Where Are You Going? - Week 18 - Study Notes

English

Where are you going?

Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3

One of the most profound stories passed down through the history of the church is about the Apostle Peter after he had been called by Jesus to go as a witness into Rome at the peak of its anti-Christian actions. When the persecution in Rome reached its heights, the story says that Peter was fleeing Rome and met Jesus going the opposite way. Peter asked Jesus the same question he had asked him in John 13:36 when Jesus said he would soon would be going away. Peter asked Jesus, "Quo Vadis?" This time just outside Rome, Jesus answered, "Romam vado iterum crucifigi" ("I am going to Rome to be crucified again").
The point of the story is that if Peter was not going to fulfill his calling, then Jesus would have to be sacrificed again to make sure the calling was fulfilled.Peter, repenting of his unfaithfulness and knowing he needed to go back and obey Jesus' call upon him, turned around toward the city and gained the courage to continue the ministry to which he had been called. You may know that Peter's obedience eventually led to him being martyred. There is good historic evidence that Peter chose to be crucified upside-down.
This story has led to Christians often asking one another the same question, "Quo Vadis?" Where are you going? This is a far-reaching question. It assumes two things:
· That you have fully surrendered your life to Jesus – that you will go wherever he sends you;
· That you believe that you too are sent -- that wherever you go, you go as Jesus' witness. The Bible teaches that every destination is a sending from God – and that every Christian is sent.
When we ask, "Quo Vadis?" we are asking, "Where is God sending you today?" I want us all to think about this question as we come toActs 13 and how one church in a metropolitan and multicultural area experienced the way God sent two of its top leaders to carry the gospel where it had never been heard before. How did they recognize together this sending from God? We are looking at a significant text today. It reports the first intentional and sustained effort by one church to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.

#1: God launched his global church-centered movement from an urban, multicultural church (13:1).
Most of Jesus' ministry was centered in a small rural homogeneous town known as Capernaum. But, within a decade of Jesus' crucifixion, village culture had been left behind and the metropolitan city became the sending base of God's movement. At least 40 cities are mentioned in Acts. Antioch was a world-class city, called the "third city of the Roman Empire" (after Rome and Alexandria) with at least 500,000 people. And Antioch was the first city from which people were intentionally sent to plant churches. Before Antioch, when the gospel went out from Jerusalem, it did so not out of a Holy Spirit led strategy but mostly because Christians were fleeing from Jerusalem to escape persecution and they witnessed along the way.
With that in mind, notice the five church leaders mentioned. They reflect the rich diversity of Antioch:
· Barnabas – a Jewish man from Jerusalem – though even he was originally from Cyprus, an island west of Palestine;
· Simeon – a Jewish name but he was almost certainly a man of color because he was called "Niger";
· Lucius – a man from Cyrene, which is located in Northern Africa in what is now Libya;
· Manean – an intimate friend (or a foster brother) of Herod Antipas (who killed John the Baptist) so Manean was probably born and raised in a Roman context. How ironic it was that one boy in the house ended up being a violent anti-Christian while the other became a church leader;
· Saul/Paul – Jewish leader, a Pharisee, but one with Roman citizenship from Tarsus.
And – note this: It's clear from the Bible that the church in Antioch was already reaching out into its own ethnically and nationally diverse neighborhood – being a group that invited both Jew and non-Jew into the family of God through faith in Jesus (11:19-21). So, the Antioch church was not an in-grown, inwardly focused church. Moreover, they had identified and nurtured a multicultural leadership team so they already had a bigger perspective on the work of God.
Have you noticed that when you spend time with people very different from yourself, you hear a much different understanding of the whole world? If we're good listeners, learning from others expands our own perspective on the world. If we only spend time with people we are like and that we agree with, our perspective on the world remains extremely small.
Let me put it another way. Have you noticed that when you meet Christians from other parts of the world and hear about what God has done in their lives, you learn much, much more about the greatness of God? You learn how he works in different ways among different peoples. This leadership team in Antioch knew that the gospel spoke to all cultures and to all peoples. God had prepared them to make a difference in the entire world by bringing people of the world into this one church family. Sometimes God brings different people into our sphere of relationships to prepare us for a ministry to which he is calling us.
Sometimes we might complain about some of the people God sends into our lives – the one we become roommates with in college, the boss we have to serve under or the neighbor who moves across the street. But, God knows what he is doing. When God brings someone into your life, he probably is making you ready for a ministry you could never have been otherwise equipped for.

#2: The Holy Spirit sent people out from the congregation for a new ministry while the church was worshiping, praying and fasting.
There is some confusion here about who was praying and fasting in v. 2 -- the leaders only or the entire church. I'll just tell you that I think Luke is reporting that the entire church was praying. It was a praying church and a fasting church. There are two references to fasting in vv. 2-3 – one linked with service (v.2) and one with prayer (v.3). So, I don't want to pass over this matter of fasting too quickly today.
I want to demystify fasting for you. What fasting is in the Bible is setting aside a mealtime for the purpose of seeking the Lord about some matter. Seldom if ever is fasting an end in itself. Fasting is a negative action (i.e., abstaining from food and other distractions) for the sake of a positive one (serving or praying). Fasting is not a magic formula for us to gain some spiritual power that we otherwise do not have. When we fast, we pause in what is often a life that is very busy in order to be with the Lord and seek his guidance. When the Bible speaks of fasting, it often speaks of doing it for a 24-hour period. When your stomach growls, you are reminded to pray. Of course, fasting can be longer – or it can be shorter. You might simply set aside one mealtime for prayer. The point is that fasting is a practical way of spending time with God when you otherwise would have been eating. So, the people of Antioch were setting aside some mealtimes so that they could hear from the Lord. This seems to have become a way of life for them.
The point is that not only was this church 1) outwardly focused and reaching out into their very diverse community and 2) culturally diverse in its leadership with a knowledge of and heart for the world as a whole, but also 3)it was was engaged in fervent prayer and in tune with the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
The application is fairly simple, isn't it? We must be a people of prayer. We must pray individually and together too. And, I believe we all need to consider times of fasting as one of our regular spiritual disciplines. When people prayed – and even set aside some mealtimes to pray – they heard from God. I believe the same will be true for us.

#3: Those called by the Holy Spirit were already serving the church faithfully.
The word translated "worshipping" in v.2 has a slightly different meaning from what we usually think of when we use the word. In v. 2, it actually means that they were "rendering sacrificial service that brings benefit to others." We don't know much about Simeon, Lucias and Manaean. But we know a good deal about Saul and Barnabas. They were the most prominent and influential teachers in the church. Saul we know well since the book of Acts is structured mainly around his great, earth-shaking ministry. Barnabas may have been the most respected leader in the early Jerusalem church. He is the one who reached out to the despised Saul after his conversion and vouched for him among the churches (Acts 9:27). He is the one whom the church in Jerusalem sent to Antioch when they heard that the Gentiles had started turning to the Lord (Acts 11:22). So Paul and Barnabas were already serving God faithfully when the calling came.
Note this: The church leaned on these two men. They were not the kinds of people about whom you would say: "Well, it won't hurt if they leave the church for another ministry." They were the kind who, when they leave, you take a deep breath and wonder how things will carry on after they leave. That is the kind of people the Holy Spirit called to a new venture in God's mission – to a pioneering work in which the only one who knew the outcome was God himself.
Does this calling and sending still happen -- and does it happen at LAC?
That's what I've been asking about all week. Mayra Nolan told me a story that sounds just a bit like the Antioch story. Samir Hannah and Leo Hurtado, two leaders in our church, went to Mayra 1 ½ years ago asking about the possibility of LAC starting a "Celebrate Recovery" ministry, i.e., a ministry to help the many people God is sending to us who are trying to find liberation from addictions like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. At that time, Mayra asked them if either of them would lead that kind of ministry. Neither of them felt they were called and gifted to do it. So, there was a new work that needed to be done among us but no one sent to do it. So, Mayra told me, nothing (visible) came from that first conversation. But I believe Samir and Leo kept praying.
Recently, Mayra was deleting some old emails and came across one email from Samir about an entirely different matter and this jogged her memory. She decided to shoot Samir an email asking if he had thought anymore about recovery ministries. He said that the needs were still great and he recently learned that there would be a training conference for this kind of ministry. Again, he asked if LAC could send someone.
Mayra decided to ask Tsega Worku, our Director of Counseling, if we have ever done this type of ministry and learned that in fact we have -- and that we currently have growing needs. However, Tsega told her we need lay-people from among our congregation to lead it. So, Tsega, Mayra, Samir and Leo decided to continue to pray that God would raise up a leader. Mayra forwarded her email conversation to Than Veltman, who oversees the LAC Sunday Community Meal and asked him also to pray about this need too.
A couple of days later Than told Mayra that he and his wife, Ruthina, had just had a couple from LAC over for dinner and they told Than they had been praying for about a year about a very specific ministry focused on people longing to find recovery from addictions... As this couple heard from Than about our prayers, Mayra said, "They were beyond excited." And when Than shared with them about the upcoming training conference for recovery ministries, they felt that this may be God at work among us.
And that brings me to a brief interview I want to do right now. I'd like Phil Sites to come up so we can talk about this together. Questions for interview:
1. In what ways have you two have been serving in the life of LAC in recent years?
2. Has this service brought you into relationship with a broad range of people?
3. As people in our church – like Samir, Leo, Mayra, Than and Tsega – have been praying that God would raise someone up to serve in recovery ministries, you and Carmen been praying too. What it was like to pray for a year? And how did God was prepare you during that time?
4. So now you are at the beginning of what seems to be a God-directed new ministry. I've heard you'll be going for training very soon. Tell us about that and tell us what to pray for.
[From this interview, I'll probably summarize that Phil and Carmen have been in contact with a very diverse group of people – many of whom need the power of God for recovery. These relationships have given them a great love for those needing God's liberation from addictions. The number of people facing the need of recovery is growing in our community and our church. We have been praying about this. Phil and Carmen have been praying about it. They have already been serving faithfully in the church family. In that context, they have sensed God is calling them – and we are seeking to send them.]

#4: The result of people being sent out was more than the church ever could have imagined.
You can read about the extraordinary work of God that began with this sending in the chapters that follow Acts 13:1-3. What was launched was a movement of church planting that changed the Roman world. In Cyprus, Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe churches sprang up - people in those places worshiped Jesus and laid their lives on the line for him. On that day of fasting and prayer in Antioch, these five leaders had no idea what they were unleashing on the world. That is God's way: He calls for obedience and faithfulness, but he keeps the future blessings of hardship and triumph in his own secret wisdom.

What do I want you to do?
I want to take you back to those two assumptions I mentioned at the beginning of this message:
· That you have fully surrendered your life to Jesus (that you will go wherever he sends you);
· That you believe that you too are sent by God as his witness to this world.
If those points are true of you, then I want to ask you a question: Quo Vadis? Where are you going?
1. Identify the place to which or people to whom you are sent.
That might be to a school as a student or teacher. It might be into your profession or place of work. Wherever you go this week, when you go there, go as one being sent by God to be his witness.
Or, maybe you are sensing that God is calling you to another people or to another place as his witness as he did Paul and Barnabas. Either way, I want you to do something else too.
2. Spend more time in prayer – and add a time of fasting – this week.
Remember that the Christians in Antioch were praying with other Christians. If you are in a small group, spend some additional time simply praying for one another – that all may experience a sense of God's sending in a new way. If you're not in a small group, come up after the service and allow one of our pastors or prayer counselors to pray with you.

More and more I believe that the book of Acts is in the New Testament to prevent local churches like ours from coasting to a standstill and entering a maintenance mode with all the inner wheels working but going nowhere -- treading water into no new people groups or no new ventures or no new exploits for the kingdom. Let us be serving wherever we are, praying fervently for God to guide and empower us, and then go as those sent by God to be a part of what he is doing in the world.

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor