ve been a believer for what, three weeks? You’re it. Gotta do what you gotta do. But what did they do? They committed them to the Lord, not to the elders. The churches belong to the Lord. And by the way, we made this warm, this room warm today, so we would commiserate with the persecution with what was going on here. Look, Paul was literally stoned. And we’re complaining about being warm. It is warm here. That’s all right. Verse 24: “Then they passed through Pisidia and they came to Pamphylia [in 25]. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, and they went down to Italia. [You can see there in the coast on the left-hand side, as you follow the map.] And from there they sailed to Antioch, [That’s Syrian Antioch, this is home base.] where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles, and they remained no little time with the disciples.” This is the reading of God’s word. Thanks be to God.

So here at the end of chapter 14, the end of this first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas, we have the first missions conference. This is what we have. This is a report. In Syrian Antioch. If you grew up in the church, perhaps you remember. Show of hands? Do you remember Mission Sunday when missionaries would come to your church? If you grew up in the church, a few of you, okay, all right, all right. Often, at least in my experience, they would come and they would bring reports of what God was doing in whatever region they served in. Sometimes it would be really funky clothing or garments that they show off or really strange instruments. And I just loved it as a kid. It is good for a local church to be a sending church, sending people and resources, and for the church to hear back what the Lord is doing outside the four walls, in other places in the world, other outposts of the kingdom of God. I love that we take time in our services often to publicly pray together for the missions that we support around the world. Our faith in Jesus is strengthened when we are given the opportunity to see with the Spirit of God what the Lord is up to outside our four walls. That is a good thing.

Now, can you imagine what that first missions report would have been like? Just imagine. So, Paul and Barnabas are giving this little talk. “We went to the island of Cyprus, and when we came to Paphos, a man named Sergius Paulus came to faith. Smart guy, you’d really like him. We also had to confront a false prophet, a magician. Watch out for that guy. We sailed over to Asia Minor, and John Mark got seasick or something. I don’t know. We actually don’t know what happened there. You should have seen what the Lord did in Poseidon Antioch! You should have seen the folks that came to faith, but we also encountered tremendous persecution. They kicked us out, although we left with joy and full of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit led us down to Iconium and to Lystra and to Derby. Wait till you see photos of Lystra. It got crazy. They thought we were gods, and we really didn’t know what was going on until the barbecue pit started coming out. Then they realized we weren’t gods, and they flipped, stoning Paul and dragging him out of the city, but he got right back up. And we continued all throughout that region. And here we are to tell you that the door of faith has been blown wide open by God Himself. Praise God!”

Can you imagine that day? I’m also imagining, we don’t know this for sure, but Paul and Barnabas, their clothes are all tattered, they’re worn, bruises on Paul’s face and his arms and his legs, both with massive smiles on their face, ready to get going. Let’s go back. These were men who knew the love of Jesus personally. The Gospel was massive in its scope, but they also knew it was very personal, it was personal to them. Christ had so captured their hearts that they couldn’t help but tell others about the treasure of Jesus. The one who would meet the longing of every single heart. Now, there’s much in the book of Acts that is descriptive, and there’s a lot of principles that we can pull from that, but it’s not always prescriptive, not every disciple in every context. Not all of us are particularly called to confront evil magicians or to endure the brutality of stoning. But some of you may be. Still the experience today… But in this story, when the spotlight could have easily gone on Paul and Barnabas, pointed to them, their work, their suffering, their aches and pains, they relentlessly pointed the spotlight back to Christ, to what God has done. “Behold, our God,” as we sang earlier, “look what He’s done.” These men had a faithful resilience in their calling. Remarkable. But a resilience that was strengthened and sustained by the grace of God alone. And that grace is for you today, wherever you might be called. Not all of us are called to this exact thing, but wherever He’s called you, He’s called you to this kind of faithful resilience with grace, His grace.

Let’s tease out a few aspects of what we see here in this account. Number one, I think we see rooted resilience. Rooted resilience. The quality of resilience that we see in Paul and Barnabas would have been remarkable, extraordinary to the original readers, just as it is to us, enduring resistance after resistance, even as more and more came to faith. But Paul and Barnabas just kept going. They just kept going, filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. Now, resilience is a bit of a buzzword these days. I actually looked it up in the New York Times alone. The word resilience has appeared in nearly 1,300 articles just in this last year. It’s in the zeitgeist of our culture, resilience, kind of general resilience. And I would define it as the capacity to spring back, to keep on going after facing resistance or tribulation. So, we kind of see that in verse 22, when Paul is strengthening the disciples to continue in the faith. That’s that resilience idea. Now, today, I think that idea is popularity as a concept probably reveals the condition of our culture, our moment now. I think we all see this resignation, indifference, distrust of all kinds of institutions, and those things can lead to a lack of societal resilience, individual resilience and vocation and relationships and faith. We see that. Self-care, personal grit, which is just like get up back on the horse. Or stoic indifference, just let those things go. Or better therapy. Or hustle. And I think there can be some good common grace that we should pay attention to there, but there’s a kind of resilience that Tim Keller would actually call a poise. I love that word.

It’s a nautical word. It’s a resilience, what he would call poise, that we often see in exemplary disciples like we see here in Paul and Barnabas. And we also see with many folks in a room like today’s. And even in my own experience, I see the kind of suffering, the kind of resistance, opposition, whatever might be that you’re going through and you still have joy, I want to grow in that. I want to grow. We can all grow in that. Look at verse 26 with me, if you would. “And from there they sailed to Antioch, [this is home base, Syrian Antioch] where they had been commended to the grace of God, [commissioned to the grace of God] for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.” So, at the end of this 1400-mile journey, Paul and Barnabas come back to home base. For them, for all intents and purposes, this was their local church. This was their sending church. And what was the first thing that they did? They gathered the church together to show everyone look at what the Lord has done. Behold our God. And I think the quality of resilience that we see here with Paul and Barnabas is rooted in at least three different things. And I think we see them very clearly in this little summary from Luke. We see the grace of God. This resilience is rooted in the grace of God, His initiative, His gift, the mission of God that they had called them to, the work that they fulfilled, and the local church, Syrian Antioch, the sending church that had commissioned them. God’s grace, God’s mission, God’s people. God’s grace, every breath was a gift. That’s how Paul understood it. Every breath was a gift of grace, and he wanted to pour it back out. The mission of God.

I think this little summary, this little missions report, could have been boiled down to “It was worth it.” Do you see all the people that came to faith in Jesus? And in fact, we don’t know if they met him yet, but young Timothy is from Lystra, Luke’s protege, his family, Eunice and Lois and his father, the people of God, the local church there in Syria and Antioch, that loved them, that supported them, that prayed for them, that wanted to hear the report of what God was doing. That was the fertile soil in which their resilience grew and was strengthened. It was a rooted resilience in something other than their resources alone. Now, if you’ve been a Christian for a while, this I think it can sound familiar, and it is familiar. God’s grace, His mission, His people. But we are so prone to forget the basics. Derek Kidner, this is not on the screen. He said a major part of godliness lies in dogged attentiveness to familiar truths. Resting in and living out of the grace of God, reminding yourself of God’s mission and your part in it, gathering with the people of God. What we’re doing here today. These are the means by which we are strengthened in the faith when we stumble, when we face resistance in the pilgrim way of discipleship, but we come back to them again and again and again. They are gifts to us. There always needs to be a practical measure of self-focus, of course, to remain resilient just as a human being. We shouldn’t deny that. But the well dries up real quickly when we turn anything created, just as these people in Lystra were doing, anything created into something ultimate. Personal grit has a limit. A therapy session has a clock. Hustle culture has a boundary, burnout.

Brian Hedges would say in his book, Watchfulness, “The enemy will attack. Temptation will come. But left to yourself, you’re like a tumbleweed in a tornado, a handkerchief in a hurricane. The lion will roar, the viper will strike, the flaming arrows of temptation will fly, and you will fall –  apart from grace. That’s why you need God. Beware of self-confidence.” The quality of resilience that I think we see here with Paul and Barnabas is rooted. Psalm 1, the psalmist gets at this so well. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.” Put another way, blessed is the man or woman who walks with the people of God. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law, he meditates day and night. It’s from His law, His word, that we get His grace. We understand His grace and His mission for us. “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” There’s resilience in all that he does. He prospers. There’s a rooted resilience. I think we can learn so much from here. The Holy Spirit still works through these simple, vital gifts in the life of a disciple. God’s grace, His mission, His people.

Number two, I think we see missional resilience. Missional resilience. So as Paul and Barnabas enter Lystra, the text, I think, seems to indicate that they really had no idea, or likely no idea, what kind of context they were entering. Up to this point, they had been mostly telling people about Jesus in larger towns and coastal communities and cities. As they arrive in Lystra, this is a new kind of territory. Mission is the same, but the approach might be different. Like a farming, this was basically a farming community, little education, very little Jewish influence, mostly a Greek and Roman polytheistic religious framework. But Paul’s approach to how he would share the good news of Jesus was nimble. I would say the mission itself was and is today resilient to different cultures, different assumptions about how the world works. For the people of Leicester, their religious framework was actually quite straightforward. Remember, this was polytheistic. They had a god for everything in creation. Their framework was simple: appease the right gods, get the right outcome. Appease the right gods, get what you want. It’s pretty simple. And we actually see this all wrapped up in this story, this funny story about Barnabas and Paul being identified as Zeus and Hermes. There was actually a myth in this region. Some say it was actually in Lystra, or at least the surrounding areas, that Zeus and Hermes, this is the legend in the background, Zeus and Hermes had come down to Earth. They looked like mortals, and they visited Lystra, and they visited a thousand different homes in that region. They were looking for hospitality. They visited a thousand different homes. They couldn’t find anyone hospitable until they came to a thousand and one, the home of Bacchus and Philemon, this elderly couple. And so, because they were so they honored them so well, they actually made their home, the temple to Zeus. This is the legend. And they wiped out the thousand other homes and the people who occupied it. That was the background story.

So, the legend would have likely been in the minds of these folks from Lystra. They see this man who is crippled from birth rise up and walk home for the first time. And they say, “Oh, here’s Zeus and here’s Hermes. We know exactly what to do. Appease the right gods, get the right outcome. We don’t want to be like the thousand who are wiped out.” That was likely the background story there. There’s a big welcome party. Now, what do Paul and Barnabas do after they realize what’s going on? I think what they do is quite compassionate. It’s nimble, it’s resilient. They immediately stop the party. There will be no worship of Paul and Barnabas on that day. Yahweh is to receive glory alone. But knowing these image bearers, these lystrons, would have no reference to the Bible, to the scriptures, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Paul doesn’t begin by going straight to the Bible. He doesn’t pull out his big Bible. Not this time. He begins by saying, “I’m bringing you good news, but first some bad news. Bad news is we’re not gods. We’re not gods. You should turn away from this. We are flesh and blood. And more bad news, these gods that you do worship are vain. You could translate it, they are empty, they are impotent. But here’s the good news: there’s a living God.” And I actually think we see a little bit of repentance talk here.

Paul is saying, “Turn away from those things that are empty and turn towards the living God, who is the God over the heavens and the Earth and the seas. It’s good. You are right, Lystrens, to recognize that a power is at work in the midst of you, but the power belongs to the living God and not to us. There’s a living God who made everything you see. You see that man who just got up? The living God did that.” And you see that Paul here talks about the goodness of God. Look at verse 17. So, Paul, in his shortest sermon in Acts, says, “Yet he [God] did not leave himself without witness, for he did good…” Underline that, circle that. He did good by giving you lice strands, who are actually turned away from God. So, there’s some common grace. “He did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Paul’s not pulling out his Bible quite yet, but he’s certainly giving them a Bible lesson. Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Psalm 34, “Taste and see that he is good.” Paul’s mission, his message, it was responsive, it was tender, caring towards the people who were right in front of him. Everybody has a hungry heart. Springsteen was right. And it can only be satisfied by the love of God in Christ Jesus. And Paul knows this, but he also knows that there are real people in front of him who had no concept of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And so, what does he do? He goes to the heart, the longing that every heart has for goodness and truth and beauty, meaning and purpose.

Paul knows that idolatry is one of the chief issues of humanity for everyone. And he looks at these people and he says, No, no, turn away. Turn away from those empty things and turn towards the living God. It’s called repentance, a turning away and turning towards. God is good. He’s not capricious like the other gods, like Zeus and Hermes and all the others. They’re capricious and, you know, just wantonly would wipe people out. Everyone lives their lives, including today, everyone lives their lives oriented around something. And I’d even say an honest seeker can admit that. Money, sex, power can just be, can be just as much little-g gods as Zeus and Hermes. When they become an ultimate thing, they’re actually capricious. Appease them, and you get the outcome you want. Of course, that never happens. They promise a whole lot, but it never delivers. Not when they’re the ultimate thing. The gospel of Jesus can meet every heart where it is. The Holy Spirit can open hearts to find in Jesus the satisfaction for every longing. John Stott would call it “double listening.” That was his term, double listening. And that’s what Paul’s doing here. He paid attention to the word of God. He knew the truth of God. And he paid attention to the world in front of him. That’s the double listening. Paying attention to the word, the truth, and paying attention to the people right in front of you. Who has the Lord put in your path? In my path? Maybe even think for just a second. Just keep it silent for a minute. How might you begin the loving work of paying attention? Paying attention to the hunger, the hungry heart that you see in your friend, your neighbor, your co-worker, so that you can actually show them the one in whom all longings, all longings find satisfaction.

Now we should point out that on this first go-around to Leicester, the mission doesn’t seem to actually work. Doesn’t go well. They keep on keeping on with venerating and deifying Paul, and then they turn on him. So quick, so fickle we are. Go from venerating to brutally stoning Paul. We are not in charge of the outcome. We’re not in charge of the outcome. Look at what God has done. Verse or number three, we see tempered resilience with Paul and Barnabas. Tempered resilience. And I’m going to explain that here in a minute. It’s actually been rattling around in my head. I was talking to Matt yesterday all week as I studied this text. That after they visit Derby, we don’t learn a whole lot there, but after they visit Derby, they go back. They go back to Lystra, where they stone Paul, they go back to Iconium, where the minds of the people had been poisoned, back to Pisidian Antioch, resistance. They went back. They had actually had a lot of options. If you look at that map, they could have gone to Tarsus, where Paul was from, about 120, 130 miles away, in the direction that they were actually going. So, they could have stopped off a long way, got some rest, met with some friends and family of Paul, or even spread the Gospel to new areas, unreached people groups, but they don’t do that. They had a lot of options. They go back. Why do they go back? There were new baby Christians who needed to be strengthened. Their souls needed to be strengthened. That’s what the text tells us here. Disciples that had come to faith in their ministry, and Paul was more concerned with the souls of these people, these vulnerable baby Christians, than he was concerned about his own life.

Look at 21 with me, if you would. “They returned to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” I think it’s unlikely, we don’t know this for sure, but it’s unlikely that that resistance, the opposition to the gospel of Jesus, just went away after Paul and Barnabas left. I don’t think that’s possible. Can you imagine how vulnerable these baby Christians were? They go back to encourage them with the grace of God, reminding them to continue in the mission of God. And they, by coming back, were demonstrating how vital the people of God are for the life of a disciple. Just by them coming back would have been so encouraging. I wish I would have seen their faces. And how does he encourage them? If you look there again, he says, “Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.” That’s how he encourages them. Anyone seen that on a bumper sticker anywhere? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in a coffee mug either. Paul. Paul was giving these young disciples, who I just, I have to believe they were likely facing opposition and resistance. He was giving these young baby disciples a crash course and a robust theology of suffering. Who knows how much these young believers had already suffered? Apparently, they need to be strengthened, so they were weary in some way.

Now, Paul is not suggesting that we seek out suffering. We don’t revel in it, we don’t enjoy it. That’s called sadism. But when suffering comes, and it will, those who have turned in faith to Jesus, we have the sturdiest resources to stand firm and resilient in the face of tribulation. We know who is with us, we know to whom we belong, and we know where we’re going. We know who is with us, we know who has us in His grip, and where He’s taking us, proven most fully in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. This was the message that Paul brought to these young believers, strengthening their souls. Oh, they had to be weary, exhorting them to continue in the faith. Be resilient, stay on mission. Now I labeled this point, this third point, tempered resilience, and I’m actually borrowing that from a book title by a guy I really loved, Todd Bolsinger. And in it, he describes the process of tempering metal. I’m no expert in this, but as I was reading it, it’s the process by which, for example, a piece of raw iron is heated up by fire, it’s hammered, more stress is placed on it, it’s cooled and then heated again. And it goes through this process over and over. At the end of the process is a piece of metal that’s actually stronger and more flexible, stronger and more resilient at the end of that whole tempering process. It’s not brittle. It becomes something new for whatever purpose is intended.

Paul doesn’t give us an explanation for suffering and tribulation. He doesn’t give an explanation to them either. And sometimes we won’t know fully until the other side of eternity. We are caught between right now the already and the not yet. But he does show us what God does through our suffering. His kingdom grows in us and in His world. He encourages this church. He’s doing it with, by the way, I think he’s doing this. He’s talking about suffering while he has the, he’s bearing the marks of suffering on his body. He was stoned. A brutal, torturous form of execution. Continue in the faith. He’s bruised. James 1 tells us that we learn patience from suffering. Romans 5 tells us that tribulation produces perseverance. Romans 8 shows us that suffering brings a new perspective. Many of you know this to be true. Some things that used to seem so valuable, so important to me, are no longer. I count it all loss, except for the immeasurable value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. That was the perspective of Paul. How else can we explain Paul and Barnabas as they leave Pisidian Antioch after being kicked out? How else can we explain them singing in a jail cell, which we’re going to learn a little bit later? Or Pastor Uri, who was with us a few weeks ago, doing ministry in a war-torn nation. How else can you explain that?

Eugene Peterson in Long Obedience In the Same Direction says, “One of the most interesting and remarkable things Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness of the redeemed.” The resilience of the redeemed, the joy of the redeemed. I think he’s right. Now, when Paul says that we must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations, he’s not saying we must suffer to enter into God’s favor. No, no, no. That’s a pagan notion, and we see that here in Lystra. In fact, the people of Lystra had some bit of truth, didn’t they? When they said, The gods have come down in the likeness of men. In fact, the true and the living God had come down in the likeness of men calling people to join Him on His mission. Calling people so that He could form a people to call His own. It’s the cross. That’s the lens through which we look at suffering. He is acquainted, was acquainted, with our grief. He doesn’t stand aloof or outside of our grief or suffering. He entered into it. The perfect Son of God took upon Himself our sin, our shame, bearing our griefs. And His resurrection, friends, guarantees the day when we will no longer have to face suffering. Because why? He has overcome the world. Amen. He has overcome the world.

Let’s pray: Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are with us, that You do not leave us on this pilgrim path of discipleship. Holy Spirit, I pray that You would, through your people, through Your Word and by Your grace, You would strengthen the souls of anybody in this place who is weary this morning. Lord, that You would bolster joy and faithful resilience, not grounded in anything we can do, but Lord, all on You. We come to You, to Your throne, where You have said we can come to You for grace and to receive mercy. And we are asking for that here today, Lord, we pray that You would put people in our paths who may not know You, so that we might begin to learn who they are, that we might begin to show them the glorious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, remind us over and over and over again of Your goodness to us, so that we might then go, sent out, to tell others about this good news in the precious name of Jesus. We said amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs

“This Is My Father’s World“ by Maltbie D. Babcock, Mary Crawford Babcock, and Franklin Lawrence Sheppard
“How Great Thou Art“ by Stuart Wesley and Keene Hine
“Behold Our God“ by Stephen Altrogge, Jonathan Baird, Meghan Baird, and Ryan Baird
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness“ by Thomas Obediah Chisholm and William Marion Runyan
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois
All songs are used with permission. CCLI License no. 2003690

Looking for our Hymns of the Week or resources to worship anytime? We’ve curated a playlist of hymns TVC Worship has led on our YouTube Channel!

Call To Worship: Make a Joyful Noise

Leader: Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing!
People: I will praise the Lord as long as I live;I will sing praises to my God While I have my being.

Leader: Believers in Christ, bless the Lord; Let all that is within you Bless His holy name!
People: My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
All: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, For His steadfast love endures forever! Amen!

Confession of Faith

New City Catechism
Part 2; Christ, Redemption, Grace Q. 21, 22, 23

Leader: What sort of Redeemer is needed to bring us back to God?
People: One who is truly human and also truly God.

Leader: Why must the Redeemer be truly human?
People: That in human nature He might on our behalf perfectly obey the whole law and suffer the punishment for human sin; and also that He might sympathize with our weaknesses.

Leader: Why must the Redeemer be truly God?
People: That because of His divine nature His obedience and suffering would be perfect and effective; and also that He would be able to bear the righteous anger of God against sin and yet overcome death.

Classic Prayer: Isaac Ambrose

There is an excellence in knowing you, Lord Jesus, above all other knowledge in the world. There is nothing more pleasing and comfortable, more animating and enlivening. You are the sun and centre of all divine truth. Only you are the whole of our happiness: the sun to enlighten us, the physician to heal us, the wall of fire to defend us, the friend to comfort us, the pearl to enrich us, the ark to support us. You are the rock to sustain us under the heaviest pressures; as a hiding place from the wind, as a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow in a weary land. Only you are the ladder between earth and heaven, the Mediator between God and man. All other things are vanities, but you are real, solid, substantial, excellent, glorious. All other things are temporary, but you are an enduring substance. All other things are thorns and vex our spirits, but you are full of joy and comfort, altogether lovely. Oh, may your melting love WIN my heart to you, and wean me off all other things!

TVC Prayer Ministry

TVC Ministry: TVC Kids
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Praying for the Persecuted Church: Tunisia

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