Acts 13:1-12 - International Exports

You are listening to Recast Church of Madawan's Podcast. Listen in as our lead pastor,

Don Sopcich, is in a sermon series entitled Solid Foundation, A Journey Through the

Book of Acts. Well, most all of you know, and some of you maybe don't know, but RECAST is an acronym.

So the very name of our church is an acronym for our core values. It's Reproducing, Community, Authenticity, Simplicity, and Truth.

And they're written on the back wall. We did not put the word reproducing on the back wall with intention because we don't want people to be confused.

It's kind of a strange word in our culture and community. But the idea of reproducing is not something that we've talked about much here.

But our text this morning is gonna highlight God's plan for reproducing the church by sending some people out to start new churches in new areas.

And that's what we're gonna see happening in the text in the early church in the Book of Acts. Some are sent out to start new churches.

And this is something that we desire to be in the DNA, the very core and the structure of the way that we are here at RECAST.

And again, maybe I haven't talked about this very often, but the thing is the text. I like the text to drive the topics and the subjects.

So we're going through the Book of Acts, and it's awesome how God brings texts like this that we're gonna read this morning to mind just,

I think, the best time for our congregation or for our church to work through. Because our desire is not that we become a megachurch.

Not that, becoming a megachurch is, I don't know how many megachurches set out to do that, to be honest.

If you think about that, did they set out to say, well, we wanna be a church of 10 ,000 people with acres and acres of building and all of this stuff.

I don't know that how much they intend to do that. But, and so saying that, I gotta backtrack a little bit and say, if God were to lead in that direction, the primary goal, what

I want in the DNA is that we are a church that starts other churches. Does that make sense? That is, I'm not giving a number on this and saying, well, if we get over this size, then we're not doing what

God wants us to do or something like that. Not at all. I don't disparage those large churches. But I want the

DNA to be that we have a mindset, constantly forward -thinking about starting new congregations, new churches in areas where the gospel is not being proclaimed clearly or carefully.

And although it seems like we're just getting started here at Recast, does it kind of feel that way? Kind of getting started, getting up off the ground?

Now, some of us have been here for a couple of years, but things are really cooking and moving here. I don't think it's too early for us to consider that God may desire to call some of us.

He might wanna begin that process in us to go out and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to others.

I don't think it's too early for us to be considering that. So as we look at this text, I want us to genuinely think about what

God is calling us to do. What is God calling you to do? We're gonna see in the text that it is in the context of worship that God is going to single out two men,

Saul and Barnabas, to spread the good news. But it is in the context of worship as the church is gathered together, as the church has gathered together to pray and they are worshiping.

The Holy Spirit tells them to do something new, to do something different, and he calls these two guys out.

The point being that the mission and purpose of the church flows out of our worship of him, of our acknowledging who he is and how awesome and how high and exalted our

God is. And if we're not worshiping God, we are not going to be listening for his call on our lives.

We're not gonna be giving him the attention and thinking, what God do you want of me? But more often than not, we might be trying to fit him into our plans and our lives.

Can you relate to that? Do we sometimes do that? Try to fit God into our schedule rather than giving our schedule to him and saying, whatever you desire of me.

So as we gather together as a church, it's my desire this morning that we turn our ears, our minds, and our hearts towards him, whether it's in the singing, whether it's during the transition time where we're interacting with one another or whether it's during the discussion of the word this morning, that our ears, our minds, and our hearts are towards him.

And it's my hope as a preacher that God would meet us here. I want that. I want him here communicating his love, consoling those who are in pain, convicting those that are entrapped by sin, and calling out those who love him for his purposes.

So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Acts chapter 13. We're gonna read the text before the band comes. It's page 788 in the

Bible that's in the seat back in front of you. And again, I say this to you, if you don't own a Bible, take that one with you. It's a free gift.

But page 788, Acts 13, one through 12. That's what I'm gonna be reading this morning.

Follow along. Now there were in the church of Antioch prophets and teachers,

Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a member of the court of Herod the

Tetrarch, and Saul. 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. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

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

When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogue of the Jews, and they had

John to assist them. 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. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence who summoned

Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elemis, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 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? 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.

Then the proconsul believed. When he had saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the

Lord. Let's pray as the band comes. Father, we get an opportunity this morning to hear about your plan for the church in calling out individuals.

And Father, each and every one of us has a calling on our life. Each and every one of us is useful to you. The reality is that some are useful within the context of the church.

Some are called to be here, to minister among the children and to work praising you and playing instruments.

And some are called out to teach and to serve with their hands and all different kinds of skills and gifts and abilities that you give.

But there are some who are called to go outside of these walls and proclaim in a special and a unique way.

To literally start churches and to leave us in order to minister in a broader context.

Because God, you are a God who desires that the nations would praise you. That all would praise you.

Grateful that recast is not it, but there is so much more going on around the world. And we get to be just a sliver of the pie, a portion, a part of this big picture of what you are doing for your honor and glory.

And so as we worship you this morning, I ask that we would see that. That it is not about us as we stand or sit to worship, but it is about you.

Your name going forward. I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. We're gonna pick right back up where we left off in the book of Acts.

I've already read the text. But what we're gonna see is Saul and Barnabas returning to Antioch. Or they returned to Antioch last week.

Remember they had taken famine relief down to the south. There was a worldwide famine that was happening at this time.

The early church was hit pretty hard by that. So the church up in the north in this town of Antioch sent these two guys to carry some relief, to carry some funds, maybe even to carry some food down to the south to help the churches down there that were suffering from that famine.

And then when they were down there, they picked up Barnabas' cousin, guy named John Mark. And they took him basically onto their team and took him back up to Antioch.

Basically, kind of like a mentor, mentee, what's the right other word? Mentee relationship, okay.

I'll take your word for it. That kind of, the friendliness thing there, the relationship.

And right at the beginning of our text, we get an awesome glimpse of the multicultural aspect of what the church in Antioch was really like.

It was made up of people from all different cultures, from different places. We see in the text right in verse one, there were prophets and teachers there that were making up the leadership of that church.

The primary difference between the idea of a prophet and the idea of teacher, two different roles or functions in the early church is really about style and timing.

So teachers prepare a message based on the revelation of God and then exhort and encourage people by persuasion to follow it, to do what it says.

Prophets, on the other hand, receive spontaneous revelation from God that is not dependent on their personal study.

It's not like a prophet goes into his office, studies the books, and comes out with a prophecy.

But now, I wanna point out that what is unique about the time of the early church is did they have the New Testament yet?

The New Testament is being lived out in their midst. So the Holy Spirit, in a common meeting like this, what we get a picture of in the early church is somebody would literally stand up, moved by the

Holy Spirit, would declare words of Scripture, and then there would be teaching on that and they would walk through it together.

So that's the picture of this idea, this interplay between prophets and teachers that are going on here.

And the early church had both in it there in Antioch. The fact of the matter is, too, also prophets tend to be kind of up in your face.

I am not a prophet, and this is hard work for me to get up here every week. I spend a lot of time in study.

I'm a teacher. I am not a prophet. Occasionally, I might get up in your face.

But it is my goal to persuade you of the wisdom of a life lived based on God's word.

That's my role, that's my responsibility as a pastor and as a teacher. So that is my focus, and I am a teacher.

But the list here is not broken down into who were prophets and who were teachers. So if you look at that list, you get these names.

You get Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manan, and then Saul, and it doesn't tell us who were which.

And actually, it seems to imply, if you follow the life of Saul, Paul, eventually, in our text to be named

Paul, we get a glimpse of him doing both. So he is both a prophet and a teacher in the early church.

Barnabas we see, so we go through this list of guys. Barnabas was from Cyprus. This is the leadership of the Church of Antioch.

He was not a local from Antioch. It was from the island of Cyprus, and we're gonna see a lot of Cyprus here in just a minute.

Simeon was also called Niger, Niger like the country Niger, or like Nigeria.

It is a Latin word that means black. What seems to be implied from this title is that he was likely from North Africa.

We saw a few weeks ago that as the church in Antioch was being started, men moved by the

Holy Spirit came from Cyprus and Cyrene, which is modern -day Libya, up into Antioch to start this church.

So it's likely that Lucius, I'm sorry, that Simeon, or Niger, was from North Africa along with his friend,

Lucius. Menaen is an interesting character. In what the ESV translates there, the court of Herod, the

Tetrarch. So do you see that in your text? That Menaen, let's see if I can find it.

Menaen was one of the individuals, a member of the court of Herod, the Tetrarch, and then Saul. Menaen, the idea of being in the court of Herod is actually a technical term for being raised in the court of Herod, the

Tetrarch, being raised with him. So it's literally a phrase that means that he was a friend of this

Herod. He was a childhood friend that was raised in the court with him. The word centrophos in Greek literally means he was raised together with him.

So where it says in the court of Herod, it's not like he was an advisor in his court or something like that.

He was literally a childhood friend and that was quite common for rulers and kings to take on foster children, foster sons, and that's what the early church, that's what a lot of scholars believe was going on here.

So he was raised with him. So Menaen grew up with a childhood friend who was the

Herod that beheaded John the Baptist. His childhood friend was the Herod who saw Jesus Christ in a trial the day that he was crucified.

That's kind of interesting. So this is a guy who is in the early church. He's a follower of Jesus Christ and he was raised in a pretty prestigious environment.

Saul comes last in the list, but he's certainly not least. That was kind of like a tongue twister.

Last in the list, but not least. While the church was gathered in worship and fasting, which shows the intensity of their worship, don't raise your hand on this, but have you fasted before?

Maybe you fasted for a procedure, a medical procedure or something like that. Have you fasted for religious reasons before? One thing that I wanna point out is that fasting, where we see it, fasting is not buying a favor from God.

And so many people in the church think of fasting as primarily I'm giving something up so God's gotta come through for me.

Have you ever heard it taught that way or have you thought about it? Maybe mentally that's our default is to think of it like if I fast, if I give something up for God and then

I pray, then he'll give me what I want. That is not what it is about. But it is about subjugating our flesh, putting down our desires, our wants and putting his above ours.

And sometimes maybe there's a season of difficulty in your life where it would be wise for you to take a day, maybe one day a week and to fast and to pray and to take that time that's devoted.

That when the hunger pangs strike you, you would offer a thought, a prayer to God at that point and say you are sufficient for me.

You are enough, I'm trusting in you, I'm resting in you. Does that make sense? Do you see that perspective of how that's different than saying

I'm gonna give up food God then you give me what I need. It's a big difference. And that's what the church is doing. There's an intensity in their worship that's going on here.

And it's in that context where there's an intensity in their worship and a desire to follow God that within that intensity, presumably through the prophets that have already been introduced in our text.

So they probably got up and spoke this thing. But he told the church there while they're worshiping to set apart for himself.

This is the Holy Spirit speaking. Notice the personal pronoun him. Holy Spirit is a personal being, not just some ethereal floating thing.

The Holy Spirit said set aside for me Saul and Barnabas for the work that I've already called them to.

If you look in the text, they've already been called to it. But the church is being called out to confirm that call.

Do you see that? Can you see the way that the structure of the words are there that he's already called them to it but he's asking the church to set them aside for it.

He wants Saul and Barnabas to be singled out for a special mission. Well, what is the mission? If you go back to Acts 9 .15,

if you're taking notes, you can write that down. Acts 9 .15, when Saul first became a follower of Jesus Christ.

Remember that he was on his way to Damascus. He was persecuting Christians. He was on the road. A bright light appeared to him.

Jesus Christ came in that bright light, asked him why was he persecuting him.

And then he was blinded, right? And while he was blinded, a man named Ananias received a vision from God saying, go and heal his eyes and bring him into the church, basically.

And Ananias was the one who baptized him. And Ananias, while he's receiving this word from God to go to Saul, he gets basically the purpose of Saul.

And that is that Saul is called to carry the gospel to rulers and Gentiles and to the house of Israel.

That was the direct call from God on Saul's life. Kings, rulers, Gentiles, and the house of Israel.

You will be a bucket, if you will, to carry the glory of the good news of Jesus Christ.

You will be a servant and you'll be carried from place to place to place, spilling over the love of Christ to people where you encounter them.

That was the call of Saul. And that is the work that they're being set aside to do here.

So after fasting and prayer, the church laid their hands on them and sent them off to do the work. It really appears that Luke is abbreviating the count since we're gonna see here in just a moment,

Saul and Barnabas know where to go. They go straight to the port. They get on a ship. They're gonna head to Cyprus.

There's maybe a little bit more specifics that they were aware of in their calling. But regardless, the church confirmed

God's call on them by laying hands on them. Now, we're a culture that moves away from the symbolic.

Have you noticed that? We're a church that kind of shies away, a culture that kind of shies away from that to a degree.

Catholicism has a lot of symbols in it. They've got the incense, the candles, all of those symbols that represent things and all of that.

But we don't do symbolism very well. But one thing that stands out is something that I see eventually here at Recast being a symbol.

When we take communion, that's a symbol, a sign, right? It's not really the blood of Christ, but it's a symbol of standing in the place of representing that.

I see this idea of laying on of hands something that we will eventually do here, this idea of commissioning, of conferring blessing on someone for their ministry, identifying that, yes, we agree that God has called you to this ministry.

We support you. We wanna encourage you. And I can picture a time in the future where we would literally have people stand up and come forward and literally put hands on them in confirmation that you are indeed being sent out from this church and being encouraged to go.

Does that make sense? That's what happens here in the early church. The order matters in the way that this all comes down.

Because I've seen this abused in churches and in individuals and in people's lives. Saul and Barnabas were proven to be faithful in ministry.

They'd already been given tasks, responsibilities. They were faithful. They went down to Jerusalem. They were trusted with the money or whatever gifts they took down there.

They came back. They brought John Mark with them. And the Holy Spirit had then called them out for a specific work.

And then the church validated that calling. The point that I wanna make here is they did not go rogue on the church in Antioch, saying we're gonna go do our own thing.

You are going to slow us down, church. And so we're gonna go off and do what we want to do.

We feel called to do this. Can you imagine how that could happen in our individualistic culture? How somebody would just kind of go rogue, if you will, and say, the church slows me down.

All the bureaucracy, all the red tape, all the details, all the organization. Boy, I could just get so much more done on my own.

And people go off and do their own thing. And it's not meant to be that way. They listened to God and awaited the response of the church in validation.

I've encountered in ministry some who have refused to be tied down to the local church. They think that that accountability will indeed just slow them down.

But confirmation of God's calling is key in our ministries. How many of you know that it's possible to feel like God has called you to do something that he's really not calling you to do?

Do you think that's possible? In your humility, would you be willing to raise a hand and say, yes, that could happen to me?

I could feel like I'm supposed to be doing something and it's really not what he wants. Like I could feel called to get up and sing or to play guitar, but you guys don't want that to happen.

You really don't because I don't play a single musical instrument at all and I can't carry a tune in a bucket. So you don't want that to happen.

But do you see what I'm saying? And it goes for leadership, it goes for all different kinds of things, teaching, skills, abilities, all of that.

There's a confirmation process for that, right? There's a sense in which we might feel called and capable and able, and maybe it's not really where we're at.

And that's where authenticity and relationships have to come into this equation. We have a community here at Recast.

It's great, I love the sense of community. I love authenticity and genuinely entering into one another's lives.

And if we genuinely are fostering authentic relationships with one another, we will value the opinions of others regarding our gifts, our talents, and our abilities.

Do you agree with that? How many of you would be eager for a conversation like that? I'm not sure that that's what you're called to do.

Ooh, that's a tough one. But we have to be open to entering into that with one another and to really engage and say, well, it's not that you're not able to do that, but maybe some training needs to happen.

Maybe there needs to be some work that happens here. Maybe we'll meet together for a while and work on this and sharpen each other and come to a place where we grow together and this ends up being a reality.

So they head down to the port city, they're called, they are sent, they are commissioned, the hands are put on them, which by the way, there's no mystical flow of power through those hands or anything like that.

It's symbolic. It is not like there was some conference of power by the laying on of hands. They went down to the port city of Seleucia and they sail to Cyprus.

They start in the place where Barnabas grew up and Salamis and Pastrami and other lunch meats,

Salamis is the largest city on the island. It's on the eastern end of Cyprus. They go to the synagogue there and proclaim the word of God to the

Jews first. We're gonna see that being Saul or Paul's MO moving forward.

He goes to the synagogue first. If the synagogue rejects him, then he ends up going on to the Gentiles, but he always starts with the synagogue, to the

Jew first and then also to the Greek, primarily because the Jews already had this notion, I've said this before, they had the notion that there was a

Messiah, someone that was coming and it was easier for them to go into the synagogue and declare, we know this

Messiah, we met him, we saw him, we interacted with him and he died on the cross for our sins just to be able to launch into a logical, natural hook there in the synagogue for them to talk.

We don't see what the results were of that first proclamation of the gospel in Cyprus, but we do find out that they brought along John Mark, Barnabas's cousin, as an assistant.

It's very unlikely that just the three of them traveled alone. What you have more often is entourages and people in larger groups traveling.

The roads were a dangerous place no matter where you were in that time. There were always robbers, highway robbers and people out ready to beat you bloody for whatever you had.

So there's likely a little bit more than just the three of them traveling together. But the text tells us at least those three were there.

They traveled the entire 130 miles west across the island of Cyprus, presumably declaring the good news of Jesus Christ in the towns that they encounter along the way over that 130 miles until they reached the capital city of Cyprus called

Paphos, which is on the western shore of the island and where we're gonna find the rest of the text takes place in that city.

Paphos is the hub of Roman activity on Cyprus. Even though it's not the largest city, it's kind of the provincial capital, if you will.

And it's important to understand, or relatively important to understand that Cyprus was a senatorial province. So we're gonna see a pro -consul there.

Senatorial versus imperial, now you get it, right? You got that? Now, imperial is

Palestine. So picture in your mind what's going on in Palestine. What's Rome's presence look like in Palestine during this time?

Military force, controlled under the direct authority of the military head, the emperor, and there is a squashing going on in Palestine.

And they have enough military to overrun everybody. That's an imperial province, one that isn't quite friendly to Rome yet.

A senatorial province is one that's been brought under the authority. The average local citizen says, I want to be a citizen of Rome.

Hook me up, because I get free internet and I get all kinds of benefits. No, I don't know about that, but I get all kinds of benefits from being a

Roman citizen, so I want to be a Roman citizen. And they're like, all we need is a pro -consul in that entire island to really take care of business.

The representative, obviously, there's more people there working for Rome. There's tax collectors and all kinds of things going on.

But primarily, a pro -consul is sufficient to keep the people subdued. Is that making sense? That's what's going on in Cyprus.

So big difference between Cyprus in this day and age and Palestine in this day and age. Very few, very minor military force on Cyprus at the time.

But we're going to meet this pro -consul that is there over Rome. And we encounter him in verse seven, and we find out his name is

Sergius Paulus. He was a man of high standing, and his name actually appears in inscriptions found in northern

Cyprus that date to this time. So his name is validated and verified as a man of significance on the island.

But like many Roman rulers, Sergius had an astrologer, a magician, if you will, who was attached to him for counsel.

Often in that day and age, can you put yourself in their shoes? I mean, their head was on the stake if anything went wrong.

And so can you understand the mentality of a ruler, a leader in this position? If you could get a week ahead in your understanding of what was going to go on, if you thought that you could get a foreknowledge, if you thought that you could get just a little glimpse of what was going on in the future.

These guys are reading their horoscopes and believing their horoscopes. And they're like looking at the stars and finding portents and killing chickens and reading the liver and doing all kinds of stuff, just whatever they could to try to figure out how do

I get a step ahead? Because Sergius Paulus is always just one step, one mistake, one rebellion, one revolt away from his head gone.

Can you understand the pressure that he's under? Some of you feel that way in your business right now, right? You feel that way where you work, maybe just one step away or something.

But that's the way it is here, and he's just whatever I can do to just get the edge. So he attaches himself to this guy,

Elimus. The man's name, we get both his first and last name, in essence,

Elimus bar Jesus. And he's identified as both a Jew and a magician, which should be an oxymoron, two words that should never be combined together,

Jewish magician, okay? According to Levitical law, the Old Testament, they were to do away with sorcerers and magicians in their midst, let alone be one.

So we get a hint, a little bit of a view of what kind of a Jew he was. He was ethnically a

Jew, but certainly not religiously a Jew, right? Get the difference?

He is equally identified in the text as a false prophet, which can mean that he prophesied falsely.

In other words, he didn't tell the truth, he was not accurate. But we're gonna see in just a moment that Sergius Paulus is called an intelligent man.

So I don't think that that's a very tenable option, to say that he's constantly, this Elimus is constantly saying things that prove to be untrue or prove to be false, right?

Does that make sense? How many of you would keep a counselor around like that for very long?

If he's an intelligent man, he's probably... But the reality of what's going on here, I think is a little bit different.

There's a false prophet that tells false, that their prophecies don't come to pass, and then they're declared to be a false prophet.

Or another designation of false prophet in scripture is that he prophesied by the power of the wrong team.

He's batting for the wrong team here. And the fact that I wanna point out is that, I know the whole Harry Potter thing and all that stuff, and churches got all up in arms about that and stuff.

Whatever, read what you want and use your brain while you're reading it. Please do that. Read it from a Christian perspective, from a

Christian worldview, whatever. The thing that I wanna point out to you is that scripture takes for granted that there is such a thing as sorcery.

There is such a thing as witchcraft, that there is a reality, there is a powerful spiritual force behind some behaviors and some activities centered around some individuals who maybe would give their soul over to the demonic or to offer things to the demonic, that they would genuinely work miracles on their behalf.

So that it's not a stretch to say Elemeth is foretelling the future for this dude. He's literally accomplishing something for Sergius.

He's literally offering a genuine service, but he's batting for the wrong team. Does that make sense?

You guys get that? So that's not a good thing. And we're gonna see that implied as Paul is going to call him literally a son of the devil.

He's gonna say that to him here in just a minute. Verse seven, Sergius the proconsul says, summoned and sought to hear the word of God.

Two really strong words. He summoned Paul and Barnabas to come to him. He says,

I wanna hear, I'm seeking, I want to know more. Kind of a positive thing, right?

And there's a negative too. Elemeth, his advisor, seeks to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

Now I find encouragement that there are those who are very open in searching for Christ.

You ever encountered somebody like that? That's an exciting thing. When you come to somebody who's literally seeking to know more about who

God is, they would love to hear the gospel and maybe even would seek us out if they knew that we were a follower of Jesus Christ.

That's an if. If they knew that you were a follower of Jesus Christ, they might come to you and ask and literally say, tell me, why do you have hope?

Why do you have kindness when people are mean to you, when they're rude to you? Do you see what I'm saying? But if they don't know that you're a

Christian, then they just think you're a good person on the outside. And there's a big thing going on and I think it's still kinda, it seems like it's kinda dying off, but this idea of friendship evangelism, have you heard of that before?

Friendship evangelism, you just become a friend to somebody and then you share the gospel with them. Raise your hand if you, I'm getting no interaction here on your faces.

Anybody, anybody listening? Have you heard of friendship evangelism? Okay, friendship evangelism, this idea that you become a friend to somebody first.

Now there used to be this thing back in the 70s, 80s, we called it cold turkey evangelism. You just go stand out on the street and tell people about Jesus.

Anybody ever done that before? That is scary. I've done that, okay? And you just like walk up and say, hey, can

I tell you about Jesus? It's like, ugh, you're talking about dropping a Jesus bomb on somebody. You know, I got some place to be right now, thank you very much.

So we moved away from that, we went into this mode of friendship evangelism. But what happened in friendship evangelism is there's a lot of friendship and not much evangelism.

Because you base a friendship on what? Things that we have in common, things that we talk about, things, so you get together and you hang out and then eventually you're just basically doing cold turkey evangelism with somebody that's your friend now.

Because you just all of a sudden one day, what are you gonna do? Oh, by the way, let me tell you about one of the most central things to my life that I've been hiding from you for the last month or two.

Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, does that make sense? Why be ashamed up front? Let them know that you're a

Christian, that you're not judging them for them not being a Christian and hey, we can get together for a cup of coffee from time to time and chat or you know, as you're around the water cooler at work, just strike up conversations and just be friendly.

Just be friendly and nice and kind and available to talk with people about their needs and where they're at and let them know that you're a follower of Jesus Christ.

Does that make sense? I think that makes more sense than trying to befriend somebody and then try to, they're like, did you just become my friend because you wanted to say this eventually?

Well, just be their friend and let them know that you're a follower of Jesus Christ. If that's really central to who you are, then they should know it.

Don't be ashamed that you're a Christian but also don't cram your faith on people. Just as Sergius is encouraging, there is a person in our text who literally wants to know who

Jesus Christ is. Elimus is a bit of a downer. The dude is literally trying to stand in the way of his leader coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

It seems like it's likely that he understood that his advice was gonna be useless if Sergius gave his life over to follow

Jesus. He would be out of a job. So he's defending his position. He's defending his job by trying to keep this guy from coming to Christ.

But Saul in verse nine, whose name has casually been turned to Paul, was filled with the

Holy Spirit and spoke some words that we just might be surprised to hear actually came from the Holy Spirit when you read them.

Pretty direct between the eyes statements here. Now a quick word about the name change.

In Roman times, Roman citizens received three names just like you probably did. Maybe a couple of you don't have a middle name.

I don't know. But most received three names. Now the idea behind those names were the first two were generally given by the one who granted your citizenship.

So whoever was the Roman leader, proconsul, director, emperor that granted you your citizenship, you took their first two names.

Your third name was a family name given to you by your family. That generally followed the stream. So you'd be known more often in public by your last name than you would be by these first two names.

So it could be confusing. All of the Jews, however, who were Roman citizens took on a fourth name, a

Jewish name. And so we see that Paul was born a Roman citizen.

So he would have had his three names, his last name being Paulus. We don't know his first two names. They're never given to us in scripture.

But we know Paul's fourth name. What's his fourth name? Saul, a great

Jewish name like the king, the Old Testament king Saul named after him. But now we know that in Tarsus, Saul would have most likely been called regularly

Paul. So his name when he came to Palestine to study, when he came to Israel and he was around Jews, he was called

Saul. When he was around Gentiles, he went by Paul. And he's moving into a Gentile context.

And so therefore he is taking up his, we're seeing him move into Cyprus, move to where it's predominantly Gentiles, no longer

Jews. And we see him take up his name, Paul, which is actually really a good move because the name

Saulus in Greek is literally a slang term pertaining to idolatrous practices, something that maybe you didn't know.

But it's actually a slang term that's derogatory about idolatry and how idolatry interfaces with prostitution.

It's not a good thing. So he changes his name pretty widely. Saul is moving out of that context, changes his name.

And then under the direction of the Holy Spirit, stares down Elimus and declares four things to be true.

By the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it's important for you to understand that what he says, what he declares of Elimus is from the

Holy Spirit. It is revelation. It is from God. He identifies Elimus with Satan. Paul is playing with Elimus' last name here when the

Holy Spirit is playing with Elimus' last name. What's his last name in the text? Bar Jesus.

The Aramaic phrase for son of Jesus. And ultimately,

Paul is saying, you are not a son of Jesus. You are a son of the devil.

Now, this is not strictly an ad hominem, personal attack against Elimus.

It's not the Holy Spirit is getting into a name -calling match. My father is better than your father kind of business.

But the idea that he is the son of the devil shows that what he is doing is of Satan. It's a declaration that your works,

I identify that yes, you are doing miracles, you are doing amazing things, and you are doing them because you are a son of the devil.

You are, your actions flow from your father, who is Satan. So it's more technical than just a slinging mud at him.

Paul calls him an enemy of all unrighteousness. He is basically saying, you are opposing all that is just, good, and right.

Would you like to be on that side? Anybody sign up for that team? Opposing what is just, good, and right.

Paul accuses him of deceit and villainy, both related to his intentions. How many of you know that we are poor guessers at each other's motives?

You experience that? If you're married, just nod your head because you have experienced that. I'll just answer for you.

Where you've tried, you've second -guessed what the other person was motivating them, we have to recognize that we are getting a spiritually -driven,

Holy Spirit -guided directive of what Elamus's motives were. It's not like Saul isn't guessing and accusing.

He knows because the Holy Spirit has revealed this to him. And he says, you are full of deceit and villainy, intentional acts by Elamus.

He has not been misguiding Sergius out of ignorance, not accidentally misguiding him.

He has been maliciously deceptive. Do you get it? He's doing it on purpose. Saul receives this from the

Holy Spirit and declares it. But the fourth thing that is said of him, is I think where some significant application rests for us,

Elamus has been making crooked the straight paths of God. And I think that's an amazing picture of what so often happens for us in modern -day churches.

We go the way of Elamus and we can make crooked the straight path to God.

Now, what is the straight path to God? Ministers can tend to do this. I am one. And the fact of the matter is, you can sit in your chair right where you are right now and relate to God through Jesus Christ without me as an intermediary.

I don't need to stand in the way. I don't want to be in the way of that. Did you get what

I'm saying here? But what happens is we can tend to do this. It's like we make toll booths, like toll plazas off to the side of the straight path between you and Jesus Christ.

And it can be just as simple as, but if you just dress this way, toll booth, just dress like us, then you're in.

Believe like us and you're in. Do this like us and you are in. Maybe just give a little.

And what happens is people put themselves in the place of a toll booth along the way to Jesus Christ. A sidestep, if you will.

And it ends up being this crooked path to Christ. Come through here, come through here, come through here, jump through this hoop, jump here, okay, over back, over here.

It's like an agility race to Jesus when Jesus declares it is a straight path to him.

Did you get that imagery? And that's what Elamus was doing. Saying he's making crooked a very simple and straight message.

I want you to write this down. I want you to think about this and write this down. If you have paper and a pencil, three simple things that you can look at and tell if someone is making the path crooked.

Because these are the three things that are the gospel. You get more than this, you're getting a crooked path.

This is it, listen carefully. Number one, Jesus died for sins.

Straight path point number one. You're not gonna get to Christ, you're not gonna get to God without passing through that point.

Jesus Christ died for sins. He became the substitute for us taking our punishment.

He stood in our place. The cross is the place where that is. And you cannot get to God without coming to the foot of the cross.

The second thing, he rose again three days later. Stopping point number two on the straight path.

He is the risen Lord and the father showed he accepted the sacrifice of Jesus by raising him from death.

He is alive and worthy of our worship and worthy of our service. We don't worship somebody who is in the grave, we worship someone who is raised again to life.

And then the last thing, anyone who comes to God in humility and identifies that they want to follow

Jesus as their king and savior will be saved.

Anyone who would come humbly to him and say I recognize that you died on the cross for my sins and you were raised to new life as the victor over sin and death and I want you to run my life and I want you to save me will be saved.

That is the straight path. It is such a simple and straight forward road.

But listen to me carefully, it is so easy to make it crooked. It is so utterly unbelievably easy and centuries of the church have been making the paths crooked and complex and difficult when it is just that simple.

Do you hear what I'm saying? Do you recognize how maybe in your own life you have complicated things? Have you made it confusing for yourself?

Have you made it confusing for others? Come back to the simple straight path. Don't make it crooked.

It's direct. We proclaim one thing and one thing only and that is Jesus Christ our Lord died for our sins and raised again the third day.

That is our proclamation. In verse 11, Paul continues to speak in the power of the

Holy Spirit and we're gonna see him Shazam Elimus here. We even get to see our favorite word here, behold and now behold

Shazam. Check this out. The hand of the Lord is upon you. Still speaking in the Holy Spirit.

Very important that we see that because man this is gonna hit him. Elimus is temporarily struck blind by the words miraculously by the power of the

Holy Spirit through Paul. The irony comes in here when you remember that Paul himself had spent some time in a God induced blindness.

Do you remember that from a few weeks ago? And here he is now identifying and being the conduit by which somebody else is made blind so that they might contemplate and consider the holiness and awesomeness of God.

We don't actually get the result here. We don't know what happened to Elimus. He's left in darkness in our text but it's told to us that it's a temporary blindness.

And Elimus is going around seeking people who might lead him by the hand. Saul's been there and done that.

And the one who stood as a barrier to the good news is now diminished to a completely dependent man begging for help.

He's moved out of the way for the gospel to communicate to Sergius. So the result of Paul and Barnabas being sent out by the church in Antioch is that the most powerful individual on the island of Cyprus believes in Jesus Christ.

There in verse 12. But what I find interesting is the nature of the way that he comes to belief.

The miracle is the occasion of his faith. Look at verse 12. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had occurred.

The location in time, when. That happens to be, and it just happens to be the chronology, the time when he put his faith in Christ is when this occurs.

Do you see what I'm saying? It's when it happens. But it's not the cause. The cause is declared in the text and it's different than the miracle.

We might tend to think, oh, well, of course. His advisor was struck blind right in front of him. Of course he's gonna give his life to Christ.

I mean, who couldn't if they see a miracle like that? Would that be your tendency to kind of think that way? Kind of feel like, oh yeah, of course.

But that's not what convinced him. The actual cause was his astonishment at the teaching that salvation can be had through Jesus Christ.

The gospel, the good news is what astonished Sergius and what led him to faith. So I have a couple of applications for us in closing this morning and we're gonna take them kind of backwards from the text, the most recent one from what we just talked about.

Those who are not in Christ have two potential responses. You can follow the way of Elemas or you can follow the way of Sergius.

Those who have not yet fully come to understand that straight, simple path.

Are you open to God or are you opposing him? Maybe the straight path has just not been clear to you.

Maybe there has been a lot of crud and a lot of toll booths that have been presented to you off to the side.

I encourage you to come and speak to me after the service if you'd like to know more about just the simple way that God has made for us to be saved from ourselves and from our sins.

That's number one. The second thing is to evaluate your own calling before God. I'm gonna ask you something and I want you to seriously consider it and I do not want you to answer right away.

I want you to think and wrestle with this. Would you dare to fall before the Almighty and let him have all of you?

Would you dare to offer everything you have to him, to his service, to his will?

Would you be willing to say to him, whatever you desire of me, I will pledge? I'll give it to you.

You ask for it. I want you to think carefully before you answer because God has been known to take people up on that offer.

He's been known to do it. He's asked some of my friends to go to the

Middle East and they've gone. He's asked some to go to Central America and they've gone. He's asked some to love those in the inner city and they have gone.

Pray with me that God would call some of us. But I caution you that often in the process of calling or praying that God would call some of us, he calls us.

But if you would pledge and just pray that God would call some of us out to go and do his work.

Not that we, don't hear me saying that we're not all called. We are all called to go out in the sphere of influence and minister to our community and those around us but some will be like Saul and Barnabas, called out to a unique, different kind of work.

Do you see that in the text? How do you know that it's clear from scripture that we're all called? Yeah? Okay.

Do you see that they're called out to do something unique and different and that God will at times call people out for a specific task, a specific calling?

One specific thing to consider is that with our goal of reproducing churches is the idea that we would eventually like to send out a team from Recast to start another church in another community.

I don't even know where that is. But that he might call some from here to go out and it's not too early to start thinking about that calling.

Someone here will likely be the next leader of the new Recast church in another community.

If you believe that God might be calling you out for something. If as we come to communion this morning, you have an opportunity to pray and to contemplate and to consider and to reflect and to literally say, you have the chance to say this.

I can't make you say it, but to say, God, I'll give you whatever you want of me. He might call you out to do something.

Come and talk with me or to talk to Rob or talk to your small group leader. But come and talk with people and let them voice that.

Let that be known if you believe that God is calling you out to a specific special ministry or service.

And we can get the ball rolling on that church confirmation of working through and figuring out what that looks like and fleshing it out.

And it might take time. And that's why I say it's not too early. By the way, don't hear me saying we're gonna start another church in six months.

That's not what I'm saying. This is a process. This is gonna take time and effort. And that's why I say it's not too early because it's going to take a lot of investment and a lot of work.

And I'm talking about years here. But lastly, my last application is let's rejoice that the works of the devil really pose no threat to the calling of God.

Elemis was no match for the Holy Spirit. The apostle John wrote this in 1

John 4, for greater is he who is in you, the Holy Spirit, than he who is in the world, which is

Satan. The power of Elemis did not stand a chance in the octagon with the Holy Spirit.

It took just a couple seconds and he was downed. So let's take some time and reflect on the calling of God as we come to communion.

If you have given your life to Christ, that's important. I say that before we come to communion because we want those who remember what

Christ has done for you to come. If you don't know and you're unsure about what

Christ has done for you, come and talk with me during this time. I'll be sitting in the back. Just sit down and take in the song.

Nobody's tallying who gets up and who doesn't. I encourage you to just sit and reflect on who

Christ is if you have not yet given your life over to him and recognized him as king.

If you've given your life to Christ and there's a reality in some sense that you've already identified him as your king, but maybe you need to take that next step and ask him for your marching orders.

Say, you are my king. What do you desire of me? What have you made me to do? Consider that as you sit in your seat and Dave comes to play.

And Dave, you can come up now. As you wrestle through this with God, come to the table to remember that Jesus Christ is what it's all about.

We take the bread to remember his body that was broken for us. We take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.

And it really isn't about us. It's not about our plans. It's not about our goals and fitting him in. It's not about our gifts and our ability.

And boy, we're great and he really ought to use us for something. It's about how awesome he is. Fundamentally about Jesus Christ and making his great love known far and wide to this world.

Let's pray. Father, it is awesome to get an opportunity to just proclaim your word here together.

To consider your calling on Saul and Barnabas and just to reflect on the way that you worked in the early church to start new churches and the way that even this pro -council, this leader in this community was brought to an understanding of who you are and was saved from his sin as a result of those who were faithfully sent out.

And I don't know what 10 years down the road looks like at Retasks, but Father, I know that it is your desire for your glory to be spread.

And so I ask that you would reach down and you would touch people where they live and plant seeds in their heart.

Plant that thought of what you desire for them. Would you move among us to do amazing things, not for our glory, not for Retasks, and not for a great name for us, but for you.