Be Brave, Speak and Don’t Give Up!
Series: Acts
Chuck Sligh
August 6, 2017
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Acts 18:5-11 – “And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. 6 And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. 7 And he departed thence, and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. 8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. 9 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: 10 For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. 11 And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”
INTRODUCTION
OPENING QUESTIONS:
-- Have you ever felt a desire to share your faith with someone, but because of what you perceived as past failure, you held your tongue and kept quiet?
-- Have you ever embarked on what was to you a bold step of faith, and somewhere along the way it didn’t go so well, and you were tempted to quit for fear of failure?
-- Have you ever gotten discouraged working in some ministry for the Lord because you didn’t see much visible spiritual fruit from your labors for the Lord?
Illus. – I’m always challenged by the first modern missionaries. In the late 1700s, William Carey, known as “The Father of Modern Missions” was filled with an insatiable desire to go and preach the Gospel at a time when his Baptist brethren, beset by hyper-Calvinism opposed his mission plans.
Once, when sharing his burden to go to India with a group of ministers, an older preacher said, “Sit down, young man. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”
But nothing would stop him and Cary eventually made it to India, where he faced a multitude of hardships—He and his wife contracted one tropical disease after another in a time when there were no anti-biotics; his wife became mentally ill; his son died of a tropical disease, and Carey himself was so weakened by the disease that he didn’t even have the strength to bury him; their son’s death caused Mrs. Cary to spiral even deeper into depression and mental instability.
When another couple, the Marshmans, finally came to help them, they buried six of their twelve children in succession, such were the ravages of the diseases they faced.
But here’s the thing: The Careys and Marshmans never had a single convert until their seventh year on the mission field, and when he was baptized, it caused a riot among the Indians, resulting in political opposition with the colonial administrators.
Years later, God did bless William Carey and his missionary co-workers with a great harvest of people won to Christ.
Now put yourself in their shoes for a moment and imagine how you would feel in year six! What if you gave up in year six, just before God open the doors to success opened in India? All that labor would have been for nothing!
What made them stay and suffer for Christ, and labor and pray and be faithful and witness in a hard field with a difficult people for years with no results! Their journals reveal that the very things we find in today’s text kept them on the field! But they also record many discouraging days—days when the Careys and Marshmens questioned their calling, their motives, their methods, even their own sanity!
Well, he wouldn’t have been the first to do so. In fact, when Paul left Athens, most scholars believe that he was very discouraged. He had had a comparatively unsuccessful campaign in Athens. Everywhere he had gone, he met with opposition and persecution, but usually he left a healthy church—but not in Athens.
Then when Paul came to Corinth…things just seemed to get worse. Paul had run out of money and he was alone without his beloved co-workers for a number of weeks; perhaps months. And Corinth was filled with sinfulness and immorality, and verse 5 says that he was “pressed in his spirit” which means in the Greek that he was “afflicted or suffering in his spirit,”—that is he was suffering a spiritual or mental crisis.
In modern language verses 5-6 are saying this: “When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul was in a state of internal conflict and stress. But he did all he could to persuade the Jews that Jesus was in fact God’s Messiah. But to no success. All they did was argue contentiously and contradict him at every turn. Totally exasperated, Paul had finally had it with them and gave up, saying, ‘Your blood is upon your own heads; I am clean: from now on, I’m going to the Gentiles.’”
Usually, the New Testament presents Paul as always confident and self-assured of his mission and the correct methods to employ. But scholars indicate that if there’s any place in Acts where we see him internally questioning himself, and seems to be struggling with whether and how to continue, it’s here. It was at that time of doubt and internal conflict that the Lord appeared to Paul in the night in a vision and gave him some words of encouragement and a commission to service.
In our Christian lives, we too are charged to reach our world and our friends and our co-workers and our neighbors and our loved ones with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But sometimes it seems like we’re not being successful; sometimes we doubt the value of continuing to witness or continuing to minister in a ministry or place of service.
Let’s see how what God told Paul can help us to continue faithfully in the Lord’s service:
I. FIRST OF ALL, GOD TOLD PAUL, AND US, TO BE COURAGEOUS – Verse 9 begins, “Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, BE NOT AFRAID…”
Some version of “fear not” or “be not afraid” is found over 100 times in the Bible. The number one reason people do not share Christ with others; the number one reason people will not step up to serve in their local church; the number one reason people will not trust God by tithing and giving to God; the number one reason people will not stand for Christ; and the number one reason believers will not follow the Lord in believer’s baptism, though they know God commands it…is FEAR.
But fear does not come from God. Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:7-8 – “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind [which means self-discipline]. 8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.”
God starts by telling Paul not to fear, but to be courageous—and we should be too. What is it that God has challenged your heart to step out and do by faith and you have held back in fear? Whatever it is, He’s whispering in your heart this morning: “Don’t be afraid. Fear not. Don’t have a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-discipline.”
II. SECOND, GOD SAYS “DON’T BE SILENT; SPEAK UP!” – God continued in verse 9, saying “…but speak, and hold not thy peace…”
Why should Paul not be afraid?—So that he would have the determination to speak up and not hold his peace—which means “hold one’s tongue” or “be silent.” No matter what, Paul was not to hold back from sharing Christ with the Corinthians.
You know, as in Paul’s day, the world wants you and me to NOT speak the name of Christ and to hold our peace regarding spiritual matters, our faith, the way of salvation and righteousness, to keep it a private affair. But if ever there were a day when those who name the name of Christ should speak and not hold our peace, it is today! Our world—your own world—desperately needs someone who will be honest with them, and open up and share your faith with them. We must not be afraid, but be courageous to speak and not hold our peace.
III. THIRD, GOD ASSURED HIM OF HIS PRESENCE.
The Lord continues in verse 10, “for I am with thee…”
The Greek in verse 10 is more emphatic and personal. Literally, it reads, “For I MYSELF am with thee.” When we speak for Christ or share our faith, the Lord is saying, “I, myself, am with you. I’m right there, with you and in you. You cannot fail. All you are required to do is be courageous, trust me and open your mouth and I will be with you and will guide you and give you the words to say.”
Susan and I have noticed how many times we have just opened our mouths to speak and somehow verses long forgotten would come to our minds to share, thoughts never thought of or heard before would pour forth from our lips, and looking back, we could see that we were not in control, but GOD was in control, and the Holy Spirit filled our minds with the words to say. We felt in a most tangible and real way the presence of the Lord.
When you share our faith with others, or invite someone to church, or talk about spiritual matters, God is saying “I am with you.”
The gospel of Matthew gives us 2 wonderful bookends: It begins with “Emmanuel, God with us” and in the closing words we find the Great Commission, where Jesus promises, “…I am with you always, even unto the end or the world.”
When we seek to do our part to fulfill the Great Commission, we can be sure of God’s presence every step of the way. So why should we fear, or hold back or keep our tongue?
Then God said in verse 10, “…and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee…”
God does not always promise us this protection, nor did he promise Paul this kind of protection in every places he ministered. In this case, God had a task for Paul to accomplish in Corinth and He was promising him protection until Paul had accomplished hat task.
In reality, the enemy cannot do one thing to you nor can any accident befall you without God’s express permission. God is assuring Paul that HE is in control and he should trust in Him and to get to work witnessing and preaching and church-planting.
Illus. – A Christian business owner had a cartoon in his office of a man sitting at his desk, all stressed out. – The caption read “God put me on earth to do a certain number of things. Right now, I’m so far behind, I will never die!”
And guess what?—You will never die until God is finished with you! So stop holding back and get busy in the work God has for you!
IV. LASTLY, GOD SAID TO PAUL, “YOU CANNOT FAIL IF YOU OBEY AND SPEAK UP” – The Lord continues in verse 10 to say, “…for I have many people in this city.”
God assured Paul that he would have results. Why?—Because He had many people in Corinth just waiting to hear the Gospel and be saved.
Do you realize that if we open our mouths to speak, it is impossible for us to fail? You see, we often measure success by visible results; God measures success by our faithfulness to speak and witness and minster. We may never know if our efforts result in tangible success because we do not know who will be saved and when they will trust Christ as Savior. But God does, so he simply tells us, “Don’t be afraid. Just speak about me. I’ll sort out the ones who will respond and you’ll be able to be one of the links to help bring them to faith.”
Studies show that rarely does anyone come to faith the first time they hear the Gospel. Bill Fey, of Share Jesus Without Fear, said that studies have shown that a person without Christ experiences on average at least eight of what he calls “significant touches” from believers before they commit to faith in Christ. A “significant touch” might be someone who shares their faith with that person, or maybe someone who is a good model of a Christian, or perhaps someone who answers an important question that person has, or a believer who shows God’s love in a meaningful way to that person, and so on (you get the idea).
So if you do one of those things with someone and they don’t trust Christ as an immediate result of your witness, don’t worry: you don’t know yet where you are in the continuum of eight significant touches (maybe you’re the first, or maybe you’re number seven), but GOD knows—and that’s all that counts.
And remember, these are just averages. So some people require many more touches. You might be number 34 and he or she puts their faith in Christ on the 35th significant touch! The key is just to be faithful; not to fear; to speak up!
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:6-8 – “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing [of more importance], neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.”
Let’s just get out there and labor and maybe in a person’s life we’ll just be planting, maybe in another we’ll be watering what someone else planted, God knows who will be saved, and He’ll give the increase if we’ll just do our part.
CONCLUSION
Well, what happened after Paul heard these words from the Lord? Look with me at verse 11 – “And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”
God had challenged Paul to be courageous; He told him not to be silent, but to speak up and share Christ; He comforted him with the promise that He would be with Paul all the way; and He assured Paul that he could not fail. With these challenging and comforting words from the Savior, Paul stayed in Corinth for eighteen months, doing exactly what God told him to do.
The result of listening to God’s counsel was a period of two important activities that had a wide impact on the spread of the Gospel and the discipleship of new believers:
-- First was the spread of the Gospel not only in Corinth, but at least two other areas:
1) In Cenchrea, a port a few miles from Corinth, for Paul says in Romans 16:1 – “I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at CENCHREA.”
2) And also throughout the whole of Achaia, a large region around Corinth. – We know this because Paul told the Corinthian believers in 2 Corinthians 1:1 – “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all ACHAIA.”
-- The second important activity Paul did in Corinth that had a great impact was the his first two letters of sacred scripture.
Scholars tell us it was from Corinth that Paul penned 1 and 2 Thessalonians. These two letters were the first of 13 that were to significantly impact the church and individual believers for centuries to come.
Now, what does God want us to take away from this passage of Scripture?
1) First, that you and I should be daily witnesses for the Lord.
There are a myriad of opportunities we have to stand up for Christ and to reflect Christ in your life and to be salt and light to those around us.
-- We can invite people to church so that they get under the sound of the Word of God, which is so important, for Paul says in Romans 10:17 – “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
-- We can invite people into our homes for meals or for coffee or do fun things together to be able at some point to open up natural lines of communication to share your faith.
-- You can make sure your life is godly and a positive example of what it means to walk in Christian obedience.
-- We often overlook how important living consistent Christian lives influences people for Christ, for nothing turns people off more than a hypocrite!
-- You can do acts of loving service for those who are in need, for this reflects the reality of your faith in your life.
The list of opportunities we have to share our faith and stand for Christ is endless …IF we’ll not be afraid; if we’ll speak and not hold our peace; if we’ll trust in God’s presence and power; and if we’ll be faithful regardless of whether we see visible results or not.
Noah preached for 120 years and never saw a single soul who heeded his message besides his own family, yet he was faithful to the end. Jeremiah preached his whole ministry, and never did a single person ever respond to his message, yet he never stopped warning of God’s wrath to come. Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary from the United States, preached tirelessly for six long years before he saw his first convert in Burma, yet he never stopped.
2) My final application of this sermon to our lives and to our church is this: We need to constantly be reminded that the Lord has, “much people in this city.”
We’ve just got to find them and bring them in. They may not be saved yet; but they’re out there. And there may people who are already believers, but do not know about Grace Baptist Church whom God wants YOU to tell about and give a good word about and invite them to attend. We’ve just got to be faithful and tireless to do what God has put us here to do!
We need to be reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:58 – “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
In God’s service, are you being steadfast, which means continually and faithfully?
-- Are you unmovable—which means you won’t be moved off the course of faithfulness and steadfastness by weariness or discouragement or laziness or apathy?
-- Are you always abounding in the work of the Lord?...
-- In some service of ministry in your local church?
-- In deeds of love and kindness to others in or outside the church?
-- In other words, “What on earth are you doing for heaven’s sake?”
There are many people in Grafenwoehr and Vilseck who need to know of Jesus Christ’s forgiveness and how to have eternal life; and about Grace Baptist Church, a place to grow in Christ, and learn the Word of God and be challenged in our faith and serve God in a ministry or place of serving.
May we not be afraid, but speak and not be silent and work faithfully for our Lord!
