To The Uttermost

Lord, so help us to make use of it, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Take your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 14. Acts chapter 14. Our study in the book of Acts as we're going from chapter 1 on through is under the overall heading of called to be witnesses for that indeed is what Acts is demonstrating for us. All of us as believers in Jesus Christ have been called to go for him to the uttermost

parts of the earth. Jesus promised that there would be a helper coming, the outpouring of his spirit in chapter 1. In chapter 2, we see that spirit poured out and we are told that he is not only sending us but now enabling us to go. And so with the receiving of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says that it's a dunamis, a power of God that we might be his witnesses.

If this were simply a command, if he was simply telling us, if I were telling you as a believer in Jesus Christ that you have to go witness, that you have to go tell people about Jesus, then there would not be any difference between this and the law. There wouldn't be any difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. If this were simply a command, you have to go be witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth, then we would fail horribly just as those in the Old Testament did. But it's more than a command.

Jesus said in Acts chapter 1, this is going to be the result. This is what's going to happen when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. He was just talking about results. This is going to be the natural occurrence. You will be my witnesses. It's just going to happen because God's Holy Spirit gives us more than dunamis, more than just a power. He brings us that opportunity to enter into that love relationship with Christ.

So we are more than just keepers of the law. We're more than simply doers of the word. We are moving because of the relationship that we have with our Lord. You know how it is, those of you who have been in love. You know the things that you do for the sake of love. You just love that individual. You just want to do these things. Nobody said, well, now you need to go to the store and buy flowers.

You need to go do that. You just want to do those things because of love. And that's the relationship that God has opened to us through the sending of His Spirit. And we enter into a love relationship with the Lord. So now we want to be where He wants us to be. And that's what Paul meant when he said, it's the love of Christ that constrains me to do these things.

I have to do them because I want to do them, but God's love is just there pulling me along

but things that they experienced when they went there that are examples for us as believers who are also going out to those places of the uttermost, be it the uttermost part of your school or your city or your job, God's calling you to another part of your factory or you're going to minister to family, wherever you're moving to the uttermost in your particular area. And we can glean insight from what happened to the disciples in these particular cities. I think this is more than just a simple recounting of their travels to these different cities. And we go, well, that's great.

This is what they did here and there. I think God wants us to see as disciples what happened to them will happen to us as we seek to move to the uttermost for Him. Now, they started, and you may not be able to see this real well, so I'll try and point them out as best I can. They started in Antioch in Syria. And remember, that was the place where people from all over the known world at that time

were moving.

their hearts upon Him, and it was coupled with fasting and prayer. And it was in that time of preparation that God's Spirit moved into separation to separate out Paul and Barnabas for the work that He called them to do. Our going forth, our moving to the uttermost, has to be coupled with preparation, or you're simply moving through life on a daily grind. You're simply kind of cranking it out, and you're going today, and you've got to go to

So Antioch was a place of preparation. From there they sailed to Cyprus, and Cyprus is that place of opposition, the place of opposition. It was a place where they faced opposition both overtly and covertly. Remember at Salamis there was nothing written in Acts, but Barnabas and John Mark both had relatives from Cyprus, both had a heritage from Cyprus, so they probably went to family there first.

And we don't have anything recorded as to what happened there, but we can kind of glean from other places when Jesus went back to his hometown, what happened in Nazareth, not too well received. The prophet is not without honor, he said, except in his own country. And so there were probably some areas of covert attack, covert opposition by those family-type relationships. And as you set your heart to follow the Lord, as you set your heart on drawing close to Him and preparing your heart to move for Him to be that witness, you will face that opposition because the enemy does not want you to be light and salt.

The enemy wants to turn off your light. He wants to dampen your zeal and the flame, the fire that you have for him, and he'll do it however he can. He will do it covertly that way. Now when they moved to the other end of the island of Cyprus, to Paphos, is where they encountered Elimas the sorcerer. And so there was the overt, the just frontal attack of the enemy of wickedness, and you

and I will receive that as disciples, the attacks of wickedness, openly, brazenly confronting you, testing your faith, testing your commitment to the Lord. And so the place of opposition is usually right after you make that commitment, right after that preparation time to be ready to go for the Lord. From there they sailed over to Perga, over to the areas of Pamphylia. And in Perga, remember, Perga is just mentioned briefly in chapter 13, Perga was just a stop

that opposition will lead to a point of decision in our lives, always. Perga is not just a one-stop place in your walk. You're going to hit many Pergas, many places of decision. Opposition is going to be intense. You're going to get a doctor's report sometime that's not favorable on you or a family member. You or someone you love will be involved in a motor vehicle accident, or you'll go through

a time of a job loss that's financially debilitating, and you'll come to a Perga. You'll come to that point of decision where you have to decide whether or not you're going on with the Lord or whether this is a time you're just fed up with all of this stuff and you're tired of being a Christian, you're tired of playing church, and you kind of find yourself moving back into the ways of the world, back into your old lifestyle. But you'll make that decision. You'll come to that point of decision.

Paul and Barnabas went on. They decided to walk by faith and not by sight. And from there they went to Antioch in Pisidian, another hundred miles or so. You have Antioch in Pisidian and Antioch in Syria. They're the furthest away right now on this journey that they've been. And Antioch in Pisidian was a place where we finally read in this section of Acts, we

finally get to see Paul's first sermon or his first presentation of the gospel. And that's what we've labeled as the place of presentation because if you look at it in Acts chapter 13, if you flip back there real quick, you can read from verses 16 down through verse 41 in about a minute and a half or two minutes. And there you have a presentation of the gospel that's concise and quick. And we talked about that's, we need to be prepared to share with somebody quickly when that little window of opportunity opens.

When you have that ten minutes on a break with somebody at work or at lunch at school or you just have this opportunity and somebody asks you a question about your faith, asks you a question about, you know, how can you continue on? How can you hold up under all of this? And you have a window.

He's talking to Jews. He starts in a specific way and we'll talk about that some today because he's talking to Gentiles today in chapter 14. But he starts with the Jews and so he goes back to their heritage and shares about the patriarchs and all the time the sovereignty of God. God set this up. God brought them out. God took them here. God brought them there.

And at the same time he's sharing, they rejected, they rejected, they rejected. So he's sharing the sovereignty of God in his presentation of love and yet he's also sharing man rejected. And in just a couple of minutes, that's what we can share.

That's how we do it. It can be that brief, that quick. You always are, you're afraid. One of the things you're most afraid of in sharing your faith is that you don't know a whole lot. You don't have to share a whole lot. You won't have that much time. Just real quick. God loved me. I rejected it. He provided a Savior and I grabbed on. That offers to you and you better grab on because time's short.

I got to go. See you later. The next place they moved out of Antioch is where we come to in chapter 14. And this is Iconium.

so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. And so Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord who confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. The people of the city were divided.

Some sided with the Jews and others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews together with their leaders to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Iconian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country where they continued to preach the good news. Seventy to eighty miles from Antioch, and it says they went to the synagogue.

Now notice that's singular, not plural, just one synagogue. It took ten adult Jewish males in any city to have the right or enough to be able to have a synagogue.

The usage of speech contrasts are marked in this section. First of all, verse 1, the apostles, it says, spoke effectively so that a number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But then in verse 2, the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. How did they do that? By their speech, by the things that they said.

The apostles spoke effectively. They spoke the things that we saw back in chapter 13. They presented the gospel the way that we saw Paul presented in chapter 13. They spoke effectively. They spoke encouragement. But the others that didn't believe, the unbelieving Jews, stirred up strife and poisoned the minds of the Gentiles by the things that they spoke. Listen, you and I are disciples of Jesus Christ and we will speak one of two ways every time

that flapper opens. Every time that tongue of yours wags, it's going to speak one of two ways. It's either going to speak life and encouragement. It's going to speak words that will lift up and build up and seek to undergird with strength or it's going to flap things that are going to poison minds, that are going to turn others against someone else. It's going to speak things that will hinder and hurt.

Paul will later write in his epistle to the church at Ephesus to put away that awful mouth that speaks things of malice and clamors with complaining and all these backbiting and things and speak words unedifying, speak under the encouragement of somebody else. So let me ask you, just this past week, just survey your past week, how has that worked in your life? How have you done? Run anybody down?

Anybody else? Sit there and listen as somebody else is running somebody down and just kind of jumped right in there with them, just mashing them all over the floor with the words that you're speaking, poisoning the mind of somebody against somebody else? Or did you speak words of encouragement? Did you refuse to be drawn in? See, that's the covertness of the enemy.

Just draw us in.

the brothers. God said in Proverbs chapter 6 that there are six things the Lord hates. No, seven are an abomination unto Him. And one of those seven is a brother who causes division, a man who stirs up dissension among brethren. God hates that. Now, I know we're sinners saved by grace. God loves us. He really does. But I would really watch myself in doing something, even though I'm saved, that God hates.

Because I would tend to think He doesn't take that too lightly. And I would tend to think that He doesn't let that slide. So watch your mouth. What did Paul and Barnabas do in this confrontation of being defamed? Verse 3, it says, Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord. They just continued on. It did not intimidate them.

Though they were ridiculed, though they were defamed by these others, they didn't go about trying to put out fires of everything that was being said against them. They just continued even more boldly to speak the word, to speak the gospel in spite of the harassment.

Why come it's not happening here? Well, because right now we are in the midst of a culture that's filled with apathy. We're not in any great persecution in this country yet. It's coming. And the longer Jesus tarries, the more persecution we're going to get. But right now we're in the midst of apathy. Who cares? And when Jesus went to Nazareth, that's what He experienced.

And when it said that when He went to Nazareth, He didn't do many miracles because of their unbelief. We're not, you're not seeing a whole lot of them here, but you're going to.

The people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles, and there was a plot afoot. Kind of Sherlock Holmes-ish there. The plot is afoot. Among the Gentiles and the Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and to stone them. But they found out about it and they fled to the Lycanian cities of Lystra and Derbe into the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the good news.

They left. They learned the plot to mistreat them, and so they left. You can expect to be defamed as you stand for the truth.

So there's probably no Jews or very few Jews in that particular area. But what I want you to see here in this first part is just an interesting presentation, an interesting way that Paul presents the gospel. In Lystra, verse 8, there sat a man crippled in his feet who was lame from birth and had never walked, and he listened to Paul as he was speaking. And Paul looked directly at him and saw that he had the faith to be healed, and he called out, Stand up on your feet, and at that the man jumped up and began to walk.

Now, we all center on the fact of the lame guy getting healed, and I want you to see that as kind of secondary. I mean, this is a result. This is like the signs and wonders in the first few verses of chapter 14. It's the result of the presenting of the gospel. But I want you to see how the gospel is presented, and you're going, Wait a minute, I don't see the gospel presented here.

He didn't go to any synagogue. Well, look back at verse 9. It says, The lame man listened to Paul as he was speaking. Oh, so Paul was preaching somewhere. Well, the word speaking in the Greek literally means, and if you're reading King James or NAS, I think you probably have the word conversed or preached. The word in the Greek literally means a casual conversation, a conversing with someone as

in casual conversation. Okay, so I don't know how you picture this, but let me kind of paint something for you. Paul and Barnabas come to Lystra, and they walk into town, and there's no synagogue, so the place that they would naturally go where the people are is the marketplace. And they come to the marketplace, and they're just kind of standing there, and Paul engages somebody in conversation.

Maybe one person, maybe two or three, maybe a small group, but he's just casually conversing with them, talking to them about the area. We get to chapter 17, and you see him on Mars Hill. He uses the area, the things that he's seen in the area as part of his message, and he talks to them, and that's just the way we can do it. You know, how long have you been in the city?

Well, not too long. Well, what do you think? Huge metropolis here in our city, right? You've seen our park. Well, great. You've seen it all. We'll see you later. You can engage them in casual conversation, and from there, move right into the presentation of the gospel, and that's what I think he was doing. I don't see this as necessarily him preaching anywhere.

He's just in casual conversation. Now, since there isn't a synagogue or the temple, the lame would be brought to the marketplace, a place where the people gather, and if you've been downtown in any major cities, you see the people down there who are the beggars, begging, and that's probably the setting that we have here. Now, the thing is, it says in verse 9 that he was listening to Paul. He was listening to him speak.

He was overhearing a conversation, and it said that he had enough faith to be healed in just overhearing Paul's conversation. Do you realize how many people listen to you talk when you're just in casual conversation? Do you have any idea how people overhear you, whether you're in a restaurant, or whether you're standing in a library, or whether you're just standing in a hall talking to somebody else, and how people overhear, how people can overhear conversation? We do it all the time, don't we?

You just kind of stand in there, and maybe you're on a bus, or maybe you just moved in

But just the conversation that he had, I listened to a lot, so that that night that he spilled the chili bucket on the floor, and he was cleaning it up, and I'm in an aisle stocking shelves, and I'm listening, you know, casual conversation, wondering what he's going to be coming off with, because I know what I'd have been saying, and he's sitting there singing praises to the Lord. I just, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to ask him later on break, how can you be so happy? His whole testimony to me was just casual conversation, but I was hooked.

I was ready.

and he kind of looks down at the guy, and he sees that he has faith to be healed. Now how do you picture that? What's that look? What's that look that says he has faith to be healed? See, too often we super spiritualize all this stuff. I mean, Paul had the x-ray determination of able to be healed, and he went, he's able to be healed. Rather than, he's just like you.

You know when people, you can tell how people are receiving what you say by their expressions on their faces.

on chapter three, Peter comes down, and the guy's begging. Peter reaches down, grabs his hand, and says, in the name of the Lord, the silver and gold have I none, but as such as I have, give I to you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Paul doesn't say that. He's just standing there, and he looks over, and he sees the guy, and he says, stand up on your feet.

That's all he does, and it says, salvation, and he had the faith to be made whole. He had the faith to believe in what Jesus could do. Heal him, yes, but save him primarily, and God confirmed that. The guy stands up. Now, we see the crowd reaction. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Laconian language, the gods have come down to us in human form, and Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes,

or Pluto and Mercury, because he was the chief speaker, and the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates, because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. This is the crowd's reaction to Paul and Barnabas, to what had just happened.

But these people, they would have been passed down. So here they see this wonderful miracle, this guy is up and walking, the guy that's been lame since birth, everybody in town would have known him, now he's walking, what are they going to think? The sequel, Jupiter and Mercury, the sequel, these guys are back, you know, we don't want to make the same mistake that the ancestors did, hey, let's worship them, they're the gods. And so they start heralding them, that's probably the reason that they were doing that, and they were bringing in the wreaths and the bulls, and they're going to have sacrifices to these guys and everything else.

I'm just so honored. Thank you, somebody finally noticed, this is just great. There's going to be a real tendency to receive that and to think you really are great, when all it is is God working through you, God manifesting His love and His grace and His mercy through you. And that's a struggle you and I are going to have, and that's one way the enemy seeks to delude us into believing that.

And we want that so bad that you and I are so afraid at times to speak the truth, to share the gospel, because we want people to like us. And so in wanting people to like us, we will compromise our values, we will compromise our faith, and we will do things that we would not normally do, because we just simply want people to like us. And when they do, we eat that up, and we want to keep doing whatever it was that we did to cause them to like us. That's why gangs are so prominent.

That's why drugs are so hot. You do that, the people like you for doing that. Okay, wow, I'm liked, you know, wow, and I feel good, too, it's kind of a buzz, you know, it's all right, but I'm down a little bit now, and I want them to like me, and so I've got to keep doing what they want me to do. When you do that in your women's groups and your men's groups, when you guys watch football together, and you guys go bowling together, whatever it is that everybody does, you want people to like you.

Be careful, Satan will delude you, he will water down the gospel that you present where that's concerned. It's one of the greatest temptations, one of the greatest things that you'll face as a Christian. And they faced that. They could have received that. They could have, man, you imagine what they... And see, a lot of guys will do that, a lot of evangelists, a lot of pastors out there

do that. They milk all that they can get money-wise out of something like that. And they could have done that, but they were quick to not do that. They were quick immediately as all of this was coming on. The apostles, verse 14, Barnabas and Paul heard of this, and they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd shouting, men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you, we are bringing you good news, telling you to turn

from these worthless things to the living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way, and yet he has not left himself without testimony. He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons. He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. And even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing them.

They took and they rent their clothes. Now, tearing of the clothes is, I mean, that gets anybody's attention in any culture. But back there, that really meant a time of grieving, a time of great sadness.

You can talk to them about the God of creation, the God who put the order in everything that there is. And Paul speaks to them that way and points them to the God of creation. And he always leads it back to the Savior. And even then, they were still wanting to worship these guys. But they got the gospel presented, but then verse 19, then some Jews came from Antioch

and Iconium and won the crowd over. And they stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city thinking that he was dead. And after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. And the next day, he and Barnabas left for Derbe. So they stoned him. They're here one minute worshiping him, and the next minute, they're turned to stone him.

Jesus knew this, and Paul knew it now really well. And we need to learn it. The people are fickle. Again, we come back to this wanting to do so much for people to like us. And they'll like you one minute, and they'll stone you the next. People are fickle. In John's gospel, Jesus several times, John records Jesus several times. The people herald Him and acclaim Him, want to make Him king, want to worship Him as God.

But it says that Jesus did not commit Himself to them, for He knew what was in the hearts of men. He didn't do what He did for the people, and neither should you. You don't do what you do for people's approval. You do it as unto the Lord. And if people approve of you doing it, that's great. That's gravy.

by slanderous speech by the people from Iconium and Antioch. They came down, and they stoned Paul, and they dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead. This mob got together, swayed by these people from Antioch and Iconium. Emerson, the poet, writes that a mob is, quote, a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason. A society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason.

Many, many years ago, I worked in retailing and food. I worked in food and clothing, but worked in the food retailing. I was a member of local retail clerks union. Now, I'm not going to say anything about unions. I could say a whole lot, but being in that group, there were times we'd come to vote on contracts, and people were shouting them down, shouting them down as they were presenting

the new contract. The crowd was just shouting them down. And I got to realize at one point, why am I shouting? I don't even know what the guy said. I don't even have any idea.

And I said, well, it's brown with orange checks. What do you picture? Bozo the Clown, big orange checks. It was a brown suit, and in the weave, there were little bitty orange threads that were checked down. So see, I'm not good at describing anything, and when you see things from heaven, you can't adequately describe.

Your head would be mashed, I mean, blood everywhere. Your eyeball would probably be hanging out, depending on how they hit you with the rocks. I mean, you'd have your ear probably cut off partly from this, and gashes all over you. Now, Paul gets up and walks back into the city, and I think we have the Jonah syndrome here. He's walking back into the city saying, repent.

You thought you got me, but you missed, you know? I imagine he had some pretty good revival going on in Lystra. It doesn't say anything here, but why didn't they stone him again if they thought they missed, you know, unless there's some atrocious thing that they see there. But also, in that same chapter, see, 2 Corinthians 11, 25, he's stoned. 2 Corinthians 12, 1-4, he mentions being caught up in the third heaven.

Then the next few verses he talks about a thorn in the flesh that he had. I don't think it's any great mystical thing. I think it's probably a result of the stoning. And maybe he had, he was hit in the face with a rock, and maybe he had an eye that was just really watery. He mentions an eye problem in Galatians, and it could have been because he was mashed in

the face with a rock. And he prayed that God would heal that, God restore that, heal it. And God said, no, my grace is sufficient for you. Now, God wasn't brushing him off, because every time Paul had to deal with this, he would remember that stoning. And every time he had to deal with that, he would remember that he has seen heaven. I've been there. And every time he would deal with that, he would remember that God's grace indeed was

Derby always brings blessings out of Buffeting. It always will. And that's a promise. And you can hang on to that. So even though Derby was brief, and usually the time to catch a breath is brief, a victory before you're back in the battle, it's there, if you just hang in there. Then they went back, it says, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening

the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. Now, they're going backwards now. They're moving back towards Antioch and Syria. They come through these areas where he's been stoned, and they've been ridiculed and defamed, and he's strengthening the disciples. Now, how's he going to strengthen them? What does he say to strengthen them? He says, we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

Thanks, Paul. I know I feel stronger. But it's true. We're going to get kicked, and harassed, and beaten. We're going to go through a lot of that before we enter the kingdom of God. But Paul's coming back, remember, again, from the Lystra syndrome, and he's still going. He's saying, I can make it. You can make it. God's grace is indeed sufficient for us. Go through many hardships, but you're going to make it.

Verse 23, they appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord. Now, that word, if you're reading appointed, or whatever your version is, it may say ordained elders, appointed elders. That word appointed or ordained literally means to elect with a show of hands, elected with a show of hands elders. That's not necessarily body rule, congregational rule.

They don't want a title. They're just serving, because God's moving in their hearts. You let us know who they are. And you do. And we move to them and say, you know, God seems to be raising you up in the eyes of the people who are noticing your area of service, and we'd like for you to pray about being a deacon in our fellowship. And it's the same kind of thing that evidently they did as they were moving back through

the areas, as they were appointing elders in each of the churches and committing them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust.

missionaries came back and shared what had happened. Now this, they're back to Antioch. They've gone through the defamation. They've gone through the delusion and the destruction, and they've gone to the place of victory in Derbe. They still needed to get back to Antioch because Antioch was a place of refreshing, a place of preparation. They went out and had a place of refreshing where they come home.

And brothers and sisters, this is it right here, the fellowship of the saints. This is a place of refreshing, the home fellowships, the small groups. When we get together, it's a place of refreshing. Let me beg you, don't ignore this. Don't put this aside as something that you can, you know, take or leave and you got other things that you got to do and you forsake the fellowship of the saints, you forsake

this time of refreshing. We need it. We need the interaction, the interfacing with one another, that refreshing to be able to share like Paul and Barnabas did. This is what God's been doing, man, and the people were excited. And to be able to do that with one another as we're going through these times and you

And you've not only done that, you've given us a blueprint of what's to happen and we are so without excuse, Lord. And yet in our place of plenty, our land of opportunity, we so neglect that. And God, we look at our nation and we see us becoming a Laodicea, a place of apathy. The church is weak because we're not in that love relationship with you. God, stir us up.

Time's short. Jesus is coming at any time. We need to be about your business. Let this be a place of refreshing and send us forth from here as your witnesses, Lord, to the uttermost. For it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's stand together.