Our text this morning comes from Acts chapter 18. We'll be looking at verses one through 17. I encourage you to open up your Bible and follow along there. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in front of you, there should be, hopefully you can turn there and follow along. I think it'll benefit you as we work through this text together to have the text in front of you before we read.
Let's go to the Lord again in prayer, asking for his blessing upon His Word.
Let's pray, Our Heavenly Father.
We, thank you that you are a God that is full of mercy. We, thank you that you are also a just God, Lord, I pray that as we come to your word, that you would open up our eyes to see and understand it, our our ears to hear it, to believe it by faith. Lord, give us soft hearts. Let us receive the Lord Jesus Christ as He is presented to us in the Gospel. Lord, we ask for your blessing. We ask for your grace, and it's in Jesus's name we pray, amen.
People have got here God's word for us from Acts chapter 18, verses one through 17. [1] After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. [2] And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, [3] and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade. [4] And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
[5] When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. [6] And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles." [7] And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.
[8] Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. [9] And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, [10] for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people."[11] And he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them.
[12] But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal,[13] saying, "This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law." [14] But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews,"If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. [15] But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things." [16] And he drove them out from the tribunal [17] And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this.
He who has ears let him hear the Word of God. You may be seated.
It is only the second week of the new year, but I think if many of you are honest, for many of us, the year is already not going how you hoped it would go.
Time keeps moving forward, but maybe you feel that you aren't you don't feel like you're going anywhere making any progress the New Year again just feels mundane, boring, routine and even the New Year's resolutions, many have already been broken.
I'm going to pray more this year. It hasn't happened. I'm going to battle and overcome a particular sin or temptation more but yet it still feels the same. I'm going to be more patient, but I'm not, and at times it makes you even want to ask, why continue to try? Why not just give up? And maybe you can feel that way in your work, you can feel that way in your health or relationships, but Christians also are not immune to that kind of feeling in our life, in faith and our service to Christ, can feel exactly the same way. You keep showing up the church, you keep praying, you keep trying to. Be faithful, but from your perspective, there seems to be just a very little progress, very little fruit, and maybe even more resistance than there is fruit. And I think that can lead many of us to feel discouraged. Why keep going? Why press on? And I think that's exactly where we find the apostle Paul in our text, in Acts, chapter 18, Paul has been working tirelessly, working very hard, but it appears that there isn't all that much fruit in his ministry. So far, not a lot of progress, especially if you compare what's happened with Paul's ministry back with what we've seen earlier in the Acts of the Apostles in chapter one and two, with Peter and John's ministry. Compare Paul's ministry, just for a moment, to Peter and John's ministry. You can imagine, I think, Paul, after he's visited these different cities, gingerly lifting up his shirt, and, if you will, looking in the mirror and counting his scars from the times he had been beaten. And he counts more scars than converts.
He's able to count more scars on his back than that, he has believers that have come to the faith. Though, if you look at Peter and John, we're told back in earlier in Acts, well, in one day, 3000 are added. Another day, 5000 more. And it just seems with Peter and John, more and more people are coming, but when Paul gets to work, and he has labored tirelessly, not only with his time, but even the giving of his body with these lashes and being stoned pretty much to death, that there's not as much fruit as you might think, Paul will even tell the church in Corinth in his second Letter, in chapter 11, he will tell them, Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, the 40 lashes less one so whip, 39 times, five times there. I'm not very good at math. Someone probably tell you what that is.
Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times. I was shipwrecked a night and a day. I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak?
Am I not weak? Everywhere Paul goes, he's telling us, there's riots, there's beatings, there's hostility, and it's not only for him, but it's even the people that he ministers to. If you remember Jason, who came to the faith, they were meeting in Jason's house, and Jason's house is mobbed, and Jason is pulled out of the house, it's not only Paul, but those he even ministers to. And sometimes that's worse, right? It's worse.
Maybe sometimes you feel like I'm okay to suffer, but not to those I love and care for. And Paul sees that happening all around him. Athens where he just came from, from a human perspective, is not a success story. He reasons, he he pleads, he proclaims, and what's the result? Most people mock. Some are just indifferent. You know, thanks for sharing that with us.
Now. Go on. A few believe a few, but in a large historic city, not many come. Paul is not a robot. Paul is not some mystical superhero in our text. He's a real person, just like you and me, a real man, and he's weary, he's discouraged, he's emotionally and physically just spent. And if I'm in Paul's situation at this point in the text, I'm probably telling God, I'm done, send someone else. You seem like you like using Peter and John. You bless their ministry. Maybe they're just better at it. Just use them. I'm gonna go do something else, like tent making. I'm finished. I'm done, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you feel like that way? Or maybe you do feel that way? I'm done.
There's there's not the progress, there's not the fruit that I would like to see. I'm moving on.
What's interesting, though, in our text, is that God doesn't then come down and rebuke Paul.
He encourages him, and he encourages you and me this day to continue to press on, even through adversity, even through little fruit, because his promise is that he is with us to continue speaking, continue sharing the gospel, continue in the warfare of your faith, because God is with us, and we'll talk more about that here as we work through our text.
Now, where are we in the context of Acts? Paul is at the end of his second missionary journey.
If you look at verse 18 as we'll get there next week, he'll actually return back to Antioch.
And remember, Antioch is the home base, so there's just one more city left in his second missionary journey, and that's Corinth. Corinth is about 50 miles west of Athens. Corinth was the capital of Achaia, the southern province of Greece.
Remember, Greece was divided kind of in two parts at this time in the world, there was the North in Macedonia, which Thessalonica was a capital. The South now is Achaia, and the capital is Corinth. And this is where Paul says, I'm going to go. Corinth was a wealthy city, and Corinth is primarily known for two things. Two things.
Corinth is known for sports and sexual immorality. These two things really dominated the city's culture. Now, sports and sex within a right perspective and boundaries are wonderful and good things, but Corinth has made these things their gods.
And I also just want to note to you that Corinth is just like us. The description that we're about to give Corinth is very much a description of our own culture. Corinth, they hosted the Isthmian games every other year. It was essentially like the Olympics that were hosted in the great city, except everyone competed nude. Corinth had the temple of Aphrodite, who was the goddess of lust, of pleasures, of desires, of fertility, sexual immorality was the culture of Corinth. Every sexual perversion and distortion was not only found, but celebrated and encouraged in that town to be corinthianized. Was even a term that was in the culture, that was used for fornication, and it was a term that was in the culture for over 400 years. We have terms that come into our culture. They come and go for 400 years. If you say someone's been corinthianized, it's they're given in the fornication and sexual morality, and it's somebody celebrated. It's a good thing in their eyes. And if he told someone that you had met a Corinthian woman, or that you're with a Corinthian woman, the assumption is that she's an immoral woman. She's the kind of woman that the Proverbs tells men to be wary of, to run away from. That's what Corinthian women were. Paul tells us, as he writes to the Corinthian church in his first letter in chapter two, he says, I was with you in weakness, in fear and in much trembling. Why? And I think part of that trembling and fear as Paul approaches Corinth is because he knows this city is rampant with immorality. Do you think the people of Corinth are going to want to hear about God?
Do you think that the people of Corinth are going to be readily acceptive of how God wants them to use their bodies, and how their bodies are temples for the Lord, not for lustful passions.
Do you think that the people are going to readily receive that?
They don't want to receive that now, do they? Do you think people want to hear that in our culture? How God wants them to use their bodies for His glory?
What about sports? Do you think people in our culture want to hear about God in sports? And maybe even just an example I was thinking about too, is, what if the Super Bowl happened to be played on a Sunday morning rather than a Sunday evening, and what if your favorite sports team, maybe the bucks, or whatever was in it, and they finally made it. How many of you would be tempted to go worship the god of sports that Sunday morning, rather than coming here to worship the true and living God? Would that not be a real temptation for many? Maybe you and me, that. Just it's just one Sunday, right? What you see they were worshiping sports and sexuality, and same is just like our culture. The church, we're told, will start here in Corinth, but it will begin to flounder and struggle, and Paul will write letters to them. And the reason why is because there's going to be division, there's going to be worldliness that is still creeping into the church. This is the culture that these people are breathing day in and day out. There will be selfishness. They will lose their focus on their first love.
And I think this is also a warning for us, especially as a new church, that we not allow the Worldliness to creep into our church that we not forget our first love and our purpose for being here is to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might love him, that our focus might be singularly on our Lord.
Because if we lose focus, if we begin to run after the trinkets of silver and gold of this world, we too will be lost. We too will lose our purpose for even existing as a church. We will no longer be a body of Christ. Now, Paul is traveling to Corinth alone. I think that is also part of his fear and weakness. He's by himself.
Timothy went back to check on the church in Thessalonica.
Silas, most likely went back to the church in Philippi. They'll eventually show up here in our text. But for now, Paul is alone, but God does something very ordinary, small but extremely helpful to encourage Paul. He doesn't remove Paul from Corinth, don't we just wish that God, in our difficulties, would just take us out of the circumstance. God doesn't do that to Paul. He leaves them here in Corinth, but he provides for him in ordinary ways. And first he sends him fellow Christians. He sends him fellowship, and he sends them this couple of Aquila and Priscilla. Aquila and Priscilla, they're this married couple, and they've recently been expelled from Rome that was their home by the Emperor Claudius. Historians tell us that Claudius expelled all of the Jews. If you were Jewish, you were expelled from Rome because there were disturbances over the Christus.
Guess who that is Christ? There were disturbances. Who is this?
Christ and Claudius is like, I'm not dealing with this. All the Jews. Anyone get out of Rome. So just imagine yourself in 48 hours. You are told you have to leave home, take whatever you can. In 48 hours, any other friends or family who aren't Jews, they're out of here, or you're leaving them that they can stay so God has this couple.
They'll arrive here in Corinth.
They are now displaced, uprooted, and they are homeless.
That's this couple. Paul also needs a job. There's no church in Corinth yet, and there's no financial support for Paul and finding a job for a minister who isn't preaching can be difficult sometimes, but thankfully, Paul's trained in tent making, and that's what he does, and also, in God's providence in bringing Priscilla and Aquila, they're also tent makers, so they have a shared faith and a shared trade together, Paul has A meal together. They're having this fellowship together, but just let there's this homeless couple, this jobless preacher and in a hostile city. Doesn't sound real great, but Paul will write to the church later in Rome and call this couple his fellow workers in the Lord Jesus Christ that with this couple that that God's given to Paul as an encouragement, they'll find friendship and support in one another. They'll risk their lives for Christ together. This is also an encouragement for us to reminder that we need each other. We need the church, we need fellow Christians in our lives. Paul will tell the church, even in Corinth, that we are many members, but one body, remember, can the church? Can the ear say to the eye, say to the ear, or vice versa, getting it confused? I don't need you.
No, we're one body, but we need one another. If you remember, also in Pilgrim's Progress, pilgrim, he has faithful accompany him to support and help him. When faithful goes home to the celestial city, God provides hopeful. When Christian is found in in doubting temple or doubting castle and he's tempted to despair and even commit suicide, it's his friend hopeful who reminds him of God's past faithfulness. It's his friend and fellow pilgrim who reminds him of God's powerful promises. And that's what we are to do for each other. We don't just show up here as individuals. We are a church, a gathering, an assembly. A body.
This is also an encouragement, maybe for even as we are starting the new year, and there's some new Bible studies and gatherings and Sunday schools starting up, to be a part of it, to get involved.
Don't just show up here and then leave right away, be a part of the body of Christ. If you're not, you're going to easily be discouraged. You're going to easily forget God's promises, and you need fellow Christians.
Paul continues in his routine of going to the synagogue every Sabbath, and he's reasoning from the scriptures that the Messiah has to die, the Messiah has to rise, and that Messiah is Jesus.
Remember we looked last time he was probably looking at text, maybe like Isaiah 53 the Messiah has to be wounded for our transgressions. He's going to be cut off for us. He's going to be spiritually circumcised and cut off from the land of the living that we might be brought in. But that Messiah will also rise again from the den. He will conquer sin and death on your behalf. And you know who that Messiah is. It's Jesus. It's Jesus. Look at the Gospels.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And this is what Paul is going into the synagogue and proclaiming and teaching the Christ. What is unknown may be to them, He reveals to them now, as known it is the Lord Jesus Christ, everything the Old Testament was talking about was pointing you to Jesus. And he persuades some Jews and Greeks. And now we're told that finally, Silas and Timothy arrive from Macedonia, and they bring financial support from Philippi. Remember the church in Philippi, not a lot and going on in Philippi, but you have Lydia, that slave girl, and that crusty old jailer. They don't have a lot of money. Lydia does, but now they are sending financial support to Paul while he is in Corinth so that he can give himself the full time ministry. This is what it says that he's no longer occupying himself with tent making it tells us that he occupies himself with the word that is he's able to devote himself fully to the Word of God, and we need men who are completely devoted to the word. So when Paul was a tent maker, maybe not so much of an issue in Corinth.
But now, as he's full time, he becomes a full time nuisance to the people in Corinth, because now, as God has provided for him, companions and Aquila and Priscilla, and also he can give his his time more to the Word of God. There's now actually more resistance. There's more opposition to Paul and the Gospel, Paul is laboring and pleading, but eventually we're told he he shakes out his garments and declares in verse six, your blood be on your own heads. I'm innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles.
This is the language of Ezekiel, of the watchtower, of the watchman on the tower, who's saying, be warned. Be watchful.
There's a day of judgment to come. I'm looking out. I'm warning you, but you're not listening in. Essentially, I've done my job. There's nothing more I can do. You've been warned of the judgment to come.
You've been told of the way of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's it. You're stubborn, you're stiff necked, and you will not believe it.
Your blood will be on your own head. That's essentially what Paul is saying. But what's interesting, if we read that, it can seem that Paul is maybe just irritated. It can seem that maybe Paul is just cold in his heart towards his fellow Jews here, but he'll write in Romans that this is actually breaking his heart. He'll write that he would rather suffer the curse of God, if it meant his fellow Jews would be saved. But God brings encouragement to Paul again, Paul is able to set up ministry headquarters in Corinth, right next door at Justice's house, and the unlikely convert of Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue and his whole household comes to believe God is showing that he is at work to save, even in places like Corinth. Corinth of all places, Tampa of all places, places filled with great sexual morality, places like great idolatry to sports, God is at work to save. Working in Corinth, saving people like Crispus, even the synagogue, ruler of all people, God saves those who you think might be farthest from the faith. God is often pleased to save so not give up. Now the next two verses, I think, are the most encouraging. Urging for Paul and for us, and it's a turning point in Paul. I don't know if you have your Bibles open, but if you do, some of your bibles might have red letters here. I'm not often a fan of Red Letter Bibles. I think sometimes they get it wrong. I mean, the whole Bible should be red letters.
Shouldn't shouldn't it, but here it's red letters. And what do the red letters sometimes represent? The words of Jesus, right? I think that's a good point here. This is Jesus speaking to Paul. Jesus, the risen Lord, the one seated at the right hand of the Father, comes and tells Paul, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent. Now, why would Jesus have to tell Paul not to be afraid? Because he must be afraid, right?
There's a lot of things Paul should be afraid of. He's already given us a list of the oppositions, of the beatings, of the stonings of the being shipwrecked. There's a lot of things that Paul could be afraid of, but he tells him, Do not be afraid, but to do what to speak, and there's a redundancy here, speak, do not be silent. This is also our directive as Christians. We are to be witnesses. We are to speak and not be silent, to not be afraid of this world and what they will do to you, but to speak of Christ and Him crucified for sinners like you and me. Now, why shouldn't Paul be afraid?
What does Jesus say here? Paul, you have a lot of the Bible memorized. Paul, you are one of the smartest guys I know. Don't be afraid. Paul, you have one of the best education that anyone in the world could have. You've been trained by the best. Is that what he says, Don't be afraid, because I am with you.
The Lord God, the Creator of the universe, is with Paul as he is with you. God is our refuge and our fortress. Did we not just read that in Psalm 46 that we don't face our lives or ministry on our own and our own power? If we did, we would fail, and we should be discouraged and we should stop but God is with us.
He is Emmanuel. We just came from Christmas. Remember Jesus coming? Wasn't that wonderful?
Well, guess what? Jesus is still with us. In fact, Jesus told his disciples in John chapter 16 that it's better that he goes physically to heaven and sends us His Spirit.
Now, do you believe that you don't really believe that? Do you that it's better that you have the Spirit of Christ? Well, if you don't believe it, when you're doubting what Christ actually said, It's better now that we have the Spirit of Christ, because now the gospel can go forth out with power. And actually we have a greater intimacy with Christ, because we have the indwelling of His Spirit. You think if Christ was still physically here in this world, where would you and I be?
Wherever he is, and that's where all the Christians would be just gathered around, where Christ is. That's where I would want to be. But now we get to go into all the world as broken instruments to proclaim the glory and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we can have the indwelling of his spirit with us. He is still with us. He has given us His Spirit. And because of that, go on and don't stop speaking. Continue to share Christ and it says no one will harm you. There's something.
There's a temporary truth here in Corinth, but this is also eternally true for Paul and for you and me. What can man do to us? Take our bodies. Don't fear man who can just take our bodies, but fear him who can kill both body and soul, no harm will come to you. He says, I have many people in this city.
This is also important that our evangelism is not in vain. If it's not the sovereign work of God, we could just be wasting our time, not you know, maybe some will come, maybe some won't, but God says there are many still of my children who are out there who I'm going to use you to draw them in your labor will not be in vain. There are children of God out there who do not yet know their children of God that you need to proclaim the gospel to and bring them in. But God doesn't say when he doesn't say how many, and he doesn't say this is going to be an easy task, but he does say, I'm sovereign to save and he's not going to lose one of his people. Now last here, we'll end here as Paul is dragged before Galileo, the Roman pro Council of Corinth Rome had approved. Of religions. Judaism was one of those authorized religions. And what's happening here is the Jews are bringing Paul forward with this charge that he's teaching a religion that isn't approved by Rome and that it should be squashed. It's not lawful this religion. But Paul, he's ready to speak and make his defense, but he's not given the chance. Galileo speaks up and dismisses it. And he says, oh, Jews. He hates the Jews, by the way, right? Roman and Jews, Gentiles and Jews, they hated each other. He does not like the Jews. And he says, oh, Jews, there's no crime, there's no villainy here. It's about words and names. It's your own book. You guys sort it out.
And he drives them out from the tribunal sothenes, however, the new ruler of the synagogue, he's seized and beaten. Now we're not told who does this. It could either be the Greeks and hostility towards the Jews, beating softness, trying to teach them a lesson. You know, don't bring this nonsense into our courts, or it could also be the Jews beating up their own ruler because they're not happy with how he presented their case. It doesn't really tell us.
It's a little ambivalent.
However, what does happen here is Christianity is actually then allowed permanently to be in Corinth. That's not squashed, it's and Paul's not harmed, and he'll remain in Corinth, we're told, 18 months and the church will grow here. All right, so here we are standing at the beginning of another new year, already wondering if it's worth it. We're tired, maybe discouraged using measurements of faithfulness by visible results, and it feels like maybe things are coming up empty, but the Lord doesn't say to us again, just try harder. Bee Haven, just pull up those bootstraps and press on. He says, Do not be afraid. I'm with you even as we enter the new year, what is unknown to us is known to him. He will not abandon his people. So press on.
Do not be afraid. Keep speaking, keep serving, keep trusting.
Because the Jesus who was with Paul is the same Christ who is with us, and there are others still here in Tampa to bring in and fruit might seem small and even non existent at times, but the call here is faithfulness, and the work of fruit is God's work. We are called to be faithful. And when the last one is brought in, that God brings in, then He will come. Are we ready? We're ready for that day, but as we wait for that day, let us be faithful. Let us remember he is with us. Let us produce the fruit of the Spirit and press on into the new year.
Let's pray, Our Heavenly Father.
We thank you for giving us your word, Lord. We thank You that You are indeed with us, that you haven't just left us, that that Christ is not just watching from afar, but that he is here now by the power of his Spirit indwelling within us. Lord, we do pray that you will help us to repent of our idolatry, of our sexual morality, of our perversions. Lord, we are a people who are also living and breathing in a sexual immoral culture, and in many ways, fornication has become just a norm and even encouraged in the church. Lord, I pray that you will help us to repent of these things and to use our bodies in a way that glorifies you, even in our sports too, Lord that we would not worship the god of sports, but worship the true and living God to be thankful for how you've made us in you. We live and move and have our being. You are the one that gives us breath and and life and allows our feet and our eyes and everything else to work and Lord help us to praise you and you alone would be merciful to your people. Now stir our hearts to not be afraid, but now to continue to ghost, continue to speak of Christ and to share him with others. And it's in Jesus's name we pray, amen.