The Friendship Vision,
Faith on Fire:
Change, For God's Sake
Acts 18:1-11
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 22, 2004)

A young pastor had just finished delivering his first message at a new church. Afterwards, a member approached him and said, “That was a really dull sermon.” All week long, the pastor was haunted by that comment. The next Sunday, the same man approached him and said, “That message was one of the shallowest I’ve ever heard.” By the third Sunday, the young pastor was shaken, his self-esteem about as low as it could get. Craving affirmation, he asked this same man, “Did today’s message help you at all?” The man told him, “That was the worst one yet. You didn’t say anything worthwhile.” Crushed, the pastor pointed the man out to the church council president and asked about him. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to him,” the council president said, “He just repeats whatever he hears everybody else saying.”

Criticism is part of this life. And, it’s a fact that in order for us to grow in our personal relationships with Jesus Christ, in order for us to be useful to God and others, in order for us to fulfill our missions in life, we will usually have to endure criticism.

In the whole history of the Church, God has used the criticism of others to make His people’s faith stronger and to help His Church reach out to others with God’s love. In today’s Bible lesson, the first century preacher and evangelist Paul travels to the Greek city of Corinth, the center of Greek business and politics. When Paul arrived in Corinth, he did the sensible thing—he carried the good news of Jesus to the people most likely to be open to it first, his fellow Jews. But after trying and trying to tell them that Jesus had fulfilled the Old Testament’s promise of a Savior, Paul just ran into one critical, disbelieving comment after another.

Frustrated, Paul “shook the dust from his clothes,” his culture’s way of saying, “Forget about you,” and said, “From now on, I’ll just hang out with and share the Good News of Jesus with non-Jews, Gentiles.” He even moved into the house of a non-Jew who believed in the God proclaimed by the Jews and who had come to follow Jesus.

When Paul did that, amazing things happened! First, the leader of the synagogue, a devout Jew, came to faith in Christ, along with his family and slaves. The company of believers in Jesus—Jewish and Gentile—began to grow in numbers and one night, Paul received a vision telling him to, “Go for it! Tell everybody about Jesus Christ because there are many people here just waiting to be told that all who believe in Jesus don’t face eternal separation from God. They hunger to know that God loves them and wants to have them with Him forever!”

Paul learned, as we must learn, that as hurtful as criticism may be, it cannot destroy the follower of Jesus. In fact, if we will let God do it, He can use others’ criticism to bring positive changes in our lives. We see this in three ways in our Bible lesson.

First: We see that we can learn from criticism. God can use even unfair criticism to help us grow. Today is the actual birthday of one of my heroes, George Washington. As a young man, hungry for glory and fame, Washington led an ill-conceived attack by colonial soldiers during the French and Indian War. Not only were many of the men under Washington’s command slaughtered, he barely escaped with his own life. Prominent people in Britain and the American colonies all wanted to see the young Washington court martialed or hanged for his rashness. If Jay Leno or David Letterman had been around, Washington would have been humiliated and forced from public life forever. Instead, Washington learned from his critics. He took a look at himself and gave up being a glory-hound. Honors and accolades came to Washington later in his life precisely because he put his duty ahead of those things. He’d learned from his critics.

In our Bible lesson, Paul listens to the critics who savage him and decides to change tactics. He began sharing Jesus’ offer of new life for all who turn away from sin and let Him be the Boss of their lives with people he might otherwise have ignored.

Second: From our lesson, we see that our critics can strengthen our resolve. When we’re criticized for doing the right thing, we can either cave into peer pressure or we can reaffirm our resolve to do the right thing. Criticism forces us to take a new look at our actions and values. Our college-age daughter loves the internship she's doing right now, loves the work, loves the class on organizational leadership she’s taking, is getting to know some wonderful people. But she catches flak all the time from lots of her fellow interns because, while not condemning anybody else, she refuses to be on the prowl for sex or booze or drugs. There have been times when she has had to decide to do the right things in the face of withering criticism...and worse. But the criticism has only strengthened her resolve to live her life God’s way and that makes us very proud...and very grateful.

When Paul caught criticism from his fellow Jews for proclaiming Jesus, he became more firmly resolved to share Jesus, even if it meant changing his target audience and his tactics.

Third: We see that criticism should lead us to seek comfort from our fellow believers in the Church. That was certainly true for Paul, as he found a whole city ready to hear the Good News of Jesus he wanted to share. It’s true today!

When little Bobby was a boy, his farm home in Iowa was all abuzz when an uncle, a missionary to China home on furlough, came to visit. Bobby never forgot the moment when this godly uncle put his arms around the boy’s shoulders and said, “So, this is Bobby? Bobby, I have been praying for you and I am sure that one day, you will be a well-known preacher of God’s Word.” The boy grew up and moved to California. In spite of critics who condemned him, Bob became certain that God wanted him to change the way the Church usually reached out to others with the love of Christ. At an Orange County drive-in movie theater, he and his wife started a new church. Often, when critics hounded him and there was no money to pay the bills, Bob was sustained by the encouragement he’d received long before from his uncle. It’s a good thing because the ministry of Robert Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral Church have touched millions around the world with the love of Jesus Christ!

My prayer is that Friendship Church will also be a fellowship of believers that gives encouragement to people as they face their critics and adversaries in life!

When criticism comes to the follower of Jesus, we can learn from it, we can be strengthened in our resolve to do things God’s way, and we can seek comfort from the community of believers. When we let God do these three things in our lives, we will grow, we will change for God’s sake. Knowing this, the first prayer we can offer when a critic comes after us is not, “God, make this criticism go away,” but “God, help me to change for the better in the face of this criticism.” (Hard as that is!)

A few weeks ago, Ann asked me, “Mark, what will you do if you lose this election?” I told her, “You know, I’ve thought about that and I’ve decided that I’ll just go back to being a regular old preacher.” Ann smiled and said, “Honey, you may grow old. But you will never be just a regular preacher.”

I’m not sure what she meant by that, but I got to thinking: that’s true for all who follow Jesus. The Bible says that God has made everyone who follows Jesus brand new. God’s Spirit has come to live inside of us and our call is to keep changing...for the better, turning from sin and death and getting pumped full of God’s life, love, and goodness. We may all grow old, but we never need to be just "regular" believers. If we will let the God we know in Jesus Christ be the Lord and God of our every moment, He can help us to learn from our critics, to be strengthened in our resolve to follow Jesus, and gain comfort from other believers as each day God makes us newer and better than we were the day before! We can change...for God's sake and by God's power.

[The story of the young pastor is told by Philip Longfellow Anderson in his book, The Gospel in Disney: Christian Values in the Early Animated Classics (Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2004).

[The true incident of George Washington's humiliating defeat resulting from poor judgment is told in many biographies. My personal favorite is Patriarch by Richard Norton Smith.

[My memory of Robert Schuller's encounter with his missionary uncle---told in Schuller's book on prayer, among others---was refreshed by a sermon written by Michael Foss.]