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Strengthen the Faith of Committed Servants that Brings Glory to God.
Paul is in a non-Jewish town were the Jewish population is small enough that there is no synagogue.
As Paul has been proclaiming the gospel the Greeks there are those who have trusted and accepted the gospel message but then I also saw last week how the Greeks were so poisoned by their beliefs that they couldn’t move on from exalting Paul and Barnabas as gods even after Paul and Barnabas tried so hard to convince them of the source of all things is the living God not their stone gods.
Here is the problem with trusting in stone gods and having your mind poisoned, even though it is not easy to evangelize those whose minds are poisoned it is easy to keep them poisoned.
The Jews who were against Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and Iconium have played the people of Lystra against Paul.
Verse 19 says the Jews, “won over the crowds.”
I am not sure how they did this but some how they won the crowd over.
They didn’t win them over by bringing them to an understanding of the Hebrew Scripture.
What they more then likely did was state that Paul was a false god who was trying to turn them from their gods.
Paul was no god at all.
Paul himself said this.
They feed on the Greeks desire to serve their own gods and lied to get them to turn on Paul. the intention of the Jewish elite was to get Paul out of the way by any means necessary even if they themselves had to break their own laws to get it done.
Here is what happens when people are swayed with lies, the one who they honored as their god now they want to put him to death.
This is an interesting verse because it states they supposed him to be dead and dragged him out of the city.
I need to look up the Greek and what it means here by suppose but typically mobs are so pumped full of adrenaline it is hard for them to stop even if the body was lifeless because he was knocked unconscious.
Could that have happened sure and maybe they were so rage filled that they just stopped, “supposing” Paul to be dead.
Was Paul dead or was he unconscious, pretty much every scholar says the wording is of he appeared to be dead but was not.
Why Luke wrote it this way I can’t answer but there is one thing I know for sure, Paul got back up.
Acts verse 20, after the mob left and the disciples stood there bewildered, Paul nonchalantly stands and enters the same city the mob dragged him out of.
Barnabas was not a part of this but he was there in the city .
The reason why Paul was stoned and not Barnabas is not spelled out for us in the text.
The Jews wanted them both dead.
It could have to do with their personalities Paul was the outspoken one and Barnabas the encourager.
Maybe they cornered Paul on his way back from the grocery store and Paul isn’t one to back down so it was easy for them to go after him.
Regardless Barnabas and Paul, knowing that the minds of these people are severely poisoned, leave the next day for Derbe.
Making Committed Servants
Verse 21-22, In Derbe the apostles do not seem to run into much opposition.
Luke provides a quick note here, “After they had preached the gospel to the city and had made many disciples, they returned to the Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch.”
The Jews who followed Paul to Lystra didn’t follow any further because they believed him to be dead.
Thinking they were victorious returned to their own homes.
Paul was free in Derbe to preach the gospel.
Here is the real victory, people were being saved from their sins, disciples of Jesus Christ were being made.
The real key here, though, is not the disciples being made the emphasis now is on the reach of the gospel and the continued work for those disciples of the towns Paul had found opposition.
Here is the thing, salvation is not the outcome of the gospel, the outcome of the gospel is to make disciples.
Jesus gives the disciples the great commission In Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20 didn’t say, ‘go out into all the world and get people saved,’ he said go out and make disciples of all the nations.
Evangelism and the gospel is two prong, it is presenting people with the need of a Savior and once they trust in the Savior now they need to be taught how to live like the Savior.
Jesus doesn’t just want people to acknowledge sinfulness and ask for forgiveness and that is all.
And Evangelism is not for the sake of putting a notch in your belt, a tally of how many people you brought to the Lord.
It is about people making a lifelong commitment to follow Jesus Christ and Glorify Him and the Father in the process.
All to often when it come to the good news or the gospel people stop at conversion but never have the follow through to discipleship.
Jesus didn’t want converts He wanted committed servants.
He even told His disciples to count the cost of following Him.
You can’t go in halfhearted and fickle, you are either all in or not at all.
Paul knew the risks of following Jesus, he counted the cost and he was willing to pay for it with his own life.
He is a committed servant and it takes committed servants to produce committed servants.
This takes encouragement and it takes training.
The irony here is kind of funny.
The people of Lystra were so gong ho about Paul and Barnabas being gods and they are ready to offer them sacrifices but they were also very fickle.
They were easily swayed away from thinking Paul a god to stoning him.
This is why when it comes to evangelism it is not a halfhearted decision but what Jesus calls for is a full commitment.
When you think about people who have fallen away from the faith.
These are people who in two ways have made a halfhearted commitment and also where not encouraged and had their faith strengthened.
It is a serious commitment with serious repercussion.
As of right now we don’t have to worry about being stoned to death, but it can happen in our life time.
So we need to be fully committed and we need to have the mindset when we go out and evangelize that we want to see these people to be fully committed also.
Paul and Barnabas were committed servants producing committed servants.
They didn’t just evangelize and move on they evangelized and for the purpose of strengthening and encouragement.
It takes a lot to be a committed servant, to live by faith especially in a world that is full of darkness and where minds are being poisoned against who you believe in and trying to poison your mind against your faith.
Paul even tells the people in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, “Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God.”
It is not easy to be a committed servant, there are obstacles in our way and most of the time they come our of nowhere.
Our faith is continually shaken.
So in order to be committed servants we need the encouragement and strengthening of other committed servants.
It’s funny Paul can turn to these men and say to them, hey I know what it’s like to die for the cause of Christ, but I’m still plugging away.
I’m in the same town where you saw them stone me, I will keep going and so should you.
This is the only good fight worth fighting, so keep up the good fight.
(Galatians: Paul says he was scared for Christ)
Paul saying this also echo’s Jesus’ own words.
Jesus warned His disciples they would face persecution and tribulation.
He made it clear to those who followed Him that it would not be easy to follow Him.
Now Paul tells the disciples the same thing.
There is never any reason to try and tell people your life will be so much better if you trust Jesus.
It’s not going to be better until we stand before Him for all eternity.
If anything life will get harder.
Try telling people that the next time you gibe the gospel.
Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins, He took God’s wrath so you don’t have to.
If you acknowledge your sins and confess it to God and accept this is truth you will be forgiven and spend eternity with God but your life is going to get harder.
People will flock to the Kingdom for sure.
Well guess what Jesus did this, Jesus always made sure those HE taught and the people who followed Him knew the Christian life isn’t a walk in the park.
There are those out there who love to preach an incomplete gospel.
There idea of evangelism is to win souls by any means necessary.
They have the idea the ends justify the means, well that is a philosophy that will states you do what every it takes to get people saved.
That isn’t biblical because that means you would even have to lie.
Then when the people face persecution and hard times or when they don’t receive some some half-baked promise that was presented, they turn from God and Jesus all together.
Becoming a Christian is simple but being a Christian is hard.
It takes discipline to walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord.
It takes discipline to go to someone and give the gospel, evangelize them and then disciple them.
It take discipline to honor and glorify God, it takes discipline to be Holy as God is Holy.
It is a lot of hard work and you’re always under some kind of an attack.
The world hates you and the world wants you to fail as a Christian.
So as we walk in the dark world constantly barraged by the enemy who hates us know that it takes discipline and encouragement to get you through.the is why the church is so crucial to the growth and strengthening of the believer.
As I was studying this passage and thinking about encouragement and suffering and the strengthening of people faith, our church messenger was going off with the people in the church praying for Darlene as she went through her surgery.
The prayers and support they recieved as they went through this is what the church is for.
That is why we need to be honest about what God is doing and how we feel.
You can’t be encouraged by others if you keep it bottled up.
Then what will happen is, when the tribulation comes, and it will, you won’t be able to handle it.
Paul knows what it meant to go through suffering.
In fact, Jesus told Paul he would suffer many things for the sake of the gospel, Paul provides a list of his sufferings and most of the things we are about to read, have yet to happen to Paul.
So I can assure you Paul is not just preaching to them but reminding himself as well.
He provides this life in 2 Corinthians 11:23ff.
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