June 7, 2026
"The Kingdom Through Tribulations" (Acts 14:21-28)
Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church Scripture: Acts 14:21–28
Hear now the word of the lord from Acts 14, verses 21 through 28. When they had preached the Gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they 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. Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the Word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had for.
And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples. This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated.
As you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together this morning in prayer.
Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for these instructions and this example from the early church to instruct us to shape the vision that we have for our church today in this place, according to your vision for your church in all times and all places. And so we thank you this morning for this wide range and survey we have here in this text of all that the church should be and do. And Father, as we study this text, we pray that Christ would be exalted as Jesus continues to conform his church to the image that he wants for us. And so, Father, this morning we pray that you would give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all, all that is contained in the good news of the gospel of your son, Jesus Christ our Savior. It's in Christ's name that we pray.
Amen.
One of the very interesting things that I have enjoyed at this church is meeting several of you who have been here for a very long time. Some of you were baptized here. Some of you had parents who were baptized here or grandparents who were baptized here. That is an extraordinary thing, to be in the same church for such a long time, such deep roots in that place. My story is different.
By God's grace, I have been a part of many churches. I don't say that to brag, it's a fact. And I have not been in many churches because of ongoing church hopping. But these have been moves in life for various reasons or to take different ministry calls. Early on I was in a very small rural church that was about 30 people.
And from there, later on in life I was also a part of a sprawling suburban megachurch that had about two and a half thousand on a Sunday passing through their doors. I've been a part of non denominational churches. I've been an evangelical free church, a Baptist church, an Evangelical Covenant church, now a Presbyterian churches, several different Presbyterian churches. I've been a part of affluent and intellectual churches as well as urban and mercy ministry focused churches. I've been at a very young church plant and now I've been to the exact opposite of that in a 165-year-old established church.
These have all been different, but by the grace of God, I would say all of these churches were faithful churches, faithfully preaching Jesus Christ during the time that I was a part of those churches. And although the ministries of these different churches, in different places, different sizes, different ministries, all of these look different in a lot of respects. If you sort of look down and kind of see correlations, well, this is like that over there. Even though it's totally different in those two different contexts, you see that these churches were doing many of the same things. Now, the key question that we have been thinking about throughout this entire sermon series through the Book of Acts is what is God's vision for his church?
And it's a remarkable thing then to compare what we see from the very earliest church and to see how that maps on to churches that I've been a part of, to churches that you have been a part of. And this morning, this text is a really good one for asking what are the criteria for healthy churches? We've seen snippets and bits and pieces as we've gone along. There's a really wide range of criteria laid out that I think is a fairly comprehensive summary and survey of those criteria for healthy churches here and here. We're going to see several different aspects of healthy churches, but but also one surprising, I think, organizing principle for all of these.
It is remarkable to see the way that all of this ministry in healthy churches is organized around preparing people to endure tribulation by dependence on the power of the kingdom of God. And so our theme this morning is this. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. There are two parts to the sermon text this morning.
1. Preparing for Tribulation (Acts 14:21-23)
First of all, preparing for tribulation. Preparing for tribulation. And second, declaring the kingdom. Declaring the kingdom. So let's start with Preparing for tribulation, verses 21 through 23.
But before we get to those verses, it's helpful to remember where we are. In verse 19, Paul was in Lystra. And while he was ministering in Lystra, preaching the word of God there, unbelieving, rebellious Jews came up from the cities that he had been ministering to recently, Antioch and Iconium. And they came into Lystra and stirred up the crowds against Paul to the point that the crowds sought to kill Paul. They stoned Paul and they dragged him out of the city, believing or supposing that he was dead.
But then in verse 20, when the disciples had gathered about him, he rose up, he went back into the city, which is a remarkable thing. But then on the next day, he went on with Barnabas, his missions partner, to Derbe. And it's in Derbe that the story picks up, that our text picks up, picks up today in verse 21, when they had preached the gospel to that city. Now, I want to stop here because we are here seeing the first criteria or the first mark of a healthy church of the the activity that healthy churches do, namely, there is a vibrant evangelistic, missionary or gospel preaching work in that city. Notice we do not read that they confined their gospel preaching to private gatherings.
It doesn't say they preached the gospel to many different closed door private meetings. It wasn't invitation only. It says they preached the gospel to that city. Like other cities on their missionary journeys, their gospel preaching was outdoors. It was among the people.
They found the crowds where people were gathered and they preached to them directly there. And they announced the gospel of Jesus to people not who had already been convinced of that gospel, not who are already seeking for it, but people who had been going about their own idolatrous pagan lives, minding their own pagan business. And there, while they're minding their own pagan business, the gospel confronts them where they are telling them that they are sinners who deserve God's wrath and condemnation, but that God in his infinitely free mercy, has made a way for them to enter into the kingdom of heaven through the shed blood of God's only son, Jesus Christ. And so we read, we don't have the details, but we read that there was fruit from this when they preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples. Again, these pagans who woke up thinking they were just going to go along with their pagan day had been confronted with the gospel of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit gripped many of them to believe in the gospel of Jesus and to turn entirely away from their former lives to. To start following that carpenter from Nazareth who was crucified for them and raised for their justification. Well, we find that conversions, though, were not the only thing that the church went about doing. So when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. Now, remember, some of those cities, Iconium and Antioch were places where Paul had already stirred up a great amount of opposition.
Lystra was the place where he had just been stoned and left for dead. And yet Paul is so committed to these churches that had been left behind, his evangelistic ministries there, that he went back to them. He went back right into the belly of the beast, right into the den of the lion, in order to minister to the Christians that had been left behind in those places. And it's interesting to see, because this is where we see a fully orbed or fully rounded picture of the ministry, the ongoing ministry of the church. So again, to these new but starting to be established congregations.
In verse 22, the first thing we read is that Paul went back to them strengthening the sword souls of the disciples. Again, this is the second criteria of the church. The first one is evangelistic witness to that city. The second thing is, here we read about them strengthening the souls of the disciples. This probably refers to teaching and training the people in these churches.
Further, in the word of God we are strengthened the more that we are brought up, to know, to feed on the meat of God's word word, to understand more and more, and to be strengthened in our souls by dependence upon the teaching and the promises of God. Well, the next thing they do here, the third criteria of a healthy church is that they were encouraging them, encouraging them to continue in the faith. Here we have an exhortation in the language of another part of the Bible to put down roots of the gospel into the soil of their hearts. If you remember the parable that Jesus talked about, the sower, the evangelist, sowing seeds, scattering seeds of the word of God. And those seeds fell in different places.
Some of them fell on hard soil and they were snatched up immediately. Some of them fell on thorny soil, and those thorns choked out the word by a care for the pleasures of this world. But others of the seeds fell on rocky soil. And these rocky soil gave no room for roots to sink down into that soil. And because of that, when the sun came out, that is when tribulation and persecution arose, those whose hearts did not have the gospel with deep roots into them, immediately they fell Away.
They did not persist. They did not faithfully follow after Jesus. They fell away in the persecution. We're encouraged to be exhorted to continue on in the faith. And we need the Church to help us with this.
We'll talk about that more in a moment. But notice how what Paul was doing in encouraging them to continue in their faith. The next section leads to this exhortation about the tribulations. Paul and Barnabas were saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Now Linsky gives a really helpful definition of tribulation.
He talks about pressure that squeezes painfully. Pressure that squeezes painfully. Throughout the Scriptures, we are told that we will indeed face this kind of tribulation and trial in the course of our lives. It's all over the Old Testament. It's the lament of all of those Psalms in the Book of Psalms.
It's the example of God's people in many times and many ages that we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. That language, we must is an interesting word in Greek. It's often used. It means it is necessary. It's a simple little word that's talked about a necessity that must happen.
It means that we must pass through these things, that there is no passage into eternal glory apart from the suffering of tribulations. As many have summarized this teaching. No cross, no crown. Unless we suffer with him, we will not reign with Him. As Paul writes in Romans 8, 17, we must be fellow heirs with Christ, or we will be fellow heirs with Christ.
We are fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we also may be glorified with Him. Now, this is a feature. It's not a bug. It's not a mistake or a glitch in our discipleship, because it's through these tribulations, through this pressure that squeezes us so painfully. Where we often see God doing the greatest work to sanctify, purify his people.
Because it's in those situations where we are called upon most to trust him and follow Him. Well, these are the exhortations that Paul gives to the early church. But then notice what they do. They're about to leave these places. But before they leave, verse 23.
And when they had appointed elders for them in every church before leaving, they appoint elders for them in every church. They recognize that they cannot remain there. They have an ongoing missionary evangelistic work to do. And yet they cannot leave the sheep undefended, unguarded, against the wolves who will try to sneak in and carry away the flock. They need elders, they need shepherds.
They need those who are going to be there to feed the sheep, those who are going to be there to protect the sheep. And so they put elders in these churches to give ongoing shepherding, nurturing, care and oversight to these sheep. But then finally, the sixth mark, the sixth criterion, is that we see that with fasting or with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Now, we have a summary statement here of the worship of the church in some sense, but really this is focusing particularly on the prayer and the fasting for the sake of these people. They recognize the church does not belong to the missionaries and the planters, and it does not belong to the office bearers, the elders.
This is a church that belongs to the Lord. This is a church that or these are churches that can only be sustained by the power of the Lord. And so they are praying that these churches will remain established, will remain strong in Jesus Christ. Now, again, here is where we have God's vision for his church, that healthy churches thrive in the midst of these tribulations. Again, it's through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of heaven.
And do you see how all of this is revolved around protecting and preparing and guarding in a continual way, overseeing the church to make sure that whatever tribulations from whatever quarter may arise, the church is equipped and prepared, however painful it may be, to continue faithfully following Jesus. Now, I want to take this criteria that we just looked at, and I want to give you a sampling of what your involvement in this particular church could look like. We recognize there are a lot of things going on. No one person could be involved in all of them. But as you think about the various aspects of the criteria that we've seen here, there are lots of ways that you can participate in these.
The first thing is that healthy churches engage in that vibrant evangelism that this passage began with, seeking to reach the whole city, even, and especially, especially when that brings upon persecution, as Paul has faced everywhere he has gone in this missionary journey. As we mentioned at the beginning of the service, there is an evangelistic opportunity next Saturday evening for the first of the Lansing cruise nights for this summer. And I want to exhort you, will you go to this? Will you go and take the risk of stepping into a conversation with a stranger that you've never met, understanding that it may not go super well, but encouraged that you are not the one who has to convince this person to believe the gospel of Jesus in Fact, you cannot do it. You are simply called to share the word of Christ with those whom God puts your path and to see what the Lord will do to open hearts and minds to believe in Jesus.
There's something this Saturday, in four weeks, there's an opportunity with the children in the neighborhood. We'll have many children here for vbs, but we also invite many children from the neighborhood. And there are a lot of people from backgrounds. Many of them do not go to church. There's a very good VBS curriculum that we have here that's going to be very extreme, explicit about the gospel.
They're going to be memorizing Bible verses and singing songs that extol Jesus. Will you be a part of helping children to come to know Jesus Christ, maybe for the first time hearing about their Savior? Because Jesus loves the little children? Will you be involved in sharing that love of Jesus for the children who will be here in four weeks?
The second mark, the second criteria of a healthy church is that healthy churches strengthen disciples by teaching and training people in the Word. Now, I want to ask if you're taking advantage of opportunities to be strengthened in the Word. We have many opportunities, many Bible studies that are continuing through this summer, many Bible studies that run through the year. Again, I want to make a plug for the Men's Quarterly Leadership Breakfast, starting as we think of Read through the Redeemed man together on August 1st. Make a plan to be there.
Make a plan to think about how you can be strengthened men in your faith to lead your life, to lead your families, to lead in the world and workplace in which you have been called to lead. If God calls in the church, in whatever capacity that may be, take advantage of those opportunities. The third is that healthy churches exhort one another to put down roots of endurance through trials. Now, some of the things that I've mentioned here have been organized. There are specific events at specific times led by specific people.
But we've also been praying. If you listen to the congregational prayer, there are a lot of people who are going through a lot of tribulations. And you may know of other people who are going through other difficulties in life. In your circle, how might you, without organization, informally go to the people who you know are struggling and exhort them, encourage them, come alongside them, help them through times when they may be stumbling and tripping through life? That's something every believer can do.
For another, will you help to exhort those to continue in the faith?
The fourth item is that healthy churches brace for faithfulness and tribulation. By prayer. Again, this is something all of us are called to do privately and it's something we do corporately. In Isaiah, chapter 35, verses 3 through 4, we're called to strengthen the weak hands and to make firm the feeble knees. That is in prayer, say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong.
Fear not. Behold, God will come with vengeance and the recompense with God. He will come and save you. Are we looking to him in prayer for the promises that he makes to us? Five healthy churches cultivate godly leadership.
Again, be in so much prayer for this officer nomination season prayer nominate. As the Lord leads, pray for the next crop of officers who will lead this church. Six healthy churches prayerfully entrust all the needs of the church to the Lord. This is his church. When I at some of my previous churches went through very difficult times, one of the things that the elders would often remind themselves is that Jesus loves those churches more than the elders of the church love the churches more than the people who were born in those churches love the church more than anyone loves this church.
Jesus loves this church. Are you entrusting your cares to the Lord, knowing that he cares for this church? Healthy churches do not merely survive in the midst of tribulations, in the midst of that pressure that causes pain. Healthy churches thrive in the midst of tribulations. It's here where in our weakness, God's strength is not hindered by what we suppose to be the strength of our flesh.
All we can do is cast ourselves upon the Lord. And that is when he does his best work, his power is made perfect. And our weakness? Are we looking to him for what he will do? Well, the second part of this sermon is declaring the kingdom again.
2. Declaring the Kingdom (Acts 14:24-28)
It's not only preparing for tribulations. We are also called to remind ourselves and exhort ourselves and strengthen ourselves in this Gospel of the kingdom. And this is what we see in verses 24 through 28. Now, it's very interesting to read what Paul and Barnabas do. They pass back through Pisidia again.
They're kind of retracing their steps back to go to Antioch in Syria, where they were originally commissioned as these missionaries. So they pass back through Pisidia. There was another Antioch that was in Pisidia. That's where a great. That's where the great sermon in Acts 13 was preached, where the first part of the opposition was stirred up against them.
They're heading back to Antioch and Syria, but they passed through Pisidia where Antioch was the region. And then they came to another region. Of Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in the city of Perga, they went on to another region, Italia. And from there they sailed to again Antioch in Syria.
There are two Antiochs in this passage. It's a little confusing in verse 26, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. Now this brings us back to the beginning of Acts chapter 13. And if you remember Acts chapter 13 and verses one through three, again, they were all in Antioch. They were serving, they were, they were laboring there.
It was in Antioch the disciples were first known as Christians. But In Acts chapter 13, verse 1, we read, now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Now this we've been reading in the last several sermons over the last couple of chapters about this work, the work that they had been commissioned to do. And notice the way it's described here where they had been verse 26, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. That work that they had been commissioned to do has now been fulfilled. They were sent to a task, sent to perform a particular ministry. And now that ministry has been finished, it's been completed, it's been fulfilled.
There wasn't a hundred percent conversion rate, but everywhere they go, it seems that there was 100% exposure. The gospel saturated every place 100% so that the whole city was talking about it to the extent that those who didn't want anything to do with Jesus felt the encroachment of the kingdom of Jesus on their lives as they wished to continue leaving them. So much so that they felt so threatened that they were stirred up to oppose and violently to resist these missionaries who were stirring up so much trouble in their midst. Well, look at verse 27. And when they arrived, now they've arrived back in Antioch, where they were commissioned and gathered the church that is at Antioch.
Together they declared all that God had done with them and how he. How God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. Notice they're not bragging about what amazing missionaries they have been. I mean, this is seriously impressive. The work that they have done, the labors that they have engaged in the persecutions they suffered under.
It would make entirely perfect sense to the flesh for them to start bragging, and then I did this and then I did that, and I was pretty great. But they don't do anything of the sort. They are in awe. They are in awe of what God did at every step of the way. It is his from first to last.
But notice the relationship to the sending church. Antioch sent them, and now they have returned to Antioch to report about what God did through them on behalf of the church at Antioch in this great missionary work. The church at Antioch is a partner with these missionaries. The missionaries were not free agents, independent agents. They were partners of this local church to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth on behalf of of Antioch.
Well then in verse 28, we read and they remained no little time with the disciples. After a season of grueling ministry, they needed a time of rest and refreshment with fellow believers. It's like in Mark, chapter 6, verse 31. After Jesus had sent his own disciples out for ministry and they came back, he told them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. Those engaged in ministry need seasons of rest.
Now, the application we see in this passage is this, that healthy churches gain awe and appreciation for the power of God's kingdom. Particularly as we look beyond what happens in our own midst. You see, there is a. A contempt of the familiar. There are many good things that are happening.
How many baptisms have we had recently? How many people have we seen converted to Christ and brought to Christ over the last couple of years? How much work has there been happening in this evangelistic ministry? Maybe not 100% conversion rate, but a lot of exposure to the Gospel. In different places that we have gone, God has done a great work.
And yes, through this we have faced a great amount of tribulation. There have been dark seasons, difficult times, and yes, we must continue to exhort one another to continue in the faith. But even as we go through times of difficulty, we should never succumb to the temptation of believing that life in the church is just grueling, ongoing trudging through constant pain. Whatever the Lord calls us to, however bad persecution itself might become, the Lord's kingdom must prevail. It is through tribulation that we must enter the kingdom of God.
But there's also a sense that through tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God. That going through these tribulations in no way hinder us, in no way sideline us, in no way Wound us so that we won't make it to the other side of the Jordan. We are called to follow Christ, to lead him all the way into the promised land of his eternal kingdom. And the promise is that if we suffer with him, we also will reign with Him. The kingdom of God cannot fail.
And again, one of the best ways of gaining an awe or an appreciation of God's power, particularly in the midst of suffering, is to hear the reports of missionaries, especially the missionaries with whom we are partnered. And so the seventh mark of a healthy church is that healthy churches actively partner with missionaries. They don't just send them out, they don't just write a check and forget them. They actively partner with those missionaries. Out of sight, but not out of mind.
Well, on, on September 27th, one more announcement I want to give is that we are very pleased. Reverend Victor and then Lisa Atala from Middle East Reformed Fellowship, the acronym mrf, they will be coming here. They do a tremendous amount of ministry and my understanding, I haven't been here for this entire time, but some of you have. That First Church has partnered with the Atalas for over 50 years. It's been a tremendously long and fruitful partnership and ministry that has labored on our behalf in the Middle east for evangelism, for church extension, for biblical training and for diaconal aid.
And these are, these are people who are actually, interestingly serving in areas very close to the places where Paul and Barnabas were serving, very close geographically to those areas. Think about that, that even today they are suffering and facing similar threats and oppositions. If you are tempted to think that the God's kingdom is boring, it's just life in Lansing. What's more boring than that? Right?
Just normal day to day life. Right. If that's your perspective of the kingdom of God, if it's. You need to hear the reports of what God is doing elsewhere. Because what happens is we hear about what God does elsewhere, suddenly we start to see, well, wait a minute, those same things are happening here.
God is at work here. This isn't a boring place. We are on the ends of the earth from the places that we are reading about here. And the kingdom of God is at work. Ultimately, these tribulations drive us to dependence upon the power of the kingdom and the power of the kingdom that fuels our endurance through those tribulations.
There's a call here to experience the power of God's kingdom both by the reports from the front lines and as we lift our eyes to the harvest that God has given in our midst. I want to ask you, are you taking advantage of opportunities to be in the thick of it, to be there and to see what God is doing here? If not, open your bulletin. Find out some of the opportunities you have. Reflect back through the service to think about some of the places you can serve.
Heed the call of Christ's kingdom. God's kingdom still at work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would indeed bless us. That as we are opposed from all sides, that as the world at best is indifferent to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and at worst, when stirred up, when the world is really forced to face with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the world inevitably, invariably becomes violent against.
Father, in the face of this, we pray that you would make us bold. We pray that we would take advantage of the opportunities we have both to grow and to serve and to bring the gospel to others. And we pray that, Father, if there are any here who have not yet trusted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners, that you would lead them to salvation through confession and repentance from sin of faith in Christ this morning it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.
other sermons in this series
Oct 4
2026
"Preparation and Fulfillment" (Acts 19:1-7)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 19:1–7 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church
Sep 20
2026
"Many Gifts among Many Members" (Acts 18:18-28)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 18:18–28 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church
Sep 13
2026
"My Grace Is Sufficient for You" (2 Corinthians 12: 1-10)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church