God At Work

“God At Work”

(Acts 13:1-12)

Series: The Church On Fire!

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

First Baptist Church, Henderson, KY

(12-2-07) (AM)

Take God’s word and open to Acts, chapter 13.

If you’re visiting with us, we’re barreling through the book of Acts in a series entitled, “The Church on Fire.” We’re making our way, verse-by-verse through these chapters that give us the thrilling history of the early church. We have noted before that the key verse in the book of Acts is Acts 1:8. Many of you know it and have it memorized. You can say it with me: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the utter ends of the earth.”

In Acts 1-7, the church is witnessing in Jerusalem. In Acts 8-12, the church is witnessing in all Judea and Samaria. In Acts 13-28, the church is witnessing to all the earth. So chapter 13 is something of a turning point in the book of Acts because now we’re going to be reading about being witnesses to the utter ends of the earth. In chapters 1-12 we read a lot about the church in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. And for the most part, the focal person is Peter and the ministry is centered upon the Jews. Now, beginning in chapter 13, we turn the corner and we begin to look at carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth, and the focal person is Paul with his ministry to the Gentiles.

Stand in honor of the reading of God’s word.

1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.

4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

5 And when they arrived in Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant.

6 Now when they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus,

7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so his name is translated) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

9 Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him

10 and said, “O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?

11 “And now, indeed, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time.” And immediately a dark mist fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand.

12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had been done, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

Pray.

Introduction:

One of the most encouraging facts about the God of the Bible is that He never gets tired and he never goes to sleep. The psalmist said in Psalm 121, “He who keeps you will not slumber…He shall neither slumber nor sleep.” God never gets tired! When the Bible says in Genesis that God “rested” from His creation on the seventh day, it doesn’t mean that He was dog-tired from having worked so hard. It just means that He ceased from His creative work. The psalmist says God “shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

Do you know what it means “to slumber?” In just a few minutes you’ll see it demonstrated here in this room! Let me get about 10 minutes into this thing and look around. You’ll see some people who begin to slumber. Maybe they worked late last night or something, but you watch and you’ll see this sort of slow, head-nod. That’s slumbering. I remember this guy back in Georgia at the church where I served as a deacon. This poor guy just got still and he began to slumber. He began to nod-off. My pastor was preaching one evening and that guy began to nod and doze off and he did one of those deals where you nearly fall into the aisle and your body sort of re-connects with your mind and you awake real suddenly. You know where you quake suddenly and kick the pew in front of you? He did that and everybody looked over at him. How embarrassing! Well, we sleep because we’re human beings and our bodies need rest.

Do you know what deism is? How many of you know what deism is? Raise your hands. Deism is the belief that God created everything and then He just sort of walked away from it. If the universe were like a wristwatch, it’s like God created this incredible wristwatch and He wound it up and then He just sort of walked away and He’s letting it tick-tock and tick-tock on its own. He never picks up the watch. He never winds it up again. He just gets it going and then He leaves it alone. It’s like God got everything going and then He just…nods off.

Listen: the God of the Bible never nods-off. Okay? He’s always awake and always on the job. Those of you who have been through Henry Blackaby’s study, Experiencing God, know that that truth is a foundational principle to his study: “God is always at work around you.” I believe we see that truth in our text this morning.

I want to talk to you this morning about the God who never slumbers nor sleeps, the God who never nods-off, the God who is always at work. How is God working today? Here’s number one:

I. God is Working through His People (1-3)

Let’s look a little more closely at these first three verses. The Bible says that in this church at Antioch, and remember you can look up Antioch in the maps in the back of your Bible. Someone’s like, “Hey I got this Bible with these maps in the back. When do we get to use the maps?!” Well, we’re going to get to use the maps an awful lot now from chapter 13 onward. Just check them out periodically to follow the study.

So here’s the church in Antioch and the Bible says that there are certain prophets and teachers there, five in particular are mentioned by Luke, the author of Acts. See the five guys there in verse 1? First there’s Barnabas. What does that guy’s name mean? Son of encouragement. Remember, he’s the guy who was just such a blessing to have around that the apostles gave him a nickname. Back at the end of chapter 4 the apostles are like, “Joses, you need a name-change. You’re such an encourager we’re going to call you “Barnabas,” son of, or “one like” an encourager. So you have Barnabas who is a Jew and a guy who is full of the Spirit.

Then you have Simeon who was called Niger. That word “Niger” is a Latin word that means “of dark complexion” or “black.” Simeon was not a Jew; he was a Gentile from Africa. And so is the next guy: Lucius of Cyrene; another Gentile from Africa. Then you have this guy named Manaen. He’s a guy who had been brought up with Herod; Herod, the bad guy we read about last week who died at the hand of God’s judgment. So Manaen is a Roman who’s like, “I may have been brought up with Herod, but I am so not following that guy. I don’t want to die as he did!” And then you’ve got Saul; that’s Saul, the Apostle Paul.

Now what struck me about verse one is how God is working through all these various people. I mean you’ve really got a heterogeneous, multi-national group here. You’ve got different backgrounds, cultures, and identities and God is working through these guys. And I want to tell you ladies and gentleman: that is the church! Isn’t it a remarkable thing that God works through His people, so many different people, and that He uses people like you and I. I mean, look around here at one another. God wants to work through every single one of us. It doesn’t matter where we’ve come from, what our culture is, or how marred was our childhood—God wants to do His amazing work through every single one of us. Let’s read another verse. Are you ready? Look at verse 2 at what these five guys were doing.

2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

The Bible says they were ministering to the Lord and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them. I imagine the Spirit made it clear to one of the prophets there at the church at Antioch and then he shared with them God’s desire: the separation of two of them—Barnabas and Saul—for a specific missionary work. But look at what they were doing before the Lord spoke. The Bible says they were ministering to the Lord and fasting. In the Bible, fasting means to do without food for a time so that you can focus all your energies upon the Lord. These guys were fasting. They weren’t going on a diet, not that kind of fasting. They were doing without food for a meal or for several meals so that they could really focus their energies upon the Lord. And fasting remains a very effective way to seek the Lord’s will and purpose today. We may fast for a meal or for a few meals as we’re seeking God’s purpose for a particular thing. It’s a way of saying, “I’m going to dedicate myself fully to this matter by fasting and praying to God.”

And in my studies this week I was moved by the first part of verse 2. The Bible says that these guys “ministered to the Lord.” We usually refer to our ministry as a ministry “for” the Lord. Do you ever think about God’s work as a ministry “to” the Lord? What a difference a small preposition can make! It may be for this reason that other translations have something like, “They worshiped the Lord” because ministry done correctly is a worshipful offering to God. See, it’s so easy to just be busy “for” the Lord, but these guys were ministering “to” the Lord. The work they were doing, the ministry they were offering, identified primarily here as teaching the word, was a ministry “to” the Lord, an act of worship. I want to encourage you, whether you’re teaching Sunday school, Bible study, greeting people at the door, working in the baby class—whatever ministry you’re doing—regard it as ministry “to” the Lord; do it as an act of worship.

So the Bible says that the church did something in response to the call of the Spirit. Verse three says “having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.”

So the church at Antioch affirmed the calling of the Spirit upon these two men, Barnabas and Saul. They “laid hands on them,” which is a physical way of identifying spiritually with them. By touching them, the church is saying, “We’re with you in this. We’ll support you. We’ll pray for you. It’s like we’re going with you even though we’ll be here. That’s why we’re laying our hands on you.”

And the same thing happens today in our church. You think about it, there was probably a lot of good Bible-teaching going at the church at Antioch. But God doesn’t want us all just sitting around in small groups, marking-up our Bibles till Jesus returns. He calls-out people who are working and serving in the church for greater service. He calls us out to serve Him on mission. He calls us to serve Him across the street by talking to our neighbors about Jesus. He calls us to serve Him in the state and in our country, as we share the Gospel with people in Kentucky or, as our youth did last year in New York. He calls us to the utter ends of the earth, as many of us served in Brazil this past summer, or Greece as a couple from our church did over the past few weeks, or in India as the Littons did back in October. By the way, be sure to read the article in today’s paper!

But isn’t this an encouraging thing, that God is at work, working through His people, working through you and I? God wants to do an awesome thing in and through your life today. Are you letting Him do that work? Are you letting God work through you in school, telling other kids about Jesus, inviting them to your church? Are you letting God work through you at work, and in your family? Allow Him to use you for His glory this week. God is working through His people. Secondly:

II. God is Working through Preaching (4-5)

Watch what Barnabas and Saul do as they leave Antioch and enter into the mission field. Verses 4 and 5. The Bible says, “so, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.” Remember Cyprus? That’s that island out in the Mediterranean Sea. Remember the maps—check it out later in the maps! It made sense to go to Cyprus first. That’s where Barnabas was from. That’s where “his people” were. By the way, that’s a reminder to us that we can’t expect to share the Gospel in foreign lands if we’re not willing to share the Gospel with our family. Amen?

Verse 5 says “and when they arrived in Salamis (that’s in Cyprus), they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant. Ray Stedman calls John their “intern.” They took an intern with them; John Mark. We’ll be reading again about him later. I want to focus-in on this pattern. God is working through preaching. You see this time and again in the book of Acts. The missionaries enter a city and go to the local synagogue where they preach the word.

I want to give you these references and you can look them up later, but you’ll find this pattern of entering a city, going to the synagogue and preaching the Gospel. You have it here in verse 4 and then again in verse 14. See that down there in verse 14 when they go to Antioch in Pisidia? The Bible says they “went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.” They go there first to preach the word. You see it again in 14:1; 17:1-2; 17:10; and 18:4. This is the pattern because God is working through preaching, and specifically through the preaching of the Gospel.

See our church can do a lot of things, but if we’re not preaching, reaching, and teaching in the name of Jesus Christ, we’re not a church. Whatever else we do as a church, we must make certain that preaching the Gospel remains central to our worship and that the preaching of the word feeds into every other ministry.

God is working through His people. God is working through preaching. How else is God working today? Number three:

III. God is Working through His Power (6-12)

Remember Acts 1:8 tells us that it is the power of the Holy Spirit that makes our sharing the Gospel possible. Jesus said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be My witnesses.” And God’s power is superior to any other force or power in the world. I believe we see that in verses 6-12. Here’s where this weird kind of story happens. How many of you like weird and strange stuff? Me, too. Look at verse 6.

6 Now when they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus,

That sounds like a weird name, doesn’t it? Bar-Jesus. The word “Bar” there is a word that means, “son of” or, “one like the son of.” For example, we said, “Barnabas” means “son of encouragement.” So here we have Bar-Jesus, “one like the son of” Jesus; Jesus, being the Greek equivalent of Joshua, “the Lord saves.” So Bar-Jesus means son of Joshua. Joshua was a common name in those days. Look at verse 7:

7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

So there’s this guy on the island of Cyprus named Bar-Jesus and Bar-Jesus is “with the proconsul Sergius Paulus.” Sergius Paulus is a Roman official serving as Governor of Cyrpus. He is an intelligent man and the Bible says “this man called for Barnabas and Saul” for what reason? He “sought to hear the word of God.”

You remember a few weeks ago when we were studying about Cornelius back in chapter 10? I said that there were “Cornelius’s” everywhere? Sergius Paulus is a “Cornelius.” He is being drawn to God by way of the Holy Spirit. He “sought to hear the word of God.” You remember that this week: there are people who are seeking to hear the word of God. There are people in your English class, people in the break room, people in your neighborhood, seeking to hear the word of God. Be encouraged by that. But know, too, that there will always be people standing in the way of your sharing the Gospel. Verse 8:

8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so his name is translated) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

So another name for Bar-Jesus is “Elymas,” a name that means sorcerer, or magician, withstood Barnabas and Saul. He was seeking to turn this governor away from the faith, away from Jesus Christ. Now, I’ve got an idea that Elymas is doing that because he’s going to lose his influence with the governor. Up to this point, Sergius Paulus has been kind of looking up to Elymas as something of a spiritual advisor. Elymas is some kind of a magician, using his magic, apparently black magic, to impress people. So here comes Paul and Barnabas with the power of the Gospel and he’s feeling threatened. Barnabas and Paul are sharing about God’s power and Elymas is over there like, “Hey, don’t listen to those guys, look at me, I’ve got the power.” Verse 9:

9 Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him

Remember that look your mother or father gave you when you did something wrong? Okay, remember the look your wife gives you when you do something wrong? Eyes that burn two holes right through you! That’s the look Paul gave this magic-guy named Elymas. Look what he says to him in verse 10:

10 and said, “O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?

That word “deceit” there is used to describe a fishhook. How deceiving is a fishhook? Ask the fish, right? Pretty deceiving. He says, “You ‘son of the devil.” That is, you’re not “Bar-Jesus,” you’re “Bar-Satan.” You enemy of unrighteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? That is, will you stop trying to get in the way of God’s work, trying to divert people away from the truth, trying to get them to go down the wrong way, the crooked path that leads to destruction?

See that’s what Elymas is doing. Barnabas and Saul are sharing the power of the Gospel with Sergius Paulus and Elymas is over there going, “No, over here! I’ve got the true power! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”

So Paul puts him in his place. And Paul is an apostle. He can do things you and I can’t do today because there are no apostles today as there were then. I mean, don’t you try to do what Paul does here in verse 11. Look at what he says and does to Elymas:

Wow! It’s a dangerous thing to stand in the way of God’s work. Don’t ever allow yourself to be a distraction from the Lord’s work.

12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had been done, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

No doubt, right?! I mean, of course the proconsul believed. He saw the power of God defeat the power of Elymas’s magic. Paul pronounces judgment upon Elymas and Sergius Paulus is like, “Hmm, Follow these guys or the blind guy with the magic wand.”

See, God is always at work. He’s working through His people, through preaching, and through His power. He never nods-off. He’s working right now. He’s got you right here by His sovereign purpose. You may have thought you made the choice to be here this morning all by yourself, but the God who is at work was, and is, guiding you. He’s with you right now.

Stand for prayer.

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