And the Holy Spirit Said
Acts 13:1-4
Everything was going well at the church at Antioch. The leadership team presided over a growing and vibrant cross-cultural church. This new church plant already was held in high repute and had reached the ears of the Apostles and leaders of the parent church at Jerusalem. It only made good sense in human wisdom to leave well enough alone. This team was producing great results.
But it has been said that “God works in mysterious ways; His wonders to perform.” This mysterious way of God is clearly demonstrated in this morning’s passage. Let us take a look.
Five men from the leadership are mentioned in the passage. Of these, we know nothing else about Simeon, Lucius, and Manaen other than they were called prophets and teachers of the church there. More in known about Barnabas and Paul who were included among them. They were the team who ruled over the church at Antioch.
The text says that they were fasting and performing their spiritual duty, most probably in a worship setting when the Holy Spirit spoke. The Holy Spirit said that He desired to separate Barnabas and Saul (Paul) for His special purpose. The Greek verb here in in the perfect tense which indicates a permanent separation from their leadership positions at Antioch.
The church responded by continuing to fast and pray. After this, they laid hands on Barnabas and Paul and sent them on their way. Apparently more was revealed to Barnabas and Saul as they went out to the port of Selucia and made sail to Cyprus in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
If one looks at the Greek further, it should be noted that the main sentences are “The Holy Spirit spoke;” “The church dismissed them;” “They departed to the port of Selucia;” and “They sailed to Cyprus.” Everything else is grammatically subordinate to these statements.
Why is this important? First of all, it clearly demonstrates the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit over the Church. The fasting and worship of the church did not cause the Holy Spirit to come. As important as fasting, worship, service and prayer are, they are not sovereign over the move of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Spirit spoke on His own authority for His own purpose. This shows by the way that the Holy Spirit is equally God with the Father and the Son. It happened to be that the church was at worship and fasting at the time. And even these things were ordained by the Lord.
The work of God is not in any way dependent upon the works of men, even the ones He has ordained. Surely, the church is called to fast, pray, worship, lay hands upon ordinands, do works of mercy and such. But God even used Saul the King to prophesy, even though Saul was in manifest disobedience to the God. John records that the wicked Caiaphas also prophesied by the Holy Spirit because Caiaphas was High Priest. Saul of Tarsus was not in a prayer meeting on the way to Damascus when the Lord Jesus appeared to Him. There have also been many occasions of the obedient church fasting, praying and worshipping where the Holy Spirit did not audibly speak.
The important thing to realize is that God wears no human handcuffs. His will cannot be thwarted. This is a lesson that the church continues to have to learn. The church is not to lead God but to discern and obey the leading of God. Aw we have noted, human wisdom says “leave well enough alone.” We tend to think that surely God sees everything the way we do. Here Saul and Barnabas were probably the chief leaders of the leadership team. How could two such able men be replaced? What’s going to happen to the church? Does not God understand how important these men are to us?
These certainly are the type of questions that could be asked here. So we need to fast forward in time. The Church of Antioch continued to grow in the absence of Paul and Barnabas. It became a great teaching center for early Christians. Its bishop became one of the great metropolitan bishops along with Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria. Many good teachers and prophets came out from that church and served as a blessing all over the world of its day.
Did problems develop? Certainly, but there are always problems to deal with in the church. There would be a great controversy which would soon break out there over the place of Gentiles in the church which would require Barnabas and Paul upon return from the first missionary journey to take a delegation to Jerusalem to settle this matter. There are indications that bishop Ignatius had some issues with the church as well. But what does not change is God’s sovereign purpose for His church,
John tells us that the Spirit is like the word which blows according to its will. One cannot discern the source of the wind or its destination. It is a mystery. I will not begin to try to explain why God does what He does apart from the promises of Scripture like that in Romans which says that “He works out everything to good, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” To promises like these, let us hang our hope.
I will not tell you that there is a certain formula to get God to move the way we expect God to do in the church. I cannot promise that if we fast and pray, a Holy Ghost revival will result. This is in God’s sovereign purpose. I can say that the church is called to attend unto prayer, to preach and teach, to worship, and such things as God has ordained them. These we ought to do in response to the call of God who commands us to obey everything He has told us to do. In the midst of this a great revival might proceed. And it could be that revival seems to come out of the clear blue sky. What we need to do is like what the church at Antioch. We must continue in prayer, worship, prophecy, and teaching. And in prayer it is perfectly proper to petition Him for revival and that we might hear and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We should also take away from this passage that even God calls leaders out of a church for His special purpose, that we should not fret. Nor should leaders fret that they are abandoning their flock. We must have faith that the God who calls is the Lord of the Church. He will take proper care of it. He can raise up other leaders to take the place. If this should happen, the paradigm of this passage is that while attending to the duties of the church which God ordains that the Holy Spirit should call, the Church is to obey without question. The church here fasted, prayed, then laid hands on them and sent Barnabas and Saul out to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Only be sure it is the Holy Spirit who is speaking.
Finally, we must be careful that we don’t try to make ourselves sovereign over the church. It is easy for us to substitute our plans for church growth, revival, and the such for the plan of God. It may be well intended, but God is not dependent upon human schemes and plans. He may indeed use these as His means of making revival happen, but God is equally free to ordain other means if He so wishes.
I feel that today that a lot of what goes for evangelism are no more than human schemes which arise from human wisdom, from psychology, and from the business world. I go to coffee houses on occasion and hear these plans all the time. I hear a lot of organizational terms used. They talk about functions of certain teams as though they were growing any human organization. And indeed, some of these churches have attained some size and stature. I hope and pray that it is of the Lord. But it bothers me that at all these team meetings I overhear, I rarely hear Scripture quoted not application of Christian theological truths. It all organization talk. What I want to hear is why we are doing what we are doing. What I want to hear is the voice of the Holy Spirit. I want a pastor who is a pastor and not the CEO of a Christian business marketing a Jesus of some sort.
The church is the Lord’s. We are His people, and we are the sheep of His pasture. I eagerly await the move of the Spirit. But I accept no substitutes, no matter what the appearance. O Lord, please speak to us. Amen.
