Over The Edge Of The Wild
All right. All right. All right. How's everybody doing? You guys good? Hey I just felt during worship. This is not in the notes, a little impromptu, but I just felt during worship, it was important to point out that everything that just happened here is actually worship and is everybody is important as anything else that's going on in this place.
So I know sometimes. Because I'm guilty of this too. I think of church as a sermon and everything else as just the lead up or the distractions, and that's not the case, everything that we do in this place matters. The worship, the songs we sing together is we enter into the presence of Jesus.
And sing songs in unison like that matters that we're saying the same words at the same time, with the same heart, there's something special and meaningful that happens in that space that we don't get in the rest of our lives. So this space matters and this space to be family and stop for one person and recognize the investments that people make in this community that's worship.
And that matters a great deal. And the conversation we're about to have around the word of God is obviously important, but I don't wanna miss the fact that it's not the only thing we do here. And even crazy as this sounds, the announcements that we'll have at the end, that's part of what it means to be family together is the stuff that God's up to.
So I just invite you as you enter in, continue to enter into the space. And I'm not saying something that's not already happening, cuz it's been beautiful this morning, but keep going, keep pursuing the presence of God from the starts to the finish and then out the doors like God is at work obviously well beyond this place.
And so here, what we're doing is we're practic. For the rest of our week, we're warming up Sunday, the first day of the week, we're warming up for the rest of the week to be attentive to the presence of God, to be attentive to the ways he's at work and courageous to step in to how he's leading us. Sound good.
All right, here we go. We are in the book of acts chapter 14. I know we joke about this a lot, but this I believe is week 30, two of our act series. We started this. We said it would be about who knows how long. And it's still, who knows how long. But 32 weeks in we're on chapter 14. We're starting to move though.
We were on chapter 13 last week, picking up some momentum, picking up some steam. Is everybody doing okay with acts still? All right. Cuz here's what I wanna do. And this is another, just an audible, maybe a bad idea, but we're gonna roll with it. If you've read the book of acts, that acts is 28 chapters long, which means at the conclusion of this message today, we will be halfway through the book of acts a big deal.
So here's what I wanna do. This is a a little bit out there, but next Sunday, I want to come to you to come prepared, to share what you've learned so far. So rather than having a traditional Sunday service where we have the worship and then I get up, or Mike gets up or somebody else gets up and talks to you about everything that you should be.
What I want you to do is reflect over the last 32 weeks of acts. All of them. I want you to just remember every single thing that's been said, no, whatever stands out to you, though, all. If you wanna, re-listen a mess to a message. There are all the podcasts are online. If you're brand new to the church, you can of catch up on those now.
Or you can just come and enjoy and listen next week. But what I wanna do is I want people to come prepared next week to. So rather than having a sermon, I want everybody to teach one another. This is what stands out to me. This is what God has been speaking over the last 14 chapters of acts. That sound.
Okay. So I'm officially commissioning you. If you have notes, revisit your notes. If you wanna listen to another sermon or a sermon from the past, listen to that. What is standing out to you as a major thing that God has said to you in the last 32 weeks together? Sound good. Two people said, great.
Kia's enthusiastic about this, which I know is a surprise, cuz she's usually pretty pretty chill, pretty mellow. Alright, here we go. Here we go. Acts 14. I'm gonna read it to you and then we'll talk about it. This is still Paul and Barnabas's first missionary journey after they left Antioch.
It says in Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish Sy. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed, but the Jews who refused to believe stirred up other Gentiles again and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 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
the people of the city were divided some sided with the Jews and others. With the apostles, there was a plot of foot among the Gentiles and Jews together with their leaders to ill treat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Laconian cities of Lira and Derby and to the surrounding country where they continued to preach the gospel in Lira, there sat a man , who was lame.
He had been that way from birth and had never walked he listened to Paul as he was speaking. And Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, stand up to your feet. And at that the man jumped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Laconian language.
The gods have come to us in human form, Barnabas. They called Zeus and Paul. They called her's because he was the chief. the priest of zoo whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifices to them. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd.
Shouting friends. Why are you doing this? We too are only human. Like you, we're bringing you good news telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living. God who made the heavens in the earth, the sea and everything in. In the past, he let all nations go their own way yet. He has not left himself without testimony.
He has shown kindness by giving you reign from heaven and crops and seasons, he provided you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. Then some Jews came from Antioch and I Iconium and won the crowd over.
They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was. But after disciples gathered round him, he got up and went back into the city the next day. He and Barnabas left for Derby. They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Whoops, I'll get that. Oh, that's all right.
You just stay right there. Mike, you look comfortable. All right, here we go. Here we go. They preached the gospel that city won a large number of disciples. Then they return to Lira, iconic and Antioch 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 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. After going through Pisidia they came to Phi where they preached the word of God in per. And from there, they went to Alia from Alia. They sailed back to Antioch where they had committed to the grace of God for the work where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed on arriving there.
They gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door for faith to Gentiles. And they stayed there for a long time with the disciples. All right. Quite a story. Again, we read these stories in their entirety because it's a value for us that we hear the word of God in this place and everything I just read is far more important than anything.
I'm about to say about what I just read. So we want you to hear the entire book of acts throughout this sermon series. And this story is unique and meaningful and important as it shows us what it means to be on mission a couple weeks ago, Mike preached an amazing message on how a church reads itself for.
Like the markers that a church is active and outward focused today. We see what that church on mission looks like when they send apostles. That's apostle means sent ones when they send apostles out into the nations of the earth with the message of the gospel. So what I want to talk about today is really simple.
I wanna talk about what you can expect. If you accept the call of God, to his mission, what can you expect? If you accept the call of God to be a part of his mission in. You can expect a few things, right? The first thing is you can expect a job he will give you a task. And that task is gonna look different depending on your context, depending on your personality, depending on the gifts he gives you.
But your job, each of us are vocation is always gonna be the same. Okay. The unique specifics of that calling will be unique to you, but the vocation that we all share is the same. And here's the job. It's got two components. real simple. Two components to our job, compassion and proclamation.
Let me show you what this looks. The compassion in this story is pretty dramatic. We see it a couple times in verse three, we see that God did signs and wonders through the apostles. In other words, miraculous sort of supernatural breaking into the ordinary of life and changing things. In a moment, we see it generically in verse three, but in verses eight to 10, with this man who was born lame, we see a stunning miracle that happens through Paul as he speaks into this man's life.
And by the power of the holy spirit, this man who had never walked. Never walked before, stands up and walks. And I know we're used to reading these stories in the Bible. And so we don't think about them much. We gloss over them and maybe you're not sure if they're true or whatever, or you just think, oh, that's nice.
But think about what's involved here. This is a man who had never learned to walk before. In other words, didn't have the muscle mass in his legs, in his body to be able to do it. Didn't have the synapses in his brain to know how to make those muscles move. Even if they existed. In other words, this is an act of creation.
The creator. God has spoken again into time and space and created matter where there wasn't where there simply wasn't enough mass to make this man move. Suddenly there was where there wasn't the knowledge he needed. Suddenly there was, this is a dramatic and powerful act, which is why everyone freaks out.
It's why they show up with bulls to sacrifice, cuz they don't know what else to do because stuff like this doesn't. this wasn't and then there's nothing wrong with God doing kind of the smaller miracles of healing somebody's knee or whatever. That's amazing. We wanna see that, but this wasn't just somebody who was limping around a bit, someone who had never walked before, and this was an act, a dramatic act of miraculous compassion, and God did it.
This is clearly an act of God. As a matter of fact when the people of the town want to give credit to Paul and Barnabas, they say no, you need to redirect your attention. You're looking at the wrong people. We didn't do this. God did this at the same time though, we see that Paul and Barnabas positioned themselves to be a part of something like this.
And we see I haven't done a comprehensive study, but I would imagine that in most of the miracles in the. We see that there is a way in which we can position ourselves to be a part of something supernatural that God might be doing. Okay. There's three things that Paul and Barnabas did here that enabled them, empowered them, made them available to be a part of what God was doing.
The first thing really simple, they were present. In other words, they went where God told them to go. So they happened to be in the place where God wanted them to be. That's gonna be a big deal. Obviously to do that, you have to be attentive to the voice of God. You have to have a discipline of being ready in a moment for what God might be doing, but they went where he said to go.
And here's the deal. When you go where God tells you to go, you will experience the work of God. That's how it works. If he says to you, I'm gonna do something over there. You need to go over there. then for goodness sake, don't stay here. Cuz the thing he's doing is over there. Does that make sense?
They went where he told them to go and we ought not be shocked when we go where God tells us to go, that we experience God at work. And we also ought not be shocked when we don't go where God tells us to go. If we don't experience God at work. So they were present. They were proximate.
In other words, they got near to a person who needed compassion. This is a big deal. proximity is a big deal. They got close to someone close enough to see, to look at this man. I love, and I'm jumping ahead to my third point. The third point is they saw someone, they got close enough to see.
They saw someone and Luke draws attention here to Paul says he looked intently at him. He didn't just glance past him. He looked intently, he stopped. He noticed, and he saw not only the person with the need, but he saw what God was doing. He saw what God was doing. I look at this and he, he didn't, maybe he prayed about it and Luke just didn't record that part.
Maybe he spent some time laying on hands and asking the holy spirit to come. And all this stuff is powerful and beautiful stuff we do when we pray for people. But the story just says, he looked at him and said, it's time to walk. He saw what God was doing. He was where God was at work. He was close to people and he saw what God was.
This, if we habituate ourself to these disciplines of presence, proximity, and attentiveness, we will see the miraculous work of God. We will see miraculous compassion spring up that has the capacity to transform a city. Just like that. Now notice here, the miraculous compassion is supernatural form. It's dramatic.
It's flashy. It doesn't always have. By the way, if you cultivate those disciplines, presence, proximity, attentiveness. If you cultivate those disciplines in your life, you will see all sorts of miraculous compassions spring up through you. Some of which doesn't look very miraculous. It look just looks ordinary, but here's the deal when you cultivate these habits and ordinary stuff happens, that ordinary stuff is a gateway into the presence of God.
And that by definition is a. If an ordinary act of generosity or of listening, empathy, genuine empathy, or of sacrifice, or of just presence being near to someone who's hurting, if an ordinary act like that, bathed in the presence of God and attention to what he's doing and closeness and compassion to people.
If that is done in his name, it will open gates. It will break chains. It will create a space for the supernatural to happen. So that's the first thing here. Compassion is the first part of our job description. Here's the deal, friends, Christians. We are ambassadors of grace. This is an era according to Jesus in Luke chapter four.
Where debts are canceled. Slaves are free imprison imprisoned people are, let go. And the year of the Lord's favor, the year of Jubilee a year of grace is announced and he starts his ministry in this way. And Luke makes it clear here that we are continuing his ministry in this way. We're ambassadors of grace, which means we go out first and foremost with compassion.
That's our first responsibility on our job description and the compassion. Confirms the things we have to say, notice it, it does this in in, it works in both ways. If there's a supernatural event that happens this like breathtaking, miraculous sign and wonder that happens, then it confirms the message of the gospel, the message that there is a king who has conquered and who now lavishes his spirit and invites us into his kingdom.
It confirms that message by showing the King's. this thing that you thought was terminal is not terminal anymore. This thing that you thought was unchangeable, unmovable has suddenly been changed, has suddenly been moved like the miraculous confirms the power of the king. And we say, if that's true, then maybe the rest of it's true as well, but it's not just the miraculous that does that.
It's also the ordinary compassion might not show the power of the king in the same way, but it shows the value of the king, the worth of our. You know what I mean by that? If a follower of Jesus considers Jesus worthy enough that they would stop for another person, that they would see someone who no one else has seen that they would sacrifice time, energy resources, that they would be radically breathtakingly generous.
If they, the world sees Christians behaving in that way, because we consider our king to be of more value than all of the other. That speaks just as loudly, maybe even more loudly to the reality of the kingdom of God, than anything else.
I don't wanna make this into a money message, but if we live differently with our money than everyone else does, I think that will make as big of an impact on the world as signs and wonder. If the church were known for radical, like I'm talking, not just just like 10% generosity, but like breathtaking generosity, the kind that's just blows people away.
I guarantee if we were so free of enslavement to money and worry about the future and all of the things that everybody else is consumed with stuff and comfort. If we were so free of it. We are radically generous. I guarantee the world will look and say, what is going on? What is it that they know that I don't know, see how this works.
The supernatural miraculous demonstrates the power of the king. The ordinary done in his name demonstrates the worth of the king. And when you put these things together, it shows the truth of the gospel. It's real. . It's real. I can see it in living color right in front of me.
So our first job is compassion. The second job is preaching proclamation. It's announcing the message of the kingdom with our words. Okay. I know you've all heard the famous quote attributed to Francis Sisi though. He didn't say it preach the gospel. Always. If necessary, use words, you all heard that. It's great.
It's beautiful. I like what it's getting at, but words are necessary. . This is really important. We have to be able to speak the truth of the gospel because your life alone is not gonna be enough. Just like our words alone are not going to be enough. This is a symbiotic relationship between the two.
They both rely on each other to live. If you have words without action, it's dead. If you have action without words, no, one's gonna get to Jesus. Okay. They might think this is an amazing. I've never seen this kind of generosity. I've never seen this kind of sacrifice. I've never seen this kind of presence or proximity.
I've never seen this before, but they're not gonna rush straight to Jesus just because of that. See, even here they get confused and Paul and Barnabas are using words,
Peter famously says always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that you have. Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that you have. He's assuming two things, right? He's assuming, first of all, that your life is compelling enough that people ask that they see hope that's the compassion part.
But then he's also assuming that when they ask you need to have an answer, you need to be able to say, this is why I have hope. This is why I live the way I do. This is what makes sense of my life. They go together. Compassion and proclamation always be ready to give an answer. So what's the answer. What is the, what's the message we're supposed to proclaim?
What's the words that we're supposed to have this passage makes it clear the word of the day, the word of the year, the word of our lives is grace. The beginning of the thing, it says the grace of God is what inspired all of this to happen at the end of the thing, it says that Paul and Barnabas had been committed to the grace of God.
And in the middle, if you read this really unique, very short snapshot, I'm sure Paul said more than this, but very short snapshot of this sermon is distinct in the book of acts. All of the other ones are very thorough, summaries of the old Testament. He walks through the whole old Testament.
He lands at Jesus in this context, he doesn't do any of that. Why. He's not talking to Jews. They don't know the old Testament. He's in a pagan city with idle worshipers. They have no context. So what does he say instead? What does he think that they need to hear? And this is important because this is our context as well.
All right. We need to, I know that we've got this sort of myth of America being a Christian nation, and everybody already knows this story, but especially on the coasts, especially where we live right now, this myth is no longer. If it ever was, but it's certainly not true. Now we are increasingly post-Christian and you will find today that less people know the story than actually do.
We are an increasingly pagan and idolatry culture more and more. And so we represent we resemble this city more than we resemble Jerusalem more than we resemble the context where everyone knows this story. So it's important for us to look at this and say, if that's what they had to do in a pagan idolatrous context, and that's what we're gonna have to do as well.
And what do they do? What do they decide that the people need these people who are enslaved idols, who have no understanding of who God is says, they need two things. First. They need a vision of God. Grace begins with an accurate vision of. See we see in this city that there are people who worshiped different gods.
Now, how do you know which God to worship when you have this sort of Pantheon of gods, they're all sorts of them. You have these gods who are like over the weather. You have gods who are gods of the rivers. You have gods who are gods of war. And so based on who you are and what you care about, you pick the God to worship that most represents you.
So if you're a soldier, you pick Aries, the God of war. If you are a scholar, you pick Athena the goddess of wisdom. If you are, you pick based on your own personnel. Now that's the very definition of idolatry, isn't it? Yeah. The thing I care about most is what I'm gonna worship.
That's how pantheons of God's work. They just take something money comfort. Production of crops from the ground, whatever it is, they take that thing and they make it into a, they name it something, they make it into a tangible and idle, sometimes a statue. But what it ultimately is taking the thing you most care about and personify it outside of yourself.
So you can worship it. That's idolatry. That's what we all do. We take the thing we most care about, and we spend all of our time on. What they need instead is a vision of the one, true God who is king over. As Paul says here, all of creation, not just a part of it. See, it's not just the crops. It's also the desert.
It's not just the rain when it falls. It's also the drought, when it happens, like the whole thing he gives them this picture of God. That is grand. He's the creator and owns the whole lot. Now with that. And that's all he says here. I'm sure he said other words, but that's all he says. He needs to, what you need to do is to break someone outta their idols is to give them a picture of God.
Like the real God as he actually is over the whole thing over your finances. When you have a lot over your poverty, when you have a little, over whatever it is, all of it, he owns the whole thing and that kind of vision then draws the focus away from the thing itself. And to the one who owns it.
And so he starts with this grand vision of God. And then once we have taught people who God is, we come in with the grace because grace doesn't make any sense unless you have a great big picture of God. You know what I mean by that, when you really understand who he's I, who he is, the idea that he loves you and favors you while that's transformative.
If it's just some, another God in a system of gods or a random person, a whatever, whoever it is that might be nice to think that this person has, is paying attention to me. But again, in the ancient world, they paid attention because you sacrificed to them. So if I make the right sacrifices and I say the right words, then maybe this local regional God over this river might bless me.
Or over the rain clouds might bless me if I do the right things and notice that's what they try to do here. When God's on the move, they bring sacrifices and they say, okay, we're gonna offer sacrifices to appease zoos and Hermes. Who've shown up right in front of us. This is amazing. This is transformative.
And Paul says something crazy. He says, first of all, here's the actual God that we're talking about. And second of all, he doesn't need your stuff. He says this actual God who has God over the whole thing has already blessed you before you gave him anything. You came to bring sacrifices to incur his favor, but the fact that you have anything to sacrifice demonstrates the fact that he already favors you, that he has been active in your life.
He hasn't left himself without a witness. He has been active in your life before you knew anything about. this, my friends is the heart of the gospel message. And as I was praying for you all this morning, I feel like at least one person in here needs to hear this today. God has been actively blessing you before you called out to him before you got everything in your life straight before you got it all figured out.
If you come in here, a mess thinking I need to get myself cleaned up. So God will love me again. Let me tell you the fact that you are here shows that God loves. The fact that you exist, shows that he thinks of you. He favors you before you know anything about him while we were still sinners Christ died for us while he was a long way off the prodigal son, the father went running down the road to find him.
You get the picture. Yeah, somewhere along the line, we got the impression that God turns away from sinners. I talked about this last week that he turns his back on sin or was this a few weeks ago? I don't remember. I'm losing, it's all running together in my mind. You guys have heard this, that turns.
Yeah. Yeah. We got this picture. That God turns his back on sinners because we say that God, can't a, holy God. Can't look on sin. I don't know where we got that idea from. Cuz Jesus hung out with lots of sinners. Sin does separate us from God, but not because of God. It's because of us. It's because we turn.
But the father runs to us before we have any capacity to even know who he is. You need to know that friends that's grace, the father, big picture, God of the whole thing favors you before you Des deserve his favor in any way. That's the message he preaches. That's how you break idols. That's how you confirm.
Compassion. Cause when that message is true of you, he favors me before I knew. And he favors me before I did anything for him or knew anything about him and that my friends is why I live the way I do. That's why I live sacrificially. That's why I live generously. That's why I'm attentive and present it's because if he favors me like that than I better favor everybody else like that, cuz he also favors you like that.
And I gotta get on board with what he's. That confirms the compassion people. When they hear that they say, oh, I see. That makes sense. Now your life makes sense. Your hope makes sense. Your compassion, your care makes sense. That's what the miracle is. Proving. See how it works. That's our job. Real simple compassion and proclamation.
The second question to consider here is what happens when we do our. That's the other thing we see in this story, what is the result? Two things I'm giving lots of two things, three things today. Okay. Sorry. If I was more on the ball, we'd have PowerPoint for the whole thing, or fill in the blank things, but we don't have that.
And just to be clear, it's never gonna happen. I would like to say I, I could pull that off, but this is just not, if that's your thing, this is not the church for you. Okay. You're always welcome, but you're not gonna be happy. All right, here we go. Two things they experience. First thing is power. They experience power, the miraculous presence of God.
When they go out with a mission, with a purpose to live lives of compassion and proclamation, wherever God sends them, they experience his power and presence. I already said it go where he tells you to go and you will find him moving stay when he tells you to stay. And you're gonna miss. So they went out and they received his power cuz they asked for it.
We see this in their lives. These guys had demonstrated lives of like disciplines, desperation. Okay. Discipline desperation. We all feel desperate. Sometimes circumstantially. Sometimes we feel desperate for the presence of God. When the wheels fall off the bus, you've all been there. Been there many times, myself.
I feel so desperate in those moments, but it doesn't. Because inevitably the wheels get back on the bus at some point, and we just keep moving forward. That desperation is just circumstantial. But what we see here in all of these disciples of Jesus throughout the book of acts is a disciplined desperation.
They have created habits in their life, through which they cultivate an awareness of the presence of God and a need for Jesus. I mentioned a second ago that Paul looks at him and he sees him, how did he see what God was up to? He'd practiced. He had gotten used to seeing how Jesus worked. He'd spent so much time in his presence that he was able to look and say, I see what you're up to the same way.
Jesus said in John 10, I only do what I see my father doing. And in John five, I only speak what I hear my father saying he had gotten used to it. My friends, we can't show up in a moment of crisis and expect to be ready in the moment. If we haven't disciplined ourselves to the presence of. They saw his power because they asked for it, their lives asked for it.
How do we cultivate this hunger? Incidentally, I didn't plan on doing this, but shameless plug. This is, this week is seek first on Wednesday. It's a space of prayer and worship and fasting. We fast from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, we break our fast together on Wednesday night. We pray and worship together and the whole point is to cultivate.
A life of disciplined desperation it's to come together as a community, gathered around the presence of God, desperate for the presence of God as a dear longs for the water. So my soul longs for you, that's what this is all about. They experienced God presence, cuz they asked for they experienced God's presence because they needed it.
Look, here's the deal. If our entire life with Jesus is about. Sunday morning, once a week or every other week. And this is Jesus' spot or five minutes at the beginning of our day or 10 minutes at the end of our day or sporadically here and there. If that's our whole life with Jesus, we shouldn't be surprised when we don't experience much power.
Cause frankly, we don't need much power for those things. Do we want God to show up in powerful ways in here?
I want him to show up in powerful ways. But if that's our whole life with Jesus is just this sort of comfortable cultural Christianity. We're not gonna see much cuz we don't need much. Why did they see what they saw? Because they were on the front lines. They weren't sitting at home base asking for front lines, power.
That make sense. Yeah. I feel like that's what I do sometimes. I sit comfortably well behind the lines
and I ask for what's needed at the front. Look, if you want front lines power, you gotta be on the front lines.
You gotta be on the very edge, the frontier of what he's doing. And they were, and they saw it. You met people like this before. It always has a new story of what God is up. Sometimes I find myself telling stories from four or five years ago. And we should, they're great stories, but I don't wanna live off yesterday's stories.
And then I meet people, friend of mine in India, a guy named CRESH. Every time I see him, he's got new stories. He met CRESH. You've never heard a story, the same story twice, cuz he's constantly on the front lines, present proximate attentive to the work of God and God is constantly at work. How many of you know that could be our story?
If we walk out of this place and discipline ourselves to desperation, to attentiveness, to presence, to all these things, we will have new stories every day. You'll see God at work.
These guys went deep. They went into deep water, not splashing around the kid pool. This is one of those, like I'm stepping out of this boat. Jesus. If you don't do something I'm sinking to the bottom, that's why they saw the power cuz they needed it. We're not gonna see it if we don't need it.
Second thing we see they're. So what you experience on mission power and opposition. In their case, Paul experiences dramatic resistance. He's actually stoned. Like he's basically killed. They thought he was dead. They left him for dead on the side of the road. We're not necessarily going to experience that, but if you are on the front lines of what God is doing, inevitably, you will experience pushback.
You will experience opposition. Jesus said it would happen. We like to talk about the promises of God in glowing, fluffy terms, God has promised me peace and health and prosperity and goodness and all these. Yes. He's promised all those things. Yes. But he also promised in this world you'll have trouble.
That's a promise. You can bank on it. If you're a part of the mission of God, you can bank on the fact that you will experience opposition in this world. And I don't say this to be frightening. I say this to to say, let's keep going. Paul actually, when he went back and visited all the churches, including the church in the city, that he was almost killed in, he went back, it says he encouraged them and told them that they're gonna have to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom.
Part of that was part of his encouragement to them is it's gonna be hard, but you're gonna be okay. And he was a living testimony of this. He, they had, they, they saw his body lying on the side of the. They picked him up and brought him back and brought him back to health. And then he left and then he came back and he said, you're gonna experience hard things.
Remember, remember that time when I was laying over here and you guys were all terrified, you thought I was dead? I'm not by the grace of God. I'm still standing
by the grace of God. I'm still standing. God is on the move. And when he's on the move, we're gonna experience both power and push. But don't be afraid. The power that he brings is always greater and the response is always going to be new faith. There is opposition, but there are also people out there who see and believe who are transformed.
And every time we see this in the book of acts, the gospel goes out. There's immediate opposition, there's immediate pushback. There's this like conflict between the two where you're like, I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know who's gonna win here. But the story always ends with, and the church got huge and the church grew and the favor of God happened and people came to faith every time through both the power and the opposition, the church has solidified Jesus builds his church and the gates of hell don't prevail against it.
The suffering of the faithful is not wasted. God works through. So when you experience opposition out there, we gotta be careful on this one. Cuz sometimes we just experience it. Cause we're being jerks. We gotta be careful that we hold the compassion piece in mind first. Yeah. But when you have compassion and this message of grace and you experience opposition, keep going.
God's at work. And if we're not experiencing opposition of any kind, chances are we're missing. What do we get? What can we expect when want Jesus' mission, a job of compassion and proclamation? We can expect power and pushback. And finally, by to sum it all up, you can expect life like full in living color life. Sometimes I look at my life with Jesus and I feel like it's not gray, but muted tones, like nice pastels.
Oh, isn't that sweet. And then I read a story like this and it just glows in like vivid color. Can you guys picture in this with me? It's like their life, their experience of Jesus. Sometimes I feel like I live between four and six, like, how are you doing? I'm doing all right, hanging out here.
Just keep my head down. Stay between the lines living between four and six. These guys live from zero to 11. You know what I'm saying? Like the full range of human existence, everything from Mount Everest to death valley and everything in. They're experiencing the whole thing. They're experiencing life.
When Jesus says I've come that they may have life and have it abundantly. I think that's what he's saying here is when you experience all of this, you experience both the joy, the highest of high joys and my joy in the most difficult and sorrowful of places, you get to be fully alive, fully human
you're living this grand adventure. That's the word that comes to mind as I read this story and it's on my mind lately, cuz some of you in the room are part of this and if you're not and you want to be, I somehow I think it's Kia's fault. I somehow ended up accidentally, but very gratefully leading a small book study around the Lord of the rings.
We're reading the Lord of the rings together. I know it sounds goofy. We're reading the Hobbit right now. It's really guys. It's really great. We get together at moon goat on the, what is it? The last Thursday of. Oh, third Thursday of every month, get together early in the morning. So if you either wanna join us, or if you wanna come steal the lunch money from a bunch of nerds, that's where we'll be
But but we were reading the Hobbit and friends who are part of this book study. What's the Hobbit all about in a word adventure, right? And we learned that the opposite of adventure is comfort. If you want to have an adventure, you will not be comfort. You can't settle in to a simple existence.
What we read in, I love this. What we read in the ho is this is Gandolph speaking. Okay. He says there are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember, you are over the edge of the wild now and in for all sorts of fun, wherever you go, that written by a follower of Jesus, I think is the most apt description of the kingdom of.
My friends, there are no safe paths in this part of the world. You are over the edge of the wild and then for all sorts of fun, wherever you go, that's the picture they're alive in a way I wanna be alive. And their life is so compelling and so real. And so rich. And the watching world looks and says, I have to respond.
I either respond with violence because I, I am so terrified of what's happening, or I respond with joy and I embrace this life, but I can't respond with a. Let's our, let our lives be so compelling. Our sense of adventure of following Jesus. So real and so vivid and always before us that no one can respond with apathy.
They will hate it, or they will love it, but they won't be indifferent. That's what we see here. And it's beautiful and it's powerful. And it's what we can expect. If we accept Jesus called his mission, but I'm gonna end with. Mislead you a little bit. When I said that this was about accepting Jesus call to his mission.
Cuz Paul and Barnabas did not accept a call. They obey a command.
Jesus. Didn't tell him go. If you feel like it, Hey, I've got this idea. If you wanna be a part of it, you should do this. He said in acts chapter 12 or acts chapter 13, set aside for me ball in barn, Paul and Barnabas to the work, to which I'm gonna send them, set them aside and go. Apostle is not an asked one.
It's a scent one and Jesus has placed the same command on each of us. Now he has not maybe sent you out to the nations. You may not be an apostle in the same sense, but if you're a Christian, a follower of Jesus who has experienced his love has experienced his mercy has experienced his abundant life. If you've experienced it, you have the same mission that they did.
What's the difference between an apostle and a regular Christian. Just location, that's it.
So Jesus is not just calling he's commanding followers of mine live an abundant life of compassion and proclamation of power in spite of opposition. And watch what I do through you live a life of adventure beyond the edge of the wild. Follow me into deep waters. You guys got the point a long time ago.
Did you pray with me?
I always say pray with me. And then I just pray out loud. I think, I feel like I pray for people. So I'm just gonna not do that. And just say, let the spirit speak to you. Whatever he's saying in this moment, maybe he's inviting you in a very specific way, deeper into his mission. Maybe he's stirring your heart for a person.
For calling a cause maybe you STR your heart for your own life. Maybe he's convicting you, inspiring you, whatever he might be doing right now. Just listen for a bit, ask him to speak and then listen, he's here and he loves you.