The return to Antioch in Syria. They preached the gospel in that
city and won a large number of disciples.
Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,
strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true
to the faith. We must go through many
hardships to enter the Kingdom of God, they said.
Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church
and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord and
whom they had put their trust. After going through Presidia,
they came into Pamphylia, and when they had preached the word
in Parga, they went down to Italia.
From Italia they sailed back to Antioch where they had been
committed to the grace of God for the work they had now
completed. On arriving there, they gathered
the church together and reported all that God had done through
them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles
and they stayed there a long time with their disciples.
We started our time and Acts back in September.
It's been quite a long time actually.
We're taking a break to do a short Easter series across
April. Then the plan is we're going to
be looking at the Old Testament Book of Proverbs in the summer
term. And before we go back to our
Summer Sam series, which is a standard Ave. we hope to return
to the Book of Acts sometime in the near future.
But it's helpful because we're taking a break from it just to
pause and reflect a bit on what we've learnt together from this
book of Acts over the last few months.
I guess we remind ourselves again and again of the big idea
behind the book of Acts, which we want to say is this actually
that we are witnesses for Jesus in this world, in the power of
the Holy Spirit. That is our core identity, says
Luke, the writer of Acts. Any follower of Jesus, they are
a witness to him in the world we live in.
If you're a Christian reading the book of Acts, Luke wants you
to see that Jesus is your Lord, Jesus is your rescuer, and
therefore you are one of his witnesses in this world wherever
he has placed you. And the second part in the power
of the Holy Spirit, Luke wants to see we can't live as
witnesses for Jesus on our own. Sometimes I think we can think
that we think, well, I just need to learn something about Jesus,
then I'll tell people about him. But actually look is really
clear. Jesus is really clear.
We cannot live as his witnesses on our own.
We need the Holy Spirit and God the Holy Spirit has come down to
us, sent by the Father and the Son, receive when we put our
faith in Jesus to live in each one of us, to change us and make
us more like Jesus, to empower us to live as his witnesses in
this world. That's why we need to pray
together for our witness individually and corporately.
That's why we proclaim the word of God regularly in our times
because it's through prayer on the word of God that the Holy
Spirit works in people's lives, convicting them of their sin and
opening their eyes to Jesus. So we are witnesses for Jesus in
this world in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And there's been a number of other themes we've seen
throughout this. If you've been with us over the
last few months, one thing I'm going to I'm going to flip
between power and power because that's what I do, the power of
the gospel. So to quote the Apostle Paul and
Act shows us that the gospel is the power of God to bring
salvation to everyone who believes, even the most unlikely
people. We've seen that in Acts, people
like Saul of Tarsus, who hates Christians, ends up becoming a
follower of Jesus because of the power of the gospel, the power
of prayer as well. Throughout the book of Acts, God
works through the prayers of his ordinary, weak, flawed people to
accomplish his purposes. The place of suffering in the
Christian life. That's a big theme, actually.
We see throughout Acts the 12 apostles suffer as witnesses for
Jesus. Stephen suffers as a witness for
Jesus. Paul and Barnabas suffer as
witnesses for Jesus. And we also see the vital part
the local church plays on mission with Jesus in the
opening chapters of Acts. That's the church in Jerusalem.
Later on, we focus a bit more on the church in Antioch and where
we're headed today. Our our closing passage before
we take a break from Acts is going to focus on the last two
of those, the place of suffering in the Christian life and the
vital part the the local church plays on mission with Jesus.
But in all of this, Acts is here to show us who we are and why
we're here in this world. We are witnesses for Jesus in
the power of the Holy Spirit and adding to that message, that big
overarching message. What's this bit of Acts 14 about
that Clara just read to us? I think, again, maybe simply we
could just say this, that disciples of Jesus need healthy
local churches. If we're going to live out that
identity as witnesses for Jesus, we need healthy local churches
to live as Jesus witnesses. That's the mission strategy of
Paul and Barnabas here. I hope you saw that when you
looked at what? What do we see them do in Acts?
We see them planting healthy local churches.
According to Paul and Barnabas, for followers of Jesus to live
as witnesses for Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, we
need healthy local churches to strengthen and encourage us in
the faith to walk together with us through hardship and to
partner together on mission with Jesus.
And that's important to get those things together, mission
and the church, because in my experience chatting to
Christians over the years, some of us love evangelism and
mission. We just want to get out there
and share Jesus with people. And we get impatient with other
believers who are more hesitant or nervous.
The church can feel like it's holding us back.
The local church can feel like it gets in the way of mission.
I wonder if you ever felt like that and you talk to other
Christians and they and they love the church.
We, we love the community of God's people.
We love sharing life together. We love praying for each other,
caring for each other, enjoying life together.
And, and if we're honest, we're, we're sort of happy with the
local church as it is. We sort of got enough people to
get to know. We don't have time to start
speaking to about Jesus to new people.
We actually, if we're honest, we don't really want the church to
grow that much because it might, it might feel different and
mission feels like it gets in the way of the local church.
All that stuff we've got to do. I wonder, have you ever felt
like that? You need to see in the message
of Acts and Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas love mission and they
love the church. They have learned from Jesus
that those two things go together.
Jesus loves mission. We are told He came to seek and
to save the lost. He's committed to making
disciples of all nations. He's committed to building his
church. And why?
Because Jesus loves the church. The church is his bride, His
body. The church is made-up of people
he delights to call brothers and sisters.
And and because of that, in order for us to make disciples
for Jesus in this world and to live as his witnesses in this
world, we need healthy local churches.
That is Paul and Barnabas's priority as they return home to
Antioch. So let's look at this bit of
Acts 14 together now. And by verse 21 of of Acts 14,
they're beginning to head home. Just kind of say, is this
projector just wonderful? I love it.
Mark Harrison, thank you very
much. I, I kept doing comments like,
oh, if you want to see the map, look back there.
But no, look, it's lovely and shiny.
So, so here's that. And this is often called Paul's
first missionary journey there. There are two others recorded in
the book of Acts, and the dates for that is round about AD 46 to
47. So actually in the last three
weeks here, we've been covering a period of time that's roughly
about two years in the lives of Paul and Barnabas.
I think it's always worth remembering that we were saying
that in our Home group the other week.
The kind of it feels like all this happens just in a long
weekend, all this amazing stuff. Actually, it's two years.
Paul and Barnabas know that mission takes time and requires
patience and perseverance, even when you're travelling as a
missionary. So where have they travelled to?
Well, Luke's told us it's on the map there.
They started off in Cyprus, which was Barnabas homeland,
moved to Antioch in Basidia, Iconium, Lystra, Derby.
And they've seen people hungry for the gospel and they've seen
people opposed to the gospel, both Jewish people and Gentile
people. They have seen fruit people
trusting in Jesus and they've seen opposition from both Jewish
people and Gentile people. And now finally, they're
preparing to travel home to Antioch.
And what do we see Paul and Barnabas doing on their journey
home when we see them making disciples for Jesus and
establishing healthy local churches?
First of all, they make disciples for Jesus.
Here's how Luke describes it in verse 21.
This is referring to their time in Derby.
He said they preached the gospel in that city and won a large
number of disciples. Literally look rights.
They discipled many people. Other translations.
They made many disciples. Why does Luke describe it that
way? Well, because he's picking up
the language of the risen Jesus to his disciples just after
resurrection, the words of the Great Commission.
This is part of our verse for the term, this past term.
Jesus says go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I
am with you always to the very end of the age.
What does it mean when Jesus says make disciples of all
nations? I think he's saying it's more
than just sharing the gospel with people.
It's more than just looking for converts.
I think people have met somebody go.
Oh, yeah, we saw 15 conversions on the streets the other week.
You know, that's great. But but what happened next?
What did you just or we never see them again.
Actually, for Paul and Barnabas, it's really important that
discipleship is the language of being a follower, A learner, a
student, or an apprentice of Jesus.
To be discipled by Jesus means to take time with him, to follow
him and learn from him and listen to him over and above all
the other voices in our world. See, Jesus isn't just looking
for converts, he's looking for disciples.
And Paul and Barnabas get that. So they don't just share the
gospel people and leave them on their own.
No, they they establish healthy local churches.
They want these new disciples to to belong to gospel communities
of other disciples who will love them and encourage them and
speak the truth in love to them, who will share a life together.
They place disciples in local churches because to be a
disciple of Jesus, it's not something you do on your own as
a lone wolf. You need other disciples around
you. And Paul and Barnabas go to
great lengths to establish healthy local churches here.
Again, back to the map. Not just because it's so
beautiful on that screen, but if you look at verses 21 and 23 and
you look at the map. So Derby is up here and
Antioch's there. And actually when you look at
the map, it's quite a short walk over land to get back to Antioch
from Derby. They they could have got home a
lot quicker than they did in the end.
But Paul and Barnabas take the long way home.
Why? Well, verse 22, they wanted to
strengthen the disciples and the places they already visited.
So Lyster, Iconium, Pisidian, Antioch, and encourage them to
remain true to the faith. So they travel back to all the
places they visited the first time.
And and if that doesn't feel strange, remember they
experienced huge amounts of opposition and rejection in
those places. Paul, if you remember in Lyster,
was stoned and left for dead outside the city.
They could be forgiven for never wanting to go to those places
ever again. And yet Paul and Barnabas chose
to take the long way home so they could strengthen and
encourage the disciples in those places.
See, Paul and Barnabas know that these disciples needed churches
to nurture them and to partner with them on mission.
Look at verse 23 in the passage. Paul and Barnabas appointed
elders for them in each church and with prayer and fasting
committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust.
Here we see that's a real priority for Paul and Barnabas,
that these new believers, they need a local church around them.
They go to great lengths to ensure that that these believers
belong to a local church. They actually don't set up one
big mega church for Asia Minor. No, they established local
churches in each of the places they visited, Derby, Lystra,
Iconium, Pisidium, Antioch. And they ensure that each of
these churches have a group of godly elders to oversee them.
Look at how they appoint them. They appoint them prayerfully,
we're told, with prayer and fasting.
They commit them to the Lord. They appoint them in out of out
of those churches themselves. It says in each church they
appointed leaders. It was leaders from those places
who were appointed as elders, and we make sure there's more
than one elder in place. In the New Testament church,
leadership is always plural leadership.
It's never just a one man show or one leader dominating
everyone else. So Luke's showing us that a
healthy local church is a prayerful church with godly men
appointed as leaders and committed to strengthening and
encouraging the believers in the faith.
And why is that so vital in mission?
Well, because if we want people to see the power of the gospel
at work in people's lives, the church is the place we see it.
The church should be the place we see lives transformed by
Jesus. If we want people to say well
this gospel is actually true, we want to show people the
community, the relationships in the local church and I guess a
brief application for us. We've been saying this a lot in
family meetings. Please keep praying for the
elders Ave. and please pray for new elders to be appointed,
recognised and appointed from within our church.
We've got 3 elders currently, Joel, Chris, and myself.
But are there other men in our church who are teaching God's
Word, loving God's people, leading people in the direction
the Lord wants us to go? Please do pray for that.
So disciples of Jesus need healthy local churches.
And Luke goes on to tell us why we need that, to strengthen and
encourage us in the faith. That's what Paul and Barnabas
do, verse 21 to 22, their return to these places, strengthening
the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the
faith. Why?
Because it can be hard living for Jesus as a witness to Jesus
in this world. We live in a world that does not
worship Jesus as Lord. As Matt McDermott pointed out
last week, we are out of step with the world around us.
We are weird. I love that.
We are weird, and we're weird because we belong to Jesus and
because we've been sent by Jesus as his witnesses.
And so if we just are living on our own, it's we're just going
to get discouraged and weary. We're going to start trusting in
other gospels, other things, other people who might save and
satisfy us. And Paul and Barnes know the
believers in these places. They are young Christians.
They need a community around them who will strengthen and
encourage them in the faith. What does the faith mean?
It means the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
That's why we meet together like this.
We need to hear the Word of God together.
We need to pray to God together. We need to sing God's praise.
I love the way the New Testament says singing is so important in
having the Word of Christ dwell among us richly.
We need to speak the truth in love to one another, to share a
life together as a whole. Church community on a Sunday, in
smaller groups throughout the week.
Home groups, Tuesday morning Bible study source.
Disciples of Jesus need to belong to a local healthy church
to be strengthened and encouraged in the faith.
And if we really need to be convinced of that, we need to
see the heart of Paul and Barnabas message in verse 22.
And Paul and Barnard are taking the long way home there visiting
these churches. They've got a message to
strengthen and encourage them. And I wonder if you wanted to
strengthen and encourage a group of young believers, what message
would you share? I think I would probably say
something like Jesus loves you. That's pretty encouraging or, or
you're not alone. There are other Christians
around the world or we're praying for you.
Those feel like encouraging truths.
But Paul and Barnard's message is quite different.
Verse 22. We must go through many
hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.
That does not sound encouraging. That does not sound like what
you need. If you're feeling a bit
beleaguered, actually, it's going to be hard, says Paul.
Again, that's maybe not the message you or I would choose,
but as ever, the living God loves us more than we can
imagine and says things to us we need to hear even when we think
we don't. We must go through many
hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.
That word hardships that somebody translated as
tribulations or afflictions, more simply troubles.
And that's been a big theme actually throughout Paul's first
missionary journey, particularly Acts 14 themes of persecution
and suffering are front and centre.
See Paul and Barnabas experiences in Iconium and
Lystra. See the opposition they
experience everywhere they go. And again, Paul and Barnabas
experience is mainly persecution.
But it's interesting, Paul doesn't use the word for
persecution here. He broadens it to hardships.
So that includes when when people persecute us for a living
as witnesses for Jesus. But it's a broader category of
suffering. It's other types of struggle and
pain in a fallen world. As we follow Jesus and look at
Paul's word must he's not saying some of you will go through
hardships. Christians, it's not optional.
It doesn't just apply to some Christians.
We all will experience hardships for following Jesus.
Now we need to be clear, that's not an entry requirement that
gets you into the Kingdom of God, but it's a vital part of
following Jesus in a world that doesn't.
We experience hardships because we live in a fallen world and we
follow a suffering Savior. And Jesus was really open about
this, just as Paul and Barnabas are.
They don't hide this. Jesus never hides this.
The night before he goes to the cross, he says to disciples in
this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have
overcome the world. Or another part in Luke 9, he
says whoever wants to be my disciples must deny themselves
and take up their cross daily and follow me.
For everyone's to save their life, we'll lose it, but whoever
loses their life for me, we'll save it again.
It's appropriate we're looking at this passage just a week
before Easter when we remember that the King, the Lord we
worship, went through many hardships to rescue us.
Paul wants us to know here that when we live as Jesus witnesses
in this world, hardships will come.
They'll come because it's a fallen world.
Even more than that, they'll come before we follow a
suffering Savior. If the world rejected him, it
will reject us also. And Paul and Barnabas want to
tell this really openly to these young Christians because he says
when hardships come, he doesn't want to think, well, this means
God has abandoned us. This means God doesn't love us.
That's often how we feel when we go through hardships.
Paul says, no, There I see a sign that you're following
Jesus. They're a sign that you're
following a crucified Savior who is familiar with suffering, and
you're not home yet. It's interesting that Paul and
Barnabas are on their way home. Literally at this point, but
every Christian is on their way home to the new creation, but
we're not there yet. And Paul says before we get
there, we will experience hardships.
And again, I this is a truth I don't need to prove.
We're not a very big church, but we have plenty of people who are
experiencing hardships at the moment.
We're praying for Lisa in hospital at the minute.
We're praying for the Finney family, we're praying for Joe
and Hannah Lockhead. We're praying for the Dolan
family corporately. And if you belong to your Home
group here, you will know there is plenty of hardship that
people in our groups are experiencing.
Sort of struggles in our families or in our marriages,
struggles in our workplaces, struggles with our physical
health or mental health, struggles with uncertainty.
We live in a fallen world and we will go through hardships.
Paul and Barnabas want these young Christians to know that.
Luke wants Christians of every generation to know that.
That's why he records this message.
But Paul's also clear that the hardships are never pointless
for the follower of Jesus, and that can be hard to believe
sometimes. But notice again how Paul and
Barnabas see hardships as part of God working out his purposes
in the world to make us more like Jesus, to bring us into the
Kingdom of God. I mean, look at Paul and Barnas
themselves. They experienced huge amounts of
hardship in the places they visited.
Again, Paul was was stoned and left for dead.
They were rejected, they were insulted.
But standing in front of them as they give this message is the
fruit of their hardship. There are Christians in these
places that would not have been there if Paul and Barnabas
hadn't been willing to suffer. And one of the hardest things
about suffering and one of the hardest things of hardship is it
feels like a waste. But Paula Bars want these people
to know, no, there is a reason behind it.
We will not always understand it at the time, but hardship and
suffering are not the sign the Lord has left you.
They're actually an invitation to us to draw near to him.
They're an invitation to us to admit we're not in control, to
come to Him, to collapse on Him, and then to seek to love one
another as we all experience hardships.
God works through hardships in ways we see and ways we don't
see. But Paul and Barnabas are
confident that does not stop us entering the Kingdom of God.
And they're equally confident that hardships will not have the
final word. The destination is the Kingdom
of God. When you put your trust in
Jesus, if you're a Christian, you're today your home became at
that moment the Kingdom of God, the restoration of all things.
When Jesus returns, the new creation where sin and death
will be no more and where God will welcome us and wipe every
tear from our eyes. Paul and Barn is saying there is
going to be hardships, Christians, there are going to
be hard times that will expose our need for God, will expose
the limits of what we can do. But actually, we are on our way
to a place where there will be no more hardships, where Jesus
has won that new creation for us high through suffering in our
place, so that when we suffer, He is with us.
He is compassionate, He knows what it's like, and He is
accomplishing His purposes in US and through us.
Again, at first glance, it's a hard message.
But remember, This is why we need healthy local churches to
walk through hardship together, to live as witnesses for Jesus
in this world. We will need one another.
And I'm a writer. I really enjoy put it like this.
Basically, in the church, we are all needy and we're all needed.
We are all needy people. We are weak, we go through
hardships. We need God's grace, we need the
help of God's people, but we're also needed because we have a
part to play in helping and loving and encouraging the
suffering believers around us. And remember, this is not just
to individual, this is to churches.
We must go through hardships. Chatting to someone recently, we
both were sort of saying if we didn't belong to a local church,
it feels like we might be spared quite a lot of hardships because
we we share it together. One part of the body of Christ
suffers. We all suffer and it's hard, but
actually to walk together through hardship is to learn
more of Jesus walking ahead of us into suffering on his way to
glory. And we also suffer on our way to
glory, but we do not walk alone. The Lord walks with us, and
amazingly and beautifully, He invites each one of us to walk
together on those roads. We need healthy local churches
to strengthen and encourage us to walk together. 3 hardships.
And finally, and briefly, we need local churches to partner
together on mission with Jesus. In the end of Acts 14, it's just
a wonderful little moment. Eventually they've taken the
long way home, but Paul and Barnabas arrived back to their
sending church in the city of Antioch.
Let me pick up from verse 26. From Italia they sailed back to
Antioch where they had been committed to the grace of God
for the work they had now completed.
On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported
all that God had done through them and how He had opened a
door of faith to the Gentiles. And Paul and Barnabas stayed
there a long time with the disciples.
Remember again, Paul and Barnabas been away for best part
of two years. This is a joyful homecoming.
You read these verses, you imagine the hugs and the
laughter and the excitement and the questions.
Because you see, the whole church at Antioch had played
their part. Admittedly, only Paul and
Barnabas had gone into Asia Minor, but the whole church had
committed them to the grace of God.
The whole church had prayed for them on their journey, and now
the whole church had them home again and they could all hear
together what God had done through Paul and Barnabas.
This is a privilege of being in a church where we get to partner
together with others on the mission field.
We all have different mission fields, different callings, but
we get to travel together. I was reading these verses this
week and I just confess, when I saw Matt and Lisa in the
hospital a few weeks ago back from Nigeria, just to give Matt
a hug was just amazing. And you're a lovely hugger.
I couldn't give Lisa a hug because she just had open heart
surgery, but sort of waved. And then just to ask questions
and just say, tell me what's going on, What are you doing?
You're here. Tell me more.
And that is the joy of partnering.
Said a minute ago something wouldn't it be easier and
simpler if we weren't part of a local church?
We'd be spared some some hard stuff.
You'd also miss out on the joy of partnering together with
brothers and sisters in Christ. I love the way Luke puts it,
verse 27, Paul and Barnes reported all that God had done
through them, and I'd open the door of faith to the Gentiles.
They're not saying look what we did, saying what God did through
them. God is the one who saves.
God is the one who leads us on mission.
I hope we've seen that again and again in Acts.
That's why as a church, we need to be prayerful.
We need to go, Lord, what would you have us do?
Where would you have us go? But amazingly, God chose to work
through Paul and Barnabas to accomplish that.
And amazingly, God chooses to work through people like us to
accomplish his purposes. The end of Acts 14 is this great
picture of the joy that comes through partnering together on
mission with Jesus in this world.
So we're taking a break from the book of Acts.
But Acts 14 reminds us of some really vital truths that we need
healthy local churches to strengthen and encourage us to
remind us that God is God and Christ is risen and Christ is
coming back. We need local churches to walk
together through hardship. They that will come hardship,
but it is never pointless and God can use us to comfort one
another in those times and we are We need local churches to
partner together to each play our part in what God wants to do
through us. Even today we have an egg trail.
We have a holiday club this week.
We could be praying each one of us, whether or not we're here in
person that the Lord would work through us to accomplish his
purposes. The message of Acts 1 to 14.
We are witnesses for Jesus in this real world, in the power of
the Holy Spirit that seek to live out that identity together.
Let me pray for us. Let's pray.
Father God, thank you so much that you love us more than we
can imagine. And Lord, you speak to us.
Truths we need to hear, not always truths we might choose to
hear. And this promise that we must go
through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God, many of us
would choose for that not to be here in your word.
But thank you that You love us enough to be honest with us.
And thank you that you promised us that that hardship will not
be pointless and it will not have the final word in our
lives. Keep us trusting in You that You
are working out your purposes. And thank You, Father, that at
this time of year particularly, we remember the King who
experienced many hardships to win the Kingdom of God for us.
We remember Jesus who lived and who suffered and was rejected
and beaten and condemned to death and died and rose again to
bring us into the Kingdom of God.
Thank you Father, you're a God familiar with suffering and
hardship, therefore you're able to help us when we are
experiencing suffering and hardship.
Would we know your help and would you lead us in how we can
help one another in the days ahead?
And we ask it in Jesus name, and for his glory.
Amen.