The sermon by Scott Brown centers on the global impact of ministering to the Lord, as illustrated in Acts 13. It begins with the church in Antioch, where prophets and teachers, including Barnabas and Saul, were ministering to the Lord and fasting. Through their spiritual practices, the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul for a mission that marked the beginning of global evangelism. The sermon emphasizes the importance of prayer meetings throughout church history, drawing parallels with significant prayer gatherings like the Moravian prayer meeting and others, stressing that the significance of a prayer meeting is not in its size but in its spiritual impact. The sermon also highlights the role of diverse leadership in the church, showing how a mix of cultural, racial, and educational backgrounds contributed to the church's effectiveness. Paul’s confrontation with a false prophet underscores the need for discernment and boldness in ministry. The sermon concludes by encouraging a God-centered approach in church leadership and operations, advocating for prayer, fasting, and reliance on the Holy Spirit as critical components of church life and decision-making.

Please open your Bibles to Acts 13. Barnabas and Saul are sent from Antioch. Chapter 13. Now there were at Antioch in the church that was there prophets and teachers, Barnabas and Simeon, who was also called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manane who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting the Holy Spirit said set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus and when they reached Salamis they began to proclaim the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews and they also had John as their helper And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Ailmas, the magician, for this name is translated, was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith But Saul who was also known as Paul Filled with a Holy Spirit fixed his gaze upon him and said you who are full of all deceit and fraud you son of the devil you enemy of all righteousness will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord and now behold the hand of the Lord is upon you and you will be blind and not see the Sun for a time and immediately a mist and a darkness fell upon him and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand.

Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord. Now Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But going on from Perga, they arrived at Psydiac Antioch. And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down.

And after the reading of the law and the prophets the synagogue officials sent to them saying, Brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it. And Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand he said, Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And with an uplifted arm, he led them out from it. And for a period of about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness.

And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed this land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. And after these things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet and then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul the son of Kish a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years and after he had removed him he raised up David to be their king concerning whom he also testified and said I have found David the son of Jesse a man after my heart who will do all my will. From the offspring of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel Savior Jesus after John had proclaimed before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel and while John was completing his course he kept saying What do you suppose that I am? I am not he, but behold one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brethren, sons of Abraham's family and those among you who fear God, to us the word of this salvation is sent out.

27. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers recognizing neither him nor the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath fulfilled these by condemning him. And though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed. And when they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead.

And for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people. And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that he raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second Psalm. In the second psalm. Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee. And as for the fact that he raised him up from the dead, no more to return to decay, he has spoken in this way.

I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David. Therefore, he also says in another psalm, Thou wilt not allow thy Holy One to undergo decay. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay. But he whom God raised did not undergo decay therefore let it be known to you brethren that through him forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to you and through him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses take heed therefore so that the things spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you. Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe though someone should describe it to you.

And as Paul and Barnabas were going out the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas who speaking to them were urging them to continue in the grace of God. 44. And the next Sabbath, nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul and were blaspheming and Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said it was necessary that the Word of God should be spoken to you first since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life behold we are turning to the Gentiles for thus the Lord has commanded us I have placed you as a light for the Gentiles that you should bring salvation to the end of the earth and when the Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing and glory the word of the Lord and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed and the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region.

But the Jews aroused the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of the district But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium and The disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit Let us pray Lord we praise you for sending your son Jesus to us. Thank you Lord. We just pray your hand upon Scott as he leads us now in this morning. And we praise you in Jesus' name, amen. What we have before us in Acts chapter 13 is a beautiful description of the blessings of normal life in the church, a life of ministry to the Lord, of prayer and fasting.

In this case, in Acts chapter 13, it led to a global impact that has affected us today. We are the recipients of the blessing that was poured out and the wisdom of God that was communicated on this very day as the gospel began to spread throughout all the earth. The pastor of Wheaton Bible Church in the mid-40s was preaching on this passage of scripture, and here's what he said. There have been some remarkable prayer meetings in the history of the church. I think of the Moravian prayer meeting which began with the spiritual awakening in August 13, 1727 in Hare-Nutt and lasted for 100 years, the first quarter of which saw the sending of more than 100 missionaries.

I think of the noonday prayer meeting, which Mr. Lamphier called in the lecture room of the old Dutch church on Fulton Street in New York City in September 23rd, 1857, which grew widespread midday prayer hour all over the city. I think of the Haystack prayer meeting where three young men prayed while sheltering from the storm and started the streams of witness flowing from America to the uttermost parts of the earth, just parenthetically, Adoniram Judson was one of the young men sent out from that prayer meeting. None of these can rival the importance of the prayer meeting held in the Church of Antioch in the year 46 or 47 AD and recorded so briefly and simply in these opening verses of Acts chapter 13. World missions not in its conception for that was in the mind of God from the beginning but its realization began in that prayer meeting.

And then he says something so profound regarding prayer in the church. The largest prayer meetings are not necessarily the most significant. We should all like to see our prayer meetings grow immeasurably, but this is one institution of the church which cannot be popularized. As soon as the attempt is made to popularize it, It ceases to be a prayer meeting and becomes something else. Well Acts chapter 13 brings us to one of the most powerful prayer meetings in the history of Christianity and it launched a global missionary activity for the first time in the history of the church and here we are this morning sons and daughters of that time of prayer and fasting.

I'd like to kind of recalibrate us a little bit about where we are in the book of Acts. I want to give you a sense of the context of where we are. We are in the third phase of the Great Commission in Acts chapter 1 verse 8. Acts 1-8 says, You shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. By the way, that's a great way to outline the book of Acts because in chapters, you see Jerusalem and the ministry of Peter, you see Judea and Samaria, Peter is there, and then you see the remotest part of the earth beginning in this chapter, chapter 13.

You also see it in terms of the first missionary journey, which we begin today of the Apostle Paul. And then the second missionary journey beginning in Acts chapter 16 and the third missionary journey in Acts chapter 18. And in this third missionary journey, there's an overland journey through Turkey and a long stay at Ephesus. If you back up to the second missionary journey, you find a dispute over John Mark, Paul and Barnabas part ways. There's ministry in Philippi, and Berea, and Athens, and Corinth, and a very short visit in Ephesus.

If you go to the first missionary journey, which is the inauguration of today, they go to Pasidion Antioch, Galatia, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. Some amazing things happen in this, some funny stories happen in this first missionary journey. We also, I just want to make a note here that the story line in chapter 13 really is connected to the end of chapter 11. What we have here is chapter 13 is really a continuation of chapter 11. Chapter 12, which we studied last week, is an interlude.

Peter's being released from prison at the hands of Almighty God and causing the salvation of many is an interlude in the narrative here. And so the activity in these first three verses takes place in Antioch, which we learn about in Acts 11, the place where the believers were first called Christians. And so at the end of chapter 11, the disciples in Antioch determined to send funds to Judea because of the famine that was in the land. And They sent the elders to the church in Jerusalem at the hands of Barnabas and Saul. And it says there that every man gave according to their ability to the effort because of the poor and languishing people there in Jerusalem.

And so it's a place where one, this is a place in Scripture, Acts 11 and then in 13, where you see one church giving to another church in their time of need. And it's a good example for us that we just, that we don't concern ourselves just with ourselves, but also with the welfare of other churches in the region. It's just a fulfillment of Galatians chapter 6 when Paul said, therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially those who are the household of faith. So in 11 and 13 you see this culture in the church of doing good to others in other regions. It began with their heart of love for the languishing disciples in Jerusalem and now God is going to give them an even enlarged heart for the whole world as they send out to their best men to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Now in in the midst of this in chapter 13 you see some particular characteristics of the church in Antioch. And I'd like to give you just a picture of their spiritual responsiveness. This is a picture of the life, the church life that was taking place in Antioch. Verses 1 through 3 tip us off into a number of really critical things that are happening here in this church. Acts chapter 13 opens with the church fasting and praying and ministering to the Lord.

Now this is the engine, it's the genius, it's the fountainhead of the church. Ministering to the Lord, a Godward focus, and prayer, both individually and with one another, is this beautiful scene that we see. And here, the leaders in the church and all the people together are submitting to the will of the Lord in what he would have them to do. You know, people often ask, what's the vision of your church? What's the plan?

Where are we going? Have you ever thought that? Have you ever wondered? Where are we going as a church? And where is the leadership taking us?

Now, it might seem to most people kind of a smart-alecky response if somebody said, well, God is leading this church, He's taking it wherever He desires. And it might sound smart-alecky, but it really is the right answer. And that's exactly what we see here in the book of Acts. God is leading His church through His Word, through His Spirit, through the prayers of the people, through the ministry, through their get when they gather together, ministering to the Lord out pops the direction of the church. We like in our American management mentality to try to create the direction of the church.

And I wouldn't despise all planning. I think there is planning that's important involved, but let's not forget the true leadership of the church is spiritual leadership from God the Father through the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the people and to the leaders of that church. Now good, What we see here is good leadership of the church. And the best leadership of the church is secured by a focus on God Himself, making God the center of church life. It's the most helpful thing that people in the church can do to secure its own good leadership.

Christ is the head of the church, not men. Men are mere under-shepherds in the leadership of the church. And the church will be well-led to the extent that the leaders and the people are waiting on God, are responsive to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and are submissive to the direction that he would take the church. You know, men have nothing to give to the church except the word of God and prayer and the normal practices of the church. And out of that, God works to lead his church.

Notice when it speaks of men in the church, the leaders of the church, here in Acts chapter 13, there's the use of the plural. There were prophets and teachers. It wasn't one man. One man does not lead the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many here and he uses a number of forces to lead his church, all working together.

There's not one force in particular. There are men, there are gifted men as they're listed here, just like you see in Acts chapter 4 verses, I mean Ephesians chapter 4 verses 1 through 16, God gives men to the church who have particular gifts. And that's what we see here. He gives his word, he gives his spirit, he gives his people. It's many things working in concert together.

There's not one single factor that provides leadership for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see a number of factors here. Here's one. There were new leaders here in this church. Men were rising to the surface out of the evangelistic effort that had taken place here in Antioch.

God was at work. He was raising up new leaders. And of course, this is critical for all church expansion and church planting. Luke begins listing five leaders, five gifted men in the church of Antioch. There's Barnabas.

Barnabas is a Levite. He was from Cyprus. He was well-educated and obviously had knowledge of Greek culture living in the place that he lived. Then there was Simon or Niger, his name means blacks. Most people believe he was a black man.

Then there was Lucius of Cyrene. He has a Latin name indicating that he may be a Roman, but he's from North Africa. And then you have the Naan. His name is a Greek form of a Hebrew name. He may have been a Hellenistic Jew, but interestingly enough, this man had a fat, absolutely fascinating background.

He was raised up where? In the household of Herod the Tetrarch, the guy that beheaded John the Baptist. He was raised right alongside this boy. He knew him well. And what an amazing man to have in the church who was actually raised in a court of royalty with one of the wickedest men who did one of the most dastardly deeds in all of world history.

He was brought up right there alongside with Herod. They went different ways. He went to become a teacher and a missionary and a godly man in a church, whereas Herod had a different fate. And so here in this church you have different kinds of men. You have Greeks, Romans, barbarians, slaves, Hellenistic Jews, former rabbis, and you can pick out some of these in the leadership as well of the church.

Saul was a Pharisee, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, and a former persecutor of the church. They all had different gifts and they all had different graces, but they did not go their own way in the church. They were looking to the Lord for the leadership of that church. So it's an interesting group of leaders. You got a rabbi, you got a guy who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, Minayan, in the court of Herod, possibly two black men.

It was a racially integrated group. It was a culturally integrated group. It was an educationally integrated group. I mean, you had all kinds of perspectives here in this leadership team in this church. The rich and the poor and the powerful and the powerless were all there.

Well, these are the kinds of leaders that God gave to this church. They were ministering to the Lord. This is one of the most critical things to understand about this environment in Antioch. Now they were ministering to the Lord, that now they weren't ministering to the congregation except in a derivative way. Their ministry together was to the Lord, for the Lord, and that made all the difference in the world and the church, that God was the focus in the center of the church.

And you know the Bible says draw near to me and I will draw near to you. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he might send forth labors. This is that kind of ministering to the Lord. You're praying to the Lord of the harvest. You're ministering to the Lord.

You're drawing near to God. You're ministering to the Lord in that kind of a sense. You know, here we are gathered this morning, And this is what we're supposed to be doing. We gather together, we sing, we read scripture, we pray, we take communion. All of it would form different aspects of ministering to the Lord, lifting up our hands together with one mind and one heart to the Lord.

This was the blessing of this church. They were conducting public worship. The word here, ministering to the Lord, ministry, liturgio, and air-gon work, public worship services, working toward the Lord. And this was their life together. Then next we see that they were fasting and we're gonna spend some time talking about this so just relax.

This is big blank area in your outline. Well here we are in the big blank area in the outline. We're going to spend a little bit of time. Really most of our time this morning is going to be focused on the nature of their lives together in the church and to help us understand how it might assist us in forming ourselves to their pattern. Now fasting of course is the ceasing of eating food, to seek spiritual things and to heighten spiritual understanding.

The kind of fasting that's talking about here is not to get healthier, is not to get skinnier. It's not what this is all about. This is a spiritual activity, and The ceasing of eating does a number of things. The hunger pangs remind you to pray, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is the bread of life. Secondly, to heighten spiritual understanding, And perhaps even to take times that normally would be spent in either making money to buy meals, but also to take the time to pray that you would normally spend preparing and eating meals.

Think about how much time you spend preparing and eating a meal. It can be a lot of time. So when a family would fast, then they would cease from preparing the meal. It would relieve time for them and it would give them extra hours in the day to seek the Lord and bring things before him. Well, today, because it's the Sabbath here, we are feasting, but in Acts 13, they were fasting.

Now, it is interesting when you look at the scriptures regarding fasting, there is no command to fast. Of course, just parenthetically, there are many things that are just obvious that we do in the church that there's not a direct command for. But for instance, if you go to Matthew chapter six, verse 17, the Sermon on the Mount, which we're gonna memorize as a church later on, Jesus is just assuming that his followers are fasting. You see it in Daniel, you see it in Psalm 35, verse 13. And what we see here in Acts 13, just helps us to sort of shake us up for a moment and help us just ask ourselves, is this practice part of our lives?

Is it part of our church life? By the way, in our church we've been going since last May here, we have never proclaimed a fast in the church. Is that, is it right? Is it good that we've not proclaimed a fast? I would just suggest that this is a forgotten practice in the American church, and because of that, we've, probably most of us have forgotten about it too.

I don't know when the last time any of you fasted, but here I just think that we're here in this passage to help us rethink fasting, rethink food, rethink spiritual life and prayer and all that kind of thing. But it is interesting here, you know, someone might say, well, fasting is an Old Testament practice. Well, here, this is, I mean, if you take that perspective, which I don't subscribe to the assumption that causes that question to be asked. But if you ask that question, well, is this a New Testament practice? Right here, It is a New Testament practice.

It's happening after the ministry of the Lord Jesus in the early church. They're fasting, so let's not try to even make that kind of a distinction. Now, here are a few, I want to give a number of features of this time of fasting in the church. First, it was something that the whole church did together. The fasting was corporate.

This is in contrast to the kind of fasting that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6, where he said, when you fast, do it in secret. Don't do it so that other men will. Don't do it for fame. Don't do it to make people think you're spiritual. Well, that's one kind of fast.

It's a fast done in secret. Well, here's another kind right here. It's public, the whole church engages it. And so everyone is fasting and praying, the leaders and all. And of course In the same way that it's a temptation to make anything into some kind of a spiritual badge of honor, fasting can be, either privately or in the church.

That's probably the great pitfall of any outward practice. You do the practice, people think everything is beautiful. When your heart is fallen and it's wicked and it's proud and it's self-righteous and all that kind of stuff. So all of the dangers of private fasting are also resident in public fasting as we see here. So here they are, they're fasting as a whole church.

Secondly, it was to help with discernment regarding important issues of direction of people's lives in the church. And I mean, I just believe they were asking the question, where do we go from here in this church? What do we do? What's next? And they obviously had concerns, many of them we don't know what they are, but they were asking the Lord and the Lord answers with his very own answer.

And so fasting should be used among us in particular times when we're seeking the Lord for certain answers to questions. And it's appropriate for us to call a fast. If anybody thinks that we should be fasting for a certain issue, they should bring it up. This isn't just something that elders or deacons should just bring up. Anyone in the church should be free to say, I think we should fast.

Here's an issue. Let's gather around this. One phone call could trip a fast in a church, absolutely. So let's be aware that this isn't just something that you should wait around until some bright leader comes up with what we should do. No, we're a body.

Let's do this together. We're going through life together. God may be revealing to you or presenting to you with some need that nobody else knows about that we need to fast regarding. So let's just make sure that we are together as a body in thinking all this through. Number three, this prayer, this ministering to the Lord, this fasting caused the spread of the gospel to Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, and Spain.

This fast had a dramatic impact on history. The size of your prayer meeting has no correlation with the size of the impact. Don't despise the day of small things. Don't despise the day of small churches, don't despise the day of small prayer meetings, don't despise the day of small families. You know, don't despise any, God can use small things for great effects, as he did right here.

We don't know the size of the number of people who are praying here. Could have been thousands in the city, a part of that church. It could have been a very, very small group of people like ours here. We see different sizes of gatherings of people in the book of Acts. We don't know exactly the size of this, but we do know the size of the impact.

And here we are today with a billion people who named the name of Jesus Christ in the world as a result of this evangelistic outreach. And then it was a response to a particular need. So we should just consider what needs there are among us in the community and the world, and what should we do? Do we have pressing questions that we don't have answers for, that we really need answers from God? Many of the things that we need answers for don't have specific answers in the Bible, like with these people here.

What are we going to do next? I mean, you know, the Bible, you know, this missionary outreach didn't have particular impetus in particular verses of the Bible. It was what are we going to do? What are Saul and Barnabas supposed to do? There's not a Bible verse on that except for some of the general ones.

But many of the things in the church that have to do with what we do, where we go, what we do with our funds, what we teach, things like that, God must help us to figure that out. Okay, now Isaiah 58 has some tremendous wisdom for us regarding fasting, and I'd like you to turn there because it gives us more insight on fasting, Isaiah chapter 58. Now in this context, there was hard-heartedness. There was a rejection of the Sabbath, of fulfilling God's commandments regarding the Sabbath. There was a neglect of dealing with sin and also a neglect of the poor and Isaiah is writing about two things in Isaiah 58.

Well at the end of it he's talking about the Sabbath. We've been reading about that. At the beginning, it's about fasting, two outward functions in the church. So Isaiah 58, in verses one through five, there are a number of problems with fasting. And the big problem is that he raises it you got people who are fasting who are mean to their workers and hard-hearted toward God but there's but they're fasting anyway that's not that's not legitimate that's There's really a lot more that could be said about these first five verses, but I'm just going to say it at least says that.

And then in verse 6 we pick up fasting for godly purposes and he says, is this not the fast which I choose? He was talking about previously the fast that you choose. Your own way for your own purposes, But how about my fast? And he says, is this not to loosen the bonds of wickedness? To undo the bands of the yoke?

Now, he's listing a number of things here. To let the oppressed go free. So fasting should be for wickedness, bondage, oppressed people, and break every yoke. Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry? Instead of just eating all your bread yourself, disperse some of your bread.

Next in verse 7, and bring the homeless poor into the house. And when you see the naked to cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh. So the first is talks about what the fasting is for and then there's some results and then he goes back again in verse 9 and kind of continues the list. He says The result is your light will break out like the dawn, verse 8. And your recovery will speedily spring forth, and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

Then you'll call and the Lord will answer, you'll cry, and He'll say, here I am. He's saying, why, you really ought to fast. Look at what happens when people fast. Wonder why we haven't been fasting more. And then he goes back to what fasting is for, what the purposes of fasting again are, and that is in verse nine B to 12.

If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness. In other words, resisting the condemning gesture of pointing toward people and condemning other people. Forget that. That's what he's saying. Forget that.

And if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, and then he breaks out again, then your light will rise in the darkness and your gloom will become like midday. He ties it to your emotional life. There's some effect of a godly fast even on your gloom. Why are we so gloomy? Well, there are probably a number of reasons.

Well, here's one reason. And then the Lord will continually guide you, verse 11, and satisfy your desire in scorched places and give strength to your bones. And you will be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins. You will raise up the age-old foundations.

You will be called a repairer of the breach, a restorer of the streets in which to dwell. So those who are engaged in God's kind of fast, are repairs of breaches and repairs of streets that have been destroyed. This is the purpose of fasting, to find a calamity and to cry out to God and resist eating of food and focus on him and him alone in this great purpose. So what you have here in Isaiah 58 is Fasting is for spiritual mindedness, for the problems that are in the world. There are false fasts.

And so we should just consider, so here's what we should consider here. If we're not fasting, then we're not following the pattern of sound doctrine and practice that we should be following. So here they were in this church, they were fasting. Well, they weren't just fasting, they were also listening. They were listening to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit gave command.

The text says the Holy Spirit said, and so there was a sense from the Holy Spirit for what they should do. And God gave them a sense of it together. There was a unified sense of it. They waited for God's timing in the matter as well. They didn't go out and create all kinds of strategies to reach the Gentiles.

They were not strategists. They were patiently waiting to hear from God. The modern church and our minds full of activity of how to fulfill the will of God, conventions, councils, programs, to help us decide what to do next. But what you see here is that in the normal life of the church, as prayer and fasting, ministering to the Lord, the ministry of the Word. This is how God leads his church.

And as we obey him, as we are impressionable by the Lord, loving one another, waiting on him for direction, he works. And this is the context of his working here. God's call, next God's call comes normally in the midst of everyday life and worship. This happened in the normal seeking of the Lord. God's call comes to us when we're normally exercising our gifts, living out life, you know, hacking out life in the world, seeking the Lord.

This is how God leads us. You don't have to go to, you know, go to, you know, an island to pray to go find God. You don't have to have a retreat. You don't have to go to a, please don't go to a monastery. To, you know, as some of our evangelical friends are doing today, they're going to monasteries to engage in Catholic practices to go find the will of God.

In the normal life of the church it happens through ministering to the Lord, fasting and prayer. Just normal plain vanilla practices in the church. Next we see that God chose the men. God uses the church to identify the men that he desires to send. There's the Holy Spirit and there's the church.

That's how the men were chosen. And then God chooses the work. And the work was the work for which I've called them. That's all we know. That's it.

Just they've got to leave to go do the work to which I've called them. There weren't all these details. There just weren't the details that we would like in this. But God was going to lead them along the way. He was going to give them enough for each day and take them on to the next place.

And we should be satisfied with that kind of leadership in our lives. We are a vision-oriented people. We want to know the vision plan for the next 25 years, step through it, step by step, and so that we know what's happening, where we're going. God doesn't do that. God leads us week by week, year by year, month.

How many of you ever dreamed you would be sitting in a house having a church service like this. I certainly never do. This is not part of my strategic plan. God does things that are far beyond our own wisdom and far beyond our own plans. And he does it for his own glory and you know who who knows what God might do tomorrow in any one of your lives to take you in a direction you've never even thought of it's possible and here what we have and this is God is choosing the work but he's not telling them everything He's not telling them everywhere they're going to go.

He's not telling how much money they're going to get for it. Oh, and we find out that some of them ran out of money and some of them didn't among this group. It's really interesting. God doesn't give any guarantees for how it's all going to be as he leads you in the path of life. But he does choose the work and he does give you work to do every day.

And that's the blessing of it. We also see an example of what I'm going to call the principle of unanimity. It just seems right to the church. It just makes sense to everyone. In any gathering of people, you're always going to have some that are going to take exception.

But there was definitely some kind of unity here. They were able to come and say the same thing together and set apart Paul and Barnabas. So when you contrast this with some of the exciting prayer meetings of history, you had the Cambridge Seven, you know, you had the Haystack prayer meeting, and now you've got the Antioch Five, and they're off, they're off to do great things for God. And they were sending out workers, they were laying hands upon them and letting them go. And it was out of the worship of God that came all of the going and sending here in this situation.

So this was the great context of ministry in this church. As I've been just reading this and thinking about it and praying about it this week, I thought, oh Lord, when we gather together, could you just give us a new awareness of our unity together as a church? When we gathered together, Jason's at 10 o'clock. He says, let's sing. And we're ministering to the Lord with all of our hearts.

And we're gathered together in this same kind of fashion and that God would lead us in his spiritual organic way, through his word, through his people, and through his Holy Spirit. Well, now we see some of the experiences that they had during this first missionary journey. So the first missionary journey is launched now. And the first thing that happens is spiritual warfare. It wasn't a pretty sight.

You know, the apostle Paul has to say to somebody, you son of the devil, he has to name what's really going on in the room. And there's this journey to Seleucia and Cyprus and Salamis and Paphos and this encounter with Simon the, the, or Elimus the magician. They have a helper, by the way. John Mark is with them. He's their assistant.

He's the assistant. Wow, what a great thing. He is along with these guys. Now things didn't go that well. His life as an assistant didn't, you know, kinda came to an end, there was a problem, caused a pretty big conflict between Paul and Barnabas.

And, but still there was healing in it, and you know, it ended up turning out quite well. But first of all, they bump into this consultant, to the proconsul, Olimus. He was a bright man, he was a friend of Sergius Paulus. By the way, Sergius Paulus is a very interesting name in Scripture because archaeologists have found inscriptions on this Island naming him and his family and saying that he was a Christian and his whole family was a Christian. Sir William Ramsey reports in his, he's an ancient Near Eastern archaeologist, in one of his books reports the documentation of the proconsul Sergius Paul Paulus and it and it follows right along with this story Well this man Eliomas his name is he calls himself bar Jesus son of Jesus, okay?

He calls himself Son of Jesus, and he's using the name Jesus as a hook of identification. He's claiming to be a follower of Jesus, But guess what? He ain't. He is teaching things contrary to Jesus. And this guy is the maybe not the...

I'm just gonna say he's the first he's the first of many. He's the first in a long line of prophets like Joseph Smith, who used the name of Jesus, who quote the New Testament and the Old Testament, who make these connections with the great heroes of the faith, but they teach something totally different than the true faith. The Jehovah's Witnesses, They use the name of Jesus to promote unchristian teachings. Elimus was the same old kind of guy. Bar Jesus, son of Jesus.

I don't think so. And Paul gets it and he calls him a false prophet, he's full of deceit, he says he's full of fraud, he calls him the son of the devil, he calls him an enemy of righteousness and he warns him, he says, quit making crook of the straight path. So it's a very firm confrontation that Paul has here. You know, all of our ministry is not going to be softly spoken. There are times when men must say, you son of the devil, And men should be willing to say that.

There are many devilish philosophies and propositions that rule the thinking of the people of our age. And we should be very happy to say in firm fashion, in the same way that the Apostle Paul did, you son of the devil, this is fraud, this is deceit, you're an enemy of righteousness, this is crooked. We should be willing to do that. We must be willing to do that as we're on our own missionary journey here in the pagan lands of the world. The pro, he was trying to influence the proconsul.

God, though, overwhelmed the proconsul and, and saved him. And and God uses this confrontation actually from what it appears here to bring salvation to Sergius Paulus Paul's boldness Becomes a blessing to this man's entire household Now it's here that John Mark deserts He leaves here at this point in the missionary journey and he goes back to Jerusalem. We don't know exactly why he left. He may have become disillusioned at the roadblocks and the hardship. It's clear that it created some kind of a conflict with Paul and Barnabas.

It's not revealed what it was exactly. Some have suggested he caught malaria in Pamphylia and had to go back to Jerusalem. Forget that. Who knows? We have no idea why he went back.

But he went back. And Paul was not happy that he went back. There was something wrong with his abandoning the effort. And St. Timothy 4 though gives us a beautiful end of the story where Paul says to Timothy, get Mark and bring him with you.

He is useful to me for ministry. Here you have the restoration of brothers, which is a beautiful thing. It can't, yet restoration can happen. Something can go bad, and then it can get good. Again, God is great enough for that.

I trust there would be much of that among us. You know, John Mark also reminds us that there are times, There are times when men will abandon an effort or offend a brother like Paul or lose heart to finish the course as they should have finished the course and they get distracted and then they're restored. So there's much here that we can talk about. And someday we'll spend a lot of time on Barnabas and Paul and this whole situation. Well then you see evangelism, the synagogue in Pasidian Antioch.

Now we don't know how long they stayed in Pasidian Antioch, but we do learn here about kind of the liturgy of the synagogue and the life of the synagogue. Synagogue life opened with the Shema, Deuteronomy 6-4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And these commands which I command you today shall be in your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children.

When you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Well that's how the meeting of the synagogue opened. It opened with the Shema, it continued with prayers, there was a reading of the law, and there was a reading of the prophets as recorded here. Then there's teaching, and then last there's an open forum, and whoever is in charge asks Paul if he has anything he'd like to say, and he certainly does have something to say. He has this incredible sermon.

And so we also get this powerful preaching from Paul here. He stood up and he motioned with his hand. What a dramatic statement. We have this statement in Acts a number of times, it's a great statement. It's a brilliant gospel presentation.

He draws from a redemptive history, beginning in Egypt, and then continuing on. Hey, by the way, this is the first recorded sermon of the apostle Paul in the book of Acts. He did preach in Damascus, and we read about it in 920, and we read also in Galatians 1.15. But This is the first recorded one. Paul is a great teacher.

He is an unbelievable preacher and teacher. He's like the great preachers of the Reformation, Luther and Calvin and Knox and Zwingli and Latimer. He was like the great Puritan preachers like Owen and Bunyan and Thomas Manton and Thomas Watson and Swinick and Matthew Henry. He was like those guys just off the charts, unbelievable communicators like Whitfield and Edwards and Wesley. God gives men like this to the church.

Thank God that he does. And he gave Paul to these people at this moment. And we'll just kind of walk through the message. First of all, he says, men of Israel, you who fear God, listen. So who is the message directed to?

Those who fear God. He was making connections with those who had awareness of God. And then he speaks of God's choice of Israel and his abundant treatment of the Israelites in Egypt. Then he moves on with God's patience toward them in the wilderness. And then he speaks of God's destruction of the Canaanite nations in the period of the judges.

By the way, this sermon, We need to understand that this sermon is so, it's all about God. Sixteen times Paul refers to God as the central controlling force of history. God did this, God did that. Almost every verb in this sermon is connected to God. God did something.

He destroyed the Canaanite nations. He rescued the people out of Egypt. This is just about the great and mighty power of God. He speaks of God giving Israel kings. He speaks of God bringing John the Baptist to proclaim the Abrahamic covenant, verse 23.

He speaks of Christ fulfilling the words of the prophets, and then God raising Jesus from the dead. And he makes a final appeal in verse 40, therefore take heed so that the things spoken in the prophets may not come upon you. Behold, you scoffers, marvel and perish." So he ends with a final warning and appeal, and that's how he ends the sermon. Now the sermon is embraced by some. The people kept begging him to speak and he continues to urge them regarding the grace of God.

And then The whole community assembles the next Sabbath day. And Paul speaks to them. And there's an amazing statement here that affirms the doctrine of election, verse 48. As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And so you have the sovereignty of God in salvation, you have this dramatic appeal to turn to God.

Hey, This is how Calvinism and evangelism mesh. Every good Calvinist should preach just like Paul. Every believer should preach like Paul and present both of these realities to the hearers. Repent And yet God knows whom he has appointed for everlasting life. Believing that doesn't shut your mouth as an evangelist.

Okay, it certainly didn't with Paul, and it shouldn't with us either. Then we see persecution and banishment. Paul and Barnabas are ejected from the district. You know, God said that He would send a sword and in the world you would have tribulation and that's what they had. They were ejected from the region.

And honestly, honestly, a big part of the problem were a number of the leading women were talking. They were gossiping. They were saying things and stirring up trouble with their husbands. A lot of problems in companies, in churches happen with wives who are out of control and they're stimulating their husbands in ways that they should not and they incite their husbands to things that they should not. Wives be so careful of this.

Wives have so much power in the work of the ministry as it is engaged in the church and you must be so careful. This is why Deacon's wives must have careful control over their tongues because terrible things can happen. And that's what happened here. The leading women incited, I just believe, their men to things that they never should have done. And so they were rejected from the region, but instead of grave disappointment, instead of wringing their hands, oh, we've been kicked out.

No, not at all. They're gripped with the joy of the Lord. They have God's perspective on life and instead of a bitter lamenting sorry and sensed indignant response, God brings joy to their hearts because they are in the presence of God and in his presence is fullness of joy. And so they shook the dust off of their feet, but they maintain the heart of Christ as the most joyful pastors and missionaries in the region. True Christians can shake the dust off their feet, but they must do it in a particular way.

And we have a great example here. Well, God is using these circumstances to fulfill the prophecy of Acts 1-8, you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the remotest parts of the earth. So like the great prayer meetings of the past, our times of prayer are important and there have been many significant prayer meetings, times of fasting, and it is for us to seek these things in every age. It's not something we institutionalize, for it's a matter of the heart to desire, to pray, and to fast properly for godly purposes. And so here we, we find the establishment of the importance of prayerful and Godward church life seeking the Lord for who we should send and what we should do and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to tell us the things that are not particularly written in Scripture.

And so we should be careful to prevent a life without this kind of prayer and fasting, for the blessings are enormous, as we well know now. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for this great chapter of Scripture. I'm always amazed at how powerful and beautiful this is. And I pray that you would come and help us to learn all that you would have us to learn from it.

In Jesus' name, amen.