As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.
Acts 13:42 (ESV)
As Paul finished preaching his sermon in Antioch for the first time, the people who listened had this pure and simple hunger to hear the Word of God preached to them more and more. The people were begging Paul and Barnabas to come again on the next Sabbath and preach more. They were not content to just take the experience and move on with their lives. They had experienced something far deeper than a mere encouragement. They experienced the Gospel of Christ and it moved them. They were moved in their heart and soul to beg these men to come again and preach this message. There was now a hunger and a thirst for the Word of God to be explained and applied. They were not going to be satisfied with this one-time emotional moment. They begged to hear the words of Christ. What does this mean for me?
I found in this verse a simple way to measure the state of my heart. Like a warning light on the dashboard of my car, so too is this simple question, “Am I begging to have the Gospel of Christ explained to me?” It’s such a simple question, but it seeks a deep spiritual truth. It is so easy to keep to my Sunday morning routine of going to church and hearing a sermon preached during the worship service, then a lesson taught during the Sunday School hour. So easy in fact that I fall into the trap of consistency and complacency. You see, it is so ingrained in my mind that church happens on Sunday, that I don’t often think about sermons and teachings outside of the Sunday morning service. I find myself not “begging” for these things to be told to me. Oftentimes I am lacking a hunger and a desire for these spiritual truths to be preached to me.
As I examine my heart, I find that I am not only forgetting to beg to hear more of the gospel but I become critical or cynical of the preaching and teaching that I have just heard. I become so focused on the minutia or word choice or teaching style that I keep my heart from engaging with the Word. It is true that I must be careful when I hear the word preached and measure it against the Bible itself. The problem at times is that my critical heart shuts out the good word of encouragement or challenge in the gospel. My heart becomes as hard as compacted soil during a drought. Impenetrable to the words Christ has for me.
I want to be a beggar. A beggar in the sense that I am never satisfied with my current engagement with the gospel. I want to be exposed to the teaching of Christ through the many avenues he has provided (sermons, teachings, books, articles, fellowship with others, personal bible reading and meditation) but I want to especially be engaged with the preaching of his word. As I learn to become a beggar for the gospel, I find myself yearning for next Sunday. I find myself praying for my heart to be soft before the sermon. I have found that the worship service is indeed laid out to prepare me in just this way, with the music, the prayers, the self-examination of my heart all before the sermon is preached.
The application is simple in that a beggar desires to engage with their Savior as often as possible. A beggar is never satisfied with a simple moment or experience once a week but is seeking opportunities to hear Jesus speak to them. A beggar for the gospel is in relationship with his Savior. His soul is not satisfied unless he is in communion with his Lord.