Word of Salvation – Vol. 51 No.29 – December 2006

 

Willing To Go

 

A Sermon by Rev Albert Esselbrugge

on Acts 13:1-4

Scripture Readings:  1-12; Matthew 28:16-28

 

Brothers and sisters, young people, boys and girls.

The New Testament teaches us that there is a certain set of characteristics which marks out the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We could call these the “marks of the church”. How can you recognise a true church? These marks help us.

A true church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a church which is devoted to the Word of God as we find it in the Old and New Testaments. This church is committed to fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ through worship, the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments, and also fellowship with each other as we unite around our risen Saviour. The church is a people committed to prayer. The church is a body that is led by two offices, elders and deacons.

One of the great privileges of belonging to a New Testament church is participating in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. When we enjoy the fellowship of our Lord around the table of the Lord’s Supper, our tendency is to turn our focus and thoughts inward. That’s a healthy and positive thing in the context of this celebration. At the Supper we are reminded, by the gospel displayed in symbols of bread and wine, of the great and awesome things our Lord has done for us. He came out of glory, entered this world of sin, He took human flesh and bone and walked and lived for a time among us, and then died our death, took sin’s punishment upon Himself that rightly belonged to us, and satisfied the justice of God the Father fully.

And then He rose again to say that you and I who trust in Him and His work – His dying and His rising – shall also live in glory. It’s healthy and immensely positive to look at our Lord through the bread and wine symbols and remember what He did for us – to remember what we are under sin, and to rejoice over what we have received in God’s grace through Jesus. It humbles us. It fills us with thanksgiving to the Lord and moves us to praise Him.

But I believe we must not only look in, but also look out. There’s an immense need outside these walls in the hearts of every man, woman and child to know the saving power of Jesus over their sin-burdened and doomed souls. Those people are never going to hear about Jesus – and will never come to know Him – unless we tell them and introduce them to Him. That is what evangelism and witnessing is all about. It’s not about making converts or convincing people of their need to come to Jesus. That’s the work of God. Only He can convert and convince a soul that is hidden and lost in darkness. But the God-given call and task you and I have is to introduce people to the only One who can save them.

This is what our verses are about here in Acts 13.

The Book of Acts gives us a glorious picture of the Holy Spirit at work, empowering the church to be what Christ said the apostles would be in Acts 1:8 – his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. But I think we have to say that the picture Acts gives us is of the Holy Spirit having to force the church out of its “comfort zone” in order for the Great Commission to be fulfilled.

For example, in Acts Chapter 8, the church which was centred at Jerusalem and was growing so tremendously was forced by God to go out into the world beyond Jerusalem. The people had been simply sticking to their own kind. They had been busy sharing the life-giving water of the Word of salvation in Christ Jesus, but they had only been sharing it with those with whom they were comfortable and familiar. But in Acts 8 we learn that a persecution arose and for the sake of safety, many Christians left Jerusalem. And as they went – and by the way, here’s the great commission in wonderful action – as they went, they began to share the gospel with other people; people who weren’t Jews, and people who spoke different languages than themselves, and people who had different cultures, and in fact, people who served idols.

In Acts 8:4 we read, “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” And in Acts 11:20 we read of Jews beginning to share the gospel with Gentiles. God blessed that sharing – these introductions to Jesus – and many other people came to the Lord.

In Acts 11 we find that Antioch became a favoured place for Christians to escape to, and that in this city, the disciples were for the very first time called Christians.

When we take an aerial view of the book of Acts we see that it’s really two volumes in one. The chapters 1-12 are the first volume, and they take us on a stunning journey of how the church of the Lord sprang up from a mere handful of disciples to a mighty body of people. That journey begins in Jerusalem and in chapter twelve ends in Antioch.

Doctor Luke, who wrote the history of God’s salvation in this exciting period, then takes us – in the second volume which starts at chapter 13 – from Antioch to Rome. The first volume is about Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and how God changed that focus and emphasis away from the Jews, to a people in the Lord – a people made up from all kinds of nations and tribes – Jews and Gentiles. Volume two has as its field of operation the Gentile world. Chapters 13-28 are all about the great missionary work of the apostle Paul.

What we see here at the start of chapter 13 is that Antioch became the sending church. It is this situation in Antioch that we are focussing on today.

What does missionary work bring to your mind? So often missionary work is about a few photos of some missionary families on the notice board, possibly a few maps, an occasional visit by some missionary on furlough who will show a video. Most often missionary work seems to be about conferences and people coming together for a talkfest on how to get people involved.

But in our verses here, we have a church, and while the people were gathered together in worship the Holy Spirit directed them to set several men apart for this special calling to be missionaries. Barnabas was the man who had accepted and encouraged Saul (who would become Paul) when everyone else was afraid of Saul. Simeon, we believe, was a black man – certainly no prejudices here. Lucius of Cyrene had grown up with Herod. And Saul, well he was a former persecutor of the church who had once gone out breathing threats against Christians and imprisoning them.

You see here then, that missionary work is about real people – it’s about people reaching out to people. The Holy Spirit set His mark on those men because they had come to be men who loved people. They were teachers, proclaimers of the Word of God – and no one will do that if they don’t love to be with people and help people.

But then we see in verses 2 and 3, that missionary work involves churches actually sending people. The directions came from the Holy Spirit. It’s not clear from what we’re told here whether the congregation had come together to fast and worship just for the purpose of determining the Lord’s will on this matter of the spread of Christianity. But this is what they were doing when the Holy Spirit instructed them. Nor are we informed how the Holy Spirit spoke. However it was that the Holy Spirit communicated His desire here, we can be sure that He didn’t just give it to one person, who then told the congregation that the Lord had laid something on his heart. The Holy Spirit communicated His will to them all, so that there could be no doubt that this was from the Lord. His instruction was to set apart Barnabas and Saul, this Saul being the one who was later called Paul. These two were to be sent off to other places.

Could you imagine us doing something like that here, congregation? Surely we should desire that the Lord would work in that way amongst us! It is a wonderful privilege to be allowed to participate in seeing new converts come to the Lord. But let’s also pray that the Lord would make it plain to us that one or two or more from among us should be sent out to serve in mission work among the people of outback Australia, or the people of Indonesia, or to work in some other place the Lord would direct – that He would let us take part in sending people out for that purpose of mission work.

The church in Acts 13 prayed some more after the Holy Spirit instructed them, and fasted some more, and then they laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul in an act of ordination, and then they sent them off.

Is it possible that even at this moment the Lord is stirring our hearts, and stirring the heart of an individual, preparing us for such a blessing?

Why did God choose these two men mentioned here? They were teachers. We know they had other gifts by which they made their living. Saul was a tent maker. But their special calling lay in the fact that God had made them teachers. They could preach the Word.

How would we do such a thing as send people out into the mission of spreading the Word in this special calling? We would do it just as this church did. We would earnestly pray that the Lord would show us the way in which to spread Christianity. We might use fasting if we felt that it would help us concentrate more fully on the praying. And then we’d seek the will of the Lord, and we would not hold on to those God would set apart, but we’d positively send them away with our prayers, and we’d pray for them, ensuring they could do the work unhindered.

With our Bibles open before us now, what impresses us over and over is the greatness and the wonder of the hatred God has for sin, and the love He has poured out in order to save sinners from His anger. This message must never be held close and covered so that others won’t see it or hear it.

Congregation, missionary work, evangelism, sharing the gospel, and introducing people to the Lord, this requires that you and I be willing.

Verse four here – and we see the two men – they were sent by the Holy Spirit. They were sent by the church and they were sent by the Holy Spirit, and Barnabas and Saul, they were willing to go – and they went.

Some of God’s people are called to merely go next door. Some are called to go around the block. Some are called to go around the world. The fact is, we’re all called to share the Word as we go about our living – so it’s crucial that we all be willing to go.

I’ve been reading about Hudson Taylor, the man who did so much to carry the gospel to China during the latter part of the 1800s. He once wrote, “I am unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christians rejoicing in their own salvation, while millions are perishing… lost.”

Whenever we meet together in worship as we are now, and at those times when we sit about the Table of our Lord, don’t only look inward and rejoice in the love of God, but look out as well. Are you willing to go? Amen.