Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 13:13-52, emphasizing that God's word prevails even amidst challenges and opposition. He highlights the importance of perseverance in ministry, using the example of Paul and the desertion of John Mark to illustrate the cost of following Christ. The sermon encourages believers to remain steadfast in sharing the gospel, regardless of mixed responses, and to find joy in their mission despite difficulties. Ultimately, the message calls for a personal response to the gospel and a commitment to boldly proclaim Christ.
Housekeeping and Introduction
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Amen. If you have children, we dismiss the Children's Church this time. That'd be great. And we're going to be in Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 13, verses 13 through 52, a longer passage of scripture this morning. Lots of verses that we're going to read.
And because it is so many, I know some of us do have problems standing, we're not going to stand to read, but we do know that God's word is infallible and perfect. And so we're going to read this morning every verse, and then we're going to summarize some of it this morning.
I'm not going to be able to reach verse by verse as I typically would.
We're going to hit some chunks of scripture this morning, but we're going to look at the word still wins this morning.
And it's good to still have victory even in oppression in life. And so we'll start reading in chapter 13, verses 13 through 52.
Bible says, Paul and his companions set sail for Patmos, and they came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and went back to Jerusalem. They continued their journey from Perga, and they reached Poseidon of Antioch.
And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. And after the reading of the law of the prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, you can speak.
And so Paul stood up in motion with his hands and said, fellow Israelites and you who fear God, listen.
The God of this people, Israel, chose our ancestors, made the people prosper during their stay in the land of Egypt, and led them out with a mighty arm.
And for about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. This all took place in about 450 years.
And after this, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet, and they asked for a king. And God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years. And after removing him, he raised up David as their king and testified about him.
I have found David, the son of Jesse, to be a man after my own heart, who will carry out my will. And from this man's descendants, as he promised, God brought to Israel the Savior Jesus. Before his coming to public attention, John had previously proclaimed the baptism of repentance to all people of Israel.
Now, as John was completing his mission, he said,
who do you think I am? I am not the one, but the one who is coming after me, I am not worthy to untie his sandals on his feet. Brothers and sisters, children of Abraham's race, and those among you here fear God.
It is to us that the word of this salvation has been sent.
Since the residents of Jerusalem and the other rulers did not recognize him, or saying to the prophet that they read every Sabbath, they have fulfilled their words by condemning him. Verse 28, though he found no grounds for death to be sentenced, they asked Pilate to have him killed.
And when they had carried out all that had been written about him, they took him down from a tree and put him in a tomb. Verse 30, my favorite verse, I've just been dwelling on this verse the whole time. All week long, but God raised him from the dead.
Amen and hallelujah. And he appeared for many days, and those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and now to the witness of the people. And we ourselves proclaim the good news and the promise that was made of our ancestors. God has fulfilled for us and their children by raising up Jesus.
And as it is written from the second Psalm, and we preached this a couple of weeks ago, you were my son, and today I have become your father. That as to him raising from the dead, never to return to decay,
he has spoken this way, I will give you the holy and sure promise of David. Therefore, it also says in another passage, you will not let your holy one see decay. For David, after serving God's purpose for his own generation, fell asleep and was buried with his fathers and decayed.
But the one that God raised up did not decay. Therefore, let it be known to you, brothers and sisters, that though this man be forgiven of our sins, it has been proclaimed to you throughout all this, I'm sorry,
everyone who believes is justified through him from everything that could be justified through the law of Moses. So be aware of what you say. In the prophets does it not say to you, look, you scoffers,
marvel and vanish away because I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will never believe. And if someone were to explain it to you, we're going to pray there and then we'll continue in just a moment. Lord, we love you.
We thank you for what you've done. Lord, pray that you have your will and way in the reading of your scripture. And I pray, God, that you would have your will and way in the service today.
Hudson Taylor's Journey
In your name we pray. Amen. Long passage of scripture.
There's still some more we're going to read and we're going to hit in just a moment. But by way of introduction this morning, I want to talk about a young man. He was 21 years old when this mission journey began to happen.
And his name is Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor stepped ship on a ship from England to a little place called China. Maybe you've heard of China before. And this was a time when missions was new. Missions was exciting.
No one had really done this before. And so he set sail and he went to mainland China.
There was not a church that was supporting him. There wasn't a mission organization that was supporting him.
He just got on the ship and said, this is where God wants me to go. And I want to go in this one reason and this one goal to take the gospel where it had never been preached before.
And so young Hudson Taylor jumped on a ship. And not long after he got on this ship, something started happening. He was 21.
He had never really been on a ship before. And he began to get seasick. How many of you have ever been seasick before? Okay. It's not a fun experience.
Dramamine wasn't invented yet. I'm sure it came a couple years after this. And so he was sick sick. He was lonely.
There was no supporting church that was there. He began to get sick. And then one of the worst things that can happen on a mission field is he was betrayed by a close friend. He had went with a friend and this close colleague was promised to help him. And yet in his journey,
quit, got on a boat and went back to England and said, you know what? This right here is not for me.
I'm done with this. Went back to England and packed up and left.
Taylor, young Hudson Taylor was devastated. He wrote in his diary that he counted on that friend and that he had envisioned teamwork, not abandonment.
Instead of giving up, like some of us would, Taylor pressed on. He continued to do the work of the mission and do the work of reaching China where no one had been before. And China's inland mission program was born and the gospel began to be promulgated.
Others began to hear the gospel because no one else had gone yet. And now hundreds of missionaries to this day have followed in his footsteps. And still to this day, go in honor of Hudson Taylor in the China inland missions.
Thousands of Chinese have come to Christ all because of one man's willingness to not stop and not let discouragement or someone else that quit stop him from quitting.
Challenges in Gospel Ministry
And sometimes in gospel ministry, whether it's overseas, whether it's here in Clingman in our own church, in our own community, in our own home, or maybe it's just trying to share Jesus with people at work, people are going to quit on us.
The road is going to be tough. The road is going to be hard and the outcomes are oftentimes uncertain in our life. But God's word and he promises that his word will continue to go forward. His word will not fail.
And if we follow him out of obedience, he will continue to encourage us. And this is what happens in Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13, Paul faces something similar to us and something similar to Hudson Taylor. His friend, his commandant here,
John Mark deserts him. It says that John left and went back to Jerusalem. Now the road was rough. The crowd was unpredictable.
We don't know what type of, and we're going to talk about it, we don't know what type of oppression they were under. But what we do know is that Paul continued to press forward with the mark.
He continued that even in the discouragement, even in the discernment, even when these things were going wrong, he continued to go forward because he understood that Christ must be proclaimed.
Some are going to be intrigued and some are going to be enraged. But in the end, God says that he is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and he will have the final word. Our job, our mission is just to simply go and tell others about Christ.
And so as we begin in this passage, as we begin to break this down very quickly, I want to look at the first one, the cost of mission.
Serving Jesus often involves relational losses and difficult roads. The road that Jesus lived was a painful road.
The road that he told his disciples, he said, if you're going to be one of my disciples,
it's not going to be you're going to live in mansions and you're going to have everything taken care of you. He said, if you're going to be my disciples, be prepared to take up your cross, to take up your death every single day and follow me.
And that is a difficult thing for us to wrap our mind around because oftentimes we think of what's going to happen eventually. There's going to be a glorious time where we sit before God. But before that happens, there's a cost here on earth. There's going to be abandonment.
There's going to be forsakenness. There's going to be people who leave you. There's going to be difficult times where a family member chooses to do something.
You're going to have to make hard decisions. And there's a cost to serving Jesus.
As Paul, we see here, is on his way in verse 13. The Bible says that John left them and returned to Jerusalem. There was a moment where desertion happened along the way. A desertion of people that were close to him.
Mark or John, however you want to, he goes by two different names here, abandoned Paul and Barnabas. Now we don't know why. We don't know what happened.
We don't know if there was a disagreement. We don't know if there was a conflict of interest. If Mark or John wanted to go one way and Paul and Barnabas wanted to go another way. We don't know what happened. But what we do know is that it happened and it was painful.
It was so painful that at the end of his life, at the end of Paul's life, Paul makes a statement in one of his letters.
And he says, I need you to go get John Mark because once he deserted me, but now he's beneficial to me.
So we see there was something here that was working that was difficult for even Paul to understand of why this happened. I want to explain it like this.
A couple of years ago, I began coaching flag football many years ago when we were in Idaho and my wife's school has a flag football team. And two years ago, we had a team and man, we had, it's seven on seven.
And so it's fun coaching a different type of atmosphere with younger guys, no hitting, just flag football.
And we had about 12 or 13 guys on the team. And at the time, we were undefeated. We had played five or six games. We hadn't lost yet. I mean, I thought they were calling me Don Shula around the school.
They thought we were going to go perfect. As a Dolphins fan, this was great. This was wonderful. And I had one player who was my cornerback defensive player. And he got like seven or eight different interceptions. He was on fire.
And about halfway through the season, he came to me and he said, I don't think I'm going to play anymore. I'm like, dude, why not? What's going on? Well, I got soccer going on. I got all these other things. And he just flaked out. He was gone.
He was nowhere to be seen. And from that point on, literally one person on the team made that big of a difference. The work had to still go on.
Other people had to step up. Other people had to do the things. But the blow to the team, we never won another game that season. Because one person decided to give up mid-season and the sting was hard.
And you can probably relate to that. You can probably think of a time in your life where things were going great and someone gave up. Someone moved on.
Someone moved away. It may have been a good reason, but someone had left you and the sting was there. And Paul, in this situation,
he did not let someone's exit disobey his obedience. He said, God has called me to go here. I'm going to these places. I'm going to go and preach. And yes, John left.
And yes, it was difficult. But I must still do the work of the saints. I must still go out and do things and respond to the gospel in the way that God wants us to. The question I want to ask us is this. How do you respond when someone quits on you?
How do you respond when someone close to you decides to give up and go and do something else?
The response that we have is difficult for us. It's hard when we've been let down, when things are difficult in our life. But what we know is God is still there and God is still good and God still is faithful in all that he has promised to us. So desertion happens, but then there's difficulty.
Verse 14, the first part of verse 14, it says, Now Antioch of Poseidon is just a big fancy word for Galatia.
Okay, this is where we get the book of Galatians from. Paul wrote back to these people in an entire book. And so we'll see that here in a little bit. But what it sees is if you study from Perga to Galatia, it was a very difficult journey. Lots of mountains,
lots of valleys they had to go through, and they faced opposition along the way. In the work of Christ, we must understand that this is going to be something that is not a straight road.
Oftentimes, as you read through scripture, the prophets, the ones in Isaiah, the ones in Jeremiah, they're praying, Lord, make the road straight. Make the path smooth. Take down the mountains. Take the valleys away.
Because we understand in the life and in the ministry of people, the road is more like a hike, not necessarily through a perfectly clear pasture.
It's like hiking a mountain that you're going to die on in Nicaragua when I was there. And you go to the top of this mountain, you're like, how in the world did I do this? Now I have to go down this mountain?
Oh my goodness, Lord, how is this going to happen? This is like the Christian journey.
Sometimes it's going up and it's difficult. Sometimes it's going down and it's difficult. Other times you're going through valleys. Other times you're going through heartaches. And difficulty happens in our journey.
Where is our eyes fixed on? Hebrews 12 says, fixing our eyes on Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith. Are we allowing our eyes to be fixed on Jesus? Or are we putting our eyes on the problems that we have in our life? We must be prepared for the hard times.
We must be prepared for the obstacles that are going to happen in our life. But are we going to be prepared when only things are comfortable?
I was talking to a friend of mine just yesterday. He's having some problems in ministry and life and family.
And I made this challenge to him. I said, are you going to choose the comfortable life? Or are you going to choose the life that's maybe a little bit harder, that's going to be a little harder to go down, but it's the life of obedience that you need to choose?
I said, it's a difficult thing for us because we like to be comfortable. We like to do things the way we know things are done.
And all of a sudden, when things don't go the same way we're supposed to, when our bank says, hey, we're not going to, we're no longer going to send you paper statements. You're only going to receive electronic statements.
You're like, I don't even have a computer at my house. How am I going to do this? And life changes. And you're like,
okay, but I got to figure out how life is going to change. I've got to figure out how to do these things. And God says in the same way difficulties are going to happen, how are we going to respond when those difficulties come?
And then Paul looks at this passage and he goes into verse 14 through 41, the big part that I read there, and he gives the content of his message.
Paul's Gospel Message
He begins to preach. He begins to give a sweeping message of the gospel. He starts in the history.
He begins to talk about Jesus, and then he calls for a response. It's a message for us to know this is a model of how we preach the gospel.
When we go to someone, when we're around other people, when we're interacting with people that don't know Christ, how do we convey the message of the gospel?
And this is a way that Paul lays it out for us, and he lays it out in three basic ways. He starts with the promise that was foretold. He said, listen, a Christ is coming.
He started in verses 16 through 25, and he begins with Israel's history. He highlights the 500 years they were in the wilderness, and they were in Egypt, and how God blessed them, and how God took away seven different countries.
And he said, all throughout everything that we went through, God has been faithful.
Hey, can we not give an amen to God been faithful in our life? As we look back at our life, and we look back and we say, God, you've been good. Even in the difficult times you were there, you gave comfort.
Even in the good times, you were there, and you blessed, and you prospered.
Even in the times where I didn't even know where you were at, you were still there, you were still faithful,
you still upheld me, you still delivered me, and we can give an amen that God has been there, and he's been preparing the way for us, and he's been preparing the way for the Messiah. And he gets to it, and he almost lays it out like this.
I'm not a big family tree guy, but he almost lays out the family tree, and he says, listen, there's Abraham here,
and then Abraham had Isaac, and then he had Jacob, and then we had all these sons, and he begins to trace out the family tree.
I was at a funeral a couple weeks ago, and a lady came up to me, and this was on my mom's side, which is the Hudson's, and I'm on the Safer side, my dad's side.
And so we were at the Hudson's side funeral, and she came up to me, and she said, are you James Safer? And I always never know how to respond to that.
Like, is this going to be a good James Safer question, or is this going to be a James Safer in my teenage years? And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I should respond to that. And so I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm James. My dad's Marty.
He goes, she looks at me, she said, I am related to the Safer, and I have this entire family generation book that I have been putting together.
I've been researching. She said, I want to hand it off to someone that's going to continue this. And I'm like, this is awesome. I'd love to be able to look at it. So she got my information.
But when you begin to trace out family trees, you begin to trace out where your family comes from and what had happened and the difficulties and the good things that happened, Paul was showing that just as the promised son of David has come, this coming of Christ is now coming into our lives.
The question we have to ask ourselves is, are we so anchored in scripture that we could sit down and we could share the gospel through scripture with someone that doesn't know Christ? That we could say, listen, we understand that we did wrong in Adam. We understand that Adam and Eve sinned.
And we understand that God promised a deliverance and God promised a savior.
And now the savior of Jesus has come. Do we know scripture well enough to share scripture?
If we're not studying scripture, it's hard to share the scripture that God has given us. And Paul begins to lay that out and he begins to say, Christ is coming. And then he says there is a, in verses 26 through 37, he said, now there's a promise fulfilled. Christ has come.
Christ is here and Christ has given us this promise.
He begins to shift on how Jesus was going to come to now he has come and he was rejected and he was crucified. He looks at him and he says, your brothers and sisters, you yourselves have crucified Jesus.
And he puts the blame back on them. And he says, listen, the Jewish people have called for the crucifixion.
And he said, but it just didn't end there. The hope of the gospel is not in the crucifixion, even though the crucifixion is there for us.
The Hope of the Resurrection
The hope of the gospel is the resurrection of Jesus Christ back to life so that one day we will then be raised with Christ. So he goes from the promise to the person. Christ is not just an idea.
He wasn't just some good person that lived on earth and died. This was, Christ was a reality that happened. Christ was someone that was the center of history.
As I shared with our young people in Bible school just a couple of weeks ago, when Julius Caesar wrote the new calendar, I think it was Gregorian calendar, when it was written, they literally split the calendar in half around the birth of Jesus because he was a monumental defining figure in history.
And he began to, everything around Christ shows the history of who he is.
It's like, as we shared this morning in Sunday school, and I asked a question, and I'm going to change my illustration that I had to root out.
I was asking an illustration or a question of what it's like when Jesus is around us. And Jeremy, who's sitting over here, he said, I almost imagine it's like a two-way glass. I was like, dude, that's such a profound illustration. He said, it's like God's there,
and he's on the other side of the interrogation glass, and we can't see. We look at the glass, and we see ourself, and sometimes we get discouraged.
He said, but when we understand that God's on the other side, and he's looking down, he cares about us, he sends the officers in, he sends the encouragement in, oftentimes we don't see God, but we see that he is working intimately in our life.
Christ has come, and he's there for us, and he's showing us a clear picture through the Son of God, through his Son that came in, and he's working in our life.
The question I want to ask us this morning is, what does the resurrection mean for your daily life? As you go through your daily life, as you go through school starting back, and work on Monday, what does Christ have to do with your daily life?
Is he encouraging you as you go through that? Is he giving you that steady anchor that we often sing about?
Is he in Christ alone that gives us the encouragement that you need as you so often go through life, and discouragement happens, and betrayal happens, and difficulty comes in our life? Are we so focused on Christ that he is our anchor, he is our source of strength?
Christ has come, and he has given us more than just a Sunday belief. He has given us an anchor of our everyday life where we can go to him when times are more difficult, and we don't even understand how we're going to wake up the next morning.
And God says, I'm going to give you the strength that you need. Not only does he show the promise foretold, the promise fulfilled, but he gives the promise given. In verses 38 through 41, he lays out Christ as the forgiveness being offered for us.
He says, throw this man's forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through this man's forgiveness of sins, this gospel is proclaimed to you.
You see, he starts and he says, the law was given through Moses. The law was good. It helps direct our lives. But the law couldn't save.
He said, we got judges, and the judges came, and they tried helping, but the judges couldn't save. We had wisdom through Solomon, and Solomon came and gave us wisdom, and yet the wisdom of Solomon couldn't save us.
He said, we begin to get the prophets, and the prophets foretold all that was going to happen in our life, and yet the prophets can't save us.
But there is one man in Christ alone as our choir sang, only in Jesus can we have the forgiveness of sins.
Only in Jesus do we have this newness of life as it's pictured through baptism of a burial of old life and a resurrection of new life.
It is only through Jesus that we have this forgiveness to be able to go to the mercy seat, to go to God and say, God, I need your help today. It's only through Jesus that we have that.
Could you imagine if our cleaning ladies, Vicki and Hilda and Vicki, were to come in here, and they were to take the old dirty rag that they cleaned the toilets with, and were to be wiping down the seats in here with them?
It would not be clean, right? It would be dirty. And oftentimes in our life, this is what we do.
We try to clean up our life with our dirty life.
And it's only through the forgiveness and the shedding of blood through Jesus that it can be truly made clean. It's like when Clorox comes into a dirt or a stain, it absorbs all the stain away and it makes it clean and fresh and whole again. This is what Jesus does.
And oftentimes in my life and in the life that I was raised in, we try to earn the acceptance of God through what we do. We try to live a certain way to get God's approval. Like God, hey, I went to church today, God. You see that?
Oh yeah. I gave some money today, God. That's a good thing. I hope you're taking note, God. We do these things in order for God to somehow get this acceptance. And God says, no, no, no. There is no approval that you need.
All you need to do is rest in the forgiveness that has been given through Christ's son. All has been made clean through him.
Are we trusting in God's provision for us? Are we trusting in what he has done for us? Not in ourselves, but in what Christ has done. He ends with a passage from Habakkuk.
And I've studied Habakkuk a couple of times and been studying through it lately. But he quotes Habakkuk to warn them.
And he says, don't miss this. When Habakkuk wrote this, he said, when Habakkuk wrote this passage, the people were not understanding and were forgetting and missing what was there. He looks at them. He says, don't miss this point. The forgiveness is offered through Christ.
And I don't want you to be blinded in your eyes. And then in the last couple of passages that I didn't get a time to read, I want you to go and read them on your own.
Reactions to the Gospel
I'm just going to summarize them. It is the reaction to the message. So he preaches a powerful sermon.
He gives the context. He goes through the abandonment of what happened. But now he gets to the reaction of the message. And ultimately what happens is when we share the gospel, it draws lines. The gospel draws lines of forgiveness and acceptance in Christ and invites others.
Or as I've seen it many times, the gospel comes in and offends other people. It offends them and they say, listen, I've done some pretty good things. I don't need this gospel. I don't need these things that are going to change my life. And either people invite
and they respond in a way that is charitable or they slam the door in your face and they say, I don't want to talk or hear about what you have to say. Because the gospel is a divisive tool.
Unfortunately, it does that. It draws lines. Not unfortunately. I shouldn't say that. Fortunately, it does. Because it brings people to the awareness of who God is. And it invites them into a new life in Christ. So what happens? What happens to these people? Four specific things happens. There were some that were curious. In verses 42 through 44,
there were some that came to Paul and this is what they did. They said, Paul, you preached for seven hours. That was wonderful. Can we have more? We can't get enough. We need more. We're curious.
We want more of what you have to say. We want more of what you have to say. They said they begin to beg him to continue to speak.
Unfortunately, I don't often get begged to continue to speak. It's like, Pastor James, you've been going for 20 minutes. When are you going to be quiet?
So oftentimes, this is not the response of us. They're not curious.
But it says here that nearly the whole city the next week came to the gathering of where Paul was at. And nearly the entire city came to that church on that Sunday, on the Sabbath, and they said, we want to hear more. It's like someone discovering a treasure map.
I've been on this little treasure kick lately. I've been watching some D.B. Cooper stuff. I've been watching some conspiracy things.
And it's like we find a little nugget of clue here, and it takes us to another clue, and we just can't give up on it. We've got to keep going. And this is the people. They heard, they discovered something, and they wanted more.
The question that has been permeating my mind this entire week is, are we still curious about Jesus? Are we still curious about who he is?
Are we still curious about what he's done for us? Or have we just grown a little bored of what Jesus has done?
The greatness of who God is, the goodness of God as we listen to those songs, as we listen to worship music, as we hear sermons, is it like so enamored in us that I just have to know more? I've got to study another passage of scripture.
I want to hear another verse of scripture. I want to hear another worship song. Or is it just, yeah, Pastor James, I've heard that before. We heard about Jesus. Yeah, we've heard about what he did. Can we hear something else? It's only Jesus.
Jesus is the greatest news in history. And if we're not telling others about Jesus, then what are we doing? We've got to tell others, and they'll be curious, and they'll respond. Some were also critical in verses 45 through 46.
The Jews were filled with jealousy. They said that this man is speaking contradictions. This man is speaking things that we don't like. And oftentimes, when our hearts are hard, truth can feel like a threat.
Oftentimes, as I sit down with married couples, with guys and girls that are about to get married, when I sit down with friends, when I talk to coworkers, and I'm in that counseling room, oftentimes I'll say something really hard.
I'll say a truth that is really hard to hear, and they'll feel threatened. Like, how dare you say that? My marriage is perfect. We've never done anything wrong with each other. And it's like, okay,
maybe that was the place we needed to start at. And so oftentimes, when we say truth, and we say hard things, they can feel like threatens. And this is what happens here. Paul says the truth here.
He tells them about Jesus. He tells them about what he did. He tells them about how they crucified him. And they're like,
that doesn't really go with what I've been taught. That doesn't really go with my religion right now. And so I'm going to have to push you to a side for a little bit. And we're going to be critical of what you're saying. It's like this.
If you've ever had a kid, maybe they're in their room, and they're about to go to sleep, and the lights are off, and the music's playing, and you go in because you forgot to do something, and you flick on the light, and they're like, ah, dad, the light.
It was so bright. I can't handle it. Yeah, I know. I've got a witness up here. Amen. This is what happens.
Some rejoice at the light zone, right? If I go in Birdie's room, and it's like 830, flip light on.
Yes, dad, I get to stay up another hour. It's great. Jade's like, no, dad, I need to sleep a little longer. What are you doing?
This is what happens in our life, right? We flick on the light in a dark room. Some rejoice, and some recall, and they say, I can't believe you've done that. I can't believe you said those things. I can't believe you're responding this way. And this is the critical response that was given.
The third thing we look at is some were converted. Verses 47 through 49, it says that many Gentiles believed and rejoiced.
Oh, this is the desire of every preacher, of every Christian, is we tell the gospel, we share the gospel. We look last week where Paul preached, and one person was converted. Here we see Paul preaches, and many Gentiles now believe.
Oh, it's the response of people coming to know the Lord, and it says here that the whole word of the Lord was spread through the whole region.
Spread of the Gospel
The word of the Lord spread like wildfire, like dry grass that was just looking to be harvested, and someone threw a spark in, and it just lit up the entire area, and just spread like wildfire through everything that was going on. Are we part of spreading the gospel like wildfire?
Are we part of being out there, and just sharing, and telling other people about what Christ has done, and how he's came to redeem us? Or are we part of the resistance by saying,
well, I don't really know if God wants me to tell that person. I don't really know if God wants me to tell my coworker, or my neighbor, or someone close to me, because I'm afraid I may offend them. Paul was offending a lot of people here.
Again, as I said in the beginning, the gospel draws lines. The gospel causes people to make a decision.
Some were converted in the last two verses, three verses here. Some were even combative. The opposition escalated.
The opposition came, and I want to read these last three verses. It says in verse 50, but the Jews incited the prominent God-fearing women and men in the area, and they led the men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their district.
But Paul and Barnabas shook the dust off their feet against them and went to Iconium, and the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
You see, the opposition escalated, and as the opposition escalated, and it says that persecution was even brought on Paul and Silas, even as the opposition came, even as they were being rejected, it says that the disciples were full of joy. This is so counter-cultural, right?
When persecution comes, it's woe is me, life is horrible,
life is bad, everyone's coming against me, everything's bad. It says that everyone's coming against them, they're persecuting them, and they're saying, glory to God. This is great.
The gospel's been spread. Many people are coming to know Jesus. This is wonderful. This is the best thing ever. Are we walking in obedience? Are we walking away because we're afraid of what is going to happen? Rejection can't stop the joy if we're living in the gospel. Rejection comes, and it's wonderful.
That's great. I'm just living in Jesus. Jesus was rejected. John 1 11, it says that Jesus came, and his own rejected him.
His own despised him, and eventually, if you know the story, Jesus was killed by his own people because he was rejected, but yet the joy that was set before him, in Hebrew says, the joy that was before him led him to the cross so that me and you could have salvation.
Joy Amidst Persecution
Joy isn't tied to our outcome. Joy is tied to the obedience of the Spirit and listening to what God would have us to do, and oftentimes when our joy is misdirected, our joy is in the wrong place, this is when discouragement comes in. This is when hard times come because our joy is not tied to Jesus.
As Terry comes and plays for us, I want to offer just a couple of concluding thoughts as I close. The gospel message remains the same. Christ is promised, Christ has come, and Christ offers forgiveness.
Have we put our trust in that? Have we put our trust in Jesus as our sole authority in life and death and saying that Jesus is the King of kings, He is the Lord of lords, and come what may, I'm going to put my faith in Jesus. The mission's going to be costly.
There's going to be times where we're going to get forsaken, we're going to have people come against us, we may even get fired from our jobs for standing up for Christ, but the gospel reward is eternal.
The responses that we go about are going to be mixed. There's going to be joy, there's going to be triumph,
there's going to be persecution, there's going to be heartache. The responses are going to be mixed. Where is our trust at? This morning, have you responded personally to the gospel? Maybe it's out of curiosity.
Maybe today it needs to come out of conviction to say I need to know Christ. Second question, are you willing to speak boldly even when others reject you?
Are you willing to stand up for what is true, what is right, what is just, and say come what may, no matter what happens to me, I'm going to stand up for Christ.
They crucified Christ and Christ said if they've crucified me, they're going to surely come after you, but have no fear, I have overcome all persecution in all of the world. Are we trusting and living in that promise that Christ has overcome? And are you full of joy despite opposition?
Maybe it's a loved one that has turned their back on you.
Oftentimes, that is some of the hardest time of going through life when a loved one, a brother, a sister,
someone who is close to you has turned their back on you and it's caused you to lose sight of your mission.
It's caused you to say, you know, I was once focused, I was once going in the right direction, but this thing came and I can go back in my mind and I know where it is and it's just, it's derailed me a little bit.
Responding to God's Call
It put me on the wrong track and I got to get back on the right track. I got to get back on what God has called me to do. If that's you this morning,
I hope you'll respond in one of those three ways of being back on fire for the Lord or getting back in your joy of what Christ has offered us. Let us pray. Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done.
God, we pray that you would have your will and way today. I know this was a longer passage.
I know this was a lot to go through in a short amount of time, but I pray, God, that your word, as you've promised, still wins in the end and I hope that your word will still win in the end today. Lord, renew our joy.
Renew our fervor for you as a new school year starts back.
Oftentimes, that's a good time to remind ourselves that there's new opportunities. There's new adventures for us if we'll just trust in you. I pray, God, that you would help us to trust in you more fully today than we ever have. In your name we pray. Amen.
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