Other People's Blessings

In the News this week: Re:New is about ready to begin their worship services in their new building. They have been maxing out at a total 350 people each week, just a year and half later. The new place should allow them to easily double the number.

Over in Hot Springs, the preacher has just returned from training preachers and conducting an evangelistic series. They are also now meeting with 150 plus each Sunday.

Best news is that Royse Church has come together in light of the new preacher being near death in the hospital. But he came home Friday, just 8 days after a diabetic coma, gangrene and septicemia and 3 major surgeries to clean him up. A nurse visits him daily to administer an IV of medications. But he hopes to be able to preach tonight. We’ll see.

And the final news item is that the Church Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas had a great evangelistic meeting. They were invited the first Sabbath to return after giving a word of encouragement about Jesus. They became the talk of the town. Come the next Sabbath, the place was packed out. I suspect that Synagogue attendance had never been so good.  Bottom line, seems that God is working and blessing other people.

How do we handle such news? When we hear of God blessing others, and we seem to not be as blessed, what is our honest reaction? What do we do? Our passage this morning, in light of others’ blessings, gives us a choice, which do we take, that of Jealousy or that of Joy? Let’s read the passage:

Jealousy blinds. They lost their focus. They were not focused on bringing the people in to worship God together. By the time of Jesus’ ministry, and especially for the times of Paul, Synagogue membership was most like a membership to a country club. It was about social status, not about drawing closer to their heavenly father. Instead of rejoicing that all these people were coming to learn at the Synagogue, they became jealous that they were not the source of appeal. It was Paul and Barnabas preaching Jesus.

Jealousy kills. Not only was their focus gone (eyes on serving the Father), their attitude became poisoned, like a virus that attacked everyone.  Enough men and women rose up against the Gospel that Paul and Barnabas that they shook the dust from their feet. And that is quite serious. If the message is not welcomed in a town, shake the dust of the town from you.  All because they were jealous at the lack of attention and authority, they snuffed out a seedling of a plant. Was the community the rocks and weeds or the hard ground that kills the mere seedling that is a new believer’s faith?

Now there is the attitude of Joy.

Joyous attitude is focused on the mission: Spreading the Good News of Jesus. Too often, myself included, we look for reasons why a group or church is having record outreach and why it is on a faulty foundation. Rather, we should be like the disciples who rejoiced that the Gospel was spreading like wild fire.  Of course it is also implied that being focused means that you are about the task of sharing your faith. Paul and Barnabas didn’t just go about the town talking themselves up. People who heard them went about telling their neighbors. Sure, Paul and Barnabas were talking to those who wanted to during the week, but people tend to come because they were invited by someone they know. We see that in the Gospels a couple of times. Philip told his brother about Jesus. The woman at the well told her town about Jesus. Are we all talking about our faith, inviting people? This is a team effort.

Joy allowed them to stay faithful. How often do we let troubled waters change our plans? Here were the jealous types stirring up trouble for the Gospel. The world loves to have us give up when things become complicated, or when opposition arises. Yet are we willing to stand firm and face that opposition?  What if that opposition is so strong that you are expelled? That is what happened with Paul and Barnabas. The community of unbelievers decided that they needed to leave, and that they needed assistance in escorting them away. And yet, even though the disciples were robbed of their teachers, the good news still spread. They were still full of joy that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Is your faith, your joy that strong? I would love to say that it is. I can suspect that they were hurt from being expelled from the area. Yet they still looked to God. They knew that what they were facing was quite temporary compared to what eternity held for them. And yet, despite the problems, they still told their neighbors.

Bottom line here is that regardless of the situation, where we are as a body, we have a choice to make. We can decide to become bitter by what we see happening in other churches, even poison our spirits, or we can choose to stay focused on Christ, to be filled with the joy from the Holy Spirit, empowered to share the good news with those around us. It is here then that God will then bless our efforts. He will continue to provide all that we need to carry out the mission in our lives. What is your decision?