Set apart for mission

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Okay, if you have your Bible with you this morning, could you please open it to Acts chapter 12? It actually feels like it should be chapter 13. We're just going to read one verse from chapter 12. Chapter 12 verse 25. The word of the Lord says, when Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission. Oh, hang on. Yeah, when Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark. Now, in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon Cornigier, Lucius of Cyrene, Menein, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetra, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. And now we're going to skip to chapter 4, verse 21. It says, they preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. After going through Poseidia, they came into Pamphylion. When they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Atalia. From Atalia, they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed a long time there with the disciples. Let's pray. Father, my prayer this morning is simple. I pray that you will give me the words to speak, that you would have me speak. That you would give us all ears to hear and hearts to respond in Jesus' name. I love Vax. There are so many stories in it that are encouraging and challenging. The Book of Vax gives us such a great insight into the early formation of the church, and how such a small group of Jesus' followers grew into the global church that we are all a part of today. This morning, we're going to be looking at the theme of being set apart and sent out. The reading came from chapters 13 and 14, and these chapters mark an important transition in the Book of Vax. If we think all the way back to the beginning of Vax, Jesus' last words were that they were to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Spirit, which they had done, and then they were to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Up until this point in the Book of Vax, this is exactly what has been happening. Following the coming of the Spirit of Pentecost, there was a rapid growth of the church in Jerusalem, so much so that persecution broke out and the church was scattered. Through this gathering, the good news of Jesus was spread beyond the bounds of Jerusalem, to Judea and to Samaria, and the good news was well received in these places. In chapter 9, we read that the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria experienced a time of peace and strengthening as well as an increasing in numbers. This all happened just as Jesus had said it would. Now, it's worth noting that while it is primarily Jewish people who are hearing and receiving the good news of the gospel, it is not limited to them. There's Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and his family, and there's the eunuch from Ethiopia who heard the good news of Jesus. Undoubtedly, there were far more than this. In our passage that we read this morning, we get an early insight into the makeup of God's church. Reading through the list of names, it's a who's who of significant leaders in the early church, as well as a diverse list of backgrounds. Barnabas was from Cyprus. Simeon, Cornelius, was probably from Africa since Niger is a Latinism meaning black, and Lucius of Cyrene certainly came from North Africa since Cyrene is in modern-day Libya. Menean is described as having been brought up with Herod the Tetra, the ruler of Galilee, which is where Jesus was born, and Saul was from Tarsus, a town in modern-day Turkey. The remarkable diversity of the backgrounds and origins of these leaders was appropriate to the cosmopolitan context of Antioch, and I can't help but think at this point of the vision that John has in Revelation of people from every tribe and tongue and nation and people worshiping Jesus when he returns. These leaders, these teachers and prophets are all gathered together in Antioch, worshiping God. Now, what exactly does it mean by worshiping God? I'm not 100% certain, but it undoubtedly involved praying and petition, thanksgiving and praise. It likely also included teaching and prophesying and using other spiritual gifts in the service of the church. In any case, worship in this context is far grander than how we can sometimes think of it as being the songs that we sing. Biblical worship was a whole of life commitment and one that flowed naturally into myth. In his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, John Piper argues that missions exist because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. This is important to remember because it keeps the order right. It is easy in our modern world to become individual centric and as soon as we begin to think about being set apart, to being sent out, the temptation for this becomes even greater. But at its core, mission is about inviting people into a working community that is submitted to and praises the one true God. How does this happen? Well, it happens in many different ways, of course. There are the actions of the local church and the body of believers that contribute to this. Over the past couple of weeks, we as a family have been in Sydney and in Canberra and in country New South Wales visiting different churches. And throughout our journeys, we were hearing all sorts of stories about the way that the local church is seeking to connect with its community. There were things like Alpha Courses or Introducing God. There were street food nights where they would invite people from the community in. There were World Cup watch parties, Walk Up Evangelism, all sorts of other things as well. And all of these activities, they're different, but they are all different things that people in the church can be a part of. I think that it's helpful for us all to remember that we are all part of different people's journeys of faith. We may never know what role we play, but we all have a responsibility to participate in God's mission. Not all Christians are called to a specific ministry, a specific vocational ministry. For example, being a pastor or a missionary or some other kind of full-time paid ministry role. But I do believe that every believer is called to be involved in God's mission. In Matthew 28, Jesus' commands to his followers were that as they go, as all of his followers go out into the world, they are to make disciples. But I do also believe that some people are specifically called to be missionaries or to be pastors, to be set apart for a very specific ministry. And I think that our passage this morning encourages this thought. Okay, I know that sounds a bit confusing. Essentially, Jesus commissioned all of his followers everywhere to be alerting people to the kingdom of God and his kingship. And at the same time, there are some people who are specifically set aside for this in a vocational sense. This is not hierarchical though. I'm not saying that some people receive an extra blessing from God or a calling from God that makes them more special or more holy. It's more that God has a plan for all of his children. And for some of them, that means that they are set apart for mission in a more specific way. And for some, it means that they are working in the place where God calls them and being his witnesses there. I want to be clear that I don't think God values people based on whether they're called to full-time ministry or not. Or which ministry they are involved in. I love what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12. He says there are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working but in all of them and in everyone, it is the same God at work. The basic principle is straightforward. God grants us different gifts and there are different roles within which those gifts can be expressed. Now as we return to our passage this morning, we learn about a specific calling, a specific setting apart of Barnabas and Saul for ministry. This was different to what had been happening. It's a key transition point in the spread of the gospel. It entails a deliberate decision, a deliberate movement of gospel workers leaving a known area to a new place. Where at other points in Acts, people had spread to other areas as a result of persecution, this is the first time that there is a planned journey. In Acts 13 2 it says, Through the process of worship and being led by the Holy Spirit, the church in Antioch recognised that they needed to set apart Barnabas and Saul as missionaries to another region. That Saul or Paul as we would commonly call him was set apart at this point in time should not be surprising. As early as Acts 9, he was identified as being someone who had a particular calling. In Acts 9, Ananias is told to go and speak with Saul. Ananias was naturally terrified of doing this because up until that point, Saul had been persecuting the church. But God said to Ananias, Paul had been chosen by God to be his special envoy to the Gentiles. From early in his life as a believer, he had been set apart. And he was perfectly suited to it. After all, Paul had an exceptional pedigree. He was a Roman citizen with all of the legal protections that afforded him. He was trained as a Pharisee and a Gamaliel in Jerusalem, giving him a deep and rigorous understanding of Jewish scripture and Jewish theology. So he was well equipped to engage with Jewish religious leaders. And being from Tarsus, he was raised in a city that was a major center for Greek philosophy and culture. So he would have been culturally fluent in Greek thought. Similarly, Barnabas, while not identified in the same way as Paul was earlier in Acts, was also well suited to this calling. He was the leader in the church, a man of great faith and generosity, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. In thinking about being called and set apart, it would be easy to miss what Barnabas and Saul were both willing to give up. They were leaders in a growing church. They were secure. They had influence. They were successful. Yet when the Spirit called, they listened and they responded. They were willing to set aside what they were doing to go to a new era. A potentially dangerous area all because they trusted that God was calling them to this new work. Both Barnabas and Saul were well prepared and qualified for the work that was to come. And if you were an independent observer, if you didn't know how Acts played out and you were just reading it for the first time, and you were told to pick two people to go out to be set apart for this work, chances are that these two would be high on your list. But that said, not everyone who we think is perfectly suited to the work of a missionary or a cross-cultural worker is in fact perfectly suited. And conversely, there are some people that we may not expect that God would choose, but he chooses them. We must remember that God has a plan and he knows who the best people are for his plan. The history of world mission includes many people who seem to fit the mold of a Christian work of a missionary and just as many who don't fit our expectations. Barnabas and Paul experienced incredible success from their ministry. Throughout chapters 13 and 14, we read about the growth of the church in the regions in the many places that they visited. However, even though they were clearly called by God and experienced incredible ministry highs, there were also accompanying lows through being challenged and being persecuted. In 1349, we read the word spread through the whole region, but the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region. As part of our preparation for heading to the Silk Road, Petra and I did a training program with people from different organizations. One of the couples that we did this training program with ended up working in a mountainous area of East Asia. They were doing incredible work there. The husband, what actually he couldn't enter into the country or the region that they were wanting to work in through normal means, so he would actually hike through the mountains with a local guide and spend a week or two in a mountainous village and then would return to their home. He was doing incredible work. God was moving through him. One day he came back from one of these treks to his home and a local friend said to him, you need to leave. You need to leave the country now. Your name is on a list that the police have. They are going to arrest you. You need to go. So he and his wife packed up their house with their two small children and in two days they left. They were back in Australia and they spent I think two or three years back here trying to work out what to do and what God was doing. Just because they were cold didn't mean that everything was easy. I work at an international school on the Silk Road and we have got so many families that have had to move to our area because they were kicked out of East Asia or they were kicked out of the very large country to the north of us or they were kicked out of the country to the west of us and they were all doing incredible work in the places where they were. Petra and I, we just had a retreat with people from our organization and it was really encouraging to catch up with some people who we hadn't seen for many years, like 10 or 12 years even. It was funny like we've been on the Silk Road for 10 years and it feels like we've got a bit of experience at this point in time. But in the room with us there were people who had been working in their locations for 15 years or 20 years or more years. And as part of one of the sessions that we were doing we were looking at suffering and the facilitator put a question on the board. What is one piece of advice you would give to a new person heading to it like heading overseas about suffering? And the off the cuff response from someone who had been working in Africa for 20 years in response to what words of wisdom would you give was suck it up princess. Now we all laughed in the room but we all laughed because we all understood like that is what it involves. Just because you have been called, just because you've been set apart, just because there are churches all around Australia praying for you and your family and your ministry does not mean that those challenges won't come. The devil does not like it when advances in the kingdom are made and he will challenge and persecute. The final point that I would like to make today is that while Barnabas and Paul are called and set apart, they are still part of a team. At first their call is affirmed by their church. In verse 3 it said so after they had fasted and prayed they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The church leaders, the church gathered around them and they prayed for them, they placed their hands on them and then they sent them off. The placing of hands on Barnabas and Paul was a symbolic releasing of them from their present ministry in the church in Antioch and a commissioning to the work that they were being set apart for. It was a very public declaration from the leadership of the church and they recognised that there had been a call placed on the lives of Barnabas and Paul. This is a good litmus test for anyone who believes they've been called to full-time ministry. Do others who are more mature in their faith recognise the same calling? Now Australian Idol, the TV show which I believe is still going, we've been out of the country for a while. So Australian Idol searches for aspiring singers to develop and to promote to fame. Now I think personally some of the most interesting and most cringy episodes are the early audition rounds where anyone can apply and sing before a panel of, let's be honest, brutal judges. It never fails that at this stage several applicants cannot sing in tune. You know the episodes. Now when the judges tell them you're not actually very good, their dreams are crushed. Now just an aside, obviously I think the show's producers could have done some vetting and you know said actually no we're not going to put you on TV. But it is far more entertaining and perhaps revenue raising to have that entertainment but that is a separate topic. What often discourages these people though is that someone, often a well-meaning relative, has told them that they're a great singer. And so when they come to this panel of music industry experts, they're shocked to find out that the affirmation that they've received at home wasn't equaled by affirmation from the judges. Now sometimes we think we're called incompetent because a well-meaning friend or a relative has told us that we're gifted. But I would say it is important to reach out to other older, mature Christians, leaders in our churches to affirm that call. Whether it be from a pastor or a mentor or someone who is just older in their faith, who knows you. But I think partnership extends beyond affirming the call. There is a clear partnership involved between those who were sent and the church who sent them. I love how at the end of chapter 14 we read about Paul and Barnabas returning to the church in Antioch, gathering them all together and telling them all that the Lord had been doing. And they had quite a report to share. Barnabas and Saul had been proclaiming the gospel. Chapters 13 and 14 tell us that everywhere they proclaim the gospel, first and second, and then wherever people would listen. At its core, their message and the one that continues to be proclaimed today is simple. In 1338 it says, Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him, everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law. And God had been working as I work proclaiming this message. Many people heard and responded. Many people came to recognize that Jesus was the only way to the Father. But Barnabas and Saul didn't see their ministry as ending there. They recognized that the work that they had done was only possible because of the partnership of the church in Antioch. This is why they were eager to return to Antioch while stopping on the way to encourage new believers. Barnabas and Saul decided to do this expresses so clearly how there are some who are set apart for a particular ministry, sent to a place that others cannot go, but they remain an extension of the community of believers. Petra and I have been blessed to be supported by many churches and individuals over the last 10 years. We could not have been on the Silk Road for that long without the long term prayers and financial support of people in Australia. It is a partnership. And so when we come back to Australia, it is such a joy for us to be able to share with you all the things that God has been doing because it is a shared journey. But it's also exciting to hear what God has been doing in local churches in Australia. We're actually in a unique position where we travel from Sydney into rural New South Wales and then all the way from Brisbane up to Townsville, which is our hometown. And so we get to hear stories of God's goodness and the way that God is moving across the eastern seaboard. And I think that's a unique experience and something that we really were really blessed by. I think we see the importance of partnership in all the work that we do. Last year Petra met a young lady who had been meeting with another person to discuss matters of life and faith. Now Michelle, this other lady who had been meeting with this girl, had been meeting with her for two years. They talked about everything, they explored all sorts of questions. But when Petra met this young lady, Michelle was actually back in the US on home assignment. And she had many questions that she wanted to ask. Petra only met with her twice. But by the end of the second meeting, she made the declaration that she wanted to submit her life to the authority of Jesus. Petra was only a small part of this young lady's journey. An important part, but a small part nonetheless. And in the same way I would say that you are all a part of that same journey. Through your partnership with us and with others who have been set apart to do ministry to the end of the earth. As we draw towards the close this morning, I hope that you are encouraged. Encouraged to know that you are all part of the extension of God's kingdom. Whether that is here in Australia or overseas somewhere. I hope that you are encouraged to know that from the time of Acts to now. There are people who have been set apart and are actively working to reveal the goodness of God and his kingdom and his love to people all over the world. And encourage that one day people from every tribe and tongue and nation and people will be worshiping Jesus. I also hope that you are challenged. Challenged to partner well with those that you know who are working overseas. Challenged to ask the question, is it something that God wants me to do? And challenged to pray, pray and pray for the spread of the gospel to those who do not yet know. Let's pray now. Thank you Father for your goodness to us. So it clearly expressed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Thank you for the hope and the security that that provides to all of us in this room. We pray God that you will continue to raise up workers for the harvest. Because we know that while we know the goodness of you, that there are so many who do not. And whether that is in Caboche and it's around in Queensland or in the corners of this world. We pray that your gospel will continue to go forth. And help us to encourage and to partner well with those involved in your work. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.