A Mission Trip

Anyone ever been on a cruise?…

Paul & Barnabas went on a cruise, kinda… not really…

Start with refresher of Acts

Acts is the story of the early church growing and the Gospel advancing across much of the known world.

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

All people everywhere need to be called on to respond to the Gospel of Jesus!

Send and Go

12:25-13:3

One of the things that gets Kristen and I frustrated with each other the most is if one of us is supposed to be waiting on a phone call and we miss it. Like if Kristen has dropped me off somewhere and she’s going to have to come back and get me, but when I call she doesn’t answer…

And she’s the same way with me! But when we aren’t paying attention, when we aren’t listening, we can miss that call to go!

We are all called to be a part of spreading the Gospel to the end of the Earth. You need to seek God’s will on what that looks like for you individually. For some of us it’s financially supporting missionaries, for some of us it’s assisting missionaries with goods or services, for some of us it’s being a missionary! For some of us it is all three of these things! But there is not a Christian who isn’t called to at least one of these things! You may be called to go a county over or you may be called to go across the world, but you need to ask God and you need to be obedient!

We are all called to share God’s Word in some way.

Stand on the Word

13:4-12

I like knives. I think it may be a guy thing because most of the guys I know are with me in enjoying a good knife. A phrase you hear a lot in advertising kitchen knives is “just let the knife do the work”. What they’re saying is…

God’s Word in Ephesians 6 is called the sword of the Spirit. We can just let the weight of the blade do the work for us!

The first place they proclaim the Word is apparently at a deli.

Mark 13:11 ESV

And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

God’s Word is sufficient. Trust it! Don’t think you need to add to it. Don’t think you need to take out offensive parts. Share the Word and do they Word. That’s enough! Their next stop is proof!

Share the Gospel

Paul shares the Gospel with them! And we have his words recorded here in Scripture for us, thanks be to God! Let’s check it out.

13-47

Have you rejoiced at hearing God’s Word and believed? If not, do so!

If you have received it, then here is a great example for how you now need to pass it along! And when you do, something awesome can happen!

Watch God

48-52

1 Samuel 8:7 ESV

And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

In John3, Jesus compared the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation to the wind. We can’t control the wind and we don’t know where it’s going. We can’t control it or contain it. We just watch it work…

We aren’t responsible for another person’s response to the Gospel anymore than you are responsible for the wind.

So share the Gospel, hope and pray people believe, and watch God work. If they don’t believe, it’s not because you did a bad job. We are just called to share.

There are two responses to the Gospel…