The Purpose and Power of the Spirit - Pastor Tom Loghry
We begin a new series in the book of Acts focusing on the missionary journeys of Paul. We see him embark on his first journey and the Spirit work through him in Cyprus.
Transcript:
In the course of my short life, I have lived on the precipitous decline of the church in the West. In his book, "Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America," Christian Smith identifies the year 1991 as the zenith of when this obsolescence began. If you didn't know, I was born in 1992, so literally right when this is beginning. Scholars like Smith and Ryan Burge who are experts on religious statistics consistently report the reality of this decline, we are not misremembering how things once were; simply based on the numbers, these fellows don't encourage any optimism of this trend being reversed anytime soon. Now, some people dissent of course. A prominent example of this is Justin Brierly, who's the author of the book, the, "The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God," and he also hosts a podcast of the same name. And, and on this podcast, he shares other statistical data and a multitude of, of anecdotes of notable people who have turned to God, who have turned to Christ, that suggest that there is a shift in the air-- that there might be indeed a quiet revival afoot.
It's an interesting conversation, often discouraging and, and sometimes encouraging. Why do I look into all this and, and why do I mention it to you? For two reasons.
The first, it's always relevant for us to do our best to understand our neighbors, and in some ways understand ourselves, to understand where their spiritual compasses are pointing, and to try to intersect that course with the gospel.
Secondly, more importantly, I mention this to you in order to set up a backdrop. To offer a reminder to you and, and really to offer a reminder to myself, which is this: the future of the Church is not determined by sociological trends.
Our fate is not written in the statistics. The decline is real, there's no denying that at all, but that does not mean that demise is our destiny. The Church is not a product of sociological evolution, a product of natural origins. The Church is supernatural in origin. It is natural insofar as it's made up of human creatures, but it is supernatural in that its power and growth cannot be ascribed to us. God uses material things, people, language, Roman roads, but the power is not in those things. The power is God himself, manifest in the person of the Holy Spirit who indwells the body of Christ, the church. If the sociologists, sociologists and statisticians had been around in the first century AD, the numbers just wouldn't have added up for them. That a small group of disciples, followers of a crucified Messiah, would come to dominate the known world, the Roman Empire. Naturally speaking, it comes out of left field. It can't be accounted for. But the Bible testifies that it's the fulfillment of the word of God, his divine plan and purpose. The church is God's own creation in Jesus Christ, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.
And so in this series, we're gonna be looking specifically at the Apostle Paul, but this is really just a continuation of the Book of Acts, which gives to us the origins of the early church, and the church originates from Jesus Christ. Christ is the cornerstone of the church. The church emerges following Christ's death, his resurrection, and then the commission that he gives to the apostles to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel, and then he ascends. And then as we read almost a year ago now, in Acts one verses four through eight, Jesus tells them that they're to go to Jerusalem and await the pouring out of the Holy Spirit which will be the driver behind their mission.
In Acts one verses four through eight, leaving out a few parts just to kind of condense things, Jesus says, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And then in verse six, the disciples ask is the kingdom going to come now? And Jesus says, it is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And so the last time we were in Acts I, I named the series The Spirit and the Church. Because that's what we really see going on in the Book of Acts, is how the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples signals the beginning of the church, the beginning of the mission of the church.
You see, the disciples didn't just go out with a message, a teaching. They went forth with power which was not their own, power which came from the person of the Holy Spirit, which came to indwell each, each and every one of them, the church as a whole. And this happened on the day of Pentecost. And we, we have it accounted in Acts two of how when the Holy Spirit descended upon them, the disciples began speaking in foreign languages to those who are gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentacot. And what this symbolized was God's global intent to redeem all people from all nations in Jesus Christ. It signaled that Jesus was not just for the Jews, but that Jesus was in fact for the world. And so after this point, we see the community of the church form. And what we, and what is revealed here is that in fact, these people, those who have been bound together and built upon Jesus Christ, are the new temple of God at that time. The temple in Jerusalem still exists, but it's being displaced by the church and ultimately the, the brick and mortar or or, or granite or whatever it was made out of, a marble, that's ultimately destroyed in 70 AD. And so that old temple is passing away. What is emerging is the new temple, which is formed in Jesus Christ, which is made up of spiritual stones of, of the people of the church. And we see, we hear stories about how God is intent on that being a holy community so that when Ananias and Sapphira, a husband and wife who are part of that early community, decide they're going to lie about how much they were giving to the church, they said, oh, we sold our land and we're giving all the money to the church but in fact, they kept some of it back for themselves, they were struck dead for their deception. We see both the power of God and his intent for the church.
We see how Peter and John stand firm in their testimony, even in the face of opposition from the same people that crucified Jesus. They tell Peter and John to be quiet, to stop talking about Jesus. They say, we can't do anything other than what we've seen, we must testify to that. It's better for us to obey God than to obey man. And what we see gradually is how the command that Jesus gave to the disciples begins to be fulfilled, sometimes not really at the prompting of the disciples themselves. Sometimes it's driven by persecution.
So we see that Philip goes to the Samaritans, people who had a mixed ethnic heritage. They weren't, they weren't entirely Jewish. And among the Samaritans, people turned to Christ. We hear about how the Deacon Philip, he went to the Ethiopian Eunich. He encounters the Ethiopian Eunich along the road, and then he, then he was transported away from, after he had this encounter with the Ethiopian Eunich and introduced the gospel to Africa through this man who was a servant of, of this queen in Africa.
And then we have the story about how Peter and and Cornelius, Peter a Jew, going to a Centurion, Cornelius, and preaching the gospel there. God revealing to him in a dream that in fact God's intent was to bring all people to himself in Christ, and the Holy Spirit descended upon all those gentiles in the household of Cornelius.
And we see how this testimony is fueled even when things are getting tough. One of the deacons, Stephen, for his testimony before the Sanhedrin, is stoned to death, and it drives people, more of the Christians further out from Jerusalem with this message. Now, among those that were in the crowd that stoned Steven to death was a man named Saul of Tarsus, and as we'll see, the remainder of the Book of Acts is dominated by the work of the Holy Spirit, who God's calling upon this man, Saul.
So just recalling who Saul is. Saul, who becomes more familiarly known as as Paul, and I'll get into that as we proceed along here, Saul was a Jew's Jew. He didn't grow up in Israel. He, he grew up in, in Tarsus in Asia Minor, but he was a Pharisee. He was a student of a prominent Pharisaical teacher named Gamaliel, and from the point of the stoning of, of Steven, which he didn't throw any stones himself, but he held the coats so that people could stone Steven. In his zeal, he took it upon himself to try to eradicate the Christians by jailing them, even having them killed.
But God has a different plan for Saul. He stages an intervention on the Damascus road. Saul is confronted by the person of Jesus Christ himself in Acts nine, verses four through five. Luke tells us that Saul fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? Saul asked. I'm Jesus, whom you are persecuting, he replied. Now, by this encounter, Saul was blinded because he encountered a bright light, and he was directed to proceed to Damascus. And in Damascus, a disciple named Ananias comes to him by the prompting of the Lord to restore Paul's sight, Saul's sight, and to baptize him.
And from this point onward, Saul has turned from a persecutor of the church to a proponent of the gospel. And after some time in Arabia he goes to Jerusalem, meets the apostles, and his zeal, his great zeal now for the gospel rather than persecuting Christians, actually gets him in trouble with the Jews so that he has to go back to his hometown of Tarsus. And he, and he kind of lays low there for a while until Barnabas, a fellow whose actual name is Joseph, but he is known as Barnabas because he is known as the son of encouragement, that's what it means, Barnabas, who had welcomed into, him into the Christian community invites him to join him in Antioch, invites him to join him at the church in Antioch after Barnabas himself had been sent there by the Jerusalem Church. The reason being is that for the first time, really, we find Gentiles becoming members of the Church of Christ.
That happened in, for the first time, really, in Antioch. And so the Jerusalem Church sends Barnabas to Antioch to see what's going on there and to, and to participate in that ministry. And so Barnabas loops Saul into that. It's in Antioch that the believers become known as Christians for the first time. Before that, they were just known as followers of the way.
Now the time period in which this is all occurring is around AD 40 and thereafter, 41. If you're interested in trying to locate this in history, you can, you, you might recall that it was in the time of the rule of Caesar Augustus that a census was, was decreed, and that was the time of Christ's birth. So you have Caesar Augustus, then you have Tiberius Caesar, Caligula, and in this period you have the Roman Emperor Claudius. Now at this point, the church is only around 15 years old, and so it's very much under the radar. And so you have all these political happenings ongoing in the Mediterranean world. No one's noticing the church, but something big is happening here.
Now around this time, a famine was prophesied by a prophet in the church named Agabus. And in anticipation of this, Barnabas and Saul are sent by the Antioch Church to go to Jerusalem to deliver some aid for the church there. And when they come back from Jerusalem on that mission, they, they bring with them a man named John Mark. And as we'll see, he's going to join them on their journeys a bit here. And, and John Mark is one who would go on to actually write the gospel of Mark. So that's kind of part of his origins here.
So Saul and Barnabas were teachers in Antioch, and they were engaged in a successful teaching ministry. There things were going well, but things were about to change. The Holy Spirit had designs to take them beyond their familiar field of harvest. So we look at verses one through three in Acts 13 now. It says, now in the Church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
Now you might be wondering, where is Antioch? Antioch is located now in modern day Turkey. It's right near the border of Syria, at that time it would've been in Syria. I'm not sure if you can see it there on the map. So north of Jerusalem, a good bit north from Jerusalem. And in Antioch, Luke tells us, Luke, if you don't recall, is the author of the Book of Acts. Acts is kind of a follow up to the gospel of Luke. Luke tells us that in the Antioch Church there was prophets and teachers.
Now these could be, you know, we can make a distinction here, but very often those who were prophets were also teachers. And in the names of those that, in the names of those given we're not, it's not specified who among them was prophets or teachers, and so we might assume that they're both. Now when we're talking about prophets, that might kind of pique your interest. When we're talking about prophets, we're talking about people who, by the Holy Spirit, were given special insight, and in some regard, could foretell future events. That doesn't mean that they could do that on a drop of a dime as though that was a power that they possessed in themselves. This was something that God would give to them as he's so pleased. I'm open-minded to the idea that that gift could continue into, to our present day, but we have to have a high standard for that. Some people claim to be prophets and they say, oh, this is gonna happen, and it doesn't happen. You can't have a 500 hit record when it comes to prophets. It needs to be a hundred percent all the, all the way. Otherwise, you're a false prophet. You're a false prophet if you're saying things are gonna happen and those things don't happen.
Now the thing that's really interesting about the list of these men here is just their diverse backgrounds. So you have Barnabas, who's a Jew who grew up in a very Greek context, Cyprus. You have Simeon who was called Niger, which Niger means black, which leads us to think that he was probably from Africa, of some African extraction. You have Lucius of Cyrene, now Cyrene is also in Africa, it's in modern day Libya. And then you have Manaen. And Manaen's a really interesting guy here. The fact that he grew up with Herod the tetrarch, he grew up with Herod Antipus. This is the guy that had John the Baptist beheaded and was involved with the crucifixion of Jesus. He, he grew up with that guy, maybe, he might have, he might not have had a high social standing himself, his family, but he might have grown up as a servant in his household or something. And so by that way, he became somewhat upper class by his association with Herod. And then you have Saul, who is this pharisaic, this guy coming from a pharisaic Jew background. Very, very strict, very, very rigorous. What we see here is the diversity of the church. All these people from diverse backgrounds who are united in Christ, who are united in the truth of the gospel.
And what I, I think it's a helpful reminder for us that God's intent is to reconcile all people to one another in Jesus Christ. I know in our kind of social climate today, sometimes words like diversity have all sorts of political connotations to that, and we might not like some of those things, but we can't allow what's going on in the politics of our time to deny biblical truth, which is that every person is made in the image of God. And every, God's desire is to bring all people to himself in Jesus Christ from all nations, tribes, and tongue. This is what we see in Revelation seven, nine. The, we see in Revelation seven, nine. It says, after this, the apostle John's revelation of, of the end. It says, after this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
And so when we offer the hope of reconciling people from different classes, from different ethnic backgrounds in our own day, we do that on the basis of not any sort of political scheme or secular philosophy. We do it solely on this basis, on the basis of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can bring people back together in the way that is actually called for here. Apart from that, we just come up with schemes that might work for a little while, but they'll end up falling apart because we're sinful, broken people, and that's why we see so much racism and tensions in our society today, because people try to put their hope in those things rather than in Jesus Christ.
So what we see here with these leaders, these prophets and teachers, is that they're worshiping and ministering to the Lord. Again, there's this idea that they are the new temple and their worship of the Lord includes fasting, denying themselves the use of, of food and water. And, and the kind of sense that you have here from the verses is that it's not any sort of special occasion here. It's just their common practice that they would worship and engage in the practice of fasting, which kind of leads us to ask, why don't we do that? Why don't we engage in fasting? Now, some of you may do that, but I think it's very uncommon among American Christians to very faithfully engage in fasting.
Sometimes during the season of Lent people fast, but they don't usually do it, or I'll say they don't often do it in the biblical sort of model here. They might say, I'm not gonna have chocolate or something, something like that. Which is more of a practice of, of self-control rather than a true fast. A true fast is the purpose, the true nature and purpose of a fast is this, it is to unite our physical desires with our spiritual desires. We say that we desire God. We say that we desire Christ. We say that we desire God's will here on Earth as it is in heaven. If that's the case, can we take opportunity to actually signify that, to demonstrate that by our very bodies themselves being in a state of desire, drawing a parallel between those things. Now, I think sometimes in our thinking, we kind of reason with ourselves thinking, well, can't I just desire that spiritually or mentally? And isn't that good enough? What, what's the whole point of this? But the point of it is this, is that God created us as these physical creatures. We can't divide ourselves into a spiritual component and a physical component. We are intended to be a united whole. And so what fasting is, is is bringing ourselves, our entire selves, before God and saying, I desire you and I desire what you desire to be done here on earth. Show us, guide us in the way that we should go. It's a complete submission unto God, and we see how God responds to these men as they come before him in worship, the Holy Spirit comes to them and gives them this message telling them, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
Now, what's interesting here is that the work that they're called to is not described here. Now, perhaps the Holy Spirit told them more of what they were called to do, but we also know that there was kind of some sense of what they were called to do even before then. In Acts nine 15 when the Lord spoke to Ananias to go to Saul, Paul, he tells him, go, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. So very early on, from the moment that Saul was called, we have an indication here that he was to go to the Gentiles, which maybe to us doesn't seem like a novel thing, but it was a very novel thing to them at that time 'cause their focus really at that time would've been just, well, we needed to explain to our own Jewish kin that Jesus is the Messiah that you've been looking for. But God's intent is like, no, you have to bring that message and bring it to the whole world, and Paul is going to be the man to do that. And so they lay hands upon Barnabas and Saul and send them off on, on this mission into this ministry.
And this is the first record we have of the church doing this for a mission. We have a record of them laying on of hands for those that were called to be deacons in the church, but this is kind of the first mission that we see of, of two men being sent out to bring the gospel to foreign parts. Now, this is around the year 47 AD, and their journey is going to take them into the Mediterranean.
They're heading to Cyprus, reading in verses four through seven. It says the two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper. They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent it for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God.
So we see here that yes, Paul and Barnaba are sent by the church, but more directly they're sent by the Holy Spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit is the one who is the driver behind this mission, and they go to Seleucia from Antioch in order to depart for Cyprus. You can see a map here, and you're gonna get a little kind of a spoiler. That's the whole course that they take, but first they're going from Seleucia to the island of Cyprus to Salamis. Now the distance from there, it'd almost be like if you were sailing from Narraganset to some far off part on the cape. So not too, too far, but far enough. They're going from Seleucia to Salamis.
And when they get to Salamis, the first place that they go to is the synagogue. And what this reveals is kind of a trademark strategy on the part of Paul. There's practical reasons for this. There's, there could be also theological, be theological reasons. The theological reason why Paul, Saul would go to the synagogue first is because the gospel is good news first for the Jew, because their hope for Messiah has appeared. So it makes sense to go to them first. They almost have kind of this birthright to hear this news. But there's also a very practical reason too. I mean, just think about it. If you're going to a place where you don't really know anybody, where would be the best place to begin, but with the people that you do have something in common with at the synagogue, the Jewish people, they understand the scriptures, they understand what you're talking about. It's a place where you can easily gain an audience on the Sabbath. And so this is what we see solved doom consistently throughout his ministry. He starts in the synagogue, sometimes tensions kind of boil over there and he can't, he's not welcome there anymore, and then he is able to speak to people in other places.
That's his starting point now. It also mentions that they have John Mark with them. So we have three here. You have Barnabas, Saul, and John Mark. And as they're going along, they're going, working their way through the island of Cyprus.
They encounter a Jewish sorcerer named Bar Jesus. You could say, Bar Jesus, that's, that's an interesting name. We know about Jesus, who's Bar Jesus? Well, if, if you know anything about kind of how these etymology here, Bar Jesus means son of Jesus. Now, of course it's interesting 'cause he's anything but the son of, son of Jesus because he's practicing sorcery. Now, this isn't the first time that, uh, the apostles have encountered sorcerers. We see this happen in Acts eight verse, verse nine through 25. With, with Peter and, and John, they encounter Simon the sorcerer. Now the, the thing about this guy Bar Jesus is that he was an attendant of the proconsul Sergius Paulus, and he kind of had that guy's ear. He was kind of acting like a bit of, of a bit of a counselor to him.
Even so, Sergius Paulus has heard about what Barnabas and Saul are, are talking about and he wants to hear from them himself, and so he invites them to come to him. And we shouldn't pass over this too quickly. I mean, this is an enormous thing to occur that we're moving from the synagogue to the court of a proconsul. It's basically the governor, he's basically the governor of Cyprus. You're moving from a very Jewish context to a very gentile context, and you're kind of wondering what's gonna be the outcome here. I mean is, is this Roman proconsul really going to believe in the gospel? Well, there's some things that are kind of standing in in the way, and apart from his Roman background and all of that is the fact that you have this man, this sorcerer Bar-Jesus. He's going to pose a bit of a difficulty here.
It says in verses eight through 12, but Elymas the sorcerer, so he has another name here, (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, you are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You're full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You're going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun. Immediately, mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.
Now we, we notice a name change here first with Elymas, or Bar-Jesus as we were first introduced to him. Now, it's not unusual for people to have multiple names at that, at this time. In Acts 1: 23, we hear how one of the two men that was nominated, basically identified to be a possible replacement for Judas, he didn't end up being the replacement. It was a man named Joseph. And in Acts 1: 23 it says Joseph, called Barsabbas, also known as Justus. So the guy had three different names that he could have been referred to, so not a very uncommon thing here. That's the case here with Bar Jesus, he's also known as Elymas, there's not a, a super clear reason. There's not a super clear understanding as to the association between Elymas and sorcery. There's been a suggestion that maybe it has something to do with wisdom, but it's not super clear. But it was clear at that time when they wrote this.
And then we see the other change of Saul to Paul, and from this point on, he's just gonna be known as, as, as Paul. Now we might wonder, well, why this change here? Did Paul just adopt this name? Now some people have suggested that, well, maybe he adopted it from Sergius Paulus because of what's gonna happen here in his encounter here. See, more, more commentators suggest that rather this was Paul's Roman name. Because he was a Roman citizen from birth and the naming conventions in the Roman Empire at that time for Roman citizens was, they would have three names. It'd be the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. So maybe some of you might have watched the movie Gladiator here. You might be familiar with kind of that very famous line that he says, my name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North. It's that kind of thing here. So in the case of Paul, it's very possible he could have had a name like Gaius Julius Paulis, but they wouldn't have referred to him by that full name. They would've just referred to him as, as Paul. Now, a couple reasons for him to utilize Paul now moving forward is one, he is moving into a Gentile context, and so the name Saul is not well known. Paul is a bit more familiar and there's a bit of a trouble with the name Saul, when it's kind of translated, transposed into the Greek, which is, this is, well, the name Saul is helpful in a Jewish context because of the tribe of Benjamin. You think of King Saul. In the Greek Saulos suggests has a word association with being conceited and being effeminate. So not helpful for Paul, and so that's why he goes with the name Paul as he is going to the Gentiles.
Now you have this showdown between Paul and Elymas, Paul and Bar Jesus, and that this guy, the sorcerer, is trying to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Now, we can't forget here that this guy is a Jew. He's a Jew that has turned to sorcery and he's actively trying to prevent Sergius Paulus from believing in Jesus.
Now, this sort of face down here actually kind of brings back to mind the, the face down that we see in Exodus. You think about how Moses faced down the Egyptians. Now here we have Paul facing down, a magician, a sorcerer, and just as kind of a sidebar here, this is just another reminder that it is dangerous to deal in those arts. It, it is not good to deal in those arts in any way, any sorcery magic. It's something that's popular these days with eastern spirituality, crystals, astrology, all the, all those things. But we see in the person of Elymas of how corrupted he has been by, he's brought his Jewish background together with his sorcery, and it's made of himself a roadblock to the true gospel.
Now, apparently he must have won him himself some influence by some demonstration of, of sorcery, but whatever power he possessed, whether it was just trickery or if it was demonic in nature, it's no match for the Holy Spirit. Notice how it very explicitly says here it's not Paul who, who does these things. It's the, Paul as he's filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, you are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You're full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop per perverting the right way of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.
So we see how this man, Elymas, Bar-Jesus, rather than being a son of Jesus, Paul says, you're a son of the devil. You're not a son of Jesus, you're a son of the devil. He should be in fact straightening things out in order to point people to Christ, and instead, he's twisting things and because of his disobedience, he's going to be struck with blindness. It doesn't say it's permanent blindness necessarily, but he is gonna be struck with blindness for a while. And what this brings back to mind is the curses that God, God lists out on Mount Ebal for the people of Israel should they disobey him.
Deuteronomy 28, verse 28 through 29 says, the Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. At midday you'll grope about like a blind person in the dark. You'll be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day, you'll be oppressed and robbed with, no one to rescue you. Elymas, Bar-Jesus, is resisting the gospel. He's, he's twisting the ways of the Lord, and he's struck with blindness. Now, apart from the judgment here, but what this is acting as is a sign to the proconsul. And so Sergius Paulus sees all of this. He, he sees this sign, he hears their message, and he, he believes, he believes.
Now there's no natural reason to expect that a Roman proconsul should come to believe that an unknown man like Jesus of Nazareth, crucified by the Governor Pontius Pilate, a criminal according to Rome, should believe that this guy rose from the dead, is in fact the Messiah, the savior. Everything was stacked against Paul and Barnabas. There is literally a fellow Jew, this, this sorcerer Bar-Jesus, telling Sergius Paulus not to believe these guys, they don't know what they're talking about. But the Holy Spirit defies all natural expectation. God claimed a man like Paul for himself, even when Paul had been determined to kill Christians. And God's intent in Jesus Christ is to draw people from all nations to himself, not just the Jews. No reason to expect that that could happen, that's what we see happening right here.
And it is still happening today. All around the world, in far off places, people are hearing about Jesus for the first time and putting their faith in him-- even at the risk of losing everything, even their very own lives. It defies all expectation. In places like Iran, which had less than a thousand Christians in the 1970s, a place that no one would expect Christianity to grow, there's an awakening that's going on. A 2020 survey suggests that there's now as many as 1.2 million Christians in that country, and the number is only growing.
Yes, the West seems like a spiritually glum place; not atheistic per se, but a spiritually lazy place-- a place where people live in a way that says God isn't really all that important. Recent blips of positivity can't deny the reality of larger trend lines. But greater than every trend is our God. Stats are not greater than the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit-- we must rebuke all fatalism in the name of Jesus Christ. We do not draw upon our natural strengths-- now, as we always should, we call upon the Holy Spirit to guide and empower us here and now. It is time for prayer and fasting. If you're not up for that, then I can only leave you with the sociologists. My point is this: there is hope. Not based on statistics, not based on the people around us, but based upon the power of God to do what seems impossible.
This is what is recounted for us in Acts. The wondrous, odds-defying work of the Holy Spirit through the church, through Paul to bring a lost people to their Savior. That work continues now, through us, by the Holy Spirit- if we will seek his voice in power. Let us seek it in prayer.
Dear Father, thank you for this reminder. Father, we can become so captive to how things seem to be going by the current of our world. Father, we thank you for the reminder of what you have done, of how you defied all the odds. Beginning with Jesus Christ himself, who conquered death and sin and established a church which no one would expect would prosper and flourish, but which overcame all opposition. And how you brought people to yourself that no one would ever expect would believe in Jesus.
Father, our prayer is that we would have the faith of the apostles. Father, our prayer is that we would seek you in prayer and fasting. That in doing so, father, that the whole person of the Holy Spirit would speak to us, guide us in, in what we should be doing, what we are called to do, that he would empower us to do those things. That he would work upon the hearts of people that we would have no reason to expect to ever darken the doorsteps of a church, that you would fill us with a zealous passion by the Holy Spirit to be brave in the face of opposition and to go where you're calling us to go. And Father, we pray that in the end you would be glorified. You would be glorified by Rockland Community Church, by this community of people that your light would shine bright here in our little corner of this state. That you would draw all people to yourself.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we worship God and hear the preaching of his word. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)