When the Crowd, Win the Crowd (Sermon)

See Paul sitting there in Lystra? He had just been run out of a town because some rose up against his preaching Jesus.  Now he is here in this new location. I can see him preaching to both the Jews and the Gentiles. To the Jews he’s said that Jesus came to redeem Israel and the world, that he is the long awaited messiah. To the Greeks I can see him preaching the freedom that Jesus offers, freedom from relying on others’ charities, freedom from obeying sets of rules, freedom from the guilt of the wrong doing, freedom from the fear of the end or death. Then there is a man there sitting, listening, wanting. I can imagine him wishing that he didn’t need to beg for scraps and pity. It is always been in the heart of man to want to provide for himself and perhaps even provide for those he loves. It’s a base instinct.

And Paul saw him listening, believing all that Paul had to say. To demonstrate his message, Paul then tells this man to stand up. Not only does the man stand, but he adds jumping. Mind you, he’s never been vertical. His ankles have never had weight of any sort on them. He starts walking instantly. I wonder if he was like my boys, still occasionally tripping, or was he graceful as if he’d been doing this all along? It doesn’t really matter. He was healed.

Then Paul learned something about the human nature. The human heart, which Jeremiah says can’t be trusted, is fickle, and can’t be trusted. Let’s read the people’s reaction to Paul’s good work following his good words.

(Read Verses 11-18) So here is Paul, instantly he’s Lycaonium’s pastor. Everyone likes him. He is at the top of his game, so much so, that they want to see him as a god. There is that temptation within leadership, just as there has been with being part of the “right” church. When the crowd cheers you, focus on God. It can become easy to lose focus on Jesus. After all, look back to Peter. He walked on water, further than you and I, but the moment he lost his focus, he sank.  Thankfully, Paul and Barnabas didn’t. They continued pleading with the people, barely stopping them from making the sacrifices to them. They continued stating that God is living, and continues to show His love and grace. It was a close call. But when the crowd cheers you, focus on God.

(Read verse 19a) But not everything remained up and up. The crowd turned on Paul and Barnabas. For some reason, crowds are never reliable. It is too easy to turn an audience into a mob. I am not sure how long it took the Jews to turn the masses, day or two, a week or month? Luke gives us no passage of time, other than the allusion of the passage in verses 8 and 9. The man listened to Paul speak. For how long did Paul speak before the man believed?

Here is why, though, we cannot trust and live by our emotions, live by our heart, live by our feelings. One moment, the people are in awe as they listened to God give the 10 commandments to them. Then begging in reverent fear for Moses to intercede, they turned and made a golden calf. I believe that when they heard the first 10, they were in earnest. But a few days later, perhaps a week or two, they turned away. They earnestly made a calf.

The crowd is fickle when one day; they are out clipping branches and laying blankets in the road welcoming Jesus as their rightful king. They were in earnest. They truly believed him to the long awaited king. Then just a few days later, 5 to be exact, the crowds are now saying, “crucify Jesus!” And unfortunately, they were in earnest.

Now some people come to stir up trouble because they were envious of the popularity of Paul. I can see the poisoned words, “Paul said your gods were worthless. He said that your parents who died worshipping Zeus are now dead in their sins.” It wouldn’t take much to poison a person’s mind.

I remember talking to one lady in a previous ministry. She said that to accept immersion as I teach it, instead of sprinkling, as her Lutheran priest taught, then she will not see him, or her deceased husband, or her deceased parents and siblings again. She would rather suffer with them if my teaching was correct and hers was wrong. Be it known, I never said where the fate of her loved ones rested. I said, and still say, trust in the Lord and his mercy and grace!  Yet, when the crowds jeer, focus on God.

(Read 19b & 20) The final lesson that Paul teaches us is when the crowds abandon, focus on God. That is the cycle of the crowd. They will praise us, then boo us and then leave us. They left Paul thinking he was dead. They didn’t kill him. But I do think a miracle did take place. I do think he was healed since he got up and seemed to have returned to the town before he left the next day. I imagine that he waited only because the day was already too late for traveling.  But when he did leave, he continued preaching. He continued winning people to the Lord.

For us, we are fighting a temptation. It would be easy to see us as having been abandoned by the many who’ve been part of this congregation. The world and the devil would say, “See how small you are? There’s no hope that this church has what it takes to grow!” But then we still have Paul’s promise to the church in Corinth. We have all we need to carry out the mission. We just need to focus on Jesus. We need to focus on reaching our lost loved ones with the good news that Jesus died to set us free. We reach, God adds.

Now the crowds may cheer us as we do so. The sad reality though, as we focus on God, on living righteous lives, or to live according to the grace we’ve received, the crowds will more than likely jeer us. It will give us a choice. We may think that we are to focus on ourselves, but no. That is not the solution. The solution is to focus on Christ. It’s not sitting around, hoping people will drop in through our doors. It is actually making a point to encourage people in Jesus, to talk about the Lord’s grace and ask them to consider Jesus. Time and again, God shows how when the crowds… we should win the crowds for Christ. Then the Lord added daily to their number those being saved. Are you ready to win? Do you need to know how to win? If so, come as we stand and sing.