“The Church that Sets Apart and the God Who Sends Them Out” Acts 13:1-13; The First Missionary Journey, Part One

“A Summer Journey;

Following the Apostle Paul Through His Missionary Journeys”

A Sermon Series

“The Church that Sets Apart and the God Who Sends Them Out”

Acts 13:1-13; The First Missionary Journey, Part One

Introduction

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.” Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Prayer

A Church with A Heart to Share the Gospel (vv. 1- 4)

“Now there were in the church at Antioch[1] prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. 4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.”

It is the church at Antioch that prays and fasts, lays hands on them, and it is the church that sends out those set apart and called by God. The church fasted and prayed to make sure they were hearing rightly, acting appropriately, and that their hearts were right in how they sent them out. Paul and Barnabas leave and return to the local church. And when they return they give a report of all that God did while they were away.

Missions begins with the prompting of God, submitting by called missionaries, and are supported and sent by the local church. In this passage, “for the first time a local church was led to see the need for witness beyond them to the larger world and commissioned missionaries to carry out that task.”[2] The witness to the (Acts 1:8 ) “ends of the earth,” begins.

Typically, when we think of the first mission trip in the history of the church, we think that Paul was the main leader – but it actually seems to be Barnabas (whose name is mentioned first on two occasions) who recruits his cousin (Col. 4:10) John Mark, and Paul begins his first missionary journey nine years after his conversion on the road to Damascus.

Barnabas, the mature Christian, spoke up for Paul earlier in Acts 9:26-30 “And when he (Paul) had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.”

The church can set apart people for ministry, and recognize a calling upon a person’s life by laying hands on them, but unless they have the sending out power of the Holy Spirit, the ministry task they seek to do will be in vain. Set apart and sent out by the Holy Spirit – recognized and supported by the local church.

Barnabas and Saul Sharing the Gospel at Cyprus (vv. 5-12)

“5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. 6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

 Review the map

Paul’s missionary strategy was to go to the Jewish synagogues and preach – at Cyprus as they preach the gospel, a proconsul named Sergius Paulus wanted to hear what they were saying, so he summons them. Often, rulers would consult with fortune tellers and magicians to predict weather, battles, etc. So there, among those surrounding the proconsul, was a Jewish magician named Bar-Jesus (ironically meaning son of Jesus).

“As Paul was trying to give the word of God to the proconsul, he was interrupted by this false prophet who was doing everything he could to impede the presentation of the gospel and prevent the proconsul from having a favorable response to it.”[3]

If the proconsul learned about the one true God, how Jesus could save him from his sins, and how a person could have direct access to God – they could talk to God themselves, pray to God themselves, have access to God themselves – eliminating the need for a go-between (i.e. goodbye false prophet magician).

There Are People Who Don’t Want Others to Know About Jesus

Because of How It Would Affect Them,

So They Will Work Against The Work of the Church.

9 But Saul, who was also called Paul[4], filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.”

Paul’s response, guided by the Holy Spirit, is direct, aggressive, and he calls out evil for what it is, even adding a physical consequence to the sin (blindness). The fortuneteller who supposedly could see the future, now could not see anything right in front of him and had to be led around.

(v. 9) Saul is his Hebrew name, and Paul is his Roman name.[5] There is a transition that happens here; from this point forward he is called Paul (and up to this point he was called Saul). He is so enraged at this supposed Jew false prophet’s resistance to the world receiving the gospel that Paul becomes the leader in the effort, and now he is identified with the Gentile world (his Roman name).

Luke, the author, lets us know that this is the point where a calling from God became Paul’s life’s mission – to reach the Gentiles with the gospel. A calling upon a man’s life changes everything about him – it gives his life focus, it becomes who he is; his whole world in consumed with it.

 I was called into ministry when I was twenty-one years old. I went to seminary for four years, and eventually served in my first church in Maryland. All of which required that I was away from my Alabama home. Over that course of time my grandfather, who I was fairly close to, began to lose his memory. Over the years at Thanksgiving, Christmas and vacation trips, He slowly forgot who I was. Eventually in his later years he would be at my parent’s house, where we would be visiting, and he would turn to me, having forget all the years of me spending weeks of the summer at his home, or building things together, etc. and he would look deeply at me and call me, preacher. The only memory left of me, preacher.

Note that what astonished the proconsul wasn’t the judgement that fell on Bar-Jesus, it was the “teaching of the Lord,” It was the truth of the gospel proclaimed by Paul and Barnabas. Miracles in the New Testament are there to authenticate God’s true agents of revelation. Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leaders came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). The proconsul’s response to the miracle was to believe the words of the missionaries.

(v. 12) “Then the proconsul believed,” – What was it that he believed? He was a Gentile and would not have the foundational knowledge of the OT (there were no dots to connect), he was not keeping the law, he had not been circumcised. So how does he come to place his faith and believe in Jesus as a Gentile and be truly saved? When Paul goes back and reports all that they have seen God do on this missions trip, this causes the need for a church counsel in Jerusalem (Acts 15).

Paul and Barnabas Sharing the Gospel at Antioch in Pisidia (vv. 13-45)

13 Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem,

The text doesn’t explain why John Mark left them to return to Jerusalem, but later in the book John Mark wants to rejoin the effort, and Paul says, no.” Acts 15:36-39 “And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.”[6]

It seems that there was a leadership change, where Paul took the main leadership role, and Barnabas moved to the second in command, John Mark didn’t like it, so he left – or when they landed on the shore at Perga something really scared him (they would face severe resistance there). Or it may have been John Mark was a part of the group from what chapter 15:1 who would say, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” The salvation of one man led Saul to become Paul and it drove another man to abandon the work entirely.

 it was an abandonment in the work. John Mark chose his reason over the work of getting the gospel out and it was a blow to the missionary group. John Mark weighed his options and decided to leave.

 Everyone must choose what will have priority in your life: 1) your own self-comfort, safety, personal life goals, personal doctrinal beliefs 2) or the work of the gospel and the salvation of others.

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[1] Followers of Jesus were first called Christians Acts 11:26.

[2] John B. Pohill, The New American Commentary, Acts (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman Press, 1992) 288.

[3] R. C. Sproul, Acts: An Expositional Commentary (Stanford Florida; Ligonier Ministries, 2019) 191.

[4] (v. 9) after this verse, Saul is called Paul for the rest of the book.

[5] Paul was his Roman cognomen.

[6] Twenty years later in 2 Timothy 4:11 Paul specifically requests John Mark’s assistance; so by then he has proven himself to be a faithful servant of the Lord, even if earlier in his life he left the team.