“Do Not Be Afraid; Keep on speaking, Do not be silent” Acts 18:1-11
Vicar Peter Zaferos August 7, 2011
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Lord willing, later on this afternoon, my family and I will be setting out on a journey of approximately 713 miles! In the past, whenever someone would travel any distance across this country, they would have to pull out the atlas. I remember seeing my dad study one of those things for hours before we’d take a trip! But today, things are a bit different. You can ask my wife, I haven’t spent any time sitting at the kitchen table with an atlas, and I promise you I won’t be. I’ll simply plug our destination into the GPS, and off we’ll go.
I assume most, if not all of you, have at some time used a GPS or some type of digital map to help find your way while driving. But I wonder, how many of you have taken advantage of a new feature offered by all the big digital map websites? How many of you have used the walking directions? Any of you? If you weren’t aware, Google Maps and all the others now offer walking directions! I’m not sure how much use that feature will get outside of big cities, but it’s kind of fun to mess around with. Just for fun I punched in our address in Johnson City for the starting point, and our address in Thiensville, WI as the destination. Any idea what the estimated walking time was? 216 hours! And that’s including a ferry ride across Lake Michigan at the end! That’s like walking 9 days without stopping! If you broke that up into 8 hour chunks, it would take you 27 days! And you want to know the crazy part? I would have to walk from here to Thiensville, WI four times before I traveled as far as the Apostle Paul traveled on his second missionary journey alone!!
Our text for this morning comes from the book of Acts. And it’s found in the section of Acts where we hear about Paul’s missionary journeys. The account we’ll look at this morning takes place towards the end of Paul’s second missionary journey as he’s traveling through southern Greece. You may be familiar with the account of Paul in Athens where he finds an altar to an “unknown god.” Paul then goes on to use that “unknown god” as a starting point for a sermon in which he tells the Athenians about the true God. That happens right before our text.
When we pick up at the beginning of Acts chapter 18, Paul has left Athens and just arrived in Corinth. Now if you look at a map of Greece, Corinth is pretty much directly west of Athens. And it doesn’t look all that far. According to Google Maps its only 50 miles—that’s a shorter drive than from Johnson City to Morristown. But remember Paul wasn’t driving! I checked it out on Google Maps, and it estimates that Paul’s trip from Athens to Corinth would have taken him about 17 hours, assuming he was walking!
Today, we kind of take traveling for granted. We can travel 50 miles in less than one hour, no problem. But in Paul’s day, simply traveling from one city to the next was a big deal! If we had to walk to 70 miles to Morristown every time we went to visit the folks at Living Promise, I wonder how willing we’d be to make that trip!
But then there’s Paul. Paul was more than willing to travel the 50 miles from Athens to Corinth. In fact we know Paul was willing to travel a whole lot further than that! As I hinted earlier, his second journey alone, which took him from a town called Antioch, just north of Jerusalem, through the modern day country of Turkey, up and around the Aegean Sea, and then down through Greece is estimated to have been a little less than 3,000 miles! And only the last thousand or so, the portion that took him back towards Jerusalem, was by ship! That means Paul may have walked as much 2,000 miles on his second missionary journey alone! That’s a lot of walking! And there was reason for all that walking.
A few minutes ago we heard that, after getting settled in Corinth, and after he found some work making tents, Paul spent every Sabbath day in the synagogue, reasoning with both the Jews and the Greeks, answering any questions they might have had. Paul was doing mission work! By going to the synagogue he was going to the local Jewish population, to people who were waiting for the Messiah. It must have been an incredible privilege! To have the opportunity to walk into a Jewish Synagogue and say, God has kept His promise! The long awaited Messiah has come!
And then we hear that after Silas and Timothy joined Paul in Corinth, Paul “devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ,” the promised Messiah. God had given Paul the task of sharing that message with as many people as possible. So as he traveled those thousands of miles, all Paul was really doing was looking for opportunities—opportunities to share the message of salvation in Jesus Christ!
But just as soon as we hear about Paul’s devotion to preaching the Gospel we also hear about those who rejected it. Did Paul’s reaction to that rejection surprise you at all? Listen to it again, “But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” How would you feel if you traveled 2,000 thousand miles with a life saving message only to be opposed and abused? It couldn’t have felt good. And yet, Paul says to those who rejected Christ, “This is on you. I’ve done all I can do.”
There is a lesson for us here. It’s not our job to convince. It’s our job to tell—it’s our job to confess. Thinking we play any role in the faith of another, beyond telling, is a dangerous road to walk on. I know I’ve fallen into that trap from time to time. “If I would have delivered that message more clearly, or if I would have worded it in a different way, or if I had just pressed that one person a little harder, maybe they would understand!” When I start thinking that way, I’m forgetting that I, personally, have no power, whatsoever, to work faith in the heart of another human being. I’m a sinful human being, just like they are. But when we tell someone about what Jesus has done for them, and when we confess our own faith in Him, we are delivering the very Word of God to the hearts of people who really need to hear it. And from that point on, my hands are clean, I am clear of my responsibility, just like Paul. Once God’s Word has been proclaimed, the Holy Spirit goes to work, creating faith. When someone rejects Jesus as their Savior from sin, they’ve rejected something God Himself placed in their heart. Their blood is on their own head.
But that’s just one side of ministry, that’s the side that’s really hard to deal with. Praise the Lord there’s another side to ministry. After God’s Word is proclaimed and the Holy Spirit creates faith, sometimes, that precious gift of faith is cherished! Sometimes, people are invited, and they come! Sometimes, people study God’s Word, and they want more! Friends, that’s why Living Word is here! There is work to be done, here! In Johnson City! And who knows, maybe in Bristol or Kingsport too! Yes, there will be people who will reject God’s message, but there will also be people who will hear it and crave more! That’s why you are here.
This is an exciting time for Living Word. Your daughter congregation has just become your sister congregation! Not only has Living Word grown, but you’ve participated in planting a brand new church! But, just because God blessed one mission effort, doesn’t mean He will bless them all. Just like Paul, you’ll experience ups and downs. Some will oppose you, others may even abuse you. Some will show interest and then fade away; others will come and stay a lifetime. But throughout all those different possibilities, through the highs and the lows, one thing will keep you going. Just like Paul, you have a message you can’t help but share. As you’ve studied God’s Word, the Holy Spirit has convinced you of your sinfulness, and then pointed you to the cross for forgiveness. You personally know the joy that comes from knowing your salvation in Jesus is a free gift. There are no “ifs,” there are no “ands,” there are no “buts!” The salvation Jesus won for all people is a free gift! It’s yours, and yours to share!
One final word of encouragement is found in the words the Lord himself spoke to Paul in a vision. They are recorded for us in verses 9 and 10. “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” God used these words to encourage a man, who was in the process of traveling the world, with the sole purpose of sharing God’s message of salvation. When the Lord says, “Do not be afraid,” He speaks the same words heard by the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem the night of Jesus’ birth, and the same words the angel spoke to those at the tomb Easter Sunday morning. “Don’t be afraid!” The Greek construction literally saying, “Don’t ever be afraid again!” And for good reason! The Christian has nothing to fear in this life because Jesus’ death on the cross has paid for our sins in full, we are at peace with God! And not only that, but Jesus’ resurrection has once and for all proven His power over death. The very same power He will one day use to raise all the dead back to life! You see, there is nothing to fear in this life—everything that happens to a Christian on this earth, be it something that seems good or bad, everything simply brings the Christian one step closer to the eternity in heaven that awaits them!
Friends, may God bless you as you work in his kingdom. Continue to tell people what Jesus has done for them! Tell them how Jesus has done it all—how there’s nothing left for them to do! And as you do, “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent!” And remember, as you serve here in the Tri-Cities and beyond, you don’t have to walk like Paul. You can drive your car!
Amen? Amen!!