A Spiritual Second Wind

Acts 18:1-11

 

I suppose all of us at some time or another get depressed, or want to give up and quit.  In the heat of a moment we’ll say, I’ll just leave this job, this church, or this family, and they’ll miss me…they’ll wish they had treated me differently!

 

Often we have some of these feelings:

“there’s no use/harder I try, worse things get/don’t witness, no one listens/just spinning wheels/getting nothing at church/daily stresses and problems are all vanity/hate my job/ever find happiness?/daily grind”

(life is just mundane, repetitive, like Chinese water torture!)

 

I know this is true for 2 reasons:

        I talk to many of you going thru it

        I’ve gone thru it!

 

Sometimes God’s people need a spiritual 2^nd wind…

 

Examples:

• Moses

The Greatest leader, handpicked by God!

Had God’s power on his life, but in Numbers 11:15 he said to God, “if thou deal thus w/ me, kill me, I pray thee!”

• Joshua

Greatest General, handpicked by God to lead Israel into the Promised Land…but in Joshua 7:7, he said, “would to God we had been content and dwelt on the other side of Jordan” (so this is what we get for serving God, he said, after a great defeat!)

He felt like quitting!  He got over it, thankfully!

• Elijah

Greatest prophet of OT/willing to challenge the idolatry of his day/called fire down from heaven/won a face off w/ prophets of Baal, but in I Kings 19:4 after it was all over, he requested for himself that he might die, and said, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life!

• Job

We talk about his patience and faith, and he was truly a great man…he had a great beginning and a great ending, but in-between, when he lost everything, he wished he had not been born, became suicidal, extremely depressed for a period of time!

Job 3:3 he said, let the day perish in which I was born!

• Jonah

He wanted God to kill him, and was spiritually depressed and not even happy for all the souls that just got saved in Nineveh!

• Paul

In Acts 18 we find Paul in his 2^nd missionary journey, arriving from Athens to Corinth, and  experiencing a low time in his life (of depression)

I Cor. 2:3 Paul says of that time in Acts:  “I was w/ you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling”  (could be translated: “I was far from strong, nervous, and rather shaky!”

-He was fatigued (53 mile walk)

-He was alone

-He was bi-vocational (v. 3: tentmaker)

-Stressed-v. 5  “pressed in the spirit” (spiritual stress)

Had a sense of failure (not much success in Athens/called a “babbler” (bird brain)

-Frustrated, leaving a city of idolatry and heading for the worst in the world for immorality! (Sin city!  The Temple: Aphrodite, goddess of sex, and a thousand prostitutes sold their bodies in the temple in the name of religion!)

-unappreciated…he later wrote to the people of Corinth:

 

2Co 12:15 -

And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.

At this point on this trip alone, he’s been beaten and jailed at Philippi, persecuted at Thessalonica and Berea, ridiculed in Athens, and now he has to face Corinth!  He was at a low point, a crossroads in his ministry, and he was just about to quit!

But the Lord came to Paul on this day, and showed him that trying times are not the time to quit trying! 

 

v. 11—he didn’t quit, he continued!  Why?  Because God told him in 9 and 10: “it’s too soon to quit!”

3 Promises for the ‘Winded’:

 

We have the promise of …

1. God’s presence

v. 10        “I am with thee”

• In times of loneliness

Heb. 13:5, Jesus said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee! (Greek word “never” there 3 x’s…never, no never, no never!)

When I was a young bible college kid taking Greek I tried to impress some widows at a nursing home...I told them the above, what do you think of that?  One said, “Well, God may have to tell you Greek fellers 3 x’s but once is enough for me!

 

Gospel of Matthew, 2 wonderful bookends:

        Beginning: “Emmanuel, God with us”

        Ending:  Great commission, where Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always”  (don’t fly!)

Your best friend my stab you in the back, but Jesus is a friend that sticks closer than a brother!

In loneliness…

• In the valley

When defeat comes / discouragement / sickness / financial reversal / heartaches / family problems … remember that the God of the mountain is still God in the valley!

Ill.—little boy went home after school very sad / told mom about Billy, his best friend, who had been absent for 3 days / found out today why when he returned to class…his daddy died, and when he told us, he cried and just laid his head flat on his desk / mom: “what did you do?” / I didn’t know what to do, so I just laid my head on my desk and cried, too!

(that’s the kind of Savior we have!  Bible says, “He’s TOUCHED” w/ the feelings of our infirmities!

 

Jn. 11:35 says Jesus wept / why? / Lazarus had died / Jesus even knew he was going to raise him from the dead, things were going to get better, but Jesus’ heart still broke in the meanwhile!

He’s there in the valley w/ you!

 

In loneliness, in the valley…

 

• In death

If we’re honest, we’ll admit we have a fear of death.  (normal defense mechanism)

Ps. 23:  “yea, though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…for thou art with me!

Joke—preacher asked church, who wants to go to heaven / all raised their hands except 1 old man / you sir, don’t you wanna go to heaven someday? / sure, if you put it that way…I thought you were getting up a load to go right now!

 

But when our time comes, the Lord comes Himself w/ dying grace and takes away our fear.  He doesn’t send an angel…He comes for us Himself!

 

It’s too soon to quit!  We have the promise of His presence!

 

2. God’s protection

v. 10        “no man shall set on thee to hurt thee”  (the Lord didn’t say no man would set on thee)

…not that he wouldn’t be hurt, but that he wouldn’t be harmed!

They might have killed the apostle Paul, but not until he was able to say, “I have finished my course.”

 

They killed the Lord Jesus, but not before He said, “It is finished!”

 

God has a purpose for your life.  (Greater than your job!)  And if you choose to, you can live it out, fearlessly…though there will be persecution, trials and hardships…but until your work here is done, God’s not finished w/ you, the devil can’t harm you, man can’t hurt you, disease cannot touch you, there are no accidents w/ God…He and He alone will call you home when the time is right!

 

So good to know, that nothing can happen w/out the Lord’s permission.

        To live is Christ, to die is gain…God, take me when you’re thru w/ me…until then, I’m gonna serve you!

 

It’s too soon to quit!

        Ahead of us He’s our guide, behind us He’s our guard, under us are His everlasting arms, and above us, if we’ll look up, He’s ever-present w/ us in a cloud of glory!

 

ill.—Fredrick Nolan, serving God in N. Africa in the midst of terrible persecution/Christians were running for their lives/Nolan was fleeing on foot/exhausted/stopped to catch his breath/looked to the right, saw a small cave/went in to await his enemies locating him, inevitably killing him/as he sat he saw a small spider weaving a web across the mouth of that cave/eventually the web covered the entire mouth!/he sat fascinated/persecutors arrived, saw the cave, marched toward it, saw the web—“he couldn’t be in there!”/they left…he escaped!

        Later, he said, “w/out God, a wall is like a spiderwed.  W/ God, a spiderweb is like a wall!”

(not saved?  You don’t have that protection in this life, and certainly not in eternity!)

 

3.  God’s potential

v. 10b      “I have much people in this city”

        How could God say that?  There were no more than a handful of Christians there!

 

It’s the promise of God’s potential!

        God didn’t see the perverts of this city for what they were, but for what they were going to be! 

Years later, here’s what happened:

 

I Cor. 6: 9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Bothered by the world? (work/stores/TV)  See them the way God does, in the future!  God says to FBC, I have much people in this city!

(we should walk thru the mall saying, I wonder if that’s one of them?  What can I do to bring it to pass?!)

        Need a spiritual 2^nd wind?