We Must Suffer Many Things
Acts 14
Questions to consider:
How did Barnabas and Paul “strengthen” believers?
What is the primary mission of the church?
What is your response to the gospel?
What is your involvement in God’s plan to spread the Good News?
Are you doing the work of God?
Are you continuing in the faith?
We Must Suffer Many Things
Finally, they [Barnabas and Paul] returned by ship to Antioch of Syria, where their journey had begun. The believers there had entrusted them to the grace of God to do the work they had now completed.
Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too. And they stayed there with the believers for a long time.
Acts 14:26-28
In Acts 13-14 Luke tells us about the church’s first missionary endeavor: Barnabas and Saul (Paul) were called by the Holy Spirit and endorsed by the leadership in the church at Antioch Syria (13:1-3). This was the first intentional effort the church made to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This was a team effort under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Think of the image of a spear: Barnabas and Paul acted as the head of the spear, and the church was the shaft that critically supported the head, and it was the Holy Spirit who wielded the spear. Barnabas and Paul were supported by the church. That was why they felt it was right and necessary to return to their church to “report everything God had done through them.”
When our church (today) is “called together” to hear from our missionaries “everything God had done through them,” what do you expect to hear? I think we expect to hear about the “great” things God has done through them—how the gospel was spread, how many came to faith and were saved, how many churches were started, people were fed, the homeless housed, the sick healed and our missionaries blessed. Barnabas and Paul reported both the “great” things and the “not great” things—they reported “everything,” because “everything” that happened was what God had done through them for his glory. According to Acts 13-14 this is what Barnabas and Paul would have reported to the church who sent them out.
There were times when Barnabas and Paul had power from God and did what we considered “great” things for God. But they considered “everything” that happened through them the work of God, according to the plan of God. God used persecution, and seeming “setbacks,” to get his servants to places he wanted to use them for his purposes. It was the rejection they experienced from the Jews that pushed them toward, and thus how, God opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
They strengthened believers, not by encouraging them to believe God for “great” things, rather they encouraged them to “continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” Suffering hardships should expected—more than “great” things. Strong faith doesn’t believe God for necessarily “great” things, rather it “continues in the faith” through everything.
It is our misguided and selfish desires that expects great things, that leads to the collapse of our faith. When Jesus told his disciples God’s will was for him to suffer many things and be killed, Peter reprimanded him. “This will never happen to you” (see Matthew 16:21-25). Jesus responded to Peter, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Then Jesus went on to address all his disciples saying, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
We struggle in our faith, in our relationship with God, because we look at things merely from a human point of view. We have not given up our own way. We try to hang on to our lives. We do not want to believe that to follow Jesus we must “take up our cross” and “suffer many hardships.”
The primary mission of the church is to spread the Good News: we are sinners, estranged from God; through trust in Jesus as God’s Christ we can be made right with God and become true children of God. Spreading this Good News was what Barnabas and Paul were sent out to do. That was the work God did through them. This Gospel is Good News, but it is not considered that by many. Paul received a mixed reception. To those who are being saved, it is life. To others it is the pronouncement of their death (2 Corinthians 2:14-16). To some the gospel is the power of God. To others, it is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18). In two thousand years the primary need of all people has not changed, nor has the Good News.
What is your response to the gospel? What is your involvement in the church’s mission to spread the Good News? Are you doing the work of God? Are you continuing in the faith? Must you suffer many things to enter the Kingdom of God? ■