Lessons From Acts – Lesson 34
There is a saying that I am sure you have all heard many times.
You can’t see the forest for the trees. That saying is what they call an idiom and it means being too focused on details can cause you to miss the bigger picture.
You can be so focused on one or two trees that you can miss the fact that you are in a forest.
People miss the bigger pictures in life all the time. From their jobs to personal relationships to planning for retirement, the list is endless.
And the greatest, biggest picture that almost all miss is the meaning of life and of course eternity.
Jesus clearly laid out the big picture. The meaning and purpose of life.
Matt 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Out of all that God has revealed in all of His Word. What is the most important?
Of course they were asking for the wrong reason. They were trying to trip Jesus up and no doubt they had reasoned it thru and if Jesus said number 4, then they had an answer.
While they asked wrong. It was answered by Jesus. He lays it out very simply. Out of everything that God has said what is the most important.
Matt 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Matt 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Matt 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matt 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Jesus said the most important thing is to 1st Love God and 2nd like unto that love thy neighbor as thyself.
Everything that God commanded will all fit under one of those 2 categories. All the true meaning of life will fit under one of those two categories. Getting saved fits under category 1.
The big picture of life is, our life is just a vapor. It is over very quickly. This life is just a preparation time for eternity. So 1st get saved and then live like Jesus says here and Love God and your fellow man and that pleases God and lays up rewards for eternity.
That is the big picture. Most people are down in the forest of life and are so focused on this tree or that tree. So focused on the job or entertainment or this thing or that event, that they completely miss the meaning of it all.
The principal of how you can be so focused on one or two trees that you can miss the fact that you are in a forest is also true in the area of Bible study. We have all seen it many times where some guy gets so into and is only looking at a few verses in a single chapter that he ignores the rest of the Bible.
Not only is that bad because he makes mistakes, but there is also a lot of lessons that he misses out on. Some things you see when you look at the entire forest view.
One example was when we took a big picture forest view of the entire time of Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah. It became very clear how much God was working and directing and using His almighty power in the circumstances of life.
And that God was not only working in the moment. He was, but also that God was working way ahead. It is a powerful lesson that is learned by not looking at only one or two trees, but by looking at more of the forest.
Some will take the verse by verse only approach to teaching the book of Acts. They will look at one tree in acts and then move on to the next tree in Acts, and doing that some lessons are missed.
An example would be looking at all of Paul’s 3 missionary journeys together. Take a step back. And go to more of a forest view and look at all of them together.
Paul went on the 1st journey with Barnabas and they preached in a synagogue and some got saved. Some Jews but mostly Gentiles that God had been working on. God had some Gentiles going to synagogue to learn about the true creator God.
Yes I believe God prompted them, gave them curiosity, and some kind of desire to learn about the Creator God of the Jews. God worked to have them there and had them there long enough so that they had a foundation on some truths.
They would learn that there is only 1 God. They would learn that He is just and righteous and holy and merciful and faithful. And that He has expectations for how you live.
So when Paul preached and explained from the O.T. that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, they had a foundation so they could understand. Many of those gentiles would get saved.
Paul would then get ran out of town. Rinse and repeat at the next town and the next town. Then Paul get stoned and left for dead.
He then goes back to each of those towns and quietly visits with the new believers and makes sure they understand and then sets up some leadership and goes to the next town and does it again.
Now remember these new churches are some Jews and many Gentiles that were going to synagogue. So they all had an O.T. Biblical foundation.
The Gospel of Matthew is available but these are new churches started on the 1st journey, I think that when Paul gets back to Antioch a copy of Matthew will be sent to all of these new Churches.
2nd journey. Paul takes Silas and they go to see how all those churches are doing. And Paul preaches to them and gives them some more training and no doubt answers a lot of questions.
Again only Matthew has been written. Right before the 2nd Journey is when James says you go to the Gentiles and I will go to the Circumcision speaking of Jews. And after he says that James writes the book of James and addresses it to Jews in the churches.
So while Paul is starting the 2nd journey, James is being written and starts being sent out. And that is all the New Testament there is at this point.
And on the 2nd journey Paul also starts some new churches, like the one in Lydia’s house. In her area there was not enough Jews for a synagogue but they would gather for prayer by a river. So again, they had a Biblical foundation.
So in both the first journey and the 2nd we see Paul doing both jobs. Winning souls and starting new churches and traveling to existing churches to encourage, preach to and for training.
He is doing both. During the 2nd Journey God has Paul stop in Corinth for 1 ½ years. And this time it is a little different. Over that year and a half most of the gentiles that get saved in Corinth are not Gentiles who were attending synagogue.
3rd trip. The primary purpose is once again to travel to the existing churches and strengthen them. More encouragement, more preaching to, and more training. And of course no doubt answering more questions.
At the start of the 3rd trip there are now 5 N.T. books available. Matthew, James, Galatians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
Paul of course already knew a great deal of the truths that would be written. He did not know the names of the books or the exact words that would be used, but Paul had received much from God and Paul is teaching those truths.
For many of these Churches the 3rd missionary journey will be the 3rd visit from Paul.
I have heard many people talk about Paul. And they kind of put him high on a pedestal. And present him as the greatest missionary that ever lived. I don’t necessary disagree. He very well might have been.
Of course in God’s eyes it might be someone else that we never heard of. But I will agree Paul was a great missionary. But some people see Paul as only out planting new churches.
And therefore they believe that planting churches is all that a missionary should be doing, and they use Paul as their validation for that view. But that is not biblical, because that is not all Paul did.
He went to existing churches to minister to their spiritual needs, to check on them, and teach them. And then he did it again, and then he did it again. Like I said many of these churches had 3 visits from Paul. Some that were started later only had 2 visits.
Why? Why did Paul spend all that time doing that? Was not the entire world going literally to hell? Yep.
At this time didn’t the majority of the known world not yet hear a clear gospel presentation. Yep. So why spend all this time visiting people who are already saved.
The answer should be obvious. It was needed.
Most of these churches, mostly had people who had a biblical foundation before they got saved. And they were left with leadership. And we know that they would have all gotten a copy of Matthew. And by the time of the 3rd journey the other 4 books that were available.
And yet they needed a visit from Paul and then a few years later another visit from Paul and then a few years later another visit from Paul.
But was not these churches doing fine. I mean we do not see any problems or drama recorded in scripture about them.
Yes there were some issues with some. Galatians would be an example. But overall it seems they are doing fine. So why all these visits.
What was Paul doing? He was giving them the word of God. Yes Paul was encouraging them, but he was doing it thru giving them God’s Word and teaching them God’s truths.
Winning Souls and starting Churches was high on God’s to do list and so Paul did that. But also high on God’s to do list was to give His children in these local churches His precious Word.
And they did not have much of the N.T. yet. So there was an emphasis on getting Paul to these churches to teach them many N.T. truths that were not yet written down in scripture.
Today we don’t need these kind of visits from someone like Paul because we have all of the N.T.
While the need for those types of visits does not exist today.
What happened during those visits is greatly needed which was primary 2 things.
#1 Spend time in God’s Word.
Job_23:12 Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
Luk_4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
1Pe 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
The Bible is clear. The word of God is our spiritual food and we are to greatly desire it. And consume it into our minds and hearts.
This is how we learn and grow and get spiritually stronger.
2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2Ti 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
The bible builds us up and it furnishes us unto all good works. It is what prepares us and strengths us and teaches us so that we can live for Jesus in a way that pleases Him.
This is getting into the meaning of life that Jesus laid out. Love God. That would include loving His word and being in God’s word helps us to love our fellow man as ourselves.
So while we don’t need visits from someone like Paul, we do have the same need to be receiving God’s Word into our ears, and hearts, and minds.
Understanding this need and how great it really is, is why we read this precious book together. It is why we learn some verses together. This is why I do not specialize in telling jokes or long story after long story that is not in the Bible.
Some illustrations are good and fine, but they should never be the focus.
Christians need primarily the word of God. This is why Paul was not out only planting new churches.
Getting saved is not enough. O’ it is enough to escape hell. And it is enough to spend Eternity with our Great Lord that saved our souls.
But from the day we got saved until the day we die and go to be with the Lord. In between we have to live a life in this hard, wicked, sin stained world.
And for that we really need 2 things. The same 2 things that Paul did on all of these visits.
We need to be in the Word of God and 2nd we need encouragement. We need each other. We need examples from our other brothers and sisters in Christ.
Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
Heb 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Rom_14:19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
1Th_5:11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
To edify is to build up to strengthen. We need that.
And it says comfort yourselves together.
We have the same need for this as they had back then. The world is not an easy place.
These are 2 great needs that Christians have. The Word of God and encouragement are the reasons behind Paul taking the time to visit all of these churches in all 3 missionary journeys.
Yes winning souls and planting new churches was a top priority for God, but also right up there high on the priority list was giving the Word of God and also giving encouragement to those that were already saved.
They are both very important to God.
Paul was heavy involved in both.
I take this approach in our online videos. I do both videos that are geared to plant seeds to the lost and some are calls to get saved.
And I do videos on verses that are geared to those who are already saved. The planting seed videos we put money behind and boost them so thousands of people have a chance to hear them.
If they follow us, then they will get the videos geared to Christians that we do not put money behind.
If what we are doing is going to be modeled after the N.T., then we need to be doing both.
We also do this in other ways. We send the Gospel to houses and we also are in the word together and try to encourage each other in the faith.
There needs to be balance and a priority put on both. That is one of the things we see when we stop and take a larger forest view of Paul’s 3 missionary journeys.
I have seen churches that get so inward focused, that they basically are doing nothing to get the word of God to the lost.
And it is strange, but I have seen a few churches get so focused on the lost that they don’t do the encouragement and edifying to Christians. What, you are thinking don’t they preach.
Yes but the preaching can get so hard and so mean that instead of edifying and building up and strengthening it only hurts and tears down.
We need to keep a good balance and prioritize both getting the Word of God to the lost and at the same time minister to each other and to Christians in a way that encourages, and helps, and strengthens, and comforts and all without sacrificing or compromising God’s truth.