SPEAKER_00: Please turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: It's a short text.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're starting a new sermon series kicking off the fall.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking, praying, living a missional life.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about that this month in our sermon series.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about it more later this month at the Vision Banquet.
SPEAKER_00: Hope that you have signed up already.
SPEAKER_00: If not, please do so.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have you at that banquet that night as we talk about vision, the vision that God has given this church going forward.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menaeon, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The same Spirit who inspired these words is here to illumine our minds and our hearts with these words.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray to him.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the fact that you are a missionary God.
SPEAKER_00: Your very heart is so missional-minded.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we know that you want us to become more like you in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you please just teach us this morning through your word?
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking, praying, and living a missional life does not come naturally to any of us.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we battle with the flesh every day.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh inside of us does not want us to do this.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh says, no, let them do things, let them help.
SPEAKER_00: You've got enough things going on with your life.
SPEAKER_00: You just kind of take care of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Missional, what does that word mean?
SPEAKER_00: A specific task with which a person or a group is charged.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to think too long or look too far to find what God's mission is for his people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' words at the Great Commission at the end of Matthew chapter 28 says, Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: We are those disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And oh yes, he's charged us with obeying everything that he said.
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound overwhelming?
SPEAKER_00: But he wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean it.
SPEAKER_00: And he would not have said it if he did not offer the empowering.
SPEAKER_00: As Augustine said, Lord, not only give us the commands, but give us the enabling to obey your commands.
SPEAKER_00: And it's possible.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been called to disciple the nations, to disciple our city.
SPEAKER_00: But it starts with us, first of all, being followers of Jesus ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: As we're going to see in the text, in the first century church, they didn't call themselves Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Three times in the New Testament we find the term Christian.
SPEAKER_00: They viewed themselves mostly as disciples, a follower, a student of a master, someone who follows someone in life.
SPEAKER_00: That's us.
SPEAKER_00: Serving our city and our world in the name of Christ, that was our theme last year.
SPEAKER_00: The elders, after much prayer and thought, believe that this new theme is a follow-up.
SPEAKER_00: It's maybe another step to last year's theme.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you teach us how to think missionally?
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't naturally do that.
SPEAKER_00: Would you teach us how to pray a missional life?
SPEAKER_00: I'm thrilled the 150 copies of a praying church by Paul Miller went like hotcakes.
SPEAKER_00: It went fast.
SPEAKER_00: I hope many of you have read it.
SPEAKER_00: You are reading it.
SPEAKER_00: It really shakes hands well with this theme this year.
SPEAKER_00: But how do we actually live a missional life and not just talk about it?
SPEAKER_00: That's what this sermon series is going to focus on.
SPEAKER_00: All Christians are called to be not only followers of Jesus, but to be disciplers of Jesus for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our passage today illustrates this quite well in these three short verses.
SPEAKER_00: A little background will be helpful.
SPEAKER_00: The church at Antioch, what do we know about that church?
SPEAKER_00: If your Bibles are open, if you turn back to chapter 11, verse 19, this is very helpful background.
SPEAKER_00: Now there were those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus in Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Now let me pause here.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Luke tells us in Luke, in Acts chapter 8, that this persecution that arose in Jerusalem, a lot of it was sparked by Stephen's martyrdom.
SPEAKER_00: They hated the Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They started persecuting the Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Many of the laypeople in the church, the Christians, left.
SPEAKER_00: It says in chapter 8, all except the apostles scattered.
SPEAKER_00: Now, not everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Many in the church still stayed in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But the laypeople were sent out all over the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God spread the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So we read that and pick up in verse 20, but there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.
SPEAKER_00: For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people.
SPEAKER_00: And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.
SPEAKER_00: This background is helpful.
SPEAKER_00: What do we know about the city of Antioch?
SPEAKER_00: It was a very large, diverse, cosmopolitan, commercial city.
SPEAKER_00: Historians tell it was the third biggest city in the Roman Empire at that time, behind Rome and Alexandria.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, not Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Antioch was a hustling, bustling, thriving metropolis.
SPEAKER_00: But because of it being a commercial center, people from all over the nations came.
SPEAKER_00: God uses cities in very strategic ways in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It goes all the way back to the early church.
SPEAKER_00: Cities where everybody comes from, some other place.
SPEAKER_00: And then they're exposed to new ideas.
SPEAKER_00: They're exposed to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And many of them would take that gospel back home with them.
SPEAKER_00: Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: As we said, God used the persecution in Jerusalem to scatter his people.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, and the hand of God was with them, and a great number of people who believed turned to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The church in Jerusalem hears about this, and they send Barnabas, that word means son of encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas was an encourager.
SPEAKER_00: And he gladly went to Antioch, although he was living in Jerusalem, to find out what was going on.
SPEAKER_00: There was a revival going on in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: He surveys the church and he realizes that all these new Christians are going to need, they're going to need good teaching, good preaching.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I know who we need.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I need to go back and find Saul.
SPEAKER_00: They knew each other.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to Saul, he finds him.
SPEAKER_00: It's about a hundred-mile trip to Tarsus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Saul, God has a mission, not only for me, but I believe that God has a mission for you to come to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Things are going like wildfire, but we need you to help set the gospel foundation here.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes.
SPEAKER_00: And they do a great work together.
SPEAKER_00: I'm encouraged by Barnabas' humility.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have to be the number one guy.
SPEAKER_00: He gladly served as a companion, working together with Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they did.
SPEAKER_00: I'm also encouraged that though neither one of them, Saul nor Barnabas, were from Antioch, they weren't prideful.
SPEAKER_00: They could celebrate God doing a work in a different faraway city with people that are different from them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they weren't steeped in denominationalism.
SPEAKER_00: God can and God does do amazing things outside the PCA.
SPEAKER_00: He does.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't want to get caught up in thinking that God is really mostly working through us.
SPEAKER_00: This church, this denomination.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever God's people are listening, learning, growing, and walking in the Spirit, He's working.
SPEAKER_00: And that was true here.
SPEAKER_00: So Barnabas went to Tarsus, he found Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And let's take a moment to think about seasons of preparation for ministry, your ministry too.
SPEAKER_00: This may surprise you, but Paul was not this superstar that once he was converted just got launched into missionary service.
SPEAKER_00: It was a long time coming of God working in his heart, probably three years in the desert in Arabia, where he said, Jesus taught me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus called me as an apostle, and I was not taught by other leaders.
SPEAKER_00: I was taught by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As an apostle, call it as an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: Then there was another seven or eight years in Asia Minor, Turkey.
SPEAKER_00: What's he doing?
SPEAKER_00: Those were the, you call them the silent years?
SPEAKER_00: Call them the ministry preparation years.
SPEAKER_00: See, he didn't see himself as a superstar.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, oh, I've got all these gifts.
SPEAKER_00: I better get going.
SPEAKER_00: They need me.
SPEAKER_00: He waited patiently.
SPEAKER_00: He grew quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And then there was another almost two years in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Twelve, at least 12 years in his life, and he was in a season of preparation, letting God do a deeper work in him, preparing him to do a deeper work in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as I say that, what does that trigger in your mind?
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're all called to Christian service.
SPEAKER_00: What might be this season in your life where God might be teaching and growing you, me, preparing us for even more?
SPEAKER_00: And so we come to the text.
SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful little text we read.
SPEAKER_00: And so with this diverse leadership, Barnabas, a Levite, Simeon, who was called Niger, he was a black man, probably from North Africa.
SPEAKER_00: Lucius of Cyrene.
SPEAKER_00: Commentators wonder, was that Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross?
SPEAKER_00: It could have been.
SPEAKER_00: Saul.
SPEAKER_00: The natural leader, you would think, humbly comes last in this list.
SPEAKER_00: And he's okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: He was okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have these leaders that were meeting with the congregation, worshiping the Lord and fasting, and the Holy Spirit said, What?
SPEAKER_00: This is the first point.
SPEAKER_00: Set apart for me, Saul and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: Set apart for me.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit claimed these two men for a special mission.
SPEAKER_00: And notice it was not from a strategy session.
SPEAKER_00: It was not from a whiteboard exercise that so many, I think, get caught up in today.
SPEAKER_00: So many, I think, of our ideas for ministry don't come from the Holy Spirit, perhaps, but from our own ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Our own ideas, our own thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this would be great.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just do this and just jump into things.
SPEAKER_00: But is it from God?
SPEAKER_00: If it's not from God, it's not going to last.
SPEAKER_00: If it's not directly from the Holy Spirit, it's not going to have much staying power.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to have much lasting effect.
SPEAKER_00: No, they were set apart in worship by worship and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know we fast in this church multiple times through the years, God calls us to significant challenges.
SPEAKER_00: To set apart, to step back from the busyness of our Washington lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: Just to step back.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, yeah, abstain from food, clear our minds perhaps even more.
SPEAKER_00: And to say, God, what is it that you're calling us to do?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that you're calling us to be?
SPEAKER_00: That's important.
SPEAKER_00: So we understand that vision comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't come from us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very hard lesson to learn for Christians.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't come from us.
SPEAKER_00: Our best ideas may or may not be God's vision.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's possible to have a good idea, but it's not from God for the vision.
SPEAKER_00: We have to learn how to say no to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Our own desires sometimes can get in the way.
SPEAKER_00: Hudson Taylor, the missionary, said years ago, since the days of Pentecost, has the church ever put aside every other work and waited upon the Lord for ten days, that the Holy Spirit's power may be manifested.
SPEAKER_00: We give too much attention to our own methods and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of all power, which is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I think those words are still true.
SPEAKER_00: We have to learn how to wait.
SPEAKER_00: We have to learn how to listen.
SPEAKER_00: We have to learn how to humble ourselves for a word from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: As we say, vision comes from God through prayer as we ask, as we wait, as we humble ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas and Saul did not volunteer so much for this as they were called.
SPEAKER_00: And that's still true for Christian ministry today.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit himself appointed them and set them apart.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the words, set apart for me.
SPEAKER_00: Does that strike you as worth lingering on?
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit still says, I have a mission for my people, for you.
SPEAKER_00: But again, we can easily miss these assignments.
SPEAKER_00: If we're too busy, if we're too distracted, if we're not really communing with God in his word, if we're not walking in his spirit, we will very likely miss these assignments.
SPEAKER_00: The verb set apart was used by Paul three times in the epistles.
SPEAKER_00: At his birth, he said he was set apart to God, Galatians 1.15.
SPEAKER_00: You know that's true for you, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: We've all been set apart at birth to God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, take that in.
SPEAKER_00: We're not living random lives.
SPEAKER_00: What we do matters every day.
SPEAKER_00: If we've been called by God at birth, to him.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he said in Romans 1:1, at his conversion, he was set apart for the gospel specifically.
SPEAKER_00: So have we.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, at Antioch, as we read, he was set apart for a particular mission.
SPEAKER_00: We call it the first missionary journey.
SPEAKER_00: The first of three.
SPEAKER_00: He was set apart for a specific mission at a specific time to specific places.
SPEAKER_00: You know that's true of you.
SPEAKER_00: We don't read it in the scriptures, which was after the fact for him.
SPEAKER_00: We have to discern God's call just like Paul did.
SPEAKER_00: As we wait, as we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that prayer is two ways, right?
SPEAKER_00: Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: A rich prayer life is not just one-way communication.
SPEAKER_00: We talk to God and He speaks back to us by the Holy Spirit's promptings and leanings and direction.
SPEAKER_00: Who to marry?
SPEAKER_00: Career.
SPEAKER_00: Assignments, kingdom assignments, not just in the church, but vocationally.
SPEAKER_00: You know, your vocation is part of your calling.
SPEAKER_00: It all is.
SPEAKER_00: I want to share something from one of my mentors, Jack Miller.
SPEAKER_00: It really kind of touches on this.
SPEAKER_00: Jack is saying he ministered for years as a professor at Westminster Seminary and as a pastor of an OPC church before he understood this.
SPEAKER_00: A seminary professor once challenged me by saying that I had never learned to depend on the Holy Spirit for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I tried to go to the scriptures to investigate more carefully, but I thought my interpretation might be off theologically, and I might get the wrong view.
SPEAKER_00: You see, he disagrees with his professor, this co-worker.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to find biblical reasons why he wasn't right.
SPEAKER_00: So I turned to the writings of John Owen, who said the same thing as this professor and his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do anything in ministry apart from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Then I decided that he may be wrong, so I went to John Calvin's commentary in John chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: He said the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You're as dry as dust if you don't have the Holy Spirit operating, leading you, filling you day by day.
SPEAKER_00: Can we call it busyness?
SPEAKER_00: Not fruitful ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that happens at seminaries.
SPEAKER_00: That happens in churches.
SPEAKER_00: He also said that for you to have, to keep getting grace from Jesus every day.
SPEAKER_00: And then I read Luke 11, 1 through 13 about the call to ask, seek, and knock.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said that we were to ask and to seek and knock every day for the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I realized that I had never done that in my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Years of ministry without the key to ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I realized that I needed to make a change in my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Surprised, I thought, you know, the Bible is right.
SPEAKER_00: My friend is right.
SPEAKER_00: I guess I can trust the Holy Spirit from this point on in a new way.
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: It's the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: They're the gifts of the Holy Spirit, only as we're led by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Only as we're filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Is that part of your understanding of the Christian life?
SPEAKER_00: There's a calling for every Christian, and it comes from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we would take time today to set some time aside.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Sunday's a good day to do this, the Lord's day.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday's a really good time to set ourselves apart and say, Lord, what is it that you would have to say to me about my calling in life, my ministry, my service to you?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want it to be my mission.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want it to be my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: What would it be like?
SPEAKER_00: Invite them in.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, set apart through prayer and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Then after fasting and prayer, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to send off a family today, a little bit later.
SPEAKER_00: They're not sent by us.
SPEAKER_00: They're sent by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: They're not really sent from us.
SPEAKER_00: We're the agency.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, what a thrill it is.
SPEAKER_00: This family is being sent out directly from APC.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going through another missions organization, which many do, which is fine.
SPEAKER_00: This is the second family that we've sent out from this church directly from APC.
SPEAKER_00: And we're honored and we're humbled and we're thrilled to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Not set apart from us, by us, but through us.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the cause of or the power behind.
SPEAKER_00: We're the means that God uses.
SPEAKER_00: A healthy church will witness this often.
SPEAKER_00: Setting hands on elders and deacons, commissioning missionaries and deaconesses and others in service.
SPEAKER_00: A healthy church will experience this because the Spirit is at work.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is not saying, I have a staff to do the ministry at APC.
SPEAKER_00: The staff is here to serve the body.
SPEAKER_00: The staff is here to help you find your ministry, to help resource you in your ministry, to pray for you in your ministry.
SPEAKER_00: The intercessory prayer ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're on that.
SPEAKER_00: Matt, how many are in this now?
SPEAKER_00: 75 of you are praying weekly, daily, for the ministries of this church.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're on your lit, if you're on that list, you know it's not like going one page.
SPEAKER_00: Humbled.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love the transparency of so many of the people who are asking for prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Honestly.
SPEAKER_00: We serve in many ways as an agency that God's using, but the power is God's, the glory is God's.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, lastly, set apart to a specific work, place, people.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is really the first missionary journey that we read about.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I encourage you to get alone with God.
SPEAKER_00: Spend some time praying and thinking about, yes, your assignments, but there's another question that precedes that.
SPEAKER_00: Who's in control of your life?
SPEAKER_00: Are you in control?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel responsible for your assignments?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like it's up to you to ascertain your assignments?
SPEAKER_00: To carry out your assignments?
SPEAKER_00: That's not gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a gospel way to think.
SPEAKER_00: Would you get alone with God?
SPEAKER_00: I find I need to do that really every day.
SPEAKER_00: God, are these my is this my thought?
SPEAKER_00: Are these my ideas or are these yours?
SPEAKER_00: And oh the confidence when I believe that it's come from God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: I find I don't get so I don't get so discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: I don't give up so easily if I really sense that this is from God.
SPEAKER_00: Often God's leading is revealed over time, is it not, my friends, who are going.
SPEAKER_00: Years.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, God, we want to listen?
SPEAKER_00: You've put these desires on our hearts, but we we need to listen.
SPEAKER_00: We need to obey.
SPEAKER_00: We need confirmation.
SPEAKER_00: God's leading is revealed over time, both internally and externally.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit's called internally and oftentimes externally.
SPEAKER_00: Other people come around and confirm.
SPEAKER_00: Other people come along and say, I can see you do that.
SPEAKER_00: I can see you do that.
SPEAKER_00: They encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: One step at a time.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, all of us are called to ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It's not how far away we go to the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the distance, it's discerning the Spirit's leading and experiencing the Spirit's empowering.
SPEAKER_00: May I say that again?
SPEAKER_00: It's not how far you go.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the distance.
SPEAKER_00: Look, if God's not doing, if God's gospel is not growing in your heart here, if God's not making you a new woman, a new man here, daily by this transformation, why would you cross an ocean?
SPEAKER_00: Why would you go get a job somewhere else?
SPEAKER_00: He wants to do it now, here.
SPEAKER_00: And then he can send us.
SPEAKER_00: Should he send us?
SPEAKER_00: It's not the distance we travel, it's discerning the Spirit's leading and experiencing the Spirit's empowering.
SPEAKER_00: God has called every Christian to a particular ministry.
SPEAKER_00: May you find your ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Your ministry is not necessarily just within these four walls of this church.
SPEAKER_00: Your calling certainly includes your vocation.
SPEAKER_00: Your calling certainly includes your home, your family, your friends.
SPEAKER_00: As Paul said to Archipus in the church at Colossae, see to it that you complete the work you received in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I want to complete.
SPEAKER_00: I want to complete the work the Lord's given me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just go halfway.
SPEAKER_00: However, it's not what we will do for him that matters most.
SPEAKER_00: What did he just say?
SPEAKER_00: It's not what we do for him.
SPEAKER_00: What's first?
SPEAKER_00: Our time with him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a really important basic that we can neglect very easily, can't we?
SPEAKER_00: We can get so caught up in what we want to do for him.
SPEAKER_00: And so I read from my favorite book outside of the Bible, We Would See Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I read this to my friends this morning, but not just to my friends who are going over an ocean.
SPEAKER_00: I'm reading this to you.
SPEAKER_00: I read this book every year in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I need to come back to this basic gospel truths.
SPEAKER_00: In light of all the things he's been saying in this book, we see that some of us have been, what we have been doing, we have been availing ourselves of Jesus in his blood as the way, but to ends other than himself.
SPEAKER_00: We have been willing to go to all lengths to put things right in our life, sometimes at great cost to ourselves, because the end that we seek seems to be so desirable.
SPEAKER_00: We intensely pray, God, I'll pay any cost to have revival in my life to enjoy your power in my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't this sound like good stuff?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: If it's put first.
SPEAKER_00: But in the shadow around these ends often lurks the subtle motives of self-interest and self-glory.
SPEAKER_00: Little wonder then that in spite of our agonizings in prayer, God has not allowed us to reach these ends.
SPEAKER_00: Even if our motives are quite free from self-interest, those things are still not to be the end, nor the reason for which we are to get right with God.
SPEAKER_00: Our end is to be the Lord Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_00: The reason for which we are to get right is not that we might have revival or power to be used greatly of God, to have this or that blessing, but that we might have Him.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, it doesn't get any better than that.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we find our joy.
SPEAKER_00: We can't find our joy in our ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I've tried.
SPEAKER_00: We only find it when we see it in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How much he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: How much he saved us from.
SPEAKER_00: How much he saved us for.
SPEAKER_00: He's the end.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a means to the end.
SPEAKER_00: In another word, from my friends, and to you.
SPEAKER_00: George Mueller said it.
SPEAKER_00: Of all the things that you engage in in the Lord's work, may this be most important to you.
SPEAKER_00: This is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above everything else to have your souls truly happy in God.
SPEAKER_00: Day by day, make sure that this is the most important business of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Not what you're going to do for Him, but to find real joy and happiness in Him.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't get any better than that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, this has been my firm and settled condition for the last 35 years of my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: What a ministry he had.
SPEAKER_00: So we would see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're in the nursery ministry downstairs, whether you're in the teen ministry upstairs, whether you're an elder or a deacon or a pastor, whatever it is that you do, it's enough to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what to say to us.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how to fill us.
SPEAKER_00: He knows where to send us.
SPEAKER_00: But if we miss that, if we miss him, the ministry is not going to be all that great.
SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you that you are a missionary heart God.
SPEAKER_00: You sent your son far, far further than an ocean.
SPEAKER_00: Your son traveled a distance far more than 5,000 or 7,000 miles.
SPEAKER_00: Your son left a gated community, a perfect community, to come into a very sinful, messy place.
SPEAKER_00: To reach people like us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And now that you've come, Jesus, you're sending.
SPEAKER_00: And you're sending this family from APC, but you're sending each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: So set us apart, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Enable us to listen and to experience your leading and your empowering for whatever it is that you call us to.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.