#2005-25
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
I. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
II. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
III. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
IV. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you relate to Him. No more going your own way. You go His way. No more trusting you are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
#2005-25
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
V. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
VI. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
VII. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
VIII. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you #2005-25
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
IX. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
X. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
XI. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XII. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you relate to Him. No more going your own way. You go His way. No more trusting you are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
#2005-25
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XIII. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XIV. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
XV. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XVI. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you relate to Him. No more going your own way. You go His way. No more trusting you are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
#2005-25
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XVII. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XVIII. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
XIX. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XX. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you relate to Him. No more going your own way. You go His way. No more trusting you are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
#2005-25
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XXI. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XXII. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
XXIII. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XXIV. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you relate to Him. No more going your own way. You go His way. No more trusting you are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
Title: Everyone Can Take the Good News to Others
Text: Acts 13:1-3, 26-33a, 38-39, 44-48
Truth: Because the gospel is for all people, God calls believers to take the good news to people in other places.
Aim: To help you participate in taking the gospel to all people.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you have a big house and lots of land. Imagine further that a refugee shows up at the door asking if he might camp out in your backyard for a while. You are moved with compassion and grant him permission. A little later he asks if some relatives, who are also homeless, might also come and live on your property. What are you to do? How can you turn them away? So again you say yes. But then more come and more come. Soon there are hundreds. What have you gotten yourself into; you begin to wonder?
Something like that happened to a 22-year-old German nobleman in 1722. His name was Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. His estate was in East Germany. He was heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families. As you might expect his neighbors were not too pleased with the “riff-raff” that was finding asylum on his property. It began with ten in December 1722 and by late 1726 it was over 300. The place was known as “Herrnhut” meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” It soon turned into a small city of grateful and motivated Christian craftsmen and laypeople.
That crowded refugee estate became in time the most dynamic and strategic missionary launching pad since the early church. A deep outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the community in August 1727. They organized a 24-hour prayer chain. At least two people were at prayer every hour of the day. This prayer meeting would last over 100 years. They became known by the nickname “God’s Happy People.”
Anthony, a former slave, came to speak at Herrnhut of the deplorable conditions of the slaves in the West Indies. The night he spoke, two of their young men could not sleep as they struggled with a sense that God was moving their hearts to offer themselves to go and minister to the slaves. When they were told that perhaps the only way they could do this was to become slaves themselves, they said they were willing if that is what it would take. Within 25 years more than 200 had gone out as missionaries from this small community to every continent of the world.
Every member of that community thought of themselves as a missionary. Each felt an obligation to take the gospel to all people and other places. The Roman Catholics had monks and nuns who traveled the world but this was different. This was a man and his wife and their children who saw the spread of the Christian message a major objective for their family. They believed that everyone can take the good news to others.
Jesus had said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What happens in chapter 13 is the disciples take the gospel to the final frontier, “the ends of the earth.” I don’t think it is exaggerating to compare this historical event to Columbus discovering the New World or man walking on the moon. This event transformed Europe’s barbarians into the leaders of civilization and gave us Bach, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and the greatest invention in history—the Guttenburg Press. Because these believers took the good news to people in other areas we are worshiping the Lord Jesus today.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XXV. SEND OUT MISSIONARIES (ACTS 13:1-3)
For almost 2,000 years the power of the gospel has changed individuals, communities, and even nations. We are so convinced of the power of God to change people’s lives and remove their sin that believers have been compelled to send out missionaries. When you see the glories of Western civilization it can be traced to a prayer meeting at a church in the region of Syria, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
Antioch was the Roman headquarters for the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It was a cosmopolitan city of Greeks, Jews, Romans and Syrians. It became the home of Gentile Christianity.
The diversity of this church is seen in its leadership. We know that Barnabus was a Levite from Cyprus (4:36). Simeon called Niger (black) was presumably a black African. Lucius of Cyrene definitely came from North Africa and Manean, a close friend of Herod Antipas, was from the upper crust of society. Of course, there is Saul, latter called Paul, who was a devout Pharisee from Cilicia. These five men symbolized the cultural and ethnic diversity found in Antioch. They served the church as prophets and teachers.
The church is worshiping the Lord and fasting. Fasting is never pictured in the Bible as a discipline unto itself. It is always connected to something else. We’re not instructed to fast for fasting sake. Fasting is taking a negative action in order to participate in a positive action. They were fasting in order to worship God. They are fasting in order to give themselves more fully to God. They are fasting in order to discover God’s will.
It is in that atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to the church. The Holy Spirit reveals his will that he has a purpose for Barnabus and Saul. We don’t know how the Holy Spirit revealed his will, just that he did. That’s the divine work.
The human work was for the church to set these men apart to this work. The church is to commission these men to go to others and tell them about the Savior. The church symbolizes that commissioning by laying hands on these men. They fast and pray some more to intercede for God’s power and presence to be on these men as they begin this missionary journey.
Finally, they let them go. They knew God had called these men serve him elsewhere. They were the finest the church had and they didn’t try to hold to them selfishly.
Jim Garling told me of a conversation he had with Dr. Lavonn Brown, the pastor of First Baptist at the time, when First Church was starting this church. Basically, Dr. Brown told Jim he could take with him anybody in that church that would be willing to go. Dr. Brown was displaying the same spirit as the church at Antioch. That’s our heritage.
In 1900 there were 22 churches for every 10,000 people in the U.S. Today, Southern Baptist estimate there are 10 churches for every 10,000 people in our country. We need to send out more missionaries in our own country.
A non-Christian columnist who does not believe in missionaries called for their eviction, writing, “For centuries (the tribes) have been served quite well by…Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or other combinations thereof.” Charles Crowley, whose family has long been involved in missions in Cambodia, responded in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone… (Dan Betzer email)
Join me in praying for God to thrust our church into sending out missionaries. In the next five years I’m praying that God will involve us in a local mission start and that he will call people from our membership to mission work locally, nationally and worldwide.
We need to send out missionaries because Detroit has five times more Muslims than it does Baptist. More Mexicans live in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world with the exception of Mexico City. More Cubans live in N.Y.C. and Miami than live in Havana. More Poles live in Chicago than anywhere in the world except Warsaw.
Everyone can take the gospel to others here or elsewhere.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XXVI. WITNESS BOLDLY (ACTS 13:26-33A)
Luke gives us a summary of Paul’s message in Pisidian of Antioch in present day Turkey. We’re not going to read the whole sermon but let me summarize the two main points of the sermon and then you will understand what I mean when we read these verses.
The first point Paul makes in his sermon is everything in the history of Israel was leading to Jesus and the great salvation He offers. The second point is that behind Jesus’ story is God’s story. For example, Paul says God chose Israel. God led Israel out of Egypt. God gave them the Judges, their first king, and God replaced him with David. He continues on through the history of Israel telling them it is really the story of God acting in history to accomplish his purposes.
What’s the point? Their God is a great and glorious God. Come to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ. Right now, He is at work in your life. That’s why Paul and Barnabus are present. It was a bold message to these people.
We don’t hear that kind of boldness today. For example, when people tell the history of our nation they don’t talk about God working in the founding of our nation. Even Pulitzer winning biographer David McCullough admitted that Washington’s escape from Long Island to New York was a freak act of weather or an act of Providence. He said there many such providential acts in the Revolutionary War. Were you told that in your public education?
News reports are timid about telling how the gospel is being released in the most closed part of the world. People are being exposed to the gospel in Muslim countries in ways that would not have been dreamed of ten to fifteen years ago.
Science holds its hand over its mouth to prevent it from shouting the praises of God every time it makes a new discovery.
Maybe we can find excuses for the historian or newscaster or scientist but there can be no excuse for a blood bought child of God being timid in telling others about the good news.
Tell the story of Tom Clayton on the train that witnessed boldly for Christ…(Adrian Rogers)
People are hungry for what God has to offer. What is needed are Christians who are willing to take a step of faith and ask God to use them to tell others the good news of salvation.
The power of the gospel compels believers to send out missionaries, to witness boldly and proclaim forgiveness.
XXVII. PROCLAIM FORGIVENESS (ACTS 13:38-39)
Paul is bringing his sermon to a close. What are the people to do with the information that Jesus and his resurrection fulfilled the messianic promises of God in the Old Testament? How do you react to this “good news”?
Paul makes it crystal clear. Forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus, and that results in God declaring a person in a right relationship with Him. It was impossible to be reconciled to God by keeping the rules of the Old Testament. No one could keep them perfectly. No one even came close.
Don’t miss that Paul said this was possible for “everyone.” No one is so bad or far away from God that they are beyond God’s ability to forgive them of their sin. He proclaimed the good news of forgiveness to everyone.
You can’t get away from the news. How many of you heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges of molestation and lewd acts with a minor? How many of you heard about Senator Durbin who compared the American soldiers and the conditions of the Taliban prisoners held at Gitmo to the camps under the Nazi’s, Stalin and Pol Pot who killed ten million people in Cambodia in the 1970’s? How many of you heard about the earthquake off the coast of Northern California and the tsunami warning that went out for the entire west coast of the U.S.?
You go into restaurants and they have a TV so you can get the latest news or sports news or financial news. Several news stations are on the radio. Every morning I wake up to a newspaper in my lawn. Every convenience store carries several newsmagazines. Go to the beauty shop to get your hair done, what happens? You get caught up on the latest news.
This past week, the greatest news did not lead the six o’clock news on the local TV stations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in a headline in the newspaper. Though CNN and Fox News ignored this news, it is absolutely the most stupendous news the world has ever heard. The papers out to have headlines that read “Sinners Forgiven by God’s Son!” “Heaven’s Verdict - Not Guilty!” “Forgiveness For Failures!” “Sins - Going Once, Going Twice, Gone Forever!”
Do you have one of these “Everyone Can” bookmarks? Have you been listing people you know who need to hear and embrace the greatest news the world has ever heard? This week start praying for people to hear they are forgiven. This week ask the Lord to use you to announce the good news to those who have yet to respond. They are not going to hear this news from the alphabet networks. They are going to hear from you and me.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do?
XXVIII. KEEP PERSEVERING (ACTS 13:44-48)
On the following Sabbath the Jewish synagogue is running over with Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus must have spent the week having dozens and dozens of conversations with people. No doubt the Gentiles who first heard that God has provided forgiveness even for Gentiles told others.
The Jews were resentful that the newcomers could draw such large crowds. A sentiment that is not uncommon in our day by religious leaders. To “talk abusively” means that the Jewish leadership began to heckle and interrupt and denounce what Paul was preaching.
This happened to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tuesday he spoke at his alma mater, Santa Monica College. Several members of the faculty on stage turned their backs while he spoke, as did some of the graduates. Two students had printed “We deserve better” on the back of their shirts. There were about a hundred protestors in the stands who catcalled, howled and made piercing whistles while he gave his speech. That’s what Paul and Barnabus faced.
Paul said it was God’s will that the gospel be proclaimed to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. But Jewish opposition is what led him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He quotes Isaiah 49:6. God’s purpose for His people Israel was that they be witnesses to the nations of God’s salvation. Jesus fulfilled that purpose. Paul saw in that verse his command to take Christ to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles responded.
What does the power of the gospel compel believers to do? It compels us to keep persevering. When Paul and Barnabus were rejected and insulted they did not hang their heads and hush their witness. They simply took the message to a group of people who were more receptive. The only way to find out who is open to being saved is to keep on telling others about Jesus.
In the book The Power to Prevail, David Foster tells of people we might be surprised to felt the sting of rejection but persevered instead:
“After the great dancer Fred Astaire took his first screen test in 1933, the testing director of MGM wrote a memo that said of him, ‘Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance only a little!’ Astaire kept that memo over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home and used it as motivation to prove people wrong.
“One expert reportedly said that Vince Lombardi ‘possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.’
“Someone encouraged Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, to find work as a servant or seamstress—anything but try to write…That book has only been in continuous publication since 1868. She only published 270 books.
“A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas; the creator of Mickey Mouse also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
“Thomas Edison’s teachers labeled him as too stupid to learn anything.”
Foster observes, “The difference between those who push on to greatness and those who quit and settle for less is the ability to turn rejections in the right directions.” This is what Paul did. He simple turned to people who would listen and he kept on telling people about Jesus Christ.
I picked up the water list at the city offices this week. They have a bronze statue of Abner Norman, a surveyor, and whom our town is named after. I passed Andrews Park, which was named after a citizen of Norman that contributed to the community. There’s the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble is an entrepreneur from Ardmore who has given millions away all over the country. It’s a sign of a grateful community to a person who blessed it.
I don’t expect them to ever do something like that for you or me. But it did occur to me that God has no more precious gift to give to Norman or Moore or Noble than the wonderful gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. Don’t stop telling the good news. Don’t give up praying for people to be saved. We know the power of the gospel and it compels us to send out missionaries, witness boldly, proclaim forgiveness and keep persevering in witnessing the Christian life. When we do that we are the greatest gift God has to give to this community.
PRAY
Father, these are compelling days. We’ve been forced into a conflict with terrorists. We are being made to deal with huge ethical and moral issues that we settled convictions a few decades past. But when it comes to heaven and hell, saved or lost, the church has lost its urgency.
Renew our true understanding of the gospel. May the cross remind us of the priority of this message for all mankind. Make the gospel compelling once more for Christians.
It is easy to be undisturbed because of the comfortable lives we live. Tomorrow seems so predictable. Only You, Holy Spirit, can see through the deception. Right now, give the lost a sense of urgency. Show them that this is their time to be saved.
We offer this prayer in the name of One who was compelled to die on the cross for our sin, even Christ. Amen.
INVITATION
Do you remember the story of Peter Lawler, a construction worker, who had a toothache for over a week? He tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling. Finally, he went to the dental office where his wife worked and they discovered the source of his toothache was a four-inch nail in his head!
His nail gun backfired and one of the nails shot in his mouth and just missed his right eye. It took a four-hour surgery to remove the nail.
A wrong diagnosis only leads to a wrong remedy. In the spiritual realm, unless you realize the critical nature of your sin, you won’t turn to the only solution, which is Jesus Christ. If you think you’ve got plenty of time to get right with God, you may not give the serious weight to this decision that it deserves. Don’t misdiagnosis what is going on right now. God Almighty offers to forgive you of all your sin and restore you to full relationship with Him. But you must have a complete change of mind about the way you relate to Him. No more going your own way. You go His way. No more trusting you are good enough to earn heaven. You depend on Jesus alone to be saved.
Christian, don’t misdiagnosis this moment. Your prayers and your efforts to speak for Christ are not fruitless. Take the challenge. For the next six months faithfully pray for and attempt to influence a group of people to come to Christ. It’ll be the best six months of your Christian life.
