Sermon: Acts 14:8-18

Series C: Sunday of the Church Year: Easter 6 Sunday Theme: “Our Savior Prepares Us for His Ascension” First Lesson: Acts 14:8-18 (Paul in ) Second Lesson: Revelation 21:10-14,22,23 Gospel: John 14:23-29 Preaching Date: May 9, 2010 Preaching Place: Our Savior’s, East Brunswick, NJ

Dear Fellow

You could feel the fervor. More and more people were coming to faith. At 3,000 people became Christians (:41). From then on the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:47). Soon the number of men grew to 5,000 (:4). Then more and more men and women believed in the lord and added to their numbers (:14) and the number of disciples was increasing rapidly (:1,7).

Then it went beyond the Middle East to other parts of the Mediterranean. The Christians in in sent off two gifted missionaries, Paul and . First, they were off to the Island of . There a proconsul by the name of believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord (:12). From there the mission team went to another city called Antioch. This Antioch was on the mainland of present day Turkey. Paul preached a fiery sermon in the synagogue. Some believed and some persecuted the men of God. From there they proceeded to Iconium. Once again a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed (Acts 14:1). 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 (Acts 14:3). Once again some believed; some did not. Those that did not believe plotted to stone the missionaries to death. But the missionaries found out about it and thought it best for the Gospel to move on to another city.

That city was Lystra. An amazing and unusual event took place there that we would like to talk about this morning. Here we see …

TWO DIFFERENT REACTIONS TO HEALING. One was right the other wrong. I. One man understood. II. The crowd misunderstood.

A. The mission work in Lystra really presents something new.

1. In the previous cities Paul and Barnabas went into the synagogues of their fellow Jews. But in this city there was no synagogue, and apparently almost all were pagans. They needed to know about the way of salvation. So they continued to preach the good news (Acts 14:7).

2. Of course, the word is powerful. The Holy Spirit uses it as a means of grace to enter into the hearts of people to bring then to faith. There was a man there who heard that was the Savior of the world and he believed it. His soul was freed from the burden of sin, but the man’s body was handicapped.

In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. (Acts 14:8-10).

B. This brings up some interesting points about divine healing. 1. First, we want to be assured that as we recognize our sins and place our faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, we are saved. We come into a relationship with God our Father and Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the power of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.

2. Second, when we look at all the miracles that Jesus did himself and how he worked through the apostles, we notice that some were healed even though they had no faith. On one occasion Jesus healed a man at the pool of Bethesda. The man apparently didn’t believe before or after he was healed. Also when Peter and John healed a crippled man at the temple gate, the man expected money from the apostles, but to his great surprise his legs were healed.

3. There are some preachers today that appear in churches or on TV and the internet who say that, if you have enough faith, you will be healed. These “faith healers” will tell you “God doesn’t want you to be sick or diseased. If only you believe deeply enough you can and will be healed.” Then if you are not healed it is because you did not have enough faith.

4. Does God heal today with miracles? He certainly can and he does. But faith means we trust him no matter what. If he heals a disease, we praise him. If he doesn’t heal, we still praise him and trust his divine wisdom.

5. Always remember this principle when it comes to God’s point of view. Our souls are far more precious than our bodies. Our bodies will rot in the ground. Our souls will live on. When our souls were filthy with sin, he washed our souls clean with the blood of Jesus. As a gardener fertilizes, trims and waters to make plants grow, so God waters with his words and promises, and trims with disease and distress. That’s why the clearly says, The Lord disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:6).

Transition: Look at this man in Lystra. He understood and believed the Gospel and God in his infinite wisdom showed him great power. God healed his crippled feet. The town’s people saw it too. But they did not have the same insight.

II. The crowd did not understand.

A. The people put the missionaries into the framework of their heathen religion. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Barnabas they called , and Paul they called because he was the chief speaker. 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 (Acts 14:11-13).

1. Some people think that if only God would reveal himself in miracles then everyone would turn to the true God. This is one of many times in the Bible where we see misunderstanding of a miracle. With Jesus they wanted to make him an earthly king. Here they wanted to make Paul and Barnabas gods. They didn’t want to change religions. They wanted Paul and Barnabas to be a part of their heathen religion. God wanted to shape their religion into the message of Paul’s teaching.

2. It is only the Word that works. Miracles confirm the Word, but it is not the miracle that is important. It is the Word that changes the heart. It is grief over sins committed and joy in the Savior’s work on the cross. This is a proper understanding of the Christian message.

B. The crowd did not understand even when the apostles tried to correct their thoughts.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed 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 sea and everything in them. 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 rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:14-17).

1. Notice that the missionaries pointed to something they could relate to in their daily life. They all received gifts from the world God created. God does not leave anyone without testimony. It is only logical that all of nature came from someplace. It is pure blindness to say that all this came from nothing or by chance. There must be someone out there who controls that balance of nature with rain and crops and sun and vegetables. The entire food chain needs to have someone putting the links of the chain together.

2. Paul’s intention was to first get the people into their right senses. He wanted to calm them down. Then he could once again talk to them about the true God.

3. One important phrase here is “w e too are only men, human like you.” In the original Greek human like you is one word. It means “similarly passionate.” Paul and Barnabas were sinners with the same passions as other men ( ὁµοιοπαθε ῖς). The missionaries and the crowds were the same creatures – with similar passions, with similar sins. Only when they knew that truth could Paul talk about how this Creator God came and lived among us to gave us eternal promises of a garden-paradise.

Transition: Did any of them believe the words? The answer is yes.

C. There is an epilogue to this story.

1. We don’t know how many believed the truth here. But we do know that there was one family for sure who believed. There was a Jewish woman by the name of Eunice along with her mother Lois who became Christians. A son of that family was Timothy (:1; 2 Timothy 1:5) and he became a great disciple, then a pastor, then an overseer over the region.

2. Because we have this information I’m going to go on a bit of a tangent here. On this Mothers’ Day we ought to give thanks to God for the mothers in our life. We are here today because there has been mothers – either biological or otherwise influential in our lives. I don’t know of any other role that is more important for a society or for our faith than that of a mother’s influence. They are mostly the ones that control the future generations in a country or in a church. That may be why in 2 Chronicles the Bible often lists the name of the mother when a new king came to the throne.

3. I’m sure that on the last day one of the great wonders we will see is all the work women did for the kingdom. We will praise our God who used Sunday school teachers, aunts and grandmothers, dear neighbors and friends, and of course mothers to bring about a grand number of souls into the holy Christian church, the communion of saints.

Conclusion:

It could be read like the book of Acts, mentioning the great numbers of converts to the faith through the efforts of women using their gifts to influence generation after generation. Just as there were two different reactions to the healing of this crippled man, so there will be two different reactions to the mission work done by Christian women and mothers. But among us, let there be just one reaction – let it be that we understand the message of salvation and take it to heart. Amen.