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Going--And Sending
08/01/2004
Scripture: Acts 13; 14:1-28
Track 10 of 14 in the Being with Him Compels Us to Go for Him series


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Sermon for Sunday, August 1, 2004
"Going--And Sending"
"Being With Him Compels Us to Go for Him"
(Acts 13:1 -14:28)
C. Sackett

I couldn't help but think this is the way church was supposed to be done. It fit all of my stereotypes of what I had anticipated running into in eastern Europe in the way of church.

I was standing in a hallway overlooking the courtyard there in the front of the building. The room, where they worshiped was absolutely packed. I mean, there were people sitting, standing, crowding, the doorways were full. People standing in the hallways and in the doorways and trying to peek into the room. I was looking at the courtyard and up to my left I could see the windows that showed where people were going and the courtyard was absolutely full of people listening over loudspeakers. Was everything I thought church should be. It happened to be a Wednesday night and it was their first mission rally.

This was a brand new church, five years old in Corazon, Ukraine and they were already in the process of bringing home their own mission team. They had sent a team of missionaries from the church in Corazon down into the Crimean Tartar region in southern Ukraine. They had brought their team back home for a mission rally with 25 former Muslim converts. It was just one of those exciting days when you watched the church be the church. Everything that you ever anticipated a church being, from having gone being a brand new church plant less than five years before that to sending out their own missionaries, bringing them back and seeing the fruit of their labors multiplied over and over again.

I couldn't help but think of that when I read Acts 13. As I was looking at this morning's text. . . . .ah, we're going to be looking at Acts 13/14. I'm not going to read the whole thing. We're just going to read the first four verses but it's that kind of church.

You see, when you take a look at Acts and you look at this particular text and you think of churches like the church in Corazon, you begin to understand that any church that takes Jesus seriously, has to take the lost world seriously. Any body of Christian people who are excited about their own personal relationship with Jesus and what he has done in them, and for them, takes seriously that there is a world out there that needs to have that same fundamental message given to them.

Acts 13:1 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod and the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off."

The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from here to Cyprus.

And there we read in the next two chapters of the journey from city to city as they preached the gospel in the various places where they went.

It's interesting to me that what has been in the early part of Acts, the spontaneous movement of people, now has become intentional. We have moved from just spontaneity to intentionality. What we've seen in the beginning of Acts is people who are excited about their faith in Jesus. Just simply taking advantage of any opportunity that arises.

Crowds gathered and in Acts 2 the Holy Spirit comes so Peter stands up and preaches. You come to Acts 3 & 4 and there is a man who needs healing at Gate Beautiful and Peter and James walk up and so there is an opportunity to preach and they preach. You come a little further into Acts and you've conflict in the church, Ananias and Sapphira and even at the end of that the gospel is preached and the people become Christians.

It isn't long until there's persecution in the church and the church gets scattered but everywhere they go, what do they do? They spontaneously preach the gospel because that's what people do.

They end up in Samaria. What do they do? They preach. In fact, if some of those who were scattered in Acts 8, who find themselves all the way in Antioch and what they do is they preach. And the church there gets established. But what has been spontaneous just the natural reaction of Christian people to their circumstances now becomes intentional. It's as if this church realizes this is what God is about. This is what he's been asking for. This is the kind of thing he's been desiring all along. Let's not just let it happen. Let's plan it. Let's do something about it. Let's be intentional in this thing. And so the church in the context of its worship begins to realize that God has something very specific in mind.

We've gone from what appears to be almost accidental divine kind of intercessions in the lives of people to the place where the Holy Spirit is saying to the church, set these people apart. We're going to do something specific here. We're gonna spread the gospel. That kind of intentionality comes in the context of a church that takes seriously its relationship with Jesus.

You notice what they're doing--they're praying and they're fasting. Their in the process of worship. It's the church that's doing the thing that churches do. They're seeking out the will of God. They're asking for specific direction. They place themselves in a position where they have been fasting and praying for God's guidance and God guides them. He opens doors. He says, this is what I want you to do. Set these people apart. Send them because we need to be planting churches around the world.

It's why I hope those of you who are regularly praying for our body, recognize just how important your ministry to us is.

It is in the context of knowing we have a church with a group of people who regularly, consistently and persistently pray for God's guidance, who with regularity, weekly pray and fast that God will send us in the right direction.

In that context of godly people asking God for direction, what does God do? He gives direction. He sends us in the place he wants us to go. He gives us the direction that he wants us to have and so suddenly, that which has in the past been spontaneous suddenly becomes intentional on the part of the church.

It's really been rather interesting to watch the mission plan unfold over the last several years. There's been this growing list of names at the bottom of the mission budget that says Team Expansion and then in parentheses there's a name. And what we've done probably over the last three or four years is that we have just rather spontaneously picked up about a half a dozen short term commitments to team expansion to specific people going specific places for a year, maybe six months.

Last Sunday, when the elders met, Molly and Casey Belle came and asked. . . . . .they don't know for sure what they are doing but they believe that they're going to join Team Expansion and that they are gonna go to Taiwan as long term missionaries. And the possibility exists that this rather spontaneous list supports this organization and these short term missions become a very intentional supporting process by our congregation, specifically for this one couple going to that specific place.

It is amazing to me how God often turns that which is spontaneity into intentionality as the church decides maybe we ought to go to the park and have church and all of a sudden it becomes more than just spontaneous, it becomes this intentional attempt to witness to a community and to do some service by cleaning up the neighborhoods. To just take that which sounds like a spontaneous kind of response to the gospel and to begin in the context of worship and prayer to say where is it that God is specifically taking us. And in this text the Holy Spirit says I want these two people and I want to send them in this specific direction.

It's interesting isn't it, who those people are because it is these faithful leaders who are moved into a new realm of usefulness. Because that is the nature of how things work in the church. Those who are faithfully doing what God calls them to do anyway are often then called into some kind of service that is more specific. I think it's one of the things this church has done well in the recognition that you don't put people in leadership positions and give them titles in the hope that someday they will become a leader. You take a look around you and you find out who is already doing, who is already faithfully carrying out ministry and then you say to them. . . . . by the way, we'd like to make this official.

That's the nature of the church, to move from faithfulness to usefulness where the key leaders of the church find themselves moving from, well, what they've been doing, being prophets and teachers to the place that God is about to take them out of the body and send them someplace else. It's one of the scarey things about letting people leave for a little while, its that God may call them somewhere. It's interesting to me in this context, who these leaders are. Did you notice that list of names? It's a rather interesting bunch.

We've already met Barnabas, of course. Barnabas is this Jewish fella from the island who is a generous man, who is deeply committed to be an encourager. Immediately after him ya have this fella who's name is Simion. That's a good Jewish name but he has a Roman nickname, Niger. As if he somehow lives in both worlds. By the way, the fact that he's called Niger, it probably means he's from Africa and he's probably black. And then you have a fella by the name of Lucius who comes from one of the islands. He has joined the team in the city of Antioch. And then you're introduced, of course, to Manaen. He's an interesting character. Did you notice the little blurb about him? He grew up in the household of Herod the tetrarch. In fact that word could mean that he's literally the foster brother of Herod himself, or at least grew up in the household. You know who Herod is . . . .Herod is the guy who decided that he didn't like the preaching of John the Baptist and so he had him killed. Herod is the leader who was there when Jesus was alive, and approved of his death.

It's fascinating to me, in the same household you've got a man who becomes a believer and a leader in a church and a man who persecutes and destroys the people of God. It's amazing to me how God sometimes does that in one household. He's become a leader at this church. And of course, then we're introduced to Saul, whom we're gonna know as Paul and he's gonna take over the dominant place in the book of Acts from here on out, as one of those key leaders.

The Holy Spirit says I want these two guys--I want you to send them specifically in this particular direction. Now, that's often what happens in the life of people, is that God moves them in a more specific area of usefulness.

You know it just. . . . . you know it could be God is in the process of moving even you. If you can, imagine this hypothetical situation, say a faculty member from a college like Lincoln was sent out on a weekend to a church to fill in because they needed a missions speaker, say in Brooke, IN. And the preacher might get up and say something like this. What are you gonna do with the rest of your life? I mean, you've got retirement at 60 or 65 and you've got 15 or 20 or 30 more years of life. What do you plan on doing with that? You could almost hypothetically imagine somebody coming back to you a couple of years later or like maybe, just a year later and saying, "you know I heard that sermon and I'm a military vet and I can travel almost any place I want in the world and it doesn't cost me much and I'm on this full government pension, and I've probably got 15 or 20 years if God is good to me. I think I'll just go to the mission field. What do ya think?"

What are you going to do with 15 years of your life after you retire? Did you ever think about the possibility of a career change. Did you ever wonder what God might want to do with you, if you just listened to that voice within that said, here's where--I don't know how he's gonna do it. . . . . . I honestly don't. I don't have a distinct sense that he's necessarily gonna say to you--I want you to do this or if it's going to be through a series of events that lead you to a particular place, but what I do know is that as God uses people and they become faithful in their services, he begins to make their service ever more specific and more useful.

We have friends here this morning from Mammoth. He doesn't know I'm going to say this but, Lou was a--well--the last thing — Lou where are you? Back over here. Lou, were you driving a truck or something? Frito-Lay salesman — our own version of Roger Edwards! For four years now he's been the associate preacher at the church in Mammoth cause God reached down and said, "I think we want to do something else." That's the way God works in the context of faithful service. He sometimes says, "I think I'd like you to do this." Now it's a little scary when things like that happen because you've got Saul and Barnabas here too, key leaders out of the five key leaders in the church and they're about to leave for like, a couple of years.

You know we've got this team leaving for Haiti this week that you're going to meet at the end of the sermon and you know, sometimes it's a little scary to let them go because the next thing you know, there gonna just want to be gone all the time.

In fact, we just had friends come back from Papua New Guinea. They. . . .Eric and Heather have these two little kids that are just dynamite little kids . . . . .you know, just these gorgeous little kids and, . . . .grandma said, just before they left for Papua. . . "My fear is your going to get down there and like it and want to stay." It is a fear, isn't it? I think every parent has that kind of fear, that if you raise your children in the Lord and in the church, He may want to reach down and touch them and send them to Africa. But that's how God works.

It's interesting in this text that a church that has been mostly a receiving church, watching God's activity, now becomes the participating church, creating God's activity.

Now this church in Antioch is just a handful of years old. I mean, this thing hasn't been around very long. It's kinda like that church in Corazon, when I was there, it was less than five years old. Most of those people were receivers, observers, watching what God was doing. Finding their own first kind of experience with God and suddenly their thrust, moved from being a recipient, a receiver. . . .to now being a sender, a goer, a giver. It is the nature of the way things work. You can always sit around and watch what God's doing for so long and the next thing you know, you're drawn into the process of wanting to participate in that in some way. Whether you be the one who goes or the one who speaks, or the one who sends, or the one who gives, you become a participant because being a participant changes your perspective on everything.

We probably have told you this before, but in case we haven't, we need to tell you now. You are all participants in the mission of this church. Every time we take up an offering, 17.5% of that offering goes to missions and that will grow a 1/2% every year for the next several years. This year alone, that will be somewhere in the ballpark of $150,000.00 that this church will send to make sure the gospel gets out there and you will be participants in that. If you give in the offering, you're participating in the mission of this church.

We want you to understand that as our team goes to Haiti or as Chrissy goes to Peru or one of our kids goes on a mission trip, we want you to know that your part of that. Whatever happens on this mission trip, you need to understand. You helped that happen! Whether you prayed or encouraged or brought flip-flops or whatever it is you did to make this thing happen. You need to sense that you have moved from just being a recipient of the benefit of the gospel to now being a participant in that gospel as God moves all of us to the place that we become more invested in what God is doing.

If we were to go on and read the rest of this section Acts 13 & 14 after Paul and Barnabas leave, it is amazing to me how much opposition they run in to. You know, you get this exciting sense that God is really up to something and the Holy Spirit has said send these two people and let's get out there and get this thing going. The very first thing that happens is in Acts 13 is they run into Satan in the form of a sorcerer. It's as if this opportunity is opposed at every turn.

It was Lee Iacocca who said "We are continually faced by opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems." That's what this looks like in Acts 13 & 14.

You just read down through it. The first thing we run into is satanic opposition. The second thing we run into is the Jewish people begin to feel like the church is a threat to their nation and so they begin to throw Paul out of town. Town after town, they begin to chase him down. They leave him half dead, having stoned him. In one particular city, Paul and Barnabas are misunderstood, as it they represent the gods. And yet at every turn, this opposition is turned back and God's church grows.

It is an amazing close to the paragraph. Come over to the end of Acts 14:26. They are making their way back through these various cities. From Attalia, they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work that they had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. In spite of the opposition, God got his work done. That is the nature of the church.

I guarantee you that any church, including this one that tries to do God's will and tries to do it faithfully, will be opposed by Satan. There will be opposition. Satan does not like it when people become Christians. When disciples are being made, Satan will do everything he can to rally himself against us. But when we are faithful and we do that which we do, which is make disciples, help people come to know Jesus. As long as we focus on that, he will still get his job done. Because that's the nature of who God is.

This is a remarkable story and I see in this story, this great church willing to listen to what God has to say and take God seriously. Here they are, a church, new, with good leaders and solid leaders and yet, right from among them, they take two of their best leaders and they say, listen, if God needs them someplace else, if the Holy Spirit is calling them to go, then we're gonna send um and God will take care of it in their absence.

And I see Saul and Barnabas and I look at them and I think, here are two guys trying to do what God says and the church that their leading is flourishing and God says I want to pick you up and I want to move you someplace else. In fact, what I want to do is put you on the road for the next several months. You notice what they say? Yes!

Because what you see is two willing people who are willing to listen to whatever it is that God is calling them to do. Isn't that the nature of the church? I mean, isn't that what a relationship with Jesus is about? You listen for what he's calling you to do and you do it. If he's calling you to become a Christian, you do. If he's calling you to talk to your neighbor, you do. If he's calling you to pack up and go to Haiti, you do. If he says I want to send you to the outer most parts of the world, you go. Why? Because he's the Lord, not us. It's His church and we're His people and when he calls us, there's only one legitimate response and that's to say, YES, whatever you want, I'll do it!