Welcome to this podcast from Harvest Community Church of Huntersville, North Carolina, where our vision is to make disciples who make disciples. I'm your host, Liz Stefanini. Today, as we look at Acts chapter 13, I'm calling this the ultimate supply line. In every war, There are at least three groups of people that participate. There are those that manufacture the goods back home, the medical supplies, whatever the army needs. There are those that transport those goods. They are the supply line. They get what the soldiers who are on the front line need. They get those to them. And then there's the actual soldiers themselves. This picture that's on your screen shows that happening in an actual situation with medical supplies that were being shipped to a needy place. So somebody at home manufactured those. Others got them to the field and delivered them to the soldiers. And then, in this case, it wasn't ammunition to fight a battle, but it was medical supplies. Somebody on the front line used what was there. Today, I want to talk about a different kind of war. God's work really is a battle. There's a real enemy that God has in this world named Satan. He does not want God's work and God's will to be carried forward. He does not want people to be happy or successful or secure. He wants to bring confusion and doubt and destruction. In fact, Jesus said he comes to kill and steal and destroy. That is the enemy. It's a real spiritual battle. And in this battle, It happens locally, but it also happens all across the world. And so if we think about where the battle happens all across the world, every Christian, every follower of Jesus would be one of those three in one of those three groups. You would be on the manufacturing end, Or you would be part of the supply line that gets the supplies to those who are on the front line of doing evangelism, church planting, and missions. And that is exactly what's happening in Acts chapter 13. It's the beginning of what we know as missions. And that's where we come to. We're teaching through the book of Acts here at Harvest in this series called When God Builds His Church. And I wanna read Acts 13, one to three. We'll look at the whole chapter through the morning, but let me just start by reading Acts 13, one to three. Now in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaan, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. Now let me set the stage here of Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13 occurs at a critical point in the book of Acts. The focus so far in Acts has been on the apostle Peter. He has been the leading character of preaching and announcing the word of God to new people and new groups and new places. But all of those were on the mainland. All in the Middle East there, it was Jerusalem and it was in that area and they started going out into Judea, into the surrounding areas. It was all on the mainland. But now when we come to Acts chapter 13, it's like a pivot point. From this point to the rest of the book, Acts chapter 28, the focus is going away from Peter. It doesn't mean that Peter was not involved in serving the Lord after this point. It's the author of Acts, whose name was Luke, now is putting his focus on a different character, and that character's name is Paul. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles and now Paul is going to be the one that is leading the charge to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and from this point It's a big change. That's where we are when we come to acts chapter 13. And we have this story of the early church commissioning Paul or Saul, his both names. Same person, Paul or Saul and Barnabas, and they were gonna be the ones that were gonna go overseas. They'd been on the mainland, now it's time to go overseas, and they were gonna be the ones that did it. We have a story of how they were commissioned, and prayer is a critical component of what happens here. It's often overlooked. But it's a critical component. And today, that's the way I'm building the outline. Why prayer is such a critical component of mission. So let me give you some truths and these are listed on your outline if you wanna follow along and fill these in. First of all, missions, worship and prayer are linked in God's plan. They are linked in God's plan. Look again at verse one, it names the people, the prophets and teachers that were there. And verse two, it says, What were they doing while they were what? Worshipping the Lord and fasting. They were worshiping the Lord and they were fasting. And in that context, the Holy Spirit says to them, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I had called them. God is one God in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And all three parts of God, all three persons of God, I should say, Are involved in the work of the great commission. Remember jesus said I am come to I have come to do my father's will and as the father has sent me Now i'm sending you so there's jesus god the son and there's god the father and now we see god the holy spirit Saying i've got to work out there And I want Paul and Barnabas to do it, and I want you, church, to send them. I want you to be a part of what they're doing out there. That's what it says. Now, early in the book of Acts, we see a lot about the church's worship, and we don't see much about its service. As Acts progresses, we're gonna start to see more about its service and its mission and less about its worship. This does not reflect a change of emphasis. It's not that the church was worshiping any less. It's just for the Luke's purposes as he writes it, he wanted to show the early church worship and what happens as they're worshiping, what happens as they're fasting. The Holy Spirit says, here's the service that I want you to do. Worship, work, and prayer are all here in Acts chapter 13. Both the church and the Holy Spirit are involved in sending these two missionaries. It suggests that mission should be neither totally individual apart from the church, nor should it be institutional. apart from the Holy Spirit. The church and the Holy Spirit are both involved in obeying God's great commission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We should never separate worship and service. It's funny, some churches like cast themselves as a worship center. And it's like, that's kind of what it seems like they're mainly focusing on. We're here to worship only. Some other churches tend to identify themselves as a place of service. We're wanting to do good things out in our community or maybe good things with the Great Commission. And you know what? There shouldn't be a distinction. We shouldn't have to make a decision. A biblical church is a church that worships God with a passion and serves God with a passion, amen? I mean, we want all of this together. Worship, missions, and prayer are all linked in God's plan. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna be interested in worship, I'm gonna be interested in prayer, I'm gonna be interested in missions. No, every believer's interested in all of them. And every believer can participate in all of them. That's the beautiful thing. Secondly, second reason why prayer is a critical component of missions is that prayer gives everyone a chance to contribute to missions. Notice what they did in verse three. After they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. Notice the two things the early church did. They fasted and they prayed. Fasting is really important in the Bible. Moses fasted twice for 40 days and his face was shining with God's glory. Joshua fasted after the defeat at Ai. In the time of the judges, in the time of Samuel, all Israel fasted. David fasted before he was crowned, when his child was ill and because of the sins of his people. Jehoshaphat and his people fasted until God said, you will not have to fight this battle. What is, what is fasting? Wesley dual wrote a book on it and he defines it this way. Fasting in the biblical sense is choosing not to partake of food because your spiritual hunger is so deep. Your determination and intercession so intense. or your spiritual warfare so demanding that you have temporarily set aside even fleshly needs to give yourself to prayer and meditation. Now of course fasting doesn't have to be abstention from food. It can be abstaining from other things so you can focus for a short time on prayer. I remember we often encourage people to fast during the 40 days of prayer. Every January, we start our year off with 40 days of prayer, and the church prays together, and we encourage people to fast. And we talked one year that some of you, medically, it might not be good for you to fast from food, so maybe you find something else. Maybe it's TV, maybe it's entertainment, maybe it's shopping, whatever it is. And at the end of that 40 days of prayer, I got a note from a lady who said, We've enjoyed our 40 days of prayer, and I would have you to know that I've given up 40 days of shopping. I'm not sure that was a good idea, because now my husband knows I can stay out of Marshall's for 40 days. Fasting and prayer. That's what the church was involved with. Fasting and prayer. When it comes to missions, many people can go. In fact, probably more people than think they can go can really go, but not every single person can go overseas. Almost anyone can give. Again, probably more people can give than think they can. It may be fair to say that some people can give more substantially than others. But guess what? Everybody, every believer who cares about God's work can fast and pray. You can find a way to fast that's safe and wise for you. You can find a way to do that and you can find a way to pray and hone in and pray for those who have decided, yes, the battle is out there. The battle is in these other countries and these other places that don't have churches, that don't have believers in Christ. We need to get there. We need to establish new churches. And we who are not the ones going there, support it with prayer and fasting. This is the way Jesus started his ministry. whole concept with his disciples, his early followers. Remember what he said in Luke chapter 10, verse 12, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. What's the first thing you do? You pray. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. And Paul, the missionary, picked this up later, Romans 15, I urge you brothers and sisters by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. What did he mean his struggle? He was talking about his struggle to spread the gospel to new places. And in Colossians chapter four, he said, devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful and pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Why is prayer an important part of missions? Well, first of all, it's because prayer, missions, and worship are linked in God's plan. Secondly, because prayers gives everyone an opportunity to contribute to missions. The third reason Now we're gonna find as we go into the the rest of the chapter prayer strengthens missionaries to overcome the inevitable opposition they are going to face This is not a smooth path. I Can promise you if you serve the Lord it's not going to be a smooth path. I If you try to serve the Lord in your community, it is not gonna be a smooth path. And if you try to serve the Lord overseas, it is not gonna be a smooth path. And right here, we see what happens. The two of them, verse four, this is Saul and Barnabas, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down from Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus, When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper. Now let me just put a map up just to give you a little bit of an idea of what we're talking about. You see that red arrow there? This is Antioch. This was the city where they were. and it was at Antioch they were first called Christians. This in Acts 13 and 14 is what we know as Paul's first missionary journey. So they started the chapter out here in Antioch, they go over to Seleucia, they get on the boat and they go to this Cyprus and there's Salamis and then if you follow along the, The red dot, this is where they go. They go up to this other Antioch, which we'll see in a few minutes. They keep going around to these cities and then they make their way back, all the way back and end up back at the home place of Antioch. That's just some context for where we are. Now, we're all familiar with Murphy's Law, right? Murphy's Law, number one, nothing is as easy as it looks. Number two, everything takes longer than you think. And number three, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Sounds like somebody doing some construction who said that. But what they're about to experience here in Acts chapter 13 is more than Murphy's law. This is spiritual opposition. This is spiritual opposition. A seasoned pastor writes this. Life is continually difficult for the Christian. No matter what your level of involvement in Christian activity or ministry, you will be subject to difficulties and trials. Friends will sometimes forsake you. Families will fail you. Heartache will be a regular part of your life. In fact, dedication to Christ often brings us face to face with more problems than if we lived for themselves or for ourselves. Now, that doesn't sound like a really good recruitment speech, does it? But that's reality. Now we're gonna get to the other side and we're gonna see how much joy there is as well. So don't give up yet. But this is the reality of what they're facing. Notice as we walk through the passage, the different types of opposition they face. First of all, there were spiritual warfare in verses six to 12. Right, they get on this trip and one of the first things that happened is this power encounter. Verse six, they traveled through the whole island. until they came to Paphos, and there they met a Jewish sorcerer and a false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, the proconsul intelligent man sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. So here's this leader, this ruler, he wants to hear the word of God, but he's got an attendant who's a false prophet and is a sorcerer. Watch what happens. Elimus, 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 straight at Elamus and said, you are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right. You're full of all kind of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You're going to be blind for a time, not able to see the light of the sun. Immediately mist and darkness came over him. And he groped around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. And when the proconsul saw what happened, he believed for he was amazed at the teaching of the Lord. This is one kind of spiritual warfare. There are people in this world that have an evil power about them. There are people in this world that I believe demons possess them. I don't have time this morning, I hadn't planned to tell it, I don't have time anyway, but I've had a little bit of experience with that, not much, but I have been around in church settings something like this happening, and it's not anything to take lightly, I can promise you that. And here is somebody that's a sorcerer, his power's not coming from God, he's a false prophet, and Saul calls him out and says, You're against the Lord. And when it happens, when he's blinded temporarily, the proconsul believes and trusts Christ. That's one type of spiritual opposition. There's one way. Again, if you're going to serve the Lord, and especially if you're going to serve the Lord overseas, you are going to face spiritual opposition. It's more than just this. It's not just that you're walking around looking for people like that. I sent an email out to several of our missionary partners this week, not all of them, but harvest supports like 18 missionary families that are out serving the Lord in various places. And I sent an email to a few of them and told them what I was preaching on this week. And I asked them the question, I told them the kind of opposition that we were gonna see in this passage. And I said, have you guys experienced these things? Can you share any of those things with me? Well, through the course of the morning, I'm gonna share some of what you said. Peter and Miriam Fredheim are our missionaries in Nigeria. And Peter said this, we have faced all those different kinds of opposition over the years, but let me give you some that have happened in just the last few months. So this is our missionary, Peter Fredheim. He said we had six fires in different buildings in different parts of the ministry in a very short period of time. It was really strange. And no one person could have set them all as they were in different locations. The leaders led in several prayer and deliverance sessions. One security guard was asked to leave over different issues. Praise God, no one was injured and they've stopped. We were also able to repair all the buildings. We also used that opportunity to make sure our fire readiness protocols were in place. Additionally, Three weeks ago, 13 of our outreach staff were arrested, underwent terrible verbal abuse by corrupt law enforcement, and placed in jail for the night on a false accusation of stirring up problems. Then, just last week, one of our missionaries and one of our staff were falsely accused of a serious crime and arrested and put in jail. Everyone was eventually released after some time behind bars, and they all feel blessed to have been counted worthy to suffer for the Lord. God is awesome and is doing amazing things, but there's a very real enemy who doesn't like it, and we will for absolute positive sure have much opposition. Those of you that know Peter Fredham, can you hear him saying God is awesome? But as a prime example, this kind of opposition is happening everywhere. There's a spiritual battle going on and our weapon in the spiritual battle is prayer. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, They have divine power to demolish strongholds. So that's one thing, that's one type of opposition. In their case, it was a power encounter with somebody that was a sorcerer. It might be in Nigeria, fires happening or false accusations and arrests. Here's another type of opposition they face right away. Verse 13, teammate disappointment. teammate disappointment from Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia where John left them to return Jerusalem. Remember John Mark was going along in this ministry. And there's not a lot said about it here in verse 13, but this is the point at which John Mark just left the ministry. So you had John Mark who had been with Paul before, and he was a teammate serving, and he just left. Now, why did he leave? It's interesting, the Bible does not tell us specifically why. John Mark left. There's a lot of possibilities. Maybe he had romanticized the ministry. Maybe he thought, oh yeah, this is going to be really exciting to go on a missions trip. And then he got there and realized it was hard. Maybe he was disappointed over initial ineffectiveness. Maybe the prospects for the future were difficult. They had to climb the Taurus mountains and they were known to be infested with bandits and maybe John Mark just really wasn't up for that. Maybe there was resentment when Paul began taking precedence over Barnabas, because John Mark was related to Barnabas, right? And at first, Barnabas was seeming the leader of the two, and then Paul became seemingly the leader of the team, and maybe John Mark didn't like that. Maybe there was disagreement over the policy concerning the Gentiles or the degree to which they should penetrate Gentile soil. Maybe he was homesick. Maybe he just got homesick. Or maybe it was physical sickness. Galatians 4.13 says that Paul preached to the Galatians first because of an illness. And some people have conjectured that he might have caught malaria in Pamphylia. which was a low marshy region and it was notorious for malaria. And so they had to go from there to the safer place. We don't know why for sure that John Mark left, but here's what we do know. We know that this affected Paul deeply. In Acts chapter 15, Verse 36, sometime later, Paul said to Barnabas, let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preach the word of the Lord and see how they're doing. Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them. But Paul did not think it wise to take him because he had, look at the language, deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. It's very tough when teammates desert you. And that's true in everything, whether it's sports or a local church or missions team. But that's what happened here. Tom and Sherry Muma are harvesters that were part of our church body and felt called to serve overseas. Tom sold his company, went to seminary in South Carolina. And now they are trying to reach the nation of Chad. They live in the states, but they're the national coordinators for Chad and they're making as many trips as they can to Chad to evangelize and establish churches. And here's what Tom said in response to my question, like about spiritual opposition, Tom said, we learned at our training and I've since read the same, that the number one cause for missionaries leaving the field, do you know what the number one cause for missionaries leaving the field is disagreements between the missionaries themselves. And he gave two examples. I don't have time to give you both of them, but I'll share the second one he gave. He said, there was a city church leader conflicting with the missionary we had recruited from his church body with their support. She was completely loyal to the strategy and executing it well. And as she began to see fruit and new churches were being planted, the city church began to insert itself in the work with a heavy hand on the missionary. They wanted to claim new churches as theirs and this created major confusion with the new church plant leaders. Strategy differences led to a disagreement between the new church leaders and they ended up dividing and this eventually resulted in the collapse of several churches at a stop to any further growth. He said, these are just a couple of painful experiences we've had due to human pride, causing mission workers to divide instead of unite in a common cause. So it's true that that's a type of spiritual opposition. It's disappointment within the team itself. Well, back at Acts 13, let's pick up at verse 14. From Perga, they went on to Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath, they entered the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the law and the prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them saying, brothers, if you have a word of exhortation, for the people, please speak. So let me bring that map back up. And this time I've got the other Antioch highlighted. So they started at this Antioch, and now they've made it across here to this island, up back to this mainland, and they're up at this Antioch right there. That's where this is happening. After the reading from the law, Well, I just read that verse. You didn't see it, but I read it. So I'm not going to read all the verses in the chapter. I'm going to pick out a few of them, and I'm going to summarize to you what Paul said to them. Let's start in verse 23. From this man's descendants, God has brought to Israel the Savior, Jesus. He promised fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles 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 proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written about 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 was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him, everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. What Paul is doing, he's taking their own law, their own prophets, and saying they pointed forward to Jesus, Jesus lived, Jesus died, he was buried. They asked Pilate to execute him, but he was buried and he rose again, and now, There's forgiveness of sins through him. And through him, you can be set free from every sin. And that message is not only for the first century. I want to say it to you sitting here today. I want to say it to you listening on the live stream. That maybe this isn't about being religious, this isn't about trying better yourself, but this is the good news of the message. If you are hearing this message today, it's no accident that you're listening either Electronically or in person. It's no accident that you're listening to this message. God can set you free from every sin God can forgive your sin if you understand that you are wrong before God and You need a new hope and a new life and a new purpose and forgiveness The place to find it is in a person Jesus Christ Church is not for people that are perfect. Church is for people that realize we're sinful. We're needy. We can't do it on our own. We can't make it into heaven on our own. But Jesus Christ took our place. So I would invite you to open your heart to Him. Believe in him and receive the forgiveness of sins. Have you done that? Today be a great day to call out on his name Well, let me start wrapping it up with one more type of Opposition they faced and that was out and out persecution you had You had the teammate situation, you had the power encounter. Now, they also faced people that just did not like what they were doing. On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. And when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and they heaped abuse on him. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly. We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you rejected it, do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life. We now turn to the Gentiles, for this is what the Lord has commanded us. I've made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. One more missionary that I'll share, Noel Gomez. Noel and Reyna are missionaries in Honduras. He wrote, one of the oppositions that we have had and still have is the social and cultural barrier because many of the indigenous descendants are still very closed in their customs and do not allow us to reach them with the gospel. And we also have death threats. or danger from religious fanatics. Opposition is real, even in our worlds today. As we think about this whole chapter, there's a mixture of joy and opposition all mixed up together. Think about what the Holy Spirit does in Acts chapter 13. He calls people to serve. He calls people to missions. He empowers believers to overcome spiritual opposition. He creates opportunities for the gospel and he gives joy to the worker. Kent Hughes writes, there's a cost to sincere service for Christ. Never reach out to the deity and you'll never be taken advantage of. Never give your heart and it will never be broken. Never go to Cyprus and you'll never be subject to dizzy, heart convulsing confrontation with Satan. Seriously follow Christ and you'll experience a gamut of sorrows Almost completely unknown to the unbeliever, but of course, you will also know the joy of adventure with the Lord of the universe and of spiritual victory as you live a life of allegiance to him. So God is building his church. We see him building his church in Acts 13. He's still building his church today. When God builds his church, it obeys God's call to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel. That's what's happening here. God is sending out, the Holy Spirit speaks and says, send these out to the work that I've called them to do. Mission is a joyful partnership with God as we see lives transformed We've talked a lot about the opposition that that these missionaries faced but wrapped the chapter up beginning in verse 48 notice what happens when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and They honored the Lord the Word of the Lord and all who were appointed for eternal life believed the Word of the Lord spread through the whole region and I mean, this was exciting. There was joy. People's lives were being changed. But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and they expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning and went to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy. and with the Holy Spirit. So let me ask you a question. How will you be involved in God's work of mission? How will you be involved? If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, it is the greatest adventure in the world. It's the most important task in the world. It's what Jesus calls us all to do. And how are you going to do it? Are you going to be on the supply line? Are you going to say, I'm going to be one that prays and I'm going to give money and I'm going to support and I'm going to encourage those that are overseas? Or are you going to be one that says, I'll go overseas. I'll go to a place that doesn't have churches that doesn't have Christians. How are you going to be involved? Remember the supply line? Showed you at the beginning. Some people are manufacturing the goods, some people are transporting them to the front lines, and some people are on the front lines. Locally, we're all on the front lines. Get on the front lines here. Get involved in a front line ministry here. But also, we've said this really from, I guess, the outset of harvest, our vision here is not to reach one community. Our vision is not just to reach this area. We want to reach this area, but we want God to use us to reach the world. We want God to reach us, to use us, to reach many different nations and many different places. Praise God. We all have a chance to be involved in that supply chain. I hope you'll do it today. Let's bow our heads together for prayer, please. Thanks again for joining us today from Harvest Community Church. This podcast is also available on our website HarvestCharlotte.com. Please go there if you want to send a question or comment, learn more about our ministries, or find out how you can donate to support the podcast.