There was a man sent from God. Those two statements, if considered carefully, almost stand in juxtaposition or present one of those common divine oxymorons, if you will, And we've taken some time together in the past to consider just some of the things expressed in those statements. I will take a little time to review that since we've considered this separated by quite an amount of time. And then explore a little bit more some the sense that God is communicating to us in that expression sent from God. Now what does that mean? How are we to take that? Especially when we handle and deal with such very, very human messengers and tools in our place. The last two times we've considered and used that passage really as a topical jump off point. I've taken a little bit of time to talk about some of the purpose and the motivation behind this kind of a study, a way of thinking. And I want to not review that but expand a little bit more why on earth go here What's the point? What's the value in taking a little time to dig in? Because we are, you know, fairly established as an assembly with our leadership and so on. But I think there's value into understanding why we do some of the things we do. So maybe another disclaimer should be added to this. This isn't because I perceive a problem or an issue here. One of the things that is wonderful about being part of Christ's body and having His Spirit guide us, I think we find that people who are submitted, following God, whose heart is inclining them because of regeneration and the Spirit's work in their lives, toward sanctification and godliness and obedience and surrender, I think in many cases find themselves sometimes even maybe unknowingly or unintentionally doing the good thing because God's spirit in them is guiding them. But I think there are also benefits to going back and visiting why we are doing the good thing. and articulate maybe or begin some good meditation and direction for us for these reasons. One of them is because our own personal spiritual health, and I say this first of all to us as individuals, but then even to us as a small assembly portion of the entire body of Christ, our own individual spiritual health and spiritual understanding has an effect on the entire body of Christ, even in our own private worship, because we are part of the whole. And our own spiritual health affects the whole, even though we may not be given a great stage on which to expound or display our own understanding, our own growth, our own spiritual maturity, we are a part of this whole body. And what we do, what we think, really affects the whole. But then even beyond that, The fact is that we do, all of us, exercise a sphere of influence upon the body of Christ, not only here in our assembly, but in other locales. Some of us have occasion to revisit with some consistency other congregations, perhaps because we go visit family on an annual basis. And while we're visiting with them, we take time to attend their local assembly and to be faithful to God by showing up there even if we're not in this place. That's one way. Another thing that we have discovered in the last few years through globalization and world flattening in some senses, that is really true in a lot of ways, even in the church. Through media, publication, now the internet, and so many other methods, the Church of Christ in a lot of ways has gotten smaller, even though in some ways it has gotten more diverse. And there are, you know, not just books and publications, not just institutions which reach out and affect a larger group of us, but blogs and weekly communications, Facebook, just all kinds of means by which we And there's some benefit to that. I won't deny it. You'll find me personally, I'm pretty reticent and pull the reins back on all of those things and tend maybe someone could accuse me of being isolationist. I don't know if that's legitimate or not. But we still affect a lot of others in the body of Christ by our own thinking, by our own expressions. And hopefully it is more often than not intentional and calculated. All of our communications and interactions should be for edification of the body of Christ. And so being able to think through some of the things that we seem to just do or articulate them, I think is beneficial and helpful. So that's a part of the purpose. Our pastor has also expressed some of his heart in leading us. is that we, by both of those methods and others, have an effect on the culture of the church here locally, the church as a whole that is all around us in our locale, and then in other places too. And so I think it's good for us to go back and consider things that might not be necessarily confrontationally instructive, but just to help us think our way through some of our posture and our responses. Now obviously, I personally started in this and we together have explored these things months and even more than just months ago, not predicated by where our church is right now. But perhaps there is some benefit to the fact that now we are looking at this question of eldership and a new elder, and we might influence our thinking or help ourselves through some things by reconsidering some of the truth expressed in those verses in John chapter 1. There was a man, And we spent some time considering the humanity factor of God's servants. And the fact that that has presented problems, both for the servant himself. In fact, we find that even in our omnipotent Lord, when He took on Him, as Philippians says, the form of a servant was found in the likeness of man, fashioned in our image, When he walked on earth and, going back to John 1, exposed to us the glory of the Father, he found himself in his ministry limited by humanity, his own humanity. And when he was in certain areas where people stumbled at his humanity and their response to him was, wait a minute, we know who this man's parents are. His brothers are with us and his sisters. We know where he lives and where he came from. And in fact, they even challenged him with, we're not born of fornication. We know about you and your unwed mother. His humanity was a problem to them. And the Bible says in response to that, his ministry was limited. He could not do many of his works in that area because of that stumbling block. And we find that humanity often is a an occasion of limitation to the rest of God's servants and shepherds as well. And we observe some of that historically through scripture. We talked about Moses and the problem that his humanity was to his own self and his own flesh. And then we move from there to the problems that the humanity of God's men presents to those to whom they minister. And as they respond to them and so on. And then we also looked at a good response to that. How God's people have responded and how God has comforted and encouraged them in their responses. We didn't have time for this one, but if you want to jot down a couple things and tuck it away maybe someday in all of your spare time while you're meditating on this. And I think a lot of God's men and God's servants gone back at least to this train of thought, if not specifically to these events, the Lord Jesus Christ ministered to himself encouragement in the face of those kinds of obstacles with a couple of truths, and you can expand on these, but when he found himself facing people who were unbelieving, because of the human factor especially, he comforted himself with these truths, basically the sovereign elective purposes of God and the direct sovereignty of the Lord in his ministry. You'll find him doing that. He kind of responds by saying, you know, only those who the Father calls will come to me. And you find him then, continuing that vein of ministry to the Apostle Paul. When Paul was struggling outside, in a sense, the city of Corinth, and put that in a whole context, Paul had met opposition after opposition after opposition. He'd been stoned to death, gotten up and walked away and comes to the city of Corinth and we kind of read in between the lines as humans that there was a little bit of discouragement there as he faced this new ministry opportunity and God comes and ministers to Paul very specifically and he says to him, his form of encouragement there is, I have a lot of people in that city. And then Paul in turn uses that same line of reasoning to encourage Timothy as a young pastor while Paul is mentoring him. So it is an important line of comfort for God's ministers to consider. as they face these kinds of issues. And we didn't expand or take time with much of that. But then we moved on from the human factor to the next phrase there in John 1. And here, obviously, he's talking about John the Baptist. And I, with personal humor, enjoy the next phrase. There was a man sent from God. His name was John, just because I happen to enjoy sharing that name. There's more to it than that. And there's a lot. When God's Holy Spirit gave us this introduction to John and to his ministry, there's a reason that he plugged in all of those lines. There was a man. Obviously, there's a contrast between John and his half-cousin, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's important. as we form our Christology and understand the subject of this Gospel, which is really Christ. But then when he plugged in this line, it also was important, sent from God. And that's validated more in John's particular case and in this story by the accounts. messengers announcing the coming of John, and appointing his purpose, and then pointing out how he had been predicted even in the Old Testament, and John was coming to fulfill a special divine mission. He was sent from God, and we can attest to that just by reading the whole story, the rest of the story, so to speak. But God put that line in there on purpose, and I believe there is an intentional divine purpose in the juxtaposition of those phrases, there was a man, but he was sent from God. And we started taking some time to examine a little bit then in context of our picture, our big picture here, what that means with regards to our response to the divine messenger. and how we view, posture, position, I guess, that one, and then ourselves in response to that one. And all we really took time to do in that was to really jump off from one passage in 1 Corinthians 10, where there are four Old Testament events listed right in a row, bang, bang, bang, bang. And this admonition to us, these things were written for our examples and some encouragement to not be like they were. And while there are a lot of lessons in those events and a lot of things we need to take away to not be like them, and endure the kind of dramatic judgments that they endure. If you go back and remember, these were stories from the Exodus, times when God did things like open a hole in the ground and swallow thousands of them, or send serpents among them, and many, many, many of them were killed. The four stories were stories all like that. And we, as New Testament believers, as members of the body of Christ, were given an exhortation to be careful that we don't find ourselves in a similar place. And one of the common sins in all four of those stories was that there was a group of people who lifted up their voice against the divine representative, the man, Moses. Now that's not the only sin, that's not the only lesson we need to take away from that particular piece of scripture. However, it is one. And it is a fearful warning. And it puts us in a place of respecting or going back again even to that first section where God ministered to men like Moses and to Samuel and said, don't worry, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. God took very personally the human response to the humanity of the messengers. And then there came occasions throughout history where God took that so personally that he exercised severe judgment on those people who murmured against God's leader. And so we took away some good conclusions, I think, or I trust from those as we studied them out and concluded that in our case, let's just make it local and immediate and personal, our pastor not only faces the temptations of his own sinful nature, his own humanity, he has to deal with that himself on his own level, And he faces the attacks of an adversary, and they're multiplied because of his humanity. He's created in God's image. He's redeemed. And because of his position of leadership and responsibility, he's a special target. He faces the hatred of the world. But the last thing that he needs is the murmuring of unsanctified church members, right? And that's true for all of our divinely given leaders. And that's where we want to move toward today, as we expand a little bit more on what it means to be sent from God. And again, huge topic and endless directions we can go, but we're going to just direct our way toward three, kind of in some senses separated, Some of them I want to use as illustration to show us that we really already are well established in a biblical perception or biblical posture. to this truth in other areas. But then I want to come back and make some other kind of practical applications. And then again, some, just take away for us and with us, maybe some warning or admonition concerning our posture, our personal postures that are important for us. So another purpose, I guess, or motivation in years ago, my launching into this study personally and then developing it and presenting it in several places, other places than this, was reactionary. And I will admit, I'll put this little caveat, we have to always be very careful. about establishing a reactionary theology or a theology that's just in reaction to an event or a person or as is, in my case, a culture. I grew up in a different part of this country or was born in a different part of this country and grew up overseas, but the corner where I come from, there is a An observed weakness, and sometimes it's kind of joked about in the church culture of the Southeast, it's acknowledged overtly or tacitly as the case may be. But because of maybe in that particular context, the proliferation of little localized congregations, In fact, the county in which I was born, there are over 300 Baptist churches in the phone book in that county. And so it makes it really easy for a church member to miss a big piece of God's intent in putting a church together, a body together, And if they are disgruntled or discontent with a personality, with a decision, they just up and go to the next one. Because there are a whole bunch more just as close. And we call it church hopping. And there are people who are actually known kind of in our circle of churches. So which one are they going to be in next? Families. And then it just you always wonder, you go back there, and year after year, when I go back, and this family that I've known, and this church, and this church, and this, they're in the other one now. And it really is a sad commentary, really on God's purposes, and on the body, but really on the spiritual maturity of those individuals. And that kind of thing may be a little, I noticed coming back down to the front range here, A little more possible here because there are a lot of churches, but where we ministered out on the western slope, they were farther apart. It was kind of harder to leave one and go to the next one. There are some good things about that. But the culture in those areas shifted to instead of church hopping, there was a lot of pastor hopping. And as I ministered there and even in the church in Steamboat for 10 years, I read back through the minutes of the church from its inception in 1960. And many of the pastoral tenures were fewer than five years, often two years, two years at a time, two years and two years and two years and two years. And I'm not suggesting that that's always a bad thing. All right, all of us, even as humans and individuals, we go through growth times where God, you know, directs different needs to or addresses maybe different needs in our growth. And we have teachers of different personalities and different gifts and different abilities. And that's fine. If that's God's directing and God's calling, I'm all for that. But as you read through those, Very, very often the separations came because of tensions or disagreements on minor issues of church polity, programs. Sometimes there were some doctrinal issues, and on an occasion or two, the church was being well-guarded and mature to initiate some form of separation. that was good, but I really don't believe that overall that mentality reflects a good understanding of God's direction, design, and heart for the church. Especially if, I'm sure that that's the case, if the separations are over petty, insignificant differences. rather than something valuable or the certainty of God's direction. Look at the Apostle Paul. He never stayed terribly long in one place. And that's fine. That was God's calling, God's ministry for him. Establish a church, disciple and train some leadership there, and go on and do that again. So I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that kind of a ministry. But let's be careful about the motivations between those separations in ways. So what does it mean when God sends, directs, appoints leadership for us? I want to consider a couple of things quickly. These are familiar really familiar, I think, to our posture in other areas. We really don't have a problem accepting human intermediary in everyone else's case, or in other situations, even in biblical history. Just go back biblically, and let's think, you know, from the very beginning, to borrow from Genesis 1.1, God created the world, and he established a human as his representative. In fact, he created that one in his own image for a lot of reasons, and then established him as God's representative over creation, gave him dominion, gave him a realm. And that first one failed, and we understand that. But God has chosen to place the human element as his representative in his divine plan on earth from the very beginning of time and of creation. Adam didn't do so well. As we move through the process of time we come to another man who in the Jewish economy And even a modern Jewish religious system that seeks in some way to be true to God's word, they acknowledge not only as God's representative, but almost synonymous with God himself when they refer to Moses. And Moses was a human with imperfections that we've already seen and observed. And yet, we, in our place, position today, have no problem acknowledging that Moses gave to us, when I say us, I'm talking humanity and God's purposes throughout the ages. Moses gave to us, he was the vehicle of revelation, I messed that one up, of God's will, God's purposes, God's commandments, all of those things were expressed to us, and we don't challenge, in our posture today, we don't challenge the divinity of the message. It's God's. Those are God's commands. That's God's Word. This is God's record. It's God's truth, in spite of the human vehicle. And of course, we can continue on just through Scriptures itself. And we find it amazing. Let's just speed all the way through quickly to the New Testament, but your mind can jump over those people. Moses, Joshua, he had problems too. Skip to the bigger names that we know, David, the prophets. And there's not a one of them. for whom we would claim perfection, sinless perfection, godly absolute righteousness, and yet we have received their ministry as being absolute and authoritative from God. Because God has made those claims, and we believe God, and we accept His word, and take Him at His word. When we come to the New Testament, context, we look at people that, for some reason, we sometimes seem to feel like we know better, or identify with maybe a little better, I don't know, people like Peter, and, you know, their characters and personalities and, but we look at them and all of them had a sin nature. And they had personality differences. They had educational differences. I mean, look at the difference between a Peter and a Paul, for example. And I've often wondered, you know, for myself, it would be fun to do this exercise together as a group and observe the differences. If I were God, not trying to be blasphemous here, but if I were God, and if I were taking this group of 12 men, and I were picking out from them one to be the main apostolic leader, would I really have picked Peter? If I were picking the man to pastor the first congregation, so to speak, after it got running, and it seems like James became the leader there of the church in Jerusalem, is that the one I would have picked? Probably not. Good thing I'm not God. Good thing you're not God. But then we read scripture and we accept the fact that it is inspired, that it is divine. Even though we look at those human instruments, their sin natures, their personality differences, their educational nature, it's obvious that God used all of those things. He didn't just verbally dictate in a perfectly God-grammar way all of those breathings. We read Peter's work, and the fact that he was an uneducated fisherman and non-Greek, is pretty apparent in his epistles. There's a great difference between them and the writings of Paul. And the miracle of inspiration is this, at the end of the day, we conclude that the miracle of inspiration is in part that God used human agency with their own personalities, with their own gifts, with their own educational level, with their own background and experience, and He still communicated to us His Word exactly as He wants us to have it. Now when we're talking about inspiration and the gift of God's Word, that should cause us to marvel at yet another display of the amazing power of our God. But then when it comes down to us personally and, you know, the human man of God, the God-sent one, often our response is a little different, isn't it? when there's something that maybe grates a little bit against our own personal idea or experience or goal or soapbox or whatever, then we use the humanity as an excuse to differ. Rather than accepting the amazing miracle that God uses human agency to give us exactly what He wants us to have. Interesting thought. So we really don't have a hard time with that principle, do we? God uses humans, and in spite of, or maybe not just in spite of their humanity, but because of His great power and His sovereignty, through them communicates to us exactly what He wants us to have, and what He wants for us. We can posture ourselves pretty easily with that. Here's an interesting personal application of this general generic principle that I've had to make, and maybe you can identify with this. All of us, especially maybe us men, have this, I don't know if it's a default, function, I think, I hope I'm not unique in this. As I listen and communicate with others, I feel like I'm kind of in the bandwagon with everyone else. Even if we do well with this, we have to do it intentionally, because we have some default programming that I know better than my in-laws. Don't we? We just do. I don't know what it is. But I find it ironic, and God had to wrestle me down with some of this, that I chose their daughter. She was good enough for me. So they must have done something right, right? They must have done something really good. And maybe I need to shut up and listen to their wisdom and their input. And even though I don't see eye to eye with them on every issue at every level, there was something about their instrumentality that was precious. Because look what it, you know, by God's grace produced and passed on for me and for my benefit. And there are a lot of ways we can make application of that general principle and that general truth. But I think we need to understand that it works also, and we're going to move closer to this, in the truth of the Holy Spirit's appointing. In fact, it's interesting that we can find all of the Trinity at work in the appointing and placing of His under shepherds, His agents in ministering to His church. And that is really a comfort and a blessed truth. We don't have a problem also acknowledging this truth. I'm just going to make a statement that a good jumping off point might be in 2 Thessalonians 3.1, where Paul voices a prayer request to that group of people for his ministry. And he says to them, finally, brethren, pray for us that the Word of the Lord might have free course. And the picture there in all of that is a picture of running or momentum or motion. And as we study that out and even go into the next verses, but in Paul's ministry in general and in God's working in general, we really come away with a conclusion from God's Word that the gospel runs on the feet of human messengers. And we accept that pretty simply when we turn it around the other way and we send out missionaries. or endorse or support or, you know, in whatever way, sponsor, pray for, encourage church planters and so on. We acknowledge that the gospel runs on the feet of human messengers. It has from the beginning. That is the commission, the calling of God. It's just the way he chose for that to happen. And it does. And we've accepted that without a problem. We accept that especially when we are the evangelist, right? And we are working with an unsaved loved one, or a co-worker, or whatever it may be, and laboring for their soul in more ways than one, we have already resolved that issue for ourselves, right? The Gospel runs on the feet of human messengers. We're not claiming perfection. We're not claiming absolute divine authority for ourselves, just for the message when we present it accurately and biblically. But we've resolved that issue. Also in that passage in Thessalonians there, there is this truth that humanity can appear to interfere with its progress and with its running. And that works on a lot of sides. But Paul said, especially in that prayer request, he asked them that they would pray for him because there were a lot of evil men who were opposing that. We just wanna make sure that we're not in that category of people. That's all we're doing talking about today. We just don't wanna be in the opposers. We wanna recognize the agency, the human agency. We wanna recognize the divine work behind it. And we want to posture ourselves properly with respect to that, with relation to that. And so I wanna move into a second point here quickly. and just cover this. There's a lot we can explore, but again, going topically, if you want to turn to a couple passages with me, we'll be in the book of Acts. We'll come back to some verses in Acts 16 several times if you want to put a finger in chapter 13 just so you can look at this as we go past it. I'm going to start in chapter 11. And the point I'm trying to make right now is just this, the clear expression of God's work, and you can plug in the Trinity here, because we're going to bump into all of that in these passages, and placing church leadership. So now we're getting a little bit more specific, maybe, from our general acceptance of human agency and yet divine authority, down to the divine authority at work in calling and placing and gifting, in a sense, people into certain positions for us. And then we'll conclude simply with this question, do we want to be the ones who resist that divine authority? Or do we want to posture ourselves with a proper understanding and a proper submission to the divine in this context. So, just kind of a little bit by way of illustration of some things, I want to express a couple of things that have run through my mind in the past. A lot of us are familiar maybe with a formula that pastors use at the conclusion of a wedding ceremony when they now declare to people, one, man and wife. And very frequently you will hear a pastor say, by the authority invested in me, by the, you can probably finish it. We usually say, by the state of wherever we're resident. And I've always had a little gripe with that statement. And you know why. You're already running ahead of me. The state didn't put me in this place. The state didn't call me. The state didn't gift, didn't educate, didn't appoint me to service in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. I appreciate the concept behind that. You know, there's a legal thing that's taking place here, and I always acknowledge and use that formula, but I typically say something like this, by the authority invested in me by the calling of God, by the acknowledgement of His people, because that's an important part of the process, that God's people recognize and acknowledge that divine call at work, And then the state in turn submits to all of that in my mind. Now the state doesn't believe this. And so I acknowledge them too. But the authority is invested in me by a divine calling. Not because the governor, Hickenlooper or whoever it may be said, okay, John, I'm calling you to be a pastor. and to officiate at weddings or whatever it may be. That kind of thinking is what I'm talking about. And that is what, and going back to part of our purpose, one of the things in our culture that I've observed is this kind of mentality. Well, we voted him in, we can vote him out, right? It's a business transaction. And the authority rested on us, We did it, and the authority rests on us to do the next step, too, if we don't like it, if we want to get rid of it. And I really am trying to run afoul of that kind of thinking. And I don't think we have that here. I'm just trying to articulate some of the motivation and some of the reasons for our doing things the way we do them and coming to the conclusions and the practice that we have. How many of you have ever, not too long ago, we went through Christmas and there's a tradition of gift giving and receiving commonly here. How many of you have ever looked at a gift and thought, oh, what on earth? Why on earth? Or there's an old cultural idiom about looking a gift horse in the mouth. That's what I'm talking about here as I move in or move forward. There's an interesting thing. One of my kids said this to me. I wonder if it means that I'm going from childhood to adulthood when I appreciate the fact that I got socks and underwear as a gift at Christmas because it's practical and useful and beneficial for me. There's another place where we sometimes have to exercise faith. And I say this carefully because I have 10 children whom I love dearly sitting in here. But there are times in youth when the kids seem to be coming one after another. We were listening yesterday to a story of the depression. And someone said, my mom seemed to have a remedy for everything except having children. She just kept doing it. But there are times when they're young and the calling of parenting involves a lot of toil and sleepless nights and challenges in a lot of ways. When I found myself as a young parent, and this was mutual, it went both ways, I'm not trying to say I was the spiritual one, but we found ourselves encouraging ourselves in faith by reading passages like Psalm 127 where it says children are a reward, and saying, you know, God said so, so it must really be that way. And that's where faith has to overcome feeling sometimes. And we have to posture ourselves biblically with respect to those things. But I think we find ourselves sometimes in that position as adults too. Ephesians chapter 4 expresses an amazing truth in God's plan regarding the church, that he has given to the church certain gifts. And the illustrations, I think, have led our thinking to this point. Sometimes we look at the gift and go, really? And those gifts in Ephesians 4 come in the form of the leadership spiritually that God has ordained and has placed in our lives. And there are some times when faith needs to be shored up and reinforced that this is what God said and it is true. Even though my feelings right now aren't lined up with what God said. And I'm not so sure that I'm appreciating the style of leadership, or even the direction that's being given to me through the leadership. I'm just struggling, Lord, with some of those things. But God said this is His divine plan. This is His gifting. And I need to be careful that I'm not challenging or questioning the divine. at work in that human agency just because it's human. And that gives me opportunity for self-justification. You know this is often easy as I've circled around on every side of the coin, I think, being a church member, being a pastor, being a missionary's kid, a pastor's kid. It seems like I've seen a lot of sides of this. Often the people who struggle the most with that are those who are closest, kind of like in our Lord's ministry, His own brothers and sisters, those who are physically closest. And often the wife. Because she sees his dirty socks and all of the other things that go along with his humanity. But all of us need to make sure that we don't let that be an occasion of stumbling for us, but that we receive the gift as what it is. So let's look quickly at the expression of God's work in placing church leadership. We're just going to look at a few passages quickly. of how God does that and the fact that He does. And one of them is in Acts 11, 22-26. If you want to follow, I'm going to read that. Do notice that there is human instrumentality here, even in this. And it does and it should affect our church polity and our church practice, you know, as we recognize and place people into positions of leadership. But it says there, when tidings of these things, and this had to do with the death of Stephen and some other activities going on in the spread of the church, even though that was chapters earlier, there are some interesting connections here. When tidings of these things came into the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem, they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch, who when he came, he had seen and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith. And much people was added unto the Lord." Then Barnabas left from Tarsus. Now, how did he go there? He was sent by the church. And often we call this kind of God directing, providential directing. He directs through leadership, circumstances, things that surround you, and just kind of makes your path clear. And in Barnabas's case, apparently he didn't have a question with it, but he was sent by someone other than himself. And so I just want to kind of acknowledge and point out the providential work of God in appointing, sending, moving, placing His people. And just see how that has worked itself out here. And then he went to Tarsus to look for Saul. Brought him to Antioch. And for a whole year they assembled themselves with the church there and taught many people. Now in Saul's life, because we're going to talk about him a little bit more, remember there was He fit that not a novice qualification by spending three years studying with the Lord. And then he spent a year here under Barnabas teaching and working with the church there and disciples there were first called Christians and Antioch is how that passage wraps up. Then move forward a little bit to Acts. Chapter 16. We know the story about Paul and Barnabas, and we may come back to there. I'm pushing against the clock here right now. But you remember how the Holy Spirit intentionally directed some leaders. In fact, we're going to have to come back to that. But go up to Chapter 16. This is later on. Now Paul is ministering and working. And there's a young man there in verse 1 of chapter 16 named Timotheus. We've come to identify him maybe more commonly as Timothy. And he was well reported of by the brethren. And Paul said, hey, Timothy, in a sense, as we read through that and come down to verse 3, Paul just said, Timothy, come on, I want you to go with me. So here's some providential work from Timothy's perspective. Okay, this wasn't Timothy seeking this out, looking for this, but the other leaders there, God was providentially directing through them and bringing them along into positions and we know where Timothy wound up. So we'll leave Timothy here for time's sake. There's the providential work of God. Then there also is this thing, and we wrestle with this in our current context and in the way God operates in the church and in us today, but this is still an important truth that we need to tag and consider while we do this. God also directed and placed very directly through the Holy Spirit's expression. But we also, I think, ought to take note here through whom and, well, again, who are the agents in this directing, okay? And while there is this truth, I'm going to acknowledge it here. Paul says to Timothy, when he's giving us that list of qualifications, if any man would desire this office, he desires a good thing. Always in scripture, consistently you find God moving through the leadership rather than an individual setting himself out and saying, here I am, God's called me to. I'm not saying that that's wrong, but just consider the scriptural pattern here and how God worked this out scripturally. And in Acts chapter 13, It says there were in the church there that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, men like Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene and Menaean. These guys are all human, kind of like the one back in John 1. They're named and identified. We know who they are. And they ministered to the Lord and fasted, and the Holy Ghost very specifically to them said, separate Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." Now God leaves us no room to doubt or to question their appointment, maybe I should say the divine appointment, when he adds again in verse 4, so they being sent forth by Barnabas and Simon and Lucius the Cyrene. No, that's not what he said, is it? Now they were the instruments, the leadership in the church there, but it says that they were sent forth by the Holy Ghost. They were sent forth by divine appointment. And there really is, and we don't deny this or wrestle with this, this is the way God has given His leaders to the church and in the church. You can keep reading down in that passage in Acts chapter 16, if you want. I think it's verse 6. If I put my glasses on, I'll tell you that for sure. I have blown things up on my paper so I can see them. Now, when they, this is talking about Saul, Paul, he's Saul, and Barnabas who are being sent out, and they've gone out, and they've gone throughout Phrygia, the region of Galatia, And there's an interesting little story here. They were forbidden by the Holy Ghost. So not only were they appointed by the Holy Ghost, but they also are going to be placed in their specific ministry location by divine appointment. This isn't an accident or a human selection committee, or let's take a test and see where your gifts or your education or might better put you in serving on the field or wherever you may be. This is divine appointment. And I'm not saying that God can't use those means and methods and, you know, you should just reject all of them categorically. But at the end of the day, we had better not consider a candidacy process or, you know, a whole pile of resumes or, you know, a system that we have imposed for selecting as the final determiner. Even that system had better be subjected to the Holy Ghost, God, His Word and His directing and His directives for us. So here they go off on their way and they're trying to go a certain direction and it says they were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. After they came to Mycenae they tried then again to go into Bithynia and the Spirit wouldn't let them go there. You see that even the apostolic company, and in our perspective of church and church history, these are the foundation of the church, right? The church is built upon the chief cornerstone and the apostles. And even they were forbidden human choice in the location of their ministry. Kind of interesting, isn't it? Now, was it wrong for them to try those things? No, they were yielded to God, they were following God, and they tried to go a certain direction, and when God said no, okay, they, you know, in a sense, turned their head and went another direction, but they, by their own practice and response, established for us this important principle. It is an interesting thing for us. So, You keep on reading through the story. Finally they passed by Mysia, came down to Troas, and finally God ministered and directed Paul in a unique way, a special way, to go to Macedonia. And guess what happened? If you keep reading there, down in verse 10 it says, after he had seen that, we immediately tried to go into Macedonia. assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them." And folks, for all of us, we need that understanding. And you know, just a little tiny side note, but I believe this is true in every area of life. It's easy to pick on or to pull out church leadership, pastors, missionaries, people as needing a divine call and divine, I'll use this tongue-in-cheek, but permission to be where they are. But really, folks, I think that every one of us as believers needs a call to be a musician, a builder, an engineer, whatever it may be where God has put us and placed us. I really do. I think this principle applies to every one of us. And we need to seek that out and find that. But we often, as church people, reflect the understanding on one side of the coin of searching for God's will and sending and placing. We need to flip that coin sometimes and receive it on the other side of the coin and be just as diligent in searching for His will, and I'll use the word endorsement, but I think we need something stronger than that, in ending and changing, you know, churches, pastors, whatever it may be. That needs to just as assuredly be part of His will. God's will is for every aspect of our life, and I'm not that old and I haven't done this hundreds of times, but more than once I've sat in front of a young couple who says, you know, we'd like to get married, and one of my challenges to them is this, you need to prove to me that it would be, that you would be violating God's will not to marry this person at this time, because I think God has a plan and a design. And that's how we need to view life. And we need to flip the coin to both sides. So, we need to wrap up. I haven't looked at my clock in a long time. I'm going to stop with these four things. Be careful about our relationship to the Spirit's work. I'm just going to use some Bible words. I'm not saying that there's a one-to-one relationship in all of these. But it is possible to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. It is possible to quench the Holy Spirit. It is possible to grieve the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 10 says it's possible to do despot to the Spirit of Grace. And if we acknowledge that it's the Spirit of God that is guiding and placing our leaders, we need to be careful that we don't resist that.