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Go ahead and be turning to the book of Acts. I'm going to do something that I do not typically do and save the reading of our text for just a little bit later. First, we're going to do something that I do typically do and walk through a little bit of the context to get there.

So, we're in the book of Acts with the young adults. We just recently finished the first part of the book of Acts, going through the life of Peter. And there's a number of different ways you can summarize or outline the book. The way I like to give it, you've got two halves of the book.

You've got the first 14 chapters, you've got chapter 15, and then you've got the remainder. In the first half, one name appears repeatedly, over and over, and that's Peter. Not exclusively, but it's more or less dominated by the life of Peter. The last half of the book, there's one name that shows up repeatedly, though not exclusively, dominated by the name of Paul.

In between the two, you have the Jerusalem Council. So, the first 14 chapters we're going to step through just a little bit, and I just said it's dominated by Peter. We're actually going to look. Though, at the first missionary journey of Paul, which is in this section, and it's in this section for a reason, because as Peter is working, God is using Peter to establish the church.

These first 14 chapters are exactly that: the establishment of the church, starting with Pentecost and going all the way through the deciding on what to do with all these pesky Gentiles in chapter 15. Once that is largely settled, Paul goes forth in the remainder of his ministry and it's talking about that ministry to the Gentiles.

So we'll see this foundation. Walking through this very quickly, we see the first six chapters is a work confined to Jerusalem by and large. This is typified in chapter 6, verse 7. And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

I choose this just as illustrative of those six chapters. You start out with between 120 to 500 disciples. You end with somewhere in the vicinity of 15,000. Which, by the way, if you do a rough calculation of what we think was the population of Jerusalem, makes up a little more than 10% of the total population.

In the city. From a very small group of disciples to an utterly, you cannot ignore the size of the church anymore. And that's exactly what happens. They go from a pesky group to some that cannot be ignored. So then, with that being the case, in chapter 7 through 10, you get the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem spreading.

We get this typified in chapter 8, verse 1, which starts, and Saul was consenting unto his death, referring to Stephen. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

So you have the building of the church and growing to a number that cannot be ignored in Jerusalem. And exactly that happens, they start getting attention, they start getting the persecution, leads to the death of Stephen, and from there it gets worse and worse, and they get spread out across the immediate countryside immediately surrounding Jerusalem.

And from there, you have the first Gentiles that start to come in contact with the Christian religion. Example being the Ethiopian with Philip. And the most notable Cornelius with Peter. And then you have chapter 11. In chapter 11, what do we do? Christians have started to name, sorry, Gentiles have started to name the name of Christ.

Not proselytes, true Gentiles who are not living in accordance with the law, naming the name of Christ. And in chapter 11, they get together and they decide, as typified in verse 18, when they heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

They confirmed it. The church as a whole has understood and recognized that salvation is not restricted to the Jews. It has gone out with the Jews from Jerusalem to the Gentiles. It has reached everyone. This, however, then begins to bring even more persecution. In chapter 12, you see the persecution is not just the Jews anymore.

The Jews practicing the enemies of Christ that we saw all through the gospel. The elite, the ruling, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, those who stood against Jesus while he was on earth, still standing against those of his disciples. It extends now past them. This persecution. Just as much as the church is expanding, the persecution does.

And in chapter 12, it extends beyond the religious debates in the religious scene to the government. In chapter 12, verse 1. Now, about at that time, Herod, the king, stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, to persecute the church. Herod is not a great example of Jewish ideals or Christian ideals, although he would like to name those names, perhaps at least to stay good with the Jews.

He's taken on some of the Pharisees to make up his cabinet, so to speak. He likes to play those games, but he is largely a man only concerned with power. And now, because it is helping him to curry favor in political realms, he has started also persecuting. The church has expanded, as has the persecution.

And then we get to chapter 13. In chapter 13, the church which has been established in Antioch, which is in Syria as we know it, up in the north of Israel, one of the dominant churches of not only this biblical era, but The era to come. This is a church that will stand for a very long time.

They send at a commission by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark to go to the Gentiles, specifically to preach and to declare the word of the Lord in truly foreign lands, as far as the word of the gospel goes. And we see in what follows, in the next two chapters, this first missionary journey.

And I'm hoping over the course of this summer to give, I know that I'm scheduled right now for two, maybe three, and we're going to look at each of the three missionary journeys. But this first one stands as unique because it is establishing the work of the church.

And we're going to look and see with me in chapter 13, starting in verse 4, we're going to see where he goes and what he does. Very quickly, in chapter 13, verse 4. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John to assist them. When they had gone through the whole island, as far as Palestine, Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar Jesus.

So they're moving west. They start and they sail across to Cyprus. And then look at verse 13, same chapter. Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and they come to Perga and Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem. So now, and I thought about giving you maps, but I couldn't make any of them look good, so you're going to have to use your mind's eye.

They've sailed west to Cyprus. They went through the island, through a couple cities there, and now they're going north, modern-day Turkey, into Perga. And from there, we start to see something happen. Look at verse 50. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirring up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district.

But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Now at Iconium, they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.

So you have here, and I I missed a piece. They're going to Antioch. And in Antioch, you have persecution. Nothing has happened yet. But the Jews are spreading discontent. So they're in, they've left Antioch, they've gone to Iconium, and there is discontent. Now, what's going to happen in Iconium?

Look with me. I'm sorry. So we see that now at Iconium, we just read verse 14. They entered together in the synagogues and they're preaching. Look at 14, verse 2. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers again, like they just did.

So they remained there for a long time, speaking boldly to the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. Verse 4, but the people of the city were divided. And being divided, some were with the Jews and some with the apostles, when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them.

All right. So we just saw starting in 1350, there is persecution. And then starting in 14, verse 2, in Iconium, plotted murder. They're planning to stone them. They don't like them. They're stirring them up. There's persecution. They go to the next city. They don't like them. They're stirring them up.

They're planning to kill them. Okay, and then they go to the next city. It's surely going to get better, right? I mean, where are you going to go from here? You've got to go up. So we see, look at, as we keep reading. Verse 5, an attempt is made to stone them.

Keep reading at verse 6. They learned of it, referring to the apostles. They learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derby, cities of Lyconia, and to the surrounding country. And there they continued to preach the gospel. Verse 8. Now at Lystra, there was a man sitting who could not use his feet.

And it's going to continue to talk about the work that they do in Lystra. They're still preaching. They have not given up. They have not left. But the persecution has followed them all. Now, here we get to the text I want us to look at tonight. Seeing the missionary journey thus far and how it has gone for them, we're going to see the climax of the story in verses 19 through 22 of chapter 14.

Verse 19. But the Jews. Uh-oh. Well, that's right how the last couple times started. But the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derby.

When they had preached the gospel to that city, they had made many disciples and returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, 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.

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. There was persecution, there was attempted murder, a plotted murder, and then there was attempted murder. And what strikes me, if you look at this, you see this progression, the persecution, the plotted, and the attempted.

And look at the cities where it took place that we just read: Antioch, the persecution. Iconium, the plotted murder. Lystra, the attempted murder. And look with me. Where does Paul, after he recovers in Derby, immediately go? Verse 21. When they had preached the gospel in that city and had made many disciples, they returned in reverse order to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.

Is that just me, or does that strike anybody as funny? Like not in the comical sense, but just odd. You just went right back to the worst places doing the worst things. You didn't try to deviate, didn't you know, sneak through, going through, not just going through, but going through and preaching and staying, not sneaking through at night because they had to because of the road or something like that.

No, went right back in exactly the same places in reverse order, preaching the gospel and strengthening the disciples. You see, Paul and his party are faithful to God. They were given a mission and they carried it out. They speak from a place. Of faithfulness. Anything that Paul has to say, he is speaking as one having done it.

We look in 1 Corinthians 4, 16, and Paul says, Follow me. In 1 Corinthians 11, 11, he says, imitate me. These are not proud boastings. This is a man who is able to say this because he has gone there and done that. When he is strengthening these disciples, he is strengthening to continue the faith because he has continued in the faith.

He is a man who is able to preach and declare because he has lived that life. In 1920, in the heretofore recently named Fort Benning, in the infantry school, there was an infantry manual which read thus. And before that, just to quickly caveat that, their motto, by the way, is Follow Me.

And the manual read, By the bayonet, or the threat of the bayonet, is ground captured. The line advanced, the battle won. The cavalryman with his saber and his vaunted shock action, the artilleryman with his big guns, the aviator with his far-seeing eyes and Deadly bombs are well-nigh indispensable.

But after all, they exist only to aid the infantryman, who with his cold steel meets the enemy face to face and must conquer him hand to hand. My friends, we are engaging Satan and his forces not with long-range artillery or weaponry. We are meeting him on a field of battle, commonly referred to as earth.

And we are doing so as we live day by day, living life. You're not going to be able to avoid him. You're not going to be able to dodge him. You're not going to be able to hide from the world or the desires that you have in the flesh.

You are fighting this battle, whether you like it or not. You are engaged in the fight, whether you like it or not. And my question is: can you stand up and boldly say, Follow me? Are you engaged in that fight? Can you tell your children, follow me? Can you say, I have continued in the faith?

Because Paul sets the example of a man who can. And we as a people are engaged in this fight. And I would challenge you to take heart in that example. But the text does not. In there, he gives us this example, but then he also gives us a message, a message which we should take to heart as a man who has lived this.

And I'd like to look and key in on that example. We've looked up this far at the context, at the story as a whole, as it has developed. Now I want to look at the message that this man in his boldness has given us. And that culminates in our focal point tonight in verse 22.

I'll read it again for us. Strengthening, and this is him coming back through these cities for the purpose of 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. And I'd like to look through that.

First, he is strengthening the souls of the disciples. And you must immediately ask: who are these disciples? If we look back at chapter 13, 48, very close to a section we read just a moment ago, you'll see it says, And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.

And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. There's a couple things there I'll note based on what we've already looked at in the context as far as who these disciples are. First, it includes both. Jews and Gentiles, which is good news for us here. We are mostly, I dare say, not Jews in this room.

Jews and Gentiles are included in this number. So we can look at that as including, in large part, people like us. In fact, those who accept this word are primarily Gentiles. If you look at the book of Galatians, which is a book that is pertaining to these same peoples in the province of Galatia, they are mostly Gentiles.

This is something that should resonate with us in this room strongly. Next, I'll point out to you in what I just read that they were appointed to eternal life. They were those to whom the gospel was given and the gospel was received. You can continue with this same thought.

They were those who believed. Look at verse 23 of chapter 14 in our text. As he's going through these churches and praying and appointing these elders, he's appointing those who had believed. You see, you cannot continue in the faith unless you have faith. You cannot be called a disciple unless you are a follower.

And here's where I'll take a moment to ask you: Are you a disciple or not? Have you been appointed for eternal life or have you not? Have you believed or have you not? If you do not believe, if you have not confessed Jesus Christ, then this does not apply to you.

You cannot continue in the faith. You are on the opposite side. You are one of those on the crowd that is doing the persecuting. And as Christ said to Paul only a few chapters before, why are you persecuting not just those who are disciples of Christ, but Christ himself?

Why are you rebelling against your Father? Why are you kicking against him? Why? If you are in this room and you are rebelling against him, let me commend to you that it's far easier, if for no other reason, practically speaking, it's far easier to capitulate, surrender, and submit to the king of the universe, to God Almighty, than to try to fight against someone against whom you have no match, against whom you cannot hope to win.

Why are you standing opposed? All it takes is an admission that you have sinned against him, that you have rebelled against him, admitting your sin and confessing that he is not. He is indeed the Lord, and you cannot survive or hope without him. And my call for you tonight would be to do exactly that.

And if that is something you'd like to do, then after this message is over, find me, find one of the elders. And let's talk about that. Let's talk about what that looks like. And then after you've made that decision, or for those of you who have in the past made that decision, then you are a disciple.

You are one who has followed. You are one to whom eternal life has been appointed. You are one who believes. In which case, you are a disciple, and you're one of those he is speaking to in this text. The next question I'd like to look at, he's strengthening the souls of these disciples.

We know who these disciples are. But you'll note, what does it mean to strengthen their souls? They're living with persecutors. They're living with those who are persecuting Christ and his church. You see, there's no escape from that. They live their life there. That's where their home is. For many of them, they have no option to just get up, pack their bags, and go to some Christian community, of which Antioch may be the closest such place, if that.

And even there, that's doubtful. The fact is, they are where they are, and they're living. Among a people who hate them. An interesting thing we talked about in the Shepherd's Conference. I went to one of the seminars and it was talking about the underground church and this idea that we unfortunately might be moving there very quickly, a place where the church is no longer accepted, where we look a lot more like it looks here in Acts.

And it was brought up that you cannot possibly live the life modeled for us in the scriptures and live a safe life, an insulated life. We can take precautions, we can do certain things, we can have house churches, we can do all these things, but the fact is, if you are witnessing, if you are living for Christ, you will be found out.

You cannot utterly and completely separate yourself from the dangerous world we live in and still live the life we are called to live. You are called to live a life of danger. That's just a practical matter, and that is the reality for these disciples at this time that he is speaking to.

And he is not trying to strengthen them physically, he is strengthening their soul, strengthening them spiritually, because living in this environment is not so much, yes, is there going to be, for them, many times. Physical persecution, sure, but the struggle is going to be spiritual. Do I live for Christ or not?

Do I do what I'm called to do or do I compromise? If you look at Romans 7 and 8, it talks about this idea that we live life in the flesh, but in order to live for Christ is to live a spiritual life. Looking at Ephesians chapter 6, you'll see that our enemy is not necessarily the person next to us, but the principalities and the spiritual forces.

And the weapons we fight with are not our fists. It's not the bayonet, such as in the manual I read earlier. But it is a fight nonetheless, and it is fought with spiritual weapons. He's strengthening their soul by encouraging them to fight the spiritual fight that they are called to.

And that's borne out as we look at this next part, to continue the faith. As we look in verse 22, he's strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to do what? To continue in the faith. This is a phrase to continue in the faith used exactly three times by Paul here: Colossians 1, 23, and 1 Timothy 2, 15.

We're not going to dissect each of those, but if you care to look at them in Colossians 1, 23, Very quickly, in verse 21, he says, and you. Verse 22, God has reconciled, verse 23, if indeed you continue in the faith. And that's very much the idea here as well.

If you're saved, you will continue in the faith. And if you don't, then you are not one of his. And this idea is here as well. If you are in the faith, you will continue in the faith. So then the immediate question you might ask is, why would he encourage them to do something they will do?

What's the point? You say, I will continue in the faith, and why do I need encouragement to do that which I will do? And here I'll use an illustration I find striking. In a movie, which I'm not, I just find the interesting. Master and Commander, there's two scenes early on.

And in this scene, there's the oldest sailor and the youngest sailor. And the oldest sailor on the ship has a tattoo on his finger that says, hold fast. And they get ambushed, and the youngest sailor there, or who I assume to be the youngest sailor, looks, and the oldest sailor, just as they're starting to.

Make their engagement, hold his fingers up where that sailor can see, hold fast. Now, that's striking because where is he going to go? He's on this boat, he's being attacked. What other option is there? Is he going to just jump off the boat? He's in the fight, whether he likes it or not.

He's there, he cannot escape it. He is in the fight. What is the purpose of being shown hold fast? Why is he getting this encouragement? What does it mean? The very fact that you will make it is the reason to double down on the effort to make it.

We are victorious. In fact, we've been going through the book of Revelation, the whole point of which is that we're going in the end to be on the other side of a victory won for us by an almighty God. And we have this whole book of encouragement given to us.

Why should we take this encouragement? Just tell us you win the end. No, we have this whole book encouraging us, not only encouraging us that we will win, but showing how he's going to win. And we see this, and then we go about our lives knowing that and being encouraged in that.

To go do that, we are being encouraged by Paul to hold fast to the faith that we will hold fast to. We are being encouraged by him to know that our fight is not in vain. There is a fight, it is a day-by-day fight, but it is not useless, it is not in vain.

And because of that, we can continue and keep going. Because of that, when you are struggling with your temptations, every day it comes back over and over and over, and you say, Well, when will I be rid of this? On this side of glory, you may not. And it's a fight, and you say, Well, what am I supposed to do with that?

I say, continue in the faith. Maybe you have a physical ailment, and maybe you have a family member who has been taken from you, and maybe you have a family member who is not coming to salvation, and you've been praying for them over and over, and maybe you have this, and maybe you have that, and every day you wake up, and it's the same thing in front of you over and over.

And to this, Paul is saying, continue in the faith. They're waking up to a people who hate them, despise them, are making life hard for them. And every day, they're going to hear Paul. Encouraging them in this. And that is for us here. I cannot change anything for you in your life.

And we do not know what lays ahead except for more tribulations. As Paul says at the end of verse 22, many more tribulations. And that might seem daunting. But the object of our faith is God. And because I have faith in a good God who is all-powerful, who wins in the end, suddenly the rest stops meaning a whole lot.

The tribulations I can deal with. When I realize, as talked about this morning, how much I have been forgiven for, all the other debts suddenly are paling in comparison. So, to this and to each of you here tonight, I simply say: do not despair, do not give up, do not cease to do the work.

And to God be the glory. Let's pray. Dear Lord, I pray for. This church body, that you will continually encourage them, that you will continually build them up. Lord, I pray that each of us will wake up renewed in the strength of your Spirit driving us on. Lord, that nothing that gets thrown at us will stop us, make us shrink from our tasks.

Lord, that we will be so enamored and so caught up in you that we will have no sight of anything else. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.