Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
Kids Portion
Today’s story is about a church that sends out missionaries
Do you remember when we sent Sam Peterson to Colorado?
We laid hands on him and prayed for him
The missionaries are named Paul and Barnabas
God gives them a special mission to go out and preach the gospel
When they are out telling people about Jesus, one of the Roman leaders comes up to them and asks about what they are saying
But the governor's friend did not like that he was asking Paul and Barnabas about Jesus…
The governor's friend tried to keep him from hearing about Jesus!
But Paul said something like, “You cannot keep us from sharing about Jesus” and made it so the man couldn’t see for a while.
Because the governor saw the power of Jesus in Paul and Barnabas he believed in Jesus and was saved!
My time at Columbia Basin College doing ministry were some of the most memorable years of my life.
I experience lots of growth, and lots of challenges during my 6 years there.
The Lord taught me about leadership, sacrifice, and revealed lots of my personal weaknesses.
But one of the most memorable things the Lord taught me was how to share my faith with non-believers.
When I first started going to CBC I didn’t have many friends who weren’t already christians, and sharing the gospel was very new to me.
If you knew me back then, you might know that I thought of myself a little bit like a christian super star.
I thought I was the best thing that had come to campus, and through my ministry effort there I was going to reshape the schools spiritual state.
But I was in for a rude awakening.
I still remember one of my first attempts to share the gospel.
I was in the HUB, and there was some kind of event going on.
This was in 2013, so about 10 years ago.
I walked up to this guys table, he was another student about my age, maybe a little older.
He was sitting alone, so I asked if I could sit with him.
Some time passed in awkward silence, then I started asking him general questions about his involvement at the school.
“What classes are you taking” “How long have you been going here” stuff like that.
He was very nice, and answered all my questions.
After another period of awkward silence I decided to go for it.
I said something like “So what do you believe about God.”
He proceeded to tell me that he was Buddhist.
I had a slight panic, because at the time I knew nothing about Buddhism.
I struggled to find helpful questions to ask him, but the conversation wasn’t really going anywhere.
Things were not lining up the way I hoped they would, but I was determined to share the gospel with this guy.
I asked him if I could share about what I believed, and he agreed to hear me out.
So I shared a simple gospel presentation with him, starting in the garden and ending with Jesus’ return as the king.
I was so hopeful that this guy would fall on his face and repent right in the middle of the HUB, turning from his buddhist ways and following Jesus as Lord.
Unfortunately, this was not the outcome.
He didn’t really have much to say… He might have given me a “Cool story bro,” but it was far from the response I had hoped for.
At this point I could tell we are both at our awkwardness limit for this interaction… The conversation up to this point wasn’t smooth, it was more like chopping your way through the jungle with a pair of scissors.
I mustered all the remaining courage I had and I said something like, “So is there any way I can persuade you to believe what I believe and not Buddhism?”
This was my last glimmer of hope, and my best attempt to evangelize him.
He basically said, “Nah.”
At that point I knew I was done.
I made up some kind of excuse as to why I had to leave, grabbed my backpack and speed walked away from the table.
As I said before, this was one of my first ever attempts to share my faith, at least that I can remember.
After this encounter, I was marked by a sense of failure and discouragement.
I would sit with others, sometimes entire tables of people I was hoping to share the gospel with but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
This guy wasn’t rude to me, he didn’t curse at me or call me names, it was just so awkward that it shook my confidence.
As I was preparing for the text we are in today this season of ministry came to mind.
For me, the early stages of learning to share the gospel were full of encounters like this.
They were the moments that I learned to trust the Lord, and HIS power to save and NOT my own.
God used my first year at CBC to increase my faith in Him, and to breakdown the false confidence I had in myself.
Today’s story is going to display God’s miraculous power over salvation, and it will help us in times of need to find boldness in the right place.
It is so easy to shy away from sharing our faith when we put our trust in the wrong place, like I did during this season at CBC.
We NEED this text to speak truth and life to our hearts.
We need the Lord to instruct us and help us grow.
First we will pray, and ask the Lord to speak before we approach the text.
Prayer:
Father, only you can change hearts.
Only you can help us receive from Your word.
We are in desperate need for you to speak.
Lord I ask you to change the hearts of your people.
Remove the distractions and hardships that they entered this room with and help them see Your beauty.
Lastly, remove my own pride and agenda.
Help me to be faithful to this text and to preach Your word for what it is - perfect and complete.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
You may or may not have noticed, but we passed over the last part of Acts chapter 11.
Matt left off two weeks ago in chapter 11, and I picked it up in chapter 12 last week.
We are going to cover the last part of chapter 11 today because it provides valuable context to us, and we don’t want to miss anything as we go along.
Honestly, the last part of chapter 11 and our text today in chapter 13 fit together seamlessly, so I will begin by reading these texts back to back.
Please turn there in your bible and follow along, we are starting in Acts 11 verse 19.
Not turn to Acts chapter 13, we will read the first 12 verses:
So starting back in Chapter 11 verse 19, we will go through it one section at a time.
As I said a moment ago, this section in chapter 11 will provide valuable context for us.
We see from these first few verses that because of the persecution that arose over Stephen the believers were scattered.
They were forced in some sense to flee the persecution, and because of that several new churches are started.
Most notably, the church in Antioch was started as a result of this movement.
Interestingly, this is common throughout the churches history.
There have been many times that wicked people have tried to stomp out christianity through persecution, and on a large scale it has always had the opposite effect.
People seek to abolish Jesus’ people through persecution, and the Lord uses that to grow and advance his church.
Don’t get me wrong, the bible does warn individual christians that persecution will test their faith.
Persecution is something common, so much so that we should expect it.
Listen to Jesus’ words in John 15.
We don’t see much of that testing in our current context, but be watchful as it is getting worse every year, especially on a global scale.
The more hidden, yet equally dangerous threat, is peaceful complacency.
I have theorized for a long time that what threatens the American church the most is NOT persecution, but peaceful complacency.
In this context people have the ability to claim the name of Jesus, with no subsequent action, and live a largely persecution free life through their complacency.
The Apostle Paul describes life like a race.
A race that we must run every day, keeping careful watch over ourselves, for we need to finish the race by the grace of God.
I would suggest to you that in our context peaceful complacency is far more dangerous to your soul, and we must be watchful over one another.
As we will see later, the love of Christ compels us to live boldly for His name, and this will bring about hardship.
Verse 21 reinforces this point.
Despite the persecution it says “a great number who believed turned to the Lord.”
Peaceful complacency and its dangers aren’t going to be the main focus of this message, but I thought it was worth mentioning because we see the positive effects of persecution so often in the book of Acts.
Pick it up in Verse 22:
This is were one of our key characters enters the scene.
He is a man named Barnabas, sent from Jerusalem to aid the church in Antioch.
Barnabas was a good man, he receives a similar description to the one given to Stephen.
He is full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
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