Text: Acts 14:21-28, Title: Strengthening Disciples’ Souls, Date/Place: NRBC, 6/1/08, AM
A. Opening illustration: tell about hearing Piper preach in April and the conversation that I had with Erika immediately following about it being “soul food,” just “vintage Piper,” but so stirring and satisfying and Christ exalting and sustaining.
B. Background to passage: We begin today in Derbe (show on map if possible). Paul has just been stoned a few days before, but keeps on preaching. But Paul is not about simply making converts; he wants to produce genuine, sold-out, white-hot, radically Christ-centered disciples whose new primary goal in every aspect of their lives is to make much of Jesus. And he knows that disciple-making is a long term process. And so, he begins his return trip back to Antioch, not with the mere goal of getting back to his home church, but of strengthening the souls of the new believers in the last three towns he has just preached in and fled from. So fearlessly he goes back to these towns with a message of strength for believers. The word “strengthened” here means to support, further establish, or set firmly on something. Here is Paul’s discipleship 101 class for new believers—setting them firm with truth.
C. Main thought: In the text we will see the three main teachings of primary discipleship
A. Continue in the faith (v. 22)
1. Luke says that Paul exhorted or encouraged them to continue in the faith. The word means for someone to come alongside another and call them to a goal with some authority. And the first exhortation is for these young believers to continue in, remain in, and stay faithful to Christ. He knew the pitfalls of young believers. He knew the parables of Jesus that some would believe for a while and never bring forth fruit. And he knew that perseverance is a mark of genuine faith. His first exhortation to young believers was not “once saved, always saved.” It was stay in the faith. The Christian faith is not a one-time decision, it is a lifelong commitment. It is not joining the church, being baptized, signing a card, walking the aisle, but selling out everything you have for the rest of your existence and following Jesus!
2. 1 John 2:19, John 8:31, 15:6, Heb 3:6, 14, Col 1:22-23, Matt 7:14, 16, 21, 24
3. Illustration: After supper he sat them down and asked if they wanted to know the future. They all said “yes!” So he said, statistically speaking in the next 2-3 years… two of your marriages will have broken up and the shame will cause you to leave the church, three of you will have a conflict with someone in the church and you will leave the church, one will have a tragedy and lose faith and leave, two will have a moral failing and leave, and two will lose interest and drift away. In two to three years, out of this group only two of you will be attending church, and only one of you at this church. Tell about the conversation that I had with Dan regarding Angie and her forsaking the faith, and the comment that he made that at least she knows now that her faith was not legitimate,
4. We must be reminded that if you were never saved, you are not always saved. There are many people who make false professions. And they look very real at first, and possibly are sincere, but there is no real transformation in their lives. And as good Baptists, we must hold to the truth that no man can pluck you out of God the Father’s hand—you are eternally secure, IF your salvation was genuine. And as faithful Christians and responsible church members, we must exhort young believers to stay faithful to Christ, and warn those that fall away of the potential reality of their spiritual condition. And this does not mean that we are becoming judgmental or hyper critical, but we are loving people enough to warn them of danger even at the risk of offense. The church has failed to warn new believers, look at the statistics. We must repent of our failure to love them enough to warn them of eternal danger. Other implications are that we teach this to our children. And that we practice this truth of self-examination. And that we continue in the disciplines that strengthen, renew, and sustain our believing—bible reading, study, memorization, prayer, and fellowship with the saints.
B. Persevere through trials (v. 22)
1. The second discipleship lesson to strengthen the soul of the disciples was that trouble would come. There are some denominations that teach that if you are living right and close to Jesus, you will be free from pain and suffering. But the bible is clear: we will have seasons of suffering in our lives. The text has a little tiny Greek word dei, translated “must,” which means absolutely necessary. And Paul felt it important to prepare young believers for that. So that they would receive suffering, glorify Christ in suffering,
2. 2 Tim 3:12, 2 Cor 12:8-10, 1 Pet 4:12, Heb 13:13,
3. Illustration: Suffering then is the badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master… That is why Luther reckoned suffering among the marks of the true Church… If we refuse to take up our cross and submit to suffering and rejection at the hands of men, we forfeit our fellowship with Christ and have ceased to follow Him. But if we lose our lives in His service and carry out cross, we shall find our lives again in the fellowship of the cross with Christ. –Bonhoeffer, One day while Carey was away, a fire broke out and completely destroyed the building, the presses, many Bibles, and the precious manuscripts, dictionaries, and grammars. When he returned and was told of the tragic loss, he showed no sign of despair or impatience. Instead, he knelt and thanked God that he still had the strength to do the work over again. He started immediately, not wasting a moment in self-pity. Before his death, he had duplicated and even improved on his earlier achievements. “Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken” Danielle Fineout grew up as the daughter of missionaries in Zaire. As a little girl, she went to a day-long rally celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of Christian missionaries coming to that part of Zaire. After a full day of long speeches and music, an old man came before the crowd and insisted that he be allowed to speak. He said he soon would die, and that he alone had some important information. If he did not speak, that information would go with him to his grave. He explained that when Christian missionaries came a hundred years before, his people thought the missionaries were strange and there message unusual. The tribal leaders decided to test the missionaries by slowly poisoning them to death. Over a period of months and years, missionary children died one by one. Then the old man said, "It was as we watched how they died that we decided that we wanted to live as Christians." That story had gone untold for one hundred years. Those who died painful, strange deaths never knew why they were dying or what the impact of their lives and deaths would be. John Huss burning his hand with a candle on the days prior to his execution, And with the very instrument that had blinded him, Louis worked and worked until he had created a system of dots whereby the blind could read and write, work math problems and compose music.
4. We should expect trials and suffering in our lives too. We should work at preparing our minds and hearts for suffering that when they come, we don’t look surprised, we don’t cry out “why me?,” that we don’t become bitter against God, that we are able to carry on biblically, hear from God, and make much of Jesus. We must learn to welcome God-ordained suffering, and view it as an opportunity to allow Christ to shine through us. Suffering reveals much about the condition of our souls. As genuine believers suffering should drive us closer to God. But the option to turn from him because of suffering is a sinister temptation—ask those that have quit Jesus or church because someone has hurt them, or ask the one who had forsaken God because of bitterness against suffering. The writer of Hebrews concludes that because Jesus suffered and we are genuine believers with a better possession on the other side, let us go outside the gate and bear his reproach with Him.
C. Follow the elders (v. 23)
1. The last thing that Paul did to ensure the strengthening of the souls of the disciples was to plan for their long term growth, protection, and strength by establishing elders in every church. Remind them of the position of elder. Remind them of the case that can be made for a plurality of pastoral leadership. Remind them of the duties of pastor/elders. The fact that there were men in these congregations that met the standard for elders, means that Paul’s initial discipleship and their drive and desire to grow was good. Paul knows that discipleship production is inseparably linked to strong, consistent pastoral ministry. And they did all this with much prayer and fasting.
2. 1 Tim 4:16, 5:17, Heb 13:17, 1 Thess 5:12, Deut 17:12,
3. Illustration: this is one of the reasons that so many SBC churches are weak, declining, theologically anemic, and stagnant—they don’t have a wealth of godly pastors who oversee the congregation. South Georgia has the highest rate of forced terminations of pastors in all of GA, and I would guess that we have one of the lowest rates of plural pastoral leadership, We have learned by experience that rapid pastoral turnover greatly contributes to the instability, lack of growth, and the demise of a local church…"The average tenure of a pastor in Protestant churches has declined to just 4 years—even though studies consistently show that pastors experience their most productive and influential ministry in years 5 through 14 of their pastorate."2 We have much work to do in the Assemblies of God to increase the average pastoral tenure. We are certain it is vital to the health of the local church, and it is beneficial to the success and well being of our ministers. “But to continually hire and fire pastors, and for pastors to church-hop must be displeasing to the Lord and is very disruptive to the congregations” Obey. Submit. Those are strong words, particularly in our egalitarian, individualistic culture. Yet the Bible’s call to obey and submit to our leaders in the church is to our advantage, the verse also says. Did you catch that? Through submission we model the godly humility that should characterize us as a church, and through submission we maintain our Christian unity in the midst of disagreement. Thus we demonstrate that our shared faith in Christ is more important than any differences of opinion over matters that aren’t central to the gospel. Another pastor, Leith Anderson, is one of the strongest leaders I know. His church is well known and respected for its ministry effectiveness and culture of excellence. Anderson was once asked how long it had taken him to change the culture at his church after he was hired. "Twenty years," he replied. During his first years there, the church actually got smaller.
4. We should be constantly looking for men that God is raising up with the giftings and abilities to be pastor/elder/overseers. That is how the early church viewed its role in selecting leadership. We should be moving in this direction in our church. It is important for the long-term discipleship of believers to have good pastoral ministry over an extended period of time. How many people do you think get hurt when you run off a pastor? I have talked to people in this church who are still bitter about circumstances of pastoral terminations here. How hard does that make it for the next pastor to get close to people? People down here have the mentality that preachers come and go, but the church members are the real leadership. It is important that we do our church polity and policy biblical. We are not autonomous from our Head. Much of our Southern Baptist life is governed by unbiblical structures. And until we repent in dust and ashes from our historical tradition of our own design, and strive to make Christ’s Church Christ’s Church, we will not find His favor upon us.
A. Closing illustration: "Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth which has a place for the Fatherhood of God, but omits Christ as the living Son. … There is trust in God, but no following of Christ….Discipleship without Christ is a way of our own choosing…it is devoid of all promise. And Christ will surely reject it…The gulf between a voluntary offer to follow and genuine discipleship is clear (Luke 9:57-62). For there are “disciples that place themselves at the disposal of the Master, but at the same time retain the right to dictate the terms; and when this occurs, discipleship is no longer discipleship, but a program of our own to be arranged to suit ourselves.–Bonhoeffer,
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
