Reaching Out For The World

Introduction: A story is told of a missionary who fell into the hands of cannibals. "Going to eat me, I presume?" asked the missionary. The tribal chief grunted in affirmation. "Don’t do it," the missionary advised, "you won’t like me." To prove his point the missionary took out a knife, sliced a piece from the calf of his leg and handed it to the chief. "Try this and see for yourself” said the missionary. The chief took one bite and choked on it. The missionary went on and worked on the island for fifty years winning many converts to Christ. What was the secret to his being saved from becoming the meal of these cannibals? He had a cork leg! It’s a funny story but proves the point that no matter what we can reach our world for Christ.

Background: We have talked about the command that we have received from Christ – “To the ends of the earth” Should we go to our city, yes, to our nation, definitely, and the entire world, Absolutely! This is the call to the obedient church, and we should be neither to near-sighted nor to far-sighted in our efforts, for no field is foreign to Christ. We must have Christ’s outlook on missions or we cannot claim to be a Christian church, for the word “Christian” implies that we are following Christ. Believers are to be the hands and feet of Christ going and reaching out on his behalf to the whole of mankind.

Proposition: This morning we will journey through the spread of the church through the 1st Century world to see what insight we can gain to aid us as we reach out to our world today for Christ.

Transition: On the first stop of our journey will watch as the Gospel goes to….

I. THE GOSPEL GOES TO PHOENICIA AND SYRIA

a. As we have progressed along through Luke’s history of the beginning of the Church we come to the point where the truth of the Gospel is going to be given to the Gentiles by Paul

- But before we get to looking at the world-wide ministry of Paul we need to look at the incident that started this movement among the Gentiles

- It’s interesting to note that this event that will be the start of the greatest missionary thrust in history didn’t even involve Paul

- Instead we see the beginning of the mission to the Gentiles fall on the shoulders of Peter

b. Peter had been out on preaching tours from his base in Jerusalem

- He had been preaching in Lydda where he healed Aeneas, the paralytic

- This has lead to a great outcome for the Church, we read that “ all that were in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord”

- His next stop was the town of Joppa

- The response to his message was the same there as well, that all over Joppa many people believed in the Lord

- It was at this time that the Lord’s timing for the Gentiles to receive the message of Christ came to pass

c. Peter receives his vision

- In the tenth verse of chapter ten we read that while Peter was in Joppa staying with a man named Simon the Tanner

- And in the afternoon Peter was sitting on the roof of his house, feeling hungry when he fell into a trance

- This was not an artificially induced trance, like some practice. He didn’t try to get into this state this state came upon him

- And he had this vision of a large white sheet coming down from heaven with all kinds of animals in it, clean and unclean

- The point behind this is that a certain Law given to Moses