A Game Day Decision
On his first missionary journey Paul said something startling to the believers in Derbe. He said, “[through] many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”[1] Nearly twenty years later, toward the end of Paul’s life, while in his last Roman imprisonment, he said something similar to Timothy, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”[2] This phrase bookended his ministry and was an accurate description of the Apostle’s life. Paul was no stranger to persecution. For instance, just prior to addressing the believers in Derbe he had been stoned and supposed dead by the perpetrators. And by the time he wrote to Timothy he had endured much more than that. The Apostle enumerates some of those troubles in the eleventh chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians. Paul spoke of what he knew.
We, on the other hand, do not have this sort of familiarity with hardship. Life is amazingly good in the west. When was the last time you were beaten with rods, shipwrecked, adrift a night and a day at sea at any point, let alone for your faith? Probably not in recent memory. But persecution is secondary to the interests of this article. I want you to think about the church. Let me explain. Go back to Paul’s days in Derbe. After preaching the gospel there he returned to Lystra, the city that stoned him. He went to Lystra to do more than encourage the disciples. He went to make sure that elders were ordained and installed in every church. Paul loved the doctrine of the church and he loved the church. And concern for the church did not waver throughout his life. In the list of hardships mentioned earlier, he caps it off saying, “Apart from the other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”[3] Paul loved the church and continually sought her good even and especially in the midst of his own difficulties.
Our Experience Today
I wonder if such a thing can be said by believers today. Church seems so, dare I say, extra. Church is something we attend if we have time. A second service is almost unheard of on the Lord’s Day and a good many with access to such a blessing treat attendance as a game day decision. To echo R. C. Sproul, “What is wrong with you people?” Let me stay with the idea of extra for a few minutes. I wonder what elder candidates were like in those early days. Can you imagine sitting across from the Apostle Paul telling him that you just couldn’t possibly fit the eldership into your already busy schedule?
I fear that many believers think of the blessing of God in the life and ministry of the church is something we pretend to experience. As a pastor, I have encouraged many discouraged people to spend time with the means of grace only to be met with a look that so clearly says, “I’ve been there and done that, give me some counsel that works.” The clear implication is that the means of grace given to the church are empty rituals. If that is you, then let me suggest that you need a different perspective. One way to do this is to find a faithful man or woman and get close enough to them to see what this blessing looks like. Ask them questions and invite their counsel. Do what they do and talk to them about the results. Invest yourself in faithful examples who live life under the word and experience its blessing.
Let Psalm 32 Challenge You
Last week I was studying Acts 14:19-23 and discovered that there are a number of parallels between it and Psalm 32. For example, both the Psalm and Acts 14 have forgiveness as a centerpiece.[4] There is also a lexical cluster in Psalm 32:7-8 which appears in verses 20-22 of Acts 14.[5] One further parallel will suffice to demonstrate a connection between the two texts. David speaks of the Lord’s instruction in the way and in Acts 14 we find Paul providing instruction in the way to newly forgiven converts.
Now, many will remember that the stoning in Acts 14 lasted until the villainous mob supposed Paul to be dead and then slowly migrated away giving the disciples an opportunity to gather around the man who had just proclaimed to them the forgiveness of sins. I wondered if some of the more experienced believers led the rest of the disciples in the singing of a Psalm or two before realizing that he was alive! Consider Psalm 32:7, “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.” The Lord had preserved Paul from ultimate harm and surrounded him with shouts of deliverance, perhaps even tangibly through his fellow disciples.[6]
Dear brothers and sisters, can we not apply this as a lesson to ourselves? Every Lord’s Day we go to church despite the troubles of the week and there our fellow disciples surround us with shouts of deliverance, perhaps singing, “They’ll not be harmed by rising floods. In you I hide in peace; you keep me safe, surrounding me with songs of my release.” It may not be as dramatic as what happened in Lystra, but it is not less true. Ultimate deliverance from those who would stone us to those who would simply gossip about us is found in our resurrection. And it’s that ultimate deliverance that our fellow disciples sing about from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day. Is that nothing to you? How can such a thing be a game day decision?
[1] Acts 14:22, “[strengthening] the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
[2] II Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…”
[3] II Corinthians 11:28, “And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”
[4] The Psalmist begins with the blessing of forgiveness. Forgiveness was articulated in Acts 13:38-39 as part of the gospel and it is that gospel which continually goes forth in Acts 14 (vv. 7, 15, 21).
[5] The words in the cluster are gather (κυκλόω), tribulation (θλῖψις), and strengthen (ἐπιστηρίζω).
[6] Matthew 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
