In America we love our heros, the people that we look up to. Many people dream of being a super hero when we are children, I know I did, and I had the bruises to prove it. But being a hero is hard. Batman and Robin are camping in the desert, set up their tent and are asleep. Some hours later, Batman wakes his faithful friend. "Robin, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Robin replies, "I see millions of stars." "What does that tell you?" asks Batman. Robin ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Batman?" Batman is silent for a moment, then speaks: " Robin, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent."
As we grow up we realize that hero’s come in many shapes and sizes and I have yet to meet one who got they way because there were bitten by a radio active spider of survived a fall into toxic waste, although changing diapers does come pretty close. In fact when it comes to people who are hero’s because of special powers I only know of one, Jesus. We talk about what He did in the past, think about it, aqua man can swim under water, Jesus walked on it. Superman can fly and leap over tall buildings in a single bound but Jesus didn’t just fly He went all the way up into heaven. We know all of these things but do we see Jesus as the hero of the story? That is one of the gifts of the Chronicles of Narnia, by showing Jesus as the Hero Aslan we are reminded that our God is a hero who shows up to save the day.
Do we remember it, or do we take it for granted. How we really should answer this question, the truthful answer is revealed in one simple thing, what we tell our story to we make God the hero of it or are we the hero? That is the choice that Paul and Barnabas were faced with in Acts chapter 14. I’m not going to read the whole chapter to you but here’s the key point. Acts 14:8-18, “In Lystra tere 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. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lyconian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes 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. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ‘Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are brining 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.’ Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.”
Think for a moment about someone that you consider to be a hero and what sets them apart. It can be a great athlete, world leader, policeman or some other public servant. And then think for a moment about someone that you thought was a hero and then realized that they weren’t. They may be someone from the first list, think for a moment about what it is that made them fall from grace.
Often it’s not a failure in what they are supposed to do. We understand that athlete are great for awhile but eventually with age the fleet of foot get caught, they can’t turn on a fastball any more, or the one who used to soar to the basket now seems to be bound by gravity. We don’t discard them for those things we thank them for the memories. Usually when our hero’s fall from grace it is because something failed in the personal realm. We can talk about temptations and circumstances but what it really comes down to is motivation what did they set out to accomplish in the first place?
In the book of Acts we see the motivations of the early church on display. You understand that there are those who would question why they did what they did. Fools who would say that they were doing this for some profit motive to benefit from what they were teaching. I say fools because that is what someone is when the speak without knowledge. All you have to do is read the book of Acts and the corroboration of the ancients to understand that for those who stuck with the gospel as Jesus lived it and passed it on to them there wasn’t a lot of comfort. But in this passage we see Paul and Barnabas go from a bad situation to one where they could have had the world, or at least this city at their beck and call. But that isn’t what they wanted, their motive was to lead people into an understanding and relationship with the real and living God. This was revealed not just by their words but by their deeds. Why was it so important to them? Because they knew that their was only one way to heaven, belief in and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord. They knew that message was true and the devoted their lives to taking that to other people.
This chapter begins by telling about what happened when Paul and Barnabas visited Iconium. Everything there started off great. You’ll notice that they started off by speaking in the Jewish synagogue. That was Paul’s pattern so much so that here it says that they went “as usual into the Jewish synagogue.” He went there because as a Jew he had a heart for the Jewish people, but also as someone who was speaking the truth he knew that the most fruitful mission field was right there with the people who should best understand exactly who Jesus was and what He had done. If you understand that then the next passage makes perfect sends. It says that “a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed.
Note that Luke here specifically mentions that people from both groups believed, what he is doing is making sure that people understand that what follows in his writing is not the fault of all of the Jews but some of the Jews. There is something else that seems to be a work here. They were not presenting the gospel only to those people who accepted it quickly. They did not gain a great number of converts and the get into a holy huddle to solidify their influence with the large number of followers they had gained. Understand that if they just wanted to be comfortable that is what they could have done.
But they felt that they had a message that was more important then life and death and so they pressed. How do we know that? Because the next verse says, “But the Jews who refused to believe…” Do you see it? It’s not the Jews who didn’t believe, or who declined to believe, but who refused to believe. It’s strong language, it indicates that they were pressed to the point of a decision and strong decision. Understand that this indicates that Paul didn’t just get up and speak for a bit, and then gave an altar call and after 5 verses of “Just as I Am” they gave up. This verse indicates that Paul coninuted to present the gospel to them until they refused to believe. If they had a question he answered it, and objection, he responded to it. He kept explaining it until they had to understand it and they simply refused to accept it.
Tell me, when was the last time that you shared the gospel with someone until they refused to accept it? We are so soft, we share the gospel with some one and they say, that’s good enough to you but not for me, and we say, ok. And go do something else or change the subject. We’ve got our friends that we agree to disagree with and let it end at that. But there are people that God places in our lives to touch. Do we understand that one day they will stand in judgment before the living God? Can you imagine seeing your friend in that moment and they look at you and say, you knew about this and you didn’t tell me? You took no for an answer and then didn’t bring it up again for the sake of our comfortable friendship? There are people that we need to be praying for and about, that we need to share Christ with, sometimes to the point that it literally could be said that they refused to believe. If you think that sounds harsh, to our culture it is but do we want to exist in our culture or transform our culture. The church in Acts changed it’s world because their motive was to share the gospel and their method was to do it to the point that people had to refuse to believe.
Some people will, God gave them that freedom, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try no matter what. Look at what those who refused to believe did, they stirred up opposition. See there’s something else to note in Luke’s language here he used a word for unbelieving that means the disobedient. That term only occurs a few times in scripture and it’s never good when it does. One of the times it was used was by Moses in Deuteronomy 1:26, ‘You were not willing to go up, however, but instead rebelled against the LORD your God.’ Moses is talking to the people about their fate in the land, why they have struggled so much and he compares it to when the spies went in to scout the promised land and people refused to listen to Joshua and Caleb saying they could conquer the land. Luke is associating the refusal to accept Christ with the refusal to accept the promised land. It’s a great comparison after all the promise of the Gospel is a home in what Shakespeare called “the undiscovered country.”
Those who refused to believe caused trouble for Paul and Barnabas, they did this to stop the message, but it didn’t work at first. Paul and Barnabas initially responded to opposition with boldness. When there was unbelief they preached, when there was a refusal to believe, they preached, when there was opposition they preached. Do you get what they wanted to do? Their motive was clear they wanted to preach the gospel. If hero’s are truly revealed by their motives they were there.
Here is the sad thing even though many people believed what Paul and Barnabas preached those who refused to believe were still able to poison enough people’s minds that they were able to get a mob to try and kill them. You understand Luke doesn’t reference a compelling argument being raised, just that people’s minds were poisoned. Someone told them to think a certain way and so they did it. Just a quick question, who controls your thoughts, God or someone else? Do you believe because you know that God is real or because church is what you’ve always done? Let me assure you that our God is real, the that evidence for a faith founded on reason is everywhere, but if you really want to know that God is real then ask Him to do things through you that can only happen if He’s involved, when He shows up you’ll have the answer to your questions.
Back to our passage, so the people in the city are divided, and group wants to mistreat them and stone them so Paul and Barnabas leave. Understand there are times when we need to stand for our faith, and there are times to leave, this was one of those times when they needed to leave. How do you know the difference? You pray about it and trust the Holy Spirit to lead you.
Paul leaves but you understand that he has a divine appointment. Look at what happens when they get to next place, we don’t read that as usual Paul went to the synagogue. No the first thing that we read about here is that Paul runs into a crippled man who had never walked. He is there as Paul was preaching, he’s probably preaching his way into the city. But this man is listening and believing. He has faith, the faith necessary for Paul to work a miracle. How does Paul know this? Well because he looked directly at him. Paul looked at him, he examined him. Understand this was different from when Peter healed the lame man in Acts 3, that man looked at Peter, here Paul is doing the looking. Paul is looking and I believe that he is praying and he responded to the man’s faith as revealed by the Holy Spirit. That’s our partner, when we pray we need to listen and wait for Him to speak, then when He speaks we need to act. Paul looks at the man, the man’s faith is revealed and then he commands him, he shouts, “Stand up on your feet.” He doesn’t whisper it, or say it so that it can mean someone else, Paul shouts it so that everyone know what and who he means and the man jumps to his feet. Paul had faith, the man had faith and God had the power, and that day a miracle happened.
The people who saw it knew it for what it was and they reacted the only way they knew how, they gave the credit to Paul. It sounds like a reasonable reaction doesn’t it? I mean we still do this today to a certain point. Even within the church when someone does something for God we have a tendency to talk about them rather then the one who inspired them. In our culture we deify people all the time for the silliest of reasons. I mean at summer camp our speaker came out and before he started his message he told us where LeBron James signed. I wanted to say who cares, but I knew that the reason he did it was to stop everyone who was checking on their cell phones to find out. He just told them the answer so they would focus when he talked about God.
We deify people, in this case it was a guy who throws a leather ball at a hoop and less then half the time it goes in. These people had just seen a guy who could never walk jump up and start walking. Paul called his shot and he was perfect, this was amazing stuff so they respond in a way that was reasonable, they call Paul and Barnabas gods. Paul they called Hermes, in Greek mythology that was the God of interpretation, the messenger of the gods makes sense. Zeus was the leader of the gods. The people named them according to the roles that they saw them playing. Paul was the speaker, Barnabas the leader and organizer. It shows their gifts, we’re going to talk about gifts this fall, but we all have them, their all needed and their all valuable. God blessed the ministry of Paul and Barnabas because they worked together as a team.
If we want to change our world like the church in Acts did we have to be motivated to share the gospel like they were and we have to do it as a team. But there’s one major thing that we have to do. You’ll notice that when the people saw what happened, when they made plans to celebrate they slipped out of the common language of Greek and into their native tongue, so it takes Paul and Barnabas a while to know what they are doing, when they figure it out they stop it.
Again this reveals their motives. The first couple of stops have been rough, in the last place people wanted to mistreat them at the least and kill them at the most. Here they could have settled in as God’s on earth. You understand the Greeks had a lower level of expectations for their God’s then we do. They had life wired. The miracle was worked, the people gave them the credit for it. They even had someone who would be a willing accomplice to help them. The priest of Zeus came from his temple outside the city. This was a great opportunity for him. I don’t care how ecumenical a city is if the god that you’re the priest of actually shows up, you’re moving downtown real quick. So he jumps on it, he’s leading the parade, he’s got the oxen, this is going to be a big party.
If Paul and Barnabas just wanted comfort and influence they had it all right here. But they see what happens and it says they tore their clothes, that was to publically show they were upset and they run and put a stop to it. Paul stands up and rather then taking all of the credit he gives it to God. Understand what he is doing Paul made God the hero. Not just in this case but through all of life. See in religion the Greeks were just trying to make sense of life and how we got here, they just wanted someone to thank for the blessings that happened and to talk to when things went wrong. It doesn’t sound too far off from what most people want today and Paul seizes the opportunity to tell them that that is what God does. Look at verses 15-17, “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.”
He covers it all, the source of rain and crops which their lives revolved around, the answer for how we got here, but then He goes one step further because he says all of that is worthless unless you know the living God. Why was the priest of Zeus so willing to be an accomplice and so willing to accept them? Because he never expected Zeus to show up. It is a waste to put your energy into a god you don’t believe in when there is a living God who has stepped into history. We don’t hope that God will show up, we expect Him to show up again because He has already been here, we’re just waiting for Him to come back again. And when He does the promise isn’t limited to rain, although in July that would be nice, it isn’t limited to some good crops, it is the promise that He will not only be a part of our lives in the here and now but when we step into that undiscovered country He has already been there and that is our promised land, all we have to do is believe. That is who God is, He is the hero of the human story we call history and that is what Paul and Barnabas lived to proclaim. We see it in their actions as described by their motives and because of that they changed their world. What about us, do we make God the hero of our story? When some comments on our successes do we say it’s because we worked hard or because God blessed us. When someone notes our talent to we point them to the source or take the credit. How you answer that reveals you motives.
People can be hero’s, the apostle Paul is a hero of mine, so is Barnabas, but God is the Original and only superhero, because He is at the center of everything. That is the message that Paul preached and it cost him everything. We have an enemy, Paul preaches the gospel, challenges their worldview and leaves himself open for attack. You understand that we have an enemy, he hates us. How strong is hate, their were unbelievers there, those who had refused from Antioch and Iconium, they followed him, stalkers. As he rejects the peoples worship they use it to turn the crowd against him. Public opposition is a different approach. If we want to change our culture we have to understand that sometimes we are going to have to push until people refuse, always we are going to have to work as a team and that the hero of our story must be God because let’s face it He is and any other motive will lead to failure. We also have to understand that our enemy learns. Before the opposition poisoned the minds of people behind the scenes but this is direct opposition, they turn the crowd right then, before they have a chance to think and understand what Paul said, and rather then plotting to mistreat and possibly stone Paul they go for the execution right then.
There is both and irony and justice in Paul’s fate. This is what happened to Stephen while he held the councils cloaks, this would have been something that he would have done when he was persecuting the church. They led him to a ledge that would be 15 to 20 feet high they would turn him around so that he faced them and them they would throw him off the ledge hoping that he would break his back, then they would get together and throw a large bolder over hoping so smash his head. After that they would throw rocks the size of a fist or slightly bigger down until he stopped moving, hoping that it would kill him. Then they left him there dead or dying.
What is worth a fate like that? All he had to do was accept the praise of the people and he could have lived as a God for the rest of his life. Instead he lays there, no real possibility of survival a victim of a tactic he had used. As he lay there some may wonder if he thought it was worth. But I don’t, he knew the risk every time he presented the gospel, including when he returned to this very city. What could be worth that? A message that was more important then life or death that there is a real and living God. That all we have to do is call on Him. Here is a simple invitation if you have never done that let me invite you to do so today. This book is not a collection of stories it is the history of the living God and His people, and He wants to be a part of your life today.
If you will do that then you can rest in this assurance, you are never beyond the reach of God, no matter what. Paul should have been dead, there was no hospital to take him to, no surgeons to deal with the internal bleeding or give blood transfusions. But he didn’t die he went to the next city and preached the same gospel, and a large number of disciples accepted it. He came back to Lystra and strengthen the faith of the disciples in the very town where they tried to murder him. Was it worth it? Yeah, do you realize that one of those we’re going to read about in a few chapters, his name was Timothy there are two books in the new testament written to this young man who would become Paul’s spiritual son. When we understand who God is, that He is the hero who makes everything work, then we understand that no matter the price now matter how dark things may be or how strong the enemy may seem. Our God wins in the end. The question is will you join Him today or will you refuse.
