THE CHURCH YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED:
“CAPTURES THE HEART OF THE COMMUNITY” Acts 14:1-20

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- May 20, 2007

¹In Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went together to the synagogue and preached with such power that a great number of both Jews and Gentiles believed. ²But the Jews who spurned God’s message stirred up distrust among the Gentiles against Paul and Barnabas, saying all sorts of evil things about them. ³The apostles stayed there a long time, preaching boldly about the grace of the Lord. The Lord proved their message was true by giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders. ⁴But the people of the city were divided in their opinion about them. Some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles.

⁵A mob of Gentiles and Jews, along with their leaders, decided to attack and stone them. ⁶When the apostles learned of it, they fled for their lives. They went to the region of Lycaonia, to the cities of Lystra and Derbe and the surrounding area, ⁷and they preached the Good News there.

⁸While they were at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet. He had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. ⁹He was listening as Paul preached, and Paul noticed him and realized he had faith to be healed. ¹⁰So Paul called to him in a loud voice, “Stand up!” And the man jumped to his feet and started walking.

¹¹When the listening crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in their local dialect, “These men are gods in human bodies!” ¹²They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Zeus and that Paul, because he was the chief speaker, was Hermes. ¹³The temple of Zeus was located on the outskirts of the city. The priest of the temple and the crowd brought oxen and wreaths of flowers, and they prepared to sacrifice to the apostles at the city gates.

¹⁴But when Barnabas and Paul heard what was happening, they tore their clothing in dismay and ran out among the people, shouting, ¹⁵“Friends,^£ why are you doing this? We are merely human beings like yourselves! We have come to bring you the Good News that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. ¹⁶In earlier days he permitted all the nations to go their own ways, ¹⁷but he never left himself without a witness. There were always his reminders, such as sending you rain and good crops and giving you food and joyful hearts.” ¹⁸But even so, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them.

¹⁹Now some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and turned the crowds into a murderous mob. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, apparently dead. ²⁰But as the believers^£ stood around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.

 
 Backward Christian Soldiers - Anonymous

Backward Christian soldiers, Fleeing from the fight,
With the cross of Jesus, Nearly out of sight.
Christ our rightful master Stands against the foe
Onward into battle, we seem afraid to go.

Chorus
Backward Christian soldiers, Fleeing from the fight,
With the cross of Jesus, Nearly out of sight.

Like a mighty tortoise Moves the church of God.
Brothers we are treading, Where we've often trod.
We are much divided, Many bodies we,
Having different doctrines, but Not much charity.

Crowns and thrones may perish, Kingdoms rise and wane,
But the cross of Jesus Hidden does remain.
Gates of hell should never 'gainst the Church prevail,
We have Christ's own promise, but we think it might fail.

Sit here then ye people, Join our sleeping throng.
Blend with ours, your voices in a feeble song.
Blessings, ease and comfort Ask from Christ the King,
But with our modern thinking, We won't do a thing.

Source Unknown.

There is none of this in the story of Paul and Barnabas as they continue their missionary journey.

They continue to proclaim the Word of God…preaching the good news about Jesus to the Jews in Iconium. There were enough Jews in Iconium for them to have a synagogue. There had to be at least 10 Jewish men to establish a synagogue.

Paul and Barnabas go to the synagogue in this city…there was apparently only one. And they are given the customary opportunity to speak to the members of the congregation. The Word of God they preach is powerful. As they preach, two things happen:

First of all, there are those who listen and believe their message about Jesus. Jews and proselytes believe in the Jesus they are proclaiming.

Secondly, there are those who refuse to believe. And those who refused to believe were not willing to simply disagree. No, they began to stir up the Gentiles in the city against Paul and Barnabas. They successfully poisoned their minds so that they actively worked against Paul and Barnabas.

Proclaiming God’s word will always divide people. All you need to do is check Acts for confirmation of what I have just said. All through the book, they gave the same message. Yes, they would take the people where they were and use illustrations and even some quotes from their culture to set up the message, but the message never changed.

There is a God. Man is a sinner. Man deserves Hell. God loved man. God sent His son, Jesus. Jesus was God in the flesh. Man killed Jesus. God raised Him from the dead. He ascended. Repent and live. Reject Jesus and suffer eternal judgment.

Eleven short statements tell it all. At various places, different points of these sentences were expounded upon depending on the understanding of the hearer, but none of them were ever changed to make them more appealing to the hearer. As the message was consistent, so also was the response. As in the passages above folks believed, rejoiced, and were saved or folks rejected and got angry. What were the consistent results for the apostles? They were accepted and loved or jailed, stoned or banished.

John Wesley would ask his fellow preachers two questions when they returned from a preaching engagement: Was any one saved? If they answered no, he asked if anyone got mad. If they said no to this, he told them that they were not called to preach because faithful preaching of the Word will either result in people being saved or getting mad.

What they were preaching was supported by the fact that as they spoke boldly for the Lord, there were miracles, signs and wonders that took place. This was the power of God at work within the hearts and lives of the people who heard the good news about Jesus.

In spite of this, there were those who did not believe. The city is divided. There were those who side with the Apostles and those who sided with the Jews. Those who were against them continued working to disrupt and destroy these messengers of God.

Paul and Barnabas fled. The New English Translation renders it: “…they fled for their lives…”

Here they are proclaiming the Word of God and the opposition plots to mistreat and stone them. The Apostles find out about it and they flee from Iconium to Lystra. Think about what they are doing here. They are running away from the plotters. The God of the Universe has sent them on this mission and they flee. Do they think God will not protect them?

We have the belief that when God sends missionaries to foreign fields of ministry that all we or they have to do is pray and God will surround them with a wall of angels with fire tipped swords. We have all heard the stories about what the missionaries hear later from the very people they are trying to reach. The people want to know who those warriors were who were guarding them. The Missionaries of course never see them themselves. The Missionaries have stood their ground in spite of the danger before them.

Does this mean that Paul and Barnabas are wrong when they flee for their lives? Or are they just being prudent? It does seem a bit weak kneed don’t you think?

Paul and Barnabas don’t see any chariots of fire around them. They don’t have any particular assurance in our text that God will protect them in some miraculous way.

But they do have the words of Jesus that give them some guidance in this situation:

Do you remember what Jesus said they were to do when he sent out his disciples the very first time? It is in Matthew 10:23 that we find these words: “When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. “

The prudent servant of God knows when to leave.

You remember the words of the country western song: “You have to know when to hold’em. Know when to fold’em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.” Paul and Barnabas know that this is the time to run…to flee for their lives. The mob is going to stone them. They know they have to get out while they can and it is not a matter of fear or cowardice. It is a matter of prudence. There is much more for them to do as they preach the good news. There are people to reach. There is another city just down the way and off they go.

As they come into Lystra, a city southwest of Iconium, they begin preaching. Now there is no mention of them going to a synagogue. Apparently there are not enough Jews in Lystra to have a synagogue. There in the city is a man who has been crippled since birth. He has never walked…not even once. This man listens as Paul preaches.

There are two miracles that take place here: “He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him and saw that he had faith to be healed. He called out to the man and commanded that he stand up on his feet and walk. The man jumped up and began walking.” There is the physical miracle of the lame man being able to walk simply because Paul challenged him to do so. There is also the miracle of faith that takes root in this man’s life. He has faith…he believes what he hears about Jesus. He also has faith that this Jesus can heal his physical malady.

God put the desire to worship into the hearts of all men…even the most remote tribes who have never seen any society will have things they worship and are looking to! And in the absence of the true, living God, men will worship anything!

There was a Lycaonian legend that Zeus, the chief god of the Greek pantheon, and Hermes, his son and proclaimer, once came to earth in disguise. No one offered them any hospitality except two old peasants, Philemon and his wife Baucis, who took them in. The whole city was destroyed in punishment, the legend goes, for people's failure to be hospitable. Everyone perished except the old couple, who were turned into trees after their death. When Paul and Barnabas came into the city, therefore, and people saw the miracle of the lame man, they assumed they were being given a second chance by the gods. They were determined not to make the same mistake. Barnabas, the more dignified of the two visitors. they called Zeus, and Paul they referred to as Hermes, the proclaimer. The priest of the temple of Zeus, located just outside the city, was taking no chances this time either. He showed up with oxen to sacrifice in honor of these "gods." Followers of the New Age movement, who all want to be gods, would have loved this.

Paul pleads with the people to not worship him, that he’s just as human as they are. Paul and Barnabas are only messengers, ordinary guys with a message of good news from God. Now the people in Lystra weren’t Jewish, so they didn’t know the Old Testament story of God creating the heavens and earth, of God choosing Abraham and establishing the nation of Israel. Instead they were pagans, worshipping the traditional Greek and Roman gods.

Paul challenges them to turn from their "worthless" superstitions to the living God. The word "worthless" here means "empty," without substance, hollow. Their worship was empty because it was just words, Zeus and Hermes and the other gods of paganism didn’t exist in reality. But the living God is the God who is self-existent, the God who depends on no one or nothing for his life. Because he’s the living God, he’s created all life, whether it’s life in the air, life on the earth, or life in the sea.

Since God had been working through the nation of Israel up to this point, God had allowed the rest of the nations to go their own way. This means God was preparing the way for the birth of His Messiah, His Son, who would bring God’s blessings to the rest of the nations. But until that time came, God wasn’t directly reaching out to the other nations.

But God hadn’t abandoned the other nations; he’d left a witness of himself among all people everywhere. God had left the nations evidence, calling cards about his existence. God’s kindness was shown in his provision of rain and seasons. For farmers like the people in Lystra, their very lives depended on rain and the changing of the seasons. Paul points to this as a calling card, evidence of God’s existence. God also meets their needs and fills their lives with joy and gladness. These gifts of kindness are God’s calling cards, left among all nations everywhere to testify to God’s reality.

So how can we know God is for real? WE CAN KNOW GOD IS FOR REAL BECAUSE HE HAS LEFT HIS CALLING CARDS FOR US TO SEE.

God’s fingerprints are all over the world if we take the time to investigate. No one of these clues in conclusive in itself, but the cumulative effect of these clues builds a strong case for believing that God is for real. You see, if God made the evidence for his existence so conclusive that every rational person had to believe in God, that would be coercive, it would force people to believe (Evans  20-21). But God wants people to believe in him freely, out of love, so he leaves enough evidence for the seeker to know he’s there, but this evidence can be easily overlooked by those who don’t want to see it.

A young atheist in England had spent most of his life avoiding the fingerprints of God in the world (Lewis 115). As a young man C. S. Lewis figured that Feuerbach and Freud were right, that God was just a figment of ignorant people’s imagination. As a busy Oxford scholar, Lewis went through life oblivious to the fingerprints of God in the world, all except for one fingerprint. Lewis was puzzled by the phenomenon of joy, how certain things in life bring a mystical, awe-inspiring sense of inner joy that seems to point to something else (Lewis 73). Eventually Lewis’ quest for this joy led him back to God, and he committed his heart to Jesus Christ while riding on his brother’s motorcycle sidecar on the way to the zoo (224). Lewis later described his conversion as being Surprised By Joy.

You see, we can know that God is for real because God has left us calling cards as evidence.

Having stopped the people from worshiping them as gods, things change for worse. Some Jews from Antioch and Iconium come and they win the crowd over and they stone Paul and drag his lifeless body out of the city.

There is no fleeing now. It is too late for that.

And yet as the believers there stand around Paul’s body, he gets up and goes back into the city.

That is the power of God giving life physically to his servant.

These people have encountered the Word and Power of God.

Some believe and some don’t.

That is the way it always is when the Word of God is proclaimed. It divides those who hear it.

--Dennis Gleason