Sent by the Holy Spirit

Sent by the Holy Spirit Acts 13:1-12 by William Klock I read The Hobbit when I was in Fourth Grade, which was probably the perfect time to read it.  Still a pretty little kid, reading about the fantastic adventure of the little hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.  And it seemed like such a big adventure and such a long journey.  Gandalf the wizard pushes Bilbo out the door of his oh-so-comfortable hobbit hole on a grand adventure to another land, to defeat a dragon, and to recover a king’s treasure.  And when I was done I went on to read The Lord of the Rings and it made Bilbo’s grand adventure seem like a trip down the block.  It was truly epic.  And it was in the first chapters of The Lord of the Rings that you realise The Hobbit was just the prelude.  It introduced the One Ring, but having introduced it, there was now a far, far bigger story to tell and far, far greater adventure to have. And I’ve been thinking that Acts feels a lot like that when we get to Chapter 13.  Up this point the church has been on this grand gospel-Holy Spirit adventure as the good news about Jesus has gone out from Jerusalem to Judaea and Samaria and even to a handful of gentiles in the area.  God’s new creation is being born.  And everything we’ve read is pretty astounding.  God is at work in his people.  And at the end of Chapter 12, Herod the king—the devil’s last attempt to recork the gospel bottle—God strikes him down.  And Luke says the word of God grew and multiplied. But now with Chapter 13, Luke starts to make it clear that this was just the prologue.  The real gospel adventure is about to begin—the one that will take his people to the ends of the earth.  And it begins in Antioch—the crossroads of the eastern part of the Roman Empire.  But like The Lord of the Rings begins in a comfortable little hobbit hole, the great adventure of Acts begins in church.  Look at Acts 13 [page 1095 in the pew Bibles]: “In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen from the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.  As they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”  So they fasted and prayed; and then they laid their hands on them and sent them off. Remember how Barnabas, when he went to check on what the apostles had heard was happening in Antioch, Barnabas declared that he saw the grace of God at work.  That was his response to seeing Jewish and gentile believers living together, worshipping and praying together, taking care of each other, and probably most of all: gathering at one table to share the Lord’s Supper.  Jews and gentiles didn’t do that, but in Jesus God’s new creation was taking shape right there in Antioch.  And now Luke shows us a more detailed picture of this grace in the leadership of the church there.  There’s Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus; Simeon Niger, well he’s got a Jewish first name and a Latin cognomen which might imply he was black; Lucius of Cyrene in North Africa; Manaen, who has somehow connection with the court of Herod, but is now teaching and prophesying in the church; and finally Saul, a Benjaminite.  This group of men foreshadows what’s going to happen in the rest of Acts—not all that unlike the way all those Jews from around the empire did back in Acts 2 at Pentecost. And these men were worshipping and fasting.  Brothers and Sisters, you want to see the church grow?  You want to see mission happen?  Be faithful in the basics.  Worship and fast.  If the contemporary church were more faithful in both, if we actually invested in worship that glorifies God instead of so much experience-oriented worshiptainment, if we fasted and prayed more, I think we would see not only a healthier church, but we’d also see a greater impact of the gospel, of our witness in the world around us. Maybe we’d hear the Holy Spirit speak as he spoke to the church in Antioch.  “Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”  Notice: Saul and Barnabas are not being called for the first time.  Jesus had called Saul on the road to Damascus.  The church isn’t giving him this vocation.  The Spirit has done that already.  The Spirit calls the church to formally recognise that calling.  Much as the people of Israel laid hands on the Levites to recognise their calling by God to be their priests, now the church lays hands on Saul and Barnabas as a way of recognising their calling and to commission them.  And notice, it’s the Spirit who sends them, not the church.  The job of the church is to release them for the mission the Spirit gave.  Sometimes we get this upside-down in the church.  We develop models of ministry where the church does the calling and the bishops give the empowerment, but in the New Testament it’s the other way round: God calls and the church discerns.  The Spirit sends and the church releases. And in Antioch it meant that the church releases two of its most important leaders.  Saul and Barnabas are not extra staff members that the Antioch church could do without.  They’re probably the church’s two main teachers.  Saul’s been there a while and Barnabas went there to sort of represent the apostles.  Listening to the Spirit on this is going to cost them something.  I think of Bp. Grote, who established a network of churches around Houston.  Any time any of them started getting up to around a hundred people, he’d pull twenty or thirty people out to start a new church.  One church in particular seemed to be the one that had that happen over and over and I remember their rector—who knew it was all well and good—but after a while lamented: Why is it always my church?  But Brothers and Sisters, here’s the thing: God is fulfilling his promise to take Abraham’s blessing to the nations and the attitude of the church should never be, “We can’t afford to lose those people”.  Remember, this is God’s church, not ours.  Our attitude should always be that we’re available for whatever God needs us to do.  We’ll trust him to fill the gaps, whether that’s people or resources or money or whatever. Too often we think we have a mission and we ask God to bless it.  It’s really the other way round: God has a mission, empowered by the gospel and the Spirit, and we’re called into it.  The other mistake we often make is knowing our calling, but then waiting on too many specifics from God before we follow it.  Look at verses 4-6: “So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia. From there they set sail to Cyprus, and when they arrived in Salamis they announced God’s word in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their assistant.  They went through the whole of the island, all the way to Paphos” The Spirit told them what to do.  Where to go?  They went where it made sense.  They set sail for Cyprus, because that’s where Barnabas was from.  They knew there were already believers who ended up there after being scattered by the Jewish authorities in the aftermath of Stephen’s stoning.  The Spirit sent them out.  Practical matters, human relationships, their own judgement told them where to go.  The two aren’t mutually exclusive or contradictory.  In fact, we see both the Spirit and human wisdom working hand in hand all through the New Testament.  Sometimes the Spirit also tells us where to go or how to do what he calls us to, but if he doesn’t, we can miss his calling—we can become disobedient—sitting around waiting for him to reveal the specifics. So Saul and Barnabas arrive in Salamis and notice what they do: The don’t start preaching to gentiles in the market; they immediately proclaim the word of God in the synagogues—to the Jews.  Saul might be called to be the apostle to the gentiles, but that doesn’t mean he stops preaching to his own people.  And there’s a really important reason for that.  It’ll come out pretty explicitly in the later part of Acts 13 next week, but it’s embodied in Saul’s statement in Romans 1: “to the Jews first and also to the Greek”.  Brothers and Sisters, the good news is first and foremost Israel’s good news.  The God of Israel has fulfilled his promises to his people, promises going all the way back to Abraham, in Jesus the Messiah.  And he’s done that so that Abraham’s blessing can now go out to the nations.  The good news is a revelation of God’s faithfulness and through that his glory.  When we see the nations streaming to the God of Israel in John’s vision in Revelation, it is first and foremost because in the God of Israel they see—for the first time—a God who is worthy of their praise, their worship, and their loyalty—a God who has kept his promises to his own people and through that has both welcomed the nations and given them a reason to come to him in faith.  So Saul knew that when his own people hear the good news about Jesus and believe, their belief becomes a witness to the gentiles that the God of Israel keeps his promises.  So Saul and Barnabas began in the heart of the Jewish community on Cyprus, then took the road around the south side all the way to Paphos in the west—into the heart of the gentile community.  Paphos was the Roman administrative centre of the island.  Look at verses 6-8: “There they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus.  He was with the governor, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man.  He [that’s Sergius Paulus] called Barnabas and Saul and asked to hear the word of God.  The magician Elymas (that’s the translation of his name) was opposing them, and doing his best to turn the governor away from the faith.” We might expect the Roman governor to be another Pontius Pilate or maybe another Herod—someone who will immediately and violently oppose the gospel.  But Luke says Sergius Paulus was genuinely interested.  The problem, very ironically, is this Jewish magician who has the governor’s ear.  Luke describes him as magos and false prophet.  A magus was usually someone who claimed to interpret dreams or was an astrologer or otherwise had access to arcane or occult knowledge—which goes right along with the idea that he was also a false prophet.  A prominent Roman might include someone like this in his entourage.  That Sergius Paulus was interested in hearing out Saul and Barnabas says he was probably one of those Romans who was into arcane religious and occult stuff.  If he heard that the gods—or a God—had spoken, he wanted to know what was said.  If the stars were sending a message, he wanted someone around who could tell him what it was.  And Bar Jesus—or Elymas, his Greek name—has claimed to speak for the God of Israel, so Sergius Paulus is interested in these two Jewish missionaries with “good news”.  But Elymas puts himself between the governor and the good news. So this isn’t a showdown between something like “rational Christianity” and “superstition”.  This is a contest over who truly speaks for God.  Verse 9: “But Saul, also named Paul, looked intently at him, filled with the Holy Spirit.  “You’re full of trickery and every kind of villainy!” he said. “You’re a son of the devil! You’re an enemy of everything that’s right!  When are you going to stop twisting the paths that God has made straight?  Now see here: the Lord’s hand will be upon you, and you will be blind for a while; you won’t even be able to see the sun!”  At once mist and darkness fell on him, and he went about looking for someone to lead him by the hand.” This is suddenly the point where Luke decides to tell us that from now on Saul is going to go by Paul.  Why here?  I’m not sure.  I don’t think anyone is.  But it seems clear that Saul has had this other Greek name, Paul, all along.  That wasn’t uncommon.  And in Paul’s case it probably makes sense for a Jew who came from the Greek-speaking world.  Saul was a good Jewish name.  Saul was the first King of Israel, remember, and a Benjaminte like Saul.  But in Greek you’d say Saulos and in classical Greek, saulos described an effeminate sort of walking or dancing and even though no one used the word anymore in the First Century, people were still familiar with it.  One of those unfortunate times when a perfectly good name in one language happens to be the same as a problematic word in another.  But why the change here?  I think probably because up to this point Luke wants us to understand just how thoroughly Jewish Saul was, but this is the point at which Saul, for the first time, really brings the gospel to the gentile world.  So from here on out, as the apostle to the gentiles fulfils his calling, Luke’s going to call him Paul. But more importantly, getting back to the action of the story, Luke says that being filled with the Holy Spirit—empowered, emboldened by God—Paul confronts Elymas.  The Spirit didn’t call Paul here for nothing and he’s going to make sure Paul finished his mission.  The Spirit of truth confronts a false prophet full of lies.  This man called “Bar Jesus—son of Jesus or Joshua turns out to be a “son of the devil”.  Paul calls him out as an “enemy of everything that’s right” and he asks, “When are you going to stop twisting the paths that God has made straight?”  Paul calls out Elymas as doing exactly the opposite of what John the Baptist and what Jesus’ disciples have been doing.  They’ve been making the way straight for the gospel, for the news that in Jesus the God of Israel has come back to dwell with his people.  Elymas, however, by whispering lies into the ear of the governor and trying to turn him away from the gospel, he’s making crooked what God has been making straight.  Salvation for the nations is supposed to come from the Jews, but this particular Jew is twisting and forsaking his calling. That’s not the place you want to be.  The God of Israel has been making a straight road for the good news of forgiveness, redemption, resurrection, new creation to go out to the nations and Elymas has planted himself firmly in the middle of that road and tried to setup a road block.  And the God of Israel confronts him much as he did Paul when he was on the road to Damascus.  Elymas is struck blind.  And Luke makes an obvious and deliberate point of tell us about this in a way that parallels Paul’s experience.  Paul opposed Jesus and the God of Israel.  Elymas opposes Jesus and the God of Israel.  Paul tried to keep people from believing in and following Jesus.  Elymas is trying to keep Sergius Paulus from believing and following Jesus.  Paul was blinded.  Elymas is blinded.  Paul was led by the hand.  Elymas now goes stumbling around looking for someone to lead him by the hand.  Paul used to be like Elymas.  Now Paul is like Jesus.  And so Paul isn’t here thundering judgement against some wicked gentile.  Paul’s really looking at his former self.  And he knows what it means to think that you’re serving God when what you’re really doing is unwittingly putting yourself in God’s way.  Paul knows what it’s like to be blinded by God.  And Paul also knows that just because God has struck you blind doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck in the dark forever.  God’s judgement is real, but so is his grace. I suspect Paul, seeing his past self in Elymas, sincerely hoped—even prayed—that Elymas might see the light because of the blindness God put on him.  Because Paul knew as well as anyone that the same Jesus who confronts his enemies is also the Jesus who can turn those enemies into apostles.  Because Paul knew that the same God who will surely judge the wicked and one day wipe them from creation when he sets all to rights, is also the God who gave his own son as a sacrifice for the sins of the wicked.  The God of Israel is a god who loves and seeks the lost and who rejoices when his enemies, through the blood of Jesus, become his beloved sons and daughters.  And that’s a powerful word.  Luke doesn’t tell us what became of Elymas, but look at verse 12: “When the governor saw what had happened, he believed, since he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.” He believed.  And he wasn’t astonished at Paul’s power.  He wasn’t astonished at the miracle as his court magician suddenly becomes blind.  That simply got the false prophet out of the way.  No, what Luke says is that Sergius Paulus was astonished at the teaching—the didache—of the Lord.  Again, think of this pagan Roman governor who has surrounded himself with an entourage that includes a Jewish prophet. A false prophet, but still someone who claimed to speak for a foreign god.  We might in today’s language, call Sergius Paulus a seeker.  In that time a lot of Romans were drawn to exotic foreign gods and religions.  The governor may have been bored with the Roman pantheon—with gods who were unknowable.  He was looking for something—anything—that would connect him with the divine.  Mystery religions, the occult, whatever.  And now Paul preaches the good news of a God who—unlike any god this Roman had ever heard of—humbled himself to take on our flesh and to die on a cross for our sins.  He heard a message of a God who makes promises and keeps them.  He heard a message of a God who is not only faithful, but who is full love and grace and mercy.  He heard of a God who has submitted himself to the great humility of the cross, all in order to purify his people so that he can live with them.  No other god would do that.  There was and never has been another story, another gospel that even comes close to resembling our good news.  This was astounding in the Roman world.  And Sergius Paulus was astonished.  And he believed.  What “believed” means, Luke doesn’t elaborate.  If Sergius Paulus actually became a Christian it’s odd that Luke says nothing of his baptism.  Maybe that came sometime later after Paul and Barnabas were gone.  But he believed.  At the very least, this Roman governor became a friend of the gospel. Acts 12 showed us the gospel surviving opposition.  Acts 13 shows us the gospel going on the offensive.  Herod tried to put the cork in the bottle and God struck him down.  Now the gospel’s being poured out well beyond Judaea.  And the gospel is spreading, not through violence, conquest, coercion, political manipulation, or magic, but as the Spirit sends gospel witnesses to announce to the nations what the God of Israel has done in Jesus the Messiah.  And it’s truly good news beyond anything anyone in that world could have imagined. And here’s the thing to really take note of in conclusion.  Brothers and Sisters, God uses his people to fulfil his purpose.  He used Israel to take his blessings to the nations and now he’s using his church to further that blessing.  But the success of this mission does not lie with us.  It lies with God.  Paul himself is a witness to the fact that none of is naturally even on God’s side.  We are gospel ministers because the same grace that we proclaim has first conquered us.  And so when the gospel task seems overwhelming, remember that our confidence is never in our own plans or abilities, it’s not in our eloquence, cleverness, discernment, or courage.  God can and will certainly use those things.  But ultimately our confidence is in him.  The Spirit calls.  The Spirit sends.  The Spirit fills.  And the word goes forward in power.  Even the people who stand in the way today, by God’s grace, can become the people carrying it to the world tomorrow.  And in that we see God’s glory—and so will the world. Let’s pray: O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.