Faithful in the Fruit and the Friction.

Faithful in both fruit and friction

Amen. Okay, so here we go. We're picking up in our story in Acts, where we are seeing more and more of Paul continuing to preach with this boldness, with this confidence, with this authority, and he is met with not only praise.if anything, little of that.but actually a lot more pain and persecution.

Our so what is going to be this, and it's going to give us context: faithfulness to Jesus produces both fruitfulness and friction. That's what we see in the text today. And our now what is this. What is an invitation for us? Remain faithful to Jesus, both in the friction. And as we do that, trust that he is the one producing the fruit and he's going to do that time and time again if we can learn to live in that reality of both existing together.

So, okay, I want you to say this after me. Two things can be true. One more time with more confidence so you believe it. Two things can be true. This is what we're reading about today. Paul, as he is faithful to Jesus, he's experiencing two different things. The faithfulness of God as he's preaching the word, and then all of a sudden this friction and this tension that is rising up.

And we're going to continue to come back to this today as we see that Paul, as he preaches, miracles are happening, deep discipleship is happening as he stays rooted and faithful to Jesus. And then the mistreatment comes, the misunderstanding comes, even murder attempts come his way. What we're seeing here is a reminder for us that the invitation to the gospel and following Jesus is both hard and holy work. Both exist in the same space. And as followers of Jesus, this is so crucial for us to understand.

And if you're just following Jesus or figuring out what it looks like to you out of kindness, like, I don't ever want to paint following Jesus as just this glamorous thing on this side of eternity. Because as we're here on earth, we are living for something so much more. And there will come a day where we will be with Jesus in such a close space that we won't experience the pain. We won't experience the hard things. We won't experience the grief and the disappointment and the discouragement.

But until we're in heaven with Jesus, on this side of eternity, we're going to be in this space where both things exist. And these two things can be true. So here's some practical examples. I won't say less spiritual because everything we do is spiritual, right. But here's some examples of this.

Those parents in the room, you can love your sweet babies so dearly and also be counting down the minutes and seconds until they fall asleep so that you can get some rest at the end of the night. Like, both of those things can be true. You can love and be so grateful for the job that you have and be praising God for provision. And also, even today, as the Sunday scary set in, be a little bit nervous and anxious to have to go back into that office or to that classroom tomorrow. Both of those things can exist in the same space and be true.

And we're seeing many of these moments in this passage today. And so many times we can get stuck if we just think, well, if I'm doing God's will, then everything's going to go well. Because if we only live from that space, then the second that hard things start to happen, we're going to not think they're holy anymore, and we're going to get confused about whether or not to keep moving. But Paul had to have this understanding that as he's faithful to Jesus, Jesus was going to be faithful to him. That the fruit was going to come whether or not he always got to see it or taste it himself.

He had to keep being faithful. Faithfulness, walking without sight. Even when you can't always see it, even when you can't always feel it physically, to trust Jesus in it. So we're going to see this as we read through this story today: both the fruit and the friction.

The fruit and the friction in Iconium

At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went, as usual, into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord, who continued the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. The people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and to stone them. But they found out about this. They fled to Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country where they continued to preach the good news.

Acts 14:1-7

It says, as they went there to the Jewish synagogue, they spoke so effectively. So they're doing good. Like they nailed it. Like they preached good sermons. It was effective. People knew it. They grew in great numbers. But then some of the people who refused to believe started to stir up this trouble.

And then they found out about this. They poisoned their minds. And we see here that two things are growing at the same time. People are coming to know Jesus at the exact same time that people are growing in their tensions, growing in their frustrations. Two things are growing at once, even though they're being obedient and faithful to Jesus.

So I know you've all been dying for my garden updates in this room this summer. Nobody actually wants my garden updates, but here they are. Okay, so if you follow me on social media, half of my content and my personality is about my kale and my garden. I often refer to myself like I feel like I eat like a rabbit because my favorite snack is like fresh kale from my garden. Like walking out and I know you're supposed to like rub it and you're supposed to like clean it and all that stuff. I get that. But I love fresh kale. I love just eating it straight out of the garden.

So this is now my third year in my home in the same little garden plot that I've been planting my kale every single summer. But this summer, for whatever reason, not only.like, when I say like the previous summers I barely had to weed. I don't know what it was going on in the soil, but it was like beautiful, and I had these kale bushes. Everyone's like, "How's your kale, Abbie? How's your kale?" And if you see me get a little sensitive it's because my kale does not exist this summer.

For whatever reason, my kale started to grow and at the same time all these weeds started to grow like twice the size. But I did the same thing. Like I planted the same plants and I don't do them from seed, even though I know that's the cool thing to do. I get them from Willie Street Co-op and I put them in and they usually grow into like bushes and they're beautiful. But this year instead, the weeds grew stronger and overtook, and the bunnies found out where my kale was this year. Every time that it would like start to get full, it was like destroyed the next day. The bunnies would come because they now know where to go. They knew that the kale was good and it was flourishing.

And as I was thinking about today and I'm thinking about how two things grow, I'm thinking about my garden. And it's like, even though I was faithful to plant in the same way that I always plant, I was faithful to water, I was faithful to go in and try and weed and keep up. Two things were growing at the same time and one started to overtake. And then other people, the bunny, saw what was happening and they came and they tried to destroy.

You see, as we are faithful to do the things in front of us, sometimes other things are going to grow. And this is what requires us to be people that are continuing to be faithful and continuing to tend to the gardens of our heart and to continue to be careful to remove the things. And to keep staying when God says stay and then to walk away when he says walk away. And this is what Paul is doing here. He's recognizing that he did what he could in this. He was faithful to preach and some believed and they grew and that was great. But then also these people grew in division against him and he knew it's time to walk away. That I'm not going to stay here for this moment, but I'm going to be faithful to where God wants me to go next.

So he keeps on moving. And this is a reminder to us. In these moments that your faithfulness to Jesus is not measured by the outcomes, but it's measured by your obedience in these moments. Your faithfulness to Jesus is not met always or measured always by how people receive it. Now, again, we want to be tasteful in how we share the gospel, how we love people. But some people are going to receive it and some people aren't. Your job is to be faithful in the middle of it.

Glory belongs to Jesus

In Lystra, they see a crippled man, he's 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 Lysonian, "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 sacrifice 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 bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things and 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 heart with joy."

Acts 14:8-17

What do we see happening here? A whole lot of stuff. So let's talk about this. We see first that there is a miracle that takes place. This man that was lame, this man that was crippled, this man that had never walked. They're walking by, they see him and his pain and they perform this miracle. Like God uses them to perform this miracle. He's healed. He jumps up, he gets up and he's walking.

But the first thing that I love here when we talk about this is looking at this miracle. This miracle wasn't just for Paul, but it was for someone else. That God used Paul's faithfulness and the reward that we see in this moment. This faithfulness wasn't actually for Paul, but it was for someone else. And this reminds us how much God sees us and cares for us. That oftentimes he's going to send other people to come along and remind us and encourage us. And then it's an invitation for us to remember that when we say yes to following Jesus, that we are a part of a family. We're a part of a body of Christ. And so a miracle for someone else is a miracle for us. Like we get to celebrate that with those people.

So this is telling us that sometimes God uses your faithfulness, your faithfulness to bring the healing, the restoration, the breakthrough in someone else's life. How incredible is that? That we get to be a part of that. That we get to participate and partner with God in seeing the miraculous. But we see here the faithfulness in both the miracles, and then we're also going to see it in the misunderstandings. Because even though they're faithful again, and in these moments, like they're doing the right thing, there's a whole lot of misunderstanding that starts to take place in these moments. They start to worship Paul and Barnabas for these miracles.

Now, I want you to picture being in this setting. Like they found out that they're about to be stoned. So they flee and they're like, okay, but we're going to keep being faithful. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep preaching the gospel. And then finally, there could be this temptation to be like, people see us. They get what's going on. Like we're performing the miracles. But instead of taking the credit, instead of taking the glory, they rip off their clothes and they run out of the city and they're like, no, get behind me, Satan. This is not it.

I want us to pay close attention to this today because I think that this is showing us how dangerous and serious it can be for us to take the glory that doesn't belong to us. When tempted to take the glory, how can we respond? We can look at what Paul did and we can run. Why? Paul was so quick here to say, "Not a chance. Like, wasn't me. It was not me. I am not the one who did this."

So picture this. I think of the first thing that comes to mind is when I was in college, I would nanny a lot. And I once nannied for like two or three families at the same time. And it's like the second you hear a loud noise, it's like all the kids come running to you, right? It's like, "Wasn't me? Wasn't me?" It's like, hands up. They're all showing like I had nothing to do with it. And that's kind of what I picture happening here. It's like the second something happens, you're like, "No, not me, not me."

Now, I would advise us if we're following Paul's example to not just rip our clothes off. Like we should keep those on. But to continue to follow that posture of being like, okay, when someone's trying to give us credit and glory for something that God is doing, to be quick to say, how do we point the glory back to Jesus? How do we continue to show that it's all about him?

And no, this isn't so that we can't be encouraged when we're being faithful. Because we need encouragement to keep going. It's not saying that we shouldn't, as a community, praise one another and encourage one another. We should do that. We should give each other like praise and encouragement. But the thing is, if we take the glory and if we're people that take the glory, then we often will also become people. When things aren't going well, to take on the guilt and shame. And those are things that were never meant for us to hold either.

In the same way that the glory is Jesus, he took on the pain and the weight of our sin to the cross in a way that only he could. And so we need to continue to live and move in this posture of saying, "Jesus, it's you, it's you, it's you."

So we notice here that they're being so cautious to point it back to Jesus. And this is again, realizing that the glory is not ours. And when we can start to understand this, it's actually a really good thing. And so what do we do with this? Find ways to live a secretly really great life. Find ways to bless people when nobody else is looking. Because again, if we are quick to take the glory and the credit, then we're also going to be the people that take on the guilt and shame and we just weren't created to hold those things. But instead to surrender it to Jesus time and time again.

So when you're tempted in both ways, understand in the best way that it's not about you but it goes so far beyond you in those moments. So keep being faithful. Keep allowing God to work in you and through you in miraculous ways. And then when you're misunderstood, remember it's all about Jesus.

Returning to the people who hurt you

Then some Jews came from Antioch and Isonium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul, dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up, went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. Then they returned to Antioch from Syria. They preached the good news in the city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Isonium, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God," they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust. After going through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia. And when they had preached the word in Persia, they went down to Attalia. And from Attalia, they sailed back to Antioch where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened doors of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

Acts 14:19-28

What we're seeing here is this. After we see that there's faithfulness to God in the midst of both the miracles and the misunderstandings, we now see that they remain faithful to God. There's faithfulness to God, to following the ways of Jesus in the midst of both mistreatment and now the expanding of the mission. Both of these things are happening at the same time. They are experiencing this deep mistreatment. Like, do we read what just happened to Paul? And then he returns to the people.

Now, I want you to think for a moment. Can you relate to some of these moments? And now we're not going to make this like a big comparison game. Because I think what's really easy is sometimes we read stories like this of Paul and we can think of, yes, like if I really love Jesus, then sure, like I'm going to do the big, crazy yeses for him. And yes, I would return to the people if I knew what was at stake.

But what I want to invite you to think about for a moment today is that every single moment of our life, that there's a lot at stake. That every single moment of our lives, even the seemingly small, like returning to work tomorrow morning, is a place that God wants to move in miraculous ways. It's a place that God has you on purpose and on mission.

And maybe some of you relate to that where you're like, is there an invitation for me today to return to the people that have hurt me? To return in forgiveness to the relationships that were hard. Is there a place for me to return to the job that's exhausting and stressful and overwhelmed? Because maybe in that place that you're returning, God has people and God has his presence they're waiting to encounter you and to encounter where he has sent you.

For Paul to be able to do this, I'm like, what kind of life was he living? He must have recognized in that like, Jesus is worth it. And the people he was returning to were worth it.

And I think for some of us today, we need that reminder. That in the same way that like Paul is doing this, he's imitating the life of Jesus. Jesus left heaven and came down to earth. He left and he brought the light into the dark places to remind you that you're worth it. You're worth pursuing. You're worth risking it and giving his life for you.

And Paul saw that and Paul followed that and he risked going back to the place of pain, of mistreatment, so the miracles and the mission could continue and people could know that they're worth it. And so what might he be inviting us into today? The places that he's saying, will you go? Will you return? Will you remain faithful?

He's encouraging the disciples. He's encouraging them to remain faithful. He stayed with them for a long time. So how is Paul responding to this mistreatment? He returns. He preaches. He strengthens the disciples. He encourages them. He gathers them together. He shares what God has done. And then he stayed there. It ends with that where he says he stayed there a long time with the disciples.

Here's the next thing that I want to talk about today. As we kind of recap all of this, we see that Paul and Barnabas, they're faithful in both the fruit and the friction. They're faithful in Lystra then with the miracles and the misunderstanding. They're faithful to resist the glory and they're rewarded with being stoned for it. Then they're faithful to get back up and to keep going and to return.

And so we go back to our so what. The two things can be true. Faithfulness to Jesus produces both fruitfulness and friction. And our job is to remain faithful. And as we are faithful, to trust that God is going to produce the fruit in a way that only he can.

Now, Paul was someone that experienced the faithfulness of Jesus in the dark parts of his life. He experienced the healing, the restoring, the freeing. He knew the power of the good news, and that's why he's so quick to go back. And we read that in those earlier verses. The first thing he does when they're coming for him, and he's like, "No, no, no, I got the good news. Let me tell you about this." He's like, "I'm talking about the living God who made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them." Like he knew the language to use to be like, let me tell you about my God. He's pointing the glory back to him. He knew God. He knew how he had been saved.

And he's following Jesus' example of not only telling the people that they're loved, of not only telling the people that Jesus wants a relationship with them, but showing them what that looks like to faithfully pursue and lay your life down for the sake of others.

See, I think oftentimes, if we're honest, it's easier for us to just tell people how loved they are, and it's a whole lot harder for us to show people what love actually looks like. Paul was showing the love of Jesus and was a living example by leaving his place of comfort, his place of peace, and continuing to go into the dark places and to be a light. To encourage and to strengthen and to allow God to do the miraculous. Even when he's mistreated, even when he's misunderstood, he keeps going back and returning.

What a beautiful example of Jesus' love for us today.

Questions to process

And so I want to really just take time today for us to sit with this text, to really reflect and invite the Holy Spirit to show us what do I need to receive from this today. For those of you, if you're here today and you're like, yeah, I'm still kind of searching and I'm trying to figure out like, is this whole Jesus thing for me? Can I tell you that today, like God sent people here to this city some years ago, some months ago. He sent people here to sign a lease on this building and to get chairs and to set them up and people this morning to make the coffee and to run the lyrics and to do all the things as a reminder that like he sees you and he loves you and he wants to encounter you.

He's sending people to be faithful and to show you what that looks like in the same way that Paul saw the people and he's like, hey, you're worth it. Like Jesus wants you to know today that you are worth it and that he's worth returning to.

I love that. Like Paul returns and it's such a reminder to us as well. That like there's time for us to return to Jesus. There's time for us to turn it all around. He returned to places where at first they were like divided and they didn't receive and instead they mistreat him and Paul's like, "It's okay, I'm coming back. Like I'm giving you another chance."

And I think some of us, we need that reminder today that there's time for us to turn it around. Whether that's feeling like you're far from the Lord and you're ready to really turn to him in like a powerful way today. But maybe for a lot of us, it's just those small, small things within our hearts of maybe acknowledging like, I feel like I've mistreated people, or I've misrepresented the gospel to people, or I haven't been faithful to Jesus in the ways I was supposed to be faithful to Jesus.

Can I remind you today that there is an invitation for you to return? There's an invitation for you to say, "Holy Spirit, will you show me in my heart where I've not been living for you and help me to walk back in that direction today? You are worth returning for. You have time to turn it around."

Paul saw this in the people. God sees this in you. I see this today. Like, there's time. And so for some of us, it might just be asking for that forgiveness. If we've misunderstood, if we've mistreated, if we haven't been faithful. Like, will we say yes to Jesus and then will we say yes to following him and being faithful to him in all of it. The misunderstandings and the miracles. The mistreatment and his mission expanding and advancing. Like, will we be faithful to that? Will we believe that God is turning it around?

Practical discernment for faithfulness

Some of the questions I think for us to process today. Can we, like Paul, be faithful when we're rejected? Can we be faithful when we really did our best and like people didn't understand? And then when good things happen, can we be faithful and resist the temptation to take the glory for it?

Can we be faithful to like know the story of God, know the story in Scripture so that we so quickly can like point people to it and tell people about it over and over again. And then, like, are we willing to be the types of people that stay in the hard places? Several times throughout this passage in Acts chapter 14, it says like Paul. He didn't just go once and when it didn't go well, say, "All right, it was fun. Like, hope it works out in the end." He was faithful to listen to the Spirit of God and step back into the places when the Spirit says, "Go."

Can we live like that today? What could change in the lives of the people around us if we lived like that? If we were able to say, "I'm going to be faithful, even when it's not fun. I'm going to be faithful, even when people are speaking harsh things about me. I'm going to be faithful when maybe there's still unforgiveness and I don't know how to make things right. I'm going to be faithful to not only share and tell people about the love of Jesus, but to show them in the way that I stay."

What does this look like for us today?

Some kind of practical things I want to talk about is like not only how do we stay faithful, but how do we discern like fruitfulness and friction and all of that. Like, how do you discern? Like, when to stay, when to go, what to stay, all of that. And some really simple things is like Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and community. Those are three things that we can always use to discern.

Know Scripture. Spend time in Scripture. Know God's voice. How he spoke to people all throughout the ages. Stay rooted and in communication with the Holy Spirit. Talk to God. Pray. And discern within the context of community. Being a part of a church and community is one of the greatest gifts that we have on this side of eternity. It means that even today we're going to have a prayer team available. And if you're just like, "I just need some encouragement," like you have people that can come alongside and be like, "I'm going to encourage you."

If there's a question that you're discerning, there's other people that can pray alongside you and listen with you. So stay rooted in Scripture, Holy Spirit, community. And continue to work that muscle of holding space and holding the tension well. Continue to grow that muscle of understanding that the two things can coexist and be true at the same time.

Continue to pray the prayers of John 3:30 that says, "He must become greater, I must become less." Because the more that we understand that in the same way, like the glory is not ours, then we're also not going to attach ourselves to the grief and the guilt and the shame. But as we continue to just see ourselves as vessels, allowing the Holy Spirit to flow through us, that's when we start to live like Jesus.

Closing prayer

And so where have I assumed that difficulty means I'm doing something wrong? That's the first one today. Where have I assumed that difficulty means I'm doing something wrong? Take a moment and ask the Lord, like, are there hard things in your life? Are there painful points in your life right now that he's actually saying, like, "I want you to return to?" And maybe that it could be this place of mistreatment, this place where you're feeling misunderstood, is exactly where God wants to perform miracles through you. What does that look like for you to name those places?

The next is, have I idolized success or smoothness as proof that I'm doing it right? Because in the same way that we can't measure whether or not we're doing something right by the lack of fruitfulness, we also can't always measure if we're doing something right by the fruitfulness. I mean, there's a reason that when Paul starts to receive the glory, like he flees from it. Like there's a reason that Scripture tells us like, what is it to gain the whole world and forfeit my soul? Or when Jesus is telling them the story of saying, it's harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven. There's a reason for those scriptures. It's because we are going to be tempted to have the outward things as a sign of our reward and forget that it's actually Jesus who's our reward.

And so every good thing is just a taste of that glory, but it's not the real thing. And Jesus is saying, like, you actually don't want to pursue those things. And those things might not actually be a sign that you're doing the right thing. So be careful and discern. Go back to Scripture, the Holy Spirit, your community.

So what does that look like? Where have you idolized success or where have you looked and said, "Am I doing it right because of this?" When maybe he's saying, "Hey, I have something else for you. I actually want you to leave that place of comfort and I want you to go and be the light in the darkness."

And then this next question is, what does faithfulness look like for me right now? Where I'm at. In the places God has me. In the relationships before me. What does faithfulness look like? Who has he placed in front of you? Who is he asking you? Where is he asking you to return to today?

God, we thank you so much for this reminder in Scripture. That just because things are hard, it doesn't mean that your Holy Spirit is not working and moving through it. And so God, would you give us, just in a supernatural way that only you can, would you give us the space to hold both? To recognize that in the same way that Paul was continuing to be faithful, that sometimes hardships are going to come, mistreatment's going to come, but also the miracles come and your mission is expanded.

And so would you show us today? Are there any ways that we're like feeling so defeated and you're trying to speak. You're like knocking and screaming and shouting and being like, "Hey, no, I'm with you. This is where I want you. Return, return." And in the same way, God, if there's spaces where it's like we're thinking, "Yeah, I'm good. Like God's blessing me. I'm receiving blessings. So I must not have anywhere else to go." Would you show us things that we need to lay down before you? Any idols. Anything that's standing in the way for what you have for us? Would you show us that?

Convict us, Holy Spirit, in this place. And then God, would you open our eyes through the power of your Holy Spirit to see the people in front of us, the places that you have sent us? Would you help us to not only tell them, but to be faithful to stay even when it's hard. To show them what sacrifice looks like. To show them what forgiveness looks like. To show them what mercy looks like in the way that we love, in the way that we follow and are imitators of you, Jesus Christ, and laying down our lives every single day.

So God, for these next few moments as we worship, as we pray, would your Holy Spirit speak and move in this place? We welcome you, Holy Spirit. Would you come?