MISSIONS—ENTERTAINMENT OR ENLISTMENT
#441 MISSIONS—ENTERTAINMENT OR ENLISTMENT
Scripture Acts 13:1-13 Orig. 2/2/1964
Rewr. 11/1969, 12/3/1976
Passage: 1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 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.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
On Cyprus
4 The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper. 6 They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 7 who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10 “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11 Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.
In Pisidian Antioch
13 From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.
Keywords: Biography Missions
Introduction
Every person who ever spent any time at all around Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is familiar with the name, William Carey1. You know that there is a Baptist College there, which bears that name. Do you know who William Carey was? He was not a Mississippi Baptist leader and patron of education. In fact, if memory serves me well, he was never even a visitor to the state.
William Carey was an Englishman who carries the distinction of being the man whom God used to give a resurgence to the mission movement. The diary of an English Baptist pastor contains this entry dated October 5, 1783. “This day baptized a poor journeyman shoemaker.” The poor cobbler who was baptized by John Ryland that day was William Carey.
Four years later, this poor shoemaker was called, without the benefit of any formal education, to pastor a church in the same association with Dr. Ryland. By keeping a book at his cobbler’s bench, in seven years, he taught himself to read in five languages. Through his own untiring efforts, he qualified himself to teach.
William Carey began to identify with some of these people whose languages he had learned to speak. He began to realize that the Christian community had a responsibility to share the message of God’s love with people who had never heard. He saw how favored the English people had been, and that that privilege demanded responsibility. He was convicted of the English zeal for foreign trade-goods. If Englishmen would make such sacrifice as to travel half way around the world for economic reasons, he must likewise be willing to go for spiritual reasons.
It was a new concept, and Baptists never have been too quick with new ideas, Biblical or otherwise. Carey was invited to preach to the gathered association in Nottingham. When he declared what was most on his heart, it was this same Dr. John Ryland who spoke out abruptly to him. “Sit down, young man. When the Lord gets ready to convert the heathen, he will do it without your help or mine.”
For John Ryland, missions was entertainment for the mind. For William Carey, it was enlistment of one’s life.
I. The Separation of Missions Demands Enlistment. V2, Separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them. The history of God’s work in the lives of His people has been the history of separation. The Greek word found here is the word from which our “horizon” comes. There are boundaries in which the believer will find God’s promises operable. We are no less His children outside of the limits of His will. It just stands to reason that His resources are dedicated to His will. If we are not within the “limits” of God’s will, then His resource may be working against us.
There is ample Biblical evidence of God’s meaning for a separated people. In references to the Hebrew people through Moses in Exodus 19:5,6, If you obey me . . . you will be a kingdom of priests to God, a holy nation. When the times came that the nation would not listen to this prerequisite for fellowship, He singled out men, and on occasion, women. Isaiah 6, “The call came to Isaiah, ‘Whom can I send, and who will go for me?’” Back came Isaiah’s ready response, “Here am I, send me!” But this response of faith came after God’s fire had touched man’s sin, and he was pronounced “Not guilty!” v7.
The all-encompassing characteristic in God’s separated people was a willingness for separation. Phillip (Acts 8) was a New Testament example of this separation. Go over to the road that runs through the Gaza desert. So he did. Go over to the chariot. And he did. . . .
There is a mentality for separation to consider. Abram was called from Ur to Palestine. He was no longer Chaldean, but Palestinian. Israel was called out of Egypt into promised land. He was no longer slave but free. Jesus was chosen to give up his glory above to take up bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The same capitulation to the will of God is our need today. The church staff member is separated from the place where he was to the place where he is. So the individual Christian, when his eyes open on a place even so strange as New Orleans, he is separated in the will of God to that place, so long as he remains there.
II. The Sending Forth of Missions Demands Enlistment. This sending forth is the natural succession to separation. What God separates, it becomes His purpose to use, whether for little or much. At Nottingham in 1792, a resolution was passed at William Carey’s insistence, and with Andrew Fuller’s influence, that led to an establishment of a missionary society. Their first offering amounted to 13 pounds, two shillings, six pence. About $40. But within a year, Carey and a Baptist surgeon were on their way to India. And what God uses, will bless other people and single them out for the work of separation. Within 20 years, the ladies would organize into the Female Mite Society formed “for the purpose of combining feeble efforts and humble prayers for the spread of the gospel.”
What we see of the work of God today is no different. When the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering was instituted, it was to direct meager portions of butter and egg money to the cause of Christ in China. This year the goal of our WMU is: SBC, $29,000,000; LBC, $1,000,000; Riverside, $2,000.
The sending forth is enlistment in mission for support groups also. At the forefront of all this is the promised support of the Holy Spirit. It is noteworthy that missions was born in Antioch, and not in Jerusalem as the church had been. In Antioch where they were called Christians. In Antioch where they fasted and prayed. In Antioch where there were willing spirits under the control of Holy Spirit. The church in Jerusalem during this period was trying to survive. There was also the support of believers in prayer/if you have $5 to send or 5 minutes to pray, pray! There remains the need to support financially.
A pastor sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to his flock a few weeks ago. Offerings had tapered off dangerously. It had become apparent, he wrote, that their church would not benefit after all from the Howard Hughes will. They had looked high and low, and no copy had turned up in their files or anywhere on church property. He ended the letter: “I guess it’s back to the old plan of tithes and offerings for the support of God’s work. . . . Just remember, brethren, our giving is to be weekly, not weakly.”
III. The Service of Missions Demands Enlistment. V7, . . . The deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the Word of God. It was the word that brought peace with God to Sergius. It is this message that God has Himself given to His church in these latter days. Matthew 22:9, Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye find, bid to the marriage. Romans 9:24-26, As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people which were not my people; and my beloved, which was not beloved. There shall they be called the children of God.
It is a message of which we are constantly reminded there is a terminal point. Matthew 24:14, And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all of the world; and then shall the end come: Terminated at the end of the age; terminated at the death of the unbeliever; terminated at severance of the Holy Spirit’s [involvement]; terminated at the cessation of Christian witness.
It was, however, the same word that brought the judgement of despair to Elymas, the sorcerer. It was a temporal judgement as viewed here. We preclude a larger, more engulfing judgement. Jesus reminds us, Matthew 24:5, For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. People will be deluded by false claims of salvation. V8, Elymas . . . withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from faith. While we are eager to see our church reach and surpass a coveted and worthwhile goal, there is the greater goal this Christmas season of a people enlisted in the cause of Christ for the accomplishment of missions.
Links/References
Carey: https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/c-d/carey-william-1761-1834/
1Smith, G. (2009). Life of William Carey, Public Domain Books