The Second Missionary Journey – part 1
Acts 15:36 – 16:10 (15:36)
January 13, 2013
As you know we are in the middle of what we call our “Mission’s Month”
Where we not only take up the Lottie Moon offering,
But also kind of bring our hearts back to the calling of missions.
We are also presently on Sunday nights studying through Acts,
But this week as I was studying the next section of Scripture in that book,
It just seemed obvious to me that this fit what we were studying on missions
And so we are going to look at it this morning.
Many of you have been with us throughout our study of Acts,
But for those who have not been able to be with us,
I would give you this simple explanation of the book of Acts.
Acts is the record of how Christ built His church.
Matthew 16:18 “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
A close look at the book of Acts clearly reveals
That Christ is the builder of the church.
• It was He who sent the Spirit at Pentecost…
• It was He who opened the door for Peter’s sermons…
• It was He who pushed the Jewish church into Gentile regions…
• It was He who has brought Gentiles into the fold…
There is really no denying that Acts is nothing short of an account
Of the tremendous working of the sovereign hand of God.
However, we also know that God in His great power and wisdom uses believers in His efforts.
Romans 10:14-15 “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!”
That verse still indicates the sovereign hand of God,
For if He does not send then the lost never hear.
But the reality is that even though God grows His church,
The means by which He does it is by sending His church
With the message of the gospel.
Acts is a record of God doing just that.
At this point in the book we come across what is commonly called
“Paul’s Second Missionary Journey”
It covers Acts 15:36 – Acts 18:22
And I will tell you from the outset that it was one rough trip.
Many think of the hardships that occurred on the first missionary journey,
For on that journey Paul was eventually stoned in Lystra.
But this trip is even tougher.
• Before this trip even gets started good, the missionary team splits in half.
• Then several places Paul tried to go were blocked
• Finally they end up traveling to a completely different continent than they first intended.
• While there, they are beaten, arrested and finally released
• They were run out of two cities.
• And upon being run out of the second the missionaries were separated.
• Paul found himself alone in Athens facing extreme mocking and cynicism
• And finally when arriving in Corinth the trip was extended for 18 months, something that was not initially planned.
This trip did anything but go according to schedule.
Probably what is more amazing than that, is that after a trip like that,
We are amazed that there was ever a third missionary journey.
You were stoned on your first one…
You faced all of this on your second one…
Why in the world would you ever go on a third one?
Well, that is because Paul clearly had what it takes to be a missionary.
The last two weeks we have talked about missions
And they have both taken a very similar theme.
Both spoke a little about the motivation or passion of a missionary.
• We have heard Paul saying he suffers for the gospel.
• We have heard Paul saying he endures for the elect.
• We have seen Paul’s view of eternity that gave him courage and conviction to be God’s ambassador.
And this morning we really sort of stay on that theme.
We learn a little more about what it takes to be a good missionary.
So far everything we’ve talked about has to do with the internal motivation to missions
And this morning we are going to continue there.
I want to show you what made Paul such a good missionary.
It’s not technique
It’s not a certain presentation style
It’s not cultural training
It was his inward qualities that made him great.
#1 A GENUINE CONCERN
Acts 15:36
Here we are confronted with Paul’s genuine concern
For what he was doing.
Those of you who have been with us Sunday nights know that Paul has just finished an exhausting battle with the Jews in regard to circumcision.
Acts 15 reveals what we called “The Jerusalem Confession”
It started with a sect of Jews demanding that all Gentiles
Be circumcised for their salvation.
The debate was so intense that Paul and Barnabas
Traveled to Jerusalem to sort it out with the apostles and elders.
The issue was solved and Paul returned and:
Acts 15:35 “But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching with many others also, the word of the Lord.”
So Paul saw the issue resolved and he settled into his role
As a pastor and teacher in the church at Antioch.
And there is certainly nothing wrong with that role
Or a man who commits his life to it, but Paul had an itch for more.
You may remember the prophet Jeremiah spoke of something similar:
Jeremiah 20:7-9 “O LORD, You have deceived me and I was deceived; You have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; Everyone mocks me. For each time I speak, I cry aloud; I proclaim violence and destruction, Because for me the word of the LORD has resulted In reproach and derision all day long. But if I say, “I will not remember Him Or speak anymore in His name,” Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, And I cannot endure it.”
Parts of Jeremiah actually wanted to quit the ministry,
But he had what he called “a burning fire shut up in my bones”.
Well Paul had something similar.
There was this fire burning within him and it was a missionary fire.
We saw part of that desire last week as he recounted how he understood that in view of eternity nothing else matters.
To that Paul said:
2 Corinthians 5:20 “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Paul was more than just obedient to his calling,
Paul had a burning desire to be God’s ambassador.
In the book of Romans Paul actually shares a bit of his heart in regard to his calling to missions.
Romans 15:20-21 “And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man’s foundation; but as it is written, “THEY WHO HAD NO NEWS OF HIM SHALL SEE, AND THEY WHO HAVE NOT HEARD SHALL UNDERSTAND.”
I firmly believe this was the verse that God used
To confirm Paul’s calling in his life.
As Paul read Isaiah 52:15 and saw it was God’s desire for those who had never heard to hear the gospel, I something came a fire in Paul’s heart.
He had this desire to be do missions.
He had this concern for missionary endeavors.
And so even though preaching in Antioch was a good thing,
Paul itched for something more.
In verse 36 his itch becomes a plan.
(36) “After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”
When you read that, don’t you just kind of feel that
Paul couldn’t stand it any longer?
So he finally comes to Barnabas and says, “Let’s go back!”
Many in this room know exactly what we are talking about here.
Having been to El Paso or China or Africa or Guatemala or some other place there can be that nagging that says, “Let’s go back!”
Sometimes you can’t even explain it,
There is a longing that is deeper than words can express.
There may not even be a real agenda, there wasn’t with Paul here.
His only agenda was let’s “see how they are”
He just had this desire nagging away at him.
And incidentally I would point out that many times the calling of God reveals itself in nothing more than a desire.
(That doesn’t mean that all we do is follow our desires,
Sometimes we obey against our will)
But it is not uncommon for God to give a desire to a person
Who also has a calling.
In regard to overseers Paul wrote:
1 Timothy 3:1 “It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.”
For a pastor there is not only calling, but also aspiration and desire.
They work hand in hand.
Paul had a desire to go and return and this is very much from the Lord.
Now I also want you to see in this verse
EXACTLY WHAT THE PLAN OF THIS MISSION TRIP WAS.
I read you earlier that Paul had this desire to preach the gospel
Where Christ had never been named,
But that is not the purpose listed for this trip.
In fact, this trip doesn’t appear to be evangelistic at all.
“Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”
Paul wanted to go back to the churches he had planted.
Paul wanted to go back to those who had been saved.
Now, let me remind you, THIS IS MISSIONS!
What is the great commission?
Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
It is so important to remember that going is not the goal
And even baptizing people is not the goal.
The goal is making full blown disciples of Christ.
Certainly taking the gospel to them is important.
Certainly guiding them to become baptized followers of Christ is important.
But so is “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”
And I want to spend a little time here,
Because this part of missions can easily become forgotten.
One of the biggest trends going on missions is really this scatter gun approach, where you just spread out, hit a region, call it hit, and then move on.
And I can’t critique people for doing this,
Because over the last 7 years we have kind of done that as well.
There were several return trips to Tornillo outside of El Paso, but beyond that none of our trips have been return trips. (Sanyati will be)
But I can assure this has not been our desire.
I’ve expressed with more than one person that my goal for our church
Is to find one location, maybe even one church that we can adopt
And invest in and return to over and over.
See missions is more than just getting baptisms,
It is about making full blown disciples of Christ.
And I want you to see that just as sure as Paul had this desire
To see Christ proclaimed where He had never been proclaimed, Paul also had this intense concern for those who had been saved in his ministry.
That is what he wanted to do here.
“Let us return and visit the brethren”
So let me show you some of Paul’s concern
From his writings in the New Testament.
He really summed his sentiment up his second letter to the Corinthians.
Paul was giving a list of the hardships he had endured in the ministry.
The last one he gives is this:
2 Corinthians 11:28-29 “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?”
This was not a man who visited an area, shared the gospel,
And then went on to forget about where he had been.
These people were important to him.
He couldn’t get them off of his mind.
He was concerned not only with their salvation, but their sanctification.
He wanted them to live godly lives, he wanted their faith to be strong,
He was forever linked to them.
Consider what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in this manner:
2 Corinthians 11:1-3 “I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”
Sure Paul led them to Christ.
He called it “betrothed you to one husband”
Paul viewed the Corinthian’s confession of Christ
As equal to an accepted proposal.
Now Paul saw his role as being the one
Who delivered the bride safe and sound to the groom.
He said, “so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.”
“My goal wasn’t just to get you to agree to marry Christ, but to get you safe and sound and unscathed to the wedding.”
You see Paul wanted more than just decisions
He was concerned about the purity of the churches
And how they followed Christ.
Consider the churches in the region of GALATIA.
They had been confronted with a false gospel and they were believing it.
Someone had told them that in order to be saved they had to be circumcised
And they were about to go through with it.
Paul saw this as a defection from total trust in Christ and it grieved him.
To them he wrote:
Galatians 4:19-20 “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you — but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.”
DID YOU SEE PAUL’S GOAL?
He didn’t just want them to accept Christ,
He wanted Christ to be formed in them.
And Paul said I am in labor with you about this.
It wasn’t just about converts, it was about true devoted disciples.
And this was Paul’s heart.
Colossians 1:28-29 “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”
We don’t just want every man to be forgiven,
We want them to be complete in Christ.
And I can assure that this desire was so intense in Paul
That he agonized over it.
On this very journey, after planting a church in Thessalonica,
Paul will be forced to flee prematurely, leaving the new believers behind.
He will also have to flee from the next city of Berea,
But at Berea he chose to flee to Athens alone.
WHY?
Because he wanted someone to go back to Thessalonica and see how those believers were. He was overcome with concern for them.
1 Thessalonians 3:1-5 “Therefore when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith, so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know. For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.”
Paul would rather be left alone on a foreign continent
If it meant encouraging those new believers to follow Christ.
This is what we call intense concern.
And it was intense concern not just for salvation,
But for all the brethren to become complete in Christ.
Now, was Paul concerned about the lost?
Absolutely.
Romans 9:1-3 “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,”
We read in 2 Timothy a couple of weeks ago:
2 Timothy 2:10 “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”
Paul was concerned about the lost,
But he was also concerned about the saved.
The goal wasn’t just making converts, it was making disciples.
He was concerned about the whole process of salvation,
Not just the start of it.
And that concern is obvious in his life and ministry.
He had an extreme desire.
I also want you to see that this desire was greater
Than any fear or anxiety he may have felt.
Look again at what he said:
“Let us return and visit the brethren in EVERY CITY in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”
Now let me remind you about those cities.
• They started by sailing to Cyprus and not much is given in detail there,
but from there they went to Pisidian Antioch.
• Paul and Barnabas faced such hostility from the Jews in Pisidian
Antioch that they actually shook the dust off their feet and went to
Iconium.
• In Iconium the Jews were again upset and actually stirred up the
crowds to try and stone Paul and Barnabas and again they left.
• From there they went to Lystra, where, after working a miracle, they
were mistaken as pagan gods.
• And as Paul tried to straighten them out Jews from the previous two
cities followed them and stirred up the people of Lystra and actually
succeeded in stoning Paul.
• From there Paul went to Derbe and had great success.
Now, are you sure you want to “return and visit the brethren in every city”?
Couldn’t we just organize a church conference in Derbe
And have all the believers from those cities come to us?
No.
Those believers lived in those cities.
Those believers served in those cities.
And those believers needed to be encouraged in those cities.
Paul had such concern for them that he was willing to return to those hostile areas where he was already hated just “see how they are”
Can you see that Paul had a genuine concern?
And let me assure you that is
ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL in regard to missions.
Paul said it best:
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
You either love the lost or you don’t.
You either care about the believers in those places or you don’t.
Missions is not a novelty.
The calling for missions is a calling that must come from the heart.
It must be rooted in a genuine concern for the lost
And for the saved to reach the sanctification that Christ intends.
And this driving passion must override the desires
For Comfort or Safety or Possessions or anything else.
This morning I showed you that familiar video with all the quotes from those missionaries.
Can you hear in them that same passion of Paul?
C.T. Studd said, “Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I wish to run a rescue mission in a yard of hell.”
Bob Pierce said, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart”
Lottie Moon, “Surely there can be no deeper joy than that of saving souls.”
These aren’t just people who thought a mission trip was neat,
They were consumed with the commission.
And this is necessary in missions.
Your concern must be genuine.
And this morning if you have that genuine concern,
Then ask God what He would have you do.
But don’t just ask, move.
If there is anything we will learn from Paul’s passion
It is that HE WAS GOING.
God might tweak his plans or re-route him, but he was going.
Later on this same trip, notice what is happening:
Acts 16:6-10 “They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
Paul was going, and if Jesus wasn’t ok with that,
Then Jesus would have to stop him.
That is a driving passion isn’t it.
That is someone with a genuine concern.
And if you have a burning in you like that, then seek out God and move.
If you want the lost to hear the truth.
If you want the saved to grow in the faith.
Then go and do it.
Maybe Africa, maybe not, but go and do it.
If you don’t have a concern like that
Then I must tell you that your heart is in need of a remedy.
Because just as we see hearts like Paul’s who were driven with a concern for the lost, we also see the opposite in Scripture.
We see those who could care les if the lost ever hear.
Luke 15:1-2 “Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
In response to them Jesus told three parables, I’ll give you the first.
Luke 15:3-7 “So He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? “When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ “I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
The other two parables are “The Lost Coin” and “The Lost Son”
But the point is that the salvation of the lost bring joy to the heart of God. He rejoices over that more than any other thing.
If we don’t rejoice over that more than any other thing,
Then our heart is not beating in step with God’s heart
And is in need of revival.
So this morning I encourage you to return to God
And let Him work in your heart,
And once that genuine concern is placed in your heart,
Then act on it.
Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
