Life of Paul Part 16 - Fidelity to Jesus Above All

Well, good morning, everybody. Hey, it's wonderful to have you here. Let's take a Bible out.

We're going to study the Bible today, Acts Chapter 14, as we continue in our study of the life of the great man, the Apostle Paul, Acts Chapter 14, and we're going to be coming there in just a moment. And, you know, one of the most wonderful young men that I've ever had the privilege of knowing is a young man named Carl Cox. Carl is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, 1995, is a friend of my son's. And right now, Carl is stationed on the USS Enterprise in the Persian Gulf flying E-2s.

If you don't know what an E-2 is, it's one of those AWACS planes, you know, that they fly off the carriers. And putting his life in harm's way to defend the freedoms that we hold so dear here in the United States. And I sent him an email several weeks ago just to let him know that I was praying for him. We were praying for his compatriots. And I finally got an email back.

I mean, it's not like he's not busy, you know, or anything. So I finally got an email back and it was a wonderful email. He tells about how he's leading a Bible study on board the carrier, how he's mentoring young men and women who have come to Christ through this Bible study.

It's fabulous. And then he concludes by saying this, and I want you to see it. He said, I want to wrap this up quickly by letting you know that we are all doing well here. And that while we look forward to returning to you soon, we stand tremendously honored to serve our God by serving our country in this way.

You know, when I think of Carl Cox and I think of the thousands of men and women just like him, men and women who wish things were different. Men and women who'd love to be home with their families, but they're determined to do their duties. They're determined to defend what they believe in, even at the cost if it comes to that of their own lives. The only word that really comes to mind when I think of these people is the word fidelity. Now, fidelity, if you look up the word, means loyalty. It means allegiance. It means devotion.

It means dedication. And we're going to look today at the Apostle Paul demonstrate this very same quality, fidelity, except not fidelity to America, as good as that may be, but fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ, which is even better. And then we're going to talk about, so what difference does that make to your life and my life as followers of Christ here in the 21st century? So that's our plan. Let's dig in.

A little bit of background. Remember, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas are traveling around doing itinerant preaching in what we call today the first missionary journey of Paul. Paul and Barnabas have left Antioch, and they have gone to Cyprus. From Cyprus, they have gone up into the southern underbelly of Turkey, and here they've gone to Antioch first. They got run out of town there. Then they went to Iconium.

They got run out of town there. Now they've gone to Lystra, and when they arrive in Lystra, Paul heals a man who is lame in his feet and has never walked in his entire life. And as a result of that, look right here in Acts 14, what happens. Verse 11, Acts 14, verse 11. And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lyconian language, the gods have come down to us in human form. So Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes or Mercury. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and reeds to the city gates because the crowd wanted to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. Well, Paul and Barnabas would have none of it.

Finally, they were able to convince the crowd not to do it. Verse 18, even with all their words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. So here we are with the crowd thinking that Paul and Barnabas are the best thing to hit Lystra since sliced bread, okay. And that's where we pick up the story. Verse 19, then the Bible says, some Jewish people came from Antioch and Iconium.

Now let's stop a second. Remember, these were the same Jewish opponents that ran Paul out of both cities, and now they followed him. How far is it from Iconium to Lystra? Well, about 20 miles. How far is it from Antioch to Lystra?

Over 100 miles. These opponents of Paul have walked, in some cases, over 100 miles to come try to stamp out Paul and stamp out what he's preaching. And that is how urgent they felt this issue was. And when they get to town, the rest of verse 19 goes on to say they won the crowd over. Now is this an amazing comment or what? Just a few days before, this very crowd had proclaimed Paul a god. They had wanted to sacrifice to him. They had been willing to do anything he wanted. They wanted to bow down and worship him.

And within a few days, now they turn against him and look what they do. The Bible says they stoned Paul and they dragged him outside of the city thinking he was dead. Now we don't stone people very often in our world today, and so maybe it would be helpful for us to be reminded what it looks like a stoning.

Here's how it works. A crowd gathers around the victim that they planned to stone and they start throwing rocks at him or her. And once they've knocked the person down on the ground and eventually knock them unconscious, the crowd gets closer and now begins using bigger boulders and pelting the victim in his chest and in his skull with these bigger rocks until eventually internal bleeding and brain injury cause the death of that person. It's a very brutal way to kill a person. That's what stoning is all about. Stoning was not an official form of jurisprudence in the Roman Empire. If you were tried in a Roman court and you were sentenced to death, they didn't stone you. They either crucified you or they handed you over to the army and the army whacked your head off or whatever. But stoning was not that way. Stoning was a form of mob justice.

Stoning was a form of vigilante justice. And that's what happened to Paul. Paul didn't have a trial. Paul had no judicial process. The crowd just gathered around him, took matters in their own hands and pelted him with rocks until they looked at him and said, The man is dead.

The man is dead. And then the Bible says in humiliation they dragged his carcass down through the streets of the city, outside the city gates and threw him in a ditch and went back and said, Well, that takes care of Paul. We'll come back in a minute. But in the meantime, let me just stop and ask, can you think of any other example of crowd dynamic in the Bible that resembles this crowd dynamic?

Where first people were all for you and then all of a sudden that quickly they're all against you? Well, I can think of one. Matthew Chapter 21, the triumphal entry. The disciples brought a donkey to Jesus.

This is a week, five days before his crucifixion. And they placed their cloaks on it. And Jesus sat on the animal in a very large crowd, spread their cloaks on the road ahead of Jesus.

Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds began to praise God for all of the miracles they had seen Jesus do. And they began to shout, Hosanna to the Messiah. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And shouting the praises of Jesus, they go down the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley and into the city of Jerusalem.

Before we see what happens five days later, may I stop for just a moment and say, if you're here and you've never given your life to Jesus in a real and personal way, that it's a very interesting comment this verse makes. Because the crowds began to praise God for the miracles they had seen Jesus do. A lot of times we look back at these people in the time of Jesus and we think, oh, those poor souls. If they'd only had the New Testament like we had today, they would have realized who Jesus was, and they would have given their life to him.

No, not true. These people were not lacking information. They had seen Jesus turn water into wine. They had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. They had seen Jesus do hundreds and thousands of miracles and healings that you and I have never seen. Friends, the reason these people didn't come to Christ has nothing to do with lack of information. They have plenty of information. It was a matter of where their heart was.

And the same is true today. If you've not given your life to Christ here in the 21st century, and you keep saying to yourself, well, I just need more information. If I could just read the right thing or listen to the right tape or get the right information, I'd be ready to do that. I'm here to tell you that you're barking up the wrong tree. Everybody sitting here has enough information to make a decision for Christ right where you sit today. It's not about information. It's about where is our heart?

Is our heart broken? Are we ready to humble ourselves and do business with God? Man, the amount of information you can have might not even fill a thimble. But if you're ready to do business with God in your heart, you're ready to give your life to Christ.

So please don't sit here and think that the solution to coming to Christ is to get more information. It isn't. It's about your heart. It's about these people's hearts, and it's about your heart and my heart.

Something to think about. Well, what happens five days after the triumphal entry? Look, chapter 27 of Matthew. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, who do you want me to release to you? He says, is this the same crowd that marched down the mountain with him?

Yeah, same people. Who do you want me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus, who's called Messiah? Now, the chief priests had persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas. And when Pilate asked, well, what do you want me to do with Jesus, your Messiah, the one you were just ranting and raving about on the hill over there the other day, they said, crucify him. Now, how can you go from Hosanna to crucify him in five days? Well, I guess the same way you can go from Paul as a god to stone in him half to death in about the same amount of time. And that's what the crowd did. Well, what happens?

Let's go back. Verse 20. Verse 20. But the disciples, after they gathered around him, Paul got up and he went back into the city. You say, well, Lon, was he dead and did he rise from the dead or was he comatose and he just recovered? I don't know.

Bible doesn't say and I'm in no position to take a guess. All I can tell you is the important thing is he got up and what he did when he got up is the important thing. He went right back into the city where they just schwacked him. And he walked back in and went, hey, fellas, I'm back. How can you not love this guy?

How can you not love this guy? Well, the Bible goes on to say, verse 20, that the next day he and Barnabas left for Derby. It's a 20-mile walk. And they preached the good news in that city when they arrived and they won a large number of disciples. Do you get what happened here? The apostle Paul, the very next day after being virtually stoned to death, he's got to be full of bruises and welts and contusions and swelling. Remember, they didn't have Advil, they didn't have Motrin, they didn't have Aspirin, they didn't have Tylenol. This has got to be a hurting person.

I'll tell you physically. He walks 20 miles and goes right to preaching again in Derby and leads a whole bunch of people to Christ. I'll go back to my original question.

How can you not love this guy? And then he didn't stop there. The Bible says then he returned to Lystra, returned to Iconium, returned to Antioch. You mean all the places where they ran him out of town?

Yeah, went right back. Strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. Hey, when I think of Paul, there's only one word I can think of to describe this guy. It's the word fidelity, the word loyalty, the word dedication, the word allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ that causes this guy to jump up after he gets stoned and just keep right on going like the Energizer Bunny.

This is an amazing guy and he's a living, walking example of what fidelity to Jesus Christ is all about. Now that's as far as we want to go in our passage today because we have a really important question to answer and everybody knows it. So we ready? We ready? All right, here we go. One, two, three. So what? That was really lame. Come on, you guys can do better than that. Ready?

One, two, three. So what? Ah, so much better.

Thank you so much. You say, Lon, so what? I mean, I really appreciate Paul. I think he's a wonderful guy. I mean, it's a great thing that he did.

What difference does that make to me? It's interesting, folks, when we look through the New Testament that we find the Apostle Paul repeating a refrain over and over and over. You know what he says over and over in the New Testament? Follow my example.

Follow my example. Which means that when it comes to this issue of fidelity to Jesus Christ, every one of us here who claims to be a follower of Christ, we got a choice to make. The choice is, are we going to live like the Apostle Paul or are we going to live like the crowd up on the Mount of Olives like Jesus, with Jesus?

How are we going to live? We got a choice to make. Paul says, follow my example, make your choice. Friends, there's a question I want us to ask, and that question is, what made the difference between the Apostle Paul and these folks with Jesus up on the Mount of Olives? Why did the Apostle Paul act the way he acted and the crowd acted the way they did? What was the distinguishing factor that made the difference? Because if we can understand that, if we can get to the root of what made Paul the man he was in his walk with Christ, and what made the crowd what they were in their commitment to Christ, if we can understand the root of the issue, then that enables us to address it in our own lives.

So what was the root of the issue? Well, the Bible tells us, John chapter 12, it says, these words were written right after the triumphal entry. Listen, yet at the same time, there were many leaders in Israel who believed in Jesus, but because of the rabbis, these leaders would not confess their faith openly for fear they would be put out of the synagogue, here comes the root, here it is, for they loved the approval of men more than they loved the approval of God.

I don't know how you put it any simpler than that. In 1962, Anne Bancroft won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in The Miracle Worker. In the next year, 1963, she got the privilege to present the Oscar for Best Actor. That Oscar was won by Sidney Poitier for his role in The Lilies of the Field, and when he came up to accept the Oscar for Miss Bancroft, she leaned over to him and she whispered some words in his ear.

Here's what she whispered to him, and I quote, she said to him, live it up, chum, it doesn't last long. True. Human applause, man, it can be very short lived. The applause of man is a very fickle thing, and yet it's so seductive that men and women will sell their souls to get it. Now, folks, here we have these leaders of Israel, John chapter 12. The Bible says they believed Jesus was who he said he was, but they wouldn't go public.

Why? They wouldn't go public because they cared about the applause of men, the approval of men. It says in the Bible, if they'd have gone public, they'd have been thrown out of the synagogue.

What'd be thrown out of the synagogue means that you're thrown out of the mainstream of society, people boycott your business, you lose your livelihood, you can't provide for your family anymore, you lose all your friends, they don't invite you to the country club to play marjong anymore, your kids are ostracized at school, people pass you in the street and don't speak to you anymore, and they were so worried about all of that, the Bible says they wouldn't go public for Jesus. Now, folks, these are not the kind of followers that Jesus is looking for today. He's not interested in people who are in for the parade down the Mount of Olives and out for the cross. He's not interested in people who are in for the ice cream and out for the Brussels sprouts. You understand kind of what we're saying here?

No. And Jesus knows in our world today that if we come out and we take a stand for Christ, very often there's a price to pay in our world today, in our families, in our jobs, in our schools. Many times it's a heavy price. But, you know, the Apostle Paul had a wonderful perspective and that made him the man that he was. Listen to what he says. Galatians 1. He said, Am I trying to win the approval of men or the approval of God? Or am I trying to please men for if I were still trying to please men, I wouldn't be a servant of Christ? This is an unbelievably important statement that he makes here.

You hear what he's saying here? He's saying if we're going to be servants of the living God, we've got to make a choice. You can't have the approval of men and the approval of God at the same time very often.

And so we have to decide whose approval are we after? Paul said, You want to know what made me the man that I am? I didn't care about the approval of man. Now that didn't mean I was nasty. It didn't mean I was obnoxious.

It didn't mean I was hard to get along with. It just meant the person I cared most was pleased with me is God, not people. And that's why I could be a servant of Christ.

Then he says, Follow my example. You know the Lord Jesus himself commented to this same tension. He said, Matthew chapter 10 verse 37, Anyone who loves their father or their mother more than me is not worthy of me. Now is Jesus asking us to hate our parents?

Of course not. He's simply saying that if it comes down to a choice that you and I have to make between the approval of our parents and the approval of God, you better choose God. And he goes on to say, Anyone who does not take up their cross and follow me, anybody who just wants to be in for the parade and that's all, is not worthy of me. Now these are hard words and they're not for cowards.

But they demand a choice on our part. You know, I came to Christ in 1971. It's hard for me to believe sometimes I look back that I've been walking with Jesus 30 years, but I have. And when I came to Christ in 1971, as all of you know, I was born and raised Jewish. And, you know, when you're Jewish, you can only grow up to be one of three things.

A doctor, a lawyer or failure. You understand that, right? Well, now, being a follower of Christ is definitely in category number three. And I knew when I told my family that I was a follower of Christ, that there was going to be some serious backlash.

And there was. In fact, 30 years later, there's still backlash today. I still have people in my family who would be just as happy if nobody knew I was related to them. People in my family who wouldn't claim me in a lineup if they had the opportunity.

People in my family who, frankly, are happy if they never hear from me again in his life. Many of you know that I wasn't even allowed, wasn't even able to go to my own mother's funeral. I was in California.

It was 1992. My mom passed away while I was out there speaking. And I called back to find out the arrangements. And my aunt, my mom's only sister, was running the deal. And she was one of the people not real excited about my faith in Christ, to put it mildly. And she said to me, you know, you can fly back if you want to for the cemetery service.

Now, the way Jewish people do it is different from the way you all Gentiles do it. We go to the cemetery first, do a little service at the cemetery, and then everybody goes back to a house where the real funeral happens, the real community happens. And so she said, you can fly back if you want and come to the cemetery. I can't stop you from coming to the cemetery, but don't you come to my house. She said, because you're not welcome in my house.

And I said, now wait a minute. I mean, I know we haven't seen eye to eye on everything. But this is my mother. I mean, we're talking about my mother here.

I mean, there's a time you put that other stuff aside. You know what I'm saying? She said, not me. You are not welcome in my house. Don't you show up in my house.

Now, folks, I know exactly what I could have said to my aunt on the telephone that would have made me welcome in her house. All I had to do is say on the telephone, hey, you know all that Jesus stuff I used to talk about? You know all that stuff I used to tell you about how Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus is the only way to get to heaven?

You remember that? I changed my mind. I don't believe any of that anymore. I'm back to being a Jewish person the way you understand a Jewish person. Man, I'd have been welcomed with bells on my toes in her house.

I couldn't say that. My mom had wonderful heirlooms that had been passed down from her grandfather, my great grandfather, and her dad, my grandfather. Wonderful pieces of jewelry. My grandfather was a jeweler.

And I'd always thought, wouldn't it be wonderful when my mom did pass to be able to pass some of those things on as treasured memories to my wife, to my brother's wife, to, you know, my son's wives? You know what? I don't have a single thing. All of that disappeared. I never got any of it. I have no idea where it went.

And I'm not accusing anybody anything. I'm just saying I didn't get any of it. Got to tell you, that hurts.

It really hurts to have none of that. Friends, I got to tell you something. In 1971, when I came to Christ, I made a decision. The decision I made is that my aunt, my uncle, my mom, my dad, and my grandparents could not forgive my sin and take me to heaven. That my family could not heal my wounded heart or transform my life into something worth living. I made a decision in 1971 that what God thinks about me is far more important than what my relatives think about me. And I made a decision I was going to stick with Jesus Christ, whatever came, and I was just going to let the chips fall where they may. Thirty years later, I'm not sorry I did this.

The best decision ever made in my life. But it cost me something. And you know what? If you're going to stand for Jesus in our world today, it's going to cost you something too.

That may cost you something different than it cost me, but it's going to cost you something. And Jesus understands that there are times when every one of us feel pressured to keep our faith to ourselves. Every one of us feel pressured to be 007 Christians, to be CIA Christians.

He understands that. And friends, Jesus is not looking for us to be obnoxious or offensive or pugnacious or belligerent or argumentative or condemning. But he is looking for us to be courageous enough that we will take a stand unapologetically for him, regardless what the reprisals that were threatened with may be.

We'll just let the chips fall where they may. May I say to you, friends, if Jesus is really who he says he is, this is the only choice that makes any sense. Utter fidelity, utter devotion, utter allegiance is the only thing that makes any sense. You may not know who Polycarp was. If you know anything about church history, you've probably heard of him.

Polycarp was born in 70 AD. He was a good friend of John, the guy who wrote the gospel. The guy, the apostle who wrote the book of Revelation. And in 110 AD, he was appointed the Bishop of Smyrna, one of the towns we read about in the Bible. In 156 AD, when Polycarp was 86 years old, there was a persecution against Christians that broke out across the Middle East and he was arrested by the Romans. And they brought him in and demanded that either he denounced Jesus Christ or he faced death.

And in Eusebius' church history, the account of what happened next is recorded and I'd like to read it to you. I quote, Polycarp was led before the Roman proconsul and the proconsul said to him, Think of your age, old man, and swear by Caesar, swear, and I will release you. And Polycarp then said, Eighty and six years I have served God and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who has saved me? The proconsul angrily said, I have wild beasts.

I'll throw you to them if you refuse to recant. To which Polycarp replied, Send for them. But the proconsul decided instead to burn Polycarp alive. And as they were about to nail him to the stake, he said, Let me be as I am. He that will grant me the strength to endure the fire will grant me the strength to remain here without being secured by nails. And all the crowd marveled at the great difference between themselves and this believer.

And oh, by the way, they burned Polycarp to death. Unattached, unnailed to the stake. Now, Jesus may not ask you and me as followers of Christ in our modern world to go to a stake. He may not ask us to get stoned half to death like Paul did. But friends, whatever Jesus asks us to do. He's looking for people who are willing to do whatever he asks because we are more concerned about the approval of God than we are the approval of men.

And I got a wonderful piece of news for you to end with today. And that is to people who are willing to live like the apostle Paul did. God has an incredible promise that he makes. First Samuel Chapter two, verse 30. Those who honor me, I will honor, says the Lord. Those of you who are willing to stand for me like Paul did and show me absolute fidelity.

I got a good piece of news for you. I'm going to honor your life beyond your wildest dreams. Friends, let me tell you, I'm here to testify 30 years later that every time I've kept my end of this bargain, God has kept his end of the bargain in spades, in spades. And if you're here today, there's a choice for you to make. We just don't make it once.

We have to make it every single day as we go through our daily life. And that is whose approval do I want most? Do I care that my boss puts his arm around me and says, you're a wonderful person?

You know that? Do I care that my mother, my father puts their arm around me and says, you know, I really appreciate you? Do I really care that the friends at school say, hey, you're a good guy, you're a good gal, man? Or do I care more that when I get to heaven, Jesus says to me, well done, good and faithful servant. Because I'm here to tell you, sometimes you can't have both.

Paul said it. So we got to make a choice. Which one do we care about?

We can be kind, we can be sensitive, we can be considerate to people. But whose approval do we care most about? Friends, may God help us make the right choice. Some of us here will, some of us here won't. And for those of us who won't, all I can say to you is you have no idea what God wanted to do in your life. No idea how God wanted to honor your life. You'll never know about it till you get to heaven. And God will show you what he would have done for you if you'd have just had the fidelity that Paul had. Hey, I don't want to see you miss that. I'm telling you, I've benefited from some of that. You never lose when you put Jesus first.

So make the right choice. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you know we live in a world that it's sometimes very hard to stand for you. Our world loves to talk about God, and our world loves to talk about spirituality, but our world doesn't want to hear about Jesus. They don't want to hear about a Savior who died on a cross to pay for our wrongdoings, and that the only way to get to heaven is by trusting him. And when we try to stand for that truth, there's a price to pay.

In our schools, in our workplaces, in our families. Lord, my prayer is that you would help us to do what Paul said, to follow his example, as a person of fidelity to Jesus above everything. Lord, help us worry so much about the approval of God, that the approval of man, fickle as it is, really doesn't matter. And thanks for your wonderful promise that those of us who will do this and honor you in this way, you will honor in return beyond our wildest dreams. Help us make the right choice, I pray, Lord. Change our lives because we were here today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. . .