35 "Fulfilling God’s God’s Plan by God’s Power" Acts 14:19-28 | Sunday, December 7, 2025

And you can take your Bibles and turn to

Acts chapter 14.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

We'll close out Acts chapter 14 this

Acts 14 · chapter mention

morning.

You can remain standing as we read our

text and give honor to God's word today.

As we made our way through Acts 14, this

is the first missionary journey of the

Apostle Paul and Barnabas. And they've

made their way through Cyprus, Antioch

of Pacidia, a region called Panilia.

They've come to a place called Iconium

and Lististra. And we saw last week that

at Lististra after healing a crippled

man. The whole city was crazy and

started trying to offer a sacrifice to

Paul and Barnabas as if they were the

gods Zeus and Hermes come down in

ordinary disguise of men. And uh what we

find today is that the tide very quickly

turned against Paul in this city.

It says in verse 19, "And there came

thither certain Jews from Antioch and

Iconium who persuaded the people and

having stoned Paul drew him out of the

city supposing he had been dead. How be

it, as the disciples stood round about

him, he rose up and came into the city.

And the next day he departed with

Barnabas to Derby. And when they had

preached the gospel to that city and had

taught many, they returned again to

Lististra and to Iconium and Antioch,

confirming the souls of the disciples

and exhorting them to continue in the

faith and that we must through much

tribulation enter into the kingdom of

God. And when they had ordained them

elders in every church and had prayed

with fasting, they commended them to the

Lord on whom they believed. And after

they had passed through Pacidia, they

came to Panilia. And when they had

preached the word in Perga, they went

down to Italia and then sailed to

Antioch, from whence they had been

recommended to the grace of God for the

work which they fulfilled.

And when they were come and had gathered

the church together, they rehearsed all

that God had done with them. And how he

had opened the door of faith unto the

Gentiles, and there they abode long time

with the disciples. And thus concludes

the first missionary journey of the

Apostle Paul. The title of our message

this morning is fulfilling God's plan by

God's power. Let's pray and ask God to

help us.

Heavenly Father, we ask your Holy Spirit

to shine the light of truth upon your

scripture today

to open our eyes, our ears, and our

hearts to take in your truth. And I pray

that he would bring clarity and

conviction in this message that it would

produce the change in our hearts that

you desire to make us more like your son

Jesus. It's in his name we ask. Amen.

Thank you for standing in honor of God's

word. You can be seated.

You ever found yourself making plans but

struggling to fulfill them? They

probably at one point or another in all

of our lives, we could raise our hand

and say, "That's me." You plan to take a

vacation,

but you got overloaded with work. You

put on your calendar to take your wife

out on a date for dinner, but you blew

right past it. forgot about it. Or it

might be that you had every intention of

reading your Bible all the way through

Genesis to Revelation this year and you

got through Genesis and you made your

way through Exodus and things were going

pretty well and then you got to

Leviticus and you're like, I'm out. I'm

done. Ended quickly. Perhaps last

January you committed to eating better

and losing weight, but now that you've

come to December, you've actually gained

more weight than you lost. Or perhaps

you said, "I'm going to get a gym

membership." but you've only gone a few

times this whole year.

My mind goes to a coach who develops a

solid game plan, but then because of

poor execution, it falls flat. The

reality is all of us struggle to carry

out the plans we put in place. And the

reason we fail is not for a lack of a

plan, but for a lack of follow through.

We have trouble executing and fulfilling

the plans that we put in place. But

while our plans might fail, I want you

to know today that God's plan never

fails.

Nothing can stop God's plan from moving

forward. That's really what the book of

Acts is all about.

Luke is writing to a Roman official by

the name of Theophilos to show him that

in spite of all the persecution that has

come against Christianity,

God's plan has continued to move forward

just as Jesus said it would from

Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and now

to the uttermost part of the earth.

In Acts 13, we saw that the Holy Spirit

called and sent Paul and Barnabas to

carry out God's plan to the world to

bring the message of the gospel of Jesus

Christ to the region of Galatia so that

not only Jews but also Gentiles

might believe the gospel of Jesus

Christ, that they might enter God's

kingdom through the door of faith in

Christ.

They started out on the island of Cyprus

and when they were opposed by a satanic

sorcerer,

the Roman deputy believed. They move on

to Antioch of Pacidia where there was a

multitude that believed there before a

movement was launched to expel them from

the region. They move on to Iconium

and there there's a plot uncovered after

multitudes believe there. plots

uncovered to kill them.

Paul moves on to Lististra. And at

Lististra, he heals this crippled man.

And the whole city is is on uproar and

celebrating and rejoicing. And they they

think the gods have come down in human

flesh. And they prepare to offer a

sacrifice to them. And yet now Paul is

stoned,

left for dead outside the city of

Lististra.

And yet, you know what we find in this

passage?

That in every city Paul and Barnabas

went to the tribulation that they faced

did not stop them from fulfilling God's

plan. Here they move on to the city of

Derby and they preach and they uh make

many disciples there and then they

return to each of these cities and they

ordain elders in every church and they

establish new church plants in every

city they went to and we find that they

return back to their sending church in

Antioch of Syria and they report that

God has fulfilled through them what he

planned to do to open the door of faith.

to all of the gentile world.

In spite of all the opposition,

God's plan never failed.

God is still on a mission today.

And his mission is to open the door of

faith to every person all around the

world. And that includes our city here.

And he has called each of us to be a

part of fulfilling that plan in some

way.

He's called us to reach our city for

Christ to invite the lost to enter the

door of his kingdom by faith in Jesus

Christ

to fulfill his work in Boulder.

But how how can we

who tend to be so fickle and so feeble

who struggle to even fulfill our own

most basic plans?

How can we possibly fulfill the

worldwide plan of God to redeem sinners?

How can we do that? In our text, we find

that fulfilling God's plan requires

three things. Number one is

perseverance.

Number two is preaching. And number

three is planting.

But for all of those things to be

accomplished,

there's something else we need as well.

But before we get there, let's start

with perseverance. Number one, to

fulfill God's plan, we must persevere

through tribulation.

Paul and Barnabas had experienced much

tribulation along this first missionary

journey. What is tribulation? Let's just

start there. It's a Bible word that

means trouble that inflicts distress,

harm, hardship, or oppression. Thus,

it's tribulation. It's trouble that

brings harm. Trouble that brings

distress. Do you think they've been

through some of that? I think so. As

Paul and Barnabas fulfilled God's work,

they faced a sorcerer in Pyos. They were

slandered and attacked in Antioch. They

were even thrown out of the city is what

the word expelled means. In Iconium, it

said that the minds of the Gentiles were

poisoned against them and it uncovered a

plot to kill them. And now at Lististra,

the same people who once tried to

worship them as gods have turned on them

and hurled stones in Paul's direction

and left him broken, beaten, and bruised

for dead outside the city.

But it says in verse number 20, "How be

it, as the disciples stood round about

him, he rose up and came into the city."

In spite of the fact that Paul had just

been stoned and left for dead outside

the city, the first thing he does when

he gets up is he goes right back in.

That's what we call resilience.

And as Paul went there, he he uh did

some more work among the disciples

there. And then he moved on to Derby. He

just moved on to another town and he

continued to preach the gospel there and

made many disciples there. And what we

find is that while Paul and Barnabas

have experienced the very definition of

tribulation

to fulfill God's work, they had to push

through it. They had to persevere.

It's kind of like hiking a mountain.

You can have that trail all mapped out.

You can be prepared and have things in

your backpack and and and feel good and

feel ready to go. And then as you ascend

that mountain above the treeine and your

quads start hurting and your calves

start burning and you're hungry and

you're thirsty and you're getting short

on breath and you're just like, man, I I

just want to go back. I'm done with

this. But to experience the mountaintop,

to accomplish that feat and take in that

view, you've got to push through the

pain and push through the agony and the

suffering and the hardship to reach the

top. And that's what Paul and Barnabas

have done. See, as we endeavor to

fulfill God's plan, it is inevitable

that tribulation will come to our lives.

But we cannot allow the tribulations we

face to derail us from God's plan. Jesus

said, "After all, in this world, ye

shall have tribulation."

But he said, "Fear not, for I have

overcome the world." See, for us to

fulfill God's plan, we're going to have

to persevere through tribulation.

Fulfilling God's work will not be easy.

We are storming Satan's kingdom, and he

will defend it by all means necessary.

Sometimes that defense may come in the

form of a hostile movement against the

Christian faith. Sometimes it can come

through political powers dropping the

hammer upon Christianity. Sometimes it

can come just through ordinary people in

your life,

cultural pressure.

But along the way, it's not just going

to be satanic opposition. We live in a

fallen world. And a fallen world is

going to lend us to times of

tribulation.

times when you experience pain, poverty

and suffering, chronic health problems,

uh financial setbacks, times when for

your Christian faith, you may be

abandoned by friends, abandoned by

family. You may be pressured by culture,

but we cannot allow these things to

deter us from doing what God has called

us to do. We can't be derailed by the

cultural pressure of groups who would

slander us because we will not affirm

the culture of godlessness

that is permeating our society.

See, living in a fallen world and

storming Satan's kingdom with the gospel

will bring tribulation. But if we're

going to fulfill God's plan, as Paul and

Barnabas did, we've got to push through

it. We've got to persevere,

stay strong in the faith. Paul and

Barnabas didn't give up, and neither

should we. What we notice on this first

missionary journey is that as they

persevered, as they pushed through, as

they endure trials, they just moved on

to the next city and kept preaching the

gospel. And so, if we're going to

fulfill God's plan, we not only must

persevere through tribulation, we've got

to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

After Paul was stoned at Lististra, he

moves on to Derby at the end of verse

20. And look what it says in verse 21.

And when they had preached the gospel to

that city, he preached the gospel.

Understand this word preached, it

doesn't mean that he stood behind a a

pulpit and opened the scripture and

exposed exposited a message and

illustrated it in broad application. No,

this is a word that simply means

evangelism,

to proclaim good news. It meant that

everywhere Paul and Barnabas went, they

simply proclaimed the gospel of Jesus

Christ. No amount of suffering that he

endured changed his message. He did not

lighten it up. He did not water it down.

He continued to call these these people

in these pagan cities to repent and turn

from their sin and turn from their

idolatrous practices to the living God

just like he did in in in uh in uh

Lististra.

He didn't just accommodate to the

culture. He didn't preach to make people

comfortable. He didn't preach to draw in

a crowd. He preached on sin. He preached

on judgment to come. But he preached

that there's a savior in Jesus. A savior

who gave his life on the cross. A savior

who rose again the third day. A savior

who has ascended into heaven and is

enthroned in glory. and a savior who

will return to redeem and to save his

people while judging his enemies.

He preached it straight and true and

called on them to believe on Jesus

Christ that if they would trust in him,

all their sins could be forgiven and

they could enter God's kingdom. But only

through the door of faith. They had to

enter by faith.

But I also want to point out that Paul

did not just preach the gospel.

Look at verse 21. It says, "And when

they had preached the gospel to that

city and had taught many." This word

taught is a word that means to make

disciples. It's the same word that Jesus

spoke when he told his disciples in

Matthew 28:19, "Go ye therefore and

Matthew 28:19

teach all nations."

That word teach means to make disciples

to make followers of Jesus Christ. Well,

how do you do that? Jesus told them,

baptizing them in the name of the father

and of the son and the holy ghost. And

then he said, teaching them to observe

all things whatsoever I have commanded

you. They understood that their

responsibility was not just to preach

the gospel, but it was to teach

believers to then follow Christ. You

ever heard of an apprentice?

An apprentice is somebody who who who

learns a trade or a skill under the

guidance of an experienced professional.

It could be a mechanic. It could be a

carpenter or an electrician. But what

they do is they they spend their time

learning under someone else who is

skilled uh how to how to run electrical

wires. And they learn all of these

skills of this trade so that they can

follow in the footsteps of the master

tradesman.

It's something they have little to no

experience with. They must be taught.

Well, listen. A new believer, especially

from a pagan culture, is not going to

learn to follow Jesus on their own.

That they they must be taught by those

who have learned, those who have grown,

those who have developed some skills in

the scripture and some understanding

theologically and and some some

understanding of what it looks like to

follow Jesus. They must be taught how to

read the Bible, how to pray, how to

live, how to practice the Christian

faith. And what it shows us is that

God's plan is not just that their

eternal soul would be redeemed, but

their entire life would be redeemed. Can

I tell you today, God wants to redeem

not just your soul, but your life.

He wants to free you from sin. He wants

to set you free from addiction. He wants

to liberate you from your past. He wants

to clean you up. He wants to cleanse

you. He wants to make you a new creature

in Christ. That is God's plan. But it

won't happen on its own. Sometimes a

church has to come alongside new

believers and train them and teach them

in what it means to follow Jesus. That's

what Paul and Barnabas did. Everywhere

they went, they preached the gospel and

they taught many. They made disciples.

And so for us to fulfill God's plan, it

starts with preaching the gospel. As we

face tribulation, it must not cause us

to change our message.

We've got to preach the unadulterated,

undefiled, undiluted gospel of Jesus

Christ. We too, like Paul, must preach

that sin is the real problem. We must

preach the exclusivity of the gospel of

Jesus Christ. The world complains that

Christianity is too exclusive. And to

that I say, complain all you want, but

it's true. Jesus said, "I am the way,

the truth, and the life. No man cometh

unto the Father but by me." The Apostle

Peter said, "There is none other name

under heaven given among men whereby we

must be saved." There is only one way

into God's kingdom, and that is through

the one who said, "I am the door. I am

the door." You must enter by him. You

must enter by faith in him. We must not

shy away from the fact that if you do

not believe on Jesus Christ, you will

stand condemned before God and face his

judgment for all of eternity. We must

not shy away from hell and judgment.

We must preach that Jesus died for your

sin, that God raised him from the dead,

that God enthroned him in glory, and

that if you will believe and call on him

to be your savior, you can be forgiven,

and you can enter the door as well. But

it will only be by grace alone through

faith alone in Christ alone. You cannot

enter God's kingdom through Buddha. You

cannot enter God's kingdom through Allah

and Muhammad. You cannot enter God's

kingdom through Krishna or through

Joseph Smith or any other false prophet

or any other false god. Friend, there is

only one way.

But instead of being frustrated that

there's only one way, we ought to be

thankful to God that there's a way at

all.

He is under no obligation to redeem our

wretched souls. But he did it because

he's gracious, merciful, and loving,

even to those who killed him.

Thousands of Jews were saved by the

grace of God, and they were saved one

way, by trusting in Jesus. Let me say it

to you this morning if you're not a

believer that God will accept you today,

right here, right now. He will give you

access to his kingdom if you will enter

through the door of faith. Would you

trust Christ today? He's the only way.

But church, fulfilling God's plan

doesn't end with preaching the gospel.

We are called to teach new believers to

follow Christ, to make disciples. Can I

tell you this this morning that while

the church is called to make disciples,

friend, you are called to be a disciple.

You are called not just to get saved and

say, "Oh, thank you, God. I'm glad I got

my get out of hell free card." No. God's

plan is for you to start following Jesus

and to stop following the world. It's to

clean up your life. It's to be holy, to

be sanctified, to be godly and

righteous, and do what Christ has called

you to do. God is interested in

redeeming all of you. not just some of

you. And so for some of us, being his

disciple requires a heart of submission,

a heart of humility, that I'm going to

let go of my old ways and embrace the

new ways of Jesus Christ.

But as a church, how are people going to

go from a pagan religion

or a life of agnosticism

or a life of atheism,

a life where they have been educated or

indoctrinated from the time they were in

daycare through all of their college

years to believe that God does not

exist, to believe that the Bible is not

a solid authority.

How are they to go from that state to

being a genuine follower of Jesus

Christ? We must teach them. That's why

as a church we have Sunday services and

we open the word of God and proclaim the

gospel of Jesus Christ. It's why we have

life connection on Sunday nights where

we we can dive further into how this

truth connects to our lives personally

is to teach each and every one of us to

follow Jesus. It's why we have midweek

Bible study where we're going through uh

Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and now

we're in the book of Numbers. It's

because u Paul says in 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10 that the things that are

written in the Old Testament are

examples to us that we should not live

like them, that we should not complain

like them, that we should not be

idolattors like them, that we should not

be sexually immoral like them, but that

we would go on to follow Jesus Christ.

That's why we have midweek Bible study.

It's why we have ladies Bible studies.

It's why we have one-on-one disciplehip

courses because the church has the

responsibility to teach every believer

to follow Christ and be his disciple.

Can I ask you if you're here this

morning, do you take disciplehip

seriously?

Do you see church as a necessity in your

life

that you need as much of scripture as

you can possibly get because it's the

only way you can follow Christ?

I would encourage you to consider

how does God want me to grow in

faithfulness and in the development of

my Christian walk to follow Jesus Christ

to fulfill God's plan. We must not only

persevere through tribulation. We need

to preach the gospel and we need to make

disciples.

God's plan, however, is not for new

believers

to be lone wolves.

It's to bring believers together into a

unified community of believers that we

call a church.

And so to fulfill God's plan, number

three, we must plant churches.

A church

is the end goal.

It's not just reaching people for

Christ, though that is first and

foremost. And it's not just discipling

believers. is to organize and establish

a New Testament church, an outpost, an

embassy for the kingdom of God to

represent him in reaching the city for

Jesus Christ. We see it in what happens

next. It says in verse 21, "And when

they had preached the gospel to that

city and had taught many, they returned

again to Lististra, to Iconium, and

Antioch. They went back to the cities

they were kicked out of."

Why did they do that? First of all, it

says in verse 22, confirming the souls

of the disciples. This word confirm, it

means to shore up. It means to

strengthen. It means to make firm and

resolute. They went back to these cities

because these are brand new believers

who have been saved within the recent

months and weeks and even days. And what

they have said is seen is the ones who

came to preach the gospel to them have

been majorly persecuted. They have been

kicked out of town and in Lististra even

stoned and left for dead.

They see the apostle Paul coming to them

bloodied, broken and bruised from his

recent stoning at Lististra.

And the tribulation that Paul and

Barnabas faced has likely been turned to

those who were left behind.

These new believers,

it's hard for a strong and established

Christian of 20 years to stand in the

face of persecution. Nonetheless,

somebody who just recently trusted

Christ as their savior.

And so they come to shore them up.

Imagine

like a football coach huddles the team

together and reminds them of the game

plan and instills belief and confidence

in them that Paul has huddled the

churches together in each city and he's

looked at them through black eyes with

cuts and lesions and bruises all over

his body and he's looked them each in

the eyes and he said this Jesus who gave

his life for me and gave his life for

you is worth every bruise on my broken

body.

He's worth it. This Jesus is real. This

God is real. This faith is real. Eternal

life is real. So don't allow the

bruises. Don't allow the tribulation and

the suffering to cause you to shrink

back in your Christian faith. Persevere.

Push through. Can you hear him coaching?

Just as he had gone and moved on to the

next city and the next city and the next

city, he's calling them continue in the

faith. It says in verse 22, confirming

the souls of the disciples and exhorting

them to continue in the faith.

He tells them,

"We must

through much tribulation

enter into the kingdom of God."

The idea that believers will not face

any tribulation whatsoever before

entering the kingdom is a concept that

is foreign to the scripture.

Jesus said in this world ye shall have

tribulation. The apostle Paul has told

these believers we must through much

tribulation enter the kingdom of God. He

tells them, "Tribulation

will come. But let me shore you up and

strengthen you that Christ is worth it."

And on the other side of this world of

tribulation is a glorious entrance into

a kingdom in which all sin and suffering

and evil is banished forever more. So

keep going. Don't shrink back. Stay

faithful.

It says in verse 23,

"When they had ordained them elders in

every church and had prayed with

fasting,

they committed them to the Lord on whom

they believed." Can you imagine this for

a moment?

Paul has gone through each city

and at most spent perhaps a few weeks in

each city. He has preached the gospel.

Multitudes have believed. They've been

dramatically persecuted and even left

for dead.

Paul comes to this group of new

believers

and he says, "I want you

and you to serve as an elder in this

church

to lead this church forward."

You think one of them new believers may

have raised his hand and said, "Um,

Paul, I don't know very much.

I just got saved. I'm not that strong.

I don't know how this is going to work."

Imagine that happen. We don't do this

this way anymore.

often times somebody comes and they

plant and pastor, they they they preach

the gospel, they disciple, they baptize,

they organize the church and and that

pastor leads that church forward. But

Paul was a different kind of missionary.

He had a different calling in his life.

And all he could do was say, "Okay, we

have to move on to another region." And

so, we're going to organize this church

and structure it. And we're going to

appoint these elders to help oversee.

That's what the word elder means. It

means overseers. They're older,

respected people who can oversee and

administrate and yet they would morph

and be developed into into gospel

preachers and they would feed the flock

of God and teach the scripture and

disciple themselves.

That seems like a big task for a bunch

of new believers.

Well, Paul didn't leave them to do it on

their own.

It says they prayed,

fasted over them. That's a deep

expression of dependence on God. And it

says they commended them to the Lord on

whom they had believed. You know what

that means? They trusted these

congregations

into the safekeeping of Christ.

Paul told them, "The one that you have

trusted in

is able to lead you forward.

So we have set forth the pattern here.

You pray, you fast, you preach, you

persevere

and this church will become established

and grow as a result.

And that is what we have all been called

to do if we're going to fulfill God's

plan.

That we've got to preach.

We've got to persevere through the

tribulation that we face. But God's

ultimate plan is for a church to be

planted to carry on the work.

And that is what we are endeavoring to

do right here at Boulder Valley.

We're going to be celebrating 5 years in

June. It's hard to believe. It's been a

long and challenging road. You can look

around this morning and say that there's

not as many people as we've seen in here

before.

It's okay to address the elephant in the

room, but to that I would just simply

say what Paul said to these believers.

Continue in the faith.

Persevere.

Stay strong.

Preach the gospel.

Plant this church deeply rooted. But

it'll only be uh it'll only happen by

the power of God. that at times we've

got to pray and we've got to fast and

we've got to understand that God wants

to organize a a group of believers here

who can stand strong in the faith

together, who can encourage one another

and support one another and worship and

serve together and evangelize together.

One who can pray for each other to

persevere through the tribulations that

you face in your life. But God's plan is

not that his church would be without

leadership.

Churches need elders. They need men to

pastor and shepherd and lead God's

people to fulfill God's plan.

Now, as the church began to develop,

let's remember this is the first

missionary journey. This is the first

time that churches have really been

planted outside of Judea.

And so, all they had were new believers.

They didn't really have much of a choice

there. But later as Paul wrote to

Timothy who was pastoring in Ephesus, he

says, "Don't appoint noviceses,

brand new believers to be the pastors.

They need to have some qualifications.

They need to be blameless. They need to

be of good reputation. They need to not

be drunks and strikers and brawlers.

They they need to be godly men, the

husband of one wife. They need to have

their family in subjection with all

gravity." And so Paul later gives

instruction for the kind of

qualifications that men should have to

serve as pastors and elders in a local

church. They need to be qualified. But

listen,

first and foremost,

the pastors need to be prayed for and

they at times need to be fasted over.

Why? Because the power of that pastor

alone is not enough to lead a church

forward. It's not enough.

He needs to depend on God's grace, God's

gifting, and God's enablement to do the

ministry.

The church has been established and

organized to reach its city for Christ,

but also for your spiritual benefit.

This is why becoming a member is such a

big deal. It brings you into a deeper

connection, support, and accountability

with a body of believers.

It unites us to labor together because

what we can accomplish together far

surpasses what anybody can accomplish

themselves as a lonewolf Christian.

The church is necessary to fulfilling

God's plan.

And so we've got to persevere through

tribulation.

We must preach the gospel and we must

plant churches. All three of those

things are necessary, but

they are impossible

to do

by human hands alone.

We need a power that is beyond our own.

Which brings us to the final point of

this passage, and that is this. To

fulfill God's plan, we must have God's

power.

We must have God's power.

If you look at verse 24,

it says, "And after they had passed

through Pacidia, they came to Panilia.

And when they had preached the word in

Perga, they went down to Italia and then

sailed to Antioch from which they had

been recommended to the grace of God for

the work which they fulfilled." Do you

see that? This takes us back to Acts

Acts 13:3

13:3 when the Holy Spirit said,

"Separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the

work whereinto I have called them." And

the church at Antioch prayed over them

and fasted over them. And they too

entrusted them into the safekeeping

hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What Paul and Barnabas did along this

missionary journey was not by the power

of their own human hands. The fact that

they fulfilled this work was because of

the evident power of the grace of God

working in them. It was the power of God

that silenced the sorcerer in Pyos. It

was the spirit's power that enabled them

to perform wonders and signs and

miracles at Antioch that gave testimony

to the message they were preaching. It

was the power of Jesus Christ that

healed that crippled man at Lististra.

the spirit that filled them with

boldness to preach in the face of

persecution. It was the power of God by

which Paul rose up from that stoning.

And according to his later accounts of

perhaps this very event in 1 Corinthians

or perhaps 2 Corinthians, Paul talks

about how he was caught up into heaven

and he saw unspeakable things and yet he

could not write them and he could not

talk about them and Jesus said, "I'm not

done with you." And he sent him back.

The indications are that Paul died on

that streets outside of Lististra and

that God raised him from the dead and he

went back to preaching the gospel again.

I'm telling you what Paul and Barnabas

accomplished. The work that they

fulfilled was not by the power of their

hands but by God's hands. It says in

verse 27, "When they were coming, they'd

gathered the church together. They

rehearsed all that God had done with

them and how he had opened the door of

faith unto the Gentiles. And there they

have a long time with the disciples. You

know what they're saying?

Back when God sent us, he had a plan to

open the door of faith to all the

Gentiles.

And he has done the work through us. and

he has opened the door of faith.

Fulfilling God's work was not

accomplished by Paul and Barnabas's

power, but by God's.

Over here behind this partition,

we have a our sound equipment rack.

There's a lot going on over there.

There's a power conditioner. There's a

an audio mixer, an equalizer, an

amplifier. There's some uh there's some

uh wireless microphone receivers. And so

there's a lot of information coming in

and out of that. And everything going on

in that rack is vitally important and

necessary to you hearing good quality

sound in here on Sunday mornings. Even

if you think it's too loud or even if

you think it's too quiet, it's

necessary. It's necessary to stream our

messages out uh on YouTube and to get

them on Apple Podcast and Spotify.

Everything in that rack is essential to

fulfilling its purpose.

But there's something more essential

than each of those things. And that's

the power outlet over there against the

wall. Because if that system is not

plugged into that source, it can't

fulfill its purpose.

what we've talked about this morning.

Perseverance,

preaching the gospel, planting churches,

all three of those things are absolutely

essential to fulfilling the plan of God.

But unless our lives are plugged into

the power source, which is God Almighty,

we can't do a thing.

And so for us to fulfill God's plan,

we got to trust God's hand.

Think about it for a moment.

The power for you to persevere

when your family abandons you. When your

friends oppose you, when the world hates

and criticizes and slanders you. When

your health is failing and your accounts

are draining, when you feel pain and

suffering and hardship, persevering is

the last thing that you want to do. It's

much easier to just throw in the towel

and say, "Forget it." We can't do that

on our own. Preaching the gospel

publicly sharing your faith is a

daunting task.

The idea of handing a gospel invitation

to a cashier who looks like the

stereotypical god-hater is intimidating.

Knocking doors on the hill with a bunch

of college students who have

indoctrinated by a bunch of college

professors.

That's a scary thought.

standing in a pulpit and preaching into

the cultural matters

and the pressure that comes down and

things that that are culturally divisive

issues, things like homosexuality,

things like transgenderism, things like

abortion, things that are other

political matters as well that when you

address moral issues and you address

political issues, it's bound to bring

backlash. It's prone to bring fear. It's

prone to bring trepidation. You can't do

something like that on your own.

Planting churches is certainly not for

the faint of heart. It takes time, work,

and much patience. There's opposition.

There's discouraging times when you're

left wondering, "What more can I

possibly do?

Feel like I've done all that I can."

But thankfully, God has not left us

alone to fulfill his plan.

When Jesus gave the great commission to

his disciples, he gave them these final

words of promise. I am with you always,

even unto the end of the world. Amen.

On Pentecost, he poured out his spirit

upon his people that gifts us and

empowers us and emboldens us to

persevere and to proclaim the gospel and

to plant churches. I want you to know

today that the triune God Almighty still

works in you just as he did in the

apostles to fulfill his plan. You don't

have to do it on your own. But for you

to experience the power of God, you've

got to plug your life into him

that you've got to regularly spend time

in fervent and earnest prayer over every

tribulation that you're facing.

Don't just sit in a chair and wallow in

the struggle that you're going through.

Don't just complain to people in your

life about the sorrow you're

experiencing and the grief that you're

feeling or the pain that you're

enduring. Get on your knees before God

and pour it out to him and and express

to him the depression and the anxiety

that you have. God, I don't feel like I

can go on another moment.

Paul

told the Lord

three times

wherever this thorn in his flesh was

evidently a physical ailment he was

dealing with. He begged God three times

would you please take it away and every

time the answer was no. And finally the

Lord said my grace is sufficient for

thee for my strength is made perfect in

weakness. And Paul said,"Most gladly,

therefore, will I glory in my

infirmities." Why? How can you glory in

sickness? How can you glory in

suffering? How can you glory in

persecution when you understand that the

weaker I am, the stronger he is?

You can tap into his power today,

friend.

Before every time you share the gospel

with somebody, your friend, your family,

a total stranger,

you need to be prayed up and empowered

by the spirit, begging him, give me the

power to speak, the wisdom to know what

to say, how much to push, when to back

off. What I understand is you've called

me to publicly share the gospel, but I

know that I am totally insufficient to

do so, but you are totally sufficient to

help me. Would you empower me

as we labor

to establish this church

to go to doortodoor with the gospel,

to have community events, to try to have

ministries of presence as we try to go

to restaurants and and grocery stores

and and soccer teams and try to build

relationships with people in our

community. We can do that all we want

and we should. But unless we are bathing

our life in prayer for the power of God,

we will be powerless.

But thankfully,

we'll just get ourselves plugged into

the source.

We can have the power we need to

persevere,

the power we need to proclaim the

gospel, the power we need to plant not

only this church, but to have our eyes,

our hearts, and our minds set on the

frontiers of the world to plant churches

elsewhere.

It's how we fulfill God's plan.

But it'll only be done by God's power.

Let me ask you today, what tribulations

are you going through now,

the pain,

the sorrow,

the grief,

perhaps the financial setback, the

chronic health issue, the loss of

someone you love, the oppression of your

family, the cultural pressure at work.

What tribulation are you going through?

Fear not, friend. Jesus has overcome the

world.

Be strong. Paul said this to Timothy who

was ministering in a pagan culture where

there was a lot of persecution and a lot

of oppression not only from the Jews,

but the Gentiles as well. He said, "Be

strong in the grace that is in Christ

Jesus."

Believer, I want to share that same

power with you today. Trust Christ.

Depend on him.

Who are you trying to share the gospel

with this week?

Pray for them. Pray for God to fill you

and give you the words to speak to them.

Are you growing discouraged with how

long it's taking to establish this

church?

Friend, don't give up. Get involved.

Get involved in reaching the city for

Christ. Get involved in discipling and

training and teaching others. make sure

that you're more faithful to services

where you can take in the encouragement

from your brothers and sisters in Christ

and receive the training and instruction

in scripture that you desperately need.

How do you need to get involved?

However the spirit of God is tugging on

your heart today, what we know is this.

We can't do any of it without his power.

It all starts with prayer.

So let's do just that. Our father, we

come to you

recognizing that your plan is great

and you have been working to accomplish

it

before the world was ever created.

And you have faithfully fulfilled every

promise you ever made to bring the

Savior.

And now you have called us who have

believed to be a part of your grand plan

of opening the door of faith to all the

world. We recognize humbly before you

today that we cannot do so without your

power. So would you fill us, empower us,

embolden us, give us the resilience and

the strength to persevere. Give us the

wisdom and clarity to proclaim the

gospel. Give us the resilience and the

strength to plant this church

that Christ may be spoken throughout the

city. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.