Through Hardships by the Grace of God
Notes
Transcript
But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to 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. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, 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.
As we pick up where we left off last week, we return to Lystra, one of the at-that-point Lycaonian cities. Last time we heard how Paul and Barnabas were being worshiped as the gods Hermes and Zeus by those folks. From Lystra, we’ll hear they went east to Derbe, and then basically retraced their steps back to Perga and then sailed from Attalia back to their starting place, the city of Antioch. For whatever reason, it doesn’t seem they went back to the island of Cyprus.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, if you like to travel, there are likely places you’ve visited before that you want to go back to. For my family growing up and now for Christie and I’s family, one of those places is the Northwoods of our state, up around Minocqua and St. Germain. We love to find a cabin on a hopefully decent fishing lake, and spend some time surrounded by trees and relaxing. Another place for us would be western South Dakota. When we lived in Corsica, we took a couple quick trips to the Badlands and the Black Hills, but there’s just so much beauty to see and it takes time to enjoy. We hope to return there as our kids get older.
Vacations, wherever and however far we travel and what we decide to do, is different for each of us. We make choices based on what we like and enjoy. It’s meant to be a break from our normal routines. Maybe we go to spend time together and reconnect with loved ones. Maybe we go to serve. Maybe we like sightseeing trips or taking in a game or going to museums or shopping. There are, of course, times when you stumble on places where things are not as you had hoped, though. It ends up being a bust, or something happens, and you swear to never return. Hopefully, that hasn’t happened too often.
As we think about Paul and Barnabas’ travels, they were not on vacation. What we’ve been following in Acts 13 and 14 was their calling, their work. They were on the road, meeting and visiting the people in these towns and cities to share and spread the good news of Jesus Christ. This trip was the shortest of the three main missionary journeys in Acts, and yet Dr. Stanley Toussaint captures the breadth of it, “[This] first missionary journey…lasted between one and two years and…Paul and Barnabas traversed more than 700 miles by land and 500 miles by sea.” In terms of distance, we could cover that in just a few days, but this was quite the excursion in distance as well as time and energy. To say that it had not been an easy journey is an understatement. Today we’re going to try and unpack what we heard of the return journey.
Having reached the end of this journey, we begin this morning, quite appropriately on the Sunday following Ascension Day, thinking along the lines of the Great Commission. Our first point is: An essential piece of the church’s mission is that the knowledge of God would spread and his church would grow. Before he was exalted to heaven, Jesus told his disciples these familiar words, “‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.’” This series through Acts began with Luke recording, in chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus’ words, “‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”
What were these two men who we’ve been following doing? They had left their homes, they went preaching Christ crucified and resurrected so that people would be converted to the truth, and they would have hope of eternal life. Now we hear ongoing discipleship. Verses 21 through 23 tell us as they made their way back, they strengthened the disciples and encouraged “them to remain true to the faith.” They built up the organization and spiritual leadership of local churches with elders. When they returned to Syrian Antioch, “…They stayed there a long time with the disciples.” They cared for the believers “at home” as well.
To different degrees during the COVID-19 health crisis, we keep hearing words like quarantine and isolation and distancing. Those all have an appropriate place, and for some of us continue to be beneficial practices. But with them comes separation. I’m not just talking about not coming to a church building, but there’s loneliness and a lack of contact with others. One of the hardships, if we’re not intentional, is discipleship for us and that we might lead others in may fall aside. Now we’re heading into the summer, which is a good time of refreshment for many. Yet sometimes refreshment also translates to a sense of ministry being over or on pause until the fall. We let go of practices that shape us and grow us and keep us close to the Lord and to his church.
Whether we’re young or mature Christians, we need regular strengthening and encouraging to remain true to God. We need our faith nurtured in every season of life. The calling to be disciples and to disciple others—be it in our families or our local areas whether that’s at home or away on vacation or to be sent abroad—should not have a stopping point. It is part of who we are and what we yearn for as part of the body of Christ. Nothing should completely stop or prevent this mission.
Our World Belongs to God provides this summary for the church in Paragraph 41. “Joining the mission of God, the church is sent with the gospel of the kingdom to call everyone to know and follow Christ and to proclaim to all the assurance that in the name of Jesus there is forgiveness of sin and new life for all who repent and believe. The Spirit calls all members to embrace God’s mission in their neighborhoods and in the world…We repent of leaving this work to a few, for this mission is central to our being.” To be Christians, saved by Jesus, dedicated to the glory of God, part of our purpose is not only to be deepened in our own relationships with God but also to be engaged in God’s work and yearning for others to confess him as their Lord and Savior, too.
Yet let’s be clear, just because this is an essential piece does not mean it will be without hardship or discouragement. Why were the missionaries strengthening and encouraging the disciples of Jesus in all these different cities? Not only was it that they would keep the faith when things were going well for them, but it was also because of the belief, “‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.’”
That word “hardships” is a translation of the Greek word “thlipses.” Thlipses is used pretty regularly throughout the New Testament. Back in Acts 7, Stephen used it to refer to the troubles that Joseph in the book of Genesis endured as well as the suffering that people endured in times of famine. Thlipses can be used regarding religious persecution. Jesus used this word in John 16 verse 33, “‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’” In Romans 2:9, the apostle Paul says, “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil…” so it can take on the character of God’s judgment. Yet a few chapters later, in Roman 5, he uses the same word in how having been justified by faith we rejoice with hope and “…we rejoice in our sufferings,” thlipses, “because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
We’ve heard a lot of success for Paul and Barnabas’ work on this journey—people came to the Lord. The church grew with people from all different backgrounds. Yet it didn’t come easily. Just like Stephen was stoned and Acts 8:1 told us, “Saul was there, giving approval to his death,” now Saul, or Paul, faced that same threat against his own life.
Maybe it seems a bit wild to us, these missionaries didn’t keep a list with two columns. The first column was the communities that welcomed them and they loved those places and wanted to go back; the other column, the places they had been hurt, rejected, run out of town or fled from—they were determined to never ever go back. That wasn’t the case, though. We heard what happened in this city where they had been treated as gods—they were stoned, and yet a short time later they went back to Lystra. They went back to Iconium—where leaders had wanted to stone them and some of them went to Lystra. They went back to Antioch—where they had been persecuted and Paul and Barnabas heard they shook the dust off their feet and some of those people, again, some of them went to Lystra.
The reality is, if those things were done to Paul and Barnabas, those persecutors could very well do the same thing to the believing citizens in these cities. Hardship was a possibility back then, and it continues today. Life, in general, has hardships—whether that be sickness or loss of work or difficulties in marriage or poverty or malnutrition. I don’t want to make light of those things by any means, but this is specifically about spiritual hardship and discouragement. There are people who suffer a loss of work or the loss of their job because of their faith. There are people who are beaten and imprisoned, whose churches are raided and burned to the ground because they are seeking to follow God. There are people who are disowned by their families and turned in to authorities because they will not turn on God and the Christian faith.
Maybe some of us view the restrictions of various government authorities as heinous injustices against Christians and churches in America throughout COVID-19. While it is a hardship to be separated, while we’d prefer to make our own choice about being open or closed, we haven’t been persecuted near the level of Christians throughout history and in other places, if at all. We haven’t had our Bibles taken, our building locked or destroyed, our internet connections eliminated. The Council members and their families haven’t been tossed in jail and held unjustly. We can express displeasure for how things are going but let us not presume that our lives should be without any of that. Our goal isn’t ultimately to fight against and get rid of any perceived persecutions; our call is to seek Christ and make him known despite hardships and attacks.
With that goal, we come to our final point: our labor is successful only by the grace of God. Everything Paul and Barnabas had gone through in their ministry together during this period was part of being committed for this work to the grace of God. Any success of winning souls, any protection, any celebration and rescue from trial was to be credited to “all that God had done through them.” While we as Christians are called to disciple-making as congregations and as individuals, while we are called to show the love of Christ to our neighbors, while we are to do good, our confidence for success is reliant on the grace of God. Our confidence for knowledge of God spreading, for faith and disciples being birthed and nurtured, for people holding fast to the Lord is reliant on God’s work. He will accomplish all things for his purposes.
None of us will get to the end of our lives and God will be waiting to tell us because we didn’t do one particular thing back on a certain day, it really messed things up. This person or that group of people didn’t get saved, because you didn’t do this, or you didn’t go there. God may judge our actions as punishable because we didn’t do certain things; but he will accomplish his plans whether it’s through us or by his intervention. He uses us, but if he so chooses, he doesn’t need us.
God’s grace isn’t just to be viewed for the success or product of our labor, though. His grace is also for us in the labor of a life given to him. Derek Thomas writes, “Life as a Christian then (as now) was fraught with difficulties and problems, and they must be vigilant and faithful...[Paul and Barnabas were likely saying] these Christians should persevere in the demonstration of those characteristics that corroborate regeneration. They were to live lives of self-denial and prayer. They must not forsake the means of grace—study of the Scriptures, prayer, the assembling of themselves together on the Lord’s Day, and so on…There were tales, then, of what they had done; but far more significantly, it was what God had done through them that they emphasized in their report. God uses means to accomplish his work. He uses people to testify to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostles were merely obeying God’s command to go and make the gospel known. Their endeavors would have been in vain had the Lord not been governing and empowering the apostles’ effort.”
Brothers and sisters, whatever doors God opens to you now and in the future, to share him, to grow in him, remember he has done it for you. Who are those people and where are those places that he has led you in the past to share him or who came to you that you can encourage now?
Remember as you go through challenges in your life, and even if you go through explicit persecution, God will accomplish his purposes and he will sustain you according to his will. As Paul also wrote, “…To live is Christ and to die is gain.” In this season and throughout our lives, let us be aware and seek what God is calling us to do, who he is calling us to go to. Do not forget how we must go through hardships in a world marred by sin is by the grace of God. Amen.