Co-Laborers With Christ

Please turn in your Bibles with me to Acts 18. We are going to finish the series in the next 3 weeks, so we’re going to pick up the pace quite a bit and this morning we’re going to cover chapters 18 and 19.

I read something that challenged me this week in a book called Church Planter written by Darrin Patrick. In the last chapter Darrin recounts how a friend of his who pastors a church in Chicago was speaking to a well known author named Lyle Schaller and was articulating his vision for the church when Schaller interrupted him. “Dave, why do I have a bigger dream for the church in your city than you do?”

It was a question that challenged me because I realized how easy it is for our dreams and our prayers for the church and for the lost and for the city God has placed us in to get smaller over time. I think of the first weeks and months (and years) when we moved to Corning to plant a church and the excitement I felt as I walked the streets and neighborhoods of Corning and Painted Post praying for these communities and for God to use our church to have a significant gospel impact on this community. I still pray those kinds of prayers, but I have to admit it is less often and I realize that for me those dreams and prayers need to be regularly stirred up again in my heart.

If we’re honest, many of us would probably admit to seeing our vision for God using us for His kingdom purposes grow smaller at times. People that we prayed for every day when we first got saved, we stop praying for. People we used to share the gospel with, we stop sharing with. Where we once found ourselves stepping outside of our comfort zone regularly to serve the Lord in some new way, now it seems we rarely do.

Acts is a book that reminds us that God’s desires for reaching this world with the gospel are far bigger than ours and God’s desires to use ordinary people and churches to reach people with the gospel are far bigger than ours. But the way He has chosen to do that is to take our weak and ineffective human effort and combine it with His strong and mighty hand to advance the gospel and reach the lost.

ILL: The door that leads from our dining area to the garage was splitting in two so I picked up an epoxy that was really two chemicals in separate tubes and as you squeezed the plunger they combined together and formed an epoxy that had a strong bonding effect. So far the door is holding.

God has chosen to combine our weak efforts with His powerful efforts to reach the lost with the gospel

To be clear, God doesn’t need us to do anything, but He has chosen to use human instruments and human effort in conjunction with His power to further His kingdom work. So what we see in Paul’s life, and what we see in Acts 18 & 19, is that Paul works hard to reach Corinth and Ephesus, all the while trusting God to do the work. It is a combination of human effort, and dependency on God.

Acts 18:1-11 

Let’s begin with an overview of these two chapters and then I want us to consider three ways that we see Paul blending human effort with dependency on God. Paul is on his second missionary journey and after leaving Athens he arrives in Corinth. Corinth is a large city that is well known for two things: its commerce and its immorality. As usual, Paul begins his ministry in the synagogue, but after a short time strong opposition rises up and he moves next door to a Gentiles house and carries his meetings on there. And many come to faith in Christ including Crispus the synagogue ruler.

At some point in this time, the Jews bring a united attack against Paul and bring him before Gallio theproconsul in the hope that he will pronounce Christianity illegal. Rome had issued a decree that all conquered nations had to worship the emperor, but because the Jewish faith prohibited them from worshipping any other god, eventually Rome made an allowance for them and declared it legal for Jews to refrain from emperor worship and worship their God only. The Jews hoped that Gallio would declare the Christian faith illegitimate requiring Christians to worship the emperor or face arrest but their plan backfired because Gallio considered Christians just another sect of the Jewish faith and gave them the same exemption and legitimacy that Jews had, which legitimized the church and cleared the way for Paul and the church to preach Christ freely for at least another decade.

After a year and a half of ministry in Corinth Paul returned to Jerusalem and Antioch, passing briefly through Ephesus on the way and promising them that he would return and spend more time with them shortly. He then begins his third missionary journey heading back to the churches he had planted to strengthen them and finally he comes to Ephesus. Let’s pick that up in chapter 19 verses 1-10.

The case of these 12 disciples is a difficult one to understand and I am not able to spend much time on it this morning, but I didn’t want to ignore it either. This passage is used frequently as a proof text for the baptism of the Holy Spirit being a second experience after salvation, the reasoning being that these are Christian disciples who have not yet received the Spirit. Personally I am not convinced that it is a good proof text for that understanding of the reception of the Spirit because I think there are some unusual things going on here. Paul comes into Ephesus – a city yet to be reached with the gospel – and finds some “disciples” there. Like Apollos in the passage before, they believe but their belief is deficient. It simply says they are disciples – some argue they are disciples of John the Baptist but Luke’s wording would lead us to believe they are in some sense followers of Christ. No question they would have heard of Jesus, and John would have pointed them to Jesus, but their discipleship seems to be centered on and limited to the teaching of John the Baptist and like Apollos they need to have some serious gaps filled in, primarily they need to be baptized as Christians and they need to receive the Holy Spirit. Paul discerns this lack quickly and baptizes them in the name of Jesus Christ and lays hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit and they gloriously do. In the end, because this is the only example in scripture of something like this happening, and because we can’t be completely sure what their spiritual state was when Paul found them I think we need to be careful using this as a normative example of how and when Christians receive the Spirit.

Moving on, in his missionary labor to reach these two cities, we see a blend of human effort on the part of Paul, and a strong confidence in and dependency on God. Let me point out three evidences of this in Paul’s life that we can imitate:

I. Paul persuaded men, depending on God to move their hearts to believe

Wherever Paul went he worked hard to persuade men to believe. In Corinth it says he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. (18:4) In Ephesus it says, he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. (19:8) 

There is an important line here. In our culture there is a distaste for debate or people who share their beliefs too strongly. A part of this is because we live in a relativistic age that doesn’t believe there is a truth that can be known so no one should hold too dogmatically to anything. A part of it is because some people have been obnoxious in how they share their strongly held views.

As Christians we should never be argumentative or obnoxious, but we do need to recognize that the gospel calls us to try and persuade people to believe in Christ. As long as people are willing to dialogue in a reasonable way, we should be bold to explain and reason with them about Christ in the effort to persuade them. If they disagree with things we believe or raise objections to things the Bible says, we shouldn’t feel that to respectfully continue sharing our beliefs is being contentious or the same as fighting with them.

I can think of three men over the years who would argue and even mock me when I shared my Christian faith with them but eventually became Christians. 

Paul reasoned strongly and boldly and persuaded some and angered others. The pattern from city to city was that a significant number of Jews would become so angered and offended by the gospel that they would begin to revile and persecute Paul and he would leave to preach to the Gentiles (and what Jews would continue to listen). 

In the end, we must know that it is God who must move their hearts to believe. In verse 9-10 when God encourages Paul to continue speaking, He tells Paul that there are many in the city who belong to God – in other words, keep speaking Paul for there are many that I will draw to Myself. But God tells Paul he should continue to speak and not be silent precisely because God had many people He would move to believe. Speak to persuade, but depend on God to move their hearts to believe.

As long as there is a willingness to engage, to listen, even to debate the gospel calls us to reason and persuade people. For some of us, this is where we need to grow – we are silent when we should speak. Paul persuaded, depending on God to move their hearts to believe.

II. Paul pressed on, trusting God to be with him in the labor 

a. Paul pressed through his fear

As Paul shared the gospel he met with many obstacles along the way. The first obstacle he encountered in Corinth might surprise us, but it can also encourage us. As Paul entered Corinth, he struggled with fear. We don’t think of Paul being afraid of anything but actually he had to press through significant fear.

In two of the cities he worked in before coming to Corinth, Thessalonica and Berea, he had to leave because the opposition got so hot. Now he comes into Corinth – which is known for its wealth and immorality – and he would tell them later that he came in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. That explains why the risen Christ would appear to him in a vision (in verses 9-10) and encourage Paul, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you.

If we give in to fear it will silence us. Fear of offending people or having them think badly of us will keep us from witnessing the gospel. Fear of risking failure might keep us from trusting God to use us in ways that step out of our comfort zone.

Jesus spoke to that fear, as God does so often in the OT, assuring Paul that He was with him. And so the next verse tells us that Paul spoke and spoke and spoke for the next year and a half there.

Faith may not always remove fear from our hearts, sometimes it enables us to press on through the fear, trusting that God is with us. And that’s enough.

b. Pressed on in perseverance

Paul stayed in Corinth ministering for a year and a half. He stayed in Ephesus for two years. He took time to plant churches in these regions and he persevered for the long haul. 

I can far too often have a very shallow view of sharing the gospel: share it once, maybe twice, and then think, “nothing happening there.” Paul didn’t do that – persevered and we should too. Seeing God touch people’s lives and bring them to Christ sometimes takes time – sometimes a lot of time. Press on in perseverance.

We’ve all seen the terrible news reports coming out of the Mid-West states that have been hard hit by tornadoes recently. It has been declared the worst year for tornadoes on record. Rebuilding their lives, their homes, and their cities is going to take a long time. Slow work. If someone comes and says, if we can’t do this quickly then I want nothing to do with it, they aren’t going to be of much help in the rebuilding process. Realize it’s a long, slow process.

The same is true of gospel work. Because of sin people’s lives are devastated – often there’s little left standing. It takes time to help them rebuild – or in biblical language, disciple them in Christ. We want to follow Paul’s example and not have a shallow view of gospel work – share a tract with them and then leave them on their own.

ILL: The office supply store Staples trademarked the motto “that was easy” and the easy button. I think I’ve been thinking a lot about Staples this week because last week I got hit in the head and had to have 11 staples put in my head. So I guess you could say I’ve had staples on the brain – my head feels like an office supply store.

But there is no easy button in evangelism. Jesus couldn’t take away our sin by hitting an easy button – he had to come to earth and live and die to pay for our sins. And connecting people to Jesus Christ and then helping them to grow as disciples in Christ isn’t often easy. Even though God is powerfully working in us and through us, it still isn’t easy and therefore we need to persevere for the long haul.

ILL: Last week Warren shared how with their new building they’ve seen more unsaved people come to church and get saved in the last 10 months than they had in the last ten years. Wonderful testimony, but there’s a sub-current testimony I want to draw your attention to: it took perseverance to get to this wonderful point. What if they had grown discouraged and given up 3 years ago? What if they had concluded that God wasn’t working, wasn’t blessing their evangelism so why continue, why press on? They might have missed the harvest they are enjoying.

Let’s lay that over our lives. Is there some area of serving the Lord that you are growing discouraged in? Is there some person that you are ready to give up on? As individuals and as a church we might feel like we’ve cast the nets out over and over again, but at the bidding of Jesus we must cast the nets out yet again, knowing that when He bids, there will be a great catch.

Jesus told his disciples as he sent them out into the world that he would be with them, he told Paul as he commanded him not to be afraid but to continue speaking that he would be with him, and Jesus tells those of us who are Christians today that he is with us. So press on and don’t give up.

III. Paul planned and strategized, depending on God to direct his steps 

Acts 19:21

Paul planned out strategically how his life could have the greatest impact for the gospel. He didn’t end up in the most influential and heavily populated cities by accident, he was a strategist. As he gets to this point, he resolves in the Spirit to pass back through Macedonia (where he has met with fierce opposition and had to flee) and back to Jerusalem, and looking ahead, Paul determines that God is calling him to go to Rome. This is Paul’s plan. This is the Spirit’s plan. He is planning while listening to the Spirit of God.

There are two extremes we want to avoid: the one is trusting in the plans and strategies of men to accomplish God’s work. If you have an aversion to the word “strategy” it’s probably because you’ve seen it become a substitute for reliance on God and a temptation for men to exalt his own abilities and plans. Scripture talks a lot about not trusting in our plans.

But if we are depending on God to direct our steps, and we are attempting to listen and obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, planning and strategizing how we can best leverage (or steward if you want a more biblical word) is a very good thing and Paul did a lot of it.

God desires to use ordinary believers to carry on the unstoppable mission of Jesus Christ. We can’t do it without Him, but He chooses to do that work through us. Are we ready, brothers and sisters, to dedicate ourselves to His work? Are we ready to sacrifice for His work? Are we ready to pray for the labor fields and for God to send the laborers? Are we ready to go ourselves? Are we ready to work in the areas of service that God already has us working in with a fresh sense of faith and dependence?

God in His wisdom and goodness chooses to combine our weak efforts with His powerful effort to reach the lost with the gospel. Let’s pray and ask God to help us do our part, depending on Him to faithfully do His part.