Welcome to this Daily PBJ devotional. Read Numbers 3, Isaiah 28, and Acts 13 today. This devotional is about Acts 13. Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. And after they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them, and sent them off. So Barnabas and Saul, sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia, and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues, and John was with them as their helper. They traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos, where they found a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Barjesus. an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, a man of intelligence, summoned Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Ilimus, the sorcerer, for that is what his name means, opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked directly at Ilymas and said, O child of the devil and enemy of all righteousness, you are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the straight ways of the Lord? Now look, the hand of the Lord is against you, and for a time you will be blind and unable to see the light of the sun. Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord. After setting sail from Paphos, Paul and his companions came to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem. And from Perga they traveled inland to Pisidian Antioch, where they entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and sat down. After the reading from the law and the prophets, the synagogue leaders sent word to them, Brothers, if you have a word of encouragement for the people, please speak. And Paul stood up, motioned with his hand, and began to speak. Men of Israel, and you Gentiles who fear God, listen to me. The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers. He made them into a great people during their stay in Egypt, and with an uplifted arm he led them out of that land. He endured their conduct for about forty years in the wilderness. and having vanquished seven nations in Canaan, he gave their land to his people as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled 40 years. After removing Saul, he raised up David as their king, and testified about him, I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will carry out my will in its entirety. From the descendants of this man, God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. Before the arrival of Jesus, John preached a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. As John was completing his course, he said, Who do you suppose I am? I am not that one, but there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, children of Abraham, and you Gentiles who fear God, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus. Yet in condemning him, they fulfilled the words of the prophet that are read every Sabbath. And though they found no ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. And now we proclaim to you the good news, what God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus, as it is written in the second psalm. You are my son. Today I have become your father. In fact, God raised him from the dead, never to see decay. As he has said, I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David. So also, he says in another psalm, you will not let your Holy One see decay. For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep. His body was buried with his father's and saw decay, but the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. Therefore, let it be known to you, brothers, that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Watch out, then, that what was spoken by the prophets does not happen to you. Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you. As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people urged them to continue this message on the next Sabbath. After the synagogue was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. On the following Sabbath, nearly the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they blasphemously contradicted what Paul was saying. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly, It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first, but since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles, for this is what the Lord has commanded us. I have made you a light for the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord. And all who were appointed for eternal life believed, and the word of the Lord spread throughout that region. The Jews, however, incited the religious women of prominence and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. So they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them, and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. This is God's Word. Being part of the first church in Jerusalem must have been an amazing experience. People were being saved nearly every day, and those who believed started meeting in one another's homes for prayer, instruction, and fellowship. Here in Acts 13, the first Gentile church at Antioch seems to have had a similar experience. Verse 1a told us that there were prophets and teachers there in Antioch, and they are named in the latter half of that verse. Although they enjoyed great worship and fellowship, God's work needed to go forward so that more and more people would become part of the church. And when Jesus returns, they would experience eternity in the kingdom of God. So God spoke in the person of the Holy Spirit and called on the church to send Barnabas and Saul out to evangelize people and form new churches. Thus began the first missionary journey of Paul, as it's often called. And it's the journey, actually, of Barnabas and Paul. And this also began the final stage of the Great Commission. Remember that in Acts 1, verse 8, the Great Commission of Jesus is described, and the last part of it is, go to the utter ends of the earth. God worked through Barnabas and Saul, and for some reason, Luke, the author of Acts, switched to calling him Paul in verse 9. We don't know why. But God worked through them, and people came to believe in Jesus, and they were organized into local churches. But I want to focus for this devotional on the importance of God's mission over our comfort. The church at Antioch, which the beginning of the chapter describes, it sounds like an amazing experience. In human nature being what it is, Paul and Barnabas may have desired to stay there for many, many years doing the Lord's work. It took the direct voice of the Holy Spirit to compel the church to send Barnabas and Paul out on their first missionary journey. They needed God's prompting to do what Jesus had commanded us to do in Acts 1-8. And that's like the church in Jerusalem. They needed the prompting of persecution to move to the Judea and Samaria phase that Acts 1-8 describes. God acts sovereignly to make sure that his will is done, so we never have to worry about the mission failing. What we should remember, however, is that until Jesus returns, we have work to do. It is easy to get very comfortable with the familiar, even, or especially, when God is using us and ministry is going well. But God did not call us to be comfortable. He commissioned us to spread the gospel and to start churches. This means that our church will sometimes have to part with people we love because they're being obedient to the mission. It's already happened to us in recent years, and it will happen again. This is also why we, as a church, send 10% of our giving away into missions and church planting. If we spent 100% of what God provided to us on our own work, even good spiritual work, we would be disobedient to what God commanded us to do in the Great Commission. Maybe you've been considering some kind of change in your life. Giving more to the church, maybe. Or giving directly to missions. Or starting a new ministry here in our church. Or going into church planting yourself. If comfort with the present situation is stopping you from taking on a new challenge for the glory of God, Will you reconsider that in light of this passage? Pray about it today, and I'll see you next time. May God bless you. I hope you have a great day today.