Why do Mission?
One of the questions often asked by Christians over the last 30 or so years has been the question, "Why should we still be sending people out to preach the gospel to other nations and cultures?" Sometimes the question is asked in a slightly more negative way: e.g. "Do we have the right to try to change the way people worship God? Do we have the right to go into other cultures and tell them they’re doing it the wrong way?" That’s because part of our reaction to our colonial past has been to fear the perpetuating of colonial attitudes through missionaries taking their western culture to other countries, along with the gospel. And you can understand why those sorts of questions arise when you see African and Asian and South American church leaders dressing up in clothes that were designed to keep you warm in freezing English Churches in the middle of winter.
But is that enough reason to stop taking the gospel to other nations, to people who haven’t yet heard it? And even forgetting other nations, people want to know do we have a right to share the gospel with our fellow Australians who all have their own sets of beliefs and values? These are the sorts of questions that people are asking, even some Christians are asking, particularly those of a more liberal bent. They want to know whether in this multi-faith society of ours we still have a reason to go and share the gospel with others?
Well that’s the first of two questions we’re going to address today as we look at this passage from Acts 13. It’s interesting that those sorts of questions never seem to arise in the New Testament. Despite the fact that theirs was just as multicultural and certainly more multi-faith than ours, they had no hesitation in sharing the gospel with those who hadn’t heard it. So why is that?
Well, first of all, I guess, because they had Jesus’ direct command, his last words to them, still ringing in their ears: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel." And as you saw a couple of weeks ago when Michael preached on Acts 11, there was an inevitability about the spread of the gospel as people moved out from Jerusalem and simply talked to their neighbours about this new found faith. They couldn’t help themselves, could they? They just had to tell people this amazing message of a man who’d died and then risen again.
What we find here is that as the church grows God steps in to make sure that it grows even faster. God’s Spirit comes to the Christians in Antioch and gives them an even greater impetus for sharing the gospel. He tells them to send out Saul and Barnabas for the specific ministry of sharing the gospel with the wider world.
Now you could ask the question whether they’d eventually have thought of this by themselves. Perhaps they might have. But then maybe they wouldn’t. Remember that Saul had been brought to Antioch by Barnabas to teach the new converts, particularly the Gentile converts, about their new faith. And we could probably assume that the work of teaching people could have gone on for years. As you know there’s a lot in the Scriptures to teach people and presumably Saul could have kept going for years and years expounding the Scriptures to this small church. And it’s a natural inclination for churches to want to hang on to the good ministry they’ve been receiving. But God had a wider world in mind. He’d chosen Saul right from the beginning to take the gospel to the Gentile world. We saw that back in ch 9:15 where we read about his conversion. And in fact, by the end of this passage that’s exactly what he’s driven to, as the Jewish leaders reject his message. But in the meantime God needs to motivate them to get moving. So he gives them a message through his Holy Spirit, while they’re together at worship, and says "Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."
Now before we move on to the second question we need to address today, let me ask you, does this help us with the question of whether we should still be sharing the gospel with those of other faiths and other cultures? I think the answer hinges on what God’s desire is for those who haven’t heard about Jesus today. It depends on whether God is still calling people out through the inspiration of his Holy Spirit to take the gospel to other people. More importantly, is he still speaking to churches and saying set those apart for me who have the gifts to do this work? Well, my experience is that that’s exactly what he’s doing. What’s more, my reading of his word is that the call to share the gospel is as important now as it was when Jesus first gave it. When Jesus said to go into all the world, he meant just that. When he talked about the ends of the earth he was including every area of the world. That means Namibia where the Prentices are. It means Chile where the Peters are. But it also means Surrey Hills where we are; or Box Hill or Blackburn or Balwyn, or Burwood, or Canterbury. Wherever we live or work or play we’ll find people who are still in great need of the salvation that Jesus offers them. And if you think about it "All the world" is a much larger group of people today than it was in the first century. So, yes! The call to share the gospel with people is as great today as it ever was. And the basis on which we take that gospel to those people is the same as it ever was. We do it because God commands it. First through the direct command of Jesus Christ and second through the instructions given by the Holy Spirit to the Church.
How to do Mission?
But having said that, we then need to ask, how is this monumental task to be done? Well, there are a few hints in the passage before us so let’s look at some of the ways Saul and Barnabas went about spreading the gospel in the wider world.
A. By proclaiming the word of God
Having been sent out they first go to Cyprus and, being Jews, the first place they go is to the local synagogues. And notice what they do there: "They proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews." Their first approach was to proclaim God’s word. In their case that meant the Old Testament. Why? Because in the Old Testament we find the testimony to the coming of the Messiah. In our case we might want to start with one of the gospels, depending on how much our hearers know. But the point is that they begin with what God has revealed about himself already. Later, as we’ll see in a moment, they go on to what’s happened in Jerusalem, but their first point of reference is God’s word.
B. By demonstrating God’s Power
But they don’t just use words. As we discover in the next encounter, they also demonstrate the truth of what they’re saying by the things they do. As they’re passing through the island they come across a magician. His name’s Bar-Jesus or Elymas in Greek. He’s a magician who’s been hanging around the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, no doubt for monetary gain. So he has an interest in keeping him from being converted. Well, Saul, who we’re now told is also called Paul, isn’t going to let a magician stand in his way. First he points out what he’s really doing - "making crooked the straight paths of the Lord." And then he shows where the real power in the situation lies. Elymas is struck blind for a time and the onlookers are amazed at this demonstration, not of magic, but of the power of God that accompanies the preaching of the gospel.
Now it seems to me that we too will be faced by people who will oppose the preaching of the gospel at a number of levels and in all sorts of ways. They’ll do it for similar reasons to Elymas, perhaps. That is, because the gospel threatens their livelihood, or their comfortable lifestyle, or their status among their friends. They use similar methods to oppose us: that is by trying to undermine our message in the minds of our listeners. And it’s easy to give in to these sorts of pressures. People will try to manipulate us to tone down the message. They’ll try to make out that the message of the gospel is just our opinion. Then they’ll try to make us feel guilty for foisting our opinions on others when others’ opinions are just as valid.
But what we see here is that this isn’t just our opinion. This is a message that God has sent to his people; to those whom he’s created. And he shows it’s a message from him by backing it up with results. Now I’m not suggesting that we ask God to strike people blind. I’m not sure that would be a good thing to do in our particular culture, though it might be in other cultures around the world. But we can point to the way God works in our lives and in the lives of Christians we know to do amazing things.
We can point out the reality of what people are doing when they lay an emotive heavy on us. We can point out the fallacy of believing that any worldview is valid as long as you believe it sincerely. We can point out the emptiness of people’s philosophies of life, of their inability to deal with the real issues of life in this world; but always with the hope that they’ll see not our wisdom or cleverness, but the power of God that comes through the message of the gospel.
C. By showing how God has worked in the past
Paul and his companions then set out for the mainland and when they get to Antioch in Pisidia we get an expanded version of the way they preach the gospel. This may be similar to what they did in Cyprus, expounding the word of God, but here we get perhaps a better idea of just how they went about it. Here we discover they’re not just expounding the Bible. They’re actually recounting the way God has acted over the history of Israel to bring about the salvation of his people.
They begin with God’s choosing of Abraham, then the formation of the nation in Egypt and the Exodus. They move from the settling of Canaan through the appointment of King Saul, to David the greatest of Israel’s Kings, a man after God’s own heart. Now up until this point none of this would have been new. The congregation would all have been nodding their heads, thinking how great it was to have this very knowledgeable speaker from Jerusalem visiting their little synagogue. But then Paul drops the bombshell. God has now brought one of David’s descendants to Israel as a saviour, just as he promised. He gave testimony to him by the preaching of John the Baptist. No doubt they all would have heard of John by now. Then he goes on to recount the events of Jesus’ crucifixion: his death, his burial and his resurrection. For these Jewish believers the good news is this: what God had promised has now been fulfilled. Jesus is alive. Through him "forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you; 39by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses." And then he gives them a warning that they not fall into the trap foretold by the prophets, of hearing the good news but rejecting it.
D. By connecting with peoples’ own story.
Now notice how Paul moves in that speech, from God’s word, from the record of what God has done for them, to their own story, to the events of their own day. His proclamation of the gospel requires them to get the connection between God’s story and their story, between ancient history and current events. Of course in their case current events were very closely connected with God’s story. But this is a principle that we need to have clear in our minds. It’s no use just talking about what God has done in the past. For most people these days anything that happened before Christmas is ancient history. But neither is it enough to just talk about people’s own history. We’re already self-centred enough without reinforcing the tendency. What’s more if we just work from people’s own world we’ll struggle to find the resources to cope with the world as it really is. No, we need to make a connection between what God has done in the past and is doing right now, and the situation that people find themselves in.
In some cases of course that may mean starting from scratch as far as talking to others about what God has done. These days I generally assume a zero knowledge base about Christian things among the vast majority of people. And that means that we need to temper some of this with wisdom about where to start with people. In fact when we get to Acts 17 we’ll see that Paul takes a quite different approach to the people of Athens whose knowledge of the Jewish faith would have been limited. But still, we need to connect people’s own stories with the story of God’s work in the world.
E. By acting according to gospel principles
But finally, notice what happens when the Jewish leaders reject Paul’s message, basically out of jealousy. He and Barnabas accept their rejection as a sign that it’s time to take the gospel to the Gentiles. They say: "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles. 47For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ’I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth’" (Is 49:6). In the face of this opposition they continue to act with integrity and according to gospel principles. The gospel is a message that was always intended for all people. God’s desire was that the Jewish people would be the agents for taking that message to the world, but if this part of the Jewish people refuse to accept it then Paul and Barnabas will do it themselves. And as a result the Gentiles are brought into the people of God and we read: "48When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers. 49Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region."
So here’s what we discover in this first account of the missionary journeys of Paul and Barnabas. They go because God sends them, because God’s desire is that all people everywhere should hear about the salvation that comes through knowing Jesus Christ. And as they go the approach they take, particularly with those who have a Jewish background, is to proclaim the word of God, to demonstrate the validity of the message by showing how God is at work in his messengers, by showing how God has worked in the past, and connecting that to people’s own stories. And overarching it all is a concern to act according to gospel principles so that everyone who needs to hear the message gets a chance to hear it.
We’re still called to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. That means here in Surrey Hills as well as in Namibia or Chile. We too can make the connection between God’s story and the stories of our friends or family or work mates. We might need to think how best to do that, but it’s something that God desires us to do and that each of us is capable of in our own way and at our own level. So let’s pray that God’s Spirit, having called us to this task would enable us to carry it out.
For discussion questions and more sermons from this source go to http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sttheos
