Acts chapter 13. Ryan Sullivan from Grace Church in Jackson is with us tonight. He contacted us, I don't know, sometime last year and told us that he and his family are preparing to go to Iraq as missionaries. And John and I wanted to hear more about that. So we went down to Grenada and met with him and heard some of it. And now we want you to hear about it. And so he's here to share with us tonight. Acts chapter 13. Let's read from verse 13. And we'll read down through verse 43. This is during Paul's first missionary journey. Now, Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga and Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidi and Antioch. And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, Brethren, If you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it. Paul stood up and motioning with his hand said, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And with an uplifted arm, he led them out from it. For a period of about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. After these things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years. After he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king. concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will. From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, after John had proclaimed before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And while John was completing his course, he kept saying, What, do you suppose that I am? I am not he. But behold, one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brethren, sons of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither him nor the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning him. And though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed. When they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, And for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people. And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children and that he raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second Psalm. You are my son. Today I have begotten you. As for the fact that he raised him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, he has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Therefore, he also says in another Psalm, you will not allow your holy one to undergo decay. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay. but he whom God raised did not undergo decay. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him, everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses. Therefore take heed so that the things spoken of in the prophets may come upon you. Behold, you scoffers and marvel and perish. For I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you." As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. And when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, Many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his word. Join me in prayer, please. Father, we are grateful to be able to gather tonight around your word. And God, we're grateful to be able to fellowship around it and before You. We bow before You, our King. God, we praise You that You have, from eternity past, determined Your good will and purposes, and You determined to save through Jesus. God, we're grateful for the testimony that we have here that Paul gives of how you have accomplished that through Christ. And God, how grateful we are that so many of us here can testify that that grace has found us personally so that we don't just speak of a God or the God, but of my God. God, how blessed we've been to hear preaching and to have the Bible before us and to have the work of your spirit among us, to know the blessings and the benefits of your salvation. God, we are grateful that in establishing our times and places, you have put us where you have. God, we also recognize that there's a whole world of people and many of them don't know you. And we're grateful, Father, that you continue to raise up people to go to places around this globe and to proclaim the name of Christ. Father, we pray and ask that you would continue to make much of your son and that you would continue to gather in all the reward of his suffering, that he would lose none of it. God, make much of the name of Christ, we pray, in us and in the lands all around this globe. And God, we do look forward to a day when there are people from every tongue and tribe and people around your throne worshiping together and giving praise to the Lamb that was slain. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, thank you so much for having me. It is a joy to be with you all again. So me, for anybody that doesn't know me, as I was introduced a moment ago, my name is Ryan. Me and my wife, Lydia, have five children. They range from 15 to five. And I'm a pastor at Grace Community Church in Jackson, Mississippi. And God willing, we'll be moving to Erbil, Iraq July. So I was asked to share some about the works. I'll share some about the work and then I'd like for us to get to Acts chapter 13 and 14 here in just a minute. But just to give a little bit of a summary about the work that's going on in Iraq. Long story short, moving to Erbil. That's in northern Iraq, the Kurdish region of Iraq. Moving there July next year. And the intention is to be there to preach the gospel, to make disciples. As soon as I get there, I'll be a pastor at a church, Erbil Baptist Church, which I'll tell you more about in just a minute. And then the ultimate plan is to be sent out by that church to, Erbil Baptist Church is an English-speaking church there in Iraq, but to be sent out by that church to plant or to establish an Arabic-speaking church would be the ultimate goal. I'll just tell you a little bit about the area. Erbil is in the Kurdish region of Iraq. If you know anything about the Kurdish people, so imagine in the Middle East, you've got this block of people, the Kurdish people, they spill over into different borders, the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. And they're known as being the largest people group or one of the largest people groups that don't have their own nation. A lot of people in that area push for there being a Kurdistan or being a Kurdish nation, but they don't have that. But they are one of the biggest unreached people groups on the planet. Absolutely dominated by Islam, as I'm sure you could guess. Now, when you think about Iraq, what you typically think about Iraq, it's probably different than the way it actually is in the northern part in the Kurdish region. And I say that because of different political reasons. This happened over the past several decades. There's a lot more openness, a lot more freedom in the northern part of Iraq. In fact, if you're in southern Iraq, you actually have to cross a border to get into what people call Kurdistan, the Kurdish region of Iraq. And they have their own autonomous government. They have their own military. So it's a really unique situation where there seems like there's more of an open door for the gospel, more of an open door for the church to grow there and those kind of things. So it's something that we bumped into and are really excited that we may have a chance to move there. and served there. Now Erbil is actually the largest city in that northern portion of Iraq. It's about 1.5 million people, so think big city. Now, in about 2018, 2019, we got connected to a Christian work going on there through Erbil Baptist Church, which I'll tell you a little bit more about that church in just a moment. But Erbil Baptist Church, we were connected to them through a missionary. Actually, initially I'd read a book called The Miracle of the Kurds. It's a good book to give you some history, but it doesn't give you the right solution to the problems there. It's not necessarily written from a mission standpoint, but it gives you a lot of the history. So I learned about the group through this book, and then just in God's providence, pretty immediately after that, I got connected with a missionary who connected me with this church there. Now Urbio Baptist Church started as sort of your typical international church in a foreign land. So if you know anything about that. Typically, that's not a very healthy situation. All over the world, an international church is just typically Westerners that are living in this foreign land, speaking English, not sound doctrine at all, probably not really understanding what, biblically, what a church is. So these are normally not healthy situations, and that's exactly the way Erbil Church, Erbil Baptist Church was when it first began. Now God used a man, a few men, one of them is Mack Stiles, which y'all may have heard of him. He's real connected to the, you know, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church group. I think he wrote the evangelism book in that sort of Nine Mark series. So God used Mack Stiles and David Lawrence. Now Mack is not there anymore, but David is still there. But God used those men to actually come in to move to Iraq and to become a part of this church, become leaders of this church and actually begin to reform it. And so what you have now in our Bill Baptist Church is a church moving towards health, healthy and growing healthier, full of sound doctrine, church membership, church discipline. The things that you think about about a sound ecclesiology are there in that church is really sweet, really, Beautiful thing that God is doing in this church. Now. It's about her bill. Baptist Church is about 70 members. Okay, 70 ish members in this church And like I said, don't think just a bunch of Westerners here in this church It is an English-speaking church, but there's about 23 different nationalities represented within this 70 member church so you got people there from that are Kurds from northern Iraq you got people that are Arabs from southern Iraq or from Iran folks that are from Syria from Pakistan one of the brothers that was that one of the there's several brothers there from Pakistan that are members of the church one of them I think about maybe two or three years ago, two, three, four years ago, I lose track of time, was a member of this church for a time and ended up being sent out to preach the gospel back in his home country. And now he's leading a church there in Pakistan and is actually, I believe, connected to, maybe even supported by HeartCry, which I know a lot of you guys know about HeartCry Missionary Society. So yeah, so this is the situation in church, really. So pray for them. Beautiful work of God. The Lord is doing some amazing things through this church. Now for us, we knew about the work and were connected to it through supporting a missionary, through, you know, we visited there in 2019 to learn more about the work. And me and my wife began to feel drawn to want to move there and to be missionaries there. And initially our plan was to move there and just join the church, become members of this church, and just ask the Lord to open the door for ministry as we learn the language and those sort of things. Through that process, I began speaking with a few of the pastors of Urbill Baptist Church, mainly David, the brother I mentioned to you a moment ago. And as I began to talk with him, I began to learn more about sort of the, for lack of a better term, the strategies that they're taking to see more churches established in that city. And so one of the things that they spoke about was they are an English speaking church because that's the common language. The word of God is preached in English. They pray in English in their services. They do have live Arabic translation that's happening while the word of God's being preached. You'll see some of the members that don't know English as well with headphones on and they're hearing it. While the Word of God's been preaching is there here and it translated to them in there in the Arabic language immediately And so what they're wanting to do is to begin to take those groups. So for example, this Arabic group, they have a whole home group that meets together on a weekly basis, and everything's in Arabic. The word's taught in Arabic, everything's there. And they want to begin to take those language groups, like the different Kurdish languages or this Arabic language, and to plant or establish an Arabic-speaking church and churches in these other areas. Kurdish language. That's just sort of something that they're aimed at, which obviously we were really drawn to because that's something that that we desire, we pray for and desire to see happen. Now, as I spoke with the elders of Erbil Baptist Church over time, there was a lot of like mindedness sort of unite in our hearts about over God's word, over the truth and over the mission. And after a time of talking through things, they eventually, and again, this went on for several months, they eventually asked me that when we come, if I would actually be one of the pastors at Urbil Baptist. And so it's really opened this sweet door for us, and we really do believe that God has opened the door for this, that we're looking to move there in July, and the aim will be to do Acts chapter 14, verse 21 through 23, which we'll read in just a moment. But what that verse says is preach the gospel and make many disciples. We long to do that in a land dominated by a false religion. We long to do that. It says strengthening the souls of the disciples, and God's made a way for us to do that through being a pastor at Urbill Baptist Church. We've got to spend time, me and my family went there from November 1st to November 14th, just past November, and just getting to be with the church and get to know people more. We really see that God could use us here to strengthen these souls, as it says in that verse in Acts 14. And then it goes on in Acts 14 to say that they appointed elders in every church. So they had a mindset towards establishing the church. So that's what we're going to do, God willing, by his grace, preach the gospel, make disciples, strengthen the souls of the disciples at Urban Baptist Church with an aim towards being sent out to actually establish an Arabic-speaking church in that same city. I've been, it's been quite the journey. I've been learning Arabic. This boy from Pearl has been learning Arabic for the past almost about a year now. And that's something that I'll continue to do and my family will also continue to do while we're there. Now, right now, As it is now, we're in the process of making this work known to people who may be interested in partnering with us in this work. And I want to explain that language a little bit. We're trying to use Paul's mission work as a model when we think about how missionaries are sent out or how missionaries are supported. So let me explain that just a little bit. When I look at the model that Paul the missionary gave us, he had what we would call, a lot of us would call a sending church. Oftentimes we say he had an Antioch. Well, he actually had an Antioch because he had Antioch as his sending church. If you go read, we're going to read in a moment. If you read Acts 13, verse one through three, This church Antioch laid hands on him, sent him out to the work. He did the work, the mission work, came back to Antioch, sent out by them again, did the mission work, came back to Antioch, sent out by them again. So Antioch was like a sending church to them. This church that vets you and holds the rope as sort of a main rope holder while you go down into the well. I believe missionaries should have that and praise God We really do have that in Grace Community Church, our church back in Jackson. They've been very generous to us and very kind and eager and willing to send us out. They've loved us well as we've kind of approached this being sent. So I think all missionaries should have a sending church like Antioch, should have an Antioch. But you also see in Paul's ministry that there were other churches or other Christians, sort of this picture of the global church that supported what he was doing as well. So Philippians 4.15 is a good verse to grab, where he's writing to the Philippian church, and he says there that he was in a partnership, which is where I'm getting that language from, he was in a partnership with the Philippian church in giving and receiving. So they were supporting him as well. And then 2 Corinthians 11, eight, I believe it is, he writes and says that he received support from other churches so that he might minister in Corinth. So that's one of the things that we're doing right now. We're making the work known to those that love the mission of God and may be interested in partnering with us, coming alongside Grace Community Church, our sending church, and partnering with us to send us out to the work. I do want to read, before we get to Acts 13, I want to read this in 3 John. I believe it really gets to the heart. This whole idea of goers and senders, or the language that's used here is send and support those who are going. You really get the heart behind it here in 3 John. I'm going to start in verse 5 and read to verse 8. It says, Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do and all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testify to your love before the church, you will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they've gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support People like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth And so when I say making the work known to see if there's any that would like to partner with us in it That's the kind of thing that I mean fellow workers for the truth senders and goers those holding the rope those going down into the well And I believe third John says that well when it says we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers or workers together fellow workers for the truth, so please pray for us. Pray that God would prepare our souls, our hearts, me and my wife, my children. Pray that God would prepare the church over there to receive us. Pray that we would be fruitful. Pray that we would win lost souls, that we would be a strengthening agent to that church. Pray that I'd be able to learn Arabic, please, and be able to preach the gospel in the Arabic language. Please pray for us in that. Now I do want to take some time. I want to give you some convictions, convictions that I hold that I believe you can root in the first missionary journey, which the first missionary journey is recorded for us in Acts 13 and 14. So if you're not already there, go to Acts chapter 13. And I want to mention just a few, a few convictions that I hold that I believe, I believe, You probably hold them as well, and maybe that would be an encouragement to you as we meditate on them together. Acts 13 and 14. is the church at Antioch sending out these missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, and you get that first journey where they go out to city after city after city. They do the work and at the end of Acts 14, they come back to Antioch. I'm gonna mention these four convictions. Let's pray first and then I'll mention these four convictions. Father, thank you so much that we can turn to your word now. Thank You, Lord, for the light that's here. In a world of lies, Lord, thank You for the truth. God, I pray that You would give us ears to hear. You would remind us of things that You've already told us, and You would show us things that we've yet to see in Your Word. Give us eyes to see, Lord, please. And God, I pray that You would give us hearts, as always, to be doers of Your Word, and not hearers only. Thank you so much, Lord, for hearing us. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, four convictions that I hold related to the mission of God that are rooted in the first missionary journey. Number one, the church ought to send men to the nations. That's a simple one. The church ought to send men to the nations. That's the example given to us here in Acts 13. So look at Acts 13, verse 1. Now, they were in the church at Antioch. So we're talking about the church in Antioch. Prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, and it goes through their name there. Verse 2, 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've called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off." The church ought to send men to the nations. And here's this picture of the church at Antioch informed by the Holy Spirit, fasting and praying and laying hands on these men and sending them out. Verse 4 actually goes on to say that they were sent out by the Holy Spirit. They were sent out by the Holy Spirit. We have to ask, I thought verse three says that the church at Antioch sent them out. Well, verse four says the Holy Spirit said, well, which one was it? Well, this is how God does his work on the mission field like this. Through his church, the Holy Spirit is sending out men to the nation. This should be a concern of Christians, a concern of the church. When you get to, like I said, if you get to Acts 14 at the very end, the last, in fact, let's go there. I do want to read that. Acts 14. So we read the first part, how the missionary journey began. Let's go to chapter 14. How did it end? Chapter 14, verse 24. Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Talia. And from there, so here they are, they're going back. They've been going for a long while. They're going back to Antioch. Look at it. They sail to Antioch where They had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had fulfilled. They had been commended. So that's what happened in Acts 13. They were being, they laid their hands on them and commended them to this work. The church sent them out, verse 27, and when they arrived, and gathered the church together. Imagine that moment. They sent them to a place where there were no churches and now they gather the church together and they declare all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. That would have been a beautiful, glorious meeting to be a part of. Y'all sent us out to these places where there were no churches and he's coming back saying, we preached the gospel and God saved souls and now there's churches in these places where there weren't before. That would have been a beautiful reunion to hear of God's work. So the church ought to send men to the nations, and I would say specifically to unreached people groups. And I'm just defining that just very simply. Unreached people groups as, think about Acts 13 and 14. Where were they sent? To places where the gospel was not there. To places where Christ was not named. To places where the church wasn't. The way it says it in Romans 15 verse 20, Paul says, I wanna preach the gospel where Christ is not named, where Christ is not named. So the church ought to send men to the nations, especially to places where Christ is not named. And I would encourage you, this should be a concern of every church, should be a concern, not just of every church, but of every individual Christian. Think about what we read just a moment ago in 3 John. Their job wasn't written to a church, it was written to a man named Gaius. And Gaius, you ought to support men like these that you might be fellow workers for the truth. So not just for the church, but for every Christian, this concern to see the gospel of Christ go to the nation. So send men to unreached people groups. It's conviction number one. Number two, the church ought to send men to the nations with the word of the gospel. Don't just send men, the value's not just in the men themselves, but send men what? With the word of the gospel. I'm convicted that that's the way that it ought to be, that it should be simple, that men are sent to preach the word of truth, the word of the gospel. In a world full of missions, strategies, that are rooted in worldly wisdom. I believe we need to come back to this simplicity. I have a conviction that there's all these mission strategies just rooted in the thoughts of men, the ideas of men, the schemes of men, the creativity of men. There's so much of that in our world. This is so simple. Send men with the word of the gospel because the gospel is powerful to save. And in fact, I want to read this to you. I'm just going to read a scattering of verses in Acts 13 and Acts 14. Either read them with me or just listen, but just hear this pattern over and over and over again. When those men were sent out to unreached peoples, what did they do? They weren't creative. They didn't go with their own ideas. What did they do? Listen to it. Acts 13 verse four. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. And when they had arrived at Salamis, what did they do? They proclaimed the word of God. Man, that's simple, isn't it? They proclaimed the word of God. Look at verse seven. He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul, and Saul to hear what? To hear the Word of God The pattern starting look at verse 12 13 verse 12 says then the procounsel believed when he saw what he what had occurred for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord What were they doing? They were teaching about the Lord. They were proclaiming the Word of God. This is the pattern keep going verse 26 Brothers, they stand up, brothers, son of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. These are men going out, not with their own creative ideas, it's men going out with the word of God, with the word of the gospel or as it says here, with the message of this salvation. The message of this salvation. Look at verse 44. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. That's what they're doing. They're preaching the word of the Lord. Look at verse 46. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. That's what they're doing. They're preaching the word of the Lord. Look at verse 49. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. This keeps going into chapter 14, chapter 14, verse three. So they remained there for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of His grace. God's bearing witness to the word of His grace. Look at verse seven. And there they continued to preach the gospel. Maybe I'll give you one more. Look at verse 21. when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples. Here's the encouragement I believe. The word of God is sufficient in its power to do the work of missions. The word of God is sufficient in its power to do the work of mission. So don't send men that are full of modern mission strategies and ideas and worldly wisdom. Don't do that. Send men with a message to preach the word of the gospel. I love it that our scripture reading came out of this passage in Acts 13. And I wish we had time to slow down and look at all of it, but just think about this. What we read in our scripture reading just a moment ago, Pastor Chuck read it to us. We read a passage where it says that Paul actually stands up and he lifts up his hand and you got several paragraphs of what he actually said. That's glorious, like you can actually read several paragraphs, and we did that together just a moment ago, and you're getting to read, okay, when he went and he preached the word of the Lord, be more specific, what did he say? What did he speak? And you get to read that, and it's glorious gospel. In fact, let me just read, let me just repeat one little taste of it. Acts 13, verse 38, this is the kind of stuff that he's saying, listen to it. Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers. Can you imagine him standing up and preaching this in front of an unreached people group? Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man, he's talking about Jesus. Go trace the things he's already said. He's talked about Jesus the Savior. He's talked about the one that's promised from Psalm 2. He's talking about the one that the Old Testament promised of a Messiah. He's been talking about this man, Christ Jesus. That's what he preached. And it says here, Through this man, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. By him, everyone who believes is freed from everything which he could not be freed by the law of Moses. Your greatest need The greatest need of Muslims in Iraq, the greatest need of the nations is the forgiveness of sins. And he says, through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. The one that was slaughtered like a lamb in your place, the wrath of God poured out on him instead of on you so that you could be free. Don't send creative men, send men with that message to the nation. Send men with the word of the gospel. A third conviction, third conviction. The church ought to send men to the nations with the word of the gospel to make disciples, strengthen them, and establish churches. To make disciples, to strengthen them, and to establish churches. Biblical mission work has an aim. Everything that somebody does in the name of ministry is not biblical mission work there's actually when you read the first missionary journey and The rest of the New Testament and Jesus's Commission in Matthew 28 18 through 20. There's an actual aim here There's something you're aimed at and I'm and I'm arguing that the aim is make disciples strengthen them and establish churches one place you can see this go to acts 14 and I told you a moment ago we'd read this. Acts 14 verse 21. Now what's happening here is they were sent out from Antioch. They went to this city and this city and this city and this city preaching the gospel. Disciples were made. They're gathering together in the churches. And what we're about to read is they begin to make their way back through those cities, revisiting those cities on the way back to Antioch. look at this in verse 21 when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples so there's that this is a name of the work of the work of missions we see in the first missionary to preach the gospel make disciples then they return to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciple. I love that phrase. It's an aim of missions. Preach the gospel and make disciples, then strengthen the souls of those disciples. Keep reading, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, Now, if you're reading that for the first time, you might go, wait a minute, where did the church come from here? I thought they were just out preaching the gospel and winning lost souls and all of a sudden we're talking about elders being appointed in the church. Where did the church come from? Well, that's what they're doing. They're preaching the gospel in this city, making disciples, gathering those disciples together, strengthening the soul of the disciples, establishing elders, establishing these churches so that when they walk away, they went into cities, unreached people groups who had no church, they walk out from a place and there's a church there. There's a church in Iconium. There's a church in Pisidia. There's a church in that place. That's the aim. That's the aim here Now once you understand this if you look down at verse 26 again Chapter 14 verse 26. There's a word. I want to pull out just get you to think about this Verse 26 is and from there they sailed to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work think about this They go back. They go back to Antioch and where they were commended to the grace of God for the work that they had, what? Fulfilled. That word right there, it says that they had fulfilled the work. Another way you could say it is completed. The work they had completed. What do you mean? So they were sent out on this first missionary journey. What do you mean that they completed the work? What do you mean they fulfilled the work? Does it mean that every soul was saved in that whole Galatian region that they were traveling through? It obviously doesn't mean that. Could it mean a completed work is when the gospels preached, disciples have been made, disciples have been strengthened, and the church has been established. Could that be an idea of completion? Fulfillment of the work? I believe it is because you can take that same Greek word and it's in Acts 19, verse 21. Right after Paul does his work in Ephesus, Acts 19, 21 says when he had completed it, when he had fulfilled it, same Greek word, he left. So what had he done in Ephesus? Well, go read in Acts 19. He preached the gospel, made disciples, strengthened those disciples and established the church in Ephesus. He wrote a letter to him later. You can go read Titus 1.3. In Titus 1.3 it says, I told you, Titus, to stay in Crete. Why stay there? To fulfill what's lacking. To put into order what's lacking. In other words, something's lacking. Something's incomplete. Something's unfulfilled in Crete. What is it? He says, and establish elders in every church. Establish elders in every city. That's what he says there. So you're getting this idea that a complete work, a fulfilled work, seems to be connected to preach the gospel, make disciples, strengthen them, and establish the church. One more, Romans chapter 15, I believe it's verse 18 or 19 or so. Paul claims that from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, that's a region all the way up close to Rome, from Jerusalem to Illyricum, Paul says, I have fulfilled, completed, same Greek word. I've completed the ministry of the gospel. What does he mean? He doesn't mean every soul saved. He doesn't even just mean that the gospel was preached in those places, but the gospel was preached from Jerusalem to Lyricum, souls were saved, disciples strengthened, and the church established. And Paul says, now I'm going where Christ has not yet been named. So here's my conviction. So much of what is called missions today is not aimed at this completed work. this fulfilled work. So much of what's, I mean, you can almost, I've thought about this before, that there's so many missionaries being sent out of America that you could meet them at the airport just before they get on the airplane and go to their final destination and ask them to find church for me from the Bible. And they couldn't do it. And you understand that that's a problem because the aim of the work of mission is preach the gospel, make disciples, establish the church. Plant the church there. It's my conviction that that has something that needs to change in our culture. Last conviction. The church ought to send men to the nations with the word of the gospel to make disciples, strengthen those disciples, and establish churches. And here's the last part. Trusting in our sovereign God. Men don't have the strength. We can't do it. Psalm 127 verse one, unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Proverbs 21 verse 31 says that the horse is prepared for the day of battle, but don't you know it, victory's from the Lord. Deliverance is from the Lord, our sovereign God. We prepare for battle, we build the house, but unless God's building it, unless God's hand is on it, His sovereign, perfect hand, it's all vanity. So men must trust, churches must trust, missionaries must trust in the hand of their sovereign God. Now, in Acts 13 and 14, we see the sovereign hand of God all over it. It's glorious. I wish we had time just to, you know, wring out every piece of it as best we could. Look at the sovereign hand of God here. In fact, the whole way that, if you go read Acts 11, the whole way that the church of Antioch started, it says, the hand of the Lord was with them. That's a phrase in Acts 11. The hand of God was with them. So his hand's all over it. But I wanna highlight one example to close. One example of the sovereign hand of God that we must trust as it relates to the mission of God. Think about this. Think about the glory of salvation. Think about passing salvation, conversion, passing from darkness and into light. From the kingdom of Satan, the dominion of Satan, to the kingdom of Christ. Think about salvation, going from death, dead, dead, dead, headed toward hell to eternal life. From death to life. From blind, I can't see the glory of Christ. As salvation, I'm blind, I can't see, either I don't know of him or I know of him and I don't care. I'm blind to his glory and all of a sudden God opens the spiritual eyes and I see the glory of Christ, the only one that can save my soul from hell. Salvation is glorious, going from eternally cursed, deserving to be eternally cursed in hell forever, to eternal blessings poured out on the undeserving. Think about salvation and listen to me. In Acts 13 and 14, salvation is happening all over the place. In Pisidia, a city they went to, souls are being saved. In Perga, souls are being saved. They had not heard the gospel and souls are just being saved. This is a glorious thing. The work of salvation is spreading out to the nations in Acts 13 and 14. And who is responsible for such a glorious thing? Only our sovereign God. And I want you to see it right here in chapter 13, verse 48. And we'll close with this. Acts 13 verse 48 says, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and listen to it, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Man, who's doing this? Who's doing this glorious work of darkness to light, death to life, eternal curses to eternal life? Who's doing this stuff? This says as many as were appointed to eternal life. This is a work of our God, our sovereign God, they believed. I would encourage you in that as you Think about, man, what do I do with this? As I look at the first missionary journey, what do I do with this? Well, I believe this all in my heart. These are my convictions, that the church ought to send men to the nations who carry the message of salvation, the word of the gospel. with the aim of preach the gospel, make disciples, establish the church, and all of that, from the missionary to the church to whoever, must be under the deep trust and the only one that can accomplish this work, the sovereign God that we serve. Let's pray that God will help us do that. Father, thank you so much for letting us meditate for a moment on your word. And I pray God that you would help us to be faithful, to imitate what we read here in Acts 13 and Acts 14. Help us to imitate it, Lord, for the glory of your name. God, I pray that you would raise up your church, Lord, to be light into the dark world, and especially to that unreached dark world of the nations. God, you've called us to be a light. God, thank you for your sovereign hand. Thank you, God, that you send us on this work. But we don't have to trust in our own strength, nor can we. Thank you, God, that you show us this in your Word, that you're the one that's in control. You're the one plucking people out of the kingdom of darkness and bringing them into the kingdom of your beloved Son. God, thank you for your sovereignty and salvation and in this mission, God, and we trust in you, in Jesus' name, amen.