Paul's First Missionary Journey

Call to Worship

Psalm 67 ESV

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!

Sermon

This morning we’re going to be looking at Paul’s first missionary journey, we’re going to try and cover it all in one sermon, so we’ll be jumping around to a fair bit of scripture. But we’re really only going to be focusing on a couple of parts.

Acts 13:1–3 (NLT)

Among the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch of Syria were Barnabas, Simeon (called “the black man”), Lucius (from Cyrene), Manaen (the childhood companion of King Herod Antipas), and Saul. One day as these men were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Appoint Barnabas and Saul for the special work to which I have called them.” So after more fasting and prayer, the men laid their hands on them and sent them on their way.

Our story starts here, and we meet Paul in the city of Antioch with several others. We haven’t talked about Paul for a few weeks, not since Noah preached, and just to catch us up briefly, Noah shared how Paul was on the road to Damascus, and there he met Ananias. And Paul stayed there for a bit, but then as he was preaching about Jesus, people in Damascus were getting angry with him and tried to kill him, and so he had to escape in a a basket in the middle of the night in order to not be killed. And after that he went to Jerusalem where he shared with the apostles how he has been radically changed by Jesus and how he had just been sharing the good news in Damascus, and he’s there for a while before he has to be sent out again in order to not be killed by people in Jerusalem.

And this starts to become a theme throughout the rest of Paul’s life, he goes to a place and is there for a bit, but then the people want to kill him and so he has to escape and he goes to the next place and the cycle continues.

So Paul escapes from Jerusalem, and he goes to Tarsus, which is hometown, and he stays there for quite a while, we don’t know the exact amount of time, but a lot of people think it was at least eight years. And then there’s a verse chapter 11 thats says “Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.)”

So Barnabas goes and gets him and they’re at Antioch for a year. And that’s where we find them as we start chapter 13.

And I think that even from these 3 verses there’s a few things we can gather.

First, Christian’s have always been multi-cultural. Even here we see Paul and Barnabas who are Jewish men, with Manean who is likely a member of the group called Herodians, with Lucius who is from Cyrene which likely means he was Greek, with Simeon who was called Niger or “the black man”, meaning he was likely from further south into an African region and not from the Roman area that a few of the others were from. I think that this speaks volumes to the fact that the churhc should continue to seek be multi-cultural, to not let barriers of race or culture or ethnicity keep us from meeting together as fellow believers in Christ.

Second, they had an encounter with the Holy Spirit as their guide while they were already worshipping and fasting. Fasting isn’t something we talk about much, or do very often. Sometimes you might hear about intermitent fasting for health reasons, but most people in our western culture don’t refrain from eating for anything, we have three square meals a day, and sometimes a couple of snacks and that’s just how things are. But I think that we’re missing something by not fasting, I haven’t been very good at practicing this myself, but I do believe that that practice of self-control and self-denial while worshipping puts us into an interesting mindspace where we maybe are able to focus on the Spirit more clearly. And I think it’s important to note that even before they were sent to do ministry, Paul and Barnabas were already preparing their minds, hearts, and bodies for God’s work. I think a big problem I see with our western version of the church is that people will often want to try and sit around and wait for God to clearly speak to them before they prepare themselves for ministry. But the truth is God has a plan and job for each one of us, and instead of sitting around and doing nothing we should be actively seeking Him and preparing our bodies, hearts and minds to be ready to go where He wants us to. No one is ever too good or bad, or young or old, or even sick or healthy that God can’t use them for His purposes. We just need to be focusing on listening so that we can follow where He is leading no matter what our circumstances are.

Third, not all of the people they were with were called to the same task. God had specially chosen work for Paul and Barnabas, and for Paul especially to be the firstlarge scale missionary to the gentiles, and Paul, as we know, becomes the founder of much of the early church. His work was maybe more exciting, he did a lot of different things, and went to interesting places, met interesting people, experienced things that no one else ever did, or ever has since him. And yet that doesn’t mean that the others who were with him, Simeon, Lucius or Manaen, didn’t have important roles to play as well, we’re not told hardly anything about these three men after this passage, and even in church history there is not very much known, and yet we can speculate about the ministry they did, because what we do know is that the church in Antioch became the first of five epicenters of Christian ministry in the Ancient world. The others counted along with it were Alexandria, Jerusalem, Rome and Constantinople. Which if you’ve ever studied ancient history puts it as a contemporary with some of the largest cities in the ancient world. We can guess that these men stayed at Antioch for some time, and were perhaps in leadership roles in that church as it grew.

The point here, is that everyone is called to different forms of ministry. Some of us are called to be missionaries and to not be in more than one place for very long but to share the gospel there for a time and then move on to the next town or city and continue sharing the gospel. Others are called to stick around for a while and build up the church in one place. And neither of those is better or worse than another. Just because we’re part of the church here in Canning right now, doesn’t mean our ministry is any better or worse than the ministry in Centreville, or New Minas, or Halifax, or to those who are traveling over to parts of Africa and Asia. God has a plan and mission for each person and we can’t say that one is less or more important than any other, and if God is leading is to a specific task or place for a time then we need to listen and be willing to go, and be willing to send those who are serving alongside us to other places if that’s where they are calling them.

I know from past experience that sometimes when a person leaves their ministry context and goes to a different one that sometimes people can be hurt or bitter about it, and can wish that everything had just stayed the same. And sometimes people are justified in feeling that, and yet at the same time God’s plan is sometimes to send people, and just like Paul and Barnabas’s friends in this passage, we as the church need to rejoice and be ready to send people to other places, we shouldn’t be jealous of others ministry instead we should rejoice with them because God is using each of us as a part of the plan that He has.

And who know’s maybe when God is calling someone to a different place their ministry will be so successful that dozens of cities are saved, just like God did with Paul.

After Paul and Barnabas left Antioch they travelled to a variety of places, Acts 13:4-5 tells us that they set sail for Cyprus and they took a guy named John Mark with them as their assistant. And as they’re travelling in Cyprus they meet this man named Bar-Jesus who’s false prophet and a sorceror, and Paul and Barnabas have this cool opportunity to share the gospel with a governor who has a lot of influence, but this false prophet tries to stop them and Paul has this really intense interaction with the false prophet and this is what Paul says:

Acts 13:9–12 NLT

Saul, also known as Paul, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he looked the sorcerer in the eye. Then he said, “You son of the devil, full of every sort of deceit and fraud, and enemy of all that is good! Will you never stop perverting the true ways of the Lord? Watch now, for the Lord has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be struck blind. You will not see the sunlight for some time.” Instantly mist and darkness came over the man’s eyes, and he began groping around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him. When the governor saw what had happened, he became a believer, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.

It’s kind of poetic that one of Paul’s first major encounters as a missionary is to do the same thing to someone else that God did to him. To stop the person opposing the gospel in their tracks and to blind them for a time in order to show that God won’t tolerate those who are leading others into sin and darkness and evil. And the truth is there are some people today that want to stop the spreading of the gospel, I’ve become inscreasingly aware of it as I watch the school systems get worse and worse and kids are being led astray by all sorts of different lies, but the good news is that the gospel always prevails, and what happened when Paul had this interaction is that the governor nbecame a believer. But notice why he did, it wasn’t because Paul was awesome or because of the miracle of blindness he just watched, it was because he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord. And that’s what we need to remember when we’re sharing the gospel we don’t need to make it anything but what it is, because this right here, God’s word, is astonishing, and when people here the truth for the first time they will be blown away, because that’s what it is: it’s true. And because it’s true it has power and it contains hope and the teachings about Jesus are still just as relevant and powerful today as they were in Paul’s time.

After this Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark continue on, and shortly after this John Mark leaves, and we’re not really told why but we do know that later on, Paul and Barnabas have a disagreement about it, and Paul think that John Mark isn’t really useful because he just leaves, but Barnabas seemed to think he was helpful and doesn’t seem to have an issue with it. And again we’re not told much about the situation, but what we can gather is the same lesson as before, sometimes people are only meant to do ministry in a place or with specific people for a season and then God sends them to the next place, and that can be really hard for both parties, perhaps later on John Mark regretted leaving them, and maybe there was more tension between all of them than we realize. But the truth is no matter where we end up, God still has a plan for each of us, and His desire for us is not that we’re bitter with one another about where God is calling different people, or bitter because some people seem to be doing better at ministry than us instead we should rejoice with our other brothers and sisters and wish them well because God is at work in way more than one place at a time, and we never know what He has in store for other people. And who knows sometimes the people we separate from for a time we end up being partners with again, the last letter Paul wrote before he died was likely 2 Timothy, and in that book he says something interesting

2 Timothy 4:11 (NLT)

Only Luke is with me. Bring Mark with you when you come, for he will be helpful to me in my ministry.

Paul is reconciled with Mark later on and realizes that perhaps he was mistaken, Mark going a separate way may not have been him being useless, instead God had a different plan for Mark than he did for Paul, and he reconciled them later on.

Let’s go back to the missionary trip, so after Paul and Barnabas carry on they get to another place called Antioch, the one they left was Antioch of Syria this one is Antioch of Pisidia, it’s kind of like how in the Maritimes we have two Sackvilles, one in NS and one in NB, or how we have Saint John, NB, and St. Johns NFLD. Which if people were to read about in 2000 years may seem confusing, but it’s still two very different places.

Anyways, once they’re there, they attend a Sabbath service, and at the end the leaders ask Paul to speak and he gives the first sermon that we have recorded by him in the bible, and what’s intersting is that it feels nearly identical to the sermon that Stephen gave. If you remember a few weeks ago we talked about Stephen, and how Paul was there when he was killed, here we hear Paul’s sermon and we see that Stephen’s must have really affected him because he talks about the same idea. He recounts the history of the Jewish people, he talks about Moses and David, and he shows how Jesus is the fulfillment of the great figures that came before Him, but that the people cast out Jesus and killed Him. We won’t read the whole sermon, but here’s just a snippet of it.

Acts 13:26–43 NLT

“Brothers—you sons of Abraham, and also you God-fearing Gentiles—this message of salvation has been sent to us! The people in Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize Jesus as the one the prophets had spoken about. Instead, they condemned him, and in doing this they fulfilled the prophets’ words that are read every Sabbath. They found no legal reason to execute him, but they asked Pilate to have him killed anyway. “When they had done all that the prophecies said about him, they took him down from the cross and placed him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead! And over a period of many days he appeared to those who had gone with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to the people of Israel. “And now we are here to bring you this Good News. The promise was made to our ancestors, and God has now fulfilled it for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus. This is what the second psalm says about Jesus: ‘You are my Son. Today I have become your Father.’ For God had promised to raise him from the dead, not leaving him to rot in the grave. He said, ‘I will give you the sacred blessings I promised to David.’ Another psalm explains it more fully: ‘You will not allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.’ This is not a reference to David, for after David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died and was buried with his ancestors, and his body decayed. No, it was a reference to someone else—someone whom God raised and whose body did not decay. “Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is made right in God’s sight—something the law of Moses could never do. Be careful! Don’t let the prophets’ words apply to you. For they said, ‘Look, you mockers, be amazed and die! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.’” As Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue that day, the people begged them to speak about these things again the next week. Many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, and the two men urged them to continue to rely on the grace of God.

Paul uses the scriptures to show how Jesus has fulfilled them, and he proclaims forgiveness for sins in the name of Jesus, and that everyone who believes in him is made right in the eyes of God. Which is simple as it gets, and yet there’s so much power there. For those of us who are saved, it’s this simple message that we cling to that believe in Christ is sufficient to forgive our sins, and present us as blameless before the Father.

And like we read many believed and followed Paul and Barnabas because of this message. And Paul and Barnabas carried on, and they came to a place called Iconium, and after that Lystra. But here’s where things got harder, in the first places they didn’t face very much persecution. But here just as some continued to believe them and follow them, others tried to stop them, and at one point Paul even gets stoned to the point that those stoning him thought he was dead, but miraculously the next day he continues on with Barnabas and leaves for a place called Derbe. And this is how the first missionary journey ends.

Acts 14:21–28 NLT

After preaching the Good News in Derbe and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders in every church. With prayer and fasting, they turned the elders over to the care of the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. Then they traveled back through Pisidia to Pamphylia. They preached the word in Perga, then went down to Attalia. Finally, they returned by ship to Antioch of Syria, where their journey had begun. The believers there had entrusted them to the grace of God to do the work they had now completed. Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too. And they stayed there with the believers for a long time.

I appreciate the line in verse 22: “reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” That’s what Paul and Barnabas discoved on their first trip, some times things go great in ministry and lots of people come to Christ, other times things are hard when we’re following Jesus, people hate us and try to stop us or even hurt us, people we love leave and we don’t always know why God is allowing everything to happen. And yet despite our hardships, we know that we only suffer for a short period of time before entering the Kingdom of God.

After all of this, and Paul and Barnabas finished their journey, they’re approach and asked to come to Jerusalem for a meeting, and the meeting is referred to as the Jerusalem Council and it actually becomes one of the most important meetings in the church ever, because it’s there that the Jewish Christians finally understand the testimonies of Paul about his mission to the gentiles, and from Peter about his encounter with Cornelius, and the church finally reaches a point where there is established unity between the Jewish Christian and the Gentile ones. And the reason this is important is that without it none of us, who are not Jewish would be saved.

Essentially what happened in the meeting is that a group of Jewish Christians claimed that because the gentiles were not circumcised like the law of Moses required they could not be saved. And Paul and Barnabas strongly disagree, and they share with the whole church all of the things they had seen on their trip, and how the gentiles were being saved, and then more people get up and make the same case that gentiles don’t follow the law of Moses and therefore can’t be saved and Peter then gets up and he shares something that has shaped the church since that moment. He says:a

Acts 15:7–11 NLT

At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them as follows: “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”

And after this Paul and Barnabas continue sharing about what they had seen and what they thought, and after that James who was the brother of Jesus and the author of the book of James gets up and he encourages the apostles to write a letter to all gentile Christians telling them that they should be free from much of the law, and they only need to follow certain parts. And so the apostles write the letter, and this is what it says:

Acts 15:23–29 NLT

This is the letter they took with them: “This letter is from the apostles and elders, your brothers in Jerusalem. It is written to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings! “We understand that some men from here have troubled you and upset you with their teaching, but we did not send them! So we decided, having come to complete agreement, to send you official representatives, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are sending Judas and Silas to confirm what we have decided concerning your question. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”

And after they sent the letter out they finished the meeting, and Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch where they started, and that’s where they have this short discussion that we talked about previously regarding John Mark. Here it is:

Acts 15:36–41 NLT

After some time Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go back and visit each city where we previously preached the word of the Lord, to see how the new believers are doing.” Barnabas agreed and wanted to take along John Mark. But Paul disagreed strongly, since John Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in their work. Their disagreement was so sharp that they separated. Barnabas took John Mark with him and sailed for Cyprus. Paul chose Silas, and as he left, the believers entrusted him to the Lord’s gracious care. Then he traveled throughout Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there.

And that’s the end of his first trip and the story of the council. It’s a lot to take in, but it sets us up to look at his second trip in the following weeks.

From what we’ve just discussed, here’s a couple of take aways, and then we’ll be done.

First, each of us should prepare to follow God’s plan. He has a unique plan for each of us, and He may never clearly reveal it to us, beyond the fact that His plan for everyone is that we prepare ourselves to be sent to do His work and share the gospel.

Second, that doesn’t look the same for all people or at all times. Each of us are called to something unique, not all of us will be missionaries, or pastors. Not all of us will be given the same task or gifts, and that’s a good thing. God uses each Christian to build up the global church, and so we shouldn’t begrudge people where they’re only at a certain spot for a time, or when it feels like they’re more successful than us, God has a plan for each person, and that plan is far bigger and better than any of us can comprehend.

Lastly, the gospel is true, it’s powerful, and it’s for everyone. The truth is that each one of us, every last human, Jew or gentile, young or old, all of us, have sinned and falled short of God’s standard, we all deserve death, but the gospel is that we are given hope for live by Jesus because He died in our place, and through believing in Him there is forgiveness for sins, and hope for a future, no matter how hard live gets. People will stand in our way, our friends might leave us, but in the end what we can cling to is the truth that Jesus Christ has provided us hope beyond our wildest dreams, and a salvation we could not obtain on our own. Paul understood that and he gave his whole life to share it with others, and we’re called to do the same thing. It doesn’t look the same for all of us, but each of us is called to share the gospel with everyone we know. So this week find someone who you know doesn’t currently know Jesus and share the hope that you have found in Him with them, that’s what God’s will is for each of us, and even if it’s hard it’s the most important thing we could possibly do.

So let’s pray that like Paul, God would give us the boldness to listen to Him and to share our faith even when it’s hard.

Benediction

2 Thessalonians 2:16–17 ESV

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.