Change Can Be Difficult

Way to chapter 18.

If you have a Bible you want to follow along, you can just turn to Acts chapter 18 in the New Testament.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

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You know, sometimes uh life can be difficult, especially when we go through a major change in our life situation.

I remember one of the most vivid times that I saw this take place was when we moved to Elmhurst from northeastern Pennsylvania some, I don't know, 60, 70 years ago.

And uh our kids were small.

We moved into a house here in Elmhurst, and uh we went into the house and boxes were stacked way up high in the main room and in other rooms.

And I remember my four-year-old son Ryan was having a really difficult time with this move.

Everything was chaotic, and you know, we're rushing around, and he just came into the house and he looked at those boxes.

He didn't know how to respond exactly.

So what he did is he went up to the boxes and he said, I hate you, Box! I hate you, Box.

That was his response to change.

Sometimes we'll have a house we'll have a hard time.

Um and we've been following the Apostle Paul on his missionary journeys to share the gospel of Jesus to cities all over Asia Minor and Greece.

And I think one place Paul might have wanted to say, I hate these boxes, I hate these boxes, is the city we're gonna look at today, the city of Corinth, where he will find it one of the most challenging, challenging cities in his ministry so far.

I have three things I want to consider today.

First, I want to just do a little review, um, overview of Paul's missionary journey so far.

We're coming down to the end of those journeys, but here I want to talk about where we've been.

We're gonna talk about where he went, what he did, and the problems he faced.

Then we'll consider the Corinthian chronicles today, and we'll look at then finally Paul's Corinthian crisis.

So, first, the overview of Paul's missionary journeys.

First, uh Paul's first missionary journey with Barnabas began in a Syrian Antioch, and he traveled basically, here's Assyrian Antioch.

They went down to Seleucia, got a boat, and they went to the island of Cyprus.

Then they went up to the region of Galatia, province of Galatia, and they went to Antioch and Poseidon, Iconium, Durian, and Lys Lystra.

And then they had to come back to Jerusalem because there was a problem in the church of understanding exactly what the gospel says.

Um, but when he uh went on a second missionary journey, the elders in Jerusalem decided here's what the gospel is.

Now go tell the other churches that you've been to our decision on clearly what the message of the gospel is.

So now on a second missionary journey, he starts in Jerusalem.

He goes back up to visit the churches where he was, Galatians, back to Antioch, all of these churches.

Then he goes to Troas because he wants to go into Macedonia to preach the gospel.

On his second missionary journey, he stops in Philippi, then to Thethalonica, then Berea.

Then he gets dropped off in Athens, where he has a wonderful ministry there.

And uh today he's gonna go across to Corinth.

We'll look at that in a minute.

So the second question that's where Paul went.

What did he do on these journeys as an ambassador for Christ?

Well, I think he followed God's priority that he saw in scripture.

He went to the Jews first.

Uh, he Paul says this in Romans 1:16 I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

Romans 1:16

It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

And when Paul would come into a city, he would go right to the synagogue where the Jews were and start preaching the gospel of Jesus using their Old Testament scriptures to do that.

And and sometimes people would respond and believe in Jesus based on what Paul was saying.

But after Paul would meet with the Jews, he would go right out into the marketplace in that city, center of town, and begin to have conversations with people there about the gospel, about Jesus and how salvation can be found in him.

The good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead.

In each case, some Jews from the synagogue and some people from the marketplace would believe in Jesus, and that's how those churches were planted in each of those cities.

And then the last thing that would happen, the third thing happened in almost every city for Paul, was that he encountered problems, sometimes violent opposition, sometimes dragged to the authorities, uh jailed, and so on.

Um, and he had to leave.

Almost every case that's been happening.

Today we're gonna look at Paul's ministry in the next city of Corinth.

We're gonna see a similar pattern.

He went to Corinth, he found a synagogue, and that's where he begins in Corinth, which we're gonna be looking at today.

I'm just gonna read the first four verses right now to get us started in Acts chapter 18, if you wanted to follow along.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

Uh, after these things, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Achilla, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius, who was the emperor, had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome and he came to them.

And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and were working for the by the trade, they were tent makers.

And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

When Paul arrived in Corinth, this was a very difficult adjustment for him.

It was like going from Elmhurst to Las Vegas.

Okay?

I mean, it was that dramatic of a change.

The population of Corinth in the New Testament times was over 200,000, uh, 20 times more than the place he just left in Athens.

Athens, where he was, was an intellectual center of the world at the time, where Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, those philosophers were all part of the Athens intellectual elite.

And if we remember, in Acts 17, Paul fit right in there.

He was an intellectual, he was a skilled academic, and he went toe-to-toe with the philosophers there.

But in Corinth, he's out of his comfort zone.

This now is a blue-collar city.

It was a the commercial center of the world, commanding trade in all directions, uh by sea and by land.

The trade routes were there.

It was a city of commerce.

It was full of sailors, merchant marines, uh, business and trades of all kinds.

And Corinth was located, I think I showed you on the map earlier, on the isthmus of this, in the Aegean Sea right here, uh in Achaea, province of Ikea.

Uh, it was actually the capital of Achaea, that big thing there.

And like Athens, Corinth had a large agora, a marketplace right in the center of the city, uh, where everything took place, if you remember us talking about that.

It was also a city uh populated mostly by Gentiles.

There weren't a whole lot of Jews there.

There were some, because they were fleeing uh Rome and other places from the emperor uh who was making them uh get out of town, uh the Jews there.

Uh but the Gentiles who were there not only worshipped idols Paul was encountering, they were also engaged in Corinth in notorious immorality, was famous for it.

Uh records, historical records show that they had at this time about a thousand female slaves that served in the temple of Aphrodite, and they roamed the city at night as prostitutes.

That was the normal way of life in Corinth.

And uh I'm not gonna go into all the other um amazing, incredible uh depravity there, but because of its rampant immorality of all kinds, in ancient times the word Corinthianostases meant to be immoral.

Oh, you're a Corinthianostasis, engaging in all kinds of immoral activity.

So, in other words, in this city, Paul's really got his work cut out for him.

He's very much out of his league, he's out of his element.

This is a very uh difficult change for him, uh, as we'll see.

In fact, so much so that eventually eventually he's gonna get so frustrated that he's tempted to leave.

But uh Paul must have gone there because he recognized the strategic importance uh of Corinth's location, because if the trade routes were going all over the world, so could the gospel from Corinth.

In Acts 18, what's happening here?

I'll try to go through this.

Luke, who's writing Acts, gives us four scenes uh of Paul's ministry in Corinth.

The first scene we just read, Paul searches for a tent making shop in Corinth in order to make some money.

He's there all alone.

He's and uh so he searches.

Uh you see, when when Saul Paul was a young Jew in Tarsus, Paul apprenticed as a leather maker, a tent maker, because it was the Jewish law, an expectation every seminary student, which he was as a young man, should learn a trade.

Well, the trade he chose was making tents and being a leather worker.

And when Paul arrived at Corinth, uh he found a local tent making shop, and he met uh a fellow tent maker, a believer in Jesus by the name of Achilla and his wife Priscilla.

And they became great partners in the ministry, encouraging one another through the years that would follow.

Corinth was made up of a city of local Greeks, Roman army veterans, businessmen, government officials, a large number of Jews who had fled persecution in Rome, in other provinces.

That's why Achilla and Priscilla are there.

They fled Rome when Emperor Claudius made them leave.

He banished all Jewish Christians there because of the trouble they were making in Rome.

That's the first scene.

The second scene Luke gives us is when Silas and Timothy, Paul's other partners, finally come to Corinth to join him, meet up with him from where they were in Macedonia.

Let me read that in Acts 18, beginning in verse 5.

But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads.

I'm clean.

From now on, I'm going to go to the Gentiles.

Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Tetius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue.

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized.

Now, when Silas and Timothy joined Paul in Corinth, it changed everything for Paul.

First, Silas and Timothy brought good news about the Christians they had just planting a church in Thessalonica.

They gave news to Paul that was better than he expected.

They were doing well.

And here's what he's writing from Corinth now.

Paul is writing from Corinth to the Thessalonians to tell him this.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, verses 6 to 8.

1 Thessalonians 3:6–8

He says to the Thessalonians, but now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we long to see you.

For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction, we were comforted about you through your faith.

For now we really live if you stand firm in the Lord.

So Paul's greatly encouraged by that news from Silas and Timothy, the place they just planted a church in Macedonia.

The second reason that happens there, Silas and Timothy brought a gift of money for Paul from the church in Philippi, where they just were, to help support Paul's ministry.

Let me read you his letter to the Philippians about that.

Chapter 4, verse 14.

He writes to the Philippians, Nevertheless, you've done well to share with me in my affliction.

You yourselves know, Philippians, that from the first preaching of the gospel after I left Macedonia, no church entered with me in the matter of giving and receiving, but you alone.

For even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs.

Now it was what's encouraging for Paul is they brought this gift of money from the church in Philippi.

Now he didn't have to make tents anymore.

He had enough so he could just focus on God's word, preaching the gospel.

And that's what he did.

He focused on the word.

And after many of the Jews rejected Paul's message of the gospel, Paul shook off his garments, as we we read, and said he was going to the Gentiles.

And this is where it starts to get really discouraging for Paul.

However, some positive things were happening.

The leader of the synagogue, Crispus, believed in the Lord, and there were other people who believed, Corinthians, who believed and were baptized.

And then Paul went to stay with, he had to go stay with a Roman Gentile, Titius Justus, who lived next to the synagogue, who became a believer.

Now, if you read the scripture, well, you run into his less formal name, Gaius.

Paul refers to him and Crispus in his letter to the Corinthians when he says, I thank God I baptize none of you except Crispus and Gaius.

Gaius, who was a Gentile believer, apparently believed in the Lord after listening to Paul, and most likely Gaius' house became the place where the church met in Corinth.

The third scene Luke gives us about Corinth is verses 9 to 11, where the Lord encourages Paul in a vision, and I'm going to come back to that in a minute.

The fourth scene Luke gives us in Corinth is where Paul is brought before Gileo, the Roman proconsul, to face charges of creating a disorder in the city.

I want to read that.

Acts 18, verse 12.

Acts 18:12

But while Gileo was proconsul of Rachaea, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul, brought him before the judgment seat, saying, This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.

But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gileo said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or a vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you.

But if there are questions about words and names in your law, look after it yourselves.

I'm unwilling to be a judge of these matters.

And he drove them away from the judgment seat.

And they and all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue band, beating him in front of the judgment seat.

But Galileo was not concerned about any of these things.

Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren, put out for sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Achilla in Sancria.

He had his hair cut for he was keeping a vow.

Paul was preaching in Corinth eight or nine months before Galileo showed up to be proconsul, which is kind of a governor of Rome for that area.

The names of the officials Paul mentions in the book of Acts gives us an accurate date for when these things happened.

We know when Galillo was there in 49 A.D., and he left nine months later.

It's interesting that Galileo's younger brother was Seneca, if you're familiar with any hit Greek history, and Seneca tutored the young Nero before he became emperor.

But let me say a word about Acts 18, 12.

Paul's brought before what is called the judgment seat.

In Greek it's called the Bima, the Bima seat.

There's a picture of one.

It's a raised platform in the center of town where officials would stand on it and make pronouncements, announcements.

And this is where all the legal matters were brought for the governor of the pro-consul to uh issue a judgment.

It's called a beam a seat, judgment seat.

And uh the pro council's house, by the way, was usually right behind that uh raised platform, the beam's seat.

By the way, the reason I'm mentioning it is because Paul uses the Roman bima seat, the judgment seat, in his second letter to the Corinthians as a word picture describing Christ's future judgment of Christians when he returns.

We're gonna stand before his bhima seat and receive uh justice.

Um Corinthians 5, verse 10.

We must all appear before the judgment seat, the bhima of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he's done, good or bad.

Uh this is written to believers.

It's not the final great white throne judgment determining eternal destiny.

This is determining, I believe, in my thinking, um, rewards and losses in Christ's kingdom based on how we lived in this life now as Christians.

We'll be held accountable, in other words, uh, for the grace we've been given.

And uh I could I could spend a whole sermon on that, but I won't.

So praise God.

Okay.

The the Jews then took out their wrath on Sosthenes.

Poor guy.

They they needed to they need to get their anger out at Paul somewhere, so they beat this guy.

Uh well, that brings us to the the final main point today, Paul's Corinthian crisis.

When Paul made the transition from Athens to preach the gospel in Corinth, he was scared out of his mind.

I want you to know that because even the apostle Paul got scared when it came to sharing Christ with other people, when it came to publicly identifying himself as a Christian, and many times it cost him to do that.

But he's coming and he's scared out of his mind.

Listen to what Paul says again in his first letter to the Corinthians about the first time he was there, talking about Acts 18.

And 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1, he says, When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

1 Corinthians 2:1

I Determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power.

So your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

When Paul came to Corinth, he was all alone.

He was out of his element.

He was witnessing deep-seated idolatry everywhere, immorality, corruption, depravity.

He must have asked, will anybody listen to what I have to say about the gospel of Jesus?

He came to die for sin, and I'm looking, and all I see is sin.

When Paul shared the gospel of the Jews, he thought at least they could understand.

They understood sin.

They understood the prophecies of the Messiah, and he starts preaching to them.

And they rejected.

They threw him out, basically.

In fact, brought him to the pro council to press charges for talking about this.

Okay, take all of that and just put yourself in Paul's place, being very discouraged, distressed, even maybe angry, and wanting to just walk away.

Paul's fearful, discouraged, rejected.

Why didn't Paul leave?

Why didn't he why didn't he give up?

He didn't give up because the Lord gave him the confidence he needed to hear to keep going, which is the same thing he wants to do with each of us.

Because life is going to get hard sometimes.

Change is going to be difficult.

You know, uh just living, just living itself.

We go through seasons of life.

This may surprise you, but I'm getting old.

I feel old.

I feel some mornings like I'm 90.

Where did that come from?

Change.

I'm gonna have to adjust to it.

I don't necessarily like it.

Sometimes it's discouraging.

He Paul didn't give up, although I'm sure he wanted to, because it was not a friendly place to be, and it was a depraved place to be.

Temptations all around.

And uh and that's where I want to return to Acts 18, 9 to 11, where I think the Lord understood where what Paul was feeling, what he was experiencing, and he met him in a dream.

And Paul clearly heard this voice.

The Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, do not be afraid any longer.

But go on speaking, don't be silent.

You know why?

I'm with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.

And so Paul settled there a year and six months, the word of God, teaching the word of God among them.

The Lord told Paul not to be afraid, but go on, speaking, get up.

You've got an important message.

In fact, you've got the most important message in the universe that can transform a person's life, and I need you to keep going.

And Paul, uh Jesus gave him three assurances you see in this passage to encourage him to keep going.

He gave them the assurance that he was with him.

We all need that, he's never going to forsake us.

He gave Paul the assurance of his protection.

We need to know that too.

And he gave Paul the assurance that Paul was not alone.

And that's what we need each other.

None of us should feel alone in the body of Christ.

That's important why we do gather together, fellowship together, worship together.

We need to know, you need to know, we are not alone.

Sometimes that's probably the most significant thing we'll we'll receive from each other.

You know, the definition of fellowship is a bunch of fellows in the same ship.

That's what we are.

And with those words, he heard from the Lord, Paul got the strength, as hard as it was, to stay there another 18 months, and perhaps prompted Paul later on to write, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4 13.

What does it mean for us when we feel alone, discouraged, rejected, even angry?

We aren't seeing the fruit of our labors, uh, life has become tough, change is happening, chaos.

When we're discouraged or feel like Quinn, we need to know that the Lord has given us the same assurances in the scripture that he gave Paul in his vision, like Isaiah 41:10.

Isaiah 41:10

Fear not, God says, I am with you.

Don't be dismayed.

I am your God.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I'll hold you with my victorious right hand.

The first words the Lord wants to say to us are the first words he said repeatedly to people throughout the entire Bible.

Don't be afraid, don't fear.

I'm with you.

It's like over and over again, he's repeating it through the scripture to everybody because why?

Because we get scared.

Life happens, changes happen, and we're we react in fear.

This summer I'm gonna have a lot to say.

I'm gonna change to uh we're gonna move out of an acts for a while, and we're gonna talk about uh faith.

What faith is, how we get faith, and how to live in faith this summer.

I hope you can be there because this is tied into this exactly.

Um, and the reasons we don't need to be afraid are the same reasons the Lord gave Paul.

He's with us, he'll help us, he'll strengthen us, he'll uphold us.

We just need to have the faith to trust that promise.

We see in Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church's efforts to help them.

His first letter to the Corinthians, he left and he's hearing about the problems.

I'm telling you, this church in Corinth, because of their culture and other reasons, they had a lot of problems.

And so his first letter to them, he starts to address those problems point blank.

He addressed the problem of divisions in their church.

He addressed the problem of immorality among believers in their church.

He addressed understanding God's plan for marriage between a man and a woman.

He wrote about navigating many spiritual issues related to idolatry in their culture, understanding the freedom we have in Christ, the danger of being corrupted by bad company and failing in our witness for Christ.

He wrote about understanding the God-designed roles for men and women in their service for Christ, and how important it is for us to understand the Lord's Supper, communion, which we're going to celebrate in just a minute.

He wrote about misunderstanding and misusing spiritual gifts without the priority of love, motivating them.

He writes about knowing the content of the gospel we believe and believing the truth of the resurrection and the coming of Christ's kingdom and the rewards we've received in Christ's kingdom.

He writes about all that.

And he writes about giving generously with the right motives.

A lot.

Someday, maybe 25, 30 years from now, I'll preach through Corinthians.

But since since we don't have those kind of problems, we'll we'll just pass over that, right, Dennis?

I'm kidding.

Maybe some of you don't know when I'm kidding.

But perhaps I want to end with this.

They took pride in their wealth status and freedom.

And in the commercial center of the ancient world, which was Corinth, everybody there, probably just about everybody, was successful and wealthy.

No wonder Paul writes to the Corinthians in his first letter.

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed.

For consider your calling, Corinthians, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God's chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong.

And the base things of the world despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that he may nullify the things that are, so that no man, no man may boast before the Lord.

But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus, who became for us, to us, the wisdom of God, the righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that just it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

Amen to that.

Pride is a problem in every culture, and it really is a tremendous Paul recognized, it's a stumbling block to those who hear the gospel and don't believe pride.

You know the hindrance to the gospel?

I can save myself.

I'm good.

I don't need God, I don't need the crutch of religion.

It's pride.

And the gospel says you can't save yourself.

Your sin will be for God to be judged, and your eternal destiny decided on that.

Now you've got somebody called, his name is Jesus Christ, who went to the cross and died for your sins.

So you could be free for eternity with him.

And all you have to do is believe in him as the Messiah, as your Savior.

And why would you not?

I don't know.

It doesn't make sense.

But I think it comes back to pride.

You must humble yourself, admit that you need him as your savior, who was crucified and raised to give you that gift.

And if you've never done so, could I urge you it's time to just humble yourself before God, ask him to save you because of what Jesus has done for you.

I'd encourage you to do that today, even as I close in prayer right now, just in your heart to God, express that to him.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you that the gospel is as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago in Corinth.

Thank you that you promise to forgive and give anyone eternal life who believes in your son Jesus.

Please help us who believe in Jesus, know that you're with us, that you will strengthen us, help us, uphold us, because you promise to do that no matter what we're going through, both good and difficult times.

I thank you for that and pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.