Lessons at the first Missionary Meeting – Acts 14

Sermon delivered by Christopher Hobbs on 28^th September 08

Every now and then we have a Missionary Meeting here at St Thomas’s. One or other of the people we support in prayer and through our giving will come back and visit us. Maybe you remember the Chard family coming, or the MacCurrachs from Serbia. Often they will have some artefacts from the country where they work – perhaps some food, and some clothing. They may tell us something about the language they are using, and also show some slides or a video. We always like to hear of people that have become Christians, or of churches growing. Sometimes we hear of sad things too.

Apart from someone singing South American songs wearing a hat and a poncho, the first missionary meeting to really stick in my mind was when I was about 15. I was staying the night at the house of someone in my class, and as a family they had been missionaries in Tanzania. The father had by then become a vicar in a Sydney suburb, and they were putting on some sort of missionary evening in the church hall. All the carved animals, drums and knick knacks were interesting, but the slides more so. The geography, the roads and huts. But the slide I have never forgotten was of the grave of their nine year old son who had died out there, too far from a hospital. To make their grief worse, they had lost a baby also. Both had died of diseases that they would not have caught if their parents had stayed in Sydney.

It was a reminder that being a missionary may be very hard. And that sometimes sad things happen to people who are serving God.

I wonder what it would have been like to have been present at the first Missionary Meeting ever. It took place at the end of the chapter we have just read. Verse 26 and 27:

From there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had completed. When they arrived, they called the church together and related all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith for the Gentiles.

That was the first Missionary Meeting. They, that is Paul and Barnabas, related all that God had done with them. It wasn’t just them on the journey doing things. Nor was it God working on his own. It had been God with them, doing things with them.

It doesn’t tell us in what order they related what happened. Did they start with the new churches that had come into existence? Did they start by talking about what happened with the Jews? Or when Paul was left for dead? We don’t know, but Luke has written it up for us in an orderly event-by-event, place-by-place way in chapters 13 and 14.

We thought about the work in Cyprus last week, and also the preaching in the synagogue of the other Antioch, the Antioch in Pisidia. They saw many Gentiles become believers there, but some of the rich and important people started to persecute them and drove them out to Iconium.

In chapter 14, we are looking at the last section of the first Missionary Meeting: what happened inland in modern Turkey. I’ve got four wordy headings, printed on the order of service. I am quite sure Paul would not have put these ones up on the board, and maybe you can come up with better ones.

Lessons Learned in our First Missionary Journey:

Following Jesus means proclaiming the good news when and where it's wise, with miracles possibly, and looking for faith. (v 1)

Following Jesus means telling people they are wrong, and so missing out on some treats. (v 15)

Following Jesus means being ready for persecution (v 22)

Following Jesus means making churches, not just making disciples (v 23)

So firstly, Following Jesus means proclaiming the good news when and where it's wise, with miracles possibly, and looking for faith. (v 1)

Verse 1 tells us they spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks became believers. That was amazing. We don’t know what sort of Gentiles they were, whether they already knew a lot about God and his promises, but we know the sort of thing that they preached in the synagogue from the sermon recorded in chapter 13 which we read last week. Jesus is the saviour for us, who rose from the dead, as promised by God: we can be forgiven for all the wrong we have done, and receive eternal life.

They preached this message in such a way that many became believers. Every preacher wishes they could do that. But this chapter tells us it wasn’t simply a matter of their skill in preaching. Verse 27 tells us that it was God who opened a door of faith for the Gentiles. On the one hand the apostles were preaching, and they did it well; on the other hand people were believing, and they were not hypnotised, they chose to listen and accept what they heard. Both of those were necessary, but actually it was God who was opening the door of faith.

God has to do the real work in people’s hearts. Maybe Paul was familiar with people who seemed to believe. Someone who seemed able to say ‘yes I believe Jesus died for my sins and rose again’, could say all the creed, but somehow seemed to have no faith. They didn’t continue in the faith. No actual putting trust in what God said, so that they lived differently. Paul and Barnabas were exceptional preachers, but they knew the real response wasn’t down to them, but depended on God opening a door of faith. The desirable outcome of preaching the gospel is people having a firm faith. A friend says it to me here all the time, ‘Christopher you need to have faith’. And I pray that you wouldn’t just come along to church, but that God would make faith come in to your life too.

It’s very interesting to me to see that they didn’t just preach everywhere. Sometimes they moved on voluntarily, sometimes they stayed. They were thinking what was the best thing. I think that’s clear from the surprising way verse 3 follows verse 2. Listen to verse 2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. Verse 3 So they went away? So they decided to go somewhere else? No! Verse 3 ‘so they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord.’

People were not believing them, so they stayed a long time. On the other hand Verse 6, when they learned that people planned to assault them, when they learned of it, they fled away. It wasn’t wise to stay and be assaulted if you could avoid it. They stayed when they thought it was safe, they moved on when it was not safe to stay.

It’s like us today. We are too cowardly, we definitely are, but some days and some places, are not days for going up to everyone and telling them the good news. Some times it is unwise, and it’s best to wait, or best to move on. And some times we do need to keep working on people who don’t seem interested, keep trying to get them to believe in what Jesus has done for them, like Paul, remaining a long time and speaking boldly for the Lord.

The Bible tells us that Paul and Barnabas had another advantage – not just the way they preached. Verse 3 tells us that the Lord testified to the word of his grace by granting signs and wonders to be done by them.

And then later in our chapter, when they got to Lystra, it was like Jesus himself all over again, or Peter at the beginning of Acts, Paul saw a lame man who had never walked and brought healing to him. We might like to be able to perform miracles today. We might think Oh then people would really start coming to St Thomas’s. Oh then lots of people would become Christians, maybe my wife or my brother. Maybe people would get on planes in America and come to be healed here. Miracle seekers and confused archbishops wouldn’t go to Lourdes, but come here. The thing that surprises me is not that people saw signs and wonders or were miraculously healed. God did that, and he could do it again. What is interesting is after the signs and wonders of verse 3, not everyone believed. Verse 4 tells us ‘But the residents of the city were divided: some sided with the apostles, some with the Jews’. Signs and wonders do not convince everybody.

And especially after the miracle of healing the lame man, things turned out very badly, with the people completely misunderstanding where the power had come from, and starting to worship Paul and Barnabas. We would have to say from this chapter that signs and wonders may sometimes help gospel work, but sometimes they don’t.

Summing up, I’m imagining Paul trying to get the church at Antioch to learn something to remember, at the first Missionary Meeting. “Following Jesus means proclaiming the good news when and where it's wise, with miracles possibly, and looking for faith”.

Then scrawled up on the board the next point, ‘Following Jesus means telling people they are wrong, and so missing out on some treats.’ (v 15)

There was plenty of danger recorded in this chapter. People planning to stone and assault Paul and Barnabas for instance. But the greatest danger was not when people were hating them, and plotting against them. The greatest danger was when the people came and tried to worship them.

It would have been easy to take this worship and abandon the pathway of persecution and stones. It would have been lovely to have been worshipped by these people. They were preparing a fantastic feast. Why not stop there where it was easy, and live it up for a bit? Surely it was a temptation for Paul and Barnabas to enjoy a few treats?

Maybe for us it’s a bit like when we know rich people who ought to be challenged about something, and we take advantage of what we can get from them and say nothing. Or when we let our non-christian parents, or grandparents, decide what we should do, in order to keep in with them. Or maybe we never tell our grown up children the right thing, because we don’t want to lose them.

When people are doing wrong, how will they know unless someone tells them? It took a while for Barnabas and Paul to know what was happening, because of the language problems, but when they did, they tore their clothes and rushed out shouting, verse 15,

‘Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.’

Don’t worship idols, don’t worship many gods: all the good things you enjoy come from the living God.

These people weren’t Jews, so we can see it was a very different sermon from any Paul preached in a synagogue. They didn’t even have time to get on to speak about Jesus. They started where the people were, and tried to take them towards the truth.

We live in another age of idol worship, materialistic idols, and an age when people don’t know there is one true living God. We too need to think of ways to move people towards the truth. We don’t have to explain the message about Jesus and what he has done for us in every conversation. But we should aim to move people in the right direction.

Often we think we’re being tactful when we keep quiet, and when we don’t point others to the right belief at all. We think it’s better to keep in with people, and even enjoy benefits, rather than point them to the truth. Paul and Barnabas wouldn’t have done that. Paul and Barnabas thought truth was more important than their own comfort.

If the first two points are not quite rightly expressed, the next point is one that Paul would certainly have made at the Missionary Meeting. It’s what he he was careful to say to the churches in Iconium and Antioch on his way back: Following Jesus means being ready for persecution (v 22)

Look at verse 22: ‘There they strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, ‘It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.’

Every year around Christmas the Church of England tries to come up with some advertising slogans or posters to make people start going back to church. Or there are posters trying to get people to consider becoming vicars. I have never seen one that says, ‘We must be persecuted – don’t be surprised’.

You could think of this as a bit of an Eeyore’s chapter. Things are going badly, so stay longer. Things are looking bad, get away quickly. Amazing miracles cause problems. Be ready for persecution.

Sometimes Eeyore is not being unnecessarily pessimistic, he is actually being realistic. We need to persevere as Christians when things are hard, not give up, sorry for ourselves, saying there was no rose garden that I thought I was promised; people didn’t like me; I didn’t get that promotion; I didn’t get that pay rise; I didn’t get invited to that person’s party; Or maybe affected by what a spouse might say, things like ‘you’re out at a Christian meeting instead of keeping me company; we don’t have as much money as those other people; why can’t we treat ourselves if we want to; do you have to go to church every week; can’t we let the kids do football or go to a party instead of Sunday club; we’re the only ones in the whole class who don’t let them do such and such’.

Of course, if we were in Orissa in India today, or in Iraq, or in Burma, or in Afganistan, or in Indonesia, or in north Korea, or China, just for a start, we might have a lot more to say about persecution. We’re having it easy for the moment. We have laws here that largely protect us. So far. But persecution may well come.

In Christ our greatest problems are solved straight away: where we will spend eternity? What about our sins? What is my purpose in life? But there are other sufferings that we still have, and may get worse. In the world you will have tribulation, says Jesus. If we endure we shall also reign, says Paul.

Persecution has been described as the ‘polishing of the saints’. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, says Paul to Timothy.

If we have been complaining or moaning about some aspect of serving Christ where we are, then we need to stop, and to persevere.

Finally Paul might have scrawled up: following Jesus means making churches, not just making disciples (v 23)

Paul went back to most of the places where he had been – even where he had been stoned and left for dead. The first time he had preached the word and people had been saved, but the second time he needed to appoint elders. He needed to establish churches. It was no part of the plan of the gospel to have isolated Christians who were not part of a church. Look at verse 23, ‘And after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe.’

The elders had to look after the churches. Each one its own church. As an elder here, my job is to watch over you and care for you, to remind you to come to church and grow in the Lord. If you come along but you are not really a member, it’s time you got stuck in. it’s time you really belonged to the church.

What would we have learned if we were there in Antioch, listening to what had happened? What would we remember from that Missionary Meeting years afterwards? Maybe what would stick with us would be the scars on Paul, where we could see he had been attacked so fiercely everyone thought he was dead. Well I’m sure Paul would have said, if we had asked, that God was with him even when he was attacked. God was not hiding. God had not left him then. He surely didn’t enjoy it at the time, but God even had a purpose in Paul’s sufferings. Because of the persecution that he endured he was able to encourage others. And the things in our Christian lives that trouble us, the memories of sadness, even in those hardships we may learn that God was with us, and allowed it for his purposes.