Acts 14 Through Much Suffering

Intro: Everybody suffers. Has anybody here suffered before? It’s been called the great equalizer, the common denominator, the universal quotient. If you live long enough, than some day in some way, you will suffer greatly. It is the destiny of all who walk on this earth. It’s such a central fixture in the lives of humanity that all world religions have to explain it somehow and some are built around the solution of suffering as a keystone of their beliefs. Even Atheism which is just a baby in comparison to the ancient worldviews asks the question, “If God exists and he’s good, than where is God in all of this suffering?” Buddha taught that the world was a place of suffering so as a solution he taught the Four Fold Noble Truth in order for people to escape the suffering of the world. In the Four Fold Noble Truth he taught that the source of suffering is desire and attachment so as a solution people should renounce all earthly desires and passions and by so doing reach enlightenment. In other words, many religions have suffering as the catalyst of their theology. This morning we’re going to get a Biblical perspective on how we should deal with the suffering that we go through.

I. Marta reads Acts 14

Acts 14:1-28 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 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. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the good news. 8 In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. 11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 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. 14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 "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 sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 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." 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. 19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. 21 They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, 22 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. 23 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. 24 After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, 25 and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. 26 From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. 27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. 28 And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

II. So Paul and Barnabas finally get back to their home church. Their trip is over and now that they can breathe easy they’re able to give a summation of their missional lifestyle. As they’re outreaching, as they’re sharing the love and the Word of Jesus, as they’re spending time with friends and foes they found one thing to be true and Paul with bruises marking his body and bones still mending says it in no unclear way: He says, and I paraphrase. “I’ll tell you one thing for sure guys. As the Kingdom is born, it’s gonna be… painful….”

III. We already saw that other religions and philosophies of man would propose to you that suffering is something to be avoided at all costs but Christianity is the one religion that makes no such suggestion.

A. There was an occasion when Jesus was with the disciples on a boat in the middle of a storm and the disciples had to wake Jesus up and say, “dude, don’t you care that we might drown? We’re taking on water and you’re checked out.” That’s how we feel when we’re suffering isn’t it? My marriage is broke, my work is drying up, my house is going to be taken by the bank, my health is bad and my future is grim. Don’t you care? Wake… up!...”

1. And so this is one of the biggest things that get in the way of us truly believing that God loves me and cares for me personally is because we think that whenever we suffer it’s God punishing us with our sufferings, or at least that he just doesn’t care. God is doing this to me or allowing this to happen to me because I’m such a contemptible sinner. And maybe we are all contemptible sinners, but God still calls us beloved and says that like a father he knows how to give good things to us. But then that must mean that suffering can be for our good.

2. And besides, when we try to avoid suffering what happens is like Thomas Merton said, “The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” And we can start giving disproportionate weight to inconveniences and call it suffering, when they’re only curses to us because we curse them. And what was true of Mark Twain can be true of us when he said, “There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of it actually happened.”

3. But the Biblical teaching is that suffering is a good thing instead of the normal way we look at it, which is the same way we look at the weather forecast. When it’s going to be bad weather the weatherman says, “I’m sorry, but it looks like there’s going to be rain” or “I have some bad news for you… there’s gonna be rain.” But wait… rain isn’t a bad thing. It’s an inconvenience and it can be uncomfortable, but here in Oregon we know that rain brings growth.

4. So then it takes wisdom to understand that suffering isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact the Bible tells us that suffering has several good effects: It purifies the soul, it corrects the soul, it brings God glory if done right, and it deepens our connection with other Christian sufferers in the world.

B. And Paul doesn’t even say that it was with suffering that we enter the Kingdom, he said it was through suffering. He used the Greek preposition to say that it was by means of suffering that we enter the Kingdom! The word he uses for suffering is the word thlipsis. And thlipsis can mean physical, emotional, relational and spiritual pain and suffering. It’s broad enough to include afflictions and tribulations of all kinds. If you look at Luke’s use of it here you see that it certainly includes just in this one chapter rejection, emotional and physical abuse, misunderstandings, miscommunications, frustrations, hatreds, conspiracies, cruelty, insults, exploitation and mistreatment. In other words, it includes whatever you’ve gone through this week and whatever you’ve gone through in your whole lifetime of suffering.

1. In fact in the Bible the word thlipsis is almost always talked about positively as the means to something wonderful. Most poetically Jesus referred to it as that pain that a woman has in as she gives birth but forgets as soon as the joy of the child is in her arms. It’s real and it’s hurtful, but it’s worth it.

2. The Romans were told to… exult in it because their perseverance, character and hope were… perfected in it. The Ephesians were told that their glory was… secured in it so they shouldn’t… lose heart over it. The Thessalonians were told that they should… take joy in it because they… imitated Jesus in it so they shouldn’t be… unsettled by it because they already knew that they were… destined for it.

3. So to God, to Christians, to you and I, suffering is not something to be avoided, but something to be actively engaged in, and engaged in such a way that it is productive and empowering.

C. So suffering is in fact a curse if we curse it and a blessing if we bless it. That’s true for you in your sufferings as you have faith that they may be God’s tool for improving you and it’s true for us collectively as we share a common persecution.

1. What we picture persecution as is a person holding a gun to our head and asking us if we believe in God. But don’t be deceived, you see, persecution is primarily a spiritual thing since the Bible says that our enemies are not flesh and blood. Persecution is suffering inflicted on God’s people by God’s enemies. It’s not always done with guns, bombs and inquisitions into your beliefs. More often in our case we suffer from a spiritual terrorism that simply causes pain wherever it can. But because of our enemy’s subtlety we can often think that all of the suffering in our lives is merely coincidence. Make no mistake. Endeavor is being… persecuted….

2. More than just the pop level persecution that every American suffers under where it’s chic to make fun of Christians in movies, music, TV shows and it’s ever on the increase with this sarcastic, in your face, snarky, in vogue kind of making fun of us. But more than many other churches, we’ve seen growth as a community and we’ve also experienced an exponential growth in sufferings.

3. We’ve suffered. With two deaths in four weeks we’ve suffered. With a widow and a fatherless child being left homeless we’ve suffered. With multiple people losing their jobs we’ve suffered. With old friendships being ruined we’ve suffered. With sweeping depression and estrangement and foreclosures and debilitating injuries and moral failures and overwork and pervasive sickness we have suffered. So don’t be deceived… when it’s this severe, it’s no coincidence… it’s persecution.

Outro: But I tell you without apology that we have endured the rain and I stand before you as Paul telling his home church… that as long as we continue to be God’s hands and feet and see lives transformed and baptisms happening and the hopeless finding hope and people finding recovery and belonging and as long as we’re a home for the homeless and a refuge for the hurting and as long as we’re bringing heaven to earth… it will happen under the grey skies of persecution. The Kingdom will come not in new buildings, Christian celebrities and a flashy online presence but the Kingdom is being born into this world in a horrible cacophony of sounds, in eyes bulging, in clawing for footing and in gasping for breath.

“But,” Jesus said, “take hope, for I have overcome the world.” And what a privilege we have to know that we are a part of something that is worth persecuting. So I do not curse our persecution… no, I bless it.

- And I offer you the same joy. The joy to know that you’re suffering is worth it. - And I offer you the same hope. The hope which is forged between hammer and anvil. - And I offer you the same brotherhood. We the family who are not alone in our sufferings.

So may we like Paul, when we’ve suffered so much that we should be dead, rise and call our persecution what it is… a sure sign of our success. May we not be slowed down by death and other… inconveniences. May we continue in the faith, prayer and solidarity. And may we drink our fill of the rain of our common suffering thereby entering the Kingdom of God.