"Suitcases"
Acts 14:8-18
The new pastor’s first Sunday with a new congregation just so happened to coincide with the church’s appeal for aid for victims of a hurricane. So it was just one of those unfortunate accidents that the center page of the worship bulletin had been omitted that day, which caused the members of the congregation to read from the bottom of the second page: “Welcome to the Rev. Andrew Jensen and his family” to the top of the next page: “the worst disaster to hit the area in this century. The full extent of the tragedy is not yet known.”
When your life affects other lives—and it will--when you meet new people or reacquaint with old ones, are you more of a blessing or more of a disaster? Yes, a lot will depend on what you say and how you say it; even more will depend on what you do and how you do it; but even more than that will depend on who you are. We can see so much of that in this story of Paul and Barnabas’s visit to Lystra.
Still on their first missionary journey, the two men had pulled out of Antioch after the jealous religious elite there had stirred up a rebellion against them. They traveled on into the southern region of Galatia, first to Iconium where they faced more dissension and then on to Lyconia and this town of Lystra. In Lystra that particular day was a man who had been crippled since his birth, and he sat and listened intently to what the apostle Paul was saying. As Paul spoke, his attention was drawn to the man; many of us have experienced this same kind of leading of the Holy Spirit. The apostle walked over to him, looked the man in the eye, and noticed that he was ripe for God’s work—that he was ready to believe. Surely Paul smiled at him as he instructed him, “Up on your feet!” And the man hopped up and walked around just as if he’d been walking around for his whole life.
Like Paul and Barnabas, we as believers have a strong desire—or at least we should have—to make a difference in this world that we live in. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if we’re really starting in the right place. Sure, we see a crisis or a need and we jump to fix it. We join political and social movements, we raise funds, we buy a T-shirt, we blog and campaign and distribute voter guides. We do all kinds of things, many of them no doubt quite good. But they’re not enough. All those things are externally focused, which in reality is only half the picture.
Peter Kreeft writes, “The strongest weapon in the world is sanctity. Nothing can defeat it.” What he means, I think, is this: For Christians to really make a difference, we need to join our desire to right wrongs in the world with a desire to right our own hearts. Holiness matters! And sanctification, the process of increasing in holiness, matters for more than just ourselves. One of the ways we fight poverty is to become poor in spirit; one of the ways we reduce our power-hunger is to become meek; one of the ways we change the world is to allow God to change us from the inside out. For it comes down to this: We cannot bring the kingdom to bear on this world if our hearts are not subject to the King.
And speaking of our King, Jesus taught us all about this in the Sermon on the Mount: “You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” If you’re alive and you’re a Christian, your life is going to have some impact on the world. Holiness has real power! But if we’re not holy—and we’re not striving to become more so—our efforts are meaningless; we’re salt with no savor. So what is it that’s stopping us? What’s holding us back from being poor in spirit, from being meek, from being merciful, from hungering and thirsting for righteousness, from being peacemakers, from being pure in heart, from being people willing to suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake? Kreeft answers this question by quoting from a spiritual classic by William Law, a book called A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, in which it says, “If you will look into your own heart in utter honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not, even now, as saintly as the primitive Christians: you do not wholly want to be.”
Wow! Kreeft calls that statement an indictment, and I agree. And here’s what’s so everlasting tricky: By focusing on the externals—what we’ve done for this cause or that—we somehow dodge that charge, we ignore it, we push it aside and behind us. For if we’re not careful, our good deeds can, in a way, serve as masks hiding bad lives. But masks eventually slip! Do-good activity unmatched with holiness always peters out. Real change in this world will come with real change in our hearts. To make a lasting difference, we have to work on both.
And that’s precisely what Paul and Barnabas were doing. These two followers of Jesus were so in tune with the God who came and walked this earth as a man that they were mistaken for being gods. Yes, they saw the faith in the crippled man and called on him to walk for the first time. Yes, they had compassion, and because they did, they brought God’s work to bear on this man’s life. And yes, their faith and their devout life led to a huge change in the lives of the people of Lystra. In fact, before we criticize these Lystrans too much—which we will do shortly—we’ve at least got to give them credit for recognizing the godliness in these two apostles. Something about these two men struck them as special. Is there something about your life that will give others pause to ponder about you somehow being godly?
Now that we’ve given the Lystrans credit, let’s launch our criticism of them! Stirred by the crippled man’s jumping up and walking, they put a typical pagan interpretation on what they had seen. These gods they thought were visiting them in human form were Zeus and Hermes (or Jupiter and Mercury). They figured Barnabas, who must have been a large, heavily bearded yet quiet man, was Zeus, the king of the gods; they figured Paul, who must have been smaller and quick in his movements and who apparently was the spokesman, was Hermes.
Their frenzied response can be traced back to a popular legend (retold by Ovid in his Metamorphosis) that Zeus and Hermes once visited this Phrygian hill country disguised as ordinary men. The two gods sought lodging there but were turned away from a thousand homes until finally taken into the humble abode of an elderly couple. The gods turned the couple’s house into a temple and destroyed all the houses and killed all the people who had rejected them. So when these Lystrans saw this miracle of Paul and Barnabas, they figured the gods were revisiting them. Reconnecting with the story of what had happened to the previous citizens, they immediately set out to honor Paul and Barnabas and shower them with gifts.
Still grasping that old fable, these people were anxious not to repeat the error of their ancestors. So word was sent to the local priest of Zeus, who led out oxen decorated with garlands of wool and ready to be slain and offered as a sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. While all this was going on, the two missionaries were innocently watching the excitement, unable to understand the ancient Lycaonian language that the people still spoke in this remote district. When it did dawn on them what was about to happen, they acted quickly to stop it. First, they tore their garments as an act of revulsion at a blasphemous attempt to regard men as divine. But then they did something both beautiful and demonstrative: They walked out to where the people were and took their place with them. Both their words and their actions were clearly saying, “We are not gods; we are folks just like you.”
People may try to put you on a pedestal because of your faith in Jesus, but don’t let them. The Bible reminds us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought—not to think of ourselves as better than others. Don’t lord your faith over unbelievers. Share it. Don’t put yourself above—or beneath—other people; put yourself out there with them. Explain to them that you’re no more than a sinner saved by grace—like them. And share your faith with kindness and compassion.
Because of the Lystrans’ lack of knowledge, Paul and Barnabas got back to the basics with them. They told them about the one true living God, the Creator who poured down rain and gave them bumper crops so that their bellies would be full and their hearts would be happy. They urged them to abandon their idolatry and idle superstitions and embrace the God of love and mercy and grace. On occasion, it might behoove us to return to the basics too. When you’re in doubt about God, stop for a while and look around you. Open your spiritual eyes along with your physical eyes; if you do, you’ll see abundant evidence of how He’s at work in our world.
Just when it seemed that Paul and Barnabas had said and done all the right things and just when it seemed the Lystrans were finally gaining some new spiritual understanding, they fell right back into their pagan attempt to offer sacrifices to the two missionaries. They just couldn’t let go of the old baggage they’d been carrying around for so long. They just couldn’t leave behind those suitcases filled with the little impotent gods of their past. But before being too hard on them, aren’t we guilty of the same sin sometimes? Are you too carrying around a few of your former, little gods? Don’t be afraid to let go. Let go, and let God. Let go of all those beat-up suitcases that are slowing you down. And let God lead you to finish this race of life.
Let us pray: Lord, we really do want to change the world—for Your sake and for Your glory. But the initial change must come in our hearts. So reshape us and renew us from the inside out. Help us to let go of anything that hinders our walk with You or our service to You or our witness for You. We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Acts 14:8-18
The new pastor’s first Sunday with a new congregation just so happened to coincide with the church’s appeal for aid for victims of a hurricane. So it was just one of those unfortunate accidents that the center page of the worship bulletin had been omitted that day, which caused the members of the congregation to read from the bottom of the second page: “Welcome to the Rev. Andrew Jensen and his family” to the top of the next page: “the worst disaster to hit the area in this century. The full extent of the tragedy is not yet known.”
When your life affects other lives—and it will--when you meet new people or reacquaint with old ones, are you more of a blessing or more of a disaster? Yes, a lot will depend on what you say and how you say it; even more will depend on what you do and how you do it; but even more than that will depend on who you are. We can see so much of that in this story of Paul and Barnabas’s visit to Lystra.
Still on their first missionary journey, the two men had pulled out of Antioch after the jealous religious elite there had stirred up a rebellion against them. They traveled on into the southern region of Galatia, first to Iconium where they faced more dissension and then on to Lyconia and this town of Lystra. In Lystra that particular day was a man who had been crippled since his birth, and he sat and listened intently to what the apostle Paul was saying. As Paul spoke, his attention was drawn to the man; many of us have experienced this same kind of leading of the Holy Spirit. The apostle walked over to him, looked the man in the eye, and noticed that he was ripe for God’s work—that he was ready to believe. Surely Paul smiled at him as he instructed him, “Up on your feet!” And the man hopped up and walked around just as if he’d been walking around for his whole life.
Like Paul and Barnabas, we as believers have a strong desire—or at least we should have—to make a difference in this world that we live in. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if we’re really starting in the right place. Sure, we see a crisis or a need and we jump to fix it. We join political and social movements, we raise funds, we buy a T-shirt, we blog and campaign and distribute voter guides. We do all kinds of things, many of them no doubt quite good. But they’re not enough. All those things are externally focused, which in reality is only half the picture.
Peter Kreeft writes, “The strongest weapon in the world is sanctity. Nothing can defeat it.” What he means, I think, is this: For Christians to really make a difference, we need to join our desire to right wrongs in the world with a desire to right our own hearts. Holiness matters! And sanctification, the process of increasing in holiness, matters for more than just ourselves. One of the ways we fight poverty is to become poor in spirit; one of the ways we reduce our power-hunger is to become meek; one of the ways we change the world is to allow God to change us from the inside out. For it comes down to this: We cannot bring the kingdom to bear on this world if our hearts are not subject to the King.
And speaking of our King, Jesus taught us all about this in the Sermon on the Mount: “You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” If you’re alive and you’re a Christian, your life is going to have some impact on the world. Holiness has real power! But if we’re not holy—and we’re not striving to become more so—our efforts are meaningless; we’re salt with no savor. So what is it that’s stopping us? What’s holding us back from being poor in spirit, from being meek, from being merciful, from hungering and thirsting for righteousness, from being peacemakers, from being pure in heart, from being people willing to suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake? Kreeft answers this question by quoting from a spiritual classic by William Law, a book called A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, in which it says, “If you will look into your own heart in utter honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not, even now, as saintly as the primitive Christians: you do not wholly want to be.”
Wow! Kreeft calls that statement an indictment, and I agree. And here’s what’s so everlasting tricky: By focusing on the externals—what we’ve done for this cause or that—we somehow dodge that charge, we ignore it, we push it aside and behind us. For if we’re not careful, our good deeds can, in a way, serve as masks hiding bad lives. But masks eventually slip! Do-good activity unmatched with holiness always peters out. Real change in this world will come with real change in our hearts. To make a lasting difference, we have to work on both.
And that’s precisely what Paul and Barnabas were doing. These two followers of Jesus were so in tune with the God who came and walked this earth as a man that they were mistaken for being gods. Yes, they saw the faith in the crippled man and called on him to walk for the first time. Yes, they had compassion, and because they did, they brought God’s work to bear on this man’s life. And yes, their faith and their devout life led to a huge change in the lives of the people of Lystra. In fact, before we criticize these Lystrans too much—which we will do shortly—we’ve at least got to give them credit for recognizing the godliness in these two apostles. Something about these two men struck them as special. Is there something about your life that will give others pause to ponder about you somehow being godly?
Now that we’ve given the Lystrans credit, let’s launch our criticism of them! Stirred by the crippled man’s jumping up and walking, they put a typical pagan interpretation on what they had seen. These gods they thought were visiting them in human form were Zeus and Hermes (or Jupiter and Mercury). They figured Barnabas, who must have been a large, heavily bearded yet quiet man, was Zeus, the king of the gods; they figured Paul, who must have been smaller and quick in his movements and who apparently was the spokesman, was Hermes.
Their frenzied response can be traced back to a popular legend (retold by Ovid in his Metamorphosis) that Zeus and Hermes once visited this Phrygian hill country disguised as ordinary men. The two gods sought lodging there but were turned away from a thousand homes until finally taken into the humble abode of an elderly couple. The gods turned the couple’s house into a temple and destroyed all the houses and killed all the people who had rejected them. So when these Lystrans saw this miracle of Paul and Barnabas, they figured the gods were revisiting them. Reconnecting with the story of what had happened to the previous citizens, they immediately set out to honor Paul and Barnabas and shower them with gifts.
Still grasping that old fable, these people were anxious not to repeat the error of their ancestors. So word was sent to the local priest of Zeus, who led out oxen decorated with garlands of wool and ready to be slain and offered as a sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. While all this was going on, the two missionaries were innocently watching the excitement, unable to understand the ancient Lycaonian language that the people still spoke in this remote district. When it did dawn on them what was about to happen, they acted quickly to stop it. First, they tore their garments as an act of revulsion at a blasphemous attempt to regard men as divine. But then they did something both beautiful and demonstrative: They walked out to where the people were and took their place with them. Both their words and their actions were clearly saying, “We are not gods; we are folks just like you.”
People may try to put you on a pedestal because of your faith in Jesus, but don’t let them. The Bible reminds us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought—not to think of ourselves as better than others. Don’t lord your faith over unbelievers. Share it. Don’t put yourself above—or beneath—other people; put yourself out there with them. Explain to them that you’re no more than a sinner saved by grace—like them. And share your faith with kindness and compassion.
Because of the Lystrans’ lack of knowledge, Paul and Barnabas got back to the basics with them. They told them about the one true living God, the Creator who poured down rain and gave them bumper crops so that their bellies would be full and their hearts would be happy. They urged them to abandon their idolatry and idle superstitions and embrace the God of love and mercy and grace. On occasion, it might behoove us to return to the basics too. When you’re in doubt about God, stop for a while and look around you. Open your spiritual eyes along with your physical eyes; if you do, you’ll see abundant evidence of how He’s at work in our world.
Just when it seemed that Paul and Barnabas had said and done all the right things and just when it seemed the Lystrans were finally gaining some new spiritual understanding, they fell right back into their pagan attempt to offer sacrifices to the two missionaries. They just couldn’t let go of the old baggage they’d been carrying around for so long. They just couldn’t leave behind those suitcases filled with the little impotent gods of their past. But before being too hard on them, aren’t we guilty of the same sin sometimes? Are you too carrying around a few of your former, little gods? Don’t be afraid to let go. Let go, and let God. Let go of all those beat-up suitcases that are slowing you down. And let God lead you to finish this race of life.
Let us pray: Lord, we really do want to change the world—for Your sake and for Your glory. But the initial change must come in our hearts. So reshape us and renew us from the inside out. Help us to let go of anything that hinders our walk with You or our service to You or our witness for You. We ask this in Jesus’ name.
