How God Encourages the Preacher

Take your Bibles with me and turn to Acts 18. Acts 18. This is a really neat passage of scripture this morning and there is a lot going on here. To get an idea of all that was going on in this passage we are going to look at some other passages too. Because really - a huge part of New Testament history takes place right here in the verses we are going to read this morrning.

So let's read Acts 18-1017 this morning.

"[Act 18:1-17 KJV] 1 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; 2 And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come frhem Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. 3 And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. 5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews [that] Jesus [was] Christ. 6 And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook [his] raiment, and said unto them, Your blood [be] upon your own heads; I [am] clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. 7 And he departed thence, and entered into a certain [man's] house, named Justus, [one] that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. 8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. 9 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: 10 For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. 11 And he continued [there] a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. 12 And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat, 13 Saying, This [fellow] persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law. 14 And when Paul was now about to open [his] mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O [ye] Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: 15 But if it be a question of words and names, and [of] your law, look ye [to it]; for I will be no judge of such [matters]. 16 And he drave them from the judgment seat. 17 Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat [him] before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things."

Inroduction: Paul is Discouraged The title of my message this morning is "How God Encourages the Preacher." That's one of the main things that I think we see giong on in this passage. Youe see, it starts with Paul going to Corinth. Remember, last week we talked about Paul at Athens - among the elite. He preached a message at Mars Hill, at the Acropolis, the place where the uppety elites of society gathered and very few people responded to his message. They made fun of him.

Before Athens He was in Thessalonica where he was run out of town by the jews.

Before Thessalonica he was in Philippi where he ended up in jail.

And so he's on to this city - Corinth. He must have felt like every mission he undertook ended in failure or tradgedy. And he's all alone here. Silas and Timothy are back in Thessalonica. He's by himself.

Paul later wrote about this time and said he was despairing. He was weak. He was heavy. He may have been sick.

You know, we have this tendancy to think about these "great men" like Paul as if they were always on top of the mountain. Like they never had problems or struggles - but that's just not true. They had their battles. They fought with depression and discouragement just like you and I do.

I think one of the main reasons Paul may have been discouraged was Corinth itself. The city of Corinth, where Paul was ministering here, was the most wicked city in the world. It was this natural land bridge separating Greece and became an important city. And it was just a wicked wicked place.

My family is from a town in Massachusetts called "Lynn." Lynn is called "the city of sin." In fact, one of the earliest rymes I remember learning was "Lynn, Lynn the city of sin, you never come out the way you come in." It's just a rough town. You might think of Las Vegas as sin city, or maybe New Orleans. But none of those places had anything on Corinth. Corinth was just a wicked, wicked place.

There was a "temple' in Corinth where they had 10,000 ritual prositiutes. There were only 15,000 people in Athens at this time, Corinth had 10,000 prostitutes! Corinth was so wicked that the word "Corinth" came to mean "no morals." If you wanted to call someone loose you said "Oh, she's a corinthian." The word "Corinthianize" meant "to remove all morals." I mean, this is a wicked, wicked place.

So here is Paul, fresh on the heels of a bunch of rough patches. He's probably not feeling well. He's by himself. He's a little bit down and he's in this city that is just unbelievably wicked. You would be discouraged too!

But here is the thing - God doesn't let Paul stay discouraged. God does several things in this story that encourage the preacher and I think we can learn a little bit about what God does to encourage us.

Let's pray and I'll give you those five things.

Like I said, I think part of what was going on in this story was God encouraging the Apostle Paul. I think we can see 5 ways in which God did it here.

The first way, and maybe the biggest way that God encouraged the preacher is found in verses 2-3:

"And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers."

The first thing we see in this story is:

1. God encourages the preacher with companionship. (1-4) Paul was all alone in Corinth. Timothy was gone. Silas was gone. It was just Paul in this wicked, wicked city. And shortly after he gets there he meets this couple - Aquilla and Prescilla, and they become best friends.

Aquila and Prescilla were jews from Italy and there had been some anti-jewish stuff going on there so they were on the run and they ended up in Corinth. They probably were already Christians, and they meet Paul. It turns out that besides Christ, they had another thing in common, they were both tentmakers by trade. So Paul moves in with these two and they make tents together all week and minister together all weekend.

For the rest of Paul's ministry - this couple would be a constant encourager to Him. He mentions them many, many times in his letters. They were a big huge help to him.

Can I tell you something - this is a lesson that you can learn from this story. You may not be a preacher. You may not have any big obvious gifts for ministry. But you can be an encourager. You can find someone on the front lines of God's fight and you can encourage them.

Some of the folks in this church are so valuable in encouraging me. I'll be down. I'll be discouraged. And they'll say something, or take me to supper, or watch my kids and they'll be a huge encouragment.

SOme of you could be an encouragement to some of these young missionaries that come through. There would be nothing wrong at all with getting their email address and sending them an encouraging email every now and then. Or sending them twenty dollars and saying "go buy your wife some flowers."

You may not ever be an apostle Paul but you can be an Aquilla and Prescilla.

So God encouraged Paul with companionship. Listen folks, one of the greatest gifts that God gives us is the gift of Christian companionship. The gift of "one another." We get to share our life with each other - our ups and downs with each other. And that is awesome.

So God encouraged the preacher with companionship.

The second thing we see here is:

2. God encourages the preacher with compensation. (5) This one is going to take some explanation. When Paul came to Corinth - he did something we don't see him doing anywhere else - he worked. He started making and selling tents.

In Bible times, even if you were a pharisee or a rabbi, you had to have a trade. In fact, the jews had a saying that if you are a man and you don't teach your boy a trade, then you are teaching him to be a beggar. Everybody had to learn a trade. They had to learn a way to work with their hands.

Can I just insert my opinion here? I'm going to go all Mike Rowe on you for a second. I think everybody should learn how to support their family. I'm all for college - ok. I think college is important, but 80% of the jobs out there don't require a college degree. Even if you want to be something like a banker or a graphic designer - you are going to better off if you know some other way to support your family.

Can I give a second peice of unwanted opinion here: I think preachers should be willing to work and support themselves. That's what the apostle Paul did here. He supported his own ministry. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Where I went to bible college, they started doing something that I think every ministry school should do, they started teaching trades. So you can get a bachelor's degree in pastoral ministry and get certified as an HVAC technicial or a Deisel mechanic. I think that's a great idea.

So Paul is working in this city as a tentmaker - preaching on the weekends. But in verse 5 - Silas and Timothy join him. Now - you might ask "where do I get compensation from that?" I'll tell you, in both Philippians 4 and 2 Corinthians 11 - Paul is talking about this time in his life and how Timothy and Silas came to meet him and it says that they brought money to support Paul's ministry from the churches in Philippi and Thessalonica. This was a huge encouragement to Paul.

So, from this point, Paul didn't have to work anymore. He could focus full time on his ministry.

By the way, when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church - he wrote an entire chapter in 1 Corinthians about why the church should pay the preacher. So this passage has kind of a double meaning. It tells us the preacher should be willing to work with his hands if he has to and it tells us that if possible, he shouldn't have to.

So Paul was encouraged by companionship but he was also encouraged by compensation. He got some money so he didn't have to work as hard.

The third thing we see in this passage is:

3. God encourages the preacher with converts. (6-8) So Paul does his normal thing - he goes to the synagogue and preaches to the jews first and just like everywhere else - the Jews give him problems. Serious problems. In fact, Paul was so fed up with it that he said he wasn't going to go to the synagogues anymore. He was going to shake off their dust and move on.

Encouraging right??

But do you know what's amazingly encouraging? Look at verse 8

"And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized."

The cheif ruler of the synagogue got saved! In the verse before, the guy who lived next to the synagogue got saved! Paul was encouraged with converts.

One of the most encouraging things that God ever does for us is to allow us to see fruit for our labors. To see Him work in ways that only He can.

Listen, when the ruler of the synagogue gets saved - that's God working. God was working there. Today, when we see God do something in someone's life that only God can do - that's a huge encouragement.

The biggest discouraging things that have happened to me since I've been pastor here have been when people I worked with, prayed with, counseled and tried to help left the church for bad reasons or made terrible life decisions. That hurts. But I can tell you that God almost always answers those defeats with an encouraging victory.

God encourages the preacher with conversions. Two more things and we'll be done. The next thing I see in this story is really kind of cool:

4. God encourages the preacher with circumvention (9-10, 12-17) In other words - God circumvents, or works against, the plans of our adversaries. There were a group of jews who wanted to get rid of Paul. So they did what we've seen many, many times already - they brought him before the town rulers and made something up. Only, in this story instead of them being beaten and thrown in jail like they were in Philippi or forced to leave town like in Thessalonica - the ruler of Corinth actually says "leave these people alone - they aren't hurting anyone."

Look at verse 17:

"Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things."

The leader of the jews is a guy named Sothneses - remember the jews are the ones that are trying to get Paul - Sothenes gets beaten right in front of the ruler and he doesn't care. God was at work here. He was protecting Paul and letting him see it.

Want to know something really cool? 1 Corinthians 1 opens by talking to someone named "Sothenes our brother." Same city. Same name. No one can prove this - but it seems like this Sothenes got saved too and joined the church at Corinth.

So, all along the way here, God is proving Himself to Paul. He's encouraging Paul.

One more thing and we'll be finished. Look at verse 11

"And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them."

Paul was able to stay in Corinth for much longer than he got to stay in other places. I think the last way we can see God encourages the preacher is:

5. God encourages the preacher with continuation. (11) You know, if you look at the NFL - the teams that do well consistently usually keep a coach for a long time. Teams that cycle through coaches every year or two are always some of the worst teams. I think the same can be said about pastors and preachers. It takes a long time. The best fruit comes after a long time.

Too many churches are stuck in this cycle of going through preachers every year or two or three. Sometimes it's the preacher's fault. Sometimes it's the church's fault. Sometimes it's just God's will. But most of the time, it's better if the preacher stays for awhile.

So five ways God encouraged the preacher:

Companionship Compensation Converts Circumvention of the enemy Continuation Look, these are some of the same ways God encourages us when we are doing His work.

Conclusion: When the preacher is encouraged. Paul wrote his first Bible books here (1 and 2 Thessalonians) Paul