If you would take up your Bibles and turn back to the book of Acts, we’re in Acts chapter 14 tonight, and that’s found on page 923 in the pew Bibles. Acts chapter 14.
You know if people ask me about my hobbies, I always feel a little ridiculous saying, “hiking,” because what, do you hike LeFleur’s Bluff? No, there’s not much hiking to be done in Jackson, Mississippi! That’s why I’m all with John Muir when he says that, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” And when I go, my favorite app is the All Trails app. And on the All Trails app, you can get all kinds of information about distance and difficulty and trail features to help you pick a particular trail in a particular area. And one of the ways that All Trails categorizes each trail is by route type. There are different types of routes. One of them is a point to point trail. And a point to point trail is usually a longer trail that begins in one point, where you are dropped off at the starting point, and then you are picked up at the end point later down the way. There are also circular trails. And a circular trail is a trail that begins at one point and ends in the same place but it follows a loop. And then there’s a third type. And the third type is an out and back trail. And an out and back trail is a trail that goes out to an end point, and then when it gets there, you turn around and come back on the same path, the same route to where you began. An out and back trail.
And that’s basically what we find in Acts chapter 13 and 14. Paul’s first missionary journey is an out and back journey through parts of Galatia. You can see that in the map in your bulletin tonight, if you can see the map in your bulletin tonight. We can’t zoom in like Stephen taught us to do, but what we have – and the locations are listed there to the right as well – but we have Paul and Barnabas going from Antioch and Syria to Cyprus, to Pamphylia, to Pisidian Antioch, to Iconium, to Lystra, and then to Derbe. And then, they turn around and they more or less retrace the same route, the same steps, from Derbe to Lystra to Iconium to Pisidian Antioch, to Pamphylia and back to Antioch in Syria. Now more than just retracing and plotting out points on a map, there is a lesson here. There’s actually a lesson on the map about the Gospel and about the ministry of the Gospel and about the Christian life. Those things can actually be plotted out, I think, on a map. And so we’ll see three things. Those are the three things that we are going to see from this passage. There is planting, there is watering, and there is God giving the increase. That’s what happens as Paul and Barnabas go on this out and back journey on this first missionary journey.
So before we read God’s Word, let’s pray and ask His help and blessing. Let’s pray.
Father, we give You thanks for the ministry of Your grace, the ministry of Your Holy Spirit, and pointing us to Jesus for the first time and calling us to faith in Him. We give You thanks for the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of Jesus and of Your grace in calling us to Jesus again and again and again. And we pray that You would do that for us tonight. Help us to trust You more strongly, more firmly, that You would settle us in our faith, and that You would grow us in our faith, that You would produce fruit in our lives as we come to Your Word tonight. Give us Your Spirit. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Acts chapter 14, starting in verse 1:
“Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, and there they continued to preach the gospel.
Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’ And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, ‘Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.’ Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.
But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
So we’ve been studying the book of Acts long enough that we recognize the pattern of ministry that established the early church. There was the preaching of the Word, that message about Jesus and His resurrection, and there were signs and wonders that accompanied the preaching of the Word that were performed by the apostles. Now it would be understandable if we might think in our minds sometimes, “If only God would provide such clear, unmistakable displays of His power and His glory like He did in these days, like He did in healing the lame and raising the dead. Then people would believe more readily. Then we would see more remarkable growth in the church. If only things would happen like this today.” But do you notice that that’s not even what happened in the days when we see the preaching of the Word and the working of miracles and signs by the apostles? Just look at the two reactions to the ministry of Paul and Barnabas in Acts chapter 14.
On the one hand, Luke tells us that Paul and Barnabas, in verse 1, went to Iconium “speaking boldly for the Lord and signs and wonders were done by their hands.” And what was the response? The response was, verse 4, “the people of the city were divided.” They were divided, and they were divided so much that an attempt was made both by the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them. There were those, for sure, who believed the message. There were those who sided with the apostles. But some of them were so upset by what Paul and Barnabas were doing and saying that they wanted to kill them and they ran them out of town. They ran them off to Lystra and to Derbe and to the surrounding countries, it says in verse 6. There was a violent reaction against the message and the miracles of these apostles in these days. That’s one reaction.
But the other one, on the other hand, when they went to Lystra, they got the complete opposite reaction from the people. And you notice that they meet this man who had been crippled from the time of his birth. Paul said to him, “Stand up on your feet,” and he stood up on his feet and started walking. And verse 11 says that, “when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’” They didn’t want to kill Paul and Barnabas; they wanted to worship them. And they called Barnabas “Zeus,” and they called Paul “Hermes,” and it says that the priests of Zeus brought out oxen and garlands and wanted to offer sacrifice to Barnabas and to Paul. The people loved it, but it was awful. It was terrible. And Paul and Barnabas, they tore their clothes; they rebuked the people and yet they could barely keep the people from sacrificing oxen to them.
What do we have here? We have the same ministry in two different places with two dramatically different responses. On the one hand, there was outright rejection. On the other hand, there was deification. Two dramatically different responses. And yet you notice also that even when the crowds wanted to glorify the apostles, it didn’t take long for them – and we see this in the fickleness of crowds – that they too stoned Paul and they dragged him out of the city and they left him for dead as well. It could seem like signs and wonders rather than helping the cause was actually bringing more setbacks to Paul and Barnabas.
But I think what we are meant to see is this – I think what we are meant to see is that the focus throughout their ministry, throughout this journey, throughout this chapter, is on the message. It’s on the message that Paul and Barnabas preached. Verse 3 says that, “Paul and Barnabas spoke boldly for the Lord who bore witness to the Word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.” So yes, the Lord confirmed the Word of His grace by the displays of power and the miracles performed, but how does salvation come? How does salvation come in these places? Salvation comes by the preaching of the Word. Salvation comes from hearing the Word and believing the message. That’s what Paul says in Romans chapter 10. “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.”
That’s why, throughout this passage, the focus is on preaching – what? It’s on preaching the Gospel. Just look through it with me. Verse 6, they fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lyconia, to the surrounding country, and there, they continued to do what? “To preach the Gospel.” Verse 15, they say, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you and we bring you good news.” In other words, “We preach the Gospel to you.” Then there is verse 21. “When they had preached the Gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and to Antioch.” You see, when Paul planted – and that’s what he is doing here in this part of the chapter – Paul is planting; he is planting outposts of Jesus’ disciples. He is spreading seeds of the kingdom of the Messiah and he did it by preaching, by preaching the Gospel, by preaching good news. And so when the signs and the wonders diminished with the passing of this generation of the apostles, these eyewitnesses to the resurrection and the first ambassadors of the Gospel, when they passed away, the work didn’t go away. And even without the signs and the wonders, the kingdom continued to advance. It continued to advance through the preaching of the Gospel, through the preaching of the good news.
But now that created a whole other set of problems as well. And we’ll get to that next chapter; we’ll see how they deal with some of the problems that were created by the preaching of the good news in all these different places. But the root of the problem is this – it’s that the preaching of the Gospel was not confined to the synagogue and the preaching of the Gospel was not prohibited from going to places and to people who worshiped false gods like Zeus and Hermes. You notice that in this chapter?
Now let’s just take a step back. Let’s just take a step back and think about that. If you were to do an internet search for the word, just a search for the word “Zeus” – I did that this week; I searched just for “Zeus.” And you know what came up? A Greek restaurant and a gas station in Flowood! That’s what came up for the word “Zeus”! And I’m all about hummus and a pita mozz, but what that tells me is that the word “Zeus” is somewhat tame in our minds and in our day. But that’s not the case 2,000 years ago in the Greco-Roman world. Zeus was not tame. In fact, Zeus was all about corruption and depravity. In the stories that we have in the mythologies of Zeus are about deception and about violating and murdering women. And he was the object of their worship. He was the object of the worship at this temple in Lystra. And what do we find in this chapter is that the Gospel went there, to that place, and to those people.
What does that mean? It means that the Gospel is good news. It means that the good news is good news about God’s grace. In fact, Paul will write in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 about some of the usual forms and ways of unrighteousness as they appeared in the culture and those people of that day. And he talked about sexual immorality and adultery and homosexuality and theft and drunkenness and fraud. And then he says, in 1 Corinthians 6:11 he says, “such were some of you.” And even they received the Gospel and they believed the message and they found salvation because the Gospel is all about God’s grace. And so you see, even though Zeus was not tame, neither is God’s grace. And John Stott has written somewhere, he says, “Authentic Christianity is not a tame and harmless ethic. It is not a tame and harmless ethic consisting of a few moral platitudes and spiced with a dash of religion. No, Christianity is a supernatural religion and that is because it is about the grace of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” And what we find here in Acts 14 is that the beginning, the beginning of the Christian life, the planting of the church is all about God’s grace.
In fact it says it in verse 3 where it talks about “the word of His grace.” And that’s the word of His grace to us as well tonight. And the word of God’s grace is good news to all of us, no matter what your background is, no matter what your sin is, no matter your unrighteousness, no matter your unworthiness. You know what, no matter even your righteousness and your good works. No matter any of those things. The work of God in bringing new life in Christ to you tonight is a work of complete and undeserved grace. And that’s what happened here. That’s what happened in each of these places as Paul and Barnabas go about from place to place, all the way to Derbe. Verse 21 says, “They preached the Gospel to that city and made many disciples.” They made many disciples – mission accomplished.
And yet what do they do next? What we find them doing next is they return to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. What they did was they returned in order to water in the places and to the people that they had planted. So we have first, planting, but also watering in this chapter. One of the things that it’s hard to get a grasp of, it’s really hard to get a sense as you read through the book of Acts, is the passage of time. There’s just not many datelines. There are not many timestamps throughout the book to tell us how much time was passing between the different events. What we get are more like verses 3, where it says “they remained there for a long time,” or the last verse says, “and they remained no little time with the disciples.” So it’s somewhat vague and general, but people think that Paul and Barnabas probably spent about a year, maybe a year and a half, on this first missionary journey. And whatever it was, however much time had passed from the beginning to the end of it, it was enough time in which they needed to go back to the places they had been, they needed to go back to the people who had believed the first time they came through in order to check on them, in order to strengthen them and to make them more established in the Gospel, in the faith. Again, the map. They could have gone from Derbe to Tarsus and then to Antioch and Syria over land and just made it a loop. But they didn’t do that. They went back and retraced their steps going back to the places that they had already been. They wanted to follow up on the seeds that they had planted.
And what did they do? What did they do as they made that back journey on this first missionary journey? Well, three things. They do three things that all start with the same Greek letter – the letter “pi.” The words are “parakaleo,” “presbuteros,” and “proseuchomai.” We could say it another way; we could stick to English – preaching, presbyters, and praying. That’s what they did when they went back and recovered that ground where they had been before. There’s “parakaleo” – preaching. It’s a word that we have been several times already in the book of Acts. Verse 22 says that Paul and Barnabas went on, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” That’s where we find “parakaleo.” It’s encouragement. It means “to comfort, to exhort, to instruct, to preach.” And they warned them, they warned them about the dangers they would face in the Christian life. They reminded them about the promises and the blessings that come with the kingdom of God, and they called them to press on; to press on in the faith and in the way of faithfulness. That’s parakaleo.
But then also, Paul and Barnabas put men in place to continue to shepherd the people after they had gone. That’s “presbuteros” or “presbyter.” Verse 23 says Paul and Barnabas “appointed elders for them in every church.” That word translated as “elder” is the word “presbuteros” from which we get the word “presbyterian.” And a presbyterian church is a church with elders appointed for the role of servant leadership. Leadership in the work of preaching, teaching, encouraging, strengthening and shepherding the church. These are men who have responsibility in the nurturing of the followers of Jesus. And so what we have here is that Paul and Barnabas’ ongoing ministry to these churches that have been set up in all of these places was through the appointment of these elders. And that would be Paul’s practice to the end of his life. And we can find in 2 Timothy, at the very end of Paul’s life, the thing he is saying to Timothy and passing on to him in his instruction, to continue his ministry he says, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faith men who will be able to teach others also.” See, the health of the churches, the health of the church requires the appointment of the ministry of faithful elders. Now I don’t think we have to dwell very long on that to make an application to us tonight and in this place. The health of the church requires the ministry of faithful elders, and we see Paul setting that up at the very beginning of his ministry.
The third thing is “proseuchomai” or prayer. Verse 23 says, “When they had appointed elders, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” And there we have it again. We see that practice of fasting coming up again in the work of the early church, in the life of the early church. Fasting that is paired with prayer. And listen to what Paul says about prayer elsewhere in his letters, in places like Romans chapter 1. He says, “without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers.” Ephesians chapter 1, “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” Philippians chapter 1, “I thank God in all my remembrances of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.” Over and over again Paul mentions praying without ceasing, praying with thanksgiving, praying with joy, praying because of what God had done in opening a door of faith among the Gentiles, praying to seek and to depend upon God to show His continued faithfulness and fruitfulness among the churches. Those three things – preaching, presbytering, and praying. Those are the ways that Paul and Barnabas watered the churches that they had already planted.
But there’s one more thing, one more thing that is not in this passage, it’s not in the book of Acts actually, and it doesn’t start with the same letter, but it’s Paul’s letters; it’s his epistles. And what we have is that these are churches in this area, these are churches in Galatia and Paul will later write a letter to the Galatians. He addressed it in Galatians 1, “To the churches of Galatia.” It was a letter of rebuke; it was a letter of correction. It was a letter stressing to them to hold onto the Gospel. And it was exhorting them not to turn to another gospel, not to give up their freedom but to continue to walk in the Spirit and to stand firm in Christ Jesus. It’s the same thing that we see him doing in this chapter – strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, saying that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” It didn’t stop, you see, it didn’t stop when he passed through these places a second time and preached the Gospel. No, he continued to do it in ministering to them over and over again because they continued to need the grace of God. Paul and Barnabas not only planted by God’s grace but they continued to water by God’s grace.
And we need that same grace of God as well. We need it every day, all the time. You know, we don’t do much as far as observing liturgical calendars around here. We do celebrate Christmas and Easter, but not much besides that. So I was curious – what’s next Sunday called? In the liturgical calendar, what is next Sunday called? Well I found a few different things. It’s called by several different names. One is “Divine Mercy Sunday,” “Octave Day of Easter,” “White Sunday,” some places call it “Quasimodo Sunday,” strangely enough – I don’t know what that is about. But the one that was maybe the saddest and yet the truest is, “Empty Pew Sunday.” Because the pews are packed on Easter, but not so much the next week.
But that’s part of what we see in this passage. And grace isn’t just for one time, it’s not just for once a year. Grace isn’t just the starting point in the Christian life. No, grace is what is needed every step of the way, all the way until the very end. And we need encouragement, we need exhortation, we need rebuke, we need correction, we need oversight, we need prayer regularly, weekly, daily, or else we too are prone to do what these believers in Galatia were prone to do when Paul says in Galatians 1 that they were “deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel.”
We might very well be susceptible to doing the very same thing. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, “Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” And maybe there are some of you here tonight who are wandering. I think we are all prone in some ways to drifting and to getting off course in the Christian life, even if just by a little bit. Maybe it’s something to do with our attitude, our speech, our behavior, our habits. Maybe it’s our desires or the company that we keep. You know. You know the ways in your life which we are tempted and prone to get off course. But we need both planting and watering by God’s grace. And don’t get away from the grace of God that we need to water us and to make us fruitful in the Christian life. The things that we see here in this passage with the preaching and the oversight of the presbyters and the praying and reading of the Scripture of the epistles. Don’t get away from those things. Don’t get away from the ministry of the Gospel that comes to us in the community of the church.
So there’s planting, there’s watering; one last thing, and that is that God gives the increase. God gives the increase. Planting. Watering. God gives the increase. Some of you remember or know the Paul Harvey speech that was famous a few years ago because it was used in a Super Bowl commercial. It’s his, “So God made a farmer” speech. And in that speech, Paul Harvey was talking about the hard work and the contribution that farmers make all around our country. He said, “God said, ‘I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend to the pink combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to fix the broken leg of a meadowlark. It had to be somebody who would plow deep and straight and not cut corners, somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five mile drive to church.’ So God made a farmer.” He’s saying there is a lot of hard work in the work of farming. And all that work, but you know what? A farmer can’t do one thing to produce results on his own. God has to do it. God has to supply the increase.
In fact, Jesus told a parable about that. He said that, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter his seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” because God does it. God has to provide the increase. So Paul and Barnabas, they knew that too, and that’s why they say in verse 27, when they arrived and gathered the church together “they declared all that God had done through them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.” God did it. God did it. God brings about the fruit. God brings about the fruit from the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, from their planting and from their watering. That’s because from first to last it’s about the grace of God. And it’s almost like bookends in this chapter. We see it in verse 3 where it talks about how, “The Lord bore witness to the word of His grace,” and then in verse 26 it talks about how they had been “commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled.” God’s grace. God’s grace was needed from first to last – from the planting to the watering, all the way to the increase. We need God’s grace from first to last as well. We need God’s grace from the beginning of the Christian life to the very end.
When one of our boys was getting ready for pre-K, he met with the teacher, one of the teachers, and she asked him about his letters and his numbers. “Do you know what this letter is? Can you remind me what this letter is called? I don’t know what this letter is. Could you tell me what this letter is?” So they went through that whole process and when it was over, he came back to Molly and she asked him how it went. And he said, “It was good, but that lady didn’t know her letters!” That lady didn’t know her letters! We always need to know our letters, don’t we? Whether you are the teacher or you are the beginner, we need to know the ABCs. It’s important for everything we do in speaking and learning and writing and everything. We never learn our ABCs at the very beginning and then leave them behind.
And grace is the same way. It’s the same way with God’s grace. We need it at the beginning of the Christian life and we need it at the very end, all the way until the very end. And that’s the message of the cross and the resurrection. It is finished. It’s victory. Victory over sin. Victory over death. God’s grace will get you home because God’s grace is more than enough grace for you. Don’t try to do it on your own. Don’t try to do it by yourself. God has more than enough grace for you. Live every day in that abundant grace and love which was demonstrated and given for you in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. That grace and love – it is such grace and love that He would send His own Son to die and to be raised for you and for your salvation. His grace is greater than anything that we could imagine and we need it every day, from the beginning to the end.
The planting, the watering, and God gives the increase. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we thank You for Your grace and we thank You for the ministry of Your Spirit. We ask as we sit under Your Word this evening, as we go out from here in the week to come, we ask that You would produce fruit in our lives. We are unworthy, we are undeserving, and yet Your grace is greater than all of our sin, all of our undeserving. You have made us, You have adopted us as sons and daughters into Your household. So we cry out as we leave here this evening, Abba Father, help us to live in that freedom and in that joy and that You would receive all the glory for it. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.