Acts 14:8-18
Before we read God’s word, let’s
look to him in prayer together. Do you pray with me? Almighty
and gracious Father, our whole salvation depends on our true
understanding of your holy word. So we ask now that you would
give to each of our hearts a freedom from worldly affairs so that
we might hear, that we might understand your holy word with
all diligence and with all faith, so that we might rightly discern
your gracious will and cherish it and live it with all earnestness
to your praise, to your honor through Jesus our Lord. And we
pray it in his name, amen. Hear the word of the living God.
This is Acts chapter 14, verses eight through 18. Now at Lystra,
there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled
from birth and never had 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 crowd 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 without the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas
and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments. They rushed out
into the crowd crying, 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. The God who made the heavens
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
restrain the people from offering sacrifice to them. Amen, the
word of the living God for us. his children. I think I’ve been in ministry
long enough to have seen a couple trends and to be able to, um,
complain about them. Um, when I was early in ministry,
uh, there was this big push, uh, for seminary graduates to
go out into the city. And the phrase was this in the
city for the city. And I have a little code for
that, a little translation. That means I really want to pastor
a church that’s near a Whole Foods. I really want to pastor
a church that’s near an arts district. I really want to pastor
a church that has some culture in a Starbucks. The reality for
most pastors, though, I think I’ve told y’all this little joke
that a friend and I came up with, the reality for most pastors
is their calling is to be in the sticks for the hicks. Right? In the city for the city. That’s,
that’s cool. But what about in the sticks,
uh, for the Hicks? Uh, you look at the life in the
ministry of the apostle Paul and you know, they, they, they
minister in Rome. Uh, they minister in Jerusalem. Last week we saw them ministering
in Iconium. Uh, these all major cities, no
doubt they had Starbucks and symphonies and, and, you know,
public transportation and all the rest. But today we’re gonna
see Paul and Barnabas ministering in a backwater town. They are
not in the city for the city, they’re in the sticks for the
Hicks. That’s been trademarked, by the
way. Don’t use it without permission
or giving credit. They’re in a little bitty town. You know, you pass through a
town and there’s not even a Hardee’s. That’s bad when there’s no Hardee’s.
You pass through a town and there’s no United Methodist Church. That’s
bad also. Actually, probably good. You
pass through a town and there’s no post office. I mean, it’s
out there. There’s nothing. You know, you
see the sign. Population, you know, 103. You
know, that’s the mayor and the police chief and their family
and their cousins. And that’s about it. Well, when
the apostle Paul and his traveling companion Barnabas come to the
city of Lystra, they’re not in a city. They’re not in a metropolis.
They’re not in a place that has a major highway running through
it. It’s not a seaport. There’s no synagogue. Remember,
the apostle Paul’s practice was to go to the Jew first and then
to the Greeks. Now on his Damascus Road calling,
when he met the risen Lord, his calling was to go to the Gentiles,
but his practice is to go to the Jew first and then to the
Greeks, but there is no synagogue in Lystra. Now remember Paul
and Barnabas have just fled Iconium. Last time we met, we looked at
their ministry in Iconium and the Gentiles and the Jews, the
leaders of that city, planned to stone Paul and Barnabas. not
wanting to be stoned, you can understand, they left the city
and they became not city preachers, but country preachers. And so
they go to, as the end of our last passage told us, they go
to Lystra and Derby and to the surrounding countryside. And
let’s just say they bump into some country way of thinking.
They bump into maybe some hay bales and some tractors. We’re
making that up. They bump into the slower pace
of life. Maybe that’s the case. They do bump into a different
mindset. They bump into a people who have not been to the universities
and to the schools. and who sit at the gates and
in the city squares and in the synagogues discussing the thoughts
and the values and the principles and the things of the day. And
so they bump into a different mindset. They bump into sociological
differences. They bump into cultural differences. They bump into folklore. They
bump into superstition. And they bump into a place that
firmly believes that sometime in their past, that the gods,
this pantheon of gods, some of the gods visited their little
town. And unknown to the people of
their town, these visiting gods were not shown hospitality. They
were not shown hospitality except until the end, an older couple.
led them into their little cottage. He stayed among their meager,
their small provisions and were happily receptive of his visit. But these gods took vengeance
on the rest of the town. And the story goes that a flood
was sent that destroyed the town. It destroyed the people. I’ll
accept this little cottage of a couple named Philemon and I
think her name was Bacchus. And Philemon and Bacchus and
their cottage became a shrine to the gods Zeus and Hermes. Philemon and Bacchus showed hospitality
to these gods and so their little cottage began to grow in adornment. You know how it is when we get
religious, we gold and silver it up, don’t we? And so these
locals, I guess some new ones had to be born and move in and
grow up around this little city, but they kept this tradition
that the gods visited them and they showed them no hospitality. And that revenge was something
they never wanted to repeat again. And so in this little cottage,
in this little shrine, the original couple become the priest and
the priestess. And I’m sure that tradition was
handed down on through the generations. And so as Paul and Barnabas,
the country preachers now they are, are making their way through
Lystra and Derby and the surrounding countryside. The last passage
we looked at says they were preaching the gospel. They were preaching
the good news about Jesus Christ. Now let’s stop for just a moment
and think about the context in which they were serving. All
right, so I’m a pastor, I’m a preacher, and I’m in the South. Right?
Somewhere is the buckle of the South. You know, people argue
whether it’s Greenville. Where else do they argue? Who
knows? But we’re in the South, the Bible
Belt, somewhere’s the buckle. And what do we assume? Not rightly. But we think everybody’s a Christian.
Because what, 50, 75 years ago, what did everybody do? They went
to church. It was respectable. You didn’t
really have to be a Christian, but it was respectable thing
to go to church, put on your Sunday best, go to church, keep
the Sabbath day. There were blue laws. Things
were closed. You stopped for the day. And that was life in
the South. And so we still have the same
mindset. I do believe everybody in the
South is what? A Christian. That’s not the case,
but that’s what we always assume. We think everybody knows God.
Everybody loves Jesus. and everybody lives out their
Judeo-Christian values. Well, that’s less and less true
these days. I think we are more and more
becoming a post-Christian world. And so I can look back to, say,
20 years ago when I began preaching, and you could assume a whole
lot with people. You could say a lot of things
just assuming they know what you’re talking about. But nowadays,
you deal with people, even in the Church of Jesus Christ, they
don’t know what is a Bible. They don’t know what’s in the
Bible. They don’t know the words or the glossary of the Christian
values that we also love dearly. And that’s the context, if you
will, that Paul and Barnabas come into when they go into Lystra
and Derby and the surrounding countryside. This is an uncultured
people. This is an uneducated people.
These are folks who’ve never really heard about the outside
world. You might say, what rock have
these people been living under for all these years? And so they
know zero, zip, zilch about the God of the heavens and the earth.
Not only do they not know about the Jewish God, there is no synagogue
there, there is no worship of the Old Testament understanding
of God in that place. There’s really no other religion
except this little Zeus and Hermes hut that carries on the tradition
of folklore in this little bitty town. And so when Paul and Barnabas
enter the city, what do they find at the city gate? Well,
verse eight says there was a man sitting at the gate who could
not use his feet. He was lame. The description
that Luke gives us, he was crippled from birth and had never walked. Can’t you imagine the people
of Lystra knew this man? They knew his condition. Even
the smartest shaman in town who had a little medical practice,
as it were, couldn’t figure out how to make this man walk. But
as Paul was speaking openly, you know, he couldn’t go to the
synagogue. There wasn’t one. But as he was speaking openly
to the crowds who would gather to listen, this man was listening
to Paul. Now somebody was asking me recently,
do I make eye contact with people when I preach? And the answer
is no. Because y’all would distract me, some of the things y’all
do during church. I just scan the back wall and
you think I’m looking at you. I’m like the president with the
teleprompter. Good speakers, I think, do make
eye contact. And sometimes they stare at you
until you Let them know with your eye contact that you believe
what they’re saying. I don’t do that. I can’t see well, and
I can’t see my words, and I just don’t do that. But Paul was staring
at this man. And what did Paul realize as
he was staring at this crippled man? This man has faith, is what
our passage tells us. Verse nine says, Paul, looking
intently at him, seeing that he had faith to be made well,
said in a loud voice, stand upright on your feet. And what did he
do? He sprang upright and began walking. Now let’s stop and remind
ourselves of something here. These are apostolic times, and
as the risen and exalted Lord is sending his missionaries out
in the world to establish his church across the globe, their
preaching is often accompanied by signs and wonders. Okay, that’s
not the case. That ceased in apostolic ages. When the last apostle, John,
died, that part ceased. Our sign and wonder is you. When you go out into the world,
Paul calls Christians trophies of grace. As you go out into
the world, maybe not healed of some of your sickness and crippling
things and all, you go out as a new creation. You go out as
someone who has received the gospel of Jesus, had an inward
change by the work of the spirit, and you go out into the world
as a new creation, following God, loving Jesus, reading his
word, knowing his word, doing his will. Not perfectly, right?
We’re still sinners in this life. But when you go out in the world,
people look at you and say, who are you and where have you come
from? And you say, I’m a citizen of
heaven. I’ve been changed and transformed
and saved by the blood of Jesus. And I’m part of this group called
the church. We’re God’s special people who
he has called from out of the world and identified together
in his son. And we worship together. We learn together. We grow together.
We struggle together. We pray together, eat together,
suffer together. We do all these things together.
And you explain to them the goodness of God and Jesus Christ. That’s
the accompanying miracle of preaching in the church. But in Paul’s
day and in this situation, as he’s preaching the gospel and
a man comes to him in faith, he’s healed of a great disease.
Well, you see a man spring up like that and begin walking around.
The crowds look at this and they say, oh, Zeus and Hermes have
come back. We don’t want another flood.
Right. You catch the story now. We don’t
want another flood. And so we better revere them
as honored guests. And so somehow the priest of
the town finds out about this and he’s already picked out an
ox to butcher and to sacrifice. They’ve already picked out the
garlands, which they will probably hang around, not only the oxen,
but around Paul and Barnabas. They’re going to revere these
two incarnations of Zeus and Hermes. And then they’re going
to sacrifice and have this great celebration. And the people are
going nuts. But every party has a pooper,
right? That’s why they invited Paul and Barnabas. No, no, no. When they hear of it, why are
you doing these things? We are also men of like nature
with you and we bring you good news and that you should turn
from these vain things to a living God, the God who made the heaven
and the earth and the sea that is an all that is in it. Then
he goes on to speak of the mercy of God and past generations.
He allowed all the nations to walk in their ways. Yet he did
not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you
rains from heaven and fruitful seasons. He satisfied your hearts
with food and with gladness. A couple of things we ought to
glean from Paul’s message. and his ministry among these
country bumpkins, we might say, these Lystrians. First thing
is they’ve come to bring good news. In God’s providence, they
were run out of Iconium. In God’s providence, they’ve
now come to Lystra and to Derby and to the surrounding countryside.
Go back to my friends in seminary. They wanted to be in Atlanta.
They wanted to be in Charlotte. They wanted to be in Boston and
DC, New York. They wanted to be in the big
cities. But they’re not people that need to be saved. You know,
out in Caswell County, out in Randolph County, out in the surrounding
countryside of Alamance County. Pick the remotest most remote
county in Eastern or Western North Carolina. There are people
who need to be saved. And Paul says, we have come to
bring you good news. Now that good news is a specific
New Testament word. We’ve come to bring you the gospel. We’ve come to bring you the evangel,
the good news. We’ve come to tell you there
is a God and that he’s angry with sin. But he’s made a provision
for sin in order that his anger might be subsided. And that provision
for sin that subsides his anger, it satisfies his divine justice
is his own son, Jesus Christ. You’ve got this whole pantheon
of gods. You’ve got gods for this thing and that thing and
that thing, and this thing, you know, the rain, the sun and all
the rest. And we hear it today, patron
saints of travel and patron saints of the garden. You know, you
see people’s superstition and their mess that they have worked
up as religion. And Paul’s saying, throw all
that in the trash. It’s worthless. Throw all that
in the trash. It’s vain. Throw all that in
the trash. It will do you no good. It cannot save you. We
have come to bring you good news. And that good news is this, that
you should turn from these vain things to a living God. That
word turn. Men, you gotta catch this. When
you’re traveling with your wife and she says, honey, you’re going
the wrong way. What does she mean? You need
to stop, turn around and go. That’s the word repent, right? And why do we not wanna go the
way our wife tells us? It’s the principle of the thing,
right? And our hearts can be that way towards God. And what
is God saying to you? These lystrians, what’s he saying
to us? What’s he saying to the world
today that follows all sorts of things? You need to repent
of your idol worship. You need to repent of your self-worship.
You need to repent of filling the God sized hole in your life
with worthless things. The pursuit of money, the pursuit
of achievement in this world, the pursuit of education, the
pursuit of degrees, the sex and the alcohol and the drugs and
the things that we fill that God sized hole with, that hole
will just continue to eat those things until you put God in that
place. And he says, turn from these
vain things to a living God. And so they’ve come to preach
the gospel. That gospel is you need to turn and repent and believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he then gives a description
of this living God. He made the heaven and the earth.
They got this pantheon of gods. I don’t know how many gods are
in the pantheon. I don’t know if it’s hundreds. I didn’t pay
attention to all that when I was in school and they did all the
Greek literature. I know there’s a bunch of them
and they all do different things. That’s pretty good, right? How
about the one true living God? Who, when he went to Egypt, had
a showdown with Pharaoh and they had a God for the rain, a God
for the river, a God for the cows. They had a God for everything. And what was Moses job? It was
to represent God to Pharaoh and say, worthless, worthless, worthless,
worthless. This God is the true and living
God and you better let my people go or else he will visit you
with all the things you think you rule over. He will plague
you with them because he is the true and living God. And that’s
the danger that we are all in before we find faith in Jesus
Christ. There is but one God. One only,
the living and true God. And those other gods are made
up. They are handmade and they can
do nothing. They are impotent. They are powerless.
They cannot bear fruit. They cannot, say, rise up. They
cannot make a crippled man walk. They can’t make a dead man have
new life in Jesus Christ. And so this is the God who made
the heavens and the earth. He made the sea and all that
in them is. I don’t know if you caught it,
but we sang two hymns today, our first one and our second
one, that spoke about God, the creator, God, the redeemer, and
how we can see God’s wonderful hand, his wonderful power in
creation. One can’t help, and the Bible
affirms this to be true, Romans 1, One can’t help to be alive
and have eyes and to see this world, whether it’s to hold a
baby or to look through a microscope or to look through a telescope
and to see the heavens or to watch the leaves come out in
the spring and then to change colors and drop in the fall.
And all these wonderful intricacies of God’s creation, one can’t
help but say there must be a God. There must be a maker. This whole
business of a spark and a bang and a boom and millions and billions
of years, all that flies in the face of what Paul says here.
There is a living God who made the heavens and the earth. He
made the sea and all that is in it. And he goes on to speak
about how God for generations let all the nations live their
own way. He selected Israel out of the world, not because they
were great. No, but because they were small in number and he wanted
to set his affection on them. And now as the God of Israel
is sending through his son, these apostles into the world to open
up the way of salvation to the Gentiles as well. He’s saying,
this God who once overlooked your nations has come to your
village and to your superstitions and to your sin-filled lives. And he wants to give you Christ
Jesus. You want to know how good he is? He’s given you rain. He’s
let your crops increase. He satisfied your hearts with
food and with gladness. Now, Paul is not going to get
a good response. They’re still going to want to worship him.
And next time we get together, I think this will be in a couple
of weeks, they’re going to want to stone them. In fact, they
are going to stone him and Paul’s going to be left for dead. But
he’s preached the truth. And here’s the question. Have
you received Jesus Christ as he is offered in the gospel?
And do you rest in him alone? Or are you going after vain things
and saying, it’s my checkbook, it’s my superstitions, it’s my
folklore, it’s my drugs, it’s my sex, it’s my alcohol, it’s
my pursuit of career. Are you filling that God-sized
hole with empty, vain things? Or has Jesus filled it full and
completely? for he is the good news that
Paul preached to this little village and has been preached
among you. Let’s pray together. Our Father,
we thank you for your grace that missionaries, that preachers
have come to our part of the world and proclaimed Jesus to
us. Lord, we don’t want to be like
the generations past who attended church because it was a respectable
thing to do. We don’t want to attend church
because It’s a social event. We want to attend church because
we can’t help but be in the house of God with the people of God,
worshiping the creator God, the sustainer God, and the redeeming
God who bought us with his precious, his son’s precious blood, who
has raised us up by the Spirit and seated us with Him in the
heavenly places and given us all things that we might live
for Him. Lord, this is why we come to church, so we can be
filled full again and go out into the world and shine brightly
as your witnesses to this crooked and depraved generation who believe
in all kinds of strange things and have all kinds of gods. Lord,
help us this hour to sort out our thinking so that we can know
with great clarity and boldness what to say when people ask about
our faith. Hear us and help us as we make
our prayer in his name. Amen. We want to sing of God’s
calling on our lives using number 539, and we’ll stand to sing
together.