"We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them."

         The journey continues as Paul and Barnabas move into the region of Galatia and come to the bustling trade city of Iconium. Here they speak in the synagogue, and a great number of both Jews and Gentiles believe. They stay for a long time and their message is confirmed with miracles. But not all believe. There is a strong opposition to them, and the city becomes divided over them. There is a plot to stone them, and so they leave.

         They come next to Lystra, an insignificant village, known most for its war-like tribal people. The Romans put soldiers there to keep them in line. It is in this rather wild and backward place that they preach to Gentiles, see a man healed and then face the opposition again, this time resulting in Paul's being stoned and left outside the city for dead. They continue on to Derbe, which is 60 miles further on unpaved track. This is hardly the type of journey that could be used in missionary recruitment. This is the first journey, they are just over 100 miles from Antioch, and Paul is lying in the dust in a wilderness town.

         Why is there always resistance to the Gospel? Why is it so hard? The history of missions and evangelism is not about easy success. It is not always clear why some people feel so threatened by Jesus and this "Good News."

         A woman asked me to visit her sister in the hospital. She was expected to live just a few more weeks. So I went, thinking of myself as a chaplain, part of the professional healing team, hoping that in a quiet conversation I could in some way bring a sense of peace, comfort, perhaps some encouragement that would help her find the strength and grace of God. Instead, before I could say anything more than who I was, I received a stern lecture that my presence was not appreciated and she was certainly not interested in joining my church.

         You don't always know when it is going to come, but if you are willing to be a witness for Jesus Christ, you will experience some harsh rejection along the way.

What is most interesting is that others will surprise you with their openness and acceptance of the Gospel, like they were waiting for you. I once found myself trying to answer a man's hard questions about the meaning of faith in Jesus Christ. I was doing the best I could to respond, feeling a little shaky, half-anticipating an explosion at any moment, when my friend relaxed, said he could accept Christ, and surrendered to the Lord. I was surprised, but soon realized that the intense questions were actually just the last few remaining ones after a rather long process of conversation with others about the meaning of faith. I had merely stumbled into the very end of that conversation. Others had done the hard work.

Resistance to the Gospel so often leads us to the faithfulness of God. If you have recently had a negative response from someone, go on to the next one, keep sharing and living the Good News. Someone is waiting for you.

         So Paul and Barnabas, escaping the lynch mob in Iconium, have quite a different experience in Lystra. Paul's preaching had hardly begun when a lame man reached out in faith and was healed. The reaction of these wild, pagan, war-like people was sheer joy. They welcomed Paul and Barnabas, they were eager to invite more divine activity into the mixture of their confused and immoral lives.

         But they went overboard the other way. Thinking Paul and Barnabas were gods, they began to prepare oxen for sacrifice. It was all Paul and Barnabas could do to stop them. It seems there was a legend told by the poet Ovid, about a distant time when Zeus and Hermes came to that region disguised as ordinary men. Sadly, they were turned away from a thousand homes before an elderly couple extended hospitality to them. That resulted of course in much fire and destruction. The good citizens of Lystra knew the story and were determined to do better if Zeus and Hermes ever showed up again.

         Paul's response is very interesting. Once he calms them down and establishes his identity as a human being, he goes on to tell them the truth about the living God, the creator of heaven and earth. It was the message the Gentile people of that day needed to hear. Their imaginations were full of stories of gods; their markets and highways stuffed with shrines, statues and idols, their lives caught in every kind of immorality and confusion. They did not know who God was, and so had wandered spiritually and morally into a lostness and depravity that caused them to despair.

         Paul's message here apparently was repeated in many places. We read in I Thessalonians 1:9 the same language, "They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath."

         I recently read an article about a scientist who is quite concerned that if we continue to destroy the resources of the earth at our current rate, it will not be possible to sustain most forms of life for much longer, perhaps within this century. He said he grew up a Baptist, but now no longer believes in God, and calls himself a secular humanist. He has written a book to Evangelical Christians and especially to their pastors, directing them to tell the truth about God as regards the care of the earth. This is interesting. Someone who no longer believes sees the importance of telling the people of our culture who the living God is, and that having dominion over the earth does not mean destroying it. He believes that if people knew the living God who is the creator, they would change their behavior and stop destroying the living creatures of the earth.

         Paul says that pagans whose spirituality is confused, whose morality is depraved, need to hear the truth about the living God. I recently saw a most interesting little video produced by one of our Covenant churches as an introduction to the church. A good bit of it was a testimony of an older man, a man who obviously had lived a very hard life. He did not have many teeth and one eye was nearly shut. He was a recovering alcoholic, a man who had lost everything. At the bottom of his life, he was driven by an inner pain that cried out for relief. One night when he was flipping through the TV channels, he heard some Christian music, and he found it to be beautiful and healing. Then, one morning he was at a coffee shop and met some men on the way to a Bible study. They invited him to join them, and there he learned the truth about God. He found Christ by faith and came into that Covenant church, and now has begun a used clothing ministry.

         The opponents of Paul followed him to Lystra, and stirred up the crowd against him, and then they carried out their plot to stone him. This was not an execution, there was no trial. This was simply a mob pelting Paul with stones. This happened in the ancient world, and sometimes the person would die. But the purpose was not to kill the person, it was to utterly humiliate the person and let them know in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome. They leave Paul for dead, but they don't bother to check. Lying in the dust, he is at the very bottom of public humiliation and rejection. He is not dead. The believers gather around him, and he gets up and walks back into town. That gives you an understanding of the courage and faith of Paul.

         The point of stoning is humiliation. Perhaps in this humiliation Paul discovered a deeply Christ –centered life. I say that because of Philippians 3:7-11:

         "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

         The heart of our faith journey is not the experience of mistreatment or rejection, but rather the experience of letting go of the world in order to gain Christ. Stoning of all kinds will do that for you. But it is also a spiritual commitment, a surrender of life to Christ. It is what happens when we receive Christ in broken bread and poured out cup. In that we experience being raised from death to life.

         Amen.