APR 28 2013PM The First Missionary Journey Part 2
Acts 13: 14-52
Last time we began the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas. We saw that the church is now centrally located in Syrian Antioch. Jerusalem WAS the home church but the church scattered at the execution of Stephen. So now the church is based in Syrian Antioch, at least from Paul’s aspect.
READ Acts 13:14-15. Now we come to another Antioch; this one is about 300 miles northwest of Syrian Antioch in the region of Pisidia. There is quite of bit of space (the rest of the chapter) that Luke devotes to the events in this city. Paul and his companions went into the Jewish place of worship on the Sabbath day. While they were there, the synagogue rulers invited them to speak. Paul went in and waited for the opportunity to speak and he got it. Here is what he said.
READ Acts 13:16-41. An oracle is the statement of a person in contact with God.
Paul was surely in contact with God and he had an important message from God for the people that day that Luke records for us here.
Paul was formerly a Jew and he knew how they thought and he knew how they interpreted the OT Scriptures. Paul had his own system of theology before he met Christ and Christ had to teach him the Scriptures all over again. The things that Paul previously believed about the Scriptures, these Jews still believed, so he understood where they were spiritually.
Paul reasoned with them from the OT Scriptures how they can be shown to prove that Jesus really was the Messiah. He may have sensed that some of them weren’t receiving his message appropriately and in his conclusion warned them against scoffing at it. So what is going to be the outcome of this message?
READ Acts 13:42-43. The outcome was that Paul and Barnabas were invited to come back next week. The outcome was many of the people believed Paul. Many of them believed in Christ. Many of them wanted to know more. Did they face any opposition?
READ Acts 13:44-50. Again, there was opposition. And again the opposition was from those who ought to know better. The opposition was from those who claimed to know God. The Scripture says that because of the numbers of new people who came, the Jews were jealous.
Clearly there wasn’t this type of interest when the Jews were preaching and this made them jealous of Paul and Barnabas. The Scripture then says that they talked abusively against what Paul was saying. The tense of the verbs indicates that they were doing it while he was talking.
Evidently Paul is preaching and the Jews are interrupting him to tell the people that this is their house of worship and that Paul wasn’t telling them the truth. Now it was one thing for them to sit there the week before and show their disgust to Paul as he preached, but now they are verbally, publicly disputing and contradicting him and his preaching.
These religious people got so upset with Paul that they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas. But notice that Paul said they were simply giving the Jews the first opportunity at salvation, but since they were rejecting it, they were turning to the Gentiles.
Of course the Gentiles rejoiced. They rejoiced that they were to receive eternal life.
They were going to honor the Word of God by accepting it and living by it. Paul told the Jews that he wasn’t trying to anger them, but he was giving them the first opportunity to receive eternal life. But despite Paul’s well-intentions, the Jews rose up against him and stirred up persecution against them.
Paul shook the dust off his sandals in protest against them as he left town. This would have been a literal obedience to one of Jesus’ commands to the apostles. To do this, Paul and Barnabas would have stooped down and pulled off their sandals and then held them up for all to see and shook the dust from them. It would have been very dramatic. This was no doubt witnessed by those who had just run them out of town.
It would have held grave meaning to the Jews who had been persecuting. The dust of heathen lands was considered to be polluted and unholy by the Jews. For Paul and Barnabas to do this would mean that their city would on the level of a heathen city. The Jews who were watching would understand that Paul was calling them heathens.
READ Acts 13:51-52. Notice that despite all of this, what was the outlook of Paul and Barnabas? They were filled with joy and the HS! How can this be? They had just experienced persecution and had been run out of town. They had recently had John Mark desert them. They had recently experienced opposition from Elymas. But what was their outlook as they proceeded to Iconium? They were full of joy and the HS! How can this be?
Let me tell you how it could be. Go back to:
(v. 48a) When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord. Go farther back to:
(v. 48b) And all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
(v. 44) On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the world of the Lord.
(v. 42) As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath.
(v. 12) When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.
(v. 2) While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."
They were full of joy and the HS because they were rehearsing the good. They were full of joy and the HS because they weren’t letting their minds dwell on the things that Satan had done. They were full of joy and the HS because they were filling their minds with the things that God had done.
In other words, they were doing what I have preached for years and yet few have done. They were taking a negative and turning it into a positive. Whatever negative there was, they searched within that negative for a positive. Something distressing might happen to you or maybe it’s something within the church. Quit dwelling on it. If we dwell on it, Satan is winning because he has us focused on something other than God. Don’t let your mind dwell on what Satan has done. Fill your mind with what God has done, is doing, and is going to do.
But I’m telling you that the bottom line is that they were full of the HS and joy because they were fulfilling the calling of the Lord in their lives! When you are doing what God has called you to do, like we talked about last time, there is joy like none other!
In late fall of 1777, Gen. George Washington and has rag tag army of militiamen suffered 2 defeats at the hands of the British at Brandywine and Germantown.
He and his 11,000 men retreated to Valley Forge, PA to establish winter headquarters. It was a dark time for the revolution. Many died of starvation or cold, never more than half of the force was in any shape to battle at one time. Many deserted the cause, because the stress and suffering was too great.
But thousands hung on. They stayed in there, despite frozen bodies, starvation, sickness and bone-biting cold, because they had a goal, a purpose for being there---that was more important to them than personal comfort or even safety. In February they began a regrouping that prepared them for pursuing the British all the way across New Jersey in June of 1778.
Contrast that with Viet Nam.
Never in the history of the American Armed forces has there been so much suicide, drug abuse, fighting amongst our own troops and total lack of moral. Never in our history has there been a conflict from which our men and women came back so troubled and broken.
"We didn’t do that in WWII," the old timers say, "what’s wrong with this spoiled, wimpy generation of soldiers?"
And America is just beginning to catch on to the difference! We knew why we were at Valley Forge! We knew why we hit the beaches at Normandy and struggled to raise the flag at Iwo Jima. But there was simply no clear understanding of our purpose in Viet Nam.
We weren’t there to win. We were there to get shot at. And that is the understanding of many, many, who were there. The pressure was too much, under those circumstances.
Paul was able to endure the pressure because he had a mission: Bring the message to as many as possible! Now let’s apply this passage.
Do you have a sense of mission in your life? Do you have a sense of purpose that goes beyond making a living? A sense of a God-called role to play? What is the call of God on your life? Have you signed up for the greatest adventure of your life?
Where has God called you to leadership in the body of Christ? Maybe you know what it is, but you aren’t doing it. Maybe you’re running from the call of God on your life like Jonah did. Maybe you need to submit yourself to the call of God on you today.
Or perhaps you don’t know the call of God for you. Perhaps now you need to commit to seeking it. Maybe you need to spend some time fasting. Maybe you need to get some Godly counsel about God’s call for you.
No doubt you need to spend more time praying. Perhaps you need to start today. Or perhaps you don’t even know that you have eternal life as Paul preached about.
You’re not going to know God’s call until you’ve received salvation and eternal life. Maybe you need to get that settled so that you will be able to move forward in determining what God’s call is for you.
Whatever the case may be, we cannot be effective in moving forward for God if we don’t have a well thought out plan—if we don’t have a vision. Paul’s vision was to take the gospel to as many as he could.
I think we get so misdirected sometimes with trivial things in the church that we lose our focus of why we are actually here. Let’s get focused on what God wants us to do. Let’s seek God’s will in all that way do. In that, we will never fail.
