Note: Today's message is a bit longer due to a personal experience and memory. For exposition scroll down to Acts 9 Scripture text graphic.

Message summary: If the song "Through It All" had been written when the apostle Paul was alive he would surely have been encouraged and strengthened by its message.

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"Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry My name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name” (Acts 9:15,16). "They preached the gospel in that city (Derbe) and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. 'We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God', they said" (Acts 14:21,22).

Last Thursday I was driving my van and stopped at a red light in Columbia when a car lightly rear-ended me. I pulled into the nearby parking lot and the driver followed me. I was not injured but the collision damaged my bumper. The driver apologized, took full responsibility and gave me his insurance info. The insurance company has already contacted me and tomorrow I will be taking the van to the Thru-It-All Body Shop here in Mount Joy for repairs.

I first saw Thru-It-All Body Shop after our move to Mount Joy in 2001. I was intrigued by the name so I stopped by to ask the owner. He told me it was based on "Through It All" a Christian song popular in the seventies (as I had suspected). The business began in 1974 and the founder, Joe Wilson, named it Thru-It-All after coming home from a prayer meeting.*

As we visited he recounted God's faithfulness in helping him through the years in dealing with the various hardships and overcomings that go with starting and running a business. It's the only business I've ever seen with this name. I did a Google search and couldn’t find another like it!

There was also a very specific time in my own life when the song, "Through It All" meant a great deal to me. Early in our ministry we hit some major obstacles and closed doors. One year into our marriage following our Bible College years we moved to Pennsylvania from Missouri in August of 1977 to start a church. Although I felt I had been led of the Lord, all the doors seemed to be closed and I wondered if I had made a huge mistake. The painful thought of leading my bride of one year into our first major heartache was tearing me up inside. She was just 21 and I was 22 at the time.

We were sitting in our little blue Datsun pickup and my memory is still so vivid that I remember precisely where it happened, at the junction of Routes 255 and 948 near Kersey PA.

Brooksyne was sitting in the middle and a college friend named Larry, who had come up from Pittsburgh to encourage us in our new venture, was sitting on the passenger side. I was so intensely discouraged about the doors that kept closing regarding both our housing and a meeting place for the church plant that tears involuntarily flowed down my cheeks.

I sure didn't want Brooksyne or Larry to see me, so I angled my face toward the driver's window as we drove along. We had a small cassette tape player affixed to the dashboard which we loaded with inspirational cassettes. (That was hi-tech at the time.)

Right at that intersection "Through It All" began to play and God used it to renew my assurance that He would see me through our time of hardship. God also used the prayer that Larry prayed over us as he sensed my discouragement.  That was in 1977 and by God's grace we went on to see a strong church established in the Elk County area and are still in contact with many of the congregational members to this day nearly 50 years later.

At Saul's (later known as Paul) conversion Ananias was commissioned to tell him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name” (Acts 9:15,16). The record shows that Paul certainly experienced  disappointments, sufferings, and imprisonment in his years of ministry.

In today's second Bible text Paul, along with Barnabas, are on their first missionary journey and are returning to some of the cities where they had earlier established churches. Their basic purpose in returning to these young churches is summed up in this phrase: "strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith" (Acts 14:22a).

But Luke sums up the essence of their verbal message in a single phrase, "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22b). This portion bears careful attention in an age when the call to follow Christ is often presented to unbelievers as "simple" or "easy". Most all of us would be hesitant to share the above verse with those we are seeking to lead to Christ!

Notice the part, "we must go through". This hard reality seems to be an acknowledgement that in life this is no freedom from trials. Testings of all kinds are present from our childhood to the final breath we draw in this life. Thankfully, during our times of hardship, we can "approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

Some of you today are dealing with a trial and wonder how the particular matter that troubles your heart is going to work out. We must remember the timeless message to the early believers in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. Like the Apostle Paul, we seek to provide teaching to you, as Christ's followers in our own generation, by encouraging you to remain true to the faith as, "we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God".

Any suffering we have experienced in our 50 plus years of ministry pales in comparison to Paul and many others. But if "Through It All" had been written when the apostle Paul was alive he too would surely have been encouraged and strengthened by its message.

1) How does Paul's experience with trials compare to yours?
2) What specific trials have you endured in life come to mind when you consider the lyrics contained within the song, "Through It All"?

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber