Acts 14 - Closing down the Idol Factories

You are listening to Recast Church of Madawan's Podcast. Listen in as our lead pastor,

Don Sopec, is in a sermon series entitled, Solid Foundation, A Journey Through the

Book of Acts. Introducing my message here this morning, and I'm going to start off with a quote.

I don't do this often, but a guy named John Calvin, he was one of the great theologians of the 1500s, and he once said this, and I'm going to put that up on the screen so that you can see it, because sometimes

I read John Calvin, I read some of these guys, and it takes me a little while to get it. I have to read it two or three times.

So I'm going to read this to you, but you can kind of follow along up there. He says this, We may infer that the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.

The human mind, stuffed as it is with presumptuous rashness, dares to imagine a

God suited to its own capacities. What he's saying is that we have a tendency to put

God in our image. We think about Him in a certain way, and we begin to figure that He is like that in our thoughts.

He dares to imagine a God suited to its own capacities, as it labors under it being the human mind, labors under dullness.

Nay, the human mind is sunk in the grossest ignorance. It substitutes vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God.

Can you relate to that in your own life? Do you see your tendency to be a forge of idols? This statement, by the way, has led some to misquote

Calvin as saying that he said that the human heart is a factory, an idol factory. It actually was forge of idols, but of course we don't really use forges as much anymore.

So the use of the word factory there kind of makes sense in our modern context. Our hearts have a tendency to manufacture idols.

Do you see that? I mean, interact with me here for a second. Raise your hand. Do you see that in your life, where you have a tendency to create things to worship?

That is a phenomenon in human history. It's something that we all do. A phenomenon of worship and faith that is constant across all of humanity is this idea.

Whether it's the atheist who worships the scientific method in human achievement, and they place their hope in that maybe we can get away from the sun before it burns out and get out to other solar systems, or whatever it might be that they're placing their faith, trust, hope in that they worship.

To the animists in the jungles of Indonesia who worship the spirits of plants and trees and are eagerly looking for other things to worship, constantly searching.

And if you think about humanity's past and our tendencies to worship, at some point some people looked up in the sky and said, there's a big bright light in the day and a big bright light at night, and they seem to be kind of important, let's worship those.

I mean, really? It looks powerful, let's worship that. Or they were looking at the animals and going, lions are kind of strong, maybe we should worship that, that's kind of cool.

Or watching things of beauty and saying, wow, that is so beyond me, it blows my mind, I'll worship that.

But do you see what I'm getting at here? That tendency for us to come up with stuff, you know, thunder, whoa.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to live out in the frontier when some of those storms that we have now currently roll through, that produce a hundred tornadoes, can you imagine what it would have been like to be in a little shack out in the middle of nowhere when one of those storms rolled through?

The awe of that, or those who live out in the jungle when they see that kind of ferocity of a storm, they worship the thunder, they worship the lightning, you know, this whole

Thor thing. The human heart is an idle factory, constantly manufacturing things to worship.

And this morning we're going to wrap up Paul's first missionary journey, it's going to be a little ambitious, we're going to take all of Acts 14, we will get through it.

But we're going to see Paul and Barnabas, have been traveling through the Roman Empire, they've been proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

And in our text they are going to encounter some significant opposition, but they're also going to encounter some amazing success.

They are going to see lives changed, lives transformed, but they're going to see an array of people with different attitudes towards worship, and different things that they worship.

Throughout our text this morning we are going to actually get a glimpse of the depths of human idolatry, that we all worship something.

In our text we will see some Jews who worship their own plans, their own traditions. They ultimately are worshiping their own status, turning internally to worship themselves.

And then in turn we're going to encounter some Gentiles who are ready to deify anything, even

Paul and Barnabas. They're ready to offer sacrifices even to them, anything that shows a sense of power they're eager to worship.

But the question we all need to ask ourselves before the worship team comes to lead us, is who do we worship?

Do we worship the right things? And I think it would be appropriate for us to pray and ask God to help us to see

Him correctly, to see Him the way that He is. Because we have a tendency to create God, even as we read the

Bible, even as we try our best to stick close to this Word, we can get off a little, can't we?

And we can either deify the love of God, and not have a God that is just.

Or we can deify the justice of God and preach hellfire and brimstone and not have any grace or any mercy or any love.

Do you see how even we can take the Biblical categories of the character of God and get a little wonky, get a little off -kilter, get a little wobble in our theology, and it ends up leading us astray.

So to pray and ask that God would lead us to worship Him this morning as we sing these songs, that we would worship

Him in an understanding of who He is and putting ourselves in proper perspective. We are not all that, but He is.

And He's worthy of worship. Our hearts will quickly manufacture something for us to worship.

But I love what Augustine, the theologian of the early church, we're talking 1 ,200 years before Calvin wrote what he wrote.

So we're talking ancient now. Now we're going back to around 300 A .D. And this dude,

Augustine, a Christian in the early church, wrote this in his confessions. He said this to God. And I think it's something that we just need to grab a hold of and own.

In his confessions he wrote, which by the way, I've got a copy in my office if anybody wants to read it. It's an awesome read written in 300

A .D. and you can get it. It's translated. He said, For you, God, made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Our heart will be restless until it rests in God. So we can manufacture all these types of things that our hearts desire to worship and we will not find rest until we find our rest in God.

And so think about those things as the team comes to lead us. I'm going to go ahead and read this passage,

Acts 14. We'll get a chance to see what I'm talking about here in idolatry.

Acts 14, page 790 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you. So if you grab one of those Bibles, 790.

If you do not own a Bible, I want you to take that one with you. When you leave it, it's a free gift from us to you.

Follow along. And you know what? Here, sometimes we read big chunks of Scripture and I'm not ashamed of that because I believe that the

Bible has the power to transform us, to change us. So let's go ahead and read Acts 14.

Now at Iconium, they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way, by the way, the they is

Paul and Barnabas, 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 mind against the brothers. So they remained for 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.

But the people of the city were divided, some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both

Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country.

And there they continued to preach the gospel. Now at Lystra, there was a man sitting who could not use his feet.

He was crippled from birth and he had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking and Paul, looking intently at him, seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice,

Stand upright on your feet. And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowd saw what

Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying in Lycaonian, The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.

Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gate and wanted to offer sacrifices with the crowd.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd saying,

Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living

God who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations,

He allowed all nations to walk in their own ways, yet He did not leave Himself without witness, for He did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

But Zeus came from Antioch and Iconium and having persuaded the crowd, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

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

When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to 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.

Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia, and when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Italia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled.

And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the

Gentiles, and they remained no little time with the disciples. Let's pray.

We're going to continue on. As I read earlier, I read Acts 14. We are just marching through the book of Acts.

I'm trying to work towards an understanding of the solid foundations of a church. Obviously, we're a church plant.

We've been going for a couple of years now and really going through the book of Acts and just digging in and trying to figure out what

God did in that early church and then thinking about how that applies here at Recast.

So we continue on with the adventures of Paul and Barney in Acts 14. We see this missionary team that's been sent out by the church in Antioch.

There are two Antiochs. There's an Antioch in Syria and an Antioch in Pisidia. Last week, we saw that this

Antioch that's up in modern -day Turkey, they were run out of town. So they were literally basically kicked out of that area, but not until a lot of people in that town believed in Jesus Christ.

So then they came from that town, kicked out of the district, went to a town called Iconium. And even though they were just run out of the synagogue, who was it that ran them out of town in Antioch?

Does anybody remember? Who spearheaded that? The Jews. So now what do they do? They go to another town, and what's the first place they go?

The synagogue. They go to the Jews. I mean, like, is this going to go well for you? What do you think? I mean, it's obvious that this was their

MO. This is the way they rolled. So it was what God desired of them, that they would go to the

Jews first and then to the Gentiles. And with that in mind, I mean, you think about the way that that all filters down into just logic and the reasonability of their approach is that the

Jews had an understanding of the Old Testament, right? They had this entire body of literature that pointed towards the

Messiah. It wouldn't be natural for them to go into the community, meet with those who are looking for a Messiah, and say, your Messiah has come, and explain that to them.

And of course, the Gentiles would come out and hear that as well, and that's exactly what we see happen here. So that's the first place that they went.

And right away in verse 1, we see that there's a great response in Iconium. So they go and they speak at the synagogue, but there's both

Jews and Gentiles present, and it says a great number of Jews and Gentiles both believed there, hearing the message that they preached in the synagogue.

Now, it's interesting to note the word believed there in verse 1, because becoming a follower of Christ is always shown to be a simple process.

Now, how many of you know that it's our human tendency to complexify things? I just made up a word just to make it more complex, right?

Isn't that our tendency is to make things more complex and more difficult?

And I talked at one point about how we tend to set up our own tollbooths along the pathway of salvation, and the path of salvation is just simply that Jesus died on the cross for your sins.

He was raised again three days later to show victory over sin and death, and He is

Lord and Savior, and if you put your trust in Him, you'll be saved. But so often we set these tollbooths up in the church where it's like, dress like me, act like me, do things like me, read the books that I read, follow the theologians that I follow, do all these things, and we tack on extra things when the fact of the matter is you can deal with God right where you're at.

You need, and I mentioned this last week, you need one mediator, and that is Jesus Christ. He is the only pathway necessary.

So fortunately, though, He does use us as tools, right? We get the privilege of being used as a conduit, as a messenger of His truth, and that's what we see

Paul and Barnabas doing all throughout this entire missionary journey. They are being used like a tool in the right place at the right time, sharing the gospel, and the people are believing, ultimately believing that Jesus paid for their sins by dying on the cross, and that He rose again and is worthy of worship as Lord and Savior.

But there were those who didn't believe in the town of Iconium. So we see in verse 2 that the town is going to be pretty quickly divided here.

Much like back in Antioch, the unbelieving Jews are going to stir up the unbelieving Gentiles and turn their minds against the

Christians. We don't know what they said. The text doesn't tell us how they poisoned the minds of the

Gentiles, whether there were false accusations against Paul and Barnabas, possibly, or if there was just an attempt to refute their teaching.

We don't know, but according to verse 3, Paul and Barnabas actually remain a long time proclaiming the truth in that hostile environment.

So we see the opposition, and then it tells us that they stayed there a while. So we know that their preaching, their ministry there in Iconium was one that was oppressed, that there was persecution that's going on while they are there, remaining for a long time speaking for the

Lord. But it's not just that they were speaking for the Lord. So if you look at the text in verse 3, the

Lord spoke for Himself there. And not in an audible voice, not like a cloud appeared, or Jesus came down and talked with everybody, but it's implied that Jesus is speaking for Himself through signs and wonders done by Paul and Barnabas.

How would you love to be there and see these events unfold? Wouldn't that be awesome to actually see? It doesn't tell us what happened, but more often when there are signs and wonders, people are healed, demons are cast out, all kinds of miraculous things are going on, and it doesn't give us, again, the details of what those miracles were.

But the way that they look at these miracles is that Jesus is testifying through the miracles.

He is witnessing to the truth of their message. So the power, the miracles, are to point to the

Word. Now when you see miracles in Scripture, miracles are not the point.

They are pointing to something, but they are not the main point. The word of grace in verse 3 is the point.

Look, so they remain for a long time speaking boldly for the Lord who bore witness, witness to what?

To the word of His grace. He is bearing witness to the word.

The miracles were megaphones to give the gospel its proper attention. But the people all end up believing the word, not believing in the miracle.

In other words, what would be our tendency? Somebody heals somebody, does something miraculous for them? You want that for yourself, and if that's the end of that, then you've missed the boat, right?

If all that it is is, wow, he can do amazing things, he can feed the crowds, maybe he could cut my grocery budget out.

You see how that's kind of self -serving? But instead, the miracles always pointed towards the message and verifying and validating the messenger.

Despite the miracles, just like human nature, we think that we would believe if we just saw, but that's not what happened, that's not reality, that's not human nature.

Despite the miracles, opposition increases to the point that they literally have to flee for their lives. They discover a plot among the

Jews and the Gentiles to physically abuse them and even kill them by stoning them, and they have to flee Iconium.

But notice how the message is one that divides people into two categories, to two groups. And I fear that many of us as followers of Christ would like to have our cake and eat it too.

We want everyone to like us and we want to tell them about Jesus. And we don't acknowledge that sometimes that's going to create division.

Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, I'm going to be able to raise your hand and say, you kind of like it when people like you. If you're not raising your hand, you're not telling the truth, okay?

Or you're just mean. I don't want anybody to like me. No, we want people to like us, right?

But how many of you know that sometimes reality, now we fear this, but sometimes it actually comes to pass where you share what you believe and it's not a popular message.

There will be some who disagree with this message. There were some there in Iconium who didn't just disagree with the message but became murderous over the message.

They were hostile towards it. There are some who always are working towards embracing their own way of life, doing things their way, and anything that confronts that, they are going to oppose.

The humility required to acknowledge our need for a Savior is a massive hurdle for many. Do you agree with that in our culture?

I would say it's the main hurdle, to be quite honest, because like I said, this message is simple. There aren't a lot of hoops to jump through to be saved.

It is faith in Jesus Christ and faith alone in Jesus Christ and his belief. But that requires a significant humility saying,

I can't do it on my own, Jesus, I need you. I need you as my Lord and Savior, and I needed your death on the cross to cover.

Do you ever think about what that really states about our sin, that God the Father sent his own

Son to die on the cross for our sins and pay that penalty for us? What does that say about our sinful state, about how desperately wicked our hearts are, and how in need of a

Savior we are? When we think about that, it can be really difficult. But some people are just doers.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Anybody here maybe admit a little bit you're a doer? You're a person of action and not necessarily a person of thought.

You're just kind of like, well, let's just do something and hope that it works out. Let's hope that it works right. And maybe you don't want to raise your hand and admit that.

But there are some, I would say, who might come to you and say something like, what must I do to be saved?

And if you offer to them, well, go climb a mountain, or work at the food pantry, or serve in the church in this capacity, they would sign up in a heartbeat because they want to do.

Do you get what I'm saying by that? If it was a matter of doing that saved them, they would be like, well,

I'll do it. I'll do something. Give me something to do. Because doing stuff drives the primary idol of our hearts, of many of our hearts, our own achievement, our own ability.

Do you agree with that? Do you see where I'm going? Their pride drives them to be religious because being religious drives their pride.

And it becomes a vicious cycle in our lives. Do you see how that cycle drives itself?

Pride makes me want to look religious to everybody. But then being religious in front of everybody gives me pride.

And it just keeps this thing churning. But the

Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, it's like you're building a bridge and there's two columns supporting this bridge trying to get to God.

One column is your pride and the other is your religiosity. And it's like the

Gospel lays a big pack of C4 to each of those columns and brings your bridge down.

That we cannot do it on our own. The bridge that you build is not getting you to God.

And then Jesus holds out his arms and says, Come here, big fellow, let me carry you across.

And what does human nature say to something like that? I've got two strong legs and two feet that can carry me just fine.

Nobody carries me. Do you see how that works out? That pride, that religiosity, that saying,

I can do this. Is this hitting anybody like it hit me? It's where we live, many of us.

Some of the Jews and the Gentiles were satisfied here. Ultimately their idolatry was inwardly focused on their own ability.

And they were satisfied doing things their own way. And it's amazing to note that they were so very opposed to Christ that they were willing to work together to put down Paul and Barnabas.

Jews and Gentiles who have been warring in this area for decades when we read this text.

And they're willing to come together to get rid of this common enemy. Grace. Christ.

Salvation through faith. So these two apostles escape to a town called

Lystra, about 18 miles south. They get out of Dodge just in time. And now they've gone from Beverly Hills to the backwoods of West Virginia in just a few miles.

Now I can say that because my family comes from West Virginia. So now you know, I feel justified a little bit in saying that.

We come from the sticks. On my mom's side. Lystra was an untamed area.

The Romans struggled to keep this area subdued because they had a lot of backwater thoughts, a lot of superstitious traditional allegiances in this territory, even unwilling to give up their own language for the cause of being able to kind of figure out what's going on outside of their community.

So they're literally sticking to their ways. They're not going to adopt Roman culture, like think the military had to be involved, the

Roman military in this area often. The emperor was keeping his eye on this Lycaonia territory because there were uprisings and a lot of significant opposition to the

Romans. So, of course, when Paul and Barnabas go there, they have to change their message, right?

Because now they've moved from a more elite town of Iconium to Lystra, right? So they just totally change what they have to say?

No. What do they do? They preach the gospel, the text tells us.

The gospel is for everyone. Men, women, children, adults, aged, young, blue collar, white collar, regardless of race, regardless of culture, regardless of sins, regardless of where you've been or where you think you're going, the gospel is for you.

It is for everyone and Paul and Barnabas got that and they proclaimed it the same wherever they went.

A simple message. We're introduced to a man in verse 8 that Luke wants us to note is definitively incapacitated.

He wants to go over the top. The author of the book of Acts wants us to definitively know this guy is not going anywhere.

He tells us in the text these things about this man. He says he is sitting. He could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and he has never walked.

Never once walked. And he's sitting there in the crowd and he's listening to Paul's message. Now, it's important to know we don't know what

Paul says here. I believe that Paul is proclaiming the gospel clearly, just from the context. He's preaching the gospel.

And Paul looks at him intently. And look at what the text says. It says, and he can see that this man has faith to be healed.

Did you hear that? He could see that? When did he like to be able to see that? What did he see?

Was there like some glowing aura around this guy? I'm kind of like, without, unless the guy is carrying around a sign that says, if you offer to heal me,

I will believe in you. Unless he's carrying a sign like that, we're looking at something miraculous that Paul was given here in this context to be able to see that this man has faith to be healed.

So Paul, rather than in this large crowd, just have this little quiet dialogue with the one guy on the front row, he shouts out so that everybody can hear what's about to happen.

And he says, stand upright on your feet. And the man jumped up quicker than a child who hears the ice cream truck.

He's up, jumping. And he began walking. Now I know that some of you here in this room are more knowledgeable about anatomy and physiology than I am.

I did take a class in college, one of my favorite classes, right under astronomy, which tells you what kind of a geek

I am right away. But anatomy and physiology. So some of you here, you know this stuff.

So you would naturally gravitate towards understanding that this is not a miracle of potentiality. It's not just that he was structurally healed, but he is therapeutically healed.

The dude's muscles, tendons, and nerves were restored, but now he needs to go through some physical therapy, right?

You can have everything that you need and still not be able to walk, right? He's got to learn how to walk, right?

Oh God, just does it all, takes care of it all. I mean, he's already gone through the PT and everything.

Boom, he's up, and he is jumping, and he is walking. Do you see what I mean about a therapeutic healing versus just strictly a mechanical healing?

That the dude's mind is able to walk. He knows how to jump. He knows how to do the electric slide.

Okay, I don't know. Probably God didn't teach him that. Probably not. Could have.

Yes, thanks Rob. He could have taught him that if he wanted to. But most likely not. So what does the human heart do in the face of a miracle like this?

You're there in the crowd. You see it happen. Where does your heart lead you? Now obviously we're

Christians, so we piously assume that we would go the right place and honor God as he deserves to be honored.

Where does their mind go? Where, what do they think?

They worship the one performing the miracle. That's where they go.

The people of this territory are eager and ready to worship anything that comes along. And they demonstrate so clearly how the human heart is an idol factory, a forge for idols.

We are eager to worship. And they declare in their own local dialect, the gods have come down in the likeness of men.

I think it's ironic. Just wrap your mind around this irony that they assume an incarnation has happened.

Think about that. They assume that there is an incarnation going on here which is the way that God has brought about salvation, right?

He did bring about salvation through an incarnation, but that's not what's on their mind. That's not what they think is going on here.

They think Barnabas, who is the quieter and the older of the two and therefore more noble in his standing, is

Zeus. And Paul as the spokesman is Hermes, his messenger.

He's the one who's talking, so he's the spokesman. Unfortunately, Paul and Barnabas are slow to catch up because their shouts are lost in the translation.

They don't speak Lycaonian. They don't have it. So these people are shouting in their own language. And as far as Paul and Barnabas are concerned, maybe the crowd might be saying, we believe in Jesus.

Or they might be ordering a hamburger. But Paul and Barney didn't do well in Lycaonian in high school.

They might have known how to say where's the bathroom or something like that. But other than that, they're lost.

But in essence, it's kind of interesting that we find out that they were ordering a hamburger of sorts. Ordering a hamburger for their gods.

And the priest of Zeus shows up with oxen, more than one. And in that time, you wanted to make an ox look really pretty for the god that you were sacrificing it to.

So you put garlands of flowers around its neck and things like that. So you see the garlands that are mentioned there.

And here comes this priest of Zeus. What do you picture? I picture a guy with gourds on a stick, like walking down.

I don't know why. He's all gnarled and crusty. He's a priest of Zeus. I don't know.

What do you get? He's got to have a toga on though, right? He's a

Greek priest. I don't know. Here he comes. And he's getting ready to sacrifice oxen to Paul and Barnabas.

Crazy. Paul and Barnabas tear their robes as a sign of grief and anguish. And they go crazy.

We're intended to believe by the Greek here that they almost lose it. They're out in the crowd. They're not just standing here saying, I don't think it's wise that you offer a sacrifice to us right now.

They're just going nuts. They're out in the crowd. I picture it getting almost hostile. They tear their clothes and they're like, no way!

We're people just like you. And we come bearing a message that is important for you to understand.

That you turn from these vain and empty and worthless things and turn to the living God. That's our message.

And here you are about to sacrifice to us when that's counter to everything that we came here to share with you.

Can you imagine how heart -wrenching that would be to share this message of hope and then to have this be the result?

Have the power of God flow through you in healing this individual? And then they just misunderstand the whole thing.

They miss the whole story of what's going on. Well, in the process of all of this, they share a message.

And Paul, in essence, has summarized the good news. Turn from empty and worthless idols and turn to the One who is all -powerful.

To the living God, the Creator of the sky and the earth and the sea and everything in them, which pretty much sums up everything.

He's the Creator of all. And he says God has allowed past generations to do their own thing, but He has given them evidence of His goodness and mercy by granting rain that falls and provides fruitful seasons which has filled their hearts to the brim with food and gladness.

I find it ironic that even in this, even in what he's illustrating here, doesn't our heart often worship the gift and not the giver?

So God gives us great food and good things and we worship that. He gives us technology and we worship that.

He gives us great medical facilities and we worship that and modern medicine and all of these different things that our minds can turn to.

God grants us these things. There's a book that I read a couple of years ago called Cat and Dog Theology.

Have any of you ever heard of this book? I have a copy in my office unless somebody's borrowed it. I'm not sure if it's there right now or not.

But you can borrow it if you want. It's a really interesting read. But the basic synopsis of this book is right here in what we're talking about.

Cat and Dog Theology. One says this, you give me food, you give me water, you give me shelter, you give everything that I need, you must be

God. Dog theology. If you're a dog owner, you kind of get the gist of that, right?

Dog is loyal, just there kind of for you. But now you can kind of picture what the opposite viewpoint is.

You give me food, you give me water, you give me shelter, you give me everything that I need, I must be

God. And you cat owners know exactly what I'm talking about. Right?

I don't own a cat. The difference, I'm convinced, is where we fix our attention.

Attention on us, we become selfish and inwardly focused.

But if we fix our attention on God, all other things will come into perspective. We cannot help but see how gracious and merciful

He has been to us when we keep our eyes on Him. When we really get to know

Him. When we study this book, not because someone's told us to, not because it's a duty, not because we need to check something off on our list of things to do this week, or, boy,

God's not going to love me if I don't read this. No, we dig into this because these are the words of life.

Nobody has to force us to eat under normal circumstances, do they? No, because we delight in it, right?

We enjoy eating, if you're honest. A couple of hands go up real quick. This is our sustenance.

This is our spiritual food. And it provides nourishment. And you know what? The more you eat it, the better it tastes.

You know, sometimes it can be dry. Sometimes it can be difficult to get into. But the more you feed on this, the more you feast on this, the more you depend upon it, the greater it becomes in your life.

And as we depend on it, there can come a point in our lives where we recognize we can't live without it. We must have it.

So many people look at the flip side of that and they go, pastors are constantly telling me all the time, I've just got to read my Bible and pray every day, read more, read more, read more.

That's not what I'm about. I'm not telling you to do that. I'm telling you that you need this book for your life, for growth.

And you'll come to love it. I'm convinced of that. That was a little side note. Now I'm lost for a second.

Check out verse 18. They were hard pressed to stop the sacrifice from going forward.

Isn't that funny? They scarcely were able to stop it. I picture the priest coming down from the temple down to the city gates saying, come on,

I brought these oxen, I got them all decked out, we're going to have a sacrifice. Nothing is going to stop this.

I came all the way down here. I walked all the way down here. We're going to sacrifice something. You know what

I'm saying? But there wasn't. It appears to be logical that there's some timeframe between verses 18 and 19.

Some time has passed. Because we're going to see in verse 20 a crowd of disciples gather around Paul.

So where did this crowd of disciples come from? If people haven't responded to the message, they haven't heard, they haven't been built up a little bit, strengthened, figuring things out.

Most commentaries, most scholars are going to see a division there and a little bit of time has passed between 18 and 19.

So after some time, Jews from Antioch and Iconium, places they've been run out of town, threatened with death, they travel to Lystra and turn the crowds hostile.

And they stoned Paul, stoned Paul, dragged him out of the city, and he is left for dead.

Like all of a sudden, Paul is left for dead. Just everything turns on a verse.

You get that? Wasn't he the main character? He's gone.

He's left for dead. But the disciples from Lystra gathered around him, and he got up, spent the night in Lystra, and headed to the town of Derbe the next morning.

Not a lot of emphasis on the miraculous here. Would you agree with that? If you read the text, does it sound miraculous? Not a whole lot about anything.

How many of you know that you'd have to sustain some pretty significant injuries to be left for dead after a stoning?

Would you agree with that? Some pretty significant injuries going on here. When do you think you'd be ready to embark on a 60 -mile journey the next morning after something like that?

I don't see the words ambulance or airlift anywhere in this passage. So I'm going to just think that I'm on pretty good ground to say that God works a miracle here.

Not only that, but we're going to see three days later he's going to come into this town, Derbe. He's going to proclaim the gospel. And I mean, unless they've just had some amazing modern medicine to heal this guy's wounds in three days, this is miraculous.

And I think we're supposed to see it that way. They arrive at Derbe, preach the gospel, made many disciples there.

A breath of fresh air because we see nothing about Derbe. Them being juked there.

I mean, they've been juked everywhere that they've gone, right? Every city so far, they've been run out of town, they've been threatened with stones, and now they've attempted murder there in Lystra.

But it's interesting to note that fear and timidity did not drive Paul and Barnabas. And they go back home the way they came.

Do you think there's other ways to get home for them? Just get on a boat and go home, man.

Go back to these towns where you've been pushed down and suppressed and almost killed.

But they head back through Lystra where Paul endured and attempted murder. They go back through Iconium where there was a plot to murder them.

And then through the peaceful town of Antioch where they were run out of the district. A more peaceful one, right?

So what was so important that they couldn't find another way home? Think about that for a second. Why not just board a ship and head for home?

Why put themselves into harm's way by revisiting these hostile territories? I believe it's because they now had faces and names of people who were living in those communities, who had given their lives to Christ and now they were going to have to stand alone in the face of those persecutors, those wolves.

And they said, we're not going to leave them alone. We're going to go back and encourage them and build them up and strengthen them.

We're going to trust that God will protect us in that process. So they revisited those areas.

They've seen people's lives change forever and they were not eager to just leave them alone. So in verse 22, we see, they strengthened the souls of the believers.

This speaks in kind of the Greek structure of an individual encouragement, like one -on -one meetings with people.

I don't think we're meant to think that Paul and Barnabas went ahead and just in rashness went back out to the community and just stood out in the town square and just began preaching and proclaiming again in Lystra where Paul was just stoned a few days ago.

Having one -on -one meetings with these people. Not that he couldn't do that because God could protect him through that, but the verb and the words that are used here is one of person -to -person encouragement.

Strengthening the souls of the disciples. And we need this in the church. As we're seeing people come to faith in Christ, we need those one -on -one connections with people where they can be encouraged and built up and strengthened.

And that's where the authenticity comes in here of real relationships with people. Doing life together.

Connecting in our small group ministries and getting those connections and those relationships where people are praying for you, where you have a place to turn for answers.

I want to encourage you. Be looking for those opportunities to share deeper relationships with one another.

And for those who are new in the faith, seek out someone to continue to meet with you.

Maybe it's somebody who brought you to church here. Or maybe there's somebody that you're looking at and saying, boy,

I would just love to pick their brain and hear more about what they're saying or what God is saying to them.

How to study the Word. How to do all these things. As new believers, you need that.

You need those connections. Paul and Barnabas also encourage these new believers to continue in the faith.

It's a common call for those who are new in the faith to press on. In essence, salvation is not a destination any more than marriage is the end of a relationship.

Although some in our culture would tend to speak of marriage as the end of a relationship. It's not. Just like after salvation, we should grow in our relationship with Christ.

And in marriage, we should grow in relationship with our spouse after we're married. Paul and Barnabas also point out the reality of suffering in the kingdom of God to these churches as they go back through and visit them.

Just this past week, I mentioned to a man in one of these one -on -one meetings that he should not assume that putting his faith in Christ will make all of his problems go away.

Is that what you've experienced in your life? Isn't that reality? Not all of our problems go away, but we do get some amazing things, don't we?

Like joy, peace, hope, a change in our perspective, forgiveness.

We get that stuff, and it's amazing. But the road that our feet are placed on as followers of Jesus Christ is a road that will contain tribulation.

The Scripture tells us that. We will face tribulation in this life.

Elders are appointed in each church. The plurality of leadership is one that we see all throughout the book of Acts.

One that we follow here at Recast. We wanted to start off with that. Me, Rob, and Zach working together as elders here.

They assign the elders in each church, and then they committed them to the

Lord in prayer. They head back the way they came, arriving at Perga, actually stopping to speak the

Word there. They've come through there, but it didn't say that they preached the Word on the way through the first time. They go down through the port city of Italia, and then they head back on a boat to Antioch of Syria to visit the church that sent them on this whole wild adventure to begin with.

They're wrapping up this first missionary journey. There's a sense of fulfillment in verse 26. They've done what they were called to do.

And I can affirm to you that when you are doing what God has called you to do, you get a sense of fulfillment.

And you get joy in doing that. And I would even challenge you as far as saying, if you're not sensing some joy in what you are doing, then it is reasonable to ask, am

I doing what God has called me to do? Am I serving in the way that He has designed me to serve?

I think that's something that we need to consider and think through. The church gathered together to hear from Paul and Barnabas there in Antioch.

The sorrows were shared with a particular emphasis on the dramatically positive work of God, particularly among the

Gentiles. And note that the phrase is that God opened the doors to the Gentiles. Who opened the door? Did they open the door themselves?

Did they barge through the door? God opened the door to them. And they remained a little less than a year with the disciples there according to most estimates.

So we see them staying there, and that's where we're going to leave them for this week. And sometimes when I speak in a big chunk like this,

I'm afraid I'm going to make your heads explode with too much information. Are you guys doing okay? Your head's going to explode?

Okay, good. I started by talking... Did somebody just boom?

Okay. I started by talking about how Calvin called the human heart a forge for idols, or to make a more modern an idol factory.

And the question I want every one of us to consider this morning is what are you truly worshiping? What does your time reflect matters most to you?

What about your money? What does your money reflect about you? Paul and Barnabas encountered all kinds of people who were worshiping all kinds of stuff, and even encountered a group who were ready and eager to worship them.

The human heart is a forge of idols. If we're not intentionally focusing on God, if we're not studying

Him, if we're not praying to Him, we will slide into worshiping idols of our own making. And I would dare say that that can go on a day -by -day cycle for many of us.

Maybe even a moment -by -moment cycle for many of us, considering what is it that we're worshiping.

And our decisions reflect where our heart really is, right? Like I said, where you spend your time, where you spend your money, all of these different things, all of these other things are vain and empty and ultimately worthless.

And no amount of money will provide lasting peace. No status or recognition or fame will provide lasting joy.

And certainly, no self -dependence or religious activity will provide salvation. In Christ, there is lasting peace.

In Christ, there is lasting joy. In Christ, there is eternal salvation.

Turn to the living God, the One who died and rose again for all of us.