Sermon Recap February 22
Living Sent: Embracing God's Mission in Our Everyday Lives
The early church in Antioch holds a mirror up to our modern Christian experience, and what we see reflected back might make us uncomfortable. This was the church where believers were first called "Christians"—a community so radically transformed by the gospel that they needed a new name entirely. But their legacy extends far beyond a label. The decisions made in that ancient Syrian city would ripple across continents and centuries, eventually reaching you and me.
The Weight of Our Spiritual Inheritance
Consider this sobering reality: every Christian living outside the Middle East today is a direct beneficiary of the faithfulness of the Antioch church. When they gathered to worship and fast in Acts 13, we were "the ends of the earth" they were called to reach. Oceans and millennia separated them from us, yet their obedience to the Holy Spirit's leading ensured the gospel would cross every barrier.
This raises an urgent question: Will future generations trace their spiritual lineage back to our faithfulness? Will Christians 100 or 200 years from now look back and see that we, like Antioch, were willing to risk everything to advance God's mission?
The Missions-Minded Trap
Many churches today fall into a dangerous pattern. We look at our budgets and see six-figure line items for overseas missions. We organize short-term mission trips and send teams to distant lands. We congratulate ourselves for being "missions-minded" while our neighbors remain unreached and our coworkers have never heard us speak of Jesus.
We've learned to hire out our responsibility.
True missions-mindedness isn't measured primarily by what we send overseas—though that matters. It's measured by whether we wake up each morning looking for opportunities in our neighborhoods, schools, grocery stores, and workplaces to carry out God's mission. We cannot excuse our local disobedience with our global generosity.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: missions is not a department of the church. Missions is the purpose of the church.
The Foundation of Movement: Worship and Fasting
When the Holy Spirit spoke to the church in Antioch, calling them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work ahead, the congregation wasn't engaged in strategic planning sessions. They weren't developing new programs or introducing innovative curriculum. They were doing two things: worshiping and fasting.
This order matters profoundly.
The most important part we play in getting on board with God's work in the world is a commitment to worship and fasting. Not program development. Not strategic planning. Not even Bible study curriculum—though the Spirit may lead us to those things through worship and fasting.
We've gotten this backwards. We think God's movement in our lives starts with our planning, our strategizing, our programs. But when we circumvent worship and fasting with our own strategies, we develop a works-led faith instead of a Spirit-led faith.
The Power of Expectation
Why worship and fasting? Because they cultivate expectation.
When the Christians in Antioch gathered to worship, they expected God to move. They showed up anticipating the Holy Spirit would work. Their desire to see God act was greater than their desire for food. They had an urgent hunger for divine intervention.
Do we possess that same urgency? Or have we allowed the enemy to rob us of expectation, leaving us exasperated instead of expectant?
This shows itself in our lukewarm lives and lukewarm churches—gathering week after week with the same lack of anticipation, the same monotone approach to worship, the same resistance to the Spirit moving in ways that don't match our comfortable patterns.
The Risk of Obedience
The Antioch church took an extraordinary risk. When the Holy Spirit called Barnabas and Saul, the church was sending out two of their five key leaders. Any logical person would ask: "What will happen to us if we send our best away?"
But here's what actually happened: after Jerusalem fell in 70 AD, Antioch became the world center of Christianity. By 400 AD, historians report over 100,000 Christians lived there.
The more Antioch sent, the more Antioch received. The more faithful they were to the mission reaching outward, the more the Holy Spirit blessed the mission at home.
This principle hasn't changed. When we hold tightly to our best resources, our best leaders, our best opportunities, we strangle what God wants to do. When we release them in obedience, we position ourselves for blessing we couldn't have imagined.
The Spirit Works in Normal Ways
We need to stop mystifying the Holy Spirit, as if He only works through dramatic signs and miraculous interventions. While He certainly can and does work miraculously, predominantly the Holy Spirit works in normative ways in our normal lives.
The tragedy is that we're not sensitive to the Spirit in our daily routines because we're not expecting Him. We're not worshiping. We're not fasting. We're not focused on what He's saying.
The Antioch church didn't need a meteor shower to understand God's call. It came clearly because they were listening expectantly. The Spirit was speaking in the midst of their normal spiritual disciplines.
Called and Sent
The authority to call believers to specific tasks belongs exclusively to God and is executed by the Holy Spirit. No person, no matter how spiritual or well-intentioned, has the right to dictate God's calling on your life. Parents, pastors, friends—we can serve as advocates and provide discernment, but we cannot usurp the Spirit's role.
But here's the beautiful partnership: while the Holy Spirit calls and sends, He works through the church to equip and commission. The church in Antioch laid hands on Barnabas and Saul, fasted, prayed, and sent them out—not as an ordination, but as a commissioning. They recognized these men didn't belong to them; they belonged to God and His mission.
Your Part in the Story
God has a purpose for you. You have a part to play in His story. The question isn't whether you're called—every Christian is called. The question is: Are you listening?
How near you are to Christ will be reflected in how missions-minded you are in your daily life. Missionary Henry Martin said it well: "The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of missions. And the nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we must become."
Perhaps today is the day to settle your heart, focus your mind through prayer and fasting, and commit yourself to worshiping the Lord and listening for His call on your life. Not everyone will be called to overseas missions or vocational ministry. But everyone is called to worship, to fast, to listen to the Holy Spirit, and to be faithful in every task He assigns.
The mission continues. The question is: Will we be faithful to carry it forward as Antioch was? Will future generations look back and see that we lived sent—not just to distant nations, but to our neighbors, our communities, and yes, to the ends of the earth?
The Spirit is speaking. Are we expecting Him to? Are we listening?
The early church in Antioch holds a mirror up to our modern Christian experience, and what we see reflected back might make us uncomfortable. This was the church where believers were first called "Christians"—a community so radically transformed by the gospel that they needed a new name entirely. But their legacy extends far beyond a label. The decisions made in that ancient Syrian city would ripple across continents and centuries, eventually reaching you and me.
The Weight of Our Spiritual Inheritance
Consider this sobering reality: every Christian living outside the Middle East today is a direct beneficiary of the faithfulness of the Antioch church. When they gathered to worship and fast in Acts 13, we were "the ends of the earth" they were called to reach. Oceans and millennia separated them from us, yet their obedience to the Holy Spirit's leading ensured the gospel would cross every barrier.
This raises an urgent question: Will future generations trace their spiritual lineage back to our faithfulness? Will Christians 100 or 200 years from now look back and see that we, like Antioch, were willing to risk everything to advance God's mission?
The Missions-Minded Trap
Many churches today fall into a dangerous pattern. We look at our budgets and see six-figure line items for overseas missions. We organize short-term mission trips and send teams to distant lands. We congratulate ourselves for being "missions-minded" while our neighbors remain unreached and our coworkers have never heard us speak of Jesus.
We've learned to hire out our responsibility.
True missions-mindedness isn't measured primarily by what we send overseas—though that matters. It's measured by whether we wake up each morning looking for opportunities in our neighborhoods, schools, grocery stores, and workplaces to carry out God's mission. We cannot excuse our local disobedience with our global generosity.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: missions is not a department of the church. Missions is the purpose of the church.
The Foundation of Movement: Worship and Fasting
When the Holy Spirit spoke to the church in Antioch, calling them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work ahead, the congregation wasn't engaged in strategic planning sessions. They weren't developing new programs or introducing innovative curriculum. They were doing two things: worshiping and fasting.
This order matters profoundly.
The most important part we play in getting on board with God's work in the world is a commitment to worship and fasting. Not program development. Not strategic planning. Not even Bible study curriculum—though the Spirit may lead us to those things through worship and fasting.
We've gotten this backwards. We think God's movement in our lives starts with our planning, our strategizing, our programs. But when we circumvent worship and fasting with our own strategies, we develop a works-led faith instead of a Spirit-led faith.
The Power of Expectation
Why worship and fasting? Because they cultivate expectation.
When the Christians in Antioch gathered to worship, they expected God to move. They showed up anticipating the Holy Spirit would work. Their desire to see God act was greater than their desire for food. They had an urgent hunger for divine intervention.
Do we possess that same urgency? Or have we allowed the enemy to rob us of expectation, leaving us exasperated instead of expectant?
This shows itself in our lukewarm lives and lukewarm churches—gathering week after week with the same lack of anticipation, the same monotone approach to worship, the same resistance to the Spirit moving in ways that don't match our comfortable patterns.
The Risk of Obedience
The Antioch church took an extraordinary risk. When the Holy Spirit called Barnabas and Saul, the church was sending out two of their five key leaders. Any logical person would ask: "What will happen to us if we send our best away?"
But here's what actually happened: after Jerusalem fell in 70 AD, Antioch became the world center of Christianity. By 400 AD, historians report over 100,000 Christians lived there.
The more Antioch sent, the more Antioch received. The more faithful they were to the mission reaching outward, the more the Holy Spirit blessed the mission at home.
This principle hasn't changed. When we hold tightly to our best resources, our best leaders, our best opportunities, we strangle what God wants to do. When we release them in obedience, we position ourselves for blessing we couldn't have imagined.
The Spirit Works in Normal Ways
We need to stop mystifying the Holy Spirit, as if He only works through dramatic signs and miraculous interventions. While He certainly can and does work miraculously, predominantly the Holy Spirit works in normative ways in our normal lives.
The tragedy is that we're not sensitive to the Spirit in our daily routines because we're not expecting Him. We're not worshiping. We're not fasting. We're not focused on what He's saying.
The Antioch church didn't need a meteor shower to understand God's call. It came clearly because they were listening expectantly. The Spirit was speaking in the midst of their normal spiritual disciplines.
Called and Sent
The authority to call believers to specific tasks belongs exclusively to God and is executed by the Holy Spirit. No person, no matter how spiritual or well-intentioned, has the right to dictate God's calling on your life. Parents, pastors, friends—we can serve as advocates and provide discernment, but we cannot usurp the Spirit's role.
But here's the beautiful partnership: while the Holy Spirit calls and sends, He works through the church to equip and commission. The church in Antioch laid hands on Barnabas and Saul, fasted, prayed, and sent them out—not as an ordination, but as a commissioning. They recognized these men didn't belong to them; they belonged to God and His mission.
Your Part in the Story
God has a purpose for you. You have a part to play in His story. The question isn't whether you're called—every Christian is called. The question is: Are you listening?
How near you are to Christ will be reflected in how missions-minded you are in your daily life. Missionary Henry Martin said it well: "The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of missions. And the nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we must become."
Perhaps today is the day to settle your heart, focus your mind through prayer and fasting, and commit yourself to worshiping the Lord and listening for His call on your life. Not everyone will be called to overseas missions or vocational ministry. But everyone is called to worship, to fast, to listen to the Holy Spirit, and to be faithful in every task He assigns.
The mission continues. The question is: Will we be faithful to carry it forward as Antioch was? Will future generations look back and see that we lived sent—not just to distant nations, but to our neighbors, our communities, and yes, to the ends of the earth?
The Spirit is speaking. Are we expecting Him to? Are we listening?
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