Acts 16:1-5
Amen. You can be seated. Our reading from the New Testament
today is Acts chapter 16, verses one through five. And if you’d
like to turn there, we’ll read in just a moment. We have not
been in the book of Acts maybe since the middle of November.
So we’re returning to our study of the the acts of the risen
Lord, the ascended, risen and ascended Christ is building his
church through the work of the apostles, through the work of
the prophets, and then through the work of the pastors and the
teachers. And so we pick up our study where
Paul is on his second missionary journey. And so we’ll read in
just a moment, 16, one through five. Before we read though,
let’s ask for God’s help. Lord, if we’re not careful, we
would be a people blind, a people deaf and a people indifferent
to your word, but we need your grace. We need your word to help
us against the world and the flesh and the devil. So unstop
our ears, open our eyes, soften our hearts that we might hear.
We pray that we would have our marching orders from your word.
From this passage, we pray it in the name of Christ, our savior.
Amen. Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was
there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer,
but his father was a Greek. He was well-spoken of by the
brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany
him, and so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were
in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to
them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the
apostles and the elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches
were strengthened in the faith and they increased in the numbers
daily. Amen. This is God’s word. If
you watch some of those shows on television, nature shows,
maybe Discovery Channel, public television, you’ll find that
there are some animals who very soon after, and in some cases
if not before, are abandoned by their mothers. Some of the
examples would be bears. Bears have their offspring and
move on. Now, snakes. Snakes lay their
eggs, they move on, often never seeing their offspring. But then
you come to the human species. It seems longer and longer our
children are in our homes and maybe those are for economic
reasons, insurance reasons. Used to be maybe age 17, 18,
sign up for the army, go off to college, move on in life.
My senior year of college, around January, my dad would number
the checks that he sent. I got $100 a month in college.
And in January, and February, and March, and April, and May,
he was numbering down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 until he says we got
off the payroll. And then he hoped we might send
money home, which hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe to think of a little
middle perspective, when you get a new puppy, You don’t go
to the pound or to the kennel and pick out the puppy and say,
oh, what a cute little baby puppy. I’ll take it straight home. No,
it has to stay until it’s about 12 or so weeks old. So these nature shows, our own
experience with puppies and children and all the rest, give us a little
insight into maybe the maternal instincts of the apostle Paul.
This was a man who loved the church of Jesus Christ. This
was a man, if you’ll remember before his conversion, persecuted
the church of Jesus Christ, but then met the risen and exalted
savior on the road to Damascus. And his concern as he has completed
a missionary journey and gone to Jerusalem for the church there
to decide a problem that’s among some of the churches is to go
back among the churches and to find out how they’re doing and
to strengthen them. So in the normal course of events
in the life of the apostle Paul, he would go on these missionary
journeys, four of them, and he would make his way from city
to city, town to town, and he would find a crowd and he would
preach the gospel to them. And in some way, shape, or form,
he would stay with them for a time, sometimes a week, sometimes many
weeks or months, and in some cases, several years. But it
was always his goal, it was always his maternal instinct, so to
speak, to return to these churches and to check up on them and see
how they were doing. So as the church, after the resurrection
of Jesus Christ is being built up, as the exalted savior from
the throne of glory is building his church through the apostles,
who, if you’ll remember, were eyewitnesses to the risen Christ. He’s building his church through
prophets, those who speak on his behalf. Barnabas, for example,
is one of those named prophets. They’re establishing the church
of God through the ends of the earth, from Jerusalem to Judea
to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. They are establishing
these baby churches, giving them elders, giving them deacons,
giving them pastors, bringing people into membership, who will
then go into all the world and preach the gospel to all nations.
Well, we remember, at least I hope we do, back to Antioch. Remember, there’s two Antiochs.
There’s one near Jerusalem and then there’s one across the sea
where Paul works both those congregations, but the, the one closer to Jerusalem
is the church that has sent Paul out and they, they send them
out a second time on this missionary journey after the Jerusalem council,
they tell him to go and to preach the gospel and to move on from
place to place as God leads you in the providence of God. So
they’re going to go back and check up on these people, strengthen
up the churches, firm up the churches. But remember there
was a dispute. There was a dispute between Paul
and Barnabas. Barnabas wanted to take John
Mark. John Mark had abandoned them on a previous trip. And
so he went on to Cyprus, the little island with John Mark,
but Paul takes Silas and goes on this second missionary journey. And his idea is this, let’s go
back to the churches, see how they’re doing. Let’s firm them
up. Let’s strengthen them. Let’s
establish them in the truth of God’s word. And the first thing
I think we ought to think about as we think of Paul’s ministry,
his maternal instincts to check up on these churches and to see
how they’re doing is to remember the importance of the ministry
of God’s word. And we need to think about it
in two ways, one for the church as a whole, but also for our
own lives. So many of us have been sick
with colds over these last couple of months. And so I bet if I
walked in your house and looked at your kitchen counter or maybe
the little What do they call that thing, the lazy Susan that
spins around in the middle of the table? I bet we would find
vitamin C, right? I bet we would find zinc. I bet
we would find, maybe some of you have some elderberry. And
then there you might have your prescriptions from the doctor
also. What we are trying to do is strengthen
our bodies. We’re trying to fortify them
from all the disease, all the airborne particles that get in
our bodies and infect us and cause us to fall ill. And that’s
exactly what the church is meant to do for each of us through
the ministry of the word. It’s meant to strengthen us and
build us up and firm us up in our faith. We have three enemies. Our confession
of faith tells us that one of the reasons God has given the
church his word is to establish us so that we can fight off the
world and her influences. So we can fight off the devil
and his temptations. So we can fight off the flesh
or the remaining sin that is within each of us. And if we
don’t eat a steady diet of the word personally, or as a church
of Jesus Christ, It’ll be like those of us who fail to take
our vitamin C, our zinc and our elderberry and whatever else
our doctors give us. Our immune systems will be weak. We’ll fall ill, not with colds
and sniffles and COVID, but we’ll fall ill spiritually. And so
let me encourage you for a moment. Let me challenge you. It’s a
new year and maybe it’s not too far into it where we’ve already
messed up our Our resolutions, you know, the treadmill’s already
for sale on Craigslist. We did our read the Bible plan
and we’re just so far behind. I’ll just wait till next year
and start over. Cause you know, you gotta read 73 chapters to
get caught back up and that’s just demoralizing. We can get
spiritually ill where the world and all that it offers seems
to be attractive to us. That’s a real spiritual danger.
The flesh, our own sinful flesh, our heart is deceitful, can lead
us down all kinds of paths. And the voice of Satan and his
temptations can really rattle us and fall upon us. We need
the ministry of the word as a church, but we need it individually in
our own lives. King David speaks of having hidden
God’s word in our hearts. The church needs the regular
preaching and teaching of God’s word to build her up. You think
of maybe back in the 1980s when the cereal Wheaties was really
popular and Michael Jordan would come on television. You have
to explain who Michael Jordan is to some people these days.
Michael Jordan would come on TV and say, I eat my Wheaties.
Do you eat your Wheaties? You know, we need to be fortified.
Maybe as Christians, we ought to say to one another, are we,
Are we eating the word? Are we hearing it? Are we digesting
it? Are we putting it into practice
in our lives? You know, that’s really the only
spiritual diagnosis and solution in many cases that we need. We’re
either in the word or not. We’re either in the world or
not. We’re either listening to the voice of Satan or Christ,
or we’re living by the flesh or by the spirit. And so God’s
word needs to be central in our lives, just maybe as you have
Your vitamins on the counter, maybe that would be a good place
to put your Bible, your devotional book, or where you sit and listen
to your podcast and other things that fill your mind and your
heart with the truth of God’s word. I know this sounds very
simple. I know it may sound maybe a little
routine, all the preachers talking about me reading my Bible again.
You can’t live the Christian life without it. And so Paul
is going to go through the churches and preach the gospel. He’s going
to strengthen them against the world and the flesh and the devil.
And let me mention an example of why this is so important. The region that Paul and Silas
are going through now is the region called Galatia. And one
of the early books of the apostle Paul, in fact, maybe his first
letter is the book to the Galatians. And remember what he has to say
to them. He doesn’t get to write to them, the dear churches of
Galatia letter, it’s so nice to hear y’all are doing well.
No, in fact, the letter to the Galatians is his harsh letter.
It’s his fussing letter. He says, oh foolish Galatians,
you were running so well, who has bewitched you? Who has taught
you a false gospel? And it is so quick, isn’t it?
That with all that’s coming against us, the world and the devil and
our own hearts, which are idle factories, we can quickly get
sideways. We can get out of kilter with
what God requires of us. What is our duty to God? Our
proper worship and obedience before God. And so it’s a great
example for us in the letter to the Galatians. It’s important
to have ministers and elders in a ministry of the word of
God as a church, but also in each of our lives. And so Paul’s
goal is to go from church to church and to strengthen them.
And you can imagine as he ministered from house to house among these
people, as he ministered Sunday by Sunday, there were questions
and answers. There were specific issues and
maybe pastoral care given. It was a time, a stretch of hard
work establishing the church, comforting the church, reminding
them of what’s good and right and true. And thankfully we have
that week by week as we gather as God’s people in his church. One of the things our passage
tells us at the end in verse five is that the churches were
strengthened in their faith and they increased in numbers. And
so as we think about a ministry of the word, we also want to
think about the effects of that ministry of the word. As we hear
God’s word and are strengthened in our face, we increase in numbers. That ought to be encouraging
to us. The Bible tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply,
and fill the earth with Christian children. And then God tells
the apostles before Christ ascends, go into all the world, preach
the gospel, fill the church with Christians. And so one of the
ways to be great evangelist, good evangelist, good missionaries
is to have a church that centers itself around the world. It’s
strengthened in its faith and it increases in numbers. And
so a ministry of the word and a ministry among people is a
quite an important thing. Well, a third thing. that we
find in this passage, in addition to a ministry of the word, in
addition to a ministry of strengthening and increasing in numbers, we
see that Paul and Silas go from church to church to tell them
about the decision of the Jerusalem council. Remember, as they administered
among some of their churches, they were saying, well, all new
Christians need to be circumcised. All new Christians need to follow
these dietary laws or these Old Testament customs and practices. And so at the end of Paul’s first
missionary journey, he returns to Jerusalem, puts the problem
before the council of the elders and the apostles. They pray about
it. The Holy Spirit leads them to a decision. And that decision
was, uh, abstain from immorality, abstain from things offered to
idols. And no, you don’t have to be circumcised. Other than
that, have at it. And so that there to go back
on the second missionary journey and tell of the Jerusalem. counsel’s
decision. And so day by day, as they’re
ministering in the church to people through the ministry of
the word, they’re saying to them, Hey, no legalism, no man-made
rules are to be imposed on you. You live by the word before the
face of God, and he will be pleased with you. And so they’re telling
of this. decision of the Jerusalem council.
Well, this leads us to something that’s probably standing out
before you. This is the next thing in the passage. There’s
this guy named Timothy. Timothy’s a really good guy and
Paul wants to take him with him and Silas on the missionary journey.
Well, his father’s a Greek, his mother is a Hebrew and his grandmother
is a Hebrew. Well, typically in the Hebrew
culture, you take the faith of your mother. And so as a Hebrew
child, he should have been circumcised, but was not. And it’s probably
because as historians tell us, this was an area heavily influenced
by Roman and Greek thought. And so they followed the path
of the father, which was to be a nominal, probably nothing.
Well, as it happens, Paul runs into Timothy, realizes he’s not
circumcised, realizes his father’s a Greek and everybody in the
region where he would like to take him knows it. And so the
Jewish people that they minister to are gonna say, wait a minute,
who’s this uncircumcised fellow? Now hit pause for a second. You’ve
got going on in the back of your head, what’s Paul doing? He’s
going from city to city, church to church, telling them of the
Jerusalem Council’s decision, which is new Christian converts
don’t have to be circumcised. So why is Paul going to circumcise
Timothy? Well, let me, tell you about
his dilemma. His dilemma is this. If I don’t
circumcise Timothy, the Jews won’t listen to him. If I do
circumcise Timothy, they will hear the gospel. So it’s not
about religion. It’s not about completing his
faith. It’s not about pleasing God by this outward sign. It’s about completing his heritage. He’s a Jewish kid, not circumcised. It’s about completing his heritage
so that when they go among a predominantly Jewish audience proclaiming Jesus,
they won’t put him out. Now you say, why did they go
through all that? Well, fast forward, Paul’s going
to bump into Titus and the Jews are going to demand someday that
Titus, who is a Gentile, that he be circumcised. And Paul is
going to say emphatically, no, not going to happen. And so it’s
an interesting case here where part of his ministry is to say,
hey, the Jerusalem council said no circumcision, but we’re going
to circumcise Timothy. That’s what’s going on here.
But Timothy becomes of such great use to Paul. And think about
Paul’s ministry of establishing churches, visiting churches,
strengthening churches, and the churches multiplying on the face
of the earth for the glory of God. Timothy is going to be a
great help. Timothy’s gonna serve at the
church in Corinth. He’s gonna serve in the church
at Thessalonica. And he’s gonna serve, Paul will
leave him behind on occasion. And the last place we’ll find
Timothy is at the church of Ephesus. Paul will establish the church
of Ephesus and he will leave Timothy there behind to continue
where he will pastor until John, one of the disciples, pastors
it into his old age. But we read on in the letters
to Timothy. We read on in other places in
the Bible, little tidbits into the life of Timothy. Timothy’s
father probably had died by this point. And so Paul sort of adopts
him as a spiritual son. In fact, if you read 1 and 2
Timothy, you’ll see very tender language from Paul to Timothy.
My true son in the faith, he says to him. And so, as this
missionary journey continues, not only is the word of God preached
in the gospel, made attractive to many, but the church is established
and firmed up through the word. The churches increase in their
faith, but they are multiplied in numbers, including faithful
men like Timothy, who will carry on in the gospel ministry. and be of great use to God and
his kingdom. In 2 Timothy chapter three, we
all have a verse that we know well. It’s chapter three, verse
16. We all know all scripture is breathed out by God, right?
You could probably finish it and is useful for teaching and
rebuking and correcting and for training and righteousness so
that the man of God may be fully furnished or equipped to do the
work that God has given him. But what we often don’t read
are the verses before that. Paul tells Timothy, and therefore
it’s a great encouragement for us today. He tells him to continue
on in the faith, continue to walk in the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ that first began in you through your mother Lois
or your mother Eunice and your grandmother Lois. His mom and
his grandmother read the scriptures and taught him to know God and
to love God and to walk with him. And that led at some point
to a faith and Jesus Christ that began to be built up by the word.
And then in turn, he began to be a builder up of the church
of Jesus Christ. So as we think back to the beginning,
we considered there are some animals in nature, they produce
an egg or an offspring and quickly push it off into the wild. That
is not the nature of our God. When he saves us from our sin
and our trespasses, he brings us into union with Jesus Christ,
and therefore also brings us into union with his church. And
it’s through the church where we are nurtured in our faith.
In fact, there’s the great statement of the theologians of old, without
God as our father, and the church as our mother. We’re like strangers,
we’re like orphans, we’re without a home. And so what a great blessing
it is to be in union with Jesus Christ through faith in him,
having received the forgiveness of sins, but also on this earth,
having fellowship with the people of God through the ministry of
the word and the encouragement of the faith. One of the things
I always have to think through every Sunday is this, the word
of God will convince and convert sinners if it’s powerful and
effective. And the word of God will comfort and build up saints. And that’s the same ministry
that’s been going on for thousands of years now, convincing and
converting sinners and comforting and building up the saints. And we thank our God for this
heritage. Let’s do pray together. Our Lord,
we thank you that in your Loving kindness and mercy, you have
brought us out of darkness into your kingdom of light. You’ve
adopted us into your family and given us all the heritage of
the sons and daughters of faith. And you put us in a church to
nurture and to guide us in all truth. And we pray that we would
hear the voice of the shepherd, ignoring the voice of Satan,
that we would follow your word and not the ways of the world.
And Lord, with all our hearts, we pray that you would subdue
in us, subdue our flesh in us, freeing us from the love of self,
the love of the things that would destroy us, and put in each of
us a stronger desire, a greater desire to love and serve and
walk with you. We pray that you would nurture
that in each of us by your word and spirit. Help us, we pray
in the name of Christ, amen.