Acts (Part 2) | When Persecuted We Bless - Acts 14 and 15 | September 07

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At Iclonian, Paul and Barnabas went to the as-usual into the Jewish Sinehad.

There they spoke so effectively that a great member of Jews and Gentiles believed.

But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their

minds against the brothers.

So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the

Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.

The people of the city were divided, some sided with the Jews,

others with the apostles.

There was a plough of foot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their

leaders, to mistreat them and stone them.

But they found out about it, and fled to the Lyconian cities of Luzra and Derbe,

and to the surrounding country where they continued to preach the good news.

In Lusra, they met a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked.

He listened to Paul as he was speaking.

Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed,

and called out, Stand up on your feet.

At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in their Lysonian language,

The gods have come down to us in human form.

Barnabas, they call Zeus, and Paul, they call Hermes, because he was chief speaker.

The priests of Zeus' temple, the south side of the city, brought bulls and reeds

to the city gates, because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

Well, when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes

and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, men, why are you doing this?

We, too, are only men, human, like you.

We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things

to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.

In the past, he let all nations go their own way, yet he has not left himself without testimony.

He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and cross in their seasons.

He provides you with plenty of food, and fill your hearts with joys.

Even with these words, he had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.

Then some Jews came from Antioch and Etonia and won the crowd over.

They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.

But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city.

The next day, he and Barnabas left for David. They preached the good news in

that city and won a large number of disciples.

Then they returned to Lucera, Iconia, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples

and encouraging them to be true to the faith.

We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, they said.

Paul and Barnum was acquainted elders for them at each church,

and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord, and whom they had fit their trust.

After going through Vesilia, they came to Panfilia, and when they had preached

the word in Terga, they went down to Atalia.

From Atalia, they sailed back to Antiochia, where they had been committed to

the grace of God for the work they had now completed.

On arriving there, they had gathered the church together and reported all that

God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles,

and they had stayed there a long time with the disciples.

Thank you, thank you. Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this witness of faith,

the life of Paul and Barnabas as they spoke boldly in your name.

No matter what they faced, no matter what trials came their way,

that they stood strong in you and they were encouraged and that great joy filled,

all the people who heard and received Jesus.

I was just thinking about a verse in the gospels where I think it's either the

Roman centurion or somebody who believes and this wonderful verse that just

talks about how he and his household,

the entirety of his household, just celebrated that he had believed in Jesus.

And we get to meet that here, Lord, just the joy that comes as people turn their lives towards you.

And the gifts that they receive, Lord, your presence with us.

And all our suffering and all of our difficulty and tribulations,

God, you are here with us. We get to trust in you. We get to lean on you.

We get to be encouraged by you and your word and we get to encourage one another.

And so I pray that we, our hearts are lifted up to you this morning that we would receive your word,

and that it would do its work in our hearts that we might believe and in believing

that we might speak and share and in sharing that we might be encourage as we

see your spirit move in us and move around in the world around us,

God. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

So there is this weird thing that happens in this chapter that we're not really

going to talk about other than to mention that there's that part where they

try and sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as if they're gods and they tell them no.

And it's just like a weird story that happens where the legend in that area

was that Zeus or somebody had come and the people didn't acknowledge him,

but this random person did and he was blessed and everybody else was cursed.

They're like really attentive to, we're not going to miss that opportunity again.

So that's a weird part that happens. But other than that,

we're not really going to talk about it much just to give you context for why

it's in there and why what happens when people encounter the spirit and the

power of God and they don't have maybe a foundation or a basis to build from it.

And so that's what Paul and Barnas were doing, building that foundation of this is who God really is.

This is the truth of who God really is. And what I do want to start with is

kind of this question for you all, because we tend to not really prepare that

well for life's big moments in some regards.

Just think about whether or not that you've thought about in your own story,

in your own life, perhaps what you would say in life's big moments.

When big things happen, when your loved ones head off on new adventures,

the speech that you may give at your best friend's wedding, perhaps.

We don't tend to prepare for these things until it's the last minute.

Maybe for college students, maybe your parents had some words of wisdom that

they sent you off with as they brought you off at college, but more than likely

they were unprepared for that as well.

They kind of did their tears and their good lucks and then they drove away.

We tend not to think about what we're going to say when our child heads out

of our house or for any of these large moments that some we can predict,

obviously, and others we're not going to be able to predict.

And so we are even less prepared for those.

But there is this, in Acts, in this chapter, this is kind of the beginning of

the story of Paul and these places, Lestra and Iconium and Derbe.

But we also have the end of that story.

Paul wrote the book of 2 Timothy. It was the last book that he wrote.

He wrote it to Timothy, who is from Lystra.

And so we have the beginning where he met Timothy, where he entered into the

city. And then we have the end as he gives these parting words to his friend,

his son in the faith, his collaborator in so many missionary journeys.

And so let me just read a little passage from 2 Timothy 3.

So this is Paul's parting words to his friends.

He writes in verse 10, But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach and how

I live and what my purpose in life is.

You know my faith, my patience, my love, and my endurance.

You know how much persecution and suffering I have endured. You know all about

how I was persecuted in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.

So these are the stories that we just read, that Michelle just read in chapter

14 that he's talking about. All the ways that he was persecuted in these places.

He says, but the Lord rescued me from all of it.

Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

And so we have that same, almost that exact same phrase mentioned in chapter

14, that everyone who wants to live for a godly life in Christ will suffer persecution.

But evil people and imposters will flourish. They will deceive others and will

themselves be deceived.

But you must remain faithful to the things that you have been taught.

You know they are true for you know, you can trust those who taught you.

You have been taught the Holy Scriptures from childhood and they have given

you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.

And all scripture is inspired by God and useful to teach us what is true,

to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

And God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

So like I mentioned, this is the last book that Paul would write before his death.

In fact, he knew what was coming around the corner.

So he wrote it, he wrote these words to Timothy, well aware of what the near future held for him.

And in facing his death, what Paul ends up doing with this letter to his dear

friend is reflecting on some of the first moments that they met and those first

events that knit their spirits together.

And when the gospel came to Timothy and his family in this place,

and so he's reflecting on the first occasion of their meeting and he's offering

this parting encouragement in his last words.

And again, it's his words here are in many ways the same as the words that he

met these new disciples with at the beginning in Acts chapter 14 in verses 21 and 22.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

It says, after preaching the good news in Derbe and making many disciples,

Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia,

where they strengthened the believers.

They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer

many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

And so reflecting, he offers a similar encouragement to his friends that we

meet here, that there are difficulties ahead and we must persevere.

I do want to just give a quick recap of where we've been in Acts.

I know that not all of us have been here since the beginning,

since chapter one, and during the summer we took a break.

So it's been a little bit before, since we've kind of discussed this,

But the book of Acts is about the church going forth.

And we have this beautiful statement in the beginning where it says,

Jesus says to his disciples that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit

comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea,

Samaria to the ends of the earth, right?

And so this is the sort of,

the thesis statement of the entirety of the book. And this is what we'll see

accomplished at the end, that the gospel goes out to the ends of the earth.

And here, what we see is this transitional period of all of Judea,

that the gospel has gone to the Gentiles and that all are welcome into the kingdom

of God as they always were, but now upon this confirmation and special revelation.

And what I actually wanna do is sort of recap a little bit of chapter 13,

chapter 14, and then also chapter 15.

Not that we're going to spend all of our time and hours and hours doing this,

but it is sort of a cohesive story.

In chapter 13, last week, we saw how the apostle Paul brought the gospel to these people.

So we heard about the gospel itself. What is the gospel?

The good news that Jesus is with us in the mess, that Jesus came,

that Jesus died, that when we couldn't get to God, God came to us.

And then we get to chapter 14 that we just read.

And what we encounter is the cost of discipleship, the cost of being bold and

speaking the word of God, the cost of standing up for Jesus in a world that

isn't necessarily always for him.

And then chapter 15, we get this encouragement from the stories and from God's work to keep going.

No matter what you face, keep going. So, like I said, chapter 13 is full of the gospel.

It's the gospel message on display that God created us with purpose,

that God created us with love, that we are not an accident, that you are not an accident.

And just as the first humans received that gift, but rejected the gift giver,

ultimately, they wanted wisdom, their own wisdom on their own terms.

We still do that every single day, right? We follow in the footsteps of these

first humans where we reject God's way and we demand our own.

And we define this world based on what we believe is blessing for ourselves.

And because of this, we all end up spreading our brokenness around the world.

We use and abuse people.

We decide for ourselves what is good. We just jump from one thing to the next,

chasing satisfaction till eventually we all fall into shadow and death.

But the gospel, the good news is that our story has a hero.

That ultimately the Bible in its entirety is a rescue story about a God who

created and loved and stayed. He didn't leave and he didn't abandon.

And he pursued us when we weren't pursuing him.

And he has always been there. And the reality of the gospel is found not just

in this future focus of eventually one day we'll all be somewhere with him where

there will be no more suffering and there'll be no more tears.

That is a part of it. And that is great and good news. But the good news of

the gospel in our current present circumstances is that Jesus is here with us

and the spirit is here with us, empowering us in our everyday life.

And this is our reality in Christ. And I just want to give you some verses.

These aren't necessarily like gospel forward, but they are verses that speak

to my heart and to this reality of Jesus with us in the mess.

And they both come from Psalms. Psalm 56 says that this I know that God is for me.

And I know there's a translation up here, but that's a little different.

It says, God is on my side. It goes on to say in the ESV, in God whose word

I praise and the Lord whose word I praise, I will not be afraid. God is with me.

What can man do to me? And Psalm 118 repeats this, this kind of idea.

It says, out of my distress, I called upon the Lord and the Lord answered me and set me free.

It says, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me?

The Lord is on my side as my helper.

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.

And so this is the message, this is the gospel, the message of Jesus as he himself presents it,

not primarily about how you get into heaven, but more so about the fact that

God's kingdom and his availability and his presence are here with us today.

No matter what we go through, no matter what we encounter. And that's the good news.

It's about the presence of God with us and for us in our everyday lives, in our daily existence.

And as we turn to chapter 14, what we end up encountering as a result of all

that we met in chapter 13 is Paul and Barnabas share this message of life.

Is this sense of the natural results.

And last week I talked about letting us not be result oriented in our proclamation of the gospel.

As we share the gospel with ourselves, because we need it every day,

as we share the gospel with other believers, because we all need to be reminded

of this truth and cling to it, and as we share the gospel with others who don't know Jesus.

Now, we shouldn't be results-oriented, because if we were, we probably would give up.

And perhaps that's why many of us never really get started, is because we are all keenly aware of,

what the gospel does and how it is a stumbling stone for many people.

And so in fear of the possibility of rejection, we ourselves pull away instead

of pressing in, knowing that that's a possibility.

And so perhaps that's why we all don't share it very often is because we know

this is implicitly true that there is a result where it's not favorable.

And then the gospel brings suffering, even more specifically,

this idea of persecution is what Paul's really getting at here.

It's not a general idea of suffering.

There's these three words that we encounter, suffering, hardship,

and persecution, and through the context and through the word that's used,

which can be translated in the idea of tribulation,

which is this idea of the oppression that comes from other people as a result

of standing firm in the truth.

And the gospel, the Bible's very clear, like people shouldn't hate us because

of the way we act or the things that we say on our own ability in the sense

of like, we shouldn't give people a reason to hate us.

But the Bible is also very clear. Jesus is very clear that if the world hated

him, so the world's going to hate us because the message of the gospel is too

many, an anathema, a turning away.

It is a hard message.

So yeah, don't go just like rejoicing that people don't like you because you're acting like a jerk.

The Bible is very clear about that. So the good news that we just talked about,

this gospel, isn't necessarily good news to everybody.

And I would say for ourselves too, there was a time probably where it was not good news for us.

And we probably still struggle at times to hold on to the good news and to not let go of it.

That's true for all of us. I have an experience, and maybe you've had as well,

where I was trying to help this guy who was in need.

And what he had asked for was what I had offered. but what he really wanted perhaps was different.

And so he was offended by my offer to help.

And we kind of all do that. We have our expectations of what we want in any situation.

And if somebody offers something different than that, we tend to push them away

or reject them or become offended because they're not meeting our needs in the

way that we want them to. We do this in our relationships.

We do this in life. And this is the truth about the gospel as well.

In the same way, God's good news comes to us and offers us incredible life.

If we can see that perhaps our own message of good news or our own message of

blessing or our own desires or our own ways of thinking how we want this life to turn out,

if we can kind of let go of those a little bit and receive what our souls need at its deepest.

Cause sometimes what we imagine in ourselves isn't really what we really need.

But when Paul writes what he's talking about here, we just read that the good

news consists in us turning away.

It's a turning away from worthless things, from powerless, useless,

dead idols, which we all still have in our day.

And it's a turning to the creator, the source of all living things.

And not everyone, and perhaps even a lot of people, and all of us as well,

were in a time of our lives where we didn't want to turn away.

We didn't want to turn away, even though there was something better.

And I think it's been mentioned here before, but I think C.S.

Lewis wrote about it a little bit.

Like, we play in our muddy puddles and we have no concept of what a vacation or a seaside holiday is.

And we're content where we are, unaware that there's something even greater just down the road.

That's not exactly how I put it. That's a paraphrase.

But that's essentially what we're talking about, is we're content in our muddy

puddles, unaware that there is something way more life-giving,

way more good, way more important just out of our eyesight.

And so the natural result of proclaiming the gospel that we talked about,

of living out the gospel, is this idea of persecution.

And I do want that to sink in. I don't want to dwell here for too long,

but I do want that to sink in that Paul says that suffering is the necessary

path and the only path into the kingdom of God.

Because that conflicts with our ideology that the way into the kingdom is through

faith by the grace of God.

And here Paul is saying that it is through great suffering, through persecution

that we enter the kingdom of God.

And so we have to kind of pause and ask ourselves, do these things agree with

one another? but also we have to ask ourselves that this is what Paul is saying,

that the price of admission into the kingdom of God is persecution.

And then we look at our lives and we think, can a Christian go through their

entire lives without ever experiencing persecution or discomfort as a result

of their faith and still enter the kingdom of God?

Because it seems like he's suggesting that those two things aren't true,

that they don't agree with one another and sort of answer them in turn.

Paul is saying the same thing that he would, he would always say,

even when he says that is through faith, by the grace of God that we enter the kingdom of God.

He's saying that even now, because for a believer at that time and for him to

have the understanding that a belief in Jesus, faith in Jesus would not result in anything,

but a mental assent and agreement, it would be inconceivable for him to believe that.

And we just watched the Princess Bride. So that word was on my mind,

inconceivable, but it would be inconceivable for Paul to believe that a mere

faith in Jesus wouldn't result in action.

Because in belief, when they talk about belief, it means not just the agreement,

but it means the actions that come as a result of the agreement.

And it is those actions that Paul is talking about bringing us into contention with the world.

The belief in the Bible is rooted in action and not just mental agreement.

That the gospel costs something. Yes, it costs Jesus his life, that's the good news.

And we say it is a free gift and that's what the Bible says.

But at some point, at some point, the true belief lived out in faith and action,

is going to cost us letting go of something.

It's going to cost us in our relationships with others.

So he writes, we must go through many hardships.

So kind of to address the second, because Jesus had warned Paul that he was

going to face these hardships that he literally said, I will show you how much

you must suffer for the gospel.

And Paul too, in his life, as he lived this out in fulfillment,

he wrote in the book of Colossians that he rejoices in his suffering for the

sake of the people that he is suffering for.

And in his flesh, he was filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions

for the sake of his body, the church.

So Paul embraces this. And what he says is not that Jesus's suffering was incomplete,

that's not what he's saying.

What he's saying is that his purpose that he writes about in 2 Timothy,

his life to share the gospel with others.

Is fulfilled in his suffering in a sense, that as a result of his suffering,

the church grows, people hear the gospel and the family of God gets larger,

that the lost sons of God find their way back into the kingdom.

And the vast majority of us will never experience suffering in this way.

Not that we all won't. I know many people who have experienced just this.

My good friend, Ron, that I mentioned before was beat and left for dead because of the gospel.

And so it's not all of us who will not experience this, but for the mass majority

of us in this country for the near future, this is not the persecution that

we will experience in the same way.

But what I'm getting at is this statement is nevertheless true.

And as George Whitefield said, if you are going to walk with Jesus Christ,

you're going to be opposed.

In our day, to be a true Christian is really to become a scandal.

And that persecution is a part of the lifestyle of a believer.

So this is the result of the gospel message, chapter 14. What I really want

to spend a little bit of time on.

Is how do we respond? Because their response is kind of all over the place, isn't it?

They get up and they shake the dust off their feet and go and leave and to go to another town.

Paul is stoned and left for dead and he gets up and he walks back into the same town.

And then at the end of chapter 15, what we see is that they get together and

they decide, hey, we're gonna go back into all of these towns that we just left

and experienced these persecutions.

At the beginning of chapter 14, it talks about how they experienced the same

things that they did in chapter 13, all of these persecutions.

And what they did as a result was stay for a long time.

So their response is all over the map. And so what that teaches us is that the

suffering doesn't determine the response.

And sometimes it's right to stay and sometimes it's right to flee.

Sometimes it's right to go back knowing what the result will be.

But in all of it, the suffering doesn't actually determine our response.

The concern of the true disciple is not how to avoid the suffering,

it's how to be the most effective witness, how to share the gospel in our lives and with our words.

Sometimes that's staying and sometimes that's fleeing.

The more important, perhaps, two thoughts for us to stay with are this.

And the Bible's full of these, even though we're not really aware of it,

where there's like clever plays on words.

And Paul kind of utilizes this throughout his discussion about suffering. He uses this word dioko.

And what it really means is this idea of pursuing, of pressing in,

of going after, of chasing, of running after. And so it's used in a positive sense.

Paul uses it in a positive sense. And then he also uses it in this term of persecution,

that people will pursue you.

They will run after you. Difficulties will follow you.

And so what his prescription is, When people run after you, when persecution

comes after you, when difficulties come after you, you go after Jesus.

You chase after Jesus, you run after him.

In Philippians chapter three, he writes these words. I want to know Christ.

Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and the participation in his suffering,

because like him becoming like him in his death.

And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have

already obtained it, all of this or have already arrived at my goal,

but I press on to take hold of that which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

He presses in. And brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is head,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul tells us people will run after you. They will oppress you. They will pursue you.

And in those times you need to press in, you need to pursue,

you need to run after Jesus.

Keeping God's greatness in mind, filling our thoughts with God's thoughts,

reminding us of what the truth is, preaching the gospel to ourselves is what

keeps us centered on the hope that we find in Jesus.

So when we are pressed in that word tribulation, I mentioned earlier has the

literal meaning of grain being pressed and crushed.

When we experience tribulation, we don't buckle under the weight of it.

We pursue Jesus and he strengthens us for the situation.

And the last thing I'll leave you with, how do we endure persecution?

I should say that is an important distinction that Paul is very much talking

about persecution and oppression from outside, from people.

These encouragements apply for any type of suffering we find ourselves in,

not just those persecutions.

But what we see in these chapters is the response, even in the face of difficulty,

even in the face of hardship, even in the face of persecution is joy.

Every chapter ends with joy, that they rejoiced greatly.

When Paul and Barnabas in chapter 15, when they come back to the church in Jerusalem

and they share all that has been done amongst the Gentiles, the response is joy.

And then they have this meeting and they're like, what are we going to do?

We have these Jews that are like, they should be circumcised and follow the law.

And Peter and all these other people are like, they received the Spirit in just

the same way that we receive the Spirit, what are we going to do?" And they

have this council and they decide that Gentiles don't have to become Jews to become Christians.

And they send this letter out and this letter goes out to all the Gentiles and

they rejoice and are glad because Jesus has come to them in the same way that

it's come to everybody else.

All of the believers, all the Gentiles that receive the gospel, the response is joy.

And so when we hear that, like the joy is the response to suffering,

there's some disconnect in our brains of how that could possibly be the case.

But when we read ahead, when we investigate in chapter 15, we get these summary

statements. They're also in chapter 14, but I just want to read a little bit

of chapter 15, just a couple of verses.

In verse four, it says, when they arrived in Jerusalem, Barnabas and Paul were

welcomed by the whole church, including the apostles and elders,

and they reported everything that God had done through them.

They're sharing all of this wonderful stuff.

In verse 12, it says, everyone listened quietly as Barnabas and Paul told about

the miraculous signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

They are in awe and amazed at the work of God.

And remember that Paul was essentially stoned to death.

And so he probably had cuts and scars still on his face as he's sharing these wonderful things.

He's not talking about the difficulty.

He's celebrating with joy what God has done. Verses 30 to 33.

This is a different translation, but just follow along if you have it.

When they were sent off, they went down to Antioch and having gathered the congregation

together, they delivered the letter.

It's the letter I was talking about. And when they had read it,

they rejoiced because of its encouragement.

And Judas and Silas, who are themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened

the brothers with many words.

And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers

to those who had sent them.

There is this overwhelming amount of encouragement that takes place in the New Testament church.

It is something that the believers and Paul especially set their hearts to over and over again.

And there's the purpose of their meeting is this encouragement that their hearts

would be lifted up, that they would share all the wondrous things that God is

doing and that we'd be encouraged by it.

He would write about this so often. In Romans chapter one, he talked about how

I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen

you and that they may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.

1 Thessalonians 3, we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel

of Christ to establish and exhort you in your faith that no one be moved in these afflictions.

And a little bit later, it says, now that Timothy has come to us from you,

he has brought us the good news of your faith and love.

For this reason, brothers, in all our distress and afflictions,

we have been comforted about you through your faith.

2 Corinthians 7, God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus,

and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted

by you." There is this mutual encouragement and comfort that is taking place

in the hearts of believers.

Colossians 2, Paul expresses this struggle and prayer that their hearts may

be encouraged and being knit together in love.

And later in that book, he talks about sending this guy Tychicus,

and he says that he has sent them for that purpose, that they may be encouraged in their hearts.

In Philemon verse seven, it says, for I have derived much joy and comfort from

your love, my brothers, because the heart of the saints have been refreshed through you.

That our purpose in preaching the gospel to ourselves and preaching the gospel

to each other, to Christians, as Christians, we so desperately need it,

is that we would mutually encourage one another.

Because the reality of chapter 14 with persecution is that Christians can be

just as much involved in the persecution of other Christians than those outside.

If we get stuck, we can be more involved in the discouragement and the persecution of fellow believers.

But our purpose and our joy is found in mutual encouragement,

in the love that we share as we celebrate wins with one another.

What is God doing in your life that you can celebrate with your fellow brothers and sisters?

Are you keeping track? Do you have, like, if I asked you that,

like what are the wins in your life? Are you able to share that?

We have to be able to share what God is doing in us, what God is doing around

us to mutually encourage one another, to not give up.

Encouragement is such an important thing for the life of a believer.

And when we isolate and we pull away, what we do is we pull ourselves away from that encouragement.

I know how important that is in my own life. I need your encouragement as well.

And if I think about my day-to-day professional life, the reason I like my job

so much, yes, it's because of the people.

Ron's a pretty cool guy to talk to every now and then. He likes some weird music,

but we'll forgive him for that.

It's because of the people, yes. It's because I'm pretty good at it.

And it's good to be in a place where you're actually good at what you do.

That's encouraging. So that's, I mean, I like it for that reason too.

But I don't know that any of that would really matter as much if I didn't feel

encouraged and affirmed every day.

Because I've been in jobs where there was no encouragement.

And so even though I was doing a similar thing, perhaps it wasn't enjoyable.

In fact, it's pretty unsustainable in our lives.

But when we feel that encouragement.

It just is all the more blessing of the people that we do it with and of the

work that we're doing together.

It's that encouragement that keeps us going.

And so when we encounter hardship, when we encounter difficulty,

when we encounter persecution, we have to actually push back against it.

We got to fight against the darkness and encourage one another to keep going.

So I just want to ask you the kind of those questions as Brie comes back up

as we respond in song, because this is the thread of the good news in our lives,

that Jesus is with us in the mess, no matter what we're going through.

So we can meet suffering with joy. And as we are encouraged,

we can encourage one another.

There's this verse in second Thessalonians and Paul's writing.

He says that your abundance at the present time should supply their needs so

that their abundance may supply your need.

Abundance doesn't necessarily mean physical things, joy and encouragement,

that the abundance of joy that the spirit of God pours into your hearts should

meet people where they are.

So where is it that you need to be encouraged in your life? What is it that

you, or is it that you need that interjection of joy?

And on the flip side, where can you be an encouragement to others?

Where can you share your heart? Where can you share what God is doing?

Where can you celebrate the wins in your life?

We don't have it prepared today, but I know that several weeks ago,

a few weeks in a row, we talked about as the college students came back specifically,

like what wins we encountered in that moment. Amen.

As we get to meet some of y'all, as we get to know you. Let me speak these words

over our college students.

So sorry for everybody else. I have been so overwhelmed with the wisdom that I've encountered.

And yes, even you freshmen coming in away from home for the first time in your life, probably.

The wisdom that I've encountered in, I don't know, y'all are like 19 or something, right?

19 year olds. I used to have this guy, I talked about it earlier.

He's in his seventies now, almost 80. And he would always talk about when I

was in my twenties, like how amazing it was to be around me and these other

people in their twenties and how he had learned so much about God and how he

was growing in his faith and his wisdom.

And it's like, this dude is at the end of his life. He spent 40 years.

He's still alive. He's not at the end of his life, but he spent 40 years in the missionary field.

And this is after that I met him. And these were his words of encouragement.

And I was like, I don't, I don't get you.

I don't understand how you're learning anything from me.

This is some dumb kid who barely knows what life is.

I get it. I get it.

There's so much wisdom and encouragement to be had.

And y'all have encouraged me so greatly. So receive that college kids,

sorry, kids, college, adult. I don't know. That's weird.

Thank you i affirm that.

But that like that's that's what it is the wisdom and encouragement and life

that we get from one another even if 20 years ago i didn't understand it and

now i can understand it meeting you guys meeting all of you and being encouraged

by what god is doing in your lives,

about the faithfulness that we have.

When we meet trials, sharing that with others and just saying,

you know, God is still good.

Tell you about the things that God's doing. And for us to rejoice together and

celebrate that is so important.

Yes, persecution is going to come. We shouldn't try and bring it along more quickly.

That's not our mission in life. We should be faithful and respond and share the gospel.

And as a result, it's going to come. And in our lives, in this country,

it's going to be like, people are going to think we're weird.

And that's mostly all it's ever going to be.

Maybe not, but for now, that's what it's going to be.

And you know what? We're all kind of weird anyway. So I don't know why that

is so frightening to me in us, but the way we endure and the way that we,

we walk in the fulfillment of the promise that Jesus has given us,

is to mutually encourage one another.

So I'm sorry for any times I have not been encouraging to you,

I just pray that we can walk forward full of encouragement and that we can celebrate

these wins and you know if you look next to you there is a win sitting right

next to you on both sides well some of you are sitting next to a wall so that's kind of weird,

but the person sitting next to you on your left or your right those are wins

worth celebrating Thank you.

Music.