Acts 14:1-10

So grateful for such a powerful time of worship that God is giving to us this morning. We’re able to experience His presence in a very special way. I know we have a lot of visitors in our midst. We welcome you to our church. We are truly grateful that you’ve chosen to worship with us for one reason or the other this morning. We’re really grateful for God’s work in all of your lives. There’s so many reasons why different people are here, but all of this is cause for joy in our hearts and we are so grateful for God’s continued work in all of your lives.

We thank you for your continued prayers for our pastor, especially, and any others who are going through sickness and grief in their heart. We continue to remember you and pray for God’s continued favor in each one of your lives. We are going through our series through the Book of Acts, Church on the Move, and today we find ourselves in Acts 14:1-10. Acts 14:1-10. Last week, we ended Acts chapter 13 by talking about Paul and Barnabas and their first missionary journey, leaving Pisidian Antioch. When the Jews of that city got together the leaders, not only men, but women also, to camp together against the men of God, they did something the Lord Himself had told them to do. They would dust the dust off their feet and they would leave back Pisidian Antioch into the hands of the Lord, and they would leave that place. And we talked about how they would find themselves onto Iconium, which is where Acts chapter 14, verse last. We ended last week by walking on verse 52. The disciples that were there were filled with the joy of the Lord and the Holy Spirit in spite of the persecution they were going through.

So we pick up in Acts chapter 14, verse one, 80 miles southeast direction of Pisidian Antioch in a place known as Iconium. Verse one, at Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. It is quite remarkable that in verse one, immediately after telling us that they went to Iconium, the Bible tells us that Paul and Barnabas made their way very much back to a synagogue again. You would think that they would try to avoid these places because it was the exact same place where opposition had arose in Pisidian Antioch. But these men are not concerned about opposition. They are going wherever God is asking them to go. And as I mentioned many times, the reason why they go to synagogue first, because you’re able to get a reference point from the Old Testament, as you speak about the Lord Jesus Christ to primarily Jewish believers. It is often when the gospel is rejected by the Jews, that they would find themselves often going to Gentiles in that place. And many times Jews would occupy very prominent positions in the community there, and it made sense for them to start in the synagogue as they would usually.

As I told you before, Iconium is a place that you can go about 80 miles southeast, and you will get to this place known as Iconium. The word Iconium comes from a Greek word, icon, each from which we get the word image, idols, icon, the worship of idols. This, so by name itself, this place is communicating to you what kind of a place it was. It was a place filled with all kinds of idols, hence given the name Iconium. Icon, meaning something that is made in an image. So into this very, very dark place, filled with so much idol worship and darkness, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the light that comes through it is for the first time penetrating into the darkness. Isn’t it remarkable that God would often call us into enemy territories because we don’t go there by ourselves, but we go bearing His name and with His power, we go into these places with absolute confidence. It is known as a very famous agriculture center at that time. Famous for its fields of wheat and orchards filled with apricots and plums, it is said. Not only that, it was a great place with a great climate. There was a major link road that connected Iconium between Syria, Ephesus, and Rome. God would send His servants into these places as He often did along with Pisidian Antioch, would choose places that were strategically very important to the spreading of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So these are not random places chosen by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is directing and sending them to places where the gospel could be preached and propagated, and not only there, but now could reach even remote parts of the earth by the work of God through them. And remarkably, God would send them to there. And there, the Bible says to us, there they spoke the word of God so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed.

In a very preliminary reading of God’s word, especially in the NIV, you get the idea that it was the effective preaching of Paul and Barnabas that caused a lot of people to come to the faith. But Paul would tell you in all of his writings, any effective preaching that I have is not my own. It is only because the grace of God is at work in my life. So here also, the point is just that the preaching of Paul is effective, not because of his own gifted talent as he was. It is effective because there is an effective God who is working through Paul, propagating and multiplying, and effectively with power, bringing the message to the hearers. I often think about a man like D.L. Moody, who was untaught and unlettered, which means that he did not even have proper understanding on how to read or write the English language. Yet, everyone would attest to the fact that the great spiritual awakening that swept across the Americas and the United Kingdom was the work of this man who was uneducated. Why? Because the grace of God and the Spirit of God was working through him. One writer says like this, an uneducated and to British people, somewhat crude and boorish American led them the way to spiritual awakening. A lot of times, the English or the Americans are not really pleasant to the ears of the British. They think that we don’t really speak good English, and which is kind of true, but I won’t go into that. But the British often look down upon the way we pronounce things and the way our languages, and they look at it as a very crude way of speaking the English language. But none of that was a barrier to the ministry of D.L. Moody in the United Kingdom. Why? It is not the eloquence of D.L. Moody. It is not the education of D.L. Moody. It is not the language of D.L. Moody. It is the God who has worked through D.L. Moody that made his ministry effective in the United Kingdom.

Anyone who’s listening to me today, don’t ever look at your background and think that God cannot use you. Don’t ever think about your education qualification and think that God cannot use you. Don’t think about your giftedness and think that God cannot use you. God can use you. What you need to be is available to be used by the Lord. It is not your giftedness that God is looking for. It is your willingness and availability that is able to say here I am, oh God, use me and use me the way you want me to be used. And God does that. And He does that in all of our lives. Even me that is standing before you this morning is a testament, absolutely 100% of the grace of God.

In 2 Corinthians 3:5-6, the apostle Paul will write to us the same thing. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves. Oh yes, none of us are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves. But our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant. And here is what makes our ministry effective. What the new covenant is. Look at the next sentence. Not of the letter, but of the Spirit. The new covenant is one that is energized by the power of the Holy Spirit. The new covenant is strengthened by the work of the Spirit of God in the lips of the preacher. It is not like the old covenant that kills. Look at the new covenant, what it does. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. And that’s why the proclamation of the new covenant has life in it. To the places that are dead, the proclamation of the new covenant brings life. To the places that are blind, the proclamation of the new covenant brings sight. To the places that are rejected, broken, unable to be redeemed by anything of mankind, the proclamation of the new covenant brings renewal, refreshing, and new birth. Because the new covenant has life flowing through it. Because the new covenant is inaugurated by the work of the Holy Spirit and energized by the Holy Spirit today. Whatever we speak week after week to you is not our own. It comes from the Lord. And it is the Spirit that brings life to every single one of those messages.

But wherever there is conversion, renewal, refreshing, there is also opposition. In fact, I would say that opposition is one of the trademarks of effective ministry. If there is no opposition to your ministry, you need to pray more. If there’s enemy is not at least a little bit bothered by what you do in ministry, then you’re not doing it the right way. Then you are on his side. If you make him uncomfortable, and if you see opposition rising against you from left and right, you understand that, hey, I’m doing something right. I’m making him very, very uncomfortable. Look at verse two. The Jews who refused to believe. Let me stop on that way for a second. This word is very good. It is the opposite of pistew, which is belief that we find in the New Testament. The Jews who refused to believe, and this is the case with the majority of the people in the world, is not that they were not given enough evidence to believe. They are willingly stiff-necked, stubborn way of their own refusing to believe. A lot of times we look at the people in the world and say, why do I believe in the gospel? Of course, it is the supernatural work of God in us that make us believe, but there is also the human responsibility. And that’s what we see here, where in spite of the overwhelming evidence to support what Paul and Barnabas were preaching that day, they, in their own heart, in their own stiff-neckedness and stubbornness, are refusing to believe the gospel. They stirred up the other Gentiles. I think this is the only time the Jews go to the Gentiles and say, let’s get together. We don’t eat with you. We don’t come to your home. If we see you, we go and take a shower. We wipe the dust off our feet if we went to a Gentile land. But when it comes to opposing the Christians, guess what? We are one team. And they get together with the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So all of this has to do with spreading of lies and false things somehow to stir up the people against the people of God.

And so in verse three, what they did in chapter 13, they do not do in verse three. In chapter 13, they dusted the dust off their feet and left Pisid in Antioch. But here, the Holy Spirit told them, stay there. Isn’t it amazing how the people of God works? You would think when there’s opposition, you’d be running the other way. Well, they will eventually do that, but now the time is not up yet. So look at verse three. Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. Oh, I love this verse. In fact, NASB I think has a better translation. Look at the next NASB version of chapter 14, verse three. Therefore, they spent a long time there, speaking boldly, how? With reliance upon the Lord. So who is enabling them to speak boldly? Is it because Paul and Barnabas are brave people? No, it is because they’re relying on the Lord who we’ve been singing about all morning, whose strength is unlimited, whose greatness no one can fathom, who is an almighty God, because they put their trust in the Lord, the Lord is giving them the ability to speak them boldly.

The next word. Who was testifying to the word of His grace. So the word of grace was being spoken by the apostles, but NASB in the right way translates this by telling you who was really speaking through them. The Lord was speaking the message of grace through them. So who are we? Mouthpieces of the Lord. That’s what a preacher is. That’s what an evangelist is. Saying what God has said. Speaking what God wants to speak. When we stand before you and speak God’s word, it is God Himself that is coming and speaking to you. And that’s exactly what we read in God’s word. God was testifying to the word of His grace. Don’t you love that? The message that we have is ultimately the message of grace. Now you know why the Jews were opposed to it. Because grace is something that goes against the very fiber of who they are. Everything about them is legalism. Do these things, do not do these things. Do not touch, do not see, do not smell. All these things they followed all their lives. Now comes a Pharisee, a one who was trained under Gamaliel, who should be a legalist just like them. But he comes and speaks to them. That only way you can be saved is by the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And He alone is able to give you grace. And suddenly everything within them revolts against that message because legalism they understand, grace they do not understand.

I love this couple of definitions of grace that I’m gonna show it to you. Maybe memorize it. One is this. Grace is everything for nothing to those who do not deserve anything. Grace is everything for nothing to those who do not deserve anything. In Christ Jesus, all the spiritual riches of the Heavenly Father has become mine. That’s what the Bible says. Grace is everything. Everything that I need for life and godliness, God has given to me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Did I do anything to deserve that? No, that is the nothing part. Next word, who did not deserve it to begin it. Not only did I do anything to earn the grace of God, when I think about my background, when I think about what a wretched man I was, I don’t deserve a single iota of blessing from my Lord. But in spite of punishing me, because I came to the Lord by His grace, He has given me everything even though I did not do nothing or did not deserve anything from the Lord. That is grace. That is scandalous. It does not make sense to the human mind. The human mind says, if you do this, you will get this. If you do good, I will give you this. If you’re good to me, I will be good to you. That is the principle of this world. But it is only in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, where God says, come as you are, just as I am. Come to Him, wretched, poor, hungry, broken, dead. You come to Him and He will give you life and life everlasting, even though you don’t deserve anything. That is grace. And that is the message of grace.

The second definition, I love this too. Grace is what every man needs. Grace is what every man needs, what none can earn and what God alone can thus freely give. Grace is what every man needs. Every man, every woman, every child needs grace, but none of us can ever earn it. But God alone and freely, He gives grace to those who come to Him. How many of you are glad this morning, as you sit here, that you have been the recipients of the amazing grace of God? One that you did not deserve. One for which you did not do anything on your own. Only because of His grace, He has given you everything. Oh, all glory, honor, praise belongs to Him and Him alone. And that’s why the church always worship His holy name.

They were remarkably teaching. And God was gracious towards them. Not only did He speak the message of grace to them, the Bible says, God confirmed what they were doing by signs and wonders among them. So this caused a problem. Verse four, the people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. The signs and wonders are evidence that these are men of God. They’re speaking message to us that we have never heard before. There is power in it. Others, still stubborn, stiff-necked, refusing to believe, are still rejecting the gospel. There is a division. But now this division would become even further, greater in verse five. There was a plot, a foot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with the leaders, to mistreat them, and look at the next verse, and stone them. For the first time in their missionary journey, they’re about to face physical persecution. Up until now, persecution came in the form of rejection, mental torment, being kicked out of cities. It never got to the point of physical torture. And there, now it is about to happen.

Look at verse six and seven. But they found out about it. How did they find out about it? The work of God, the grace of God. And look what they did. They fled to the Lycanian cities of Lystra and Derbe, and to the surrounding country. And the question comes, were they scared? Did you know that God was going to protect them? As one writer has said, they were born again, but not born yesterday. They were smart people. And you also need to be smart. Remember what God said about us. We have to be what, shrewd like a serpent, innocent like a dove. That needs to be a Christian as well. You don’t walk into Pyongyang and say, I’m here to spread the gospel. And say, God is going to protect me. God has given us wisdom, the ability to make the right decisions, unless God tells you to do that. Don’t do crazy things like that. Don’t go to the island of cannibals and say, I’m here to spread the gospel. First find out that you are not going to become there. Next, meal. There’s wisdom that need to be here. These are powerful men of God. God can deliver them. And there are times in which they would stay afoot. But we know foolish here. Paul and Barnabas realized it was a Spirit of God that reminded them about this plot. So what would they do? They went to the cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country.

In fact, Paul would write about this. Look at 2 Timothy 3:10-11. You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purposes, my faith, my patience, my love, endurance, persecution, sufferings. What kinds of things happened to me? Where? In Antioch, Acts chapter 13. Iconium and Lystra, Acts chapter 14. The persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. He’s reminding in his writing to Timothy, remember in these places, even though I didn’t have to be rescued from that place, it is God who enabled me to be aware of the plot and gave me a path to escape. You’ll be foolish on their part when God opens the door to say, no, I’m gonna stay here because I know you’re with me here. No, they took the door that was given to them and they fled those cities.

But when they went to the next place, you would think that they would just stay there for a little bit and not do anything. But how does that verse end? They went to Lystra and Derbe and surrounding country. They continued to preach the gospel. If your life is threatened and you’re running for life, running probably in the middle of the night, the last thing that you and I would want to do would be to start preaching the gospel in the new place. But these men are not wasting any time. They are looking at the new place as a divine appointment, a new place in which God wants them to propagate the gospel so they’re faithfully preaching the gospel.

I love what John Phillips has written about this. He says, Paul might be knocked down, but he was not knocked out. No foe could daunt him, no fear could haunt him. They could throw him out of Pisidian Antioch and chase him out of Iconium, but they could not stop him from preaching. There was no place where Paul was afraid to preach the gospel. He preached the gospel in Athens, the intellectual capital of the world, and he was mocked. He preached the gospel in Jerusalem, the religious capital of the world, and he was mobbed. He preached the gospel at Rome, the political capital of the world, and he was martyred, but he preached the gospel. Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Derbe. The address might change, but the message doesn’t change, and the boldness doesn’t change because in his heart, he cannot keep it to himself. My life, I do not count as worthy to gain on my own, but one thing that I do, leaving what is behind and straining toward what He got a hold of me to do.

My question this morning is that, is your life purpose to gain what Christ saved you for? Our life on earth, a few years, at the end of it, the only question that we asked is, did we fulfill the purpose for which Jesus Christ called us heavenward? Notice the words that we read today in Philippians. Jesus did not call us earthward. He called us heavenward. A mind that is set on an eternity to come. Remember the things high above and not the things on earth. That’s what makes you preach the gospel as if your life on earth does not matter.

Continuing on in the book of Acts. After telling them in verse eight, God would do an amazing thing. In Lystra, there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. Oh, how similar to the man that we read about in Acts chapter 3. Somebody who was lame from birth. Luke, the physician, would tell us very detailed about this man. His joints had never had any kind of weight that could bear it. There was nothing in his physical ability that would allow him to walk. Look at verse nine. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. What first came to his life was the word of God. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed. And verse 10, and called out, stand up on your feet. At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. In fact, the language in Greek is so beautiful in verse 10. At the very word, the apostle Paul spoke, the language says this. The man jumped to his feet, started running around, leaping continuously all around. Won’t you run around? Yes, I will run around. For the first time, he is walking in his life. You think he’s gonna stand still? No, he’s gonna run, he’s gonna leap because the power of God had transformed his life and made him to walk again. And I wanna remind the church, even this morning, that same Jesus is alive today and there is no limit to the power of His name.

A couple of things that I wanna leave with you that I want you to remember from this passage. Remember this. God’s word was spoken first and the manifestations of physical miracles may happen to confirm the word. Paul did not go to Lystra and says, let me do a miracle crusade. He went to Lystra and he first preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. God did this miracle to confirm the word that was spoken. Lot of people today get this backward. The primary miracle in the life of any person is the miracle of new birth and being born again. That is our focus. Everything else, physical miracle is secondary to confirm the spiritual miracle that has happened.

God’s word spoken first. Physical miracle may happen to confirm the word. Secondly, Paul looked at him and said, your faith, you have enough faith. Your faith has made you well. And you will see that passage throughout in God’s word. Lot of people say, you are not healed because you don’t have enough faith. The Bible never teach that. Even a little bit of faith is enough for God to work. God is not looking for perfect people to deliver. God is not looking for people who are complete in their faith to bring His deliverance to him. But if you come to Him and says, Lord, Lord, help my unbelief. Help my unbelief, oh God. He is a gracious God who can work in your desperate situation. He’s not looking for your faith to be full so that He can work on top of that. He takes a little bit of faith that you have and He does miraculous things. Why? Our faith is the instrument that God uses to exercise His power in our lives. But remember, it is not the faith that saves you or heals you. It is the power of Christ that saves and not the power of your faith. If my salvation was dependent upon the power of my faith, I would still be lost. But my salvation, my healing, my deliverance is not dependent upon the power of my faith. It is dependent only on the power of Christ that is able to save even the weak, the downtrodden, the ones who are less in their faith.

God is gracious towards you. If you’re sitting here this morning and feeling, maybe I’m not healed because I don’t have enough faith. Maybe I don’t have enough blessings in my life because I don’t have enough faith. I’m here to tell you the lack of faith in your life is not the reason why God has not chosen to answer your prayer the way you want to. He has His own sovereign reasons why He does certain things. You and I always need to humble ourselves before God and say, God, I don’t know if my faith is enough. I have a lot of unbelief, but I serve a God who does not look at my weakness but rather looks at the little bit of the mustard of faith that I bring to Him. You know, a lot of people look at that message of the faith like that of a seed of a mustard and says, if you’re just complete and full like the mustard. I don’t think that’s what it says. I think God picked one of the smallest seeds in nature to show to us that even little bit of that faith, oh, you are able to heal me. Even if you just touch the little bit of the edge of His clothing. If you made your way to the church this morning, God can work in your life. If you believe that He is able.

There are 256 names given for my Lord in the Bible. You know why that is? One name is not adequate to describe His greatness. 256 names given for my Lord in the pages of God’s word. I will end with this by quoting from Gloria Gaither who talks about the name of Jesus. Jesus, she says, the mere mention of His name can calm the storm, heal the brokenhearted, raise the dead. At the name of Jesus, she says, I have seen sin hardened men melted. People who are backsliding transformed. The lights of hope put back into the eyes of a hopeless child. At the name of Jesus, hatred and bitterness has turned to love, forgiveness, and arguments have come to an end. Emperors have tried to destroy it. Philosophies have tried to stamp it out. Tyrants have tried to wash it from the face of the earth with every blood of those who claimed it yet still it stands. Ah, there’ll be that final day, she writes. Every voice that has ever uttered a sound, every voice of Adam’s race shall raise in one great mighty chorus to proclaim the name of Jesus. For in that day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Let’s stand in the presence of God.