Acts 14 | Paul's First Journey Part 2

Amen.

Well, if you have a Bible, Acts chapter 14 is where we're going to be.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Get a Bible.

Thanks for praying.

Acts 14.

It might be our birthday, but you can't just eat sugar on your birthday.

We have a dinner, a meat, and potatoes to eat.

Acts chapter 14 is where we're going to be.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

And uh just heads up, we've got four baptisms this morning, so we are gonna move rather swiftly through Acts 14, okay?

So, like last week, it is gonna be quick, okay?

So Acts chapter 14 is where you're gonna wanna be, and I'll give you a second to turn there.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Uh and as you're doing that, I'm not sure if you saw the news this past week, uh, but Apple announced they're bringing back the flip phones.

You guys see this?

The iPhone duo, this little foldable uh device.

It kind of takes me back to my very first cell phone, uh, a Motorola Razor.

You guys know what those things are?

Uh publishers are like, what are you talking about?

Um guys, I'll be honest, this little doable thing, this little flip phone, I have hesitations and I'm skeptical on if this thing's actually gonna stick, okay, if people are actually gonna buy that thing.

Uh I remember all the hype around the Apple Vision Pro.

Anybody?

You guys remember what this thing is, the big clunky like headset?

Uh and I'm I haven't seen anybody uh have that one posted up at the coffee shop wearing one of those things.

And so the question I have for this little foldable iPhone is is it gonna last?

Is it gonna be just a trend with all this hype and shoot up uh but doesn't last a couple years?

Or is it gonna be something that sticks?

And that's a question I've been thinking a lot about this week, reflecting on our one-year birthday.

Because the question I've been thinking about leading up to today is very similar.

It's this what will it take for King's Church not just to have one great year, but to remain faithful and fruitful for years and decades to come?

Like, how can we best position ourselves, not just to be a church that's all hype, that has a great launch, it grows quick, and all these people, but then it disappears shortly.

How can we be a church that has a lasting impact?

And that is why Acts chapter 14 is such a great place to be.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Because in this chapter, here's what we're gonna get.

We're gonna see ministry start in some cities, okay?

And it's not smooth, it's not gonna go easy, but by the end of the chapter in Acts 14, we are gonna see the gospel take root and churches establish and people come to faith.

In fact, before reading this chapter, uh, I want to spoil the ending.

Can you guys look at verse 27 of Acts chapter 14?

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Acts 14, 27, the end of the story, it's gonna give us a lens uh by which we read everything else.

Okay, this is what it says.

And after they arrived, Paul and Barnabas, and they gathered the church together, like this, they reported everything God had done with them.

And that he, God, had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

Okay, or in other words, we're about to read it.

Paul and Barnabas, they get back from this mission trip and they get back to the church and they go, guys, look what God has done.

He's the one that did it.

Okay, you can see it.

God has opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

This is the door, and God has busted open to the Gentiles.

And I'm I'm intrigued by that, and I'm interested in God doing that here in Denton.

Okay, I want God to continue to open doors of faith in our city.

And so the question I'm asking in Acts 14 is this what can we learn from this chapter?

Like, what did the early disciples do and what do they have that God blessed it?

Okay, how can we position ourselves?

Not to manufacture the blessing of God, you can't do that, but you can position yourself to be a conduit, a vehicle of God's blessing.

So how can we do that?

Well, Acts 14 is going to give us a few things uh we're gonna look at quickly that I'm praying is also true of King's Church.

Sound good?

Okay, Acts 14, verse 1.

Acts 14:1

I'll show it to you quickly.

Chapter 14, verse 1.

It says this in Iconium, they entered the Jewish synagogue, as usual, and they spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.

Okay, so we're picking up where we left off last week.

Paul and Barnabas, they were in Antioch.

You guys remember they saw this mighty move of God, they tick off some Jews, they run them out of town, and so they go to the next city called Iconium.

And guys, if you read verse one, it sounds like we've read verse one a few times already.

Every city it goes to, it pretty much says this.

They go to the Jewish synagogue, as usual, they preach the gospel in such a way that people believe.

Okay, that's a great verse.

Verse 1 is a great verse.

You'd you'd wish the story stopped in verse 1, but keep reading verse 2.

It says this But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.

Okay, again, it seems like every week we're reading the same thing.

Some Jews believe, they get very excited, and the other Jews get ticked, and it says they stir up or they rile up the Gentiles, and look what it says they poisoned their minds.

Okay, that is graphic language, but it's not surprising.

Because anywhere you see a mighty work of God, the enemy also opposes it.

Okay, so the Jews get upset, they come, and then what happens next is interesting.

Okay, most of the time, guys, when we we've been in Acts, when Paul and Barnabas get opposed, when they face persecution, what do they do?

They dust off their feet and they go to the next town.

But look at what verse 3 says.

So they're being opposed, verse 2, but verse 3 says this So they stayed there a long time and spoke boldly for the Lord.

Okay, which is incredible, okay, because this time, in the face of opposition and persecution, their response is not silence, but it's to speak.

And notice they don't just speak, but what does it say they do?

They spoke boldly.

Or in other words, the first point we see this morning is they had courage to speak.

That's what it took in this early church.

They had courage or boldness to speak about the Lord, to continue speaking, to continue persuading and pointing people to Jesus.

In the face of all this riot and poison minds and protest, the early disciples had courage.

And that's my prayer for us as well that we would be a church that has the courage to speak, to keep speaking the good news of Jesus in a hurting and hostile world.

And guys, if you look around, I can tell you with confidence, God has already blessed people in this room who have the courage to speak.

You want to know why this church has grown quickly in this first year?

Because we got people, ordinary people in this room, who have great courage to speak.

Okay, ask our launch team that started.

I'm so blessed by the 60 people who moved here.

Those are some of the most courageous people I've ever met.

Okay, whether it's on the community side and Dylan and Emerson at F-45, sharing the gospel in the gym, okay, working out and sharing their faith.

Or the college students.

Guys, when UNT students moved in and we're on campus, I'm blown away by the courage of 19-year-olds, okay, like Eden and Grace and Miles, these people who are sharing the gospel with college students.

They have courage to speak.

And that's why God has been blessing our church.

And my prayer is that we would continue having courage to speak.

But not just that, look at verse one again.

It says that they spoke in such a way, can you see that?

That we would speak in such a way that many believe.

Okay?

And here's what's happening in this moment.

If you zoom in on verse one, the reason they spoke courageously is because they actually believed it.

And you guys know this.

When you believe something with so much enthusiasm, you speak with great courage.

Okay, if you ask someone in North Texas, where is the best barbecue in town?

Okay, you start asking them, is it Hutchins barbecue?

Is it Marty B's?

Uh, is it Rudy's?

Whatever it is, if you start talking to someone, uh, they speak with so much boldness if you disagree.

Maybe I left yours off and you're thinking, wow, Zach, you're an idiot.

Okay, you think Rudy's is the best barbecue in town, but you can see it, right?

People who believe something will speak with great courage to win you to their side.

Why?

Because they have tasted and seen that the barbecue is good down at Hutchins, right?

But this is the point.

Guys, we want to be a church that doesn't just speak it, but we believe it here.

And you always speak with courage about things that you believe, okay?

And we we believe this.

This is why we sing.

This is this is what we believe.

We have a great need for a savior and a great savior for our need.

We want to be a church that has the courage to speak, but not just that, let's keep going.

Because God gives them courage to speak, but also he gives them power to display, okay?

Power to display.

It's the second thing we see here: power to display the world.

Okay, we don't just want to speak, but we want God to move.

Okay, go back to verse 3.

Notice there's a relationship between speaking and something else.

Verse 3.

So they stayed there a long time, and they spoke boldly for the Lord, who testified to the message of his grace by what?

By enabling them to do signs and wonders.

Can you see it?

So while the disciples are speaking, God is moving.

And specifically, he would use signs and wonders and miracles to confirm the message.

Okay, the miracles authenticate the message.

We've seen this through the book of Acts a lot.

Okay, God's power is on display.

And Luke wants us to know that.

And then he's going to actually zoom in on one miracle that he wants us to see.

But before that, they get run out of town.

Okay, look at verse 4.

But the people of the city were divided, some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles.

When an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat and stone them, they found out about it and they fled to a Lysonian town of Lystra and Derby and to the surrounding countryside.

Verse 7, there they continued preaching the gospel, okay, which was always their main priority.

Not just the miracles, but the preaching of the word is the point.

But then we get a very specific miracle to continue to confirm the message.

Okay, look at verse 8.

In Lystra, a man was sitting who was without strength in his feet.

He had never walked.

He was lame from birth.

He listened as Paul spoke.

After looking directly at him and seeing that he had faith to be healed, Paul said in a loud voice, Stand up on your feet.

And he jumped up and began to walk.

And so here, uh, we've seen Peter do this before in Acts 3, the healing of a lame man, but now Paul replicates it.

He's preaching, and he's got some level of discernment where he can look and see faith in this man.

So he says, Get up and walk, and it and the dude jumps up and begins to walk.

So you've got this incredible miracle, this incredible life change.

You can imagine in that city, for the rest of that dude's life, he was a living testimony of the power of the message of Jesus Christ.

And that's what we want to see happen here at our church as well.

Okay, we want to be a church where God's power is on display.

Okay, Drake preached it a couple weeks ago that we want to pray big prayers.

We want to see God do a mighty work in this room and in the lives and in the hearts of people in this room.

So we're gonna pray the big prayers.

God do the impossible, God take the cancer away, God heal the relationship, do something that there's no answer other than the power of God.

We don't just want to be a church that preaches the gospel.

We want to see God move in power.

But God's not just in healed legs, but in changed lives.

Because you know what's more impressive than healed legs?

Forgiven hearts, changed hearts, hearts that were dead that are now alive, which is what we're about to celebrate right after this sermon.

Four people getting baptized, four stories of life change.

Just like this man who was healed and had faith in Christ, we're gonna celebrate four people whose lives also have been changed.

And for the rest of their life, Carrie and Blake and Fetty and Aaron, that's gonna be a testimony to all your friends that you follow the king.

We want to be a church, guys, that doesn't just baptize four hundreds.

We want to see hundreds come to faith, not just in this church, but many churches in Denton.

But let's pray.

Why not?

That God would do it at UNT and in the city.

Let's keep going next, because what happens next is one of the funniest scenes in the Bible.

Look at verse 11.

When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted, saying in the Laotian language, the gods have come down to us in human form.

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

And so the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the town, they bring cows and bulls and reefs to the gate because they intended with the crowds to offer sacrifice.

Okay, just a wild scene, okay.

Try to picture what's happening here.

Okay, Paul does this miracle, and these guys are like, oh my Zeus and oh my Hermes.

Like, somebody get a cow, let's sacrifice it to Paul.

And they don't know what's going on.

They're speaking in a different language.

But these people, it makes sense if you know the people of Lystra.

Um, these people in this town, this wasn't a big city, this is like the countryside.

And the people in Lystra, they they love like Roman God stuff.

Uh, in fact, before this uh reading in Acts 14, there was this legend going around Lystra that long ago uh Zeus and Hermes uh came to Lystra disguised as humans.

Uh and they actually went around to every house uh trying to find people to be hospitable, but they didn't find anybody except one old couple.

And so Zeus and Hermes get ticked and they actually kill everybody in the town except that one couple.

So it makes sense, right?

These guys are like, oh my gosh, they're back, let's not mess this one up.

And so they get Zeus and the Hermes, and they're like, oh my gosh, to get the cow, like, let's sacrifice.

And you read what happens next.

Paul and Barnabas, they're just standing there.

Guys, they don't know what's going on until they see the cow.

And Paul's like, What are you doing with the cow?

And then they realize it.

Oh my gosh, this is a great mistake.

They think we're gods.

Keep going, verse 14.

The apostle Barnabas and Paul tore their robes, uh, which was a Jewish response to blasphemy, and it was communicating something to these guys.

Uh, when they heard this, and they rushed into the crowd shouting this People, why are you doing these things?

We are people also, just like you.

And we proclaim good news to you that you turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them.

And so these guys come to worship and sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.

And I love what they say next, okay?

They go, hey, people, stop being foolish.

And then they say this incredible line.

They say, Hey, we're just people.

We're just men, this is just men here, just like you.

We are people just like you.

Or in other words, like they come and worship and treat Paul and Barnabas like gods.

And while you might expect them to go, wow, this is great, like we can live as kings here, but they don't do that.

No, they have the humility to say, hey, we're just people here.

Uh we're not gods.

Uh, there is a God, but we're just people.

They have humility and they redirect their worship, which is the next thing we see here, uh, and the thing that we need here as well.

We need humility to redirect.

Okay, we want to be humble to acknowledge our part and what God is doing here, but also because everybody is worshiping something, our job every Sunday is to redirect worship off of us and off of worthless stuff in the world, in this culture, but also onto the living God.

That's what we want to be about, to have humility to redirect.

And we want to do this here, okay?

We live in a very much celebrity culture that loves to worship and elevate people, humans, right?

Uh, even pastors.

And we want to stay grounded here because, yeah, God's doing a lot at King's Church, but it's Him the one that's doing it.

And He's given us great people, and we pray for great baptisms and influence, but at the same time, we acknowledge no, no, no, God's the one's doing it.

Our job is to redirect people to Jesus.

He is the point, uh, which is what Paul tries to explain to them next.

Okay, look what Paul does next to these people, it's unique.

Uh, he's gonna meet them where they're at and try to connect the dots.

Okay, look at verse 16.

He's still talking to them.

Verse 16.

In past generations, he allowed all the nations to go their own way, although he did not leave himself without a witness, since he did what is good by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food, and your hearts with joy, even though they said these things, they barely stopped the crowds from sacrificing the cow to them.

Okay, now here's what's interesting about what we just read it's about what Paul said and what he didn't say.

Because, guys, we've seen Paul preach a lot before so far in the book of Acts, and what does Paul almost always do?

How does he start?

He goes Old Testament, right?

Abraham and David and Moses, and he he quotes from the prophets.

You guys remember all the sermons, but notice what he doesn't do here.

He doesn't quote any of that.

He doesn't quote the Old Testament.

No, because he has wisdom to connect with the people in front of him.

They don't know the story.

So instead, he appeals to what they see and know.

Okay, rain, which we do not see or know ever.

Um, fruit and joy and food and full hearts and full bellies and celebration.

Like he's appealing to them because he has the wisdom to connect.

He wants them to understand the gospel.

So first he understands what they know.

And as a church, this is something we also need.

We need wisdom to connect, to learn the language of the people.

This is what missionaries do, right?

Like if you're a missionary, you go overseas to a new culture, you don't just start quoting the Old Testament to a bunch of people in the rainforest.

What do you do?

Man, you connect.

You get to know their culture, their language, uh, the way they think.

Okay, and here's the truth the gospel doesn't change.

The message doesn't change, the method can, depending on where we go.

Okay, and this is what we want to do as a church, okay, especially with our passion uh to reach the next generation, right?

College students, tens of thousands of students coming to the city, and we want to preach the gospel to them.

But we're gonna need wisdom to always connect because the gospel doesn't change, but the methods do.

So we pray for wisdom.

God help us reach the average 18-year-old coming to the city.

One of our prayers with year two of King's Church is next summer to send a team of college students overseas to East Asia.

That's something you can join us in praying for, to spend seven weeks overseas.

And if they're gonna go, they need wisdom to connect with the people there.

And so that's what we want to do.

We want to pray, God, give us wisdom to preach the same truth, the same Jesus, like Paul does in the city.

Now let's keep going because the scene continues to get wild in Lystra.

They barely stopped these people from worshiping them.

Uh, but then more people roll up on the scene.

Look at verse 19.

Some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and when they went over the crowds, they stoned Paul, dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead.

And after the disciples gathered around him, he got up and went into the town.

The next day he left with Barnabas for Derby.

So, what makes this crazy is that Paul and Barnabas have made so many enemies wherever they went, that literally the enemies from the other towns start showing up and following them around.

In Antioch, a hundred miles away, Jews are so upset, they're so motivated to stop Paul from preaching Jesus as the Messiah.

They travel a hundred miles and then from Iconium 20 miles just to stop Paul.

Uh, but what's even crazier about what we just read is that the same crowds that were about to worship them, it says the Jews have won them over, and now they want to stone them, okay?

Which uh is kind of a side lesson here on the approval of crowds and living for the approval of people.

The state the same crew that worships you today might try to oppose you tomorrow.

Okay, be careful with the praise of man.

But I love verse 20.

Go to verse 20 again.

Paul gets dragged out of town, he gets stoned.

They legit thought he was dead.

The disciples are over him, and it says this Paul got up and did what?

He went back into the town.

Okay, can you see that?

Guys, that is nuts.

Okay, if you and I were uh publicly executed uh by a city, uh, we're not getting up and going to get dinner in that same city.

Like, no, we're bouncing for the hills.

But Paul here legit gets up and goes back into uh the city.

Now he does leave the next day, but it does lead us to our next point here.

The next thing we're gonna need as a church if we're gonna stay faithful for decades to come, and it's this we need strength to endure.

Uh, we're gonna need strength for endurance to be resilience.

Okay, if we're gonna be a church that lasts and followers of Jesus that continue following Jesus, we need a theology of hard things.

Uh we need to understand that opposition doesn't always mean a closed door, and that suffering doesn't always mean you're doing something wrong.

And because of that, we need strength.

Uh, because no doubt in this next year, year two of our church, uh people in this room are gonna go through some difficult stuff.

Uh, because church planting is hard and ministry is hard, uh, but parenting is hard and marriage is hard, and following Jesus in college is hard.

And guys, churches that don't know how to follow Jesus during difficult times, they don't last.

And so we want resilience, we want endurance.

That when we get knocked down, we get back up again, like the Texas longhorns last night, baby.

Okay, hook 'em.

They're never gonna keep us down.

Okay.

God help us be people who can suffer and still trust God.

We want to be people who can lose comfort without losing conviction.

Okay, we need strength.

Now let's finish up because there's one more thing.

That Paul's going to do before he goes home.

Verse 21.

And after they preached the gospel in that town and made many disciples, they returned, look where they go, to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch.

Okay, so instead of going home, like after the trip, which would have been a very quick and easier trip, like the myelash to get home would have been very quick.

Paul and Barnabas, they decide to double back.

And they go back to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch to do what?

Well, look at verse 22.

It says, strengthening the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith, and by telling them, and I say to us, it is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

And so they double back to strengthen and to encourage the disciples.

Hey, let's go back to the communities we started.

But then look at this, verse 23.

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed the elders to the Lord in whom they had believed.

And that's the final piece here for Paul.

Like as he's establishing a church, you can see the progression.

He shows up, he preaches the gospel, people get saved, they strengthen the disciples, they encourage them, but then it says they appointed elders.

Okay, or in other words, they appointed qualified men to lead.

And that's the final thing that we see here.

That if we're going to be a church that's going to be faithful for decades, it needs men to lead.

And the reason why it needs that is because Paul's leaving, right?

And Barnabas is leaving, and there's a big mess going on.

And so for this church to last, they need men who are going to rise up and lead and shepherd.

Because what we're going to see here is that healthy churches, they don't just gather people, they raise up leaders.

They need elders.

And we talk about this more in our membership class, but notice a few things here.

Notice it doesn't say they appointed one elder in every church.

It doesn't say that, right?

Notice it said they appointed elders.

Plural, right?

A plurality of men sharing the responsibility of leading the church.

And that's our prayer here at King's Church, that God would raise up godly men.

In a culture of passivity, would we find men who raise up to lead future elders and pastors, men who will carry the weight of leadership?

And this doesn't mean that ministry and leadership and serving the church is only reserved for men.

Guys, we got some great women in this church who are serving, discipling, using their gifts.

But certainly here and in the Bible, we need qualified men to serve and lead as pastors.

And so would you join us in praying for leaders, men especially, but also men and women, CG leaders, kids volunteers, people across the board, because ministry is for the people.

And would God raise up a church here that's going to establish and speak courageously into the culture?

And so that's what we see in Acts chapter 14.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

To wrap it up, this is our prayer that God would give us courage to speak, power to display, give us humility to redirect and wisdom to connect, give us strength and give us people to lead.

Because if we want King's Church not just to have a good launch, but a great life here in Denton, we need to be faithful and fruitful.

And we're reminded at the end of Acts 14, the same verse that we started, verse 27.

And after they arrived home and gathered the church together, they reported everything that who has done, God has done.

And now he has opened the door to the Gentiles.

And so as we look back on our first year, that's what we get to say.

God has done it.

Every person saved, every baptism every student reached.

God has been kind to us.

And that's our prayer for year two.

God, would you keep opening doors?

Keep opening doors in debt and help us be faithful to walk through them and bless us with fruit.

And to that end, I'm about to invite some people to get baptized and share the gospel story in their life.

But let me pray for us that God would continue to do this.

Lord, I'm so thankful for what's about to happen for these four people to come and profess faith in Christ, like the man that was healed, to stand before us and to tell the whole church that they belong to the King.

God, thank I'm so thankful for faith that saves and baptism that represents the gospel, that we've been buried with Christ through baptism, united with him, and we're raised to walk in new life.

And so, Lord, I hope that these four see this not as the finish line, but the starting line of a great life following Jesus and a very hard life following Jesus.

So, Lord, would you give these four strength, give them endurance, and give us a church that will help them come alongside you?

And we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.