Text: Acts 13:1-3, Title: God Changing the World Through a Church, Date/Place: NRBC, 4/13/08, AM
A. Opening illustration: Recount a few of the world’s most amazing developments. This was a crucial time for the church: “This moment of prayer and fasting resulted in a missions movement that would make Christianity the dominant religion of the Roman Empire within two and a half centuries, and would yield more than 1.3 billion adherents of the Christian religion today, with a Christian witness in almost every country in the world. And 13 of our 27 books of the NT were the result of the ministry that would launched in this moment of prayer and fasting.”
B. Background to passage: Having completed their ministry in Jerusalem related to the famine and the relief effort sent by the church at Antioch, Paul and Barnabas come back and bring John Mark with them. Up to this point, the church had no efforts with the gospel west of the Mediterranean coast.
C. Main thought: In the text we will see five qualities of this church that God used to change the history of the world by beginning the first proactive missions endeavor.
A. Plurality of Pastoral Leadership (v. 1)
1. The leadership of the early church was going through much transition at this time, even in its terminology. We see apostles, prophets, deacons (that are not called deacons yet), evangelists, teachers, and a lot of crossover between them. But it is fairly evident that these five men were essentially the pastoral leadership of the congregation there. This is the consistent pattern throughout the book of Acts and the NT. Argue from the texts for plurality of elders. Explain the word “elder.” Jesus gave us the pattern of plurality himself when he selected 12 men to be disciples/apostles.
2. Acts 14:23, 15:6, 20:17, Philip 1:1, 1 Tim 5:17, Tit 1:5, James 5:14, 1 Peter 5:1-2,
3. Illustration: “The concept of the pastor as the lonely, trained professional—the sacred person over the church who can never really become part of the congregation—is utterly unscriptural. Not only is this concept unscriptural, but it is psychologically and spiritually unhealthy.” –Strauch,
4. We consider ourselves to be people of the book, but we don’t know what it teaches. We claim to have biblical churches, but some practices we do are not found. We will not argue to have one deacon, but we will argue against a plurality of pastors. Think about the advantages: multiple backgrounds, multiple gifts, shared work-load, if one leaves or is asked to leave, no pastoral leadership vacuum exists forcing people who are not qualified to pastor to pastor, accountability, enhanced personal growth for pastors, making up for weaknesses with shared strength. Why is it that we shy away from this concept? Is this a direction that we should be moving?
B. Powerful God-Centered Worship (v. 2)
1. This verse says “while they were ministering to the Lord.” The first word in the Gr. here is leitourgeo, which can be translated minister, or serve, or worship. It was used of the temple servants who aided the congregation in OT worship. So this mighty move of God to change the world happened during the middle of a worship service where the leadership, at least, but probably also the congregation was fasting. Their worship services were focused on ministering to God. And they were a place where God was consistently moving and changing lives and speaking.
2. 1 Cor 14:24-26, Matt 18:20,
3. Illustration: why worship? Attached sheet, "The outflow of a focus on God, a submission to the real Jesus, and an emphasis on ever-deepening relationships is an energetic, joyful, Spirit-filled, congregational worship of the triune God. Genuine celebration erupts when God’s people discover who they are in Christ. And powerful prayer arises from the hearts of those who have truly entered the presence of God." tell the story about Whitney’s 10th birthday party ending, read last paragraph, p. 86, Sp Disc for Christian Life,
4. Are our services life changing? Are they powerful, or do you endure? Is God ministered to in our services? How do you know? Do you think he likes hymns or choruses? Does it only matter what you like? Or maybe you think God isn’t really concerned as long as you bless Him with your presence? How do we have a powerful worship service? We get Les to do it better right? Get me to preach better, shorter, longer, easier, harder? NO, a thousand times NO. The way that we have powerful services is when every one of us comes in here on Sunday prayed up and prepared to engage the God of Heaven. Where we all sing with all our passion, and all give with cheerfulness not robbing God, and all engage our minds and hearts to the proclamation of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, not being concerned about whether you like it, or whether or not you are “getting anything out of it,” or who is sitting beside you. Do we really gather
“in His Name?”
C. Practicing Spiritual Disciplines (v. 2)
1. For God to speak in such a way, along with the mention of fasting and prayer, this church must have been seeking the Lord’s direction for their church. As a body they wanted God’s direction on where and what they were to focus on. And the practice of the disciplines as a church was key in their search. Notice it mentions the disciplines of worship, fasting (2X), and prayer.
2. When you give (Matt 6:3), When you pray (Matt 6:5), When you fast (Matt 6:16),
3. Illustration: Church bulletin - National Prayer and Fasting Conference announcement: “The cost to attend the Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals.” “United prayer is more that just sitting in the same place praying for the same thing…The closer the bond, the more powerful the prayer, the higher the unity, the greater the authority in prayer,” –Whitney, Bill Bright commented after a conference on fasting that we have seen refreshing worship in churches increasing over the past 20 years, as well as prayer movements and ministries, but very little revival in the practice of fasting…maybe God is waiting for the resurgence of all three to send revival.
4. This is not a plea for you to attend Wed night prayer meeting. It is a plea to be a church of prayer. This is not a plea for you to read your bible more. This is not a plea to fast more. It is a warning that God will not bless our church with clear indications of direction in all areas until we come to the place where the disciplines are a part of our individual lives. But the fact is that most of us don’t make these disciplines a regular part of our lives. The look on your eyes gave it away when I asked you to join me in fasting for FCW. Sure, God is going to speak through the pastor(s) for direction, but if there is not people who are prayed up, read up, fasted up, and close up to Jesus, there is no confirmation, no unity, no affirmation of what God has said.
D. Proactive Listening (v. 2)
1. Remember that this is in the context of corporate worship. And somehow they came to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is speaking to them. They came to church expecting the Spirit to speak to them about their lives and about their church. Might say that it was a missions-minded church, but in actuality it is a Spirit minded and attentive church. And remember that the church saw itself as affirming the direction of God regarding the personal call of others.
2. Ps 78:1, Jer 7:24, Luke 19:48, Isa 51:4, 55:3, Matt 13:9,
3. Illustration: heard about a pastor the other day who had a congregant come to him after the service and say that they felt like the Spirit was saying that they needed to fast once a week for a month as a church, and would he pray about it and see if he could confirm it, tell about my mom wrestling this week about going with us to Peru, and the sermon being on the Great Commission that week at church?
4. What if we came in this morning with a heart prepared to listen to God? Do you ever have times in your devotional time where you listen to God? Has there been any confirmation from God about the vision that God has given me concerning our church? If there has, I haven’t heard much. Not that I need your approval all the time, this doesn’t have to do at all with that. It has to do with a church that is looking as listening for the voice of God for its future.
E. Prompt Unquestioned Obedience (v. 3)
1. This church was so Spirit-minded it forgot to question the Spirit’s wisdom in removing two of the best teachers in the young church to go on mission. Can you imagine what some of them must have thought? But they wasted no time. They just immediate planned a “setting aside” service—explain that “ordain” carries a lot of baggage. They told Paul and Barnabas to get their stuff together—passports, shots, money, food, prepared them a care package, and sent them out.
2. John 14:15, Rom 16:19,
3. Illustration: “The message the church received was to release their best for missionary service, and their earnestness was such that they were willing to do so. This is typical of churches that have a missionary vision, churches whose aim is more than survival or maintenance. Missions is so important to them that they willingly take steps that may seem harmful to the church in order for the missionary program to thrive.”
4. Are we willing to make the difficult sacrifices of missionary endeavors? Are we willing to unquestioningly answer the call, tell our story, and change our world? Will we balk at mowing our own grass and trimming our own hedges, or will we cringe at the thought of cleaning our own building and taking out our own trash to save money for missions? Will we send out young families that mean so much our church with our blessings even if they probably won’t return? Will we forgo that new vehicle so that we can really give to the Annie Armstrong Offering, as of last week we have take in only about $250 in personal offerings? Will we go to Peru, and to Tennessee, and to New England, and to Canada, and to Uzbekistan, and the Maldives, and Thailand risking health, money, fear to take the gospel to the nations? Or if God leads, are we willing stay and pray and serve in the less than glamorous duties without question, without hesitation, and without doubt.
A. Closing illustration: “God was pleased to make worship, prayer, and fasting a launching pad for a mission that would change the course of world history.” Let us measure our success at New River not by the number of people that come into our sanctuary or Sunday Schools, but by the number of people that we send out to the nations! Let us measure growth not by percentage of increase in attendance, but by percentage of our congregation actively involved in doing missions. Let us encourage those among us to go out from us with our blessing and support to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Like David Livingstone said, “God only had one Son, and He was a missionary!”
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
