Keep On...
Notes
Transcript
I was originally going to entitle this sermon “Perseverance”. And then, the words of my good friend Tom Pilcher came to mind. Tom would say, “Why use a 25-cent word when a nickel-word will do?”
So when Magal asked me, “What’s your sermon about this week?” I took the opportunity to check and see if my kids knew what “perseverance” was.
Magal thought it was the name of a really big wooden ship.
Miracle checked his brain to see if he had read that word and surprisingly he hadn’t.
Patience wasn’t home at the time.
And of course, Makai knew exactly what “perseverance” meant.
But 1-out-of-4 isn’t great.
I said, “Well, Tom would tell me to use a nickel-word instead of “perseverance”, so let’s just say that this week’s sermon is about “keeping on, continuing no matter what you face—that’s perseverance.”
“Keep On.”
“Keep On” is the title of this sermon; it also happens to be really good advice.
Now, we aren’t facing what Paul and Barnabas faced on their first missionary journey. We aren’t up against mobs of angry Jews. We aren’t walking by foot hundreds of miles to share the good news with a mixed group of pagans and religious folk. We aren’t getting stoned (at least I hope not, and you better not be if you catch my drift).
We aren’t facing what Paul and Barnabas faced. But, let’s all agree, sometimes it’s hard to “keep on”.
I know several people for whom the combination of everything going on has made it really difficult to persevere and so they haven’t. They’ve given up.
I have several friends who have commented that for this year in particular, and for the first time, ministry is difficult.
One brother in ministry wrote saying: “For the first time in 12 years, I have to say ministry is hard.”
One of my former pastors told me a few weeks ago that for the first time in over 40 years of ministry, he’s weary. He’s tired of the loud opinions and division and anger and political drama on top of the political mess that comes around every four years. He said, “It’s all come together and made ministry almost impossible.” And he’s a seasoned and steady minister of a large church.
It’s hard to keep on. It’s hard to persevere. And yet, this is our calling: to keep on (to persevere). And thankfully, we have some good, Biblical teaching and examples of perseverance.
Paul wrote these words, saying,
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Suffering, says Paul, produces perseverance.
Paul and Barnabas model this for us, providing for us a good example of what it looks like to persevere, what it looks like to “Keep On”.
[MAP]
In the previous chapter, Paul and Barnabas set out on their first missionary journey. They traveled from Antioch (where their sending church was located) to Seleucia, to the town of Salamis on the island of Cyprus, traversing that island (they met and shared the good news with the proconsul who believed and was saved), then from Cyprus to the mainland city of Perga, and then to Pisidian Antioch.
It was in Pisidian Antioch that they ministered and preached the Word of God in the synagogue and to the Gentiles until they were chased out of town.
Paul and Barnabas have already experienced their share of rejection and opposition, people contradicting their teaching and preaching, heaping abuse on them. And this was just the start of their first ministry expedition. Most people would have had enough already.
This is, possibly, the reason John Mark left them and went back to Jerusalem. It is possibly he was just a momma’s boy, but it could be that the opposition and the work was just too much for him.
At Pisidian Antioch, some important people with high-standing stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region. So [Paul and Barnabas] shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium.
They didn’t call it quits. They didn’t pack it in. They didn’t get their feelings hurt, take their ball and go home.
They persevere; they “keep on”.
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Paul and Barnabas...
Keep On Preaching the Gospel
Keep On Preaching the Gospel
Paul and Barnabas enter another town and keep doing what they’ve been doing. Remember, they’re being led by the Holy Spirit (He sent them).
And (where methods are concerned), if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sure, they experienced some persecution along the way, but they also were able to share the Good News about Jesus with large groups of people at once.
Here in Iconium, the message of Paul and Barnabas, accompanied of course by the Holy Spirit who draws and convicts people to the Lord, a great number of Jews and Greeks believed.
They are preaching the gospel effectively. The biggest part of preaching the gospel—here’s a tip for you, are you ready?—the biggest part of preaching the gospel is: PREACHING THE GOSPEL!
Tell people what Jesus has done, all He has accomplished, the price He paid, the redemption and reconciliation He secures for all who are given faith to believe.
Paul and Barnabas know their task is not to change lives, to win souls, to transform people, to save anyone. That’s not their job; that belongs to the Triune God.
Their task is to preach, to proclaim, to share, to speak to people about Jesus.
That’s it.
When they do this in Iconium, they again face opposition. Some will respond positively to the message about Jesus; others, negatively. Some will accept and honor the Word of God; others will reject and oppose.
Notice what happens (vv. 2-3) when there’s opposition. The Jews stir up some of the Gentiles against Paul and Barnabas, so Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! What?! That’s the opposite of what we might expect to read. There is opposition, dissent, people stirred up, lined-up against them, and they just lean-into it. They just “keep on”.
They don’t quickly move on down the road. They spend considerable time there. They remained for a long time. The Spirit grants them the gifts of stick-with-it-ness and boldness and courage. The Spirit helps them to “keep on.”
It’s backwards and upside down logic (“There’s considerable opposition, so we’re going to stay here for a while”), but, then again, so is the way of Christ; it’s backwards and upside-down.
We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us—so says Jesus. If someone slaps us on the right side of our face, we turn to them the left side also. We forgive. We honor the other. We treat people the way we want to be treated. And, though opposed or ridiculed, we keep on preaching the gospel—because it’s really, really good news and because Jesus has asked us to do just that.
It doesn’t make any sense, but Paul and Barnabas have been given a task. They speak boldly for the Lord and the Lord gives confirmation to the message in the form of signs and wonders.
Even at this, people are divided. As people do, they take sides. One of the groups takes a vote at their monthly meeting and plots to mistreat and stone Paul and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas learn of the plot against them, and they skedaddle down the road to the next town where they live to preach another day—they flee to a couple places in Lycaonia where they continued to preach the gospel.
Sometimes God does not call His people to stand and lose their lives (like in Stephen’s case) but rather to escape from the danger that He has revealed to them. Because they moved onto the next town, Paul’s life was preserved for his future ministry (at this point, he had not begun his major missionary journeys or written any of his letters).
The Lord has more preaching of the gospel in store for Paul, and more suffering.
So Paul and Barnabas leave Iconium, but this is not the last we’ll hear about this city. The story, and Paul and Barnabas, will circle back around.
For now, Paul and Barnabas “keep on”...
[MAP] To Lystra (18 miles east) and then to Derbe (another 35 miles on past) and to the surrounding area.
8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
Paul and Barnabas...
Keep On Pointing People to the One True God
Keep On Pointing People to the One True God
During their time in Lystra, they encounter a man who was lame from birth and had never walked. As Paul was preaching, apparently, the Holy Spirit gave Paul the ability to somehow see what was happening in the invisible, spiritual realm.
Paul tells the man to stand up, and immediately, like the man at the temple in Jerusalem, he jumped up and began to walk. “Walking and leaping and praising God, walking and leaping and praising God...”
The crowd decided that Paul and Barnabas must be Hermes and Zeus, respectively. “The gods have come down to us in human form!” The people call for the priest of Zeus to bring bulls and wreaths because they wanted to offer sacrifices to the gods who had come down to them in human form!
This seems like quite a leap to make, until you understand some of the literature of the day.
The Roman author, Ovid, had written a story titled “Metamorphoses” about 50 years before this lame man was healed; 50 years before Paul and Barnabas came preaching.
Ovid’s story was about two Greek gods, Jupiter (Zeus to the Greeks) and his son Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) who visited the Phrygian hill country disguised as mortal men.
In Ovid's myth, the two gods were turned away from 1,000 homes in their search for a place to stay. They were finally welcomed into the home of an elderly couple. So the gods turned their house into a temple, and destroyed all the homes that had rejected them. The couple was granted their wish to become priests in the temple to serve the gods and to be allowed to die at the same time, “that I may never see my wife’s tomb,” the husband adds. Their request was granted.
Recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed the importance of the Greek gods amongst the people of Lystra.
It’s likely this tale was on the minds of the people of Lystra, so when Paul and Barnabas arrive and perform a miracle, the people of Lystra want to make sure they don’t miss or shun any of the gods again.
They are so excited: “The gods have come down to us in human form!”
Barnabas and Paul can’t take this; they tear their clothes, expressing their horror at the people’s blasphemy, and rushed out into the crowd making clear that they are only human, not gods to be worshiped.
The gods haven’t come down disguised as Paul and Barnabas. What did happen, the Gospel announces, is that the One True and Only God did come down in the person of Jesus—and that’s the good news Paul and Barnabas bring to the people.
They tell the people (v. 15): We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them.
Since the Lystrans were polytheists—that is, they believed there were many gods—it was necessary to begin with the basic message that there is One God who is the Creator of all that exists.
Paul corrects their pagan understanding, telling them that their regular harvests, the food they eat every day, the joy they experience in the ordinary activities of everyday life are all a witness to God and His existence.
Rain and crops and food and joy don’t just happen; they are not the work of some local deities. Rather, they are from the one true God.
Paul and Barnabas’ task here is to point people to the One true God, away from worthless idols.
They urge repentance— “We are telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God.” Turn from that and turn to Him!
They urge repentance, a turning from idols and idolatry, as they would if they spent any amount of time with us today.
They’d see our obsession with politics, and they’d tell us to turn from these worthless things to the living God.
They’d see our fanaticism with sports, and they’d tell us to turn from these worthless things to the living God.
They’d see our penchant for worshiping country and family, and they’d tell us to turn from these worthless things to the living God.
They’d see our preoccupation with money and stuff, and they’d tell us to turn from these worthless things to the living God.
All the vain things that charm us most, all the temporary things we devote our lives to, anything that takes charge of us that isn’t the Lord is an idol. We must repent of giving to anyone else or anything else the worship that is due God alone. Repent! Turn from your worthless idols and turn to the living God!
If Paul and Barnabas were to visit us today, or were to look at what we like and watch and laugh about, I think they’d say we’ve lost our way.
I’m not on Facebook, but I scrolled through Meghann’s newsfeed (or whatever it’s called) on Thursday for this sermon, and I saw several confessing Christians “liking”, giving thumbs-ups and smiley-face emojis to posts in support of their favorite political candidate or cause…confessing Christians liking and supporting posts riddled with vulgarity and bad language, hatred and racism and personal attacks. And some of this from people I know and love and respect.
I was taken aback.
We need to be pointing people to the One True God, not joining in the ugliness, not approving of sinful behavior simply because it fits into our political or ideological framework.
The sad truth is, we get more worked-up when someone disagrees with our stance or opinion than we do with the reality that people are going to hell because they don’t know Jesus.
You might want to stone me like the crowd stoned Paul. That’s okay. I’d rather speak the truth because I love you than to see you piddle away your life and your witness on social media.
Though they stone him and leave him for dead, Paul hops back up and returns to the city, where I’m certain he keeps on pointing people to the One True God.
“Please don’t worship me. I’d rather you not try to kill me, either. But more than anything, worship the One True and Living God.”
Barnabas and Paul “keep on”, pointing people to Jesus wherever they go.
21 They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, 22 strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. 23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. 24 After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, 25 and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.
26 From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. 27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. 28 And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.
Paul and Barnabas...
Keep On Making Disciples for Jesus
Keep On Making Disciples for Jesus
In Derbe, they preach the gospel, pointing people to Jesus, and they “win” a large number of disciples to Jesus, just as Jesus commissioned us: make disciples of all nations.
After spending an unspecified amount of time in Derbe, Paul and Barnabas do something truly incredible.
They revisit the same three Galatian cities they had been through on their outward journey. They go from Derbe back to Lystra (where they stoned Paul); from Lystra back to Iconium (where they had a plot to stone Paul and Barnabas); from Iconium to Pisidian Antioch (where they thought about stoning Paul and Barnabas).
That’s incredible.
That shows their concern for the disciples they had ministered to in those places.
They wanted to make sure they were strengthened and encouraged and prepared for the many hardships that are part and parcel of the Christian life.
They wanted to appoint elders for them in each church who would continue to teach the disciples in the faith.
Paul and Barnabas made disciples, encouraged disciples, visited the disciples, strengthened and encouraged the disciples, ordained some of the disciples as elders so that they would continue making disciples.
Do you see a pattern? They took the commission to make disciples seriously.
And after they did this, they returned home by way of Perga, and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch.
When they got back to Antioch—to the church that sent them—they gathered the disciples there and reported all that God had done…and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.
They told the disciples in Antioch about the new disciples in Cyprus, Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Galatia. And then they stayed there in Antioch with the disciples for a long time.
The gathering of the disciples—what we might call “worship” or “church”—is, ultimately, discipleship.
This—each Lord’s Day—is discipleship. Sunday School classes are disciple-making opportunities. Junior Church and Kid’s Church—disciple-making.
This right here is disciple-making: sitting under the teaching of God’s Word every week.
We must keep on making disciples—wherever we’re at, whatever we’re doing.
Our task each week is the same as Paul’s and Barnabas’: keep on making disciples for Jesus.
Keep On Preaching the Gospel
Keep On Pointing People to Jesus
Keep On Making Disciples for Jesus
It’s not “Keep On” in your own power, all on your own, in whatever strength you can muster.
It’s “Keep On” as the Lord leads, doing what the Lord has called you to do, no matter what else comes, we know that the Lord through His Holy Spirit will encourage, enliven, and enable us to “Keep On.”
Keep on keeping on, friends.
Keep on until the Lord returns or calls us home.
Keep on.