00:00: We are called to live on mission.
00:03: You've heard me say that before, live on mission, living on mission.
00:07: What does that mean?
00:09: It means treating our daily routines as a purposeful assignment from God to share his love and good news with the people around us.
00:22: It means that we live on purpose in such a way that our whole lives or oriented around living the way that God calls us to live.
00:32: That our Christian faith is not an add-on, extension to the rest of our life, but that our whole life is centered on God and what he has for us.
00:43: The clearest expression of the life of mission to which we are called is found in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20.
00:52: Jesus came and said to them, Our mission, the commission, the commission that God has given us, is that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
01:01: Therefore, go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
01:14: And behold, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.
01:17: Our mission, the commission, the commission that God has given us, is to make disciples, which means Jesus followers, not merely converts.
01:31: Our objective is not to get people to pray a prayer and go back about their lives, but to be used by God to help people turn away from a not God-centered life and begin truly from the heart following Jesus.
01:47: Making disciples who then mature, that is, they grow in their understanding of God and what God calls us to and of what the Christian life is supposed to look like, and they don't just know it up here in their heads, but they live it out.
02:00: They actually obey Jesus.
02:02: And as they mature, they begin investing in others, reproducing the process, repeating the pattern that Jesus has laid out.
02:10: Conversion, growth, reproduction.
02:16: Our mission statement puts it like this.
02:18: Our mission is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply fully surrendered disciples of Jesus Christ.
02:28: That's not just the statement that we came up with here at this church to focus on.
02:34: It's more important than that.
02:36: It's more serious than that because it accurately reflects the biblical call of God on every one of our lives as believers in Jesus.
02:46: Our passage this morning in Acts 13 tells us about God commissioning Paul and Barnabas for a traveling ministry and tells us about how some of that went.
02:55: And I believe that this recounting in Acts 13 has some significant encouragement and instruction both for us today if we're willing to say yes to God and live on mission.
03:12: Before we proceed, I want you to take just a moment and consider, have you said yes to God about living on mission?
03:21: And if you haven't, may this be the moment when you do.
03:26: All right, Acts 13.
03:38: Barnabas and Saul, a.k.a.
03:38: Paul, they're back in Antioch.
03:43: Antioch is 450 miles as the crow flies from Jerusalem.
03:48: It's up on the northeast, approximately, of the Mediterranean Sea.
03:54: I say they're back there because at the end of Acts chapter 11, we saw that Barnabas and Saul were taking a financial love offering from the church in Antioch, which was mostly a Gentile or non-Jewish church.
04:08: And they were traveling and taking that to Jerusalem because there was a famine that was coming and it was going to be hitting the church there.
04:16: And they said, hey, we want to support our brothers and sisters in this time of need.
04:19: And so they traveled and brought the money to the church in Jerusalem.
04:24: And then at the end of chapter 12, we read that Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.
04:33: So they get the money to Jerusalem.
04:36: They head back to Antioch.
04:37: They bring a guy with them called John Mark.
04:39: Sometimes John, sometimes Mark, sometimes John Mark.
04:44: And they are back in Antioch.
04:46: Now, what do they do?
04:47: They've finished their travel to Jerusalem.
04:49: They've made this very long trip.
04:51: They're finally back to home base.
04:55: And they rest on their laurels.
04:58: Not so much.
04:59: They're not off mission.
05:01: They're not soaking up life, leisure, with no thought to God and God's priorities.
05:06: Rather, verse 2, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
05:17: They're worshiping and they're fasting.
05:21: Worshiping we get.
05:22: We do that often.
05:23: Fasting is not something that you see too often apart from either medical requirements or training in what the Bible teaches.
05:34: Fasting is intentional, temporary, refraining from eating food.
05:43: Typically food.
05:45: One can fast from other things as well, but in the Bible it's usually talking about food.
05:49: And the idea is you take a day or two or three or whatever it is and you don't eat for that time.
05:54: You still drink water usually, but you are not eating.
06:00: Why?
06:03: Fasting says, this much I want you God.
06:08: Or this much is how important you are to me.
06:11: You're more important to me God than food is.
06:14: I like the way that John Piper describes it.
06:17: Fasting is a physical exclamation point on the end of sentences.
06:23: I need you.
06:24: I want you.
06:25: I long for you.
06:26: You are my treasure.
06:28: I want more of you.
06:29: Oh, for the day when you would return.
06:31: Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.
06:34: When we prioritize God and then our fasting from time to time, not all the time, but from time to time, it's like steroids to that pursuit of God.
06:48: And fasting gives focus and intensity to prayer.
06:53: And so Barnabas and Saul and others, they're worshiping, they're fasting, they're intensely seeking to honor and prioritize God and God gives them direction.
07:02: Specifically to set apart for God, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which he has called them.
07:10: So God says, I've got a plan.
07:11: I want these two guys to do some particular work.
07:14: Now, we come to find out, it's pretty obvious that it's this traveling ministry stuff, but the summary version here is, set them apart for this.
07:22: It is God's plan.
07:24: And what happens?
07:25: Do they just get up and walk out of the worship time?
07:28: No.
07:29: Notice verse three.
07:30: Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
07:37: So there's a little bit of a time gap here where the church says, God gave us this guidance.
07:43: We've prayed about it.
07:44: We sense that this is in fact the way that God is leading.
07:48: We've not only prayed about it, but we've fasted to intensify that prayer time.
07:52: And we affirm that God is in fact calling Barnabas and Saul to this ministry.
07:58: And so then the church lays hands on them and sends them off.
08:01: It's essentially God's calling, but the church says, are we rightly hearing God or are we getting this message clear and straight?
08:09: Yeah, we are.
08:10: And they together affirm that and they send the two of them off in ministry with their blessing, saying essentially with this hands-on thing, go in God's care, go in God's keeping, go with our blessing backing you.
08:23: We support you in what you're doing.
08:24: Now we've done that same sort of thing here at Faith Chapel from time to time.
08:30: I remember when Allie was about to travel to the Middle East and spend a couple of months there, we prayed for her and I believe we laid hands on her.
08:39: When I first came to Faith Chapel 10 years ago, I was put up front right over here and the church's leadership gathered around us and prayed for us and laid hands on us, saying we are commissioning you to this pastoral role.
08:53: We believe that God has called you to it and we affirm that.
08:59: Which begs the question for all of us, have we embraced the work that God has called all of us to here in Green Bay?
09:11: You, Christian, and I are entrusted with the gospel for Green Bay.
09:17: Now it's good and right that our partners in the Unidos church plant process are reaching the Hispanic community that we don't have the language skills to reach.
09:34: It's good and appropriate for Katie to invest in reaching the college students through athletics that we don't necessarily have access to otherwise.
09:43: But by and large, God's plan is not that missionaries be sent everywhere, but that missionaries be sent where there is little to no church presence.
09:55: And that where there is a church presence, it's the local church that has the responsibility for bringing the gospel to the people around them.
10:04: You are God's chosen missionaries to Green Bay, Ashwaubenon, Bellevue, Alloy, Howard, Suamico, and so on.
10:16: Have you said yes to God's calling on your life?
10:20: The reality is you can't ride the fence on this one.
10:25: You either say yes to the call of God on us to live on mission, making and maturing disciples of Jesus, or we pull a Jonah and we run away from God's calling on our lives.
10:42: Are you running away?
10:44: Or are you leaning into, gladly, hopefully, the call of God for you to be about living on mission?
10:53: I came across a survey this week by Lifeway Research, that's part of the Southern Baptist group, and this survey showed that 80% of those who attend church one or more times a month believe that they have a personal responsibility to share their faith.
11:09: Biblically, that's correct.
11:12: 80% recognize that, but 61% had not told another person about how to become a Christian even one time in the last six months.
11:25: If this is something that we believe God is actually calling us to, but we're not doing it, there's something broken that needs fixing.
11:33: What happens when Barnabas and Saul go where God sends them?
11:44: Well, verses 4 through 12 tell us about the first segment of their trip.
11:48: We're not going to go into all the geography, but basically, they end up on the island of Cyprus, which is on the east end of the Mediterranean Sea.
11:55: They start visiting various synagogues in various towns and telling the Jewish people about Jesus.
12:00: That's a natural starting place, partly because these are folks who already believe in God, believe there is only one God.
12:07: These are people because their Jewish background who would believe that God had promised to send a Messiah, but it's also appropriate because in the Old Testament, God's method of working was to start with the Jews and then it was to extend to the Gentiles.
12:22: That's also precisely how Jesus worked in his earthly ministry, starting with the Jewish people, then overflowing to the Gentiles.
12:30: And now Paul and company are doing the same thing.
12:34: So they're traveling to these various synagogues and they end up being summoned by this fellow named Sergius Paulus.
12:41: He's a smart fellow, we're told.
12:42: He's pro-consul, which is a high-ranking government administrator within the Roman Empire.
12:48: And this Sergius fellow wants to hear the gospel message from Saul and Barnabas.
12:52: But there's a wrinkle in the situation.
12:55: Sergius has this fellow with him named Bar-Jesus, which is, if you literally translate it, son of Jesus or son of God saves.
13:06: And he's a magician.
13:08: He's also called Elemus, which literally translates to sorcerer or magician.
13:12: This guy is into magic and so on.
13:16: But don't picture magicians like today.
13:19: Don't picture illusion performers that you might have at a kid's birthday party.
13:24: This is not David Copperfield or Penn and Teller where everyone knows that they're just doing a trick.
13:31: Think more like witch doctor.
13:33: Think more like somebody who dabbles in demonic activity and the occult and trying to have religious power and influence independent of the one true God.
13:42: So this guy is with the Roman administrator and he begins to oppose the influence that Barnabas and Saul are having with the proconsul.
13:56: He gets upset.
13:58: Notice verse 8.
13:59: But Elemus, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
14:08: Why does he do that?
14:09: It doesn't spell it out for us.
14:10: I suspect that what's going on is that he didn't like the idea of losing influence.
14:18: He's already himself in a certain spiritual category and he's got influence.
14:23: He probably didn't want to lose that.
14:25: The reality is when you represent Jesus to non-Christians, you are going to face opposition.
14:32: Satan and the demons don't want people turning to Jesus.
14:36: 2 Corinthians 4.4 says the God of this world that's a reference to Satan, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel.
14:50: I don't hear people talk about that very much.
14:52: Literally, that verse is teaching us Satan has worked in the lives of non-Christians to keep them mentally incapable of rightly perceiving the gospel.
15:04: That is the condition of everyone apart from God's rescuing grace.
15:09: people will oppose.
15:13: And I suspect, like I said, that this is probably about a power thing for him.
15:18: But regardless of his motivation, the fact of the matter is that Bar-Jesus actively tried to inhibit and render ineffective the witness of Saul and Barnabas.
15:26: But that's not the end of the story.
15:28: It's not like they come and they share and things are going good and then Bar-Jesus just ends it and makes it impossible.
15:34: Rather, Saul is filled with, verse 9, the Holy Spirit.
15:40: That means empowered by, being led by.
15:43: And he rebukes Bar-Jesus, verse 10, in some rather strong terms.
15:50: And then he calls him out directly for what he was doing, verse 10.
15:54: And then he pronounces that Bar-Jesus is going to be struck blind for a time and immediately it happens.
16:01: Now, Paul, hypothetically, could have said the things he said without the power of God at work.
16:08: But that whole blinding thing, that's decisively God at work there.
16:14: And the result is that the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, came to faith in Jesus.
16:21: Is that normal?
16:23: Yes and no.
16:24: Now, the whole blinding thing, that's not normal.
16:26: That doesn't happen all the time.
16:28: But, God overcame overcoming opposition to bring somebody to Jesus, that happens all the time.
16:37: Every time somebody becomes a Christian, I believe that's going on.
16:41: God is overcoming opposition.
16:44: Sometimes only in the demonic realm, that blinding of the mind.
16:47: Sometimes dealing with specific people or arguments or incorrect thinking or whatever.
16:55: But God works to overcome opposition to bring people to saving faith.
17:02: I want you to understand this as you consider living on mission.
17:06: You don't have to be the one to overcome opposition to the good news.
17:12: God does that.
17:15: He doesn't expect you to do that.
17:16: God does that.
17:17: You just need to be a faithful witness.
17:20: Even without explicit opposition, you would not be sufficient for the work of evangelism without God's involvement.
17:27: Remember that verse about Satan blinding the minds of unbelievers so they can't see the light of the gospel?
17:32: The very next two verses say this.
17:35: For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord.
17:39: We're ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
17:42: For God, who said, let light shine out of the darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
17:53: Catch it.
17:54: He's saying two things there.
17:54: He's saying, we tell people about Jesus.
17:58: That's our job.
18:00: And then God's the one that overcomes that blinding problem.
18:04: God's the one that causes it to click and make sense for them so that they want Jesus.
18:10: Satan blinds.
18:12: Christians tell them about Jesus.
18:14: And sometimes God overcomes that blinding and they become believers.
18:19: That's how it works.
18:21: People proclaim Jesus and then God beats Satan and saves sinners.
18:27: Not every time, but every time that somebody gets saved.
18:32: Some of you may remember we took an extended tour through the New Testament book of Romans.
18:37: Do you remember what Romans 1 said about the gospel message and the power of God?
18:43: Paul, early, early on in that letter says, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
18:53: To the Jew first and also to the Greek.
18:57: Is that how you view the gospel message?
18:59: It's the power of God and it saves people.
19:03: There's no reason to be embarrassed about it.
19:05: Don't be embarrassed when you share your faith.
19:07: You're sharing something extraordinary.
19:14: You're called to share your faith.
19:16: You're not called to make it effective.
19:18: That's God's domain.
19:19: What do you share?
19:21: I think we get a look at that in the following section.
19:23: In verse 13, we see that they leave the island of Cyprus.
19:27: They return to the mainland.
19:29: They visit what would be on the southwest coastal area of modern day Turkey.
19:34: Again, like their previous MO, they start by going to the Jewish synagogue.
19:38: They're given the opportunity to speak to those who are gathered.
19:41: And Paul begins by retelling in a very abbreviated form the origins of the Jewish people and how God brought King David to the throne of Israel.
19:50: He says, you know, hey, this is how God formed us as Jewish people.
19:53: He did the saving stuff.
19:55: He started giving us kings.
19:56: We had a bad king.
19:57: Then he gave us a good king and he promised that good king there would be a descendant from him that would be the saving one, the savior, the Messiah.
20:05: He takes that history that they already know, that history that they already embrace, and then he segues to talking about Jesus and says, that story, your story, Jews, that's the same story I'm telling you about.
20:18: I'm just telling you about what's in the next chapter of it.
20:21: And he goes further and he connects it with contemporary happenings in that time, John the Baptist.
20:29: Now, John the Baptist had come and had pointed people to Jesus.
20:34: And then, having connected these stories, he turns to the historical facts about Jesus.
20:41: That's verses 26 to 33.
20:43: He talks about Jesus' death and his burial and his resurrection and the fact that there's all these witnesses to these facts.
20:51: In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we're going to see the apostle Paul in that passage writing to a different church saying, hey, these are the main things.
21:01: These are the items of first importance.
21:03: And he lists those same realities.
21:09: He's speaking to a primarily Jewish audience.
21:12: there's some non-Jewish converts to Judaism mixed in.
21:16: And because he's speaking to a primarily Jewish and converted to Jewish audience, he quotes some Old Testament verses showing them from their own Bible the truth of his message.
21:26: He quotes from Psalm 2.
21:28: He references Isaiah 55.
21:29: He quotes from Psalm 16.
21:31: He doesn't just say, take my word for it.
21:33: He says, check it out.
21:35: This is what you already know to be God's word says that we were supposed to expect.
21:40: This is how God says it would work.
21:43: And Paul is helping them to see that God's word foretells God doing exactly what took place in their own time with Jesus.
21:53: He wants them to be able to recognize that the Jewish story in what we call the Old Testament and the Christian story in what we call the New Testament is the same story.
22:04: It's the continuation of it.
22:05: Now, today, you're probably not primarily witnessing to Jewish people.
22:14: Occasionally you might be, but overall probably not.
22:17: But when you have an unbeliever with whom you want to share Jesus, you can imitate what Paul is doing here.
22:23: Start with what you know those folks know.
22:26: Start with what you know they believe.
22:28: For example, suppose you're sharing with somebody who says that they're Catholic or have a Catholic background.
22:34: Right away you know they're aware of the idea that there's a God.
22:38: They're aware of the idea that Jesus is really important and to be paid attention to.
22:44: They're aware of the guilt of sin and that that guilt needs to be fixed and dealt with.
22:49: And so you can start with some of those things and then segue to Jesus.
22:53: Right?
22:54: Maybe it's somebody that doesn't have a religious background or you don't have a clue what they know or believe about religious matters.
23:02: If you ask them questions, they're likely to tell you.
23:05: Ask questions.
23:06: Get to know them.
23:08: So, have you given any thought to spiritual matters?
23:11: Do you have any sort of religious faith of any sort?
23:13: Are you involved in a church or a synagogue or a mosque of any sort depending on what the context might be?
23:18: Ask questions.
23:19: You'll find out and then there will be something that they think or believe that connects.
23:26: There always is.
23:27: I was visiting with someone just a couple of days ago who shared that he recognized from his military experience there are no atheists in foxholes.
23:38: You guys have probably heard that saying, right?
23:40: And I said, why is that?
23:42: Why do you think that is?
23:43: And got him to say on his own like, well, in that moment of desperation we all kind of know that there really is a God.
23:51: And I said, okay, I agree with you.
23:53: If we deep down know there's a God then it probably makes sense that we ought to find out about him.
23:59: And we ought to find out what he's like and what he thinks and how he wants things to be.
24:04: Bam!
24:05: There's my segue to the gospel.
24:07: Okay?
24:07: We can do what Paul is doing here regardless of who we're sharing with.
24:12: And then as we segue to Jesus we don't talk about every single detail of Jesus.
24:18: We don't try to recount every miracle he did in the gospels and so on.
24:21: We hit the main points.
24:23: Death, burial, resurrection, when you talk about his death you've got to explain why that's important.
24:31: Jesus, who never messed up, never did anything bad, he died voluntarily in place of guilty people.
24:39: He was given a criminal's death without being a criminal.
24:42: And the whole point of that was God saying, hey Jesus, go trade places with actual criminals, spiritual criminals, people who have rebelled against God.
24:53: Take their place, take their punishment for them so that they don't have to be punished.
24:57: That's what the cross is about.
24:59: Jesus substituting himself for us.
25:03: The grave could not hold him.
25:05: That's why he rose from the dead.
25:07: The innocent one who was punished, God said, you don't belong in the grave, you can't stay there, I'm raising you from the dead.
25:14: And that's not just something God did for Jesus.
25:16: The Bible teaches us that he's going to do that not just for Jesus but for everyone who trusts in Jesus.
25:22: That's my sure hope in the future because I've come to believe in Jesus.
25:27: And that can be what happens for you if you believe in Jesus.
25:30: So you talk about the burial and how it couldn't hold him and how God resurrected him and that's for you too.
25:37: You can talk about how 1 Corinthians 15 talks about how as surely as God did it for Jesus, he'll do it for those who trust in Jesus.
25:44: Okay?
25:44: You take these basic historical facts of Jesus and use them to present the gospel and then something really important.
25:56: Paul and Barnabas do it in this passage.
26:00: He pushes his audience toward a right response to Jesus.
26:06: Look at verses 40 and 41.
26:08: He warns them against not believing the work that God is doing.
26:13: He quotes from Isaiah 29 and Habakkuk 1 to make that very warning saying, you gotta watch out because the Bible warns us against hearing this kind of good news and ignoring it, not believing it.
26:26: Don't be on the wrong end of that.
26:28: You need to believe this.
26:29: You need to respond to them.
26:31: I like a quote that I came across this week.
26:39: Evangelism is a summons for men to receive Jesus for who he is.
26:47: Lord, Savior, King, and Sovereign.
26:51: You're not just sharing information, you're saying, this Jesus, you need to respond to him.
26:57: You need to submit to him.
26:58: You need to trust him.
27:01: In the wonderful book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I.
27:04: Packer, which I heartily commend to you.
27:06: I've got a copy in my office if you want to borrow it.
27:09: It's a short book.
27:10: In this book, J.I.
27:11: Packer explains, evangelism is the issuing of a call to turn as well as to trust.
27:23: It is the delivering not merely of a divine invitation to receive a Savior, but of a divine command to repent of sin.
27:34: And catch this sentence, this is key.
27:36: There is no evangelism where this specific application is not made.
27:46: It's not enough for people to hear the good news and do nothing with it.
27:50: You have to share, this is the offer of God, this is the rescue available, this is the forgiveness that's possible.
27:57: Turn away from your sin and trust in Jesus.
28:01: Make that decision, make that commitment.
28:03: We have to include that when we are sharing about Jesus with people.
28:10: When I was in high school, not yet a Christian, the man who ended up leading me to Christ, his name was Bruce, he shared the gospel with me.
28:18: At the end of it, he did exactly what he was supposed to and he asked me if I wanted to receive Christ.
28:22: Now I don't remember the way he put it, the phrasing, but that was the sense of it.
28:26: And I said, no, I said, not right now.
28:30: Something to that effect.
28:31: I wanted to think it over a little more, I wanted to process this.
28:34: Even back in high school, I was a thinker.
28:36: Surprise, surprise.
28:39: And I was meeting with him again the next week and I, by that time, was ready and I was like, yeah, I want this.
28:45: But I didn't know anything about Christianity.
28:47: I knew virtually nothing other than the gospel presentation he'd given to me.
28:51: And so I'm like, I don't know how this works, I don't know how this goes.
28:54: I'm just like waiting for him to bring it up and waiting for him to tell me how to do it.
28:59: And so I asked, he asked me, he's like, have you thought anymore about that?
29:03: Yeah, yeah.
29:04: And are you, do you want to receive Jesus?
29:08: And I'm like, yeah.
29:08: And then he led me in praying.
29:10: Now, I don't know that there's one right way to do it, but he was the one that gave me the push to say, okay, what are you going to do with this?
29:17: And he was dead right to do so.
29:20: And I was waiting for him.
29:22: I wasn't going to come up to him and say, okay, Bruce, what do I got to do to get right with God?
29:27: How do I execute this?
29:28: What's the, how do I sign on the dotted line?
29:32: I needed him to bring it up and I needed him to help me make those steps forward.
29:38: You are Bruce to someone today.
29:44: You're called to be Bruce to someone, to share Jesus and to help them understand this is the right response and to walk them through that and then help them begin to grow and mature as a Jesus follower.
29:56: Now, how does this play out in our passage?
30:00: Verses 42 and 43.
30:02: As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.
30:06: They invited back to talk more.
30:09: And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas and as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.
30:18: So there's, you know, synagogue lets out, some of them are following them and say, hey, let's talk more about this.
30:23: We want to hear more about it next week.
30:24: Very significant, positive response by some, both Jewish and Gentile converts to Judaism.
30:34: But there's also opposition.
30:36: Verses 44 and 45.
30:38: The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the Lord.
30:41: But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.
30:52: These people get jealous, threatened when their own power or influence or standing is threatened.
30:58: How many times have you guys seen that in somebody's life over some issue?
31:03: They can't stand to see somebody else succeed because it seems to diminish their own situation.
31:10: Earlier in the chapter, we saw that God overcame bar Jesus' opposition in such a way that Sergius Paulus came to faith.
31:18: What about here?
31:18: What happens here?
31:20: What's the response?
31:20: I want to highlight two things.
31:24: First, Paul and Barnabas move on.
31:27: They say, hey, you've had your opportunity.
31:30: A couple of Sundays or would have been Saturdays in a row, they come and share with them and they say, most of you don't want them?
31:36: Fine.
31:37: You've had your chance and now we're going to move on and tell the non-Jewish people about them.
31:42: And then they quote scripture to prove that that's the right thing for them to do.
31:47: That God has in mind for God's people, the Jews, to hear the message and then after they reject it, go take it to the Gentiles.
31:57: Verse 47, for so the Lord commanded us saying, I'm quoting from the Old Testament, I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
32:07: So, they begin to move on and take it to the rest of the folks that need to hear it.
32:12: Secondly, verse 48, catch this.
32:14: when the Gentiles heard this, namely that they're going to start focusing on bringing the message to other Gentiles, when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
32:34: A bunch of them became believers.
32:35: Doesn't tell us how many other than this.
32:38: The quantity of people that came to faith that day was the exact same number as the number that God had appointed to it.
32:45: God had a plan that he was going to save these specific people and he did.
32:53: Which means God is sovereign over salvation.
33:00: God is sovereign over conversion.
33:04: So when we go out there to witness and to share, we don't need to be in charge, we don't need to be running the show, we don't need to have it all figured out and put together perfectly.
33:11: It doesn't rely on us.
33:13: It relies on God.
33:15: God is going to be successful in bringing to saving faith all whom he has planned to save.
33:22: As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
33:27: The full number that God had in mind.
33:28: That's how many came to faith in Jesus that day.
33:31: That is our confidence today in evangelism.
33:34: Don't be confident in how well you can speak or explain things.
33:38: Don't be confident because you've practiced and rehearsed although there's some value to those things.
33:44: Memorizing some scriptures and so on.
33:47: Be confident that God can and will save all whom he has appointed to be saved.
33:55: Be confident that God delights to work through his people and as a believer in Jesus he wants to work through you to save people.
34:02: That's where your confidence is.
34:04: Tyler should not be confident that Tyler's got it all together.
34:07: Tyler should be confident in God.
34:10: Amen Tyler?
34:11: Amen.
34:14: God overcomes the blinding work of Satan.
34:16: He overcomes opposition.
34:19: Think about Paul.
34:20: Paul is in this moment evangelizing but think back to his story.
34:25: He is now the leading evangelist in the New Testament when before he was the leading opposition.
34:32: He was the most devious nasty strong-willed anti-Christianity guy and now God's like oh you're playing for the other team now.
34:43: Let's go.
34:44: And he's using him.
34:47: God overcomes.
34:50: Evangelism is something that God calls us to do.
34:52: We are his ambassadors to the world around us according to 2 Corinthians 5.20 but evangelism is not something that we make effective.
35:01: It's something God makes effective.
35:03: It's something that we get to do.
35:07: Now you could say we have to do it.
35:08: That's true.
35:09: But I think a better way to put it is we get to do it.
35:13: It's something we get to do in partnership with God.
35:17: In relationship with God.
35:19: God works through Christians presenting the gospel and telling others about Jesus.
35:23: and then God does that internal heart and soul surgery that needs to happen so that people come to saving faith in Jesus.
35:32: We say here at Faith Chapel that we exist to worship God by enjoying relationship with him and one another through Jesus Christ.
35:40: Let me suggest that one of the ways that needs to take place is that you need to enjoy relationship with God by living on mission sharing your faith and as you do that day by day you're going to see God at work.
35:53: And it's going to be a joy to be used by God in transformed lives.
36:00: In seeing people grabbed by God off the road to hell and set on a new path towards eternity of bliss with God.
36:10: That is awesome.
36:13: And you are invited.
36:15: You're commanded.
36:16: You're told by God the Father just as I've saved you join me in what I'm doing to save others.
36:23: How can we say no to that kind of command and commissioning?
36:29: Would you pray with me?
36:31: God give us joy and delight at the thought of partnering with you in the work that you are doing.
36:39: Help us to be glad about the opportunity that you've given us to be used by you for eternal difference.
36:46: I pray that whether we're sharing the gospel with kids and children's church sharing with somebody in a friends and family setting inviting somebody to Bible study taking a neighbor with us to life group or whatever it may be that you would convince us that the gospel is such good news that we cannot keep it to ourselves.
37:09: Guide us away from apathy and into living on mission day in and day out.
37:17: In Jesus' name we pray.
37:18: Amen.