Put slides up. Set the scene using the slides of Paul s first missionary journey.

Transcription

1 1 Wangaratta Wesleyan Methodist Church Sunday 29 th May 2016 The Door of Faith: Paul s First Missionary Journey Part 2 Bible Passages: Acts 14:1-10, 16-22, Intro: Highs and lows of life and ministry Reflect on the highs and lows of life: Our daughter Jemimah has been overseas for the past 14 months with another 6 months to go. She has had her high times and low times. Explain. Switzerland. I m sure our lives are also like that. Expand. We are never far from a crisis! Ministry can be like that also. But wouldn t be easier if we could somehow take out the highs and lows? Paul and Barnabas missionary journey was a rollercoaster of highs and lows, blessings and persecutions tumbling around together. Could they have done without the persecution? What about church life, generally speaking, for us? One writer I was reading suggested that we have created a nice easy church life that has effectively taken out the highs and the lows. A bit like cows chewing their cud in a paddock, content and happy but life has no highs or lows; they can t get into trouble as there is a fence around them and they can t go on an amazing adventure either. Has the western church become so protective of the lows by creating a safe, comfortable and politically correct environment and therefore avoiding persecution, that we have also lost the highs such as expecting conversions and seeing the miraculous? In comparison to the early church, and I must say the modern church in many persecuted countries, we are missing two things; persecution and miracles. Put bluntly, nobody gets healed and nobody gets stoned, that is rocks thrown at you! What drug has the church taken that has numbed it into this state? Or what are we not doing that leaves us inept? Could it be that we are not living, speaking and preaching an alive gospel? Could it be that we struggle to take God s powerful Word and apply it into our lives? And are we devoid of power because we don t allow God s Spirit to completely invade us? These are tough confronting questions for the western church and also for us. Put slides up. Set the scene using the slides of Paul s first missionary journey. I want to begin at the end of our passage where Luke the writer of Acts says that 1) God opened the door of faith When we look at the mega picture of God s intervention into our world we see that God s desire is that his created people would come into relationship with him. He wants us to live forever in his kingdom where he can enjoy us and we can enjoy him.

2 2 This door of faith is more than the opportunity to believe, it is to receive all of the blessings of God. It is in a sense a membership into a family, the family of God. This membership was first offered a. To the Jews The Jewish people had the privilege of knowing about God and being called his people so in a way the door of faith had been made open to them however they still had to walk through it by believing and receiving the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. It was not good enough for the Jewish people to claim eternal membership in the kingdom of God simply because of their heritage they needed to accept the Messiah as God s chosen Lamb of God. Now this membership, this door of faith, had become available b. Also to the Gentiles This was an exciting new revelation to the disciples that what had remained their sole privilege for thousands of years as God s chosen people was now the privilege of all people. Of course this was 15 years after Pentecost and there were now many Gentile Christians, so this reiteration of something that had happened years earlier was yet another confirmation that God was continuing to draw people to himself by opening up the door for their belief and trust in him. God had chosen Paul to take the message of Jesus to the Gentiles that is why Paul and Barnabas were taking this missionary trip. We note in verse 1 of chapter 14 that they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. The door of faith was open to both Jew and Gentile in the same way and at the same time. Paul explains to us in Romans that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile as we all need to come to God through Jesus. The same is true today: Jew and non-jew need to come to God through Jesus. Let s think of this using different parameters. People brought up through church and Christian homes are no different to un-churched people, we all need to come to God through the saving knowledge of Jesus. Someone could have been a church goer all their life and be no closer to the KOG than a serial criminal in prison. Struggling to think this one through? Think of the thief on the cross next to Jesus and the religious leaders who felt they were honouring God by having Jesus crucified. Just like the religious leaders who chose not to walk through the door of belief in Jesus c. Our freewill can effectively close it also. Verse 2 says we can refuse to believe, like the Jews who chose to make trouble for Paul and Barnabas, or we can be seduced by the ways of the world, like the Gentiles who had their minds poisoned by the unbelieving Jews.

3 3 The door is still open today, for you and I, for anyone to understand and accept Jesus. However, our freewill allows us to choose to accept or reject this offer. Maybe you are thinking this morning, I need to walk through this door today. Encourage them. The door of faith that God opens gives us a unique opportunity, as Christians, to minister to others. God has opened up the door for all people to believe however the Holy Spirit opens specific doors for people and gives us the opportunity to walk into their lives. The exciting thing is we can ask God to open these specific doors and then we simply wait for the opportunity and when we see it we walk through. The lady next door mowing her lawn Rhonda felt led to contact this lady and talk to her about God. God opened the door and she walked through Lisa sat next to a lady the other day and God opened the door and Lisa walked through into her life. I m sure you have your own story to tell Last week we talked about expectancy. We can expect God to open these doors when we ask Him. What doors will God open for you this week? I would love to hear about them! Back to our two missionaries. They were pretty hardy, despite the Jews stirring up the people to not believe they decided to hang around in Iconium for considerable time and speak boldly for the Lord. In that town the message was confirmed as 2) God revealed himself by the miraculous The bible says the Lord enabled Paul and Barnabas to do miraculous signs and wonders. The major purpose of the miraculous was a. So that people may believe As we read through the bible and find miracles most of the time there is an instance where someone is lead to believe. Belief or faith in God is by far the dominant desire of God for us coming through scripture. We will pick up on that later. Why do you think there is this link between miracles and belief? In our world where things must add up before we trust something it is often difficult to believe by faith in something we cannot see. So God uses the miraculous to cause us to believe. Does it always work? No, because b. Even the miraculous will not convince some! What are some incidences in the bible where the miraculous failed to bring belief? Pharaoh and Moses Elijah on Mt Carmel Jesus rising from the dead

4 4 So no wonder that here in Iconium some people did not believe even though they saw the miraculous. In fact, it seems that the miraculous produced a greater hatred in some towards the Apostles as they hatched a plot to harm them and stone them. What a journey of ups and downs they were having! From here they fled to the nearby cities of Lystra and Derbe In Lystra we have this amazing account of Paul healing a man crippled from birth, and the crowd thinking that these two fitted the description of two mythical gods, Zeus and Hermes, and they tried to offer sacrifices to them. Explain the scene. I want us to look more closely at this man s healing. It reveals that 3) We need faith to receive God s blessing Paul looked directly at the man and saw that he had faith to believe. Draw a word picture here of verses 8-10 We see from this that a. Faith is turning towards God The bible says that without faith we cannot please God. So the question could be, how much faith do we need to please God? Faith of a mustard seed can move mountains Sick people came to Jesus with little understanding or knowledge yet were healed because of their faith. Then again the disciples were criticised for not having enough faith Maybe we shouldn t ask how much faith do we need rather, do we have faith? Either we have faith in God or we don t. Faith is turning towards God. Explain this. Just like Jesus in the boat with his disciples in the storm. Explain. Where is your faith? Did you leave it on the shore!? Have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten me? They failed to look to him. Like Peter walking on the water. Eyes on Jesus then the wind and the waves. Faith is looking to Jesus and not to the world, not to our own ability. A song I love to listen to is God I look to You written by Brian Johnson and sung by Jen Johnson. God I look to You I won't be overwhelmed Give me vision to see things like You do God I look to You You're where my help comes from Give me wisdom, You know just what to do Psalm 121:1-2 I lift up my eyes to the mountains where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

5 5 I think that one of our greatest challenges is to b. Live in the realm of faith Let s face it in many ways in Australia we can get away with not trusting God, or at least we think we can. If we re sick we go to a doctor, if we don t have possessions or money we go to a welfare agency, if we re afraid we go to the police etc. So if our physical needs are largely not dependent upon God, how then can we live by faith? Can we live with our modern conveniences yet place ourselves in the realm of faith and choose to live that way? So we go to the doctor yet trust God for his miracles to shine through. We enjoy our possessions but learn to trust God for his overall provision. We see ourselves as needing his daily provision of grace, mercy and love We see that we are impoverished without his Holy Spirit filling us with joy. We started out talking about the highs and the lows of life. Let s live our lives so that whatever may come our way we will be found trusting Jesus. Conclusion: When we consider all of life, is there anything better than trusting Jesus? Hymn: Tis so sweet to trust you Jesus Message by Pastor David Lloyd