Well, it’s a joy and a privilege to open up God’s Word together tonight and we’ll be looking tonight at Acts chapter 18. You can find that on page 927 in the Bibles located in the pews in front of you. I like the story from John Calvin’s life where he was banished from Geneva for over three years. And he was preaching through the Psalms in Geneva in 1538 when he was forced to relocate to Strasburg until September of 1541. And on his first Sunday when he returned back to Geneva, he turned to the Psalms and he picked up preaching from the very next verse where he had left off three years earlier. Now I like to think of him as doing something like, “Let’s turn to Psalm 23:4, ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’” and just picking off right where he left off, almost like he had never been gone, like he was just finishing a thought that he had from three years before.
Well tonight we pick up our series in the book of Acts, and it’s been a while since we’ve been in the book and we’re picking up in what seems like mid-thought. It seems like it’s right in the middle of a story. And in fact, it is. And yet this is the transition from Paul’s second missionary journey into his third missionary journey. And from here, Lord willing, we will trace the rest of the story of Acts to Paul’s arrival with the Gospel in Rome in Acts chapter 28. Now if you remember back in Acts 16, Paul and Silas had been forbidden from going into Asia or Asia Minor, what we now call Turkey. They were forbidden by the Holy Spirit from going there, and so instead they were called to go to Macedonia or to Greece. And so they went and Paul preached the Gospel in Philippi and Thessalonica and Berea and Athens and Corinth. And Paul stayed in Corinth for quite a bit of time and when he left there he set sail for Jerusalem and he stopped for a brief period of time in Ephesus. And he told the people in Ephesus that he could not stay long, but that he would return there, God willing.
Well in chapter 19 of Acts, we find Paul’s return to Ephesus. And he is going to stay there for over two years. And so what we are going to do tonight is pick up in chapter 18 verse 23. Paul is in Antioch and we’ll find that the focus shifts from Antioch to Ephesus. And I want us to see two things as we look at these verses tonight. I want us to see reason to believe and the reason for belief. Reason to believe and the reason for belief. Before we read God’s Word, let’s pray and ask His blessing on it. Let’s pray.
Father, we give You thanks for this Word and this account of the power of the Gospel for salvation to those who believe, for the Jew and for the Gentile, for those in Jerusalem and in Antioch and also in Ephesus. We pray that we would see that power of salvation here tonight in Jackson and that Your Holy Spirit would open our hearts. Help us to have ears to hear, that we would hear the good news of forgiveness and salvation and life in Your kingdom. Help us to see Jesus. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Acts chapter 18, starting in verse 23:
“After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ And he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ They said, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ And Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.’ On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.
And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our Lord endures forever.
So first we have reason to believe. I think there are two possible misconceptions about the book of Acts that we find addressed here in these verses, and the first one is that Acts is a missionary book. Now it’s true, missions is a major focus of this book as the testimony, as the Gospel about Jesus goes from Jerusalem and then to Judea and into Samaria and all the way to the ends of the earth. But even if we were to look at a map of Paul’s so-called “Three Missionary Journeys” we would find that much of his travels overlap. Much of his travel was a retracing of ground that he had already covered. And even think about his desire to go to Rome, the ultimate end point of this book. When he is on his way, when he is going to Rome, think about what was his desire and his goal for going to Rome. Well he told the Romans in Romans chapter 1 in a letter that he wrote to them before he went there, he said this, he said, “For I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.” You see, the church at Rome was already there. The church at Rome preceded Paul’s going there. And so he longed to go to them, to visit them in order to help them press on in the faith, in order to press on in obedience, to strengthen the church there. That’s why he was going to Rome.
And that’s he sets out in these verses what we find him doing in verse 23, isn’t it? It says in verse 23, “He departed and went from one place to the next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.” He had already been to those places. Back in Acts 13 and in Acts 16 and now he is going there again, and for sure he is going there to make new disciples for Jesus, but he is also going there in order to strengthen the believers who are already there. And we find Apollos doing the same thing, don’t we? And when he goes to Corinth and tells us in chapter 18 verse 27 that “he helped those who by grace had believed.” That’s the first possible misconception – this is solely a missionary book, when in fact what we find over and over again is that Paul and the others are going from place to place again in order to strengthen and help the believers who are already there.
Now for the second possible misconception about the book of Acts is related to the spectacular work of the Holy Spirit that we find in verse 6 of chapter 19. It tells us there, it says, “When Paul laid his hands on them the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.” You see, they were given these dramatic signs to accompany and to validate the work of the ministry of the Word of God. And this has been called “the fourth Pentecost” of the book of Acts. There was Jerusalem in chapter 2, there was Samaria in chapter 8, you remember Cornelius and the Gentiles in chapter 10, and now in chapter 19 we find the same thing happening, this time in Ephesus. And it would be easy for us to think that this book is about one miraculous event after another and the power of the Holy Spirit is on display from one place after the other, working healings and tongues and prophecies. But what do we also find in these verses? We also find in places like chapter 18 verse 26, we find Priscilla and Aquila taking Apollos aside and they simply explain to him the way of God more accurately.
What is Apollos doing there? What are Priscilla and Aquila doing there? They are simply having a normal conversation between three people. No fireworks, nothing spectacular there, just the normal conversation. Or think about Paul. First he went to the synagogue in Ephesus. What did he do in chapter 19 verse 8? It says he was “reasoning and persuading the people about the kingdom of God.” And when he left the synagogue he went to the hall of Tyrannus and he was doing the same thing there, for two years, “reasoning” – catch that word – “reasoning daily…so that all the residents of Asia heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.”
So what’s the book of Acts about? Well yes, it’s about the mighty work and power of the Holy Spirit, and yes, it’s about the missionary spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, but it’s also about the strengthening of the church – how? Strengthening of the church by engaging the mind. And isn’t that what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 12? “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” John Stott, some years ago, he wrote a little book called, Your Mind Matters because your mind matters. And your mind matters because it is a major part of Christian discipleship to use the mind in order to discern the truth and then to live by it. Your mind matters.
I think it was Frozen II that we were watching the other night at home, and at some point someone asked the question, “Wait, why did that happen?” or “How did that connect to this other thing?” I can’t remember exactly what the question was, and apparently we’re not the only ones to think that it has a bit of a confusing plot! But who cares? It’s just an hour and a half of entertainment. It’s about laughing at Olaf and singing along with Kristoff and it doesn’t have to make sense. But the message about Jesus does. It has to make sense. And it does. And it makes sense because of some of what we find here in these chapters. There’s this overlap between two reports. On the one hand, there’s the message of the prophets, which includes John the Baptist. On the other hand, is the witness of the testimony about these events of Jesus’ life.
You see, Apollos knew the Scriptures, he knew what the prophets had said, and then he also knew the things concerning Jesus. And in one there was written the prospect of this son of the promise and atonement for sin, a king on the throne forever, one shepherd to lead his people, the anointed, the messiah. That’s what the Scriptures were about. And then here on the other hand is Jesus, and Jesus is born of a virgin, son of David. He is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. He is the good shepherd who gives His life that He might take it up again. You see, Jesus makes sense of the Hebrew scriptures. He fulfills all of the promises and expectations. He makes sense of them all, so much so that it says that Apollos – Apollos, in chapter 18 verse 28, he can show that the Christ is Jesus. And Paul does the same thing. Paul incorporated reason and persuasion both to Jews and to Greeks to show how Jesus is the fulfillment of all those things that were written thousands of years before. It makes sense. And there is reason to believe.
That’s why Francis Schaeffer, when he was challenging people in his own day and challenging us in our day, challenging people in the church, he said that we shouldn’t talk about taking a leap of faith because it’s not a leap of faith. Faith in Jesus is not an escape from reason. It’s not a surrendering of the mind. It’s not a leap in the dark, but it’s a step from the solid ground of the Old Testament scriptures into the credible testimony of the apostles, the gospels, and the epistles of the New Testament. And what our faith needs – we think about the strengthening of the church, the strengthening of our faith and walking in obedience – what we need is to use our minds by regular instruction in the Hebrew scriptures as well as the gospels in the New Testament epistles because it makes sense. And we need to fix our minds on the truth.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, many consider him to be the greatest preacher of the 20th century, when it came to defining what preaching is, he said that it is “logic on fire.” Logic on fire because the message of the Gospel engages both the head and the heart. And what we can say is that preaching, teaching, the Biblical instruction, it engages the mind. And the same thing has to be true in how we live our lives. Our minds have to be engaged in how we apply the Gospel and how we apply God’s Word into living our lives day after day.
Back to Stott in that little booklet about engaging the mind, he wrote about the dangers of mindless Christianity. He tells a story. He has an illustration about how in the 60s there was a student who was in another country attending a conference. And when he was at this conference, he heard about a protest that had broken out in his own university. And when he heard about that protest, he sort of clinched his fists and he said, “Oh, I wish I was back home! If I was back home, I would be right involved, I would be right in the middle of this protest! What’s it about?” It didn’t matter what it was about to him; he just wanted to be involved in the protest. And the same thing happens today all the time, doesn’t it? I heard about a journalism professor talking about students in his class and the way they respond to some controversy, some hot topic of the day. He said that oftentimes what happens is they respond quickly, immediately with how they think, with the way that they think will be acceptable with their group or with their tribe. And what he says to them is, “No, stop. Think. Wait. Think about whether this response really represents who you are and what you believe.”
And don’t we have to do the same thing? All the time. Think. Think. Don’t just parrot the party line. Don’t pander to your personal preferences. Don’t be a pushover to peer pressure. Your mind matters, and it matters how the Gospel message about Jesus both informs and shapes our lives. And we need to be like Apollos, don’t we? Apollos who was ready. He was teachable and he was ready to change his mind. He was teachable and ready to change his course when that needed to happen. And that needs to be the same for us as well. Sometimes I think that we let ourselves be shaped by the workplace or by the sports team or by our social group or club and we just think, “Well this is just the way things are and I have to act this way or do these things in order to participate.” But no, the Gospel impacts every aspect of our lives. We cannot be like that man that James talks about in that illustration in the book of James where he says, “Don’t be like that man who looks in the mirror and turns away and immediately forgets what he looked like. Don’t be someone who hears the message, who hears the Word and then immediately turns away and forgets what he heard and forgets to live by that Word.” We need to engage our minds and to apply the message to how we live our lives. There’s reason to believe, you see. And the mind is critical to cultivating a life of godliness, to being strengthened by faith.
But then there is another thing. How does that happen? Well it can only happen by one way and that’s by God’s grace. And that’s the second thing I want us to see. There is reason to believe, but also there is only one reason, there is the reason for belief, and that is grace. And as I read this passage, maybe you noticed the same thing, I wondered, “Why does Paul include this little interlude about Apollos?” It really kind of breaks up the narrative about Paul. It’s not technically necessary to tell us about Apollos as he tells us about the message and the ministry of Paul going from one place to another. But it’s here on purpose. We know that’s true. And I think the purpose, very possibly, could be because people were oftentimes comparing and holding Apollos and Paul against one another. And what Luke is saying by including this little interlude here at the end of chapter 18, he’s saying Paul and Apollos, they’re on the same team and they are in it together and they have the same message and the same purpose and the same calling. They both know the Scriptures. They both knew the things about Jesus. They both spoke bolding. But there were people who would choose one of them over the other. We find out, remember in 1 Corinthians, where some in the church in Corinth would say, “I follow Paul” and some of the others would say, “I follow Apollos.” Well maybe some people thought that Apollos’ preaching was better. Maybe there were others who, Paul’s teaching seemed to suit their personalities better. But it didn’t matter. And what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he says in 1 Corinthians 3, he says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”
And we could say the same thing, couldn’t we, except the opposite about what happens here in Ephesus. Because Apollos was in Ephesus, and then Paul came there, we could say, “Apollos planted, Paul watered, but God gave the growth.” And you see, in this passage what we have, we have Priscilla and Aquila, they’re explaining the Word of God more accurately, Apollos, he’s helping those in Corinth by showing them that Christ is Jesus, and then Paul is reasoning and persuading the people in the synagogue and in the hall of Tyrannus. But what’s the most important thing to see in these verses? Well it’s back in chapter 18 verse 27. It says, “When he,” or Apollos, “arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed.” They believed because of God’s grace. It wasn’t because Apollos was confident in the Scriptures. It wasn’t because he was an eloquent speaker. No, it was because of the grace of God. And in Ephesus, with Paul, they knew about Jesus, they were even called disciples in verse 1, but they had to be baptized in the name of Jesus and receive the gift or receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now do I think that this is some secondary baptism of the Holy Spirit? No. This is a unique period in the history of the church and this is a visible demonstration of what happens when the Gospel goes to these new places at the beginning of its spread. And what we’re meant to see here is that this is what happens for those who believe by grace. They receive the Holy Spirit. In other words, this is a work of God. And salvation is a work of God’s grace.
In other words, or you could think about it this way, think about all the different types of grad school. Maybe there’s med school, law school, business, accounting – whatever it is, you can learn all of the things that you need to know in order to do those occupations, in order to prescribe medicines, to represent clients, to manage assets. And you can do those things and have some success. And then there’s seminary. And you can learn it all in seminary – Bible, theology, preaching, church history, catechisms and confessions – and none of it will do any good apart from the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. And of course all those other occupations need God’s common grace as well, but the point I’m trying to make is that you cannot instruct someone into the kingdom of God. You cannot argue or debate someone to faith. That makes a difference in how we engage others with the Gospel, isn’t it? And it allows us to have patience with them and to remove some of the pressure or the burden that we may face upon ourselves because it’s not us and what we say, but it’s how God works by His grace to bring faith and to draw someone to Himself. Only the saving grace of God can bring someone into the kingdom of God and lead them in the way of righteousness.
And that’s humbling. It should be. And if you are here today as a believer in Christ, it’s not because you knew better. It’s not because you used the best decision making skills. You are here today as a believer in Christ because of the grace of God, because it’s a gift, simply received by faith. And likewise, if you’re here tonight, if you’re here and you think that you can learn enough Scripture and you can say the right answers, that’s not enough. There has to be a work of grace in your heart where you say, “I’ve tried it all on my own and I cannot do it. I need grace. I need what Jesus Christ has done in my place. I need the Holy Spirit. I need. I need. I need.” And that’s utterly humbling.
And think about that as we come to the Table tonight, as we come to the Lord’s Supper to remember what Jesus has done on the cross – His death, His resurrection, the gift of salvation, the offer of forgiveness and blessings in His presence forever. Think about that. You’ll hear in just a moment as Scott invites us to the Table, that if you are not a believer, what you need is not the bread and the cup. What you need is to see what your sin, how your sin leaves you tonight. And you need not more information, but you need Jesus’ death and resurrection for you and in your place so that you might be forgiven of sin and found acceptable in God’s presence forever. You need not more information or right answers; you need grace. And this Table tonight shows us God’s grace.
And if you come tonight like those in Corinth who believed by grace, who by grace believed, if that’s how you come to the Table as we come to participate in this meal that Jesus has set before us tonight, how do we come? Each of us cries with thankful tongue, “Lord, why was I a guest? Why was I made to hear Your voice and enter while there’s room, when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come?” Why? Why were we invited in? It’s because of God’s grace. The grace of God. The all sufficient grace of God that sweetly draws us in because of what Jesus has done for us. Shouldn’t that give us full hearts, hearts full of joy and gratitude as we approach the Table tonight. Let’s do that by God’s blessing. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we give You thanks for this word of grace. How we do need it. And how often we need to be strengthened by it – to hear Your Word, to engage our minds, and to apply Your truths to how we live and speak and act and the decisions we make. But how we also need to taste and see. We need to eat the bread and drink this cup that You have set before us, that You would strengthen our faith. We ask that You would do that tonight. Strengthen us, encourage us, help us. Help us as we seek to believe and to persevere, to trust You and to walk in Your ways and for Your glory. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.