NOV 21 2021 | Takin’ It to the Streets S1E8 | God’s Advantage

Sea Change Church · Takin' It to the Streets · "God's Advantage" Pastor Harry Wilson · November 21, 2021
Acts 13:1-4
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, my name is Jamie Yates. Be Thou My Vision is my favorite hymn, so thank you so much. That was beautiful. I'm going to be reading scripture today from Acts 13, verses 1 through 4. Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. 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.

Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. The word of the Lord. Take this message to my brother. You will find him everywhere. Oh, no. Oh, no. Taking it to the street. Taking it, taking it. Taking it to the street. Oh, yeah. Taking it to the street. Taking it to the street. Taking it to the street.

Oh, yeah. We can't. Hello. My name is Harry. I'm the Student Ministries Pastor on staff. And we're all about authenticity at this church. So that's good. I want to give a couple shout-outs. First, Noel and Jacob. You guys probably didn't think you'd get a shout-out. First row. We met Noel and Jacob. Well, my wife's known them. But they were in our laundry room doing laundry. And Noel was wearing a God is Dope shirt. And we're talking about evangelism.

And I'm, like, taking notes. That is amazing. That's what I need. So I was like, you? Are you a Christian? You don't wear a God is Dope shirt unless you're a Christian. Anyway, we invited them to church. And so I was stoked you guys are here. Jamie, thanks for reading scripture. She volunteers with our high school girls. And she's awesome and does an amazing job. Waverly, I haven't seen you in a long time. I'd just like to give some shout-outs.

Okay. We are continuing in our series titled, Taking It to the Streets. And we are looking at how the gospel, which is the good news that Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, he came. He lived a perfect life. He went to the cross. And he died as my substitute. He took my sin. He took all the ways in which I fall short. And he bore it. He was punished for it. And through his death and resurrection, I now have newness of life.

In fact, his righteousness, his goodness, his beauty is put on me. And so I stand before God, righteous and blameless. That's the good news of the gospel. And that is what the apostles in the book of Acts, which we are in right now, were taking to the streets to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ. And we are going to start, and I just want to go ahead and look at the first two verses together. So looking at verse one.

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. 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. So what we see in this moment is this little gathering of prophets and teachers. And we know that this moment, this moment is the birth of the greatest missionary movement of all time.

Greatest missionary movement of all time is about to be birthed in this moment. Why? We know that Paul and Barnabas will be sent out, that Paul will go and he will spread the message of the gospel all around Asia Minor, planting churches, ministering to people, writing letters to these churches, which would eventually become over half of our New Testament and effectively change the world. This is the most effective missionary movement of all time.

It's the beginning. And what I want us to notice is right beforehand, right beforehand, right before the world is changed by this mission, what are they doing? What are they doing? I want you to notice what they're not doing. This is not a strategy meeting. I like strategy meetings. It's not a strategy meeting. This is not a mission strategy evangelist meeting. They're worshiping and fasting. All the focus here is on God.

That word worshiping can actually be translated ministering to the Lord. They're serving the Lord, worshiping the Lord, ministering to the Lord. All their focus and desire is on God. No agenda but Him. But that they might know Him as they lead as prophets and teachers in the church. And notice, circle the word while. While they're fasting and praying, God speaks. The Holy Spirit speaks. I put in your notes that we all want to hear from God.

We all want to hear from God. But few are willing to spend significant time fasting, praying, and worshiping for the sole purpose of praising God. We all want to hear from God. We're all interested to hear from God. But few of us have the motivation or the desire to spend significant time fasting, praying, and worshiping. In fact, we live in a culture that if you can spend 10 minutes a day in a devotional, you're like a pretty good Christian.

So why is that? Why is it that we just find it difficult to fast, pray, worship, be attentive to God? Why is that? I'll give you a couple reasons. I'll give you one reason because there's a lot. I'll give you one reason. I say one reason is we don't really believe we need it. We don't really believe we need it. In fact, we're pretty sure we can get by just fine without it. In fact, maybe it's a hindrance because we're pretty busy.

We don't really believe we need it. Our problem is that we're not desperate enough. When I first started working here, I was 21 years old. Drea wasn't even here, but she calls, when I first started working here, fresh off the boat, Harry. At a time, I proved I was fresh off the boat because I microwaved noodles to make pasta, but no water was in them. So it just almost started a fire. We're good. Everybody's here. That's great.

So fresh off the boat, Harry, 21 years old. I just got this job, and I really was coming and experiencing a revival of my faith. I'd grown up with a faith, but I was experiencing this revival of my own faith because I had really left it on a back burner for a long time. And so I was kind of coming back to faith, kind of miraculously. I started meeting with Pastor Adam, Adder past him. And I started meeting with him and getting coffee.

And all of a sudden, he gives me this offer to be an intern here as a middle school pastor. And I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that that was the door I was supposed to go through. And as I did, I really had this feeling of like, wow, you are so behind. You're so behind. You're so behind in your scripture knowledge. You're so behind in your understanding. You're so behind in your own relationship with God.

You've been gone so long, and now you're going to lead these little middle school souls. You're so behind. And so I'd spend every day two to three hours in study of the scripture, in prayer, in worship, and just seeking after God two to three hours a day. And some people think, wow, that's a long time. Some of you are more spiritual. You're like, that's nothing, brushing it off your shoulders. That's a long time for a lot of people.

And so some people could think, well, Harry, you're just so dedicated. You were just so dedicated. I wasn't dedicated. I was desperate. I was desperate because I truly believed if I did not spend that time, I'd fail. If I did not spend that time, I would not be able to speak for God and not be able to guide these little souls. I would fail. I was desperate. I was not dedicated. This is not about Harry's spirituality.

It was about his desperation. And see, our problem is, our problem more often than not, well, it's never, I'll say this, our problem is never that we're not strong enough. We tend to think that's our problem. I'm just not strong enough. I'm not strong enough in my faith. I'm not strong enough to be disciplined. We think I'm just not strong enough. That's not your problem. Your problem is that you're not weak enough. You're not desperate enough.

You're not dependent enough. You don't really believe that it's all him and that I have to go to him. I need to go to him. What my wife needs most from me is for me to go to him. What your husband needs most from you is for you to go to him. What your children need most from you is for you to go to him. We need to be a more desperate people that understand our weakness. Why do you think that Jesus so often says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. It's because the desperate are the attentive. And I put in your notes that evangelism and mission are born out of the spring of spiritual attentiveness. Seeking God both personally and corporately. It's the desperate. So to ask you a question. Is your life marked by worship? Is your life marked by worship? Philippians 3 chapter 3. Paul says, for we are the true circumcision.

We're the circumcision. Circumcision meaning he's saying we're the true church. We're the true people of God. How do you know? He continues on and he says, who? Worship by the spirit and glory in Christ Jesus. How do you know who the church is? They worship by the spirit and they glory in Christ Jesus. And he continues to say, putting no trust in the flesh. How do you know? Is your life marked by worship? Is there some marking on your life by worship?

Let's go back to the scripture. And I want us to look still in verse 2. It says, while they're 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. I want to look at the word for me. Set apart for me. For me is in the dative case in the Greek. And we don't have that case in English. But this is what's called a dative of advantage. Meaning it's stating that the setting apart is being done for the benefit of or the advantage of the speaker.

So the Holy Spirit's saying, set apart for my benefit, Barnabas and Saul. Set apart for my advantage, Barnabas and Saul, to the work in which I have called them. And that's one of the greatest things about being a Christian. That in some way, out of God's greatness and mercy, it's not that we can add anything to him, but that out of his mercy and love, he can use us for his benefit and his advantage. Set apart for my benefit.

They're about to go change the world, and it's for God's benefit. It's for him. And this is actually, I think this is a little different than how we tend to think about evangelism. Because we often think about evangelism as it's for the benefit of the other. Right? It's for the benefit of the hearer. It's for the benefit of those we're evangelizing to. And that's true. Right? I believe that. That's biblical. It's true.

Hallelujah. We totally believe that it is beneficial for someone who is not a believer in Christ to come to faith in Christ. That benefits them. But if that's our only understanding of evangelism, it's just half the picture. It's just half the picture. In fact, I put in your notes that the primary motivation for evangelism is that his name would be exalted wherever it is not. That the primary motivation for evangelism is him.

It's for his benefit. It's for his glory. It's for his name. It's an understanding, a God-centric mentality that it's all for him. This, I believe, is also how Jesus viewed evangelism. Look at the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18 through 19. It says, And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go to all nations, everywhere, and make it known. Go to all nations and everywhere and bring people to the reality of my kingdom. Not by force, right? Christians have made that mistake. Not by force. By how? Making disciples. All authority, heaven and on earth, given to me. Therefore, go to all nations and let them know. And bring them to the reality of my kingdom.

It's all for the sake of Christ. I put in your notes, when we fail to worship Christ, we are in rebellion against reality. Because what's true is that it all belongs to Him. And if we're not in line with that, we're rebelling against what's real. We're rebelling against what's true. It all belongs to Him. One objection that people have to this, I think there's actually a couple, but I'll give one, is that it sounds kind of egotistical.

It sounds kind of egotistical of God, right? Like, does God really need everyone everywhere to worship Him? Like, why is God such an egomaniac, right? Like, can He chill a little bit, right? I work with high school kids, so that's what I hear. And that's the objection. Why is God so egotistical that He needs everyone to worship Him? So I'd like to remind you that He's God. And because He's God, as one of my favorite southern preachers likes to say, is God's not running for God.

There's not going to be an election. There's not going to be a recount. God is God, and God knows it. He's aware of it. So if God knows He's God, that means God knows He's the most beautiful, divine, perfect, loving, merciful, kind, just, righteous being on all of existence, and for God not to be about God would be blasphemous against Himself. So yes, God is for the purposes of God because He's God. Hallelujah. Cool.

You're rocking with me. Take that, high school kid! All right. Just kidding. So, and also, so yes, God's about God, and in His grace, in His mercy, He's also about you. Praise God. In fact, He's so about you that He sent His only Son to die as your substitute. And do you know what the reward is? Do you know what the reward is for the Son? It's you. The reward for the Son is a people. The reward for the Son, for the sufferings of the Son, it's you.

It's a people. It's what's called the Bride of Christ, the Church. It's you. So God is about God, but He's deeply and truly about you. because you're His reward. And this idea has actually been, it's been a motivation for evangelism and missions for a long time. There's kind of a famous missionary story from 1732 from these two people, Nietzsche and Dober. And Nietzsche and Dober were going to leave. They'd be the first people to leave.

They lived in, I don't know where, somewhere far, Herat, or something. I don't know where that is. Geography was not my skill set. But they lived, they were the first person to leave where they were. And what they had sought out to do is that they had heard that there was these African slaves, and let's see, I wrote it down, in the Caribbean. There's African slaves in the Caribbean. And these slaves, the gospel was being preached in the Caribbean.

However, these slaves were not hearing the gospel. People were not preaching to the gospel. They were catching wind of it, and they had heard that there was this hunger to hear the gospel. There was a desire amongst the slaves to hear the gospel, yet no one was preaching the gospel to the slaves. So Nietzsche and Dober decide, that's us. That's us. We're going to go, and we're going to preach to the slaves. But what they find out is the only way that that would be able to happen is they'd have to be amongst the slaves.

They'd have to sell themselves into slavery. And so, that's what they set out to do, and there's this story of them on a boat, and they're leaving and pulling away from the dock and looking out at their family and friends who they may not see again as they sell themselves into slavery to preach the gospel. And one of them raises a fist in this story, historical missionary tale. And he says to them, and he says to the people on the dock, and I put it in your notes, may the lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering.

What motivated them? What motivated the early missionaries? What motivated them to sell themselves into slavery so that the lamb that was slain might receive the reward of his suffering? That Christ might receive the fullness of his reward. See, it's all focused on Christ. They're motivated by their love for Christ. That is our main mode of evangelism. It's our main motive of evangelism is love and adoration for Christ that he might have the fullness of his reward.

They actually later found out that they were two white men and nobody was buying white slaves. They were trying to sell themselves into slavery. They got rejected and laughed at and mocked at. They had to work their trade to get to the Caribbean and they still found a way, but they couldn't be sold into slavery. It actually made it harder, yet they still fought to make sure. They still fought to make sure that they could get there and preach the gospel.

Let's look at verses, let's look at verse 3 really quick. It says, Then after fasting and praying, notice the Holy Spirit speaks, they don't stop fasting and praying. They keep fasting and praying. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. I just want us to notice a couple things. One, I put in your notes that we see no signs of grumbling that some are chosen to be sent out in this moment while others are not.

Instead, the Spirit speaks and brings unity to the collective. There's no sign of grumbling. Simeon's not like, well, why wasn't I sent out? What about me? There's no, what about me? There's a unity for the mission, a unity in the group that is sent by the Spirit. There's no clamoring for attention, like, oh man, that should be me. There's unity. The Spirit speaks and brings unity because it's all about the mission, which I put in your notes for the early church, the missional supersedes the personal.

And it's not that the personal's not important. You see that all throughout the letters of Paul. The personal's deeply important, but they were about the mission. The mission. I had a friend, I've been debating if I should tell this story. My wife approved it, and if you don't like it, you can email Drea at LJCF. Just kidding. We'll see if I tell it's second service. There was a time, so I was a sophomore in high school and I was on the wrestling team and any wrestlers, any ex-wrestlers, Tony, I didn't know that, dude.

Let's meet in the parking lot after. I have a little wrestle-off. I'm just kidding. That's awesome. All right, so I was a sophomore in high school. Tony, I'll bring back memories for you, and what you do is when you go to a tournament, it's like 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning, you're in a room with like 100 to 300 boys depending on the size of the tournament, and you've got to go weigh in. You've got to go weigh in. In wrestling, you strip down to your boxers and you go and you weigh in, and all the kids at that time, still today, they're kind of cracking down on it now, but you cut weight.

You cut weight to get to a lower class, and because everyone's doing it, you've got to do it, and so you're cutting weight, and the way you cut weight is you lose water weight by sweating it out, sweating it out, and dieting and stuff, and so we had a kid who it was his senior year that year, and this kid, his name's Peter. He was just a good wrestler, really good wrestler, and it was the CIF Championships, and the whole team was rallied up behind Peter because we're like, Peter's winning it this year.

He's just a good wrestler, and so we show up for the weigh-ins at 6 a.m., but Peter's overweight. He's overweight by not a lot, like a pound, and so they're not gracious. You have to be exactly on weight, and so Peter starts jogging. He starts running. He starts trying to sweat more weight, and it's harder and harder the more you've sweated out, and so he's sweating and trying his best, sweating and trying his best, and he gets down to like 0.2, 0.2 pounds.

He's so close, and he's been sweating, and he's weighing in in his undergarments, and he's sweating, but because he's been sweating, even his undergarments, this is why I'm afraid to tell the story, are just like sweaty, and they're weighing him down, and you can't strip down your skivvies anymore. You used to be allowed to and weigh in, and so that's even weighing him down, and we're like, Peter's not going to make it.

He's not going to win the championship. What are we going to do? And I realize he just needs a dry pair of underwear. There was no bathroom, so I had the team. I was like, everybody gather around and block me up. You're not allowed to do this, and I give the guy my underwear. I'm like, go weigh in. Go weigh in. Peter makes weight. He makes weight, and he wins the championship. Yes. All right. All for the mission, man.

All for the mission. We're in on the mission. And it was accomplished. The early church was all in for the mission. How all in are you for the mission of evangelism? Hard to go from that story back to evangelism. I know. Make the jump with me. We're doing it. We're doing it. All for the mission of Christ, that his name might be glorified and made great. Let's look at verse 4 together. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

I want to look at the word sent out. So, being, circle, sent out. Sent out is in the passive tense, which means that it's happening to them. This is not something they're doing. This is not Barnabas sending Paul, or Paul sending Barnabas, or them sending themselves. This is not their idea. This is not of their own volition. This is them being sent out. It's happening to them by the Holy Spirit. Why? For the works that God has for them.

And Paul, so often, sent out by the Holy Spirit when he writes these letters, he will introduce himself as a slave of Christ Jesus. That he's just obeying what the Spirit has him do. He's going where the Spirit calls. I put in your notes that the paradox of Christianity is that true freedom is found in slavery to Christ. true freedom is found in slavery and submission to Christ. More and more, my prayer has been, God, use me.

Use me. And I've prayed that for a long time, but I used to say, use me in this way. Use me like this. Use me like that. Use me in this way. Now it's just, God, use me. I don't care how. I don't care how. However you see fit, use me. Let that be our prayer. That we would be sent out by God to be used however he sees fit. Amen? Amen. I'm going to pray and we'll invite up the band for a closing benediction. I want to also invite up the worship team if you want, or sorry, the prayer team.

If you want prayer, we'll have people praying here at the front. We're also, there's a next steps table in the back. If you want to hear more, if anything here is stirred in your heart today and you want to hear more about the gospel, there are people ready to pray with you, ready to talk to you about what's next. So, stand if you would and I will pray over us. and we love to bless you here so extend your hands for a blessing.

Father, thank you God for your goodness. Help us to be attentive to you. To set our eyes on you. That we might be fixated on you. so that when you speak, we hear. Let us be a people, God, who hear your voice. And as we're sent out now, God, we pray just a blessing, God, of attentiveness, a blessing of hearing, God, of knowing you more, of obedience to your voice and your spirit. And I pray, God, on each one of us, you would speak to us about where we're sent.

It might be just to our families. It might be across the world. But where are you sending us? God, we love you. We thank you. We praise your name. Let it be glorified. In your name we pray. Amen.