Kingdom Conflict – October 11, 2026

Good morning.

My name is David.

The old testament reading is found in Genesis chapter twelve, verses one to three.

Taking from the New Living Translation.

The Lord had said to Abraham, Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you and make you famous.

And you will be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.

All the families on the earth will be blessed through you, the word of the Lord.

Good morning.

My name is Pam.

The New Testament reading is found in Acts chapter 14, verses 21 to 23 and 27 to 28.

Acts 14:21–23

After preaching the good news in Derby and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, where they strengthened the believers.

They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders in every church.

With prayer and fasting, they turned the elders over to the care of the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles too.

And they stayed there with the believers for a long time.

The word of the Lord.

By the way, my name is Debbie.

Jesus asked, Do you finally believe that the time is coming?

Indeed, it is here now, when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone.

Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart, because I have overcome the world, the gospel of the Lord.

Let's pray as we remain standing.

Jesus, thank you that you are with us and that you direct us to the love and the heart of the Father.

So Jesus, as we pray and listen and gather together this morning, would you draw us more deeply into your kingdom?

We leave here a little bit differently because of your presence and because of the grace that we find here.

Thank you.

Thank you that your light is breaking through darkness this morning.

We trust that, we receive it, and we live into it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Good to see you all.

My name is Brock.

I am the uh one of the pastors here at COS, and I have the privilege and great joy of not teaching about giving this morning as we get to return to the book of Acts.

Although it was very well done, um, it was a joy to listen to.

I'm excited to get back into the book of Acts, our Kingdom Movement series.

Have you ever entered into a situation uh where there was already conflict below the surface?

Maybe you were invited over somewhere for dinner and you show up with your side dish and you walk in and already you just notice something.

Like you walk in and you're like, How was your week?

And um, the people you're there having dinner with was like, Why don't you tell them how our week was?

They're slamming kitchen cabinet doors as they're getting dinner ready, and you're like, Oh boy, what is happening?

Reminds you of the dinner party episode of The Office, if you've if you've seen that one.

Or maybe you you walked up to a conversation between two people and one of them had their back to you, and you walk up and you're all excited, hey, how's it going?

And that person turns, there's there's tears in their eyes.

Like, oh, what's happening?

Or maybe you walk into a meeting at work just a few minutes late, and then as you arrive, you realize you have missed a lot already, that something is stirring in the air, and you're like, what is happening?

Right?

We get this sense that um there's something boiling beneath the surface that we have just walked into.

And that's where we're going today in the book of Acts.

So if you have a Bible, Acts chapter 14, it would be helpful to have handy uh Galatians 6 as well, we'll be uh hanging out there as well.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

So we're in Acts chapter 14.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Just before this chapter, uh Paul makes a choice to focus on the Gentiles.

And he goes 90 miles down the road for where he was in Acts 13 to the churches that he would later write to in the book of Galatians.

So Paul and Barnabas are not arriving to Iconium in Acts 14, refreshed and ready to go.

Uh, they are tired, they are beaten down, and they just walked 90 more miles.

These are the churches that Paul would write to in Galatians.

So if you ever read Galatians and you're like, man, Paul has a bit of an edge to him in Galatians, like Galatians.

Like, why is he so angry?

Uh you're gonna we're gonna realize why after we hang out here this morning.

Uh and so across the three cities that we're gonna see today, there is there is conflict boiling beneath the surface of this passage.

Um, Iconium had the fumes of ethnic division and religious politics.

Lystra had pagan fear and superstition, Derby had consistent tension between the Roman government and the local traders.

Right?

So at the core of this passage, there is conflict.

Conflict.

Some of you hear that word today and you want to run out the doors.

Conflict.

Others of you get excited when you hear that word.

And although I love you, I do not understand you.

Right?

Conflict is at the core of this passage.

So as we think about a kingdom movement, we recognize that as a kingdom advances, as we participate with the kingdom, we are also entering ourselves into kingdom conflict as well.

And so this chapter, Acts chapter 14, is gonna deal with the external conflict that the church deals with with the world.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

And uh, Jason gets to deal with the internal conflict within the church next week.

We'll leave that for him.

Uh, but the first thing, the per first perspective we see uh from this passage is that conflict is inevitable when kingdoms get confronted.

It's inevitable when kingdoms get confronted.

Or Paul says this in Acts chapter 14 at the end of the passage.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

He says, they encouraged him to continue in the faith, reminding the church that they must suffer many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

And this word for hardships, it comes from the verb of it is to crush or to press or to squeeze.

Right?

It refers to the inevitable pressure that happens when two forces collide.

That's even where we get that word conflict.

It's the inevitable struggle that takes place due to disagreement, misalignment, competing values, differing desires.

At its root, it's the the word literally means a collision of some sorts.

And this is the same word that Jesus uses in John chapter 16 when he says, I've told you all this, so you're gonna have peace.

John 16 · chapter mention

In this world, here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows.

You will be crushed, pressed, squeezed.

That's going to be the reality.

All right, so Acts chapter 14 is it's a chapter showing us the fallout of two worlds colliding.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

So Paul and Barnabas at the beginning of the chapter, they teach powerfully in the synagogue.

Then Jewish leaders come and they stir up things, they poison the minds of the believers of those who believe.

Um, and then what happens is right after that, the Lord's proof the Lord proves that their message is true by giving them the power, the grace to do signs and wonders.

And then some of them decide to attack and stone Paul, and then they run and flee.

And then to the next place they go, Lystra, they heal a disabled man who then jumps up and starts walking.

And then there it becomes a severe misunderstanding about um who Paul and Barnabas are.

If you've read this chapter, they think they're they're Zeus and Hermes in like human form, and so they try to sacrifice to them.

But Paul's like, no, no, no, that's not what we're doing here.

We come in the name of Jesus.

Uh, the God that we're talking about is the God who takes care of everything, right?

And what happens is there's a moment when this guy gets up and walks when the kingdom of God directly reverses the reality of a fallen world.

Right?

Paul's like, why are you like, why are you don't sacrifice to us?

This is God's work.

Right?

So even in this chapter, we get the back and forth nature of living between two kingdoms: light versus darkness, pain and beauty, joy and heartache, this constant struggle between two kingdoms, we find ourselves constantly caught in the middle of.

Right?

Way back in Genesis 12, when God calls Abram, he says, there's gonna be people who bless you, and there's gonna be people who curse you.

You're going to encounter both.

Right?

So following Jesus in the modern world means we are living in highly contested territory.

What C.S.

Lewis called enemy-occupied territory.

He says, that's what this world is.

Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

In another writing, he says, there is no neutral ground in the universe.

Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.

And so until Jesus returns, we have to learn to live in the middle of that.

We live in the tension and the fallout of a major collision between two worlds, which means we're going to see the reality of goodness, of light, of beauty, but also the reality of evil, pain, and darkness.

I'll never forget my first day as a junior in Bible college.

It was an intro to Christian leadership course taught by one of my mentors, Dr.

Rob Maupin.

And for me, I'm just in this course because I'm like, man, I can't wait to be a Christian leader.

This is gonna be awesome.

It's gonna be so fun.

I've heard so many good things.

Like, um, this is gonna be awesome.

And I never forget the first day, it's 8.05 in the morning.

I sit down, get my notebook out, and Dr.

Maupin's first words out of his mouth for this course were this.

Anytime you try to do anything good in this world, there is an active force working against you.

What?

Like, but think about that.

Anytime you try to do anything good in this world, there is a force working against you.

How many of you you've had the like moment the night before of like, I'm gonna get up at 5 a.m.

tomorrow and I'm gonna work out, or I'm gonna read my Bible, I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna do this, this, and this, I'm gonna do a full day of work before 7 a.m.

It's gonna be the most productive day in the world.

It's gonna be awesome.

And then that alarm goes off, and you're like, you feel the active force working against you, right?

But you think about that.

I want to show up and I want to serve dinner to my neighbors.

It's hard.

It's that's difficult.

There's a lot of work and time and planning that goes into that.

Right?

Even many of us in this room know this to be true.

Like you signed up to help in some way, shape, or form, and you experienced profound hurt, maybe.

Maybe you signed up to volunteer somewhere and you were either rejected, hurt, betrayed.

I just even know that in this room there are people who were former or current missionaries, pastors, leaders, um, and you have been burned over and over in ministry.

Like anytime we try to do anything good in this world, we we encounter that force, that collision of the two worlds.

And so for us today, it's part of the just recognizing kingdom conflict.

This first perspective is just accepting this reality.

That not everything is spiritual conflict.

I'm not saying there's a demon behind every bush, but we do live in a highly contested world.

Paul says in Ephesians 6, he says, For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers, authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in the dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Right?

When you participate with God in pushing back the kingdoms of darkness, the darkness will push back.

Paul has physical evidence in this of this in Galatians 6.

He says, I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus.

That for Paul, there is physical evidence that comes from this chapter, Acts chapter 14.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

But it also comes in the same chapter that he talks about new creation.

Galatians 6, 15, just a couple verses earlier, he says, What counts is whether we have been transformed into new creation, and somehow the scars we accumulate are going to be part of the journey.

And Jesus reminds us in John chapter 16, he says, But take heart, because I have overcome.

John 16 · chapter mention

That Greek word is Nike, where we like you're maybe you're wearing Nike right now.

It means victory.

I've taken victory over the world.

This match has already been decided, so we can keep going, knowing the battle has already been won, friends.

And it's a reminder to us that God is doing something in conflict that maybe we can't see, but we can consent to.

So there is conflict in this place.

But the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, stayed there a long time.

Preaching boldly.

They stayed a long time.

They make a conscious choice to sit in the pain and the discomfort, to get comfortable with conflict.

Even uh what we saw earlier when Paul says we must go through many trials, that preposition meaning through is Paul's not using that preposition meaning to like a final destination, but it means through a place into something greater.

Which means conflict is temporary, but its fruit can be eternal if we allow if we consent to Jesus' work in it.

That conflict can become a catalyst for growth for every person in this room if we're willing to consent.

And what is called his triangle of transformation or the triangle of spiritual growth, Dallas Wheel talks about how we grow in the Christian life, how we become like Jesus.

And we see what the goal is in the middle.

The goal is to have the mind of Christ, to have everything centered on the mind of Christ, to become like Jesus more and more.

And when these kind of points on the different triangles show how we can become more and more like Jesus.

At the top, we have the action of the Holy Spirit, God's grace, his power, his presence in our lives, that God goes first in everything, and nothing is possible without the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

That there is no growth without the power and the presence of the Spirit.

And on this other corner, we see the planned disciplines to put on a new heart.

These are the things that we can do to participate with the Holy Spirit.

These are spiritual practices, the kingdom habits.

These are the things we see Jesus doing over and over in the Gospels, and we model our life after Him as He prays, as He practices Sabbath, as He serves, as He does work in justice, as He does, as He lives His life, as He practices things, we recognize these are the things Jesus says, so I need to model my life after that.

These are the things that we can do.

But in this other kind of corner here, or what Dallas calls the ordinary events of life.

Ordinary trials are the conflicts that we find ourselves in on a daily basis.

This is the relational conflict, the internal conflict, the spiritual conflict, the sickness, the pain, the annoyances, the things that bother you, the confusions, the struggles.

Right?

It's that moment when you're cut off in traffic.

It's that moment.

It's the moment when one of your kids comes in at 3 a.m.

saying, I got sick.

You're like, you got sick in the bathroom, right?

You made it to the bathroom, right?

No.

Okay, it's that moment.

It's the moment when the food's taking a little bit longer at the restaurant and you're really hungry, right?

It's that moment.

It's the moment when the Broncos lose.

It's the moment when you get a flat tire.

Right?

Dallas thought those were the moments that were critical to our growth.

And as we think about those moments, staying in conflict, it's not so much about adopting a new spiritual practice, but how do you adopt a posture of Christ-likeness in the middle of that?

Like, how do you open yourself up to what God is doing in those moments?

Because those contribute to our growth just as much as our kingdom practices, that actually conflict can shape us into the kind of people that the kingdom of God can flow through.

But friends, we must make an intentional effort and choice to stay there.

To be in it.

To stay there a long time, as Luke writes.

But I need to clarify that what Paul is not saying and what I'm not saying is that staying in conflict is much different than staying in something abusive.

I'm not saying to stay in that abusive relationship.

I'm not saying to staying in conflict means you don't get the medical help you need.

There is a difference between staying in conflict and staying in true places of abuse and harm.

Right?

Note that Paul in this chapter, he knows when to stay and he knows when to leave.

Right?

Staying in conflict is means there's safety present with the goal of growth and reconciliation.

But abuse is when someone uses power to dominate, to control, degrade, or crush another.

That God does not call you to stay in conflict when abuse is present.

Paul leaves three different places in this chapter because abuse dynamics are present.

But he does decide to stay in moments of struggle where there can be growth possible.

And the result of that comes in verse 3.

We see this.

But the apostles stayed there a long time, preaching boldly about the grace of the Lord, and the Lord proved their message was true by giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders.

That often grace, power, signs, and wonders, breakthrough in transformation are the result of consenting to Jesus' work in conflict.

Right?

It's the moments we choose to face those things in the mirror.

It's the moment we choose to face the hurts, the fears, the difficulties, the doubts, the struggle, the disordered desires, the anxieties, the moment that we decide to face those things and all the kind of jumbled mess that comes with that.

That we all walk around with day to day, but sometimes we either kind of deny it or we numb it away.

But as we choose to stay in it, to look it in the eye, we find also that Jesus and the love of God is also present within all of that.

And he's restoring and he's working and he's healing.

The spirit is moving in so many countless different ways.

Right?

It's through conflict that the kingdom of God gets more fully realized in our lives.

There's a song by Leonard Cohen called Anthem, and he says, Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There's a crack in everything.

But that's how the light gets in.

Friends, the brokenness, the weakness, the struggle, the conflict, that's how the light of the kingdom gets into our lives.

So even this morning, I just wonder for you, can you name something that's bothering you?

Can you name a specific conflict that you're dealing with?

Can you name one of those trials, temptations that Dallas would talk about?

And the question that we have to wrestle with as we stay there a long time is how might God be forming me through this thing?

How might Jesus be at work in this thing so that I become more and more like Jesus in my life?

And the third perspective about kingdom conflict is this that kingdom communities have a calling to be a healing presence.

We see this in Acts chapter 14, verse 19.

Acts 14:19

He says, Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowds to their side.

They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead.

But as the believers gathered around him, he got up, went back into the town, and the next day he left with Barnabas for Derby.

Paul and Barnabas are actually being hunted in this chapter.

He begins to understand the fickle nature of the crowds in Lystra.

Jesus knew this.

And he finds himself on the other side of the stones.

That he himself is now being stoned.

But Luke once again wants to draw our attention to the common life of the believers, to the disciples, to the kingdom community we call the church.

Like, what do they do when they see Paul?

They surround him.

That word literally means they encircled him.

They like formed a hedge around him.

They became a protective hedge around him so that he could heal.

The other uses of this word in the New Testament refers to like how an army will surround a city that they're about to take over.

But the King community is not about to take over anything, but they are coming to heal and protect.

All of us in this room, we need truly safe spaces to gather around us.

We think about our Sunday gathering.

That for us, we come in here not to retreat, but to be more fully formed, to encounter the grace, the goodness of God that we need so we can go back out into the world.

Our places of meal groups, our kids' ministry, our youth ministry, our EH tables can, like we just recognize life can beat us up.

So we need people to surround us, to witness to our stories and offer protection from the barrage of life, recognizing that spiritual resilience might be more about than external support than internal strength.

Sometimes we just can't muster the strength that we need, so we need the community around us to help us.

And what I also recognize is there's many in the room who you thought you were going to find healing presence in a certain kingdom community.

But actually, what you found was more people who were willing to pile on stones.

Like what you thought was a healing community was actually really harmful.

I'm really sorry.

My hope and my prayer is that we can continue to cultivate that healing presence here at COS.

And as uh the worship team and Jason come up to lead us to the table, we recognize that the healing community actually can bring life to our souls and to our lives.

So it says that the the believe the believers gathered around Paul and then he got up and walked.

That word that he he got up was actually the word for resurrection, that he experienced resurrection and restoration as he got up and walked.

He refers to the life that we experience after a sort of death.

That the church, the disciples actually healed Paul.

Like Paul earlier in the chapter did an incredible miracle early in the chapter.

And the ordinary disciples here in the book of Acts do a miracle for Paul right here.

We don't know what they did, we don't know um how they went about it, but we know their presence was healing.

That Paul was able to get up and walk.

A couple years ago, I tore my ACL because I tried to ski and I can't ski.

And um, I learned a lot in that process of um, it was it was a fun little journey, I'll say that.

Um I tore it on top of the mountain, so I got the toboggan ride down.

It was really fun.

Uh, that was like the only way I was gonna get down the mountain.

Um, but I found out the ACL was torn.

Um, and I learned a lot from the process of physical therapy that I realized the church can learn from places of physical therapy as well.

Recognizing that as we come into a place looking for healing or as we cultivate a healing community, that we have a lot to learn.

That the church can actually offer the gift of time to those who need it.

Like when I started PT, I thought it'd be good to go in six to eight weeks.

I'd be running again, sprinting.

Um, I would be, nothing would be bothering me.

But what I found was that healing takes time.

So, like, oh, do you have six to eight months instead of six to eight weeks?

That's what we get to do is we get to offer the gift of patience, time to those who need healing in our midst.

We also get to offer the gift of encouragement in our most difficult conflicts.

My first time walking into uh physical therapy, uh I thought it was gonna be like, I come in, I get a nice little massage, watch a little TV, do some stretching.

Like I had, again, no framework for what this was gonna look like.

My first time was like, all right, get on the bike.

I'm like, what?

Like, what are you talking about?

Um, and then they like they did this thing called scraping.

You ever had this?

Um they're like, we're gonna we're gonna scrape the muscle, the outside of the muscle, so that it kind of loosens up the muscle a little bit.

And I was like, okay, is this the massage part?

Like and then they started.

And I'm like seeing visions from the pain.

Like I'm seeing the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness in the third heaven.

I'm seeing visions of ancestors I didn't know I had.

Like I am seeing things.

But what I found was that actually these physical therapists were the most encouraging people that I've encountered in a long time.

That there will, they they will take you into places that are painful for your growth, but they are so encouraging along the way.

They also they also offer the gift of presence, and that's what we can offer as well.

There are so many days I didn't want to show up when I want to phone it in.

I just recognize for us today that there's people, you just coming to church today is just a miracle in and of itself.

That you're re-entering a space that feels very difficult for you.

My prayer is that you have the grace of time, of encouragement, of healing, and the gift of presence for yourself as well.

And when Paul is strong enough, he actually walks back and then he goes to Antioch.

And here's what he happens in Antioch.

He says, Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything that God had done through them and how he opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, and he stayed there with the believers for a long time.

Remember how he decided to stay in conflict for a long time?

He stays with his comforting, life-giving community for a long time as well.

There's a correlation between staying in conflict and need in community.

That he gets a chance to catch his breath, to tell the story of what happened, good and bad, to remind the church that conflict is inevitable, that God's good work in us is not hindered by conflict, but actually can form us more deeply into Christ's image because of it.

That he decides to stay there.

As we come to the table, I had a moment with a friend in March where uh we were just reflecting back.

I was visiting him in Texas over tacos because tacos in Texas are just next level.

I'm sorry.

They're so good.

But we had a chance to just reflect on the on the year that he had, and he had a really difficult year.

Um, and as we're kind of thinking about, I'll never forget the phrase that he said.

He says, I was still very confused by everything that happened, but I'll never forget who was with me.

Right?

As you think about conflict, struggle, pain.

Some of you will you just you can't fathom or even begin to wrap your minds around what was going on, but you remember who was with you.

You remember that you had a God who was present with you, and you had a community of people that maybe were there for you.

And we think about the work of Jesus.

That Jesus could literally endure anything, even an instrument of death, even a cross because of who was with him.

He knew at every moment his father was with him, so he could endure everything.

He knew his father would be with him.

So my prayer for you this morning is that you encounter the gift of God's presence at the table this morning.

Let's pray.

God, thank you.

That you are shaping us into a community of people with narratives, stories, where you're at work, where you're healing and restoring.

And in the midst of all that, you give us people called the church to walk alongside us, to witness to our pain, but also to remind us of your goodness.

And God thank you that you are shaping every person in this room more and more into the image of Jesus.

So for the people who are just kind of just recognizing they have a lot of little annoyances in their lives, I pray you would shape them through those things.

And for the people who are wrestling with something really, really difficult today.

That you would give them the grace and the strength to turn towards you, to face what that thing is, but to recognize your love in the midst of all of that.

God, thank you that we have the example and the wisdom of Jesus every step of the journey.

That we get to walk in resurrection.

That we get to walk in resurrection in community.

Recognizing you're shaping us into a community of believers formed in a common life for the common good.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be a world without end.

Amen.