The following sermon was delivered at Antioch Presbyterian Church, a mission work of Calvary Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America, located in Woodruff, South Carolina. For more information about Antioch Presbyterian Church, please visit AntiochPCA.com or contact us at info at AntiochPCA.com. May the Lord bless you as you receive gracious instruction from His Word. Children, you might have heard about a country called Russia recently. And for those of you who are a bit older, you might have heard that last year, Russia invaded a country called Ukraine. And children, I'm sure as you're learning history, history seems to be all about wars. Wars, wars, and more wars. You learned about the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece. You learned about our own American Revolution freeing us from the British. Wars are just a reality of the world we live in. No war has really done more to shape our modern world than World War II, a clash of all nations, Western and Eastern. September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declare an all-out war on Nazi Germany. America, however, did not declare war on Germany. While Britain and France would begin preparing for just this all-out battle against a very aggressive enemy in Nazi Germany, many in America wanted to stay out of the conflict. This foreign policy was called isolationism. It's a foreign policy that essentially opposes any involvement in foreign affairs whatsoever, particularly foreign wars. It's a foreign policy that opposes getting involved in the political, economic affairs of those countries out there. Something similar plagues the church in the West today. I call it Great Commission isolationism, whereby the church does not want to be involved in what is going on out there. The church does not want to get entangled in this complicated web of differing worldviews, of contextualizing the gospel, of sending and sustaining missionaries in foreign countries and foreign lands. So what we have done, what we have convinced ourselves, is we've reduced the Great Commission to our immediate and our local context. We say things like, I can do missions right here. We see the growing darkness in our own culture. And we say, well, we are missionaries here in America. But when we do this, we're neglecting the mandate that God has given His church to reach all nations for the extension of His kingdom to the very ends of the earth. So Great Commission isolationism, it's really a sin of neglect. It's a sin of apathy in our hearts. Because in it, we neglect to care for our fellow man. And by that I mean we neglect to give dying men the only hope of salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so perhaps to the disagreement of some of our European counterparts, without America, Nazi Germany would have taken over all of Europe. And so when we, the church in the West, isolate ourselves from the Great Commission, we are in a sense giving up the nations over to their own darkness. That's what we do when we fail to play a part in the Great Commission globally. We are apathetic. We are saying, it's okay that those nations stay in the dark. It's their own fault anyways. Because the reality is, there are tribes, nations, peoples, who've never heard the message of salvation. There are those areas where Christ's church has not yet penetrated and taken root. So the church needs to be awakened from her slumber, rid herself of this isolationist mentality, and engage in global missions. And that is what God is calling us to do in this text. He's calling us to be engaged in what he is doing around the world, shedding this isolation mentality and taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. The Book of Acts, which is written by Luke, a physician, it's really a two-part work of Luke's work. We have Luke, the gospel according to Luke, and then we have the Book of Acts. Really, it should be considered one volume or one work segmented into two books. And his purpose in writing this one volume, this central message, is about the life and work of Jesus Christ our Lord. The first book, the Gospel of Luke, is about the person and work of Jesus Christ. The eyewitness testimonies to what he did while on earth. what he taught while on earth, his death and his resurrection. The second book then, the book of Acts, is about how that work of Jesus continues. Even though Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty, Jesus continues his work now through the Holy Spirit and through his church. So Acts begins with Christ's ascension begins with him empowering the church and empowering the apostles to build his church through their witness and testimony. Luke, he ends his gospel in chapter 24 with a resurrected Christ explaining how he, how the work that he was sent to do by the Father, has fulfilled all of the scriptures. How Christ has fulfilled what was written of him. in the Old Testament. And here are Christ's words in chapter 24 verse 46 of Luke. Then he said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And so you see that Christ, he explained why he came to this earth, to provide propitiation for our sins, to fulfill all the prophecies that were given in the Old Testament of him. But he also came so that this message of repentance, this message of forgiveness of sins, could therefore go to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. So Acts picks up where Luke left off, because in chapter one, verse eight of Acts, we read, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. There are many different ways to categorize the structure of the book of Acts. The easiest is just to divide chapters 1-12, Peter's leadership in the church. Chapters 13-28, Paul's leadership in the church. And that's a helpful way to see it. Peter was the apostle to the Jews, and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. I prefer a deeper structure of Acts by the words of Jesus himself. Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. You know, from chapters 1 to 7, we have the church in Jerusalem. Chapters 8 to 12, we have the church in Judea and Samaria. Chapters 13 to 28, the church to the end of the earth. In chapter two, God sends his Holy Spirit. The new covenants, which was inaugurated in Jesus' coming, is beginning to be fulfilled through the empowering of the Holy Spirit in his people. The disciples that are gathered together on the day of Pentecost, they're filled with power and authority. What do they do? They begin proclaiming the good news to all people. Peter preaches a sermon in Jerusalem to his Jewish audience, and thousands come to faith. The church grows, but the Jewish authorities, they don't like what's going on. They can't contain what's happening. And the church becomes persecuted. uh... we can think uh... fast forward a chapter seven steven stevens martyrdom And then Jesus appears to a man named Saul, a Pharisee of Pharisees who was persecuting the church. Saul is converted and he becomes an integral part in carrying on the testimony of Christ. And yet still at this point in the history of our church, it was Jerusalem, it was the Jews. From chapter 8 to 12, it is still within the framework of Judaism from Judea and Samaria. The word is proclaimed, beginning with Gentiles. Gentiles are believing and receiving the same Holy Spirits that these Jewish brethren were receiving. And the Jews, they didn't know what to do. The church didn't know how to act. They didn't know how to respond to the fact that they witnessed the Spirit also filling Gentiles. You know, you can think of Peter's vision and how he met with Cornelius. Peter said, Lord, I've never touched anything unclean. What are you asking me to do? And they're wrestling. I mean, Jesus did say that we should preach this message, beginning in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So they begin wrestling with what that meant. This transition from Jewish to Gentile, it really did not begin systematically until Paul and Barnabas come on the scene. But even Paul and Barnabas, who were sent out in chapter 13, they went preaching the gospel, not to Gentile temples, but they were in the synagogues to begin with. It was not until the Jewish people began rejecting the message that Paul systematically turned away from the Jews and towards the Gentiles. So we'll be examining this passage in Acts chapter 14 under three headings. First, we see the opposition to missions. Second, we see the content of missions and what biblical missions is. And lastly, we see the means to biblical missions. So opposition and missions. We live in a world that completely rejects the validity of the gospel. We live in a culture that rejects any notion of absolute truth. any notion of objective truth claims. But even in their absurdity, the claim that there is no absolute truth seems to be an absolute truth claim, does it not? It's just absurdity. This type of thinking is rooted in what they call tolerance. They say we ought to be tolerant. But it seems like the only thing that they are tolerant of is their own viewpoints. And so in order to be tolerant, you must submit yourselves to their ideology, to their postmodern worldview, where anything goes. And this sort of worldview that we see so dominant in our culture today is completely antithetical to Christianity. Because Christianity is a set of truth claims. It's a set of propositions, assertions about historical events. And Christianity is making absolute truth claims about who God is, about who we are, and about what has actually taken place in history. I mean, Christ himself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. We can think of Paul saying, and if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is empty. You see, the Jews, They had also rejected these truth claims from the apostles. They failed to see that Jesus was the promised Messiah. They failed to see that he was the promised king of Israel, son of David. They rejected the very testimony of Christ himself on earth. So we see in the book of Acts this growing hostility from the Jewish community And by the time we get to chapter 13, there's just this wholesale rejection of the gospel by the Jews. And that's why Paul and Barnabas turned to the Gentiles. They dust their feet off. It's the beginning of an organized shift in the life of the church away from the Jews because they failed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah and toward the Gentiles. Paul preached a sermon to them in the synagogue and they refused to listen. They chased him away. You can listen to Stephen's condemnation of them in Acts chapter 7 that foreshadows this wholesale rejection by the Jewish people. This is Acts 7, 51 to 53. You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you have now become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it. And Paul and Barnabas pick up on this same exact theme in chapter 13, verse 46. They say this after preaching a sermon in the synagogues and the Jewish people just rejecting these truth claims by Paul. Paul in Barnabas, chapter 13, verse 46. It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first, meaning the Jews, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. This is a fundamental shift in the life of the church that we see here in the Book of Acts. And for one thing, I say praise be to God because we are all standing here as Gentiles, as heathens, cut off from Israel. It's a surprise to all of us that God has chosen us to be grafted in as his people. So what do these Jewish people do? Did they just give up? Did they say, well, Paul and Barnabas, that's a fringe sect in our Judaism. Let's just let them go. Is that what they did? No. They pursued Paul and Barnabas. They objected the message of the gospel so much, they traveled over a hundred miles in order to find where Paul and Barnabas were continuing to preach this message of the gospel. And Paul and Barnabas, they were true to their word. They went into Gentile country after this wholesale rejection by the Jewish people. They went into Lystra. And here in chapter 14, there's no mention of them going into a synagogue in Lystra. In fact, when the people think that Paul and Barnabas are gods, they begin praising in their own tongue, in Lyconian. So Paul and Barnabas, they were true to their word. They went into the Gentiles. Paul heals a man who was crippled from birth. And when the people saw this, they shouted in their own languages, the gods have come down to us. And what did they do? They wanted to make sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, thinking they were their gods. They thought Barnabas was Zeus and Paul was Hermes. And according to a legend, these gods had visited before, disguised as mortals. According to that legend, an elderly couple welcomed these gods disguised as mortals into their home, so that later the gods blessed them, and their house turned into a temple. Well, the houses of those who did not welcome these gods were utterly destroyed. So you have to be thinking, this must be in the minds of these people in Lystra, that the gods had come down to them, and they wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas. And instead of worshiping Paul, Barnabas, or the true and living God, the Jews arrived on the scene. These Jewish people who traveled over 100 miles to find Paul and Barnabas and this message that they were proclaiming, they found them. And they persuaded the crowds against Paul and Barnabas. So they were almost to worship them. With the Jews persuading them, they stoned them and chased them out of the city. They stoned Paul so badly, but they assumed he was dead. We can read over that quickly and just think, oh, Paul was stoned and they thought he was dead. But when they were taking his body out of the city, they thought they had won a victory. They thought they were taking out a corpse out of the city. Just imagine for a moment the anger in each person who threw a stone at Paul. The anger they felt at this message of salvation Paul was proclaiming. That happens today. Every time the Word of God is preached, there will be people who are angry with its message. Many of us, we've experienced this before. Have you ever shared the message of salvation with someone, and they utterly rejected it? Or maybe you have family members who are outside the faith, and even to have a spiritual conversation with them riles it up in them, such a anger. They're unable to even have the conversation with you. Every time the Word of God is proclaimed and testified, there will be opposition and there will be persecution. And this should come as no surprise to God's people and to his church. Jesus himself, he foretold this when he told his disciples in John chapter 15 verse 18 to 20. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours also. And elsewhere, Peter writes in chapter four, beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. So we as the church, we should expect persecution. Because if the church is truly proclaiming the true gospel, we should not be surprised when the world rejects what we are saying. Even today, as we speak, there are places where the message of Christianity invokes such extreme hostility. People are willing to put to death Christians for their faith. One of the most persecuted areas for Christians right now is northern Nigeria. It's a place where the preaching of the gospel invokes such hatred in the Muslims there that they put to death Christians. Christians gather together every Lord's Day in fear that an Islamic extremist might come in and kill them. Tertullian, an early church father, he wrote this in response to the brutal persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire. We are not a new philosophy, but a divine revelation. That's why you can't just exterminate us. The more you kill, the more we are. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. So in spite of everything going on in our world today, in spite of widespread persecution, we can trust in Jesus' words when he says, On this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. You know, there's definitely an ebb and flow of the church throughout church history. There are times where the church just seems abundant with faithful followers. There are other times where it just seems like a small remnant remains. but that small remnant will never be extinguished. And so we can have hope that even as our culture grows more and more hostile to Christianity, that the church will never be extinguished. And although persecution seems to be growing here in our own country, not many of us are facing persecution like Paul and Barnabas and the apostles face. You know, we're not being stoned for preaching the gospel. for now. And let me say for now, because now we live in a country where we were able to worship freely. We're able to worship God according to our own convictions. And we should not take that for granted. We should thank God every day when we're able to gather together like this, the communion of saints, the fellowship of believers. But even if That is removed from us one day. Even if, in our own country, hostility grows so strong where we have to go underground, the church will always remain. But we do face persecution for our faith, and increasingly so. You might face pressure from your employer to work on the Sabbath day. Maybe in your workplace, you're the only believer. There's pressure for you to take part in crude jokes or immoral business practices. Or maybe there's pressure for you to accept the sinful lifestyle of some of your coworkers. Or maybe you've been informed by your company you must use certain pronouns to describe your coworkers or you'll face repercussions. Maybe you've been told you're not allowed to share your faith here. You're not allowed to read your Bible at work anymore. Or for you children, there can be a pressure to be rebellious to your parents. It's not cool to disobey your parents. And so what is our response to this opposition and persecution? Well, let's look at verse 20. As I said earlier, they thought he was dead, but the disciples gathered around him, essentially gathering around what they thought was a corpse. And Paul rose up. He was not dead after all. We're reminded we're not meant to face persecution alone. We're not meant to face this hostile culture that hates us alone. Throughout Acts, but especially in the beginning, Luke, he intersperses these narrative accounts with these kind of thesis paragraphs. They'll have long sections of narrative, and there will be this summary of what the early church looked like, almost like a snapshot. In Acts chapter two, after Pentecost and Peter's sermon, we read, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. In Acts 4, we read something similar. The full number of those who believe were of one heart and soul. That is one characteristic that completely defined the early church. It was their fellowship. It was their consistent gathering together. This is why the author of Hebrews writes, do not neglect to meet together as the habit of some. You know, by meeting together, by fellowshipping together, God uses it to strengthen our souls. It is God's means to help us endure persecution. And as we look on the horizon of what is to come in our own country, we ought to take that fellowship seriously. This is why we ought to gather every Lord's Day for public worship morning and evening. This is why it's so important to attend prayer meetings in the middle of the week. And this is why it's good to linger and spend time with one another. To not just bolt out the door and go on your merry way, but to stay and to fellowship. Because one day, you might need it. You might need it to strengthen your soul and your faith. So these rhythms of our spiritual life, these things are good for our souls. And this is what God has given his body to endure persecution. So in order for us to remain faithful in the midst of just a radically depraved culture that is getting more and more so each and every day, we must be ready to suffer. That's especially true, we want to see the gospel extend to all nations, to dark areas where the hostility is even stronger than what we could ever imagine. So in order for the light to shine in the darkness, we must be ready to lay down our lives. So in the following verses from 21 to 23, this is the content of missions. This is sometimes called the three-legged stool of missions. These are the bread and butter of what biblical missions is all about. So what is the content of missions? Preach the gospel, disciple new believers, establish and nurture sustainable churches. There's a need for us to restore a biblical definition of missions. And notice how I said biblical definition of missions. Because if we're going to be a true church, we must be rooted in Scripture. We must not become pragmatic in our approach to missions, but we must look at what God's Word says and implement that as our strategy. Today, what is often termed as missions is really nothing more than compassion ministry. It's taking care of the physical needs of those suffering around the world. And I believe that the church has really failed at its task, if that's all we are concerned with. First and foremost, missions is a spiritual task with a spiritual message of salvation. So what is biblical missions then? Missions is the expansion and establishment of God's kingdom. It's the spread of his glory through the preaching of the gospel. And so in one sense, all believers are called to live on mission. You know, we're called to live godly lives. We should always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks us the reason for the hope that is in us. And we all ought to be willing to give testimony and witness to the salvation found only in Christ. And I hear people tell me all the time, I'm doing missions right here. I'm a missionary just like you. And I understand where they're coming from, but that's not a biblical definition of missions or a missionary. So in a more technical sense, a missionary is a unique office within the church. Should not use that title loosely. Let me explain what I mean. In its most simple definition, a missionary is someone who is sent. That easy. Missionaries are those who have been sent from one place that they might go somewhere else. You can add to that sending process, you know, a crossing of barriers, cultural, language, religious, geographic. What's interesting, if you did a word search in your English Bibles, you wouldn't find that word there. You wouldn't find missionary or missions at all. In Latin, there's a word metere, which simply means to send out. It's where we get our English word for mission. This word is used to describe Jesus being sent from the Father, or the 12 disciples being sent out by Jesus. And in the Greek, is where we get the word apostle, which literally means the sent one, or the one who is sent. So this idea of a missionary is deeply biblical. Missionaries are qualified men and their families called by God, sent out by the church to extend and establish God's kingdom through the preaching of the gospel where it has not yet been firmly established. I'll read that again. Missionaries are qualified men and their families called by God, sent out by the church to extend and establish God's kingdom through the preaching of the gospel where it has not yet been firmly established. Notice I specifically said, sent out by the church. When you look at scripture, it is the local church that is involved in sending missionaries, not the denominational mission boards, not parachurch ministries. So in order for us to take the Great Commission seriously, we must recover our role in the missionary enterprise. This means provisional sessions. This means missionary care. and support consistent and fervent prayer involving ourselves in the building up of the body of Christ in all nations. So if this is what a missionary is sent out by the church to extend and establish God's kingdom, then what is the content of what they are extending and establishing? The content of missions is to preach the gospel. The faithful preaching of the gospel is the instrument that God uses to save his people. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. John Calvin, he referred to the pulpit as the throne of God from which God called and summoned men into the church. Preaching of the gospel is the proclamation of the word of God and is the means that God uses to draw his elect to himself. This is exactly what we see the apostles doing. It's exactly what Paul and Barnabas were doing when they were sent out from the church in Antioch to go to proclaim the gospel. And there's no other way for us to stand before an infinitely holy God except through a perfect and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That sacrifice was made on the cross by the blood of our Savior. It was His sin-bearing, substitutionary, vicarious death upon that cross that He satisfied the righteous anger of God once and for all. Our sins were imputed to Him on the cross and His righteousness credited to us. That just glorious exchange. That is the good news. That is the good news which is spreading throughout the earth and has been throughout the history of the church. And yet as I speak right now, there are those who have not heard this message of salvation. Not only do they not have a church nearby, they have no access for a church in their own language and in their own context. And there are those areas that once had a vibrant gospel presence that have become so spiritually dark, it seems like that presence is nearly extinguished. And that is why the church must send out missionaries. The primary task for the missionaries is to take the good news, the gospel, to those who have never heard, to further the mission of the church in places it has not yet been firmly established. And, you know, the issue facing missionaries, sometimes the tendency to overemphasize evangelism. You think missions is just preaching the gospel and preaching the gospel only. Getting people to respond to that gospel call. You know, this is often termed easy-believism. Easy-believism basically says that the faith which saves is intellectual assent to the truths of the gospel only. There's no need for submission to Christ as Lord, no need for sanctification, no need for growing in holiness, no need for the fruits and evidence of that confession. And this is just one of many reasons why altar calls are so dangerous, where we put salvation in the hands of the hearer and not in God Almighty. So discipling, discipling new believers goes beyond just mere evangelism, goes beyond mere proclamation of the gospel. But it is teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded, all of his word, his whole counsel. William Larkin, in his commentary on Acts, he makes a profound statement. He says that while Paul focused on church planning, the goal of his labors was to present everyone perfect in Christ to the Lord at his coming. So today, an evangelist or church planner who does not make provision for discipleship is like a farmer who harvests well only to see the crop spoil because it is not properly stored. You can imagine a farmer who has 100 acres of beans or corn And he does a great job. I mean, he has sevenfold, and the corn is huge, and the beans are there. And he harvests them well. And then he stores them in a silo, in a storage unit, with a leak. And he's, ah, what is that leak? It doesn't matter. I've done my job. I've got my corns. My work is done. That is what we do when we emphasize evangelism without discipleship. It is an empty message because the test of true gospel work is time. It's the fruit it produces. And that requires ongoing discipling. It requires a dedicated effort to strengthen the souls of the people of God. This is what it says in our text that Paul and Barnabas, when they begin their journey back to Antioch, they go back to the places where they had preached the gospel. And they discipled them. They strengthened their souls. We can all agree to get strong physical muscles. It takes work. It takes energy. In order to strengthen our organs or our hearts, we must do cardiovascular exercise. And what about our souls? We must be fed God's word. We must gather together as the church. And Paul, he exhorted them to continue in the faith, that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. You know, it's this example of a tribulation. We all know that fire refines metals. And in order for a fire to refine metals, it must not just be any ordinary fire. It must be hot. We see this in 1 Peter 1 when he says, In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if indeed you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So it's this idea of an extreme heat to test the genuineness of that metal. That is what tribulations and trials do to us and to our faith. And lastly, the content of missions is to establish and nurture sustainable churches. Look at verse 23. They appointed elders and committed them to the Lord. So similar to what Paul wrote to Titus, that he should appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. That's the goal of church planning. It's not evangelism only. It's not confessions without changed lives. It is new disciples strengthening their souls so they might be gathered as the church. Indigenous-led churches, that's the goal of all church planning endeavors. And when one or more churches plan to organize themselves into presbyteries, We want to see churches that are led by the tribe or the people group represented there. You know, if I were to tell you, Antioch is an indigenous-led church, and all of you are native English speakers, and yet every Sunday, someone preached in Spanish. Do you think that's an indigenous-led church here for you all? Well, no. And so the same is true when we look at church planning measures across the world. We want to see churches that are indigenous-led where they worship God in their own tongue. That is a long process. It's a long and arduous journey to make sure that indigenous-led churches are biblically sound, are confessional, and are healthy. But we see the vision in Revelation chapter 7 that should motivate all of us as we strive to see indigenous-led churches in their own languages. In Revelation chapter 7 we see this vision. Have you ever thought what language we will speak in heaven? I believe we will all speak the same language that we were taught on our mother's knee in heaven. But in some way, through the Spirit, we will all understand what we are saying. And that, I believe, is this vision that we see in Revelation chapter 7, where all nations, where all tribes, who once were in the dark, are now in God's marvelous light, proclaiming the salvation that God has brought to his people. So if that is the content of missions, then what is the means of missions? Not surprisingly, if the content of missions is the church, the means of missions is also the church. You can see at the end of this section in Acts, Paul and Barnabas do this boomerang journey back to Antioch. And instead of going the easy route, instead of going the fastest route back, to get back to where they were sent from, to get back to safety, they went the long and arduous route to go to new places and also to go to those cities where they had already preached the gospel. And you can see that when they finally arrived in Antioch and they gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them. You must remember, when they were sent out from Antioch, they were still sent to preach in the synagogue. And you can see that in chapter 13. That's where they began their work. So by the time they get back, they explain how God opened a door of faith for the Gentiles. And what did the church do? Did they react and discuss? Well, in Acts chapter 15, there is some conflict there. But in this, the church at Antioch rejoiced. They said, praise God that the Gentiles have also heard the same message of salvation that we have. So when you examine scripture, the means of missions is always the local church sending missionaries. setting apart qualified men and their families who have a spiritual calling by God to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So how can we apply this text to our lives? I want to make four applications for us. We must be ready and willing to suffer. Christ suffered, he learned suffering through his obedience, and we also should arm ourselves in the same way of thinking. Because the more we are persecuted, the more we will need each other, the more we will need fellowship in the body of Christ. And in the midst of ongoing tribulations, we will need the ordinary means of grace. word, sacrament, and prayer more and more in order to strengthen our souls. The second thing, we need an unquenchable zeal for the nations to hear the gospel. Without a heart for the lost, we will never fulfill Christ's command to go and make disciples of all nations. Without a heart for the lost, we will just make the Great Commission about our immediate and local context. without our desire for all tribes to worship the one true God, we will remain apathetic. And this reminds me of the sins of Edom, written in Obadiah. Obadiah is a very short book, but it's about God's judgment on the Edomites, on those descendants of Esau. Why? Because when the Israelites were leaving Egypt, Edom stood off to the side. They stood aloof. They were complicit in their inaction. And then later, the Edomites joined in on their action. They gloated over the demise of Israel. They gloated over Israel's misfortune. And I believe that wraps up Great Commission isolationism. It is, we see our fellow creatures who are made in the image of God, just like you and me, we see them living in absolute darkness, in complete and utter pagan worldviews, with no hope of salvation, unless it comes from the outside. And we say, well, that's their own fault. We even begin gloating that God has given them up over to their darkness. It's what they deserve. We stand aloof, just like the Edomites did to the Israelites. December 7th, 1941. It's a date which will live in infamy. The attack on Pearl Harbor. I said earlier, Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and America stood aloof. We said, that's Europe's war, let's not get involved. But suddenly, the attack on Pearl Harbor made it personal for America and for Americans. What did America do? Do they remain apathetic and isolationist, saying, you know, that's Europe's war? No. America joins the fights. They declare war on Japan, and then thereafter, they declare war on Nazi Germany. In America, they gathered around to send out their nation's best to defeat evil. The rest is history. My prayer is that a similar shift will occur within faithful churches in the West. That perhaps the growing darkness in our own culture will awaken us from our slumber and isolationist mentality and motivate us to send and to go and be involved in the work God is doing in the darkest places around the world. The third thing we must do, we must send forth missionaries. You know, when we send forth missionaries, we can think that, well, we don't want to send the best of our best over there, because who's going to fill our pulpits? But a healthy church is needed here in the States. You know, when missionaries are out there on the front lines, and to think that they don't have reinforcements, to think that the church, from where they have been sent from, has gone weak, has grown unhealthy. So in order to send forth missionaries, we must first be serious about the work here in our own church, in our own context. Because the sending process, it's so much more than just financial support. It requires the church to be active in caring for the spiritual needs of the missionaries they have sent. Because some of you in this room might be called by God to go, to be sent out from this place to another where God's church has not yet been established. And of course, when that happens, you need a healthy body to send you out into the darkest places. But also sending requires that support that missionaries need. We don't just send them out to never talk to them again. So this means prayer. We ought to be praying for our missionaries and for the labors that they are doing in the darkest places on this world. And the last thing is to go. So I said, there are some of you God will use to take the gospel to other places, dark areas where the message has not been proclaimed. You know, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, many American youth, they were motivated to sign up, to go. So my prayer is that as we see the growing darkness, even in our own culture, it'll motivate some of you to go, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. So let us avoid this Great Commission isolationism. Let us not stand aloof. Let us not be complicit in the nations remaining in the dark. But let us go and serve God to proclaim His good news to the nations that still remain under His wrath and curse. Let us pray. O holy and righteous God, You have created the heavens and the earth, Lord, you have given us dominion over the creatures and rule over this earth, yet how often we have failed you in our task to glorify you. We have suppressed your truth. Lord, begin with us. Create in us a clean heart. Give us a clear vision for how to serve you, both in our local context and around the world. Empower us with your spirit to boldly proclaim your goodness even in the face of rampant persecution. Deepen our compassion for those who are like sheep without a shepherd. The nations who are in darkness, O God, use us to draw them out into the light. O God, we long to see you glorified and worshiped by all people from every nation, language, and tribe. May you receive all of the glory in Christ's holy and precious name. Thank you for listening to this sermon from Antioch Presbyterian Church. We are located in the historic Cacheville community of Woodruff, South Carolina, near the intersection of South Carolina Highways 101 and 417. For more information about Antioch Presbyterian Church, please visit AntiochPCA.com.