All right, if you will, turn
your Bibles to Acts 13. I'm going to read a few verses, and then
we'll work through our outline to begin to understand what the
turn of events is. Chapter 13, verse 1. I'll read
verses 1 through verse 6, I think. No, I'll stop at verse 5. That
will be the meditation probably this week and next week as well,
unless we can get through some of this terse introductory language
chapter 13 verse 1 now there were in the church that was at
Antioch certain prophets teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was
called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Menaen which had been brought
up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul as they ministered to the
Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and
Saul for the work where unto I have called them. And when
they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they
sent them away. So they being sent forth by the
Holy Ghost departed unto Seleucia. And from this, they sailed to
Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis,
they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.
And they had also John to their minister. And we'll stop right
there because an episode occurs in verses six and following that
merits its own examination. So what's happening in chapter
13? We might call the Apostle Paul's first missionary journey
proper. The Apostle Paul and Barnabas's
first missionary journey properly. Obviously, the Apostle Paul has
been introduced to the church in Jerusalem. He has settled
down and become part of the ministry. We saw that back in Acts chapter
9 and again in Acts chapter 11. And then Paul and Barnabas were
sent, as we saw in Acts chapter 11, to Antioch. Antioch is the
region now that we are sort of focusing in on topologically. The geographical location is
Antioch because there a good group of believers have begun
to do ministry And we saw this in the verses previous to chapter
12, where the disciples were doing ministry after Peter had
actually performed the miracle with Dorcas and the other brother. They began to do ministry in
Antioch, and that's where the disciples or the apostles in
Jerusalem had heard about them. They sent Barnabas and Paul down
there to do ministry. And that's when we got into what
we call this kind of a parenthetical that we saw in chapter 12. I
told you chapter 12 was a parenthetical with Peter after Peter's experience
with being in prison and the death of Herod the Tetrarch,
who was Antipas. That whole scenario teaching
us something about the authority of the gospel and its prevalence
to make its way back to Jerusalem and then abroad. We are now in
the 13th chapter. And it opens up, therefore, now
there were in the church that was at Antioch. So the title
of our outline is the Ministry of Saul and Barnabas, the Ministry
of Saul and Barnabas. And verse one opens up and it
requires us to meditate on what it says. Now, notice what verse
one says. And we'll look at our outline
and begin to unpack it. Now, there were in the church.
That means the church was already there that was at Antioch. Now Antioch is in Syria, Syria
proper. Syria is that region of the world
today that's in much mayhem and disarray and confusion of a conflict
and it's obviously right near Jerusalem. Far enough away, if
I were to draw it on a map, Jerusalem or Palestine would probably be
in the south region and I don't think we have a map there to
pull it up but if I were to draw it on a map Jerusalem would be
somewhere down here and we would draw a map and right up about
here we would have Antioch so Paul and Barnabas are going where
north up to Antioch and They will go from Antioch and make
their way all the way around to Asia Minor in a little while
when they begin to do their ministry and start developing gospel churches
to the Gentiles. So they are being sent from Jerusalem
to Antioch to this work. And this is where we are now
in chapter 13. And you will begin to see what
we will call officially the first missionary journey of the apostles
and how missionary work is sort of framed as a paradigm. This is quite interesting because
over the last several days I've been working on a missionary
statement for our church. Not a missionary statement in
the sense that this is what we believe missionary work is about,
but rather what we are doing in terms of missionary work.
Because we are doing missionary work and we're gonna have an
11 by 17 account, 11 by 17 page account on the board, probably
Sunday, outlining some of our local missionary work and then
sort of highlighting just a tad of some of our foreign missionary
work that we're doing. And I'm already spinning, having
things spin in my head about a missionary conference. And
what I mean by that is probably somewhere in the latter part
of the summer, we'll have a conference where we will highlight what
we are doing as a church in terms of missionary work, like the
local missionary stuff that we do, like our missionary work
to our men's homes, in our missionary work to our convalescent homes.
In our missionary works in terms of Bible studies that are planted
hither and yon that people are doing. And the expanding work
that we're doing in southern or up in the southern part of
northern part of California and Sacramento with our extended
work there. That work is going very well and we're expanding
ministry there too. And so probably somewhere around
the end of the summer we'll have a two or three day conference
around missions just to augment and impress upon your heart,
particularly the people at Grace, that the gospel doesn't stop
in this building. It's actually designed to go
out and reverberate in your local neighborhood and within the regions
in which you can make an impact and then beyond. And because
we don't talk much about it, I thought it would be a good
time to actually make it a conference. we're in the conference I will
show you specifically what areas of the world we are supporting
in terms of missionaries and how we're impacting parts of
Uganda and parts of Kenya and parts of Africa and parts of
Mexico and different places as we are supporting missionary
work in missionary outfits for the purpose of spreading the
gospel and therefore we will have few representatives that
will also be able to share with you as well but what it will
be primarily is my actually teaching us how important it is that not
only are we to have a sound gospel hub because Antioch is where
we would call the work that's taking place in Acts chapter
13 verse 1 a gospel hub you'll see that in a moment And from
the gospel hub, the gospel should go out and impact the world.
A church is not healthy if it does not grow up and out of its
own local region. And so that's sort of a little
caveat. Point number one in your outline,
prophets and teachers. This is critical to any missionary
work. For instance, for those of you
who come to Grace and you end up joining Grace, you have to
come to a new members class. And in the new members class,
we talk about the history of grace. We talk about the nature
and character of the work that we do. We actually share with
you our mission statement. And in our mission statement,
we say three things that we are given to sound doctrine. We are
given to fervent charity among the brethren and we're given
to zealous evangelism. That is just a fundamental basis
upon which we operate as a local church. Sound doctrine, zealous,
passionate love for one another, and then zealous evangelism.
I'll put this up here for you to meditate on. Sound doctrine. We believe that sound doctrine
is critical to the life and the health of the church, and then
fervent love for the body. Fervent love for the body of
Christ, and then zealous. Evangelism zealous Evangelism
all of these three points could be developed and maybe we'll
see that in our text But I will argue that a church will never
be fervent in its love towards one another if its love is not
based upon biblical truth and it's not if it's not motivated
out of a genuine connection with Christ and If you and I are not
loving one another as a basis of our love for Christ, our love
for one another will be manipulation. It will be based upon what we
can get from one another. It will operate out of a horizontal
dilemma of which I've talked to you about before. What is
a horizontal dilemma? It's when there's a roof on your
love that does not allow it to have its source in God. And you
and I are then limited to how we can influence one another
by our human love that's operating horizontally. Now, when once
our love is purely horizontal, we are simply doing politics. When our love is simply horizontal,
we are doing politics. That means I will choose whom
I will express love towards with the objective of gaining my own
little clique or group. And when once I do that, I will
feel secure enough to care less about the rest of the body. That's
called a human carnal love of which God will have nothing to
do with. It's a human carnal love that basically actually
diminishes the character of any local church. It can happen in
a family It can happen anywhere anywhere you and I allow the
what I call the horizontal dilemma To dominate our thinking where
we are only thinking on a horizontal plane not a vertical plane Then
everything that we're gonna do we're gonna do is gonna always
be calculated by what can I get out of it? And so when we are
talking about a divine love functioning as the second category, fervent
love among the people of God, it's got to be rooted in sound
doctrine. It's got to be rooted in sound
doctrine. And you guys remember when I told you what sound doctrine
is. Sound doctrine is not just simply
having our head filled with a lot of scriptural data. Sound doctrine
is doctrine that is biblical and comprehensive and produces
in us not only a firmly rooted understanding of our salvation,
but also an ethic of life that flows out of that firmly rooted
ethic of salvation, our knowledge of salvation. I am acting now
out of who I know. That's called sound doctrine.
My doctrine is not sound if all I am doing is being a hearer
of the word, but not a doer. My doctrine is not sound if all
I do is come to know and not to do. You have not acquired
sound doctrine because sound doctrine is actually going to
be transformative. Sound doctrine is going to move
you out of your comfort zone. It's going to bring you into
a place of obedience to Christ. And you're going to be doing
things that are counterintuitive simply because the gospel will
have gotten a hold of your life. That's what sound doctrine is
about. And so when we say sound doctrine, we're talking about
the doctrines of the grace of God that move us out and compel
us to love one another, which prepares us for evangelism. Which prepares us for evangelism.
Now follow this, and I taught our evangelism classes. You cannot
be an effective evangelist if you don't already know how to
love the brethren. And if you don't know how to love the brethren,
your doctrine is not sound. And why would anybody want to
come to your church house when they don't see you loving one
another out of a pure heart fervently? Under the assumption that all
they need is right doctrine. So now mark this sound doctrine
is not equal to right doctrine. Sound doctrine is not equal to
right doctrine. You can have right doctrine,
but it not be sufficient. You can have truth. that reaches
at a certain level and category or capacity, but it does not
actually impact the people that are around you or even one's
own self. So be careful to know that when
we talk about sound doctrine, we're talking about a healthy
lifestyle. Remember I told you one of the
Greek terms for sound is hygienist, from which we get the term what?
Hygiene. So now if we are unhealthy in our doctrine, we stink. Do
you get the analogy? We stink. And who wants to come
into the presence of someone who stings? So sound doctrine
will lead to fervent love, which is its own fragrance, which is
its own fragrance, which is attractive to people who want to be part
of mature and growing and Christ-like individuals. And it's going to
lead to successful evangelism. Successful evangelists love sinners. You guys hear that? People who
are successful in evangelism Love sinners. What's my argument? Christ, he is the quintessential
evangelist. And did he not love sinners?
Was he not sound in his doctrine? I close my case. So point number
one in our outline is going to be probably the bulk of our study
tonight. I'd love to get to point number
three and four. But I know I'm going to have
to kind of get all of the cobwebs out of your head because you
haven't been in class for two weeks. I don't know what you've
been doing on Friday for the last two weeks, but I could probably
argue that you weren't sitting around doing exegesis and expository
developments of biblical texts. And so let's see if we can get
the cobwebs out of our heads. Acts chapter 13, 1 through 5
deals with five subjects, prophets and teachers, the list of men
in Antioch, ministering to God, which I'm looking forward to
talking about, and then the personhood of the Spirit of God, which is
what our men are learning in biblical theology as we are dealing
with the glorious doctrine of the triunity of the three persons
of the Godhead, the personhood of the Spirit. We won't get there
this week, maybe next week. So under our first point, we're
dealing with prophets and teachers, and I want to deal with their
distinct functions and therefore application to the persons of
whom they are being addressed in verse two. The first thing
I want to talk about is what it means to be a prophet. Point
A in your outline. A prophet is a person who operates
in two capacities. He receives revelation. They
receive revelation that we call what? Prophecy. Do you guys see
that? P-R-O-P-H-E-C-Y. That's called content. It's important
for you to know that the content of prophecy that you and I receive
when we receive it is the revelation of God. So today, the content
of prophecy that you have is the Bible. I'll make that argument
a little bit down the line, but just let me lay the foundation
right now that you have no other content of prophecy being given
to you, but the prophecy that's already given, which is scripture.
The assumption or assertion that you can receive a prophetic word
from God in some kind of mystical way must be challenged in this
present generation as I did when I dealt with the subject of tongues
last year and raised 15 cogent questions around the assumption
of tongues as they are being held today. I would do the same
thing with the subject of receiving revelation. If a man or a woman
would assert that they're receiving revelation from God, they are
making a major boast about their position before God that actually
transcends every other Christian, including pastors. What boast
are they making? They're making the boast that
they have access to God on a level that basically trumps the scripture. Now, they won't make that assertion.
They will say that it's equal to scripture. that what God is
saying to them at best is equal to what God has said in the scriptures.
But we're gonna prove in a short while that that would be redundant
and God doesn't operate in redundancies. Why would he speak to you about
me when he's already spoken to me in his word? And if I need
to hear from God, I can hear from God through his word, which
the black letters on the white page never change. Follow the logic? See, human
words change all the time. You'll hear a prophet or prophetess
say something over in Northern California, and it will change
slightly by the time he or she gets to Southern California.
I grant you that. It'll start off as a fish about
12 inches long. By the time she's in Northern
California, it's 24 inches long. She has embellished her prophecy.
The word of God never changes. It says the same thing every
time you read it. We'll understand also that wherever
there is the vulnerability and openness to prophetic utterances,
as are in many of our charismatic churches, there is the vulnerability
and openness to error. That error abounds, mistakes
are made, and the people often suffer horrifically from these
prophecies that don't come to pass. People are hurt by the
direction that these prophecies are often, uh, alleging. And the only corrective for error
is the word of God. You never really find a prophet
or prophetess uttering a prophecy. The prophecy doesn't come to
pass. And then someone in the same church coming behind and
saying, oops, this prophetess was not telling the truth. I'm
going to give you another prophecy. That's going to correct that
prophecy. It doesn't happen. What corrects false prophets
is the word of God. The only corrective that has
kept the church sound and safe today is the word of God. And
my argument would therefore be, would we want to spend our time
questioning and challenging and testing and being subject to,
because we have to test the spirit. and we have to try the prophets
and we have to prove all things. Do we not, ladies and gentlemen?
And we have to hold fast to that, which is good. Do we want to
be in a body where every time someone says, thus saith the
Lord, we got to test that thing and deconstruct it and determine
whether or not it's right. When all we have to do is open
the book and say, this is what the scripture says. So in other
words, the presupposition that we are open to prophecy in the
same way the first century church was is the presupposition that
scripture is not sufficient to guide us in all things practical
and spiritual. Am I making some sense? Also,
the other problem with being open to prophetic words and prophetic
utterances is that you begin to diminish the authority of
the word of God and you begin to open yourself up to the authority
of men or and women. And now those persons become
larger than your Bible and they often enter into the sphere and
rim of your conscience And now you are more moved by what they
say than what scripture says. All of this is very, very, very
dangerous. I say that to lay the foundation
that as we look at verse one of chapter 13, you and I are
not living in a culture at a time where verse one of chapter 13
applies to us across the board. The foundation of the church
was being established. in that first century around
A.D. 37 or 38 at this time, because
we know that Herod the Tetrarch has just died by God killing
him, right? And the historical records give
his death date at about A.D. 37, A.D. 38. So we are five years
out from the crucifixion of Christ now, or 10 years, a few years
out from the crucifixion of Christ. And you and I are way down the
line in terms of having a full canon of scripture Church history
and a pattern of church life that helps us overcome some of
the dangers of the assumption that we are free to engage in
dreams, revelations, visions, and prophecies. Although, we'll
continue to develop that here now as we make a distinctive.
What I want to first say is that a prophet is one who receives
prophecy and the content is the Word of God. We'll look at a
few verses in a moment. And then in terms of their function,
when they are functioning in the office of prophet, they are
prophesying. So to prophesy is the function
of the prophet who receives the prophecy. To prophesy is the
Function of the prophet who receives the prophecy the content of Revelation
has given to them by God in Acts chapter 11 verse 27 We have an
example of that if you will back up just at chapter 11 verse 27. I'll show you and This was about
the time in which also Barnabas and Paul Barnabas and Saul had
initially come to Antioch notice in verse 25 it says then departed
Barnabas to Tarsus to seek who? Saul. And when he had found him,
he brought him unto where? Antioch. And it came to pass
that a whole year, they assembled themselves with the church and
taught many people, and the disciples were called Christians first,
where? And I want you to mark with me now that as we're looking
at this verse, what you are seeing are the necessary protocols for
establishing a sound church. Saul is teaching and Barnabas
is teaching. They are both solid men in the
word of God, are they not? They are in the city of Antioch
teaching for many, many days. And they came to Antioch to teach. And then we read in verse 27,
and in these days came prophets. There's a word from Jerusalem
unto Antioch. That's really, the word prophet
here is really sort of a, what we would call, I forget the term,
it evades me, but it's almost the same term for the Greek word
prophetess. And so in the Greek, the word
is prophetess, not prophetess as a female version, but prophetess
for prophets. And in these days came prophets
from where? Jerusalem unto where? All right,
now watch what it says. And there stood up one of them,
verse 28, named Agabus and signified by the Spirit. So now who's inspiring
him? The Spirit of God, that there
should be great dearth throughout all the world, which came to
pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. That is, it came to pass
a few years from this time that the prophecy was given. And we'll
see this in the latter part of Acts around chapter 18 and 19.
Then the disciples, every man, according to his ability, determined
to send relief unto the brethren, which dwelt in Judea, that is
Jerusalem, which also they did. And then, and they sent it to
the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. So here, Barnabas and
Saul close out chapter 11, do they not? Then we have chapter
12, which was our what? Parenthetical. Now we're back
on point, are we not? We're back in Antioch, and we
notice that the example that we have in Acts chapter 11 is
someone who prophesied the future. Agabus said there would be a
dirt or a famine in the land in the future. Now what Luke
does by attaching as an addendum to Agabus's prophecy that the
spirit of God inspired him to say that was in order for you
and I to rest with his prophetic utterance having come from God.
Let me give you a reason why I say that. Because today in
the tricanery and the manipulative sort of keenly aware sociological
methodologies of false prophets and false teachers, they understand
social paradigms. They understand pathologies of
human behavior. They understand the propensity
for large groups of people to buy into suggestions. And so
they know how to actually say things that have levels of plausibility
and possibility by framing words in such a way that they can almost
be sure that it's gonna have an application to somebody. Right,
so now if I said to you, thus saith the Lord. First of all,
when I phrase it like that, get on up and leave the room. But
when I say thus saith the Lord, as if I'm being inspired by the
Spirit of God, and then I say, I prophesy in the name of the
Lord Jesus or by the Spirit of God, that there will be an earthquake
in California in the next 50 years. Just just when the offering
plate comes by, turn your head. Because the plausibility rate
is high. That is going to occur. I didn't need the spirit of God
to say that. And many such things they do to manipulate people. The Lord is telling me that someone
in the room of a hundred people, your gas tank is about a quarter
full. I got another revelation from
the Lord. There's somebody sitting here
with their spouse. And you guys have just gotten
into an argument before you came into the church. What? Plausibility
rates are massive. Are they not? Am I making some
sense? Plausibility rates are massive.
You don't need the spirit of God to know that we're a bunch
of jacked up people. Do we need the spirit of God
to know that we're a bunch of jacked up people? No. So be careful. Be careful. Going back to our PowerPoint,
let's work this through. I don't like when Christians think that
they can come to Christ and lose their mind. I do not accept the
assumption that when you come to Jesus, you can check your
brain at the door. I do not believe that Christians
are free to be ignorant and gullible. I believe that Christians ought
to be some of the most intelligent people on the planet. Some of
the most acute, some of the most intuitive, and discerning people
on planet earth. Not just because you have the
spirit of God or worship the true and the living God, but
because you give yourself to knowing God and knowing truth
and walking in the light. And if you are giving yourself
over to knowing God and knowing truth and walking in the light,
then you will be a wise person, a discerning person, a thoughtful
person, an intuitive person, and no one's going to be able
to pull the wool over your eyes very quick. That's when you're
serious about God. Now watch this. When you're serious
about God, you will not have a whole lot of people trying
to BS you. Bologna sandwich for those of
you who are new in our church. Because A person that's serious
about God is not open to the normative, manipulative types
of things that go on in church. We don't quickly smile just because
you smile. We don't quickly laugh just because
you laugh. We don't quickly buy into your
religious cliches just because in church, that's what we do.
Praise the Lord, hallelujah. You know, the Lord told me we
hold our peace when you're talking like that, and we wait to see
where you're going. As the proverb says, he that
speaks before he hears the matter, It is folly and shame to him.
We are slow to speak. We are slow to, uh, to, to wrath. We are quick to hear. These are
discerning people. We listen to see if you make
any sense because we have been taught according to Isaiah chapter
eight, verse 20 to the law and to the testimony. If they do
not speak according to this word, there's no light in them at all
that we should trust what they're saying. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? Discerning Christians are just
not so easily moved by the riffraff of religion. We just are not. One reason is we've been there,
done that, and have bought two or three of the T-shirts. And
at some point we grow up. Is that not so? So the first
time is on you. The second time is on me. If
I let you fool me twice, I might not be saved. Because my daddy
didn't raise no fools. And I'm talking about my Heavenly
Father. He gives us discernment and he helps us understand that
this business of the gospel is not something to play with. Don't
play with church. And so in our text, we're dealing
with the opening statements that have to do with the nature and
character of a healthy congregation in Antioch, where the Spirit
of God through Luke is highlighting the function of prophets and
teachers. So the prophet receives a content of prophecy we call
revelation from God. Then he functions in the office
of prophesying that is declaring it. We saw it in Acts chapter
11, 27. I want to run you through two or three more verses just
to lay the foundation. I don't think I want to go there
quite yet, but mark my words. You can go in your Bible. I don't
want my sister to have to run through all these verses. Amos
3, 8 says this. If the Lord has spoken, then
who can but prophesy? If the Lord has actually spoken,
who then can but prophesy? Which means, if God hasn't spoken,
keep your mouth shut. And you hear a lot of people
saying, thus said the Lord, and the Lord has not said thus. If
the Lord has spoken though because of the authority and power with
which he speaks, the clarity and depth and the acuity with
which God speaks, it's impossible for us not to repeat it if we're
his children. Then Jeremiah chapter 23, Verses
28 and verse 16 says, if a man has a dream, let him declare
his dream. And let the prophet, when he
receives the word of the Lord, let him declare my word faithfully. That's God's standard for the
minister of the word. If you call yourself one who
receives God's word, you better tell God's word faithfully. That's what God demands. The
hottest parts of hell are reserved for teachers and preachers. And
in verse 28, I think it's Jeremiah 23, verse 16, where God warned
these false prophets who rise up early telling lies in my name,
I did not send them, but they ran. Now, if they had stood in
my counsel, if they had stood in my counsel, this is look at
verse 28, because here it talks about the vanity of these false
prophets. But if they had stood in my counsel, Jeremiah 23, Verse
28, nope, that's not the one. But it's in Jeremiah chapter
23 where God warns about how these false prophets, the reason
why they err, the reason why they make the mistakes that they
do is because they do not stand in God's counsel. When you stand
in God's counsel, you are declaring God's word. This is where I said
earlier, let him tell his dream, let him declare the dream if
he actually received a dream or a vision, or let him declare
God's word faithfully if he actually declared God's word. But what
God warned in Jeremiah 23 was that the reason why the false
prophets are getting away with what they're getting away, saying
things that are not true is because they do not stand in God's counsel. Now to stand in God's counsel,
is to hear from God as if you were in the Senate with God.
So to stand in God's counsel, look at verse 16 then just to
give it to the people. To stand in God's counsel means
this, thus saith the Lord, hearken not unto the words of the prophet
that speak unto you. That's not verse 16. Okay, so if you find
it, then you can pull it up. But what that text says, and
I'll probably find it a little bit, what that text warns about
is that the prophet has to be a man who actually is standing
in God's Word and hearing from the Spirit of God what God's
Word says. It means you actually have privileged
access into the presence of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. That's what the word counsel
means. Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every
word be established. And when a man or a woman who
calls themselves a servant of God does not have access to God
in that way, they have to keep their mouth shut. because that
individual has no authority by which to say to you or me, thus
saith the Lord. Okay. And so, um, uh, one more
verse then I want us to go to go back to our PowerPoint. All
right. So then I want us to look at
Acts chapter two, verse 17 and 18, Acts chapter two, 17 and
18 in Acts chapter two, 17 and 18. You guys have heard what
was given to the apostles early on in terms of The mandate to
to to the early church to spread the gospel and here's what it
says and you guys have heard this many times verse 17 Peter
is explaining to to the Jews what's happening with these seven
eight seventeen nations speaking in Their own languages are the
the actually the church in Acts chapter 2 where the disciples
were speaking in the languages of these seventeen nations Peter
is explaining Joel's prophecy of this when he says in verse
16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel and
it shall come to pass in the last day said God I will pour
out my spirit upon all flesh once again notice the ministry
of the spirit and your sons and daughters shall what I And your
young men shall what? And your old men shall dream
dreams. And all my servants and all my handmaids will I pour
out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy. So we
are not surprised that we are seeing prophets in the book of
Acts. Down the line, we will see the daughters of one of the
prophets, seven daughters of one of the prophets actually
prophesying as well. And those prophecies are a consequence
of the absence of the totality of scripture. And as you saw
with Agabus in chapter 11, God had to lead the church about
by these prophetic ministries while they were gathering together
the doctrines of the gospel and the ministry of the church. So
this is how the prophets were functioning. Now, in your outline,
notice what it says. Teachers, teachers. What do teachers do? Teachers
explain and expound the word of God. Like I'm a teacher. I
wouldn't call myself a prophet. Although every believer is a
prophet only in the sense that we declare God's word. Declaring
God's word is the privilege and right that we all have when we
say the Bible says this. In that narrow sense, we might
own the word prophet, but be very careful child of God. Don't
embrace to yourself as many people do lofty titles. Be very careful. Be very careful. And I'll tell
you why. Because even when you share the
word of God, you and I can be wrong. We can quote the scriptures
wrongly. We can misinterpret the scriptures.
And at that sense, the character of God is brought into question
because if a person is sincerely looking to you for having a light
and knowledge of God and you aren't able to actually rightly
divide the word, you are leading them down a path of error. You
therefore don't want to accept a title that makes you appear
to be better than other people are different than other people.
It would be the idea of exalting your gift. Like I have the gift
of prophecy. I don't have the gift of prophecy.
I have the gift of teaching. And all I do is fundamentally
explain and expound the word of God as I am doing tonight
with you. We are taking the text that's
in front of us. We are peering into the text and we're understanding
what the text says and we're making application to ourselves.
And so what Jeremiah chapter 3, 15 promises is that God will
give us teachers after his own heart. He will give us shepherds
after his own heart, which will feed us with what knowledge and
understanding. What that means is, The real
work is being able to take the word of God and actually explain
it in a way that actually ministers to your soul. And when you go
away from the teaching, you are more confident in what the scripture
says than what you had thought before. An effective ministry
is going to actually explain the scriptures in a way that
when you go away, you know more about what that text says than
you did before. And that's what you want. Now,
visually, visually comprehend this then. When you come to church,
the mediator between you and God must be the word of God. When you come to church, don't
come to church comfortable with not hearing the word of God.
Don't come to church comfortable with just hearing the words and
anecdotes and stories of a man or a woman or anyone. Come to
church to have the Word of God expounded and explained. Only
then are you hearing from God. Only then are you hearing from
God. Otherwise, you are being taught to merely hear from men. And as an eternity-bound soul,
you have no right to put your soul in that kind of danger.
You come expecting to have the word explained. And so this is
why in the text it tells us in chapter 13 that in Antioch there
were prophets and there were what? Teachers. The job of the
teacher was to explain the scriptures. Now, at that time, the scriptures
would have been the Old Testament, right? If you know anything about
biblical theology, you understand that the scriptures that would
have been present at that time to minister to the people in
that day would have been the Tanakh, the Torah, the Pentateuch,
the Old Testament writings. That's from Genesis to what?
Malachi. The Old Testament books comprised
how many books, you guys? 39 books, right. And then the New
Testament, how many? 27. And the totality is what? 66. That's
right. So the Old Testament books are
called the Tanakh. Tanakh. which comprise the law,
the prophets, and the writings. That's from Genesis to Revelation.
Those were the books that Jesus would have used, the apostles
would have used, and what's taking place in the exposition of the
word. Whenever you read in the New Testament, fundamentally,
the term the scriptures, the scriptures, and the scriptures
say that's what they are talking about, the Old Testament writings.
Your Bible is filled with two Testaments, Old Testament 39
books, New Testament, 27 books. Old and New Testament constitutes
your Bible. Your Old Testament is confirmed
by the New Testament. Your New Testament is affirmed
by the Old Testament. You need both the old and the
new to have a comprehensive understanding of the revelation of God. You
don't want just a New Testament. The Old Testament is not sufficient. because while the old testament
points it does not reveal sufficiently the who of the scriptures it's
the new testament that reveals the who and the new testament
is affirmed by the old testament so they must collaborate as you
ladies are learning in the study of ruth naomi and ruth are collaborating
and this is how you and i get a proper understanding of the
use of scripture so The teachers in our text would be clear notice
what it says in verse 1 now there were in the church that was at
Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon
that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and many am My name
which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch. We'll talk
about that in a moment and Saul and Saul So let's now go to our
second point in our outline the list of men in Antioch The list
of men in your own time, you can read the verses I gave you
under point number one, but the list of men in Antioch, as we
have in point verse one point B, we have Barnabas, Simeon,
Lucius, Manam and Saul. Now who is Barnabas Barnabas
as our outline puts it is a Levite. He is of the Levitical order. He would have been had we still
been in the Old Testament days functioning as a priest. very
much like Simeon did in the book of Luke, and like the priest
did in the Old Testament. That was their role, to serve
in the temple. I'll talk about that when we get down to the
concept of ministering to the Lord. So Barnabas is a Levite,
we know that by Acts 5, 36. Acts 5, verse 36 will affirm
that, because we're getting a bio on these men. Acts 5, verse 36
tells us, for before these days. So it's not acts 536. Acts 436. Let me see here. Yes, let's see here. And acts
436 and Josie, this is his other name, who by the apostles was
surname Barnabas. That means he received his name
Barnabas from the apostles, which is being interpreted, the son
of consolation or the son of comfort. He was a what? Levite
and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it and brought
the money and laid it at the foot of the apostles. He was
an eloquent man in the word of God. We meet him again in Acts
chapter nine, don't we? As he serves to bring Saul into
the body politic of the church, Barnabas becomes a prominent
leader in the church. He's a Levite, He becomes a prominent
leader in the church. He's a great model in the Acts
account, chapter four, where he gives money to support the
ministry of the word. And then we see him again in
Acts chapter 11, verse 22, as we saw before, then departed
Barnabas to Tarsus to seek Saul. So there was an affinity between
Barnabas and Saul. They got along great. By the
way, when it comes to doing ministry, God generally uses a pattern.
He generally does not send people out individually. He generally
send people out two by twos or more in groups. You see this
pattern in the Old Testament and the New that a dear brother
asked me about ministry. And the first thing I told him
is you can't do it by yourself. You don't want to do it by yourself.
So you notice that the church in Acts is sending both Barnabas
and Saul out together, right? Because two are better than one.
and there is a reward for the labor of the two working together.
And also, when you are operating in twos, it increases the level
of accountability. So mark this now, when you're
doing ministry, if you find the lone ranger person who's operating
all by himself, all by herself, they are minimizing accountability. When you have two people doing
ministry, unless they're both just two pathological crooks,
which you can have that. But I'm just saying when you
have two people doing ministry because they're individuals,
this is what I've learned over the years. If you have one that's
inclined to be not so orthodox, the other person will be conflicted
in themselves and there will be a challenge that takes place
between the two. If one is inclined to unethical
behavior, such as saying the fish they caught in Southern
California was 12 inches long. And by the time we get up to
Marysville or Northern California, the fish is 18 inches long. Now
that you guys are in the hotel room, your partner is saying,
hey, now look, how did the fish grow like that? I mean, we're
doing ministry to the Lord, but listen, you can't make the fish
get bigger. By the time we get to another state, the fish will
be as large as a boat. At that point, we're lying, are
we not? I'm sharing with you practical reasons for why God
sends them out two by two. Accountability is critical when
it comes to doing ministry. It allows you and I to maintain
honesty. If both persons are healthy and
they're conscious, we'll be able to check one another. Then you
can do the labor a lot better as well because you share the
labors together. It's just basically the division
of labor that allows you to do the work. So remember the master
sent them out two by two in the gospel of Luke, right? And so that's what we see taking
place as well in Acts chapter 13. So in our account, what we
have are prophets and teachers and in the list, the first person
we deal with is Barnabas. He's a Levite. He's solid in
the Word of God. We'll see him way down in the
Book of Acts as well, continually ministering. And he's serving
now in the first missionary journey with the Apostle Paul, who is
still called Saul, as we'll see in a moment. Now, the second
person in our outline is a man named Simeon. And in your outline,
I call him a black Hebrew, because the word Niger there gives a
strong indication that he was an African. In fact, Niger is
in the country of what? Libya, right? It's in the country
of Libya, right? It is. And so it is, it is. It's not in Libya? Where is it? West Africa? So my writings say
Libya. Libya has this particular Niger
is in Libya. So you guys, I'm sorry, let me
see here. Is it Libya or Liberia? No, Libya. I got it right here.
Oh, I'm sorry, not Niger. Cyrene, that's our next one.
Cyrene is in Libya. So, uh, Niger though is in West
Africa, right? However, let me say this. We
have no actual connection between Niger in West Africa and this
person being called Niger. Other thing we don't want to
do is add another G on the word. Okay. I just, let's, let's clean
that up right now. You don't want to add another
G. This one G is enough to understand that we're talking about in African. Okay. So, uh, I'm because some
people do a lot of gymnastics with words. This guy, Simon,
is a black Hebrew. And he would have been the theologians
would have drawn this conclusion by his first name, because Simeon
is a Hebrew term. And it would not have been a
word that we would have found in the African culture. African
culture would have had totally different other names unless
they were Christianized or unless they had become Hebrews. As I
was already jumping ahead to our other brother, Lucius, the
Libertines who were of the Cyrene group. And we found that back
in Acts chapter 5 as well as in Acts chapter 11, verse 20.
We can look at Lucius now. Notice what it says. Well, I'm
sorry, in Acts chapter 11, verse 20, it'll talk about Cyrene.
In Acts chapter 11, verse 20, notice what it says. I'll start
at verse 19. they, which were scattered abroad because of the
persecution that arose about Stefan traveled as far as finish
and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to not only, but the
Jews and some of them that were of Cyprus and their Cyrene, which
when they were come to Antioch spake unto the Grecians, the
Grecians preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. And so apparently, uh,
as we are dealing with, um, The Syrenians, we are dealing with
a group of Hebrews or proselytes or Greek-speaking Jews who are
now being attached to the ministry that's taking place in Antioch.
So we have Barnabas, who's a Levite. We have Simeon, who is a black
Hebrew. Some have tried to tie Simeon to, The Simeon is in Matthew's
gospel chapter 27, verse 32. Again, there's a plausibility
factor there, but it's not real strong. If you pull up Matthew's
27, 32, we can look at it. The plausibility is there, but
it's real hard to tie the knot. In Matthew's chapter 27, verse
32. And as they came out, they found
a man of what? Cyrene, this is of Libya. Simon by name. Him they compel
to bear his cross. So theologians try to make a
leap between Matthew 27, 32. This was a black man and the
Luke account in chapter 13. They're pulling. We would accept
as plausible, but we don't have a whole lot of evidence to knock,
lock it down. They could be two different men,
you know? And so we want to be careful
about that. The Spirit of God knows who they are. Luke knows
who they are. Paul knows who they are. And
Barnabas knows who they are. Let's move on to Manam. He becomes
another interesting, or Lucius rather. We have Lucius in our
text. And the text says in verse 13,
so now we have Lucius of Cyrene. And that's, that again, he is
an individual that is coming out of that region of Africa,
that would be Libya. And we would assume him probably
also to be you know, dark skinned or maybe a black. We don't know
that there were lots of migrations of different ethnic groups in
that time, just like we have now. So just because a person
has been born and raised in a part of the country that might be
known to be black doesn't necessarily mean they were a black ethnicity. But we are assuming that, OK,
we are making that assumption because Judaism did dominate
in parts of West Africa. and Africa many, many, many years
before the coming of Christ as well under the Hellenistic works
of Antiochus, not Antiochus, but Alexander the Great. So now
we move to our next character before we get to Saul, and that
is the man Manahem, and he's a prophet that and a leader that
church history talks about, but we don't have a whole lot about
him other than what we have in our, in our texts. And that is
that he was one who was brought up with Herod the Tetrarch. Now
Luke would have made mention about him at the time he wrote
the book, because everyone would have known the history of this
man, not you and I, but everyone would have known that this man
had a privileged life. He grew up with Herod the Tetrarch. That means he was in the aristocratic
line of these leaders. The word Tetrarch means four.
That means there were four governing rulers in Jerusalem at that time,
among which were two brothers of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas
is the man that kills John the Baptist He is the man that kills
john the baptist and he is the one who wants to kill having
killed james He wants to now kill peter and he's the one that's
just eaten up by worms This is the one so now this herod grew
up with this man. We call manam And what's interesting
is this man manam? Is hearing the word of god just
like all of the herods remember how herod was always interested
in both john the baptist and jesus Always interested. They had this duplicity about
them. On the one hand, they were politicians and they had to do
the bidding of the people and they had to placate Rome. On
the other hand, because they were Jewish in their ethnicity,
they were interested in prophecies and miracles and things of that
nature. So they were often torn. Somewhere down the line between
Manam and Herod Antipas, there was a division of ways. And this
Menahem actually heard the gospel, because we find him in the group
of those who believe on Christ and are serving in the church,
though he is also still identified with Herod's house. Now, what
do we take away from that just basically as an application?
And that's this, during the preaching of the gospel in the days of
John the Baptist, and during the preaching of the gospel in
the days of Christ, that gospel was actually penetrating the
aristocratic sectors of the Hebrew people. Because God has his elect
everywhere. And that gospel was actually
separating dear friends. So Maniam was moving towards
the gospel and Antipas was moving away from the gospel. Politics
was moving Antipas away, making him hostile towards the gospel.
But Maniam was now entering deeper into the body politic. And he
is being called one of the prophets and teachers at this time. At
that time there were certain prophets and teachers and historically
Manam was one who was noted by Josephus and other writers as
having given prophecies as we saw Agabus do that were quite
accurate. In fact the historical narrative,
this is purely historical, this is not biblical, says that Manam
actually prophesied to Herod Antipas that he would enter into
leadership. He would be a king and that his
leadership would comprise seven, eight years. He would actually
live to be 37 years old. And at 37, something would happen
and he died. And he did die at 37. So Menahem
is automatically demonstrating the gift of prophecy in his life,
but he's going in a different route than Herod. These are the
men that are in front of us here. Now, all that being said, what
are we doing? We're looking at five men who
are functioning in the church and they are serving in the church
to root and ground the church and the gospel at Antioch. Why? Because Antioch is about to be
a hub from which the gospel goes into all of the Gentile world. This will then move us to Saul. This is the last guy. One, two,
three, four, five, Saul. Who is Saul? Acts chapter 9,
15. He's the man that God called and said, I'm going to send you
to the Gentiles. I'm going to send you to the
Jews, but I'm really going to send you to the Gentiles. The Gentiles
are going to hear you. So we see that in Acts 9 15.
But the verse I want you to mark is Romans chapter 15 verses 15
and 16. Romans 15 is when Paul finally
is able to assert his mandate as a teacher and a preacher and
a minister to the Gentiles. And this is what he says. Remember,
he's writing to Rome. but no evidence ever suggest
that he actually was able to reach, uh, the, the Christians
in Rome, uh, before he was finally beheaded by, um, Nero. And so we read in Romans chapter
15, verse 15, uh, these words, nevertheless, brethren, I have
written the more boldly unto you in some sort of putting you
in mind because of the grace that was given unto me by God
or of God that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to whom
the Gentiles ministering the gospel of God that the offering
of the Gentiles might be acceptable being sanctified by what an amazing
assessment of himself. He says that he's the minister
to the Gentiles. He said this to the Jerusalem
church in Acts 15. He said it in Galatians 1. Remember,
he's battling with Peter over food rights and all of that type
of stuff. So Paul knew he was raised up by God to minister
to the Gentiles. He has a strong impression that
that's his role. I don't think he knows that here
in Acts chapter 13. He will know that by the time
we get to Acts 15. He will know it by the time we
read Romans and by the time we read Galatians. He knows he's
being called, but he's not, he doesn't have that strong impression
yet, but he will by the time him and Barnabas separate. As
you know, as we get into chapter 13 fully, there's some difficult
things that occur between those two men and they have to separate
and go their way. So point number two, the list
of the men that we're dealing with, we're dealing with Barnabas,
Simeon, Lucius, Manam, and then Saul. Now, for the last point,
let me start at verse three. Let me see how can I do this.
Here's what it says in verse three, verse two. And as they
ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate
me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called
them. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna lay a foundation
for the day and then we'll close. Who's doing the talking in our
text? The spirit of God. What is he
doing in his talk? He's giving a commissioned assignment. That commissioned assignment
has everything to do with the evangelical projectory that Jesus
had told the apostles even before he died, go into all the world
and do what? preach the gospel. This is actually
a fascinating account for several reasons, one of which in the
Matthew account where Jesus gives the disciples the commission
to go. He doesn't tell them when to
go. He doesn't tell them how to go. He doesn't tell them what's
going to really transpire before they go. But what you and I are
seeing in Acts chapter 13 is really the first major official
expression of God for the sending the gospel into the world that
is among the Gentiles. Because remember what Jesus said
in Acts chapter one, tarry ye here at Jerusalem, right? Acts
chapter one, until you be endowed with power from on high, so shall
you be my what? And begin at Jerusalem, and then
Judea, and then Samaria, and then what? The other most parts
of the world. Where we are in the book of Acts now, where the
spirit of God is speaking up in a very articulate way, is
that he's going to take two men and more particularly one man
and really begin to establish the Gentile churches. Those two
men are Paul, Saul and Barnabas. He's getting ready to start the
Gentile churches, but there's some things for us to learn.
I got 15 minutes before I close. And so we'll deal with point
number three and we'll work our way through it. And we'll come
back and touch on this a little bit more. Ministering to God. What on earth
does that mean? So we see this catalog of men
who are preachers and teachers in Antioch. The church at Antioch
is growing, it's becoming solid. Now God moves to separate Barnabas
and Saul, but they are part of a group that are ministering
to the Lord. Do you see that first line in
2A? I want you to think about that with me a little bit. What
does it mean to minister to the Lord? You and I are used to ministering
to people, are we not? We're used to, well, you know,
I was out ministering today. And when we say ministering,
we're talking about doing something for God to other people in the
name of God, whatever that ministry may be. You might have the ministry
of helps. You might have the ministry of ministration. You
may have the ministry of teaching, whatever that ministry may be.
You may have the ministry of giving, whatever that ministry
may be. The Bible's full of different
gifts, right? By which we minister. But what
does it mean to minister to God. Isn't that an interesting question?
And I don't want to rush over it, but I'm not going to make
it super mystical either. I just don't want to rush over
it. What does it mean that they were ministering to God? What
is the intuitive thought that comes to your head? What comes
to your head when you think about ministering to God? Somebody said the body of Christ.
Okay. But, but, but, but, but, but
how is it that you are ministering to the Lord? Cause I actually
can take you to a bunch of texts which speak to ministering to
the people, ministering to the sick, ministering to the afflicted,
ministering to the body. And yet now it's saying that
we are ministering to the Lord. What is to be taken away from
that, that construction, that language, what does that mean?
What are the implications of ministering to the Lord? What's
that? Praising God. I think that that
could be an implication of ministry, don't you? In the context of
worship, when we praise God, could we be ministering to the
Lord? Is that a legitimate proposition? Okay, so I want you to think
about this now, because very frequently, we are thinking merely
in terms of a horizontal activity when it comes to ministry, and
we're often thinking in terms of what we are doing towards
others and not necessarily towards God. I want us to think about
this a little bit. I've got 10 minutes. I can milk
this a little bit. I say that there are three things
that we ought to take into consideration when it comes to ministering
to God. That the gospel service is parallel to the priesthood
of the Old Testament. That the gospel service is parallel
to the priesthood of the Old Testament. Let me see if I can
make this work a little bit. Bring this home to you. Did the
priest in the Old Testament minister to God? Yes, they did. Yes, they did. They ministered
to the Lord. I'm gonna give you an example
of that right now just so that you can know that what I'm saying
is valid. 1 Samuel 2, verse 18 says of
little Samuel that he ministered to the Lord. Pull that up, 1
Samuel 2, I think verse 18. I want us to just see the language
and then think about what Samuel was doing in the temple. First
Samuel chapter two, verse 18. If you can pull that up, let
me get my Bible. First Samuel 2, 18. If you have your Bible,
go there, listen to what it says. And we're asking the question,
what does it mean to minister to the Lord? Let me ask the other
question that is a prerequisite to that. Does it even make any
rational sense that we will be ministering to the Lord? I want
you to think about that for a moment. First Samuel chapter two, verse 18. Are you there? Listen
to what it says. First Samuel chapter two, verse
18. I'm looking in the context. Here it is. I'm going to start
back at verse... Oh, so now God is talking. Let me start at verse
18. Here it is. But Samuel ministered what? Before the Lord, being a what?
Girded with a what? And what was he doing? What was
Samuel doing? He's ministering before the Lord.
And the word before is an italicist. He's ministering in the presence
of the Lord. That's the same thing. That's the same construction
in our Greek language for what the apostles are doing. They're
ministering to the Lord. What is the immediate assumption
of just that plain construction? That the Lord is the object of
our ministry. That's the immediate assumption.
That's the right assumption. I want you to embrace that assumption
right now as a part of enlightening you, affirming you, giving you
clarity on something that's critical to your calling in office. Let
me ask you another question, see if we can lay this down.
Are we a spiritual priesthood? Are we priests? Do we offer spiritual
sacrifices? Yes, we do. The word of God is
clear about that. First Peter chapter two. Hebrews tells us
that we are spiritual priests. We offer spiritual sacrifices.
What would that indicate? My brother spoke about praising
God. But when you praise, give praise,
are you giving praise to God? Is he actually receiving your
praise? Of course he is. If you're doing it with the right
spirit, right? Would you then be, can it be said that because
you're a child of God and therefore operating in the ministry of
the priest that you are ministering to God? Absolutely. I'm going to tie this down a
little bit more too. What would Samuel be doing? He's got a linen
ephod just like the rest of the priest, doesn't he? That means
he's serving in the temple. Now in the temple, is there a
bunch of work to be done? Is there a bunch of work to be
done? So like in the temple, do we have to clean dishes? Do
we have to keep things lit? Do we have to keep sacrifices
burning? Do we have to prepare food? Do we have to not exercise
certain protocol when it came to the ministry of the temple?
Yes. Do you know what we call that
literally in the New Testament? And this would be something that
your high churches would know. Most of you who are given to
to a New Testament or evangelical church protocol and language,
you would know this, but if you're a part of your old Protestant
churches, this is what you would call it, liturgy. The liturgical
ministry is what it means to minister. That's our word in
the Greek, liturgy, liturgy. Liturguntis is the Greek word
the present participle active. And the idea is to actually function
according to the rules of the gospel when it comes to the spiritual
sacrifices that are offered to God. Do you recall what Paul
stated in Romans chapter 15 verse 16 when he says God has called
me to be the minister to the Gentiles? Are you ready? that
the offering up of the Gentiles might be what? Acceptable to
God. You guys remember that language?
Paul was very clear that he was operating in the same space as
the Old Testament priest were. And that as the language is given
to us in first Peter chapter two, you and I who are true believers
are operating in the same space as the Old Testament priest.
Now, can you understand that when the apostle Paul says, whatever
you do, in word or in deed do all unto the Lord Jesus Christ
because now it becomes a vertical service that's liturgical in
nature. Also, I want to expand this a
little further. Do you remember what Paul said
in Romans chapter 12 verse 1? Go to Romans chapter 12 verse
1 because I want you to see it. I want you to think through now
this notion of ministering to the Lord. Liturgy is service. Liturgy is rendering to God what
God demands and what God requires within the framework and stipulations
of God's law on a level of ceremonial as well as judicial service in
his kingdom. For instance, remember what Paul
said in Romans 13, that the governing bodies are established by God.
All authority is established by God. And those men are ministers
of God for righteousness sake. You know what that means? They
are actually serving God. They are actually serving God.
And can you conceptualize that the priest, the high priest and
the common priest in their service, they knew that they were serving
not only in the presence of God, but that they were serving God
himself. Can you guys conceptualize that? So I'm gonna make an application
here to us in a moment and then I'll shut it down He says I beg
you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present
your what? Bodies a living sacrifice Holy
and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable what there's
the word so so for believers We are ministering to the Lord
and when we take up the cause of the gospel and execute it
in every aspect of its facets. For instance, not only are we
worshiping God when we come together on Sunday and we pray and we
praise and we sing and we hear the word of God preached and
we offer our hearts to God as that word is preached, wanting
God to do something for us or thanking God, rightly so, for
what he has already done for us in Christ, that's ministering
to the Lord. But more than that, when we come
in here and we are in disarray in preparation for study like
tonight, somebody opened the gates, somebody put out the cones,
someone prepared food, someone was in the tape room putting
labels together, CDs together. You know what we call that? Liturgy. These are all the spiritual sacrifices. Now, I wanna press this home
to you as I am to the audience that will be listening to this,
what would it look like if none of this got done? What would
it look like? What would the kingdom of God
look like on a functional level if no one was involved in the
priestly service of maintaining the witness? Because the witness
is the whole system that God sets up. Are you guys hearing
me? Remember, he pulled his people out of Egypt, he taught them
how to worship in the wilderness, and then he gave them instructions
to build the temple and tabernacle. And in building the tabernacle,
did they not have to maintenance the tabernacle? Was the tabernacle
not God's footstool? Was it not the place where God
dwelt? Was it not the role of the high priest and then therefore
the priest and the Levites to actually minister unto God? Is
that not the job of the church of the living God? This is a
very important point. So now watch this. If we fail to understand that
it is to God first that we are ministering, we are just a social
club. If we fail to understand that
it is to God first what we are doing, we have become secular. We have lost our sacred standing
and we have no divine mandate in anything that we do. We don't
have a divine mandate to even come because the role of coming
is the role of the people of God who come to God. We don't
have a mandate to open the doors, to allow sinners to hear the
gospel. We don't have a mandate to minister to God or to one
another and to maintain those things that are our duties by
which the beauty of holiness is manifested first in the church
and then to the world. Am I making some sense? This
is critical to your understanding of serving God. Because again,
the horizontal dilemma, that thing that causes us so quickly
to look at the flesh and then make assessments that are unbiblical,
that is to say, I can take it or leave it. Now what if, now
I just want you to think about yourself right now, just you
alone. Don't look at your neighbor, Don't look at your husband. Don't
look at your wife. Don't look at your brother, your
sister. Here's what I want you to ask, because this is why this
is what I ask myself every day. If everyone in the world was
looking to me, Jesse Gisten, as a model of a servant of Christ
in my liturgical office, would I be giving them a clear testimony
of what it means to be committed to God? See? If everyone was looking to Jesse
Gistan and trying to figure out what is it that the Lord requires
of those that draw nigh to him as he draws near to them. Would
they be able to see in my life every aspect of the liturgical
requirements that are necessary to bear the witness of the glory
of God on a functional practical level every day. Would they see
me in the disciplined daily walk with God and communion with God
in prayer? Would they see me in the daily
discipline of study of the word of God? Would they see me in
the daily discipline of witnessing to people? Are meeting people's
needs? Would they see me in the daily
witness of opening the doors and vacuuming the floors and
cleaning up and making sure the bathrooms are right and making
sure there's enough food? Would they see me in those practical
duties that make for the witness? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? See, because so much of what we do is basically rooted
in a me-centered orientation. This is all about narcissism.
So often when you come to church, you come to get and not to give. But there's a point in time when
you grow up in Christ, where he brings you into the liturgical
responsibilities of the gospel so that you can prepare the Lord's
glory, prepare his table for sinners to come to. And when
they come in, they realize they are in a different dimension,
a different realm, a different space, a different place. Now,
if you're going to serve God acceptably, this is how you have
to think. Otherwise, you're going to collapse
into the carnal social realm that fleshly people do, of which
at that point, there's nothing but an elks club. Am I making
some sense? It's nothing but an elks club.
It's nothing but a secular institution with certain religious protocols,
but it's not vertical oriented at all. And God is not the Coram
Dale and not the motive for the service and the action. Now what's
interesting about this, and I'm closing it, I thank you for your
time. Y'all miss me after two weeks, did y'all miss me? Hey,
you ain't got the clap, you can, I'm glad. Listen, what's interesting
about what I'm talking about is this is, The prophecy that's
coming up out of Acts chapter 13, verse 1 and 2, here's the
prophecy. To whom much is given, much is
required. And he that hath, more shall
be given unto him. But to he that hath not, even
that which he has will be taken away. Now follow this. I had
argued earlier for sound doctrine, did not? Fervent charity. And
as a consequent, zealous, and therefore effect of what? Evangelist.
I've argued for that because that's been my experience all
my life You know, my experience is that if I am not first serving
God God will not use me. I Can't bless anyone until I'm
first blessing God Are you hearing me that this years ago when was
about 35 of us, you know 500 years ago when we first started
35 of us one of the things God taught me was that when I was
serving him he was right there with me and That means I had
to have a right attitude about cleaning the toilets about sweeping
the floor about organizing the chairs About straightening up
the room about the angle of the pulpit My guys used to think
I was crazy because they would set the pulpit up and it would
be slightly up. I said, uh-uh The pulpit has
to be centered brother. Our message is not slightly off.
Our message is centered God speaks from the pulpit That pulpit had
to be through the center of the building. We actually, I had
to make them use a measuring rod to measure the distance from
one end of the wall to the other and center my pulpit. Why? Because I truly believe that
Christ is in the work. But it's with that level of Coram
Deo and consciousness of your service to him that is critical
for God to bless what you're doing. This is true in your home,
this is true with your family, this is true on your job. Are
you hearing me, ladies and gentlemen? And to the degree that we fail
to understand that, we will fail to experience the Lord's blessing.
It was out of that kind of meticulous consciousness and awareness that
God gave me that he allowed us to grow and to serve and to see
growth in our church and to see ministry take off in other areas.
It's impossible to see the blessings of the Lord expanded from you
until you and God are number one, until you are truly aware
of your liturgical responsibilities before God. Am I making some
sense? This is critically important. So the way the text says it in
Acts chapter two, I'm closing here. This is what it says. And
we'll come back and pick up on this next week. Acts chapter
13 verse two. This is just for our meditation.
Here's what the apostles, here's what, here's what Luke says.
And we'll come back and pick up on this a little bit more.
Cause I want to deal with ministering to God from the standpoint of
gospel service, being parallel to the priesthood, the proclamation
of the word. And then finally the addressing
of the needs of body. This is what Arthur was talking
about. That set that third category, Arthur, do you see that? But
that third category must be prefaced by the prior to that's why you
have verse one. These were prophets and teachers.
They were committed to God. So it says here in verse two,
and as they minister to the Lord and what? The Holy Ghost spoke. So it gives a great sense of
the men's vertical focus on God. They were not like what takes
place in ministry today. All we are about is an outcome
based ministry. How does this affect or impact
people? How does this work to get them
into the building? How does this work to increase
numbers? Those are completely ancillary
and irrelevant questions if we don't have first and foremost,
are we doing this as unto the Lord? Is this pleasing God? Is this rooted in sound doctrine? Are we walking in the love of
God and in the power of the Holy Ghost among ourselves? Until
those two prior questions or issues are resolved, we are nothing
but a social club wanting people to come in and have a good time
and then going back to their carnal life. And at that point,
we can probably take the term church off the doors. By the
way, you notice how a lot of churches are abandoning all of
the liturgical terminology like church and worship services.
They're becoming more and more and more secular and carnal because
they're operating out of a horizontal dilemma. Their objective is first
and foremost, the people and not the Lord. Let's close in
prayer. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy. Thank
you for my brothers and sisters who have come out to hear your
word. Thank you for opening our hearts to hear just a few insights
into what you do when you are working in the lives of those
who are committed to your word and committed to your spirit.
May that be the case for every soul here and every soul listening
to this study as well. May we walk quorum Dale. May we be in your presence and
may you be in our presence. May we be acceptable in your
sight. May we yield our bodies, a living sacrifice unto you,
which is acceptable and well-pleasing in your sight. We cannot do that
of ourselves. It can only be done by your grace.
Teach us, oh Lord, your way of truth and so shall it, from it
shall we not depart. Grace us to be able to walk in
your precepts. Since the Lord Jesus Christ loved
us enough to give himself for us and to set a pattern for us
that we should follow in his footsteps. As we go our way,
give us traveling mercies. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you guys.