How to keep going | Sunday Sermon

Well, this week um it was a little bit of a strange week.

Um, some of you know, some of you don't, that I actually have an RV repair business out in the city of Corona, and so we do all kinds of different RV repairs and stuff.

And this week we actually had um several customers call in one day, and what they were looking for is somebody that could take their RV that had already the repairs had begun at another shop and to finish them.

And so as I got deeper into the story, I started to understand some of the circumstances that were surrounding this, and I guess what had happened, there's this guy named Martin, and he's just he's an RV repair shop owner like me, and he's the shop is not too far from here.

And I think maybe what's been going on is I've able to kind of ascertain what's going on.

I think maybe he's been struggling financially for a while.

I think he's been having a hard time.

You know, it's not easy to have your own business, it's not a simple thing, it's not like there's an instruction manual or something.

We live in a state that makes it very difficult, too, on top of that.

You know, um it's it's tough.

You know, it's expensive, it's complicated.

You can make mistakes.

And so he's been struggling for a while, but to make matters worse, I guess he had some sort of an accident.

And so right now he's in the hospital.

We'll pray for him.

But he's suffered some kind of brain damage, and so now what's happened is that he, you know, the landlord has come in and basically taken over the property, and they're calling people and saying, get your stuff off our property.

And so people are trying to find a place to take their RV.

And you know, I I've never met this guy personally, but my heart definitely goes out to him.

Because life is just kind of like that sometimes, you know, you feel like things are going pretty good for a while, and then all of a sudden your feet get swept out from under you, and you don't know what to do.

And when something like that happens, um, one of the hardest things to do is just to figure out how to keep going.

You know?

How do I figure out how to start?

You know, how do I start over?

How do I take the next step?

What do I do?

And so my heart goes out to Martin, but it was also tough this week to not notice how our passage speaks right into the gritty moments of life like this.

You know, in our passage, Paul and Barnabas are on a missionary journey.

And it began really in chapter 13.

And what had happened is the church was praying, and the Holy Spirit said, Set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work that I have for them.

And so they were fasting and they were praying, and the Spirit was telling them, I guess, to go on a missions trip.

And so they laid hands on them and they sent them.

Paul and Barnabas sailed to Cyprus.

They got to the island of Cyprus, they preached from one side of the island all the way to the other side, and then when they got to the city of Paphos, they sailed north and they got to the mainland and they landed in Pamphylia.

And so they started in this city, Perga, and they began the long trek up the Taurus Mountains via a road network called the Via Sebaste, the Augustine Way.

And it's cool because parts of that road still exist today, 2,000 years later, but this was not a short journey.

It was 100 to 1150 miles to get to Poseidian Antioch, and they would gain 3,600 feet in elevation.

And so they traveled that way, and it must have taken them maybe a week if they traveled maybe 20 miles a day, maybe less because of the elevation.

And so it was a long journey.

But as they go on this journey, we end up seeing how they set a really good example for us of how do you keep going?

You know, when you just want to give up.

How do you get back up when you get knocked down?

How do you keep showing up when you'd rather just walk away?

And so they get in the story we talked about last week, they get to Pisidian Antioch and they go into the synagogue of the Jews and they preach the gospel to the Jewish people in that city.

And it said that many believed.

And so they had this great response.

There were many that believed, there was others who maybe didn't quite yet, you know, totally, they weren't all in, but they wanted to hear them again.

And so the next Sabbath day, almost the whole city showed up to hear what they had to say.

And when the other Jewish people that were there, the teachers, saw this, they got jealous.

So they started to contradict them.

They started to stir up trouble for them, they started to oppose them.

And so Paul and Barnabas said, Well, forget you, then we're going to the Gentiles.

And so they started preaching the gospel to the Gentiles.

And the Gentiles were happy to hear it.

And so they've got this ministry that's just happening, and God's working with them in Poseidon Antioch.

And then their opponents got so jealous that they ended up stirring up the city leaders of Antioch and driving them out of their city.

And so it says Paul and Barnabas actually shook the dust off their feet as a witness against those people.

They're just like, you know what?

Forget you guys, we're out of here.

Keep your dust even, we're going.

And so they went to the city of Iconium.

And Iconium was another long journey.

It was another 95 miles that they walked along the Via Sebaste.

And at least they didn't have the elevation change because they'd already reached kind of the top of the plateau up there.

And so they get there, probably after, again, several days of journeying, they get to the city of Iconium, and again they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

And it said, many believed of both the Jews and the Gentiles, but when some of the Jewish people didn't believe, they started doing the same thing.

They started opposing the message.

It says they poisoned the mind of the Gentiles who were there.

And so what it says in chapter 14, verse 1, it says, Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue, and they spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed, but the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers, and so they remained there a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

Now, in this city, in this place, is one of those places, the first example that Paul and Barnabas give of one of the ways that it sometimes means to keep going in life.

That when life knocks you down, when things happen, when your feet get swept up from out from under you, what does it mean to keep going?

And one of those ways means staying right where you are.

I want you to focus on the one sentence.

They actually underlined it here.

It says the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers, and it says this, so they remained for a long time.

What would you expect that sentence to say?

Yeah, like that they would do the same thing they did in Antioch, right?

Just go, well, forget you then.

Here's your dust.

And then out of here.

I'm going to Lystra.

But it says, no, they says they stayed for a long time.

They didn't bail when the going got rough and they experienced some opposition.

Paul and Barnabas stayed.

And I wanted to think about for a second what would have happened if they had just left?

What would have happened if they had just bailed?

They had just preached the gospel.

Brand new Christians came in, both Jews and Gentiles.

Okay, and then they just leave.

And the Jewish ones might have had a little bit of an advantage because they had at least grown up with the scriptures.

They knew the apostles, they knew the prophets, they knew the promises, they knew that they were waiting for a Messiah.

But these Christians had no real foundation yet.

The Gentile believers would have had less of an advantage because they hadn't grown up learning those things, but leaving them either way would have meant leaving them at the mercy of the other teachers who were there that opposed the gospel.

And so they didn't leave.

They stayed and they made sure that they were strong enough to stand on their own.

I watched a couple of a video this week.

Actually, I ended up watching a couple of videos of this couple named Ian and Larissa.

Okay, and so what happened is they were in college, they were dating, they were talking about getting married, they were kind of planning their lives together after they graduated from college.

And so, you know, they had this great thing going, nice, good-looking couple.

And what happened is one day Ian got in a car accident.

And so he is in the hospital, they don't know if he's gonna make it.

He was, you know, on life support.

They knew that he had some brain damage, but they didn't know, you know, so it wasn't looking good, thinking maybe he doesn't have any brain activity.

And so Larissa's by his side the whole time.

And eventually he recovers, he gets out of the hospital, but he's completely changed.

He can't speak, he can't communicate, he can't walk.

But, you know, Larissa loves this guy.

Her family is thinking, you're 22 years old.

You know, you shouldn't be resigned to this life of staying with this person that's like this.

You didn't even marry him yet, you know.

And her family kind of just wants her to move on, to just go on living, maybe find someone else and have the best, you know, opportunity in life.

But Larissa loves Ian.

She had talked about marrying him, about being his wife.

They had talked about their lives together.

They knew she knew that Ian's in there.

My guy's in there.

And so she stuck with him.

And she ended up moving into his parents' house to take care of him and help him with his rehabilitation.

And when, you know, she had set this goal when you're able to communicate, then we can talk about getting married.

And so they were just working and working and working.

Eventually, long story short, he ends up being able to start to communicate a little bit.

He still doesn't, you know, sound like everybody else, but he's he's doing his best.

And so they got married, and it was just this neat example again of what it looks like for someone just to honor their promises, you know, to stay true to someone that they love.

Sometimes it's true strength, living for Christ, obeying him, being like him means honoring your vows, keeping your promises, fulfilling your commitments.

And again, Larissa wasn't even married to this guy.

But she just felt like she wanted to be faithful to him.

So Paul and Barnabas, they stay in Iconium, strengthening the church that they've planted there.

And finally, word reaches Paul and Barnabas that the city leaders and their opponents are actually planning to stone them.

And so they thought, okay, we've done a lot, we've made disciples, you know, they're okay, let's go ahead and go.

And so in verse 6 it says they learned of it and they fled to Lystra and Derby, cities of Lyconia, and to the surrounding country, and they were continued, there they continued to preach the gospel.

So they get to the city of Lystra.

And Lystra is more of a pagan city.

It doesn't mention that they went into a synagogue, which probably means there was no synagogue there.

In order to have a synagogue in an ancient city, you just had to have ten adult male Jews in a city, and you would form a synagogue.

And so evidently there weren't even ten Jewish guys in the city of Lystra.

And so they get there and they start preaching the gospel.

And I have to assume they must have just been standing on the street and just preaching to everyone who would listen.

And so Paul's preaching one day, and he sees this crippled man sitting there near him, and he's listening to him.

It says Paul looked at him and he perceived that he had the faith to be healed.

And so he looked at him and he said, Stand upright on your feet.

And the man stood up and walked.

And it says, when the crowd saw what happened, they started shouting in their own language.

And the language that they spoke at the time was Lycaonian.

Okay?

And there's no reason in the world to believe that Paul and Barnabas would have any idea what the heck they were saying in Lycaonian.

But they said, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.

So they see this miracle happen, and they're thinking, oh my gosh, these guys are gods.

These guys are deities.

And so they start, you know, preparing worship.

They go tell the priest of Zeus, and he's over there bringing oxen to get ready to sacrifice them, and he's bringing in garlands, and they're getting ready to worship Paul and Barnabas.

And when they finally realize what's happening, it says they tore their garments and they went there and they tried to stop them.

They said, Stop, we're just regular men like you.

We bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things, these idols, these lifeless, inanimate things, to the living God who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything that is in them.

And so after some time they're able to finally get them to stop.

And in verse 19 it says, But Jews came from Antioch at Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derby.

So Paul and Barnabas, they're having this, you know, successful experience in Lystra.

Preaching the gospel, disciples are being gathered, this healing happens, an amazing thing, very similar to when Peter and John healed the lame man at the beautiful gate.

But when their enemies from Antioch and Iconium catch up with them, suddenly this crowd that was ready to worship them decides that they want to be a mob and they stone Paul, they drag him out of the city, and they leave him for dead.

And I want you to put yourself in the shoes of Paul and Barnabas and many that were with them.

If you were with them that day, how terrified would you be?

You know, you're in a strange city.

You're in a place that's far from home.

They're speaking language you don't understand.

And now they've taken your friend and they've stoned him and dragged him out of the city as a mob.

And Paul barely escapes with his life from the situation.

And if there was any moment that I could think of, if I was in this story that I was, that would just give up and go, okay, that's it.

I'm done.

I'm going home.

It would be right here.

I mean, you know what stoning is, right?

I don't know how many there were, but it says a crowd.

So let's just guess conservatively.

20, 30 people all around Paul, picking up the biggest, nastiest rocks they can find and just hurling them at him.

They're hitting his body.

They're breaking the flesh.

They're causing bleeding.

They're breaking bones probably.

Hit him in the head, probably, knocked him out, give him a concussion.

They thought he was dead.

This would have been brutal for his body.

But watch what he does.

Paul gets back up.

And in getting back up, he gives us the second example of what it sometimes means to keep going.

To sometimes keep going.

Obedience to Christ, faithfulness to his call upon us means getting back up when we get knocked down.

Means getting back in the fight.

Avery and I went to see the new Spider-Man movie a few days ago.

And anybody see that?

It was pretty good.

You know what was fun about it, though, was that the audience actually got into it in the movie theater.

And for those of you who are old enough to you, remember when the Rocky movies would come out back in like the 80s?

I remember being in a movie theater with mom and dad in the 80s, and Rocky was on, and the whole theater's going, Rocky, Rocky! That dude could take a beating, you know?

Always he's losing for like the first 11 and a half rounds, right?

He's just getting beat and beat and beat, but he just keeps getting back up.

He just keeps coming back in.

Instead of running away, he just comes at the guy.

Instead of staying down, he gets back up.

Paul gets stoned and almost killed.

He gets back up and he walks into the same city where the people just tried to kill him.

And the next morning, instead of giving up, packing it up, and going back home, he continues on the mission that God had given him to do.

And so they begin the long walk to Derby.

And this is about a 60-mile walk.

Maybe 80.

And so you can imagine.

Shattered, bruised, who knows if he had broken bones, probably a concussion.

He begins a very long journey on a lot of unpaved roads all the way to the city of Derby.

And in life, we're gonna find ourselves in moments that are like this.

That just absolutely gut us.

They make us question how can we possibly go on?

Sometimes it's a diagnosis, sometimes it's like Martin, you know, a financial failure.

Sometimes a relationship that we really were hoping on ends in an ugly way.

And in those moments, the Lord calls us to get back up.

He calls us to continue to follow him, to continue to trust in him.

And doing that, getting back up and moving forward in our lives, doesn't mean that we have to pretend like what hurt us didn't hurt us.

It means that the thing or the person that hurt us doesn't get to decide for us whether or not we're gonna continue to trust and obey Jesus.

Amen.

And so Paul gets back up.

And the next morning they start the long walk to Derby, and in verse 21, it says, When they had preached the gospel to that city, had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

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

And so Paul and Barnabas spend some time in the city of Derby, and Luke doesn't tell us how long.

Their time in Derby passes in like two verses in the book of Acts.

But we know it couldn't have been, you know, five minutes.

It says they made many disciples.

And so Paul, during that time, I'm sure, had time to heal from his wounds.

I'm sure he had time to reflect on what had happened to them in Pisidian Antioch and in Iconium and Lystra.

And I'm sure he had time to make a decision about what he was going to do next.

Because Paul, in this moment, had a choice.

He was raised in the city of Tarsus.

Okay, and the city of Tarsus, from where he was in this moment, was just on the other side of the Taurus Mountains.

It was actually closer to where he was than going back the other way.

He would have had to walk 130 miles through the Cilician gates down into Tarsus and he would have been home.

And he had friends and family, I'm sure, still there.

He knew the people.

He could have just said goodbye to these people.

They hated him so much they want to murder him for simply preaching the good news to them.

And I'm sure there was some part of him that probably wished he could go that way.

But Paul didn't do that.

It says after making many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch.

They returned to Lystra, the city where the people had tried to kill him.

They returned to Iconium, where the people had plotted to kill them.

They returned to Antioch, where the leaders of the city had driven them out of their town.

And why do you think he did it?

Yeah.

Honoring God.

And they tell us, Luke tells us.

The reason they went back was to strengthen the souls of the disciples, to encourage them to continue in the faith, to appoint elders in every city through prayer and fasting.

And there are times in our lives when we're going to find ourselves in situations that make us want to walk away and never look back.

But the way of Jesus is to trust Him and obey.

To follow Him as He leads us back into situations that scare us.

To choose to pray again when we can't see the point.

To forgive again, even when it's hard, to show up to a job that we hate because our family depends on us to keep going.

To have the hard conversation we've been needing to have, to choose to love again.

The thing about perseverance is it's not just like a one-time event, is it?

Perseverance means showing up again and again and again and again over a long period of time.

But the biggest question really is how?

How did Paul do the things he did?

How did Paul and Barnabas do what they did?

How did they stay when it would have been easier to leave?

How did Paul get back up when it would have been easier to stay down?

How did Paul go back when it would have been easier to go home?

And Luke gives us a clue in the message that Paul and Barnabas were preaching to the churches as they traveled back through.

They were telling them through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

The reason he could do it is because of the kingdom of God.

Paul could stay when it would have been easier to leave, he could get back up when it would have been easier to stay down, he could go back when it would be easier to go home, because his eyes were set on a much higher goal than having an easy life, than avoiding pain and suffering, than taking an easy road without any pain or sacrifice.

Paul's eyes were fixed on the kingdom of God.

And later in his life, in the letter to the Colossians, Paul wrote from a Roman prison cell, and he said, If then you've been raised with Christ, he's writing to the believers in Colossae, if then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

He said, Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

What Paul understood is that the time that we're given to live in this life on this earth and this experience we're all having right now is very, very short.

It's so short that we can't waste our lives living for temporary things like our own comfort or wealth or experiences or stuff.

Anyone ever heard of Francis Chan?

He's good.

Let me look him up.

He has a quote that I love.

He said, our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

When we stand before the Creator at the end of all things, what do we want to be able to say to him?

I did it, Lord.

I managed to get through my whole life without suffering.

I didn't have to pay any hard prices.

I didn't have to do any hard things.

When I had a choice between my own happiness or the people I loved, I just chose my happiness.

What a choice between keeping my promises even when they hurt and taking the easy way out.

Man, I took the easy way.

I did it.

I made it all the way through life without a single hard thing.

Is that what we want to say to him?

On that day it won't matter that you had a nice house, that you had the biggest bank account, that you had millions of followers on Instagram.

It won't matter at all.

All that's gonna matter that day is entering to the kingdom of the beloved son and having the people that we love enter the kingdom with us.

Jesus told his own disciples, in this world you're gonna have tribulation, but be of good cheer.

I've overcome the world.

Paul could overcome in crazy circumstances and obstacles that he faced in his life because his eyes were fixed higher than his circumstances.

And we can overcome all the hard things that we face, all the obstacles that come our way, not because we're so strong and we're so resilient and we can just spit some dirt on it, you know, spit on it, rub it off, and walk it off like a man.

But because he's overcome the world.

Christians, we're not supposed to be living for this world.

We're looking for the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells.

And we can keep going in the midst of long-term health struggles because our citizenship is in heaven.

And from there we await a savior, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who's going to transform these lowly bodies like his heavenly body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

We can keep going in the midst of financial crisis because our security is not in the number that's on our bank statement.

Paul, the apostle, also in Philippians, he said, I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound.

I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

He said, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We can keep going in the midst of grief and loss of a loved one.

Because Revelation promises one day God's going to wipe away every tear and that death will be no more.

We can keep going and keep loving in the midst of a hard relationship, even.

Paul in Galatians, he said, Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we'll reap if we do not give up.

I don't know what Martin's life is gonna look like over the next year or two.

I don't know how much of his stuff, you know, he's gonna get back that he lost.

And there's things that you're carrying this morning that I can't guarantee are gonna get better.

Because Christianity is not about taking care of all the little issues in your life to give you a comfortable, happy little life, despite what the idiots on TV say.

Paul didn't promise his own disciples that, did he?

He stood in front of them, probably still with all the scars, from getting stoned almost to death.

So his face, his head, probably his bones broken, bruises, he stood before them and said, Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

Paul knew where he was going, and so do we.

And so when we feel like staying is hard, we look to Jesus and we stay.

When life knocks us down, we look to Jesus and we get back up and we keep following him.

When following Christ means going back into a situation or a place that we'd rather not go, we look to Jesus and we follow and we obey.

The life we live in the body, we live by faith in the Son of God who gave himself for us.

Our life is not our own, church.

We're here for him, we're here for the gospel, we're here to take the message.

We're a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that we may proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

That's our purpose.

And we do that whether we're struggling or whether we're prosperous, whether we're blessed or whether we're suffering.

We're here for him.

So as you go out this week, and you inevitably face the frustrations, the struggles, the issues that all of us feel in this life.

Just try to get some perspective.

Try to try to blur your focus on those little things for a minute and just look higher.

Think, you know, this world is not my home.

My citizenship is there.

I'm just waiting for my Savior to transform this into what he has.

To enter his kingdom, the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells.

Amen.