Suffering for Jesus

Last week we saw God miraculously deliver Peter from execution by helping him escape from prison. After this, Saul and Barnabas return to Antioch, where the Lord calls them out as missionaries. The church fasts and prays for them and commissions them out on their journey. They travel from Antioch to the island of Cyprus, which is in the Mediterranean Sea. From there they go north to the area known as Pamphylia, which is the southern coast of modern day Turkey. They land in a town named Attalia, which is known as Antalya today. They travel north into the area known as Pisidia, where there is another Antioch, Lycaonia, which will be the area in which we will be focusing this morning, and Galatia, the area in which whose churches are the audience of the book of Galatians, which Paul will write after this trip is concluded.

While Paul is traveling to Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, he shares the good news of Jesus Christ with all the Jews in each city. He gets a mixed response as some Jews and Gentiles receive the message and are saved, while the unbelieving Jews turn hostile toward Paul and seek to kill him. In Antioch, the Jews instigated persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of the city. In Iconium there was a threat to kill them so they fled to Lystra. In Lystra they heal a man who couldn’t walk and the town responded by assuming that Zeus and Hermes had come down to them and began worshiping Paul and Barnabas as gods. They instantly redirected their false understanding back to God himself. It is in the midst of all this that we see the response of the Jews again in verse 19.

Acts 14:19–23 NASB95

But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. After 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, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Paul and Barnabas had escaped persecution until they got to Lystra. But here, we read the report of what happened. Now remember, the Jews were convinced that Paul and Barnabas where spreading a false religion by claiming Jesus was the Son of God and that He had risen from the dead. From their point of view, the punishment for such a crime was death. But there is no due process or trial by jury of their peers here. The Jews stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him dead.

His followers are standing around him, maybe not knowing what to do. Suddenly, look again at what it says in verse 20. He got up and went back in! This is a big deal because it illustrates something so powerful that we don’t like to talk about as Christians in America. Paul was willing to go back in after being left for dead outside the city and keep doing his work.

The message is very simple:

Disciples of Christ must not shrink back from the mission when it gets difficult.

Paul had rocks thrown at him until he was left for dead. You and I can’t begin to think about what it means to suffer for the gospel. The Bible tells us that we are to expect hostility. We are to expect rejection. The world loves darkness. In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus said in John 3:19,

John 3:19 NASB95

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

Imagine waking up in a completely dark room. You have no idea where you are and no idea what is in it. Now imagine that you spend a prolonged period of time in those conditions. Imagine that you have spent your whole life in this state. Suddenly, you see light for the first time. When light enters an otherwise completely dark room, two things happen. First, light in a dark place reveals the truth. If you shine a light in the dark room, it allows you to see everything in it. You no longer have to wonder what it is you are feeling, hearing smelling, etc. However, you may not like what is revealed. Second, it is uncomfortable. When you turn a light on for the first time in a dark room it is a bit painful. Your eyes have to adjust and it takes a while. Your first instinct is to close your eyes, preserving the level of darkness you were accustomed to. The same is true of sinful man. The darkness conceals our sin and Jesus shines His light on the truth revealing wickedness and men love the darkness rather than the light to they try to snuff it out. Jesus brought the light to Paul, he brought the light to the Galatians, and the Galatians tried to snuff it out by silencing Paul.

But Jesus says later in the book of John that he came to rescue people from darkness.

John 12:46 NASB95

“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.

Paul knew though he was laying outside the city, there were many still in darkness waiting to be freed. So he got up and went back in.

Remember when the Lord came to Ananias in Damascus and told him to go restore Saul’s blindness? God told him the kind of life Saul was going to live. Let’s read again what the Lord says in Acts 9:15:

Acts 9:15–16 NASB95

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Paul is learning what it means to suffer for the sake of Christ. We are waging war against a spiritual darkness and our enemy does not give up territory easily. He is a vicious and cunning opponent, but he is a beaten one. While that may be true, we also must expect ill treatment from those who reject the gospel.

A few weeks ago we talked about Stephen, the first martyr of the faith. We read his story in Acts 7. The Jews stoned him to death because of his claims about Jesus and the resurrection. In that sermon I shared three truths: We will face hostility to the gospel. Even so, we must always be ready to share our hope. And we must be ready regardless of personal cost. The same man who agreed with putting Stephen to death and held the coats of those who carried it out was now receiving a taste of what it means to suffer for Jesus. We cannot think that we are in any way immune to the kind of suffering the early church experienced.

I also told you in that same sermon that the likelihood of us facing persecution on this level today is unlikely. Since that is the case, we have to ask ourselves what is keeping us back. I can imagine that the first time one of us experiences suffering like this we are going to want to say, “Forget this. I’m out.” But what made Paul get back up and go inside? The cost of not going back was greater than the cost of returning. Let that sink in for a minute. If Paul did not go back in, the unbelieving Jews won. The seeds of the gospel would have fallen among thorns and the thorns would have choked them so they would yield no grain. But verse 22 says he went back strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith. He said, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

Wayne Cordeiro is the founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Hawaii. Some years ago at a conference he was telling a story about a trip he had taken to educate Chinese Christian leaders. Rather than retell his story, I am going to let Wayne tell his. Please watch this video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwf7rmA1y9M

We idolize comfort and convenience. All the while there is a mission to share Jesus to the world and we often can’t interrupt our lives to go share the gospel with our neighbors. I don’t want to live my life that way anymore. I told you when I came when a church sells itself out to evangelism and missions you will never see its doors close. It’s time to get it done. But it must be Spirit led. Here is what I am proposing.

First, we begin prayer walking the streets of our city, stopping in front of each house and praying over the people who live there. If you can’t walk, you can drive. We are going to pray that God give us the opportunity to serve the people who live in that house and that He will give us the opportunity to share the faith. Every door, every apartment, every hotel, as much as possible. Every door by the end of this year if we can. Second, we are going to begin visiting people who have visited our church or those who have been on our membership rolls for years but haven’t seen them. While we do have to depend on the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we are not to be idle. We will meet people where they are at and ask God to bless what I believe He is calling us to do. But I need your help in this. I plan to start the Sunday after Spring Break, which will be March 13th. That is one month before Easter.

I was sent as a missionary to the city of Three Rivers. I want to go share Jesus to our community. It is shrouded in darkness and if we hope to see the light shine again may it be from our steeple as the people of God wage war against the darkness and overcome an already defeated enemy. May we see families mended. May we see marriages strengthened. May we see people turn away from substance abuse. May we see the lights come on and transform the lives of the people around us. May we never grow tired of doing good. May we persist no matter how difficult our circumstances become because there are people living without any hope and they will never have any unless we take it to them. It’s time for the church to leave the building. I pray that we would have such a love for God and one another that we would stop at nothing to continue to meet, that if necessary, we would risk it all for the cause of Christ.