The sermon by Scott Brown, titled 'Lessons from the First Missionary Journey,' explores Acts chapter 14, which documents the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas. They traveled to several cities, including Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, preaching the gospel and encountering both acceptance and persecution. Despite being threatened and even stoned, they demonstrated reliance on the Lord, which was evident in their bold preaching and the signs and wonders performed through them. In Lystra, after healing a lame man, they were mistaken for gods, but they rejected the idolatry and directed the people to the living God. The narrative emphasizes the importance of church community, as seen in the establishment of elders and the role of prayer and fasting. The sermon draws parallels between the early church and contemporary believers, highlighting the ongoing 'missionary journey' of every Christian and the need to rely on God amid trials. It concludes with a reflection on the church's unity, the spreading of God's word, and the transformative power of living according to the gospel.

Book of Acts chapter 14. In Iconium they entered the synagogue of the Jews together and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed both of Jews and of Greeks. But the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the Brethren. Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who is testifying to the word of his grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided, and some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles.

And when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers to mistreat and to stone them, they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra, and Derbe and the surrounding region, and there they continued to preach the gospel. At Lystra, a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, lame from his mother's womb, who had never walked. This man was listening to Paul as he spoke, who, when he had fixed his gaze on him and had seen that he had faith to be made well, said with a loud voice, stand up upright on your feet. And he leaped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice saying in the Lycaeanonian language, the gods have become like men and have come down to us.

And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul Hermes because he was a chief speaker. The priest of Zeus whose temple was just outside the city brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the Apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, and saying, Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways, and yet he did not leave himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

Even saying these things with difficulty, they restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them. But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day, he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Tyconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying, through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

When they had appointed elders for them in every church having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. They passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Atalia. From there, they sailed to Antioch, which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished. When they had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all the things that God had done to them and how he'd opened a door of faith to the Gentiles and they spent a long time with the disciples.

Heavenly Father we lift up our hearts before you this morning and we ask that you would take them and that you would sanctify them by your word that we will hear preached this morning. We ask that you would take Scott and his message in your hands and that you would bless them and that you would give us ears to hear them such that our hearts might be softened. By the blood of your Son and in the name of Jesus we pray, amen. The chapter that Jonathan just read is the continuing of the story that we covered last week in Acts chapter 13 after Paul and Barnabas were appointed and sent out to quote unquote do the work which I have called them. Now, they weren't told what the work was.

It was going to be work. And now, looking back, we see my what a work it was. And they ultimately run into some very stiff resistance, and which results in Paul actually being left for dead outside of a city. And it's important for us to understand a number of things about what's happening here in 14. You know, how they face the opposition, and particularly even for us, is there anything that we might see in the way that they conducted themselves in their journey that would help us know how to handle difficult situations that we cannot foresee?

They never would have dreamed that this would have happened, but it did, and now we look back at it and see how they dealt with it. Now Acts chapter 14 records the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas, And you can see this map here, and we know in chapter 13, they're sent out from Antioch. Here you can see it on the map. That's the beginning of this missionary journey. And then they sail to Salamis there on the island of Cyprus, came over to Paphos, and then they went to Pasidian Antioch over here, and then to Iconium, and that's where we catch them today and then to Lystra they went to Lystra for particular reason that we'll cover in just a moment.

And then they went to Derbe. And then amazingly, after all the tribulations that they experienced there, they went to Purgha and then they made their way back, back to Lystra, back through Iconium, back to the city in Antioch, and then to Perga, and then they sailed back to the place from which they began in Antioch two years before. This chapter covers two years of these men's lives. They travel about 1250 miles in this first missionary journey. So if you want to understand the outline of the book of Acts, one of the things that you need to understand is where are the missionary journeys.

Acts chapter 13 and 14 are the structure and the sending and the returning of that loop, that two-year loop of the first missionary journey. And what we see here in Acts chapter 14 are all the different things that happened in these three cities, these cities of particularly of Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. That's pretty much the range of what most of the text is devoted to in this chapter of Scripture. And what you see here, you see a real continuous pattern, and you see it in almost all the journey, in almost all the events of the journeys. And that is there's preaching, there's great success, there's persecution, and then almost always they leave the city with a bunch of people who are encouraged and often new elders in a city.

And that's what we see here. In one sense, we ought to look at this through a particular set of eyes. As we're going through the Book of Acts, We always need to somehow see ourselves there and say, Lord, what does this have to do with me? And in one sense, all of us are on some kind of a missionary journey at some particular phase of our lives. We live in a certain place.

We live and move. We have our being there. There are circumstances that move us to another place, but what happens there? What are the qualities of our lives in the midst of that journey? What are we doing?

What are we saying? How are we handling the trials and the tribulations that come upon us in the midst of that journey? Every single person in this room who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is without question on a missionary journey, and it's no less significant than this missionary journey here. But what can we learn from these missionary journeys of those who went before us? So one of the things I've been asking myself as I've read this chapter is, How does this missionary journey instruct me?

What can I learn from them? Are there principles that I can understand and apply in a new way? Are there things that are happening here that need to be embedded into my own life. Are there words? Are there practices?

Are there things here that God is showing me now to help me in my own missionary journey? Now I trust that that would be the exact same question that every little girl, every little boy up to the oldest of us here in this room would be thinking. So one of the things that you see here are wondrous pictures of life in the church. And I've really been captivated by the elements of church life. Here we are, we're gathered in a church, and life is a certain way for us.

But we should always ask ourselves, how could life even be sweeter by the influence of the gospel? How could life be even better among us by looking at the wonderful things that God did in other churches? And that's what we see here. One of the things you see here in this in all of Acts 14, you see it all the way back to the first meeting of the church in Acts chapter 1, you see this life of being enfolded in the fellowship of believers. It's a fellowship of love.

It's a fellowship of prayer. It's a fellowship of fasting. They're sending and they're receiving. That's what we saw in Acts chapter 13. And then you see the same thing continuing on.

This chapter ends again with fasting and the appointment of leaders and in prayer, just as it began at the beginning in Acts chapter 13. The church that we see that is our pattern, that is for us to help us to know how to make our way together in the church. So that we don't invent the church in our own image, but that we follow the Lord Jesus Christ in his invention of the church. That we see the church there breaking bread from house to house. They're taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

They're praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord is adding to their number day by day those who are being saved. It's the fellowship of unity. Like we saw, which was the beginning of this missionary journey where there was a unity, there was this amazing unity of the whole church, and they were able to say, all together, it seems good to them to do something. They all together somehow in a spirit of unanimity they bound themselves to the other and said, it seems good to us to send out Paul and Barnabas, So we're going to send them out." And they went out.

Paul and Barnas weren't spiritual cowboys running around doing their own thing. They were part of a fellowship of love, a community in which they were an intimate part, and they were sent out by this dynamic fellowship of all. That's what it should be for us. You know, we've been invited to send teams of families to Romania for three weeks to do a three city conference thing in Romania. And so we just all need to understand that.

We need to pray for that. What are we going to do? Who are we going to send? Who would the Spirit of God mark out to send to go with us on that trip? I was with them last week and they said, we would love for you to even send some whole families because people in our country never see families ministering and working together for the gospel.

They only see individuals scattered out, but they wanna see it. So what are we gonna do with that? Well, you know plane tickets are very expensive to that region of the world. So it's a lot of, I mean, there's some considerations that have to be made. Prayers need to be prayed.

People need to be identified. How's that going to happen? Well, here we are. We're a fellowship of believers. All of us have a voice.

We have something to contribute and say. And so we need to fast and pray and cry out to God for these different things. I mean, we wonder if God is moving the hearts of two men to go plant a new church. Is that true? Is God doing that?

Is it just us? We like the idea. Is it just that we don't like to be so crowded? Is that why we plant a church? Absolutely not.

Only if the Holy Spirit among us makes it so clear that this is the right thing to do, that we must do it. If not, forget it. We shouldn't do it. So this is the picture that we have. It seemed good to everyone that Paul and Barnabas would be sent out to do the work that God had called them.

So what's this wondrous picture of church life that we're talking about here? It's a place where the whole church has their ears bent toward God to hear what He might say to them. In 14, they're brothers and sisters, and what are they doing? They're not relying on themselves, they're relying on the Lord for all that they're saying and they're doing. On the one hand, they're bold, On the other hand, they're full of the word of grace.

Wow, these are great people. These are just wonderful examples for us for how to make our way in the way that we relate with the people around us. They breathe out these marvelous testimonies of God. They're co-laboring together. They're not autonomous.

They're not alone in this world. They're part of a family that God has put together. Not a perfect family, absolutely. Sometimes you think this is the most dysfunctional family in the world, the church is, but it's God's church. He gave his blood for the church.

People might not like the church, but the Lord Jesus Christ loves the church and he spilled his own blood for her. So there must be something there. And this is the fellowship of believers. Here, they're co-laboring. We also see them divided from the world, but united with one another, which is a tremendous picture that we see.

Now, and here we see in this passage, when they send some out on a long journey, they go out on a long journey and they return as they did two years later here at the end of this book, this chapter, and they share their joys and their sorrows and their victories and their failures and they quote report all the things that God had done who what were they talking about what God had done and that really should be the structure of our conversation as we gather together we're not we're not here to talk about whatever irrelevancy might be on the table, but we're talking about what God has done. This should be the heartbeat of our relationships. We're not here to talk about business or whatever. It's not that it would be always wrong for anyone to ever mention business. No, I'm not saying that at all.

But we're here to talk about what God is doing in the midst of whatever we're doing, in the midst of business, in the midst of our families, in the midst of whatever else is happening. So that's sort of, I just wanted to pull back for a moment and say when I look at this passage here's what I see. I see this amazing, pulsating life of the Lord Jesus Christ working, sending, praying, fasting, loving one another, but also everything doesn't go well. And that's what we see. And we first of all catch Paul and Barnabas in the synagogue of Iconium.

This is a pagan, gentile city. Now it's obvious that there were Jews in this city, way out in the middle of nowhere, out in the middle of Asia Minor. And so there were enough Jews in the area to have a synagogue operating. They went to the Jews first, and what happened? The Jews were embittered against them and there was a slander campaign that was designed to embitter the people against them.

But Paul and Barnabas were not deterred even as a result of the poisoning of the minds of the Jews that were there. So what can we learn from their manner of life in this situation? First of all, They stayed in spite of the conflict. In fact, the language really makes it clear that they stayed because of the conflict. It almost sounds like that.

Conflict is not always a sign to retreat. In this case, it was the time to persist. And they were there about six months here in this, in Iconium. And the length of stay was not dependent upon the level of conflict. You know, we have them in the last chapter, you know, kicking the dust off their feet and going to another area.

What that means, you know, kicking the dust off your does not mean that whenever there's a conflict you can split. That's not what that means. That's not what Jesus meant when he was talking about that. And so they stayed because of the conflict. And so it raises the question, you know, when do you stand and when do you flee?

Here's the answer to that. I'll give you the answer. Rely on the Lord and somehow he'll let you know. And Because that's what they were doing here. You see sometimes they stay and sometimes they flee.

I don't know what the formula is, but you see different kinds of responses. What we see here is fortitude and staying in the middle of the conflict. We also see them speaking with boldness. These were not timid brothers. These were not milk toast kind of people that had nothing to say.

They had something to say, but they did it in a particular way. And I want to describe that by their reliance on the Lord. The way that they spoke was not being full of themselves, not full of their own will, but they were careful and trustful and dependent upon the Lord in the things that they would say, wouldn't you like to be like that? I get so disgusted with myself and when I shoot my mouth off, I say the next thing that comes to my mind, you know, and it usually begins with these words, well, I think, you know, I don't know if you ever do that, but well, I think this. Well so what?

What does God say? Does God have some authority over these words that are going to come falling out of your mouth now? He really ought to. And that was the beauty of the of the conversation of these here is that they were relying on the Lord I just think these people they had a they had a quality about them in their speech as they as they looked as they looked their opponents in the eye, that they weren't just responding out of their own internal impulses that they'd learned all their lives, because we do that, don't we? We have these knee-jerk reactions that we've developed, but They were restraining those internal knee-jerk reactions, and they were looking to the Lord for their response.

What a blessing that is when you're around people like that. I so long for more of this in my own life. But they were not self-confident, but they were confident in God. What they said, I just think had a ring of truth about it because it was it was carefully trustfully produced in their own submission to the Lord. You know, you think about, you know, you're a little boy or a little girl in a household how often you're just tempted to say whatever you think or a mother or a father just is tempted to just say whatever they think to discipline their children, you know, to...

We have these knee-jerk reactions. Some of them absolutely need to be broken. The way that we relate to one another often is just nothing. It's nothing less than some fleshly knee-jerk reaction that we've developed all of our lives. What are we going to do about that?

Well, thank the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy, but that His patience is toward us. At the same time, there's this beautiful example and calling to us to not suppress the truth and unrighteousness, but to let it be represented by what we say. And then we see that the Lord was testifying to the word of His grace. This is like the previous point in the sense that the Lord was testifying through them. He was using them as vessels of the word of His grace.

Did you see the language? It's really interesting that the Lord was testifying the word of His grace through these guys. That's what it was. The Lord was doing it. It's just another building up of this principle of reliance on the Lord.

And then the Lord was doing signs and wonders through them. It was the work of the Lord. They weren't cranking it up. They weren't trying to figure out, hey, let's go out and do some signs and wonders today. Let's go out and let's go be somebody today.

No, that wasn't it at all. The Lord was doing this. They weren't doing it. They had nothing to do with it except that they were available to it. And it just reflects their trustfulness.

What a satisfying and good thing it is to be dependent on the Word of the Lord, to speak the things that we are confident are true, and do it with a sense of submission to the Lord. That's what they were doing. You know, Paul, when he was speaking to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4, he said, For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ, and ourselves your bond-servants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us That's exactly what we see in Acts chapter 14. That's what reliance on the Lord is.

And Paul continues and he says, we are hard-pressed on every side. In other words, there's pressure but not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always caring about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body, for we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, why? That the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. I think Paul just, he just summarizes so well this thing that we see in Acts 14 about them relying on the Lord.

That they preach not themselves, but they preached the Lord Jesus. So okay, you know, the temptation for all of us is to try to be profound, to try to be relevant, to try to be funny. But these people were just trying to represent the Lord Jesus Christ. We should just be satisfied with that. We don't have to be stand-up comedians.

We don't have to be anything but just representing the Lord. That's enough. It's all we really need. Now, they were not speaking their own will, they were not advocating their own ways, but they were very persistent and it created a division And it says here the people of the city were divided. It's a schism I mean it was a it was a sharp line of division that divided these people all division is not bad Some division is from the Lord Jesus Christ.

This was an example of division that was from God. And it happened because some Jews had influence over the Gentiles and they were stirring up and poisoning their minds. Now, we should just expect this. We shouldn't be worried when this happens. It happened here, it will continue to happen.

There's really no neutrality with the gospel. Jesus says, I came to bring a sword. Not a military sword, not an Islamic jihad where people blow one another up. That's not the sword that Jesus brings. He brings a spiritual kingdom and it is a kingdom of love.

The Christian martyrs do not curse their persecutors. The Christian martyrs bless those who persecute them. That's the difference between the Islamic terrorist and the Christian martyr. And here, this division and this sword was not a military sword by any means at all. Then we see them taking flight to Lyconia.

It got very dangerous and they had become aware that there was a plot to mistreat them and stone them. And so what did they do? They left the city and What they would encounter, they never dream would encounter as a result of this situation. They bumped into a lame man in Lystra. Verses 8 through 20 record what happened here.

Here's the man, he's been lame from his mother's womb. He never had a day where he could walk. Everybody knew that. He lived in this town. And here, Paul and Barnabas bump into him.

And Paul fixes his gaze on him and says, stand upright on your feet. He doesn't just stand, he leaps, he jumps up, and he's healed. It's absolutely amazing. So here's a really interesting thing that happened That happens to us all the time, which is why we should never have one shred of fear in our hearts about anything Here that here here are our Paul and Barnabas they're in Iconium and they find out that they're going to get mistreated And shamefully mistreated in stone they find out and they think we got to get out of here They have no idea that This pressure is going to take them To something to some other place where this massive blessing is going to break out They did not come here to be a blessing. They came to save their skin.

But in saving their skin, they were just doing what they had always done. They were trustfully relying on the Lord. And they saw this man and they spoke to him in the name of the Lord, and God healed him. And if they had not been threatened, they would not have been in the right place at the right time to be with this man. God very, very often does this.

He takes a pressure point, a lamentable situation, a bad turn of events, some... It might be a stupid thing that somebody did that you might have done, whatever, but God Somehow, he's amazing. He causes how many things to work together for good? All things. Even the stupid things.

He even can use knuckleheads in a lot of different situations. And this is just a beautiful story to me because it just plays before us the drama of life from God's perspective. He causes a threat to move men over to a place where there would be blessing. Well, it wasn't only blessing. There were other things that happened while they were in Lystra.

And I would just like to mention here before we move on in this narrative, the role of healing in the spread of the gospel. It would be really an interesting study to go back to the book of Acts and then to go back to the gospels and to study the role of sickness and healing in the spread of the gospel. Now here's what I think about it. That well first of all Christ was constantly healing the sick even even when they wouldn't come back and give him thanks. He was healing people who were not believers for his own glory.

So here's what I think. The very presence of a sick person presents an open door for the gospel. I think that's what the book of Acts shows us, that here's a sick person. Well, that's not the end of the story. Now Jesus doesn't heal every single person, but he does heal at his own will.

So the presence of a sick person is an opportunity to open a door of faith to see the mercy of Jesus Christ. So in Acts and the Gospel, sickness is often the opportunity. It's kind of the trip cord that leads to salvation of somebody or the healing of somebody or guess what in this case the healing of somebody and the salvation of a lot of people and the stoning of one really nice guy. That's what happened when this healing took place. It was a beautiful moment.

He's healed. Well, the rest of the story is that it led to this tragic stoning of the Apostle Paul. So if you see a tragic and difficult sickness, it's an opportunity for the gospel. That's the principle. Let's don't despise our trials.

Let's consider it all joy when we fall into various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work. Let it do the work that you may be perfect and complete and lacking nothing. So the man is healed. Then we see in the narrative the crowd reacts.

And the crowd reacts wonderfully, so wonderfully they say, Zeus and Hermes are here. These guys were so gifted and so honestly amazing in their presentation. They spoke in such a way that was very compelling and wonderful. But it was so amazing that the people were shocked. It was so good.

And they started calling him Zeus and Hermes. Now, there's a popular legend in Lyconia that came out of Lyconia that might give us some insight as to why they started treating them like Zeus and Hermes. The people of the region tell a story of Zeus and Hermes disguising themselves, coming down to Lystra and the surrounding area, and going from house to house. But nobody will be nice to them, no hospitality, until finally two peasants, one of them was named Philemon, and the other was Bacchus, these two peasants take them in and express kindness to them. So Zeus and Hermes take these peasants outside the city and then they flood the city and kill everybody and then when the flood waters recede, out pops this gorgeous palace with golden roofs, and Zeus and Hermes say, welcome to your new home, and they go back.

So the legend is that Zeus and Hermes came and they were rebuffed. Let's don't do it again. We're not going to rebuff these guys. They must be Zeus and Hermes. And so there's some thought that perhaps that's why they did this.

Well, who knows? I don't know, but it's quite possible that this is why they were treated this way. But a number of things that happened here. Instead of claiming the title of deity and acquiring the popularity that they were about to be given. They did something really important.

They proved themselves faithful to the Lord, not to the crowd. They could have built a city-wide or region-wide popularity base here, they did not do it. They would not take the accolades, but they chose to remain as they were, mere men. And Paul and Barnabas could have had their day of fame, They could have had their 15 minutes of popularity, but they understood that the grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And That's what we see.

Fame in the world meant nothing to these men, though this world was not their reward. And so we see from this narrative that these men were not seeking any kind of popularity with the people, and they could have had it, but they renounced it. Now, how did they do this? How did they pull that off? Well, it shows us in verse 14 that they respond, and there's this sermon, there's this teaching that they give and and notice how different this sermon is from the one Paul gave in chapter 13.

He was speaking to the Jews in chapter 13. He starts with the beginning of the history of, well I guess he doesn't start at the beginning, but he goes back in Jewish history and tells a number of stories that lead up to Christ. But he says, he says, we are men of the same nature as you, in verse 15, and we're preaching the gospel to you that you'll turn from these vain things and turn to God who made heaven and earth. So this sermon is really different. First thing they do is they explain that they're mere men, that they have a sinful nature, just like they do.

And then they tear their robes to express how disgusting this whole thought is to them. And they say, why are you doing this? And they speak of the vanity of idolatry. They say, they're appealing them to turn from vain things. You know, saying that their idolatries don't do any good, they bear no fruit, it's vain, it's vanity, it's nothing, stop that.

And then they explain the gospel, and the gospel begins of course with God as creator and then God's treatment of mankind. You'll see this in the sermon. God who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and is all that is in them, he begins with God as almighty creator over all of nature and then he moves to God's treatment of the people of the earth and his understanding of it and he says that he permitted the nations to go their own way that God for some reason in his own wisdom, allow the nations to be wicked and to continue in their wickedness. And then he says, but God still testifies to them through the heavens and the earth. And he explains that God did not leave himself without a witness, but even though they continued to disobey, he didn't snuff them out, but he expressed loving kindness to them, and they were allowed to disobey, and he was patient in the midst of it all.

You know, Nehemiah sums this up so nicely in Nehemiah 9, they refused to obey, They were not mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but they hardened their necks. And in their rebellion, they appointed a leader to return to their bondage. But you are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them." And then he says, you know, God gave you fruitful seasons, He gave you food, He gave you gladness. Isn't that amazing that God would give the gift of gladness even to those who hate Him? Everybody gets to feel gladness, whether they hate him or not.

Isn't that amazing? You wouldn't do that. You'd say, I'm going to withdraw your gladness until you come around. That's what man says, not God. He gives the gift of gladness.

He lets the rain fall on the just and the unjust. Even though they harden their hearts, he is so different than we are. You know, Jason and I were talking about this passage yesterday, and he said, oh, I've got a great cross reference for you on this very point of God giving rain and crops and gladness. Here it is, it's Luke 6, 27 to 38. I would like to read it.

It really gives, I think, the pathology of this. But I say to you, this is the Lord Jesus, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. This is exactly what God did throughout all generations. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also.

And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

And if you are good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same, and if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners and receive much back But love your enemies do good and lend hoping for nothing in return and Your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High. For he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Evil.

Therefore, be merciful just as your Father is merciful. For the same measure that you use, it will be measured to you. A little bit of back to reality at the end of this. But this message, This response is the giving of the great mercy and the wisdom of God in His love for all of mankind. That was the message that He gave them.

And for all of that beautiful testimony, Paul is stoned and left for dead. The contrasts are just crazy here in this passage. You have these tremendous outpourings of emotion and favor and then wham! It just turns around. This is the crowd.

This is the mentality of the crowd. So they stone Paul and they dragged him out of the city. You know this is really a, if you can imagine this scene, it's really a very bad, bad kind of a scene. They dragged him out of the city. I don't know if you've ever seen anything like that.

But this is, no you've not seen anything like that. But that's exactly what happened. So Paul and Barnabas, they left Iconium to escape stoning. And now they're getting stoned. You cannot beat God at His game.

He is perfectly sovereign. He does as He wishes among the sons of men. If He desires you to be stoned, He will get you stoned. If He doesn't, He will allow some way of escape. But just because you escaped this thing this one time doesn't mean that it isn't somehow in God's greater good to accomplish it in your life.

So one of the things that happened here, this is really interesting, it says here that the Jews gathered from different places. Did you notice that? Did you see that in the narrative? It wasn't just the guys that were there around. No, no, They came in from all over the place.

They didn't have telephones. They did not send out broadcast emails. But they used some kind of communication method, because people were coming from three, four, five days journey here. They made some significant sacrifice to show up. The word was spread and the Jews came in to nail Paul and Barnabas.

And they stoned him and they dragged him out of the city. Imagine what Paul must have been thinking at this moment. He did the same thing with Stephen. He held the cloaks of those who were stoning Stephen, and now someone else is holding the cloaks for those who are stoning him. What was going through his mind?

It's unbelievable. Now, the most unbelievable part of this story to me, and I've always just been blown away by this, is he's stoned, he's left for dead, the disciples are standing around him, and he's not dead. And apparently he gets up and what does he do? He goes right back into that city. It's really interesting, this guy, he was courageous.

I don't think his courage was from his own spirit. It was wisdom from God. It was counterintuitive to go back into that city. He probably had people around him saying, no, don't go back. Just like with John G.

Peyton when he was getting ready to go to the New Hebrides, the man who stands up and says, you will be eaten by cannibals. Don't go. And Peyton says, yes, but the Lord has called me. I must go. And he goes.

And well, He doesn't get eaten by cannibals, but some other people do. And that was just God's sovereign hand over it all. But he goes back into the city from the city that he was dragged out of. And I was reading William Barkley on this passage last night, and William Barkley, coming off of this scene, he quotes John Wesley, who says, always look a mob in the face. And that's exactly what Paul did.

He looked the mob back in the face. What a guy, what a great guy. You know, he's not pushed around by his emotions. You know, he's definitely the opposite of the sensitive 90s male. He's doing what God would have him to do.

He's doing his duty and he goes back into the city. Okay, then Paul and Barnabas are in Derbe and Lystra and Iconium. Now, they make their way back. Derbe is about 60 miles away. It's a three day journey.

And they're doing a number of things here that, again, remind us of this beautiful, beautiful church life. Why did Paul go back to these cities? Why would he? Oh, you would think you would have the wisdom to go find a nice place out in the country somewhere. Repair, be served tea and good food for a while.

Go rest, get recharged. No way, Jose. They're right back into it. And what are they doing? Well, there are two verbs that are used here, and then a number of other things that are happening.

I just want to click through them kind of quickly so you see what was in this man's heart. Why did he do this? Here's why I think he did it right here. He went back to strengthen and encourage the disciples. He went back there because he loved those people.

He wanted to encourage them. He wanted to strengthen them. He wanted to fill their hearts with courage. What's courage? Well, one part of courage is joy and confidence and freedom and all that kind of thing.

That's what Paul wanted for the people. So he went back there. He didn't go back there to lick his wounds. He went back there to do something for somebody. And that's exactly what he did.

He encouraged them to what? To continue in the faith. So he was just speaking gloriously of the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he enlightened them. He enlightened them of the difficulties that often are part of faith in Christ.

He says he was honest to represent the Christian life as it really was, and he's basically saying the Christian life is not always easy, and he says, by many tribulations we shall enter the kingdom of heaven. That's what he says. That's what I titled the sermon, by many tribulations we shall enter the kingdom of heaven that's what he says that's what I titled the sermon by many tribulations we shall enter the kingdom of heaven I wasn't sure there were about five different titles I was considering for this but he he enlightened them about the reality of the Christian life, that by many tribulations we'll enter the kingdom of heaven. You know, hey, some of us just need to grow up and realize that there are going to be conflicts in life. Let's don't be crushed by every conflict and every problem that happens.

Let's don't do that. Let's understand that God has plans way bigger than just for us. He's doing things with and for other people and He's going to use us. He also might use the stoning or the threat in your life to do something marvelous for somebody else. God is that way.

He will give you an affliction that will be a blessing to somebody else. We just see it in scripture. We can't cast judgment on it. We just have to say that God is wise in all of it. So he enlightens them about the nature of the Christian life.

He appoints, they appoint elders in these cities. There were churches that didn't have elders and now they had them. You know, One of the questions that people often ask is, is it ever legitimate to have a church without elders? Here's my answer. Yeah, sure it is.

But you ought to move toward appointing elders somehow. That's the right thing to do. That's the biblical pattern. Another thing you see here, you see the biblical pattern for churches and their leaders. Here, and it's almost comprehensively represented the same way.

Church is singular and elders are plural. So it's not church and elder, it's church and elders. That's the biblical pattern. And there's a local church of identified people, and then there are elders that lead that church. That's the biblical pattern.

And so if there's just one elder in a church, then that church should move toward having more. And if there are none, they definitely should move on having one at least and move toward elders rather than elder. Church is meant to run by a plurality, not a singularity, and absolutely not an autocracy. Definitely it is to be led by godly men, not one godly man. So then they appointed elders, and then they prayed and they fasted together.

And then they commended them to the Lord. These guys are always turning people to the Lord, and it's just so helpful to them. Then next in the narrative we see them returning to Antioch. They go through Pisidia. They go back through Pisidia and Antioch, up there in the north, Panphilia, Perga, Attila, and then they sail across and go back to Antioch.

And what do they do there? When they arrived, they gathered the church together and they began to report all the things that God had done with them, and how He opened a door of faith to the Gentiles, and they spent a long time there with the disciples. Two years of getting your head beaten against rocks and a bunch of wicked people at the same time participating in the beautiful fellowship of the church as they went the whole way, being a benefit to all the churches that they visited. And now They're back home, two years later, the first missionary journey is over. Wow.

What an amazing, amazing time that they had. Now they're back among the people of God from which they were sent. And they're praying, they're fasting, they're breaking bread from house to house, they're having favor with God and all the people, and they're taking their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. What a great picture.

OK, here we go. Applications. See the beauty of reproducing the manner of life we see in the early church. You see the beauty of it? You see the goodness of it?

Let's go be like that. Let's don't be like us. Forget us. Let's go be like that. Second, notice the example of reliance on the Lord.

Oh, I just, I don't think we can be reminded of this enough. Reliance on the Lord. Even today, You know, when you speak to your son or your daughter, are you relying on the Lord for the words that you say? Or to your friend or whatever? Your wife, your husband, your unbelieving friend.

They just present a wonderful example of reliance on the Lord. And then this one, what new doors have your trials opened for the Lord? You might just sit this, here's what all parents should do. They should enumerate their trials, name them one by one, and then tell their children how God used everyone of them for good. That's what they should do.

How is the status of your awareness of sickness and the opportunity for the gospel? Do you just pass by sick people? I sometimes do. No way, we should be doing that. We ought to be wrapping our arms around sick people and praying for them and having compassion on them the same way the Lord Jesus did.

You know why people were always bringing sick people to Jesus? Because He did something about it. He loved them. He wasn't just passing them by. Our life message mirroring the message of God, the patience and kindness of the Lord, the God who blesses those who persecute and he calls his children to do the same thing, The kind God who does, causes the rain to fall and the evil and the good, who gives them rain and he's even so kind to give rebels gladness, even if they'll use the gladness against him.

Wow. OK. See how they belong to one another. They were sent out, they came back, and they continue together in gladness and sincerity of heart from the home church from which they were sent. Full of storytelling, joy, collaboration, life, prayer, fasting.

Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, you are so good. I pray that you would help us to be a good church in your eyes. Oh Lord, conform us to your image and that we would find all that we desire in you. So I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and sanctify you among the saints.

Amen.