Swallow No Camels

August 2, 2026 – Commitment, Courage and Community— Acts #49
Acts. 14:1-7

There are moments in life when we discover what we are really made of.  Do you remember the name Arland D. Williams Jr.?

Arland D. Williams Jr. was a passenger on Air Florida Flight 90 that crashed into a bridge on the Potomac River in 1982, carrying 74 people.   When the helicopter came to try to pull people from the wreckage in the icy river, he grabbed the lifeline five times and passed it to someone else.   Those 5 were the only ones who survived.  Arland Williams drowned because he let everyone else go before him.

Perhaps you remember: Rick Rescorla.  He was the head of security for Morgan Stanley, whose offices were in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.  When the North Tower was struck, Rescorla ignored the advice to stay in place and ensured that the workers under him escaped before the South Tower was hit.  He got his people out, but Rescorla stayed behind and swept the floors for anyone left, and thanks to his efforts, over 2700 people were saved.  He was last seen on the 10th floor of the South Tower, headed upstairs shortly before the tower collapsed.

You could probably tell many other stories of people who reached a moment in their lives when their commitment was tested.  You see, it is easy to be committed when everything is going well.  It is easy to have courage when there is nothing to fear.  It is easy to enjoy community when everybody agrees with us.  But what happens when things go terribly wrong?

What happens when the people who once applauded us suddenly turn against us?  What happens when doing the right thing becomes painful?  What happens when the road God has called us to travel becomes much harder than we expected?  Acts 14 gives us one of those moments in the life of the apostle Paul.

Paul and Barnabas have been traveling through Asia Minor preaching the gospel. And they came to the town of Lystra, where Paul healed a man who had never been able to walk. The crowd was so amazed that they decided Paul and Barnabas must be gods who had come down in human form.  They wanted to worship them.  Paul could hardly get them to stop.  But then everything changed.

Acts 14:19   But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

People came from Antioch and Iconium.   These were the two cities in Galatia that Paul had just left.  Remember, he was run out of town in Antioch, and Paul and Barnabas left Iconium after discovering that the people in Iconium wanted to stone them.  And it is these people who find Paul in Lystra.  The people from Iconium traveled 21 miles on foot to find Paul, and the people from Antioch traveled 95 miles to find these missionaries.  They went a long way because they wanted to see Paul dead.  And they convinced the people of Lystra to stone him.  

Why would these people travel for days to attack Paul?  How were they able to convince the people of Lystra to move from worshipping Paul and Barnabas to wanting to stone them?  As we mentioned last week, stoning was a usual punishment for blasphemy in many cultures of the day.  These people, who worshipped the Greek gods, considered Paul a blasphemer.  Remember what he said to the people of Lystra when they wanted to worship him:

Acts 14:15  You should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

These people didn’t appreciate Paul calling their deities “vain” or “worthless.”  So they became convinced by the people from their neighboring cities that Paul was a blasphemer and should be stoned.  Since there was no high hill to throw Paul off of, he was pelted with rocks by the community until he was unconscious.  They felt he was dead, so they dragged him outside their city to rot.   But then we come to verse 20:

Acts 14:20  But when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and entered the city.

We need to stop right there.  Paul had just been stoned, dragged outside the city, and left for dead. And when the disciples gathered around him, he got up.  And then what did he do? He went back into the city to the people who stoned him.  That one verse gives us a remarkable picture of Christian discipleship.  It demonstrates three characteristics that every Christian and every church needs:  commitment, courage, and community.

The first thing we see is Paul’s commitment.  Paul had every reason to quit.   He had been run out of Antioch.  He fled Iconium because he discovered a plot on his life, and then in Lystra, he was rejected, beaten, pummeled by rocks, and dragged out of the city and left for dead.  And yet he got up and went back into the city.   Why? Because Paul’s commitment wasn’t based upon circumstances; it was based upon a calling.

Paul had been called by Jesus Christ to take the gospel to the Gentiles.  And Paul had already learned something important:  God’s calling does not mean the absence of difficulty.  In fact, Paul later tells these very disciples in verse 22:

Acts 14:22  “…through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

Notice what Paul does not say.  He doesn’t say: “Through a few tribulations.”  He doesn’t say: “Through occasional difficulties.”  He says: “Through many tribulations…”  Paul doesn’t hide the difficulty of following Jesus.  He doesn’t sell them a version of Christianity that promises that everything will work out easily.  He tells them the truth.  Following Jesus is worth it.  But following Jesus will be hard.  Jesus said this himself:

John 16:33   I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

We like to focus on the “I have overcome the world” part and skip over the “You will have trouble” part.   Jesus guarantees that you will have trouble, as do the apostles:

1 Peter 4:12   Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
1 John 3:13:       Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.” [1]

You can not read the Bible honestly and conclude that living a Christian life will be easy.   No, you are guaranteed trouble and promised that people in the world will hate you.  Commitment is easy when everything is easy.   Anyone can be committed when the church is growing.  It’s easy to support a team when they are winning.  Anyone can be committed to the church when you live in a part of the country where it is popular to belong to a church.  But what happens when things become difficult?   What happens when it is no longer popular to be a church member?  What happens when church members are ridiculed or persecuted? That’s where commitment is tested.

It’s like a marriage.   On a wedding day, the bride and groom promise: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.”  The words aren’t particularly difficult to say, but then the commitment is tested years later.  Life becomes complicated.  Personalities clash.  Sickness comes.  Financial problems arise.  Circumstances suddenly aren’t what you expected.  The wedding ceremony establishes the commitment, but life tests the commitment.   Why do so many marriages fail?  Because there was never really a true commitment.

The same thing is true of our faith.  On Sunday morning, faith can be easy.  The real test comes Monday morning.  It’s easy in church to sing songs or say, “I love Jesus.”  The test comes when loving Jesus requires something from us.  It’s easy to say, “I trust God.”  The test comes when God doesn’t answer our prayer the way we wanted or as quickly as we wanted.  Or when financial trouble arrives, or sickness arrives.   It’s easy to say, “I’ll follow wherever you lead.”  The test comes when God leads us somewhere uncomfortable.

Paul’s commitment was tested to the point of death.  And he got back up.  Commitment means getting back up—continuing on your mission even after problems arise, disasters strike, disappointment sets in, or discouragement sets in.

The message of Acts 14 is not:  “Real Christians never get knocked down.”  The message is:  “Getting knocked down doesn’t have to mean you stay down.”   Faithfulness means getting back up, taking another step, praying another prayer, or serving another day and trusting God through it all. Paul got up.  And he went back into the city.   That’s commitment. But commitment alone isn’t enough; sometimes commitment requires courage.

Paul didn’t simply get up.  He went back into the very city where people had just tried to kill him.  Would you have been afraid to go back into that city?   Would you have done that? We sometimes imagine courageous people as people who aren’t afraid.  But that’s not really courage.   If there is nothing to fear, there is no courage required.   It was Nelson Mandela who said:

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”  
                  Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom,” 1994

Nelson Mandela walked out of 27 years in a brutal prison and chose national forgiveness and reconciliation instead of bitterness or revenge against his oppressors.  Courage is doing what is right even when you do have something to fear.  Courage happens when fear is present, and you choose faithfulness anyway.

Paul had every reason to be afraid.  But he had something greater than his fear:  He had a mission.   Courage comes from knowing what matters most.   Paul understood that the gospel was more important than his personal comfort or safety.  That doesn’t mean Paul didn’t value his life.  He wasn’t looking for trouble. He wasn’t trying to be a martyr.  He wasn’t reckless.  But he understood that there was something more important than avoiding difficulty.  Jesus had given him a mission.  And Paul was determined to fulfill it.

This is an important lesson for the church today.  We live in a world with plenty of reasons to be afraid.  We’re afraid of rejection.  We’re afraid of criticism.  We’re afraid of what people will think.  We’re afraid that someone will disagree with us.   We’re afraid of being labeled.  We’re afraid of failure.  And sometimes our fear becomes stronger than our faith.

We may become so concerned about what people might say that we stop saying what needs to be said. Or we become so concerned about offending someone that we don’t mention our faith.  We may become so concerned about failure that we never attempt anything significant.

But the church was never called to be a people who are controlled by fear.  What is the most common command in the Bible?  Do not fear!  We are called to be courageous people of faith.   Paul demonstrated that courage.  He went back into the city and preached again.  And then he left.  But notice what he did next.

Acts 14:20-21 “But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples,…”

Paul didn’t allow what happened in Lystra to stop the mission.  He kept preaching.  He kept making disciples.  He kept moving forward.   Courage doesn’t mean pretending the danger isn’t real.  It means believing that God’s purpose is greater than the danger.  There are times when courage means speaking and times when courage means remaining silent.  There are times when courage means confronting something and other times when it means forgiving. There are times when courage means starting something new, and times when it means staying where you are.   

But Christian courage always begins with the same question: “What is God calling me to do?” Once we know that, we can ask:  “What would keep me from doing it?”   And then we need the courage to overcome that obstacle.   So, there is commitment, and then courage.

But there is a third element in this story that we cannot overlook.

Acts 14:20   But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, 

It is important to Luke to point out to us that they were there.  Before Paul got up, the disciples gathered around him.  They surrounded their wounded brother.  We don’t know exactly what they said.  Perhaps they prayed.  Perhaps they encouraged him.  Perhaps they simply stood beside him.  And sometimes that’s what community does.  It doesn’t necessarily fix the problem.  It doesn’t always have the right words.  Sometimes community says: “You’re not going through this alone.”  

That’s what the church is supposed to be.  The church isn’t simply a place where we gather for an hour on Sunday morning. The church is a community of people who gather around one another.  When somebody is hurting or discouraged, we gather around them. When somebody falls or fails, we gather around them.  When somebody succeeds, we gather around them.  When somebody wanders off, we go looking for them.  When somebody is weak, we help carry them.   We need one another.

Paul was one of the greatest missionaries in the history of Christianity.  He was courageous, determined, gifted, intelligent, and passionate.  But even Paul needed people to gather around him.  If Paul needed community, we do too.  There is a dangerous idea that sometimes creeps into Christianity:  “I don’t need anybody else. It’s just Jesus and me.”  

But that’s not the Christianity of the New Testament.  The New Testament knows nothing about isolated discipleship.  Jesus created a community.  Paul established communities.  The early church lived in community.  They prayed together, ate together, worshiped together.  They served together, and they suffered together. They encouraged one another. They carried one another’s burdens.

Christianity was never intended to be a solo sport.  We aren’t spectators sitting in separate seats watching the same game.  We’re participants, and we are all on the same team.

Look at what happens next.  Paul and Barnabas go back through the cities they have already visited.  Verse 22 says they were: “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith…”. They aren’t simply evangelizing new people.  They’re strengthening the people who already believe.  They are building community.  That’s an important part of ministry.  Sometimes we think the only important work of the church is reaching new people.  But the real work is discipleship.

Introducing someone to Jesus, having them baptized, and joining the church is a very important first step, but it is not the only step in the journey.  New followers will get discouraged and need someone to encourage them.  They will need to learn more about this Jesus they have met.  Someone will have to teach them.   They will struggle, and they will need someone to pray for them and gather around them.  They will fail and need someone to surround them and pick them up.   Somebody needs to say:  “Keep going.”  That’s community.  And notice the result.

Acts 14:23  “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”

They established leadership. They invested in people.  They created communities that could continue the mission after they were gone.  That’s what a healthy community does.  It doesn’t simply gather people.  It develops people.  It doesn’t simply attract followers.  It makes disciples.  It doesn’t simply create spectators.   It creates servants.

Acts 14 begins with a man being celebrated and even worshiped, and then ends with that same man being beaten and left for dead.  And in the middle of that story is that one extraordinary sentence:

Acts 14:20   But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, 

He got back up.  That’s commitment.  He went back into the place where people had tried to kill him.  That’s courage.  And before he got up, the disciples gathered around him.  That’s community.  And perhaps those are three things the church desperately needs today.

The Christian life isn’t always easy. There will be times when we get knocked down. This sinful world can deliver crushing blows to us.  There will be times when we are afraid.   There will be times when we wonder whether we can continue.  But Acts 14 reminds us:  Get back up.  Keep going. And don’t go alone.  The church is at its best when committed people have the courage to follow Christ and when the community supports one another.

Paul eventually came to the end of his life.  And when he looked back over the journey, he could say:

2 Timothy 4:7  “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

I pray that when our journey is finished, we can look back and say, “I stayed committed.  I found courage.   And I never walked alone.”