Acts: Mission on the Road|06.28.26| Message #1
Well, today is my honor to introduce to you and welcome up our guest speaker, Lee Humarian. And as he comes up, Lee and his wife Katie are missionaries serving with an organization called Josiah Venture, and they serve in Ukraine. And they've been there for many years, already nine years now.(...) Nine years. And Lee and Katie have been here visiting with us a couple of times for the last couple of years. And so if this is your first time to meet them, I hope you have a chance to talk to them at their table after service. But one thing I just wanna commend to you about my brother Lee. I've known him for many, many years and his love of scripture and his love for God's church are really encouraging to me. And so will you give him a welcome, please? Thank you.(...) (Audience Applauding)(...) Thanks, Terz. It truly is a gift to be here. Like Josiah, my name's Lee, my wife Katie's here. Our kids, Jessie and Jamie, are with the grandparents today. So this is our 10th state we got to America June 5th, and we leave July 9th. So state 11 will be our last. So this is, we're wrapping up here. But it's a gift to be with you all. Who here likes burritos?
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Yeah, I like burritos. I mean, Drew and I know each other from Southern California. We worked at a church together for seven years together. And in Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine, where we live, there is decent Mexican, believe it or not. But nothing quite like some of those spots we used to go to. In(...) Southern California.
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Why am I talking about burritos? You know, I had a professor during my master's program that said, every book of the Bible is like a burrito.(...) Every book is like a burrito. Why? Because you don't just take a part of a, you don't eat a burrito by cutting the middle and taking the bites like that, right? How do you eat a burrito?(...) From the start. I mean, there's usually one side that's wrapped up. That's the end. There's one side that's open. That's the start and you eat from start to finish. That makes sense. Otherwise, it's gonna be pretty messy. You're not gonna have a good time.
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Sometimes when(...) we're in the book of Acts, this is, I think, the year three of being in the book of Acts in the summer. And so we're hopping right into the middle of the story today. But before we get started, I just wanna start at the beginning of the burrito, the Acts burrito. We're gonna start at the beginning, just kind of eat our way. And we're in Acts 13 today. So(...) as we get there, this is, I'm gonna actually start in the book of Luke. The end of Luke, which is, Luke is the writer of the book of Luke, obviously, and the book of Acts. It's one writer. And I wanna start at the very end of Jesus' time here on earth. This is after his death, after his resurrection. He said this to his disciples. He said to them,
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this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures. He told them this is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. You, disciples, you are witnesses of these things, and I'm going to send you what my father has promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. And so that is what Jesus says to his disciples
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at the end of the book of Luke. And then at the beginning of Acts, Luke recounts this, and in verse eight it says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And so we get this kind of foreshadowing that Jesus does here at the beginning of the book of Acts, that the Acts of the apostles, we will see them(...) be witnesses here in the city of Jerusalem where they were, in the country they were in, in the neighboring country of Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We kind of have this almost three-part foreshadowing that Jesus does, and as we go through the book of Acts, we actually see these different things take place. So in chapter two is when the Holy Spirit comes. So already Jesus promised that they would receive the Spirit in power, and he said to wait for them, wait for the Holy Spirit before you go out, before you do what I have commissioned you to do. The Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, and Peter receives the power of the Holy Spirit, and preaches like he's never preached before, and three, it says 3,000 of them were added, 3,000 were added to their number that day. I mean, that is an incredible, incredible moment of evangelism from(...) the Apostle Peter. And at the end of that chapter, we see the beginnings of the Christian church being created here. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer, and it was just an incredible picture of unity. Already in Acts two, Jesus has just ascended into heaven, and in the day of Pentecost, we have this incredible growth, and like a huge spark of growth for the Christian church. And then we go on to chapter three, Peter heals, he speaks, he continues to preach, and then there's some opposition. Peter and John get seized by the leaders of the church. The Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, they didn't like what they were preaching. They questioned them, why are you spreading lies about this man Jesus? We crucified him, he's dead. And they say, no, no, he is risen, and he is, he is the Messiah, he is the one that the Old Testament was all about. And so we see this incredible community of believers, and it says in verse 32 of chapter four,(...) that all the believers were in one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possession was their own, but they shared everything they had. There's this incredible picture of unity here, but then we get to chapter five, and we have this kind of first internal conflict where Anais and Sapphira, they also wanna be a part of this, sharing their possessions. They sell some property, and they bring part of the money to the church, but they lie, they say it's all of it. And they actually perish because of this lie, and it's kind of this first kind of chasm in this unity. We see unity all up to this point, and all of a sudden, these believers, they perish because they lie. It's this story that's, it kind of brings you, brings(...) almost kind of like this reality check moment for the early church where they realize, okay, everything's not just easy. We don't, I mean, we're having this, we're meeting every day. It's incredible, but there's also sin. We still live in a fallen world. There's also challenges,(...) even internally. And then we get to the end of the chapter, and the apostles continue to be persecuted. There's this external persecution. There's internal challenge. So we're seeing the church start to, there's this restlessness starting to happen. And then chapter six, the disciples realize we can't do everything. We can't be the ones, be witnesses and wait tables. We can't serve the church in this certain way. We need to have, we need to bring on more people. So they bring on seven new people, one of them being Stephen. And then Stephen is seized, and he becomes the first martyr of the early Christian church. And what's incredible here is that Stephen does this speech from the beginning of the Old Testament all the way to Jesus, and he just, he shares the good news of who Jesus is, that he's the Messiah. And remember, Stephen is one of these seven that's supposed to be, he's supposed to wait tables, and yet even he understands the clear gospel, and even he is able to communicate the gospel very, very elegantly and very, very beautifully. And then at the end, he calls out the religious leaders and says, "You are the ones that are supposed, "you are the first ones that you're supposed "to believe this, and yet you're saying that it's not true, "and they kill him for it." And who's there standing, watch the Saul, who would become the Apostle Paul pretty soon here, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The stony of Stephen, then chapter eight, the church is scattered. And so we have the church growing in Jerusalem at this point, which was the first part of Jesus's foreshadowing. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and they're doing that. And now, through actually persecution and risk of imprisonment, risk of death, the local church scatters, where do they scatter to? Judea, Samaria, and they start spreading the good news of Jesus. Actually, the persecution is almost a spark for the second part of Jesus's foreshadowing to take place. So in the midst of opposition, in the midst of persecution, God's movement doesn't stop. It's incredible. And we see people like this, it's Ethiopian that repents and believes in Jesus. Foreigners, people that have no idea what's going on, like they don't know the Jewish law, they don't know. He was reading from it, he was reading from my Savior. He didn't understand the Torah, he didn't know what was going on, he didn't know about Jesus. He hears, he repents, he believes it's this incredible, the movement hasn't stopped. And then Saul, on the road to Damascus,
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he meets Jesus.
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Jesus reveals himself to him and says, "Why are you persecuting me, Saul? "Who are you, Lord? "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting, "the one you are trying to stop. "You believe the lies, but it's true."(...) And in chapter nine here, there's only a couple of verses where it goes from him being in Damascus and then him being in Jerusalem, but actually, Paul tells us in Galatians that it was three years before he went to Jerusalem to meet the apostles. And so even though he started preaching immediately, there was this time of formation, this important time of formation that happened
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in his life before he went out into the ends of the world, to the ends of the earth to be a missionary.
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And then chapter 10.
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Chapters one through nine is mostly to the Jewish community, then chapter 10,(...) God changes that. Cornelius, a Gentile, calls for Peter.
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God tells Peter to go. Peter shares the good news of Jesus, and then he sees something similar to what they saw in chapter two. The day of Pentecost, the spirit came down. They were speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit came in clear power. And here in chapter 10, it happens again, but to the Gentiles. This is unexpected. Wait, you're not a part of God's chosen people, but yet God is not discriminating here. And so we must not discriminate either. And what's interesting is Peter goes back to Jerusalem, he goes back to the local apostles, and they're questioning, wait, wait, why did you go to the Gentiles? He explains his vision. He explains what happened. The Holy Spirit came on them. And it's this incredible picture of, again, the gospel being for all people, not just for God's chosen people of Israel, for all people.(...) And they respond differently than the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Pharisees say, no, no, that(...) can't be.
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God is only for us.(...) But the apostles, the disciples, they hear,
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they hear Peter's testimony.(...) And it says, when they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, so then, even to Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life. They weren't trying to keep this for themselves. They were thrilled that now the gospel was available to all. It was an incredible picture. And then we have here,
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and this is back in chapter nine, the church throughout, then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened, living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. It continued to increase in numbers.
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And this peace is gonna be important, and I'll explain why in a little bit. But chapter 12 is where new life left off last summer, Peter's miraculous escape from prison and then Herod, the person that put Peter in prison, that put James to death,(...) dies. And so there's this time, this threat from the ruler, the Roman ruler, is now gone. And there's peace. There's a unique opportunity now for the gospel to spread to all nations, as Jesus foreshadowed that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
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And here, I was thinking about this part of the story of Acts last night before when I laid down to sleep, because there's almost this sense of injustice, right? You have Peter and James both get arrested.
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James gets killed.
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Herod kills James. He realized the church leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees are excited, they're thankful that he did that, and so he arrests Peter, thinking I'm gonna keep doing things that these leaders like.
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But then an angel comes and miraculously releases Peter from prison. You have this kind of dichotomy of, wait a minute,
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why did James die? Why did James die but Peter is saved?
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And the Christian faith, sometimes we might hear, if we hear of, there might be a version of the gospel that tells us that if you repent, believe in Jesus, life will be good, life will be easy. But actually, we see in the early church and we know from experience that life is hard. If you're a follower of Jesus, it doesn't guarantee that your life is gonna be easy, but what does it guarantee?(...) When Jesus gave his great commission to the disciples in Matthew 28, he said at the end, "I will be with you always to the end of the age." He didn't promise that life will be good and easy till the end of the age, but he did promise his presence.(...) So if we're living a disciple-making lifestyle, Jesus called us to in the great commission,
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we have the promise of his presence. At the beginning of that call, he says, "All authority and heaven on earth has been given to me."(...) So we have presence and power.(...) So life doesn't necessarily become easy, but we're promised presence and we're promised power, promised strength to be able to get through it. And so that leads us to our chapter today, chapter 13. I wanna read two verses before we get to our longer passage,(...) starting in verse two. "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fastened and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off." And this is the commissioning of the first missionary journey that Paul goes on.
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Today we have mission's fest, this is an appropriate passage for us, but this is the first kind of missionary journey that Paul goes on where they're going to places that they're going to go to places they had not been to before. And they're going to share the gospel to places, the people that had not heard before.
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And our reading today, they're going to a synagogue, a place of gathering where they would have known more about the Torah, they would have known more about the history.
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Let's read together, we're gonna be in Acts 13,
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13 through 52, as you're turning there, remember that(...) Jesus said, wait for the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit must come.
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But also peace was important, Herod was gone. This threat was now lessened, the threat of imprisonment and death was now lessened. And also this is a unique time in history because this is after the Romans had built(...) the Roman roads. There was infrastructure to make travel far more possible, far easier. And that may seem inconsequential to us, but I want to introduce you to my friend Vlad here, he's on the right, this is Vlad, Lisa, they're two girls, Genya and Mira. Vlad two summers ago was mobilized into the Ukrainian army and today he serves where that blue dot is about 20 miles from the front lines in southeast Ukraine.
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This is at this distance, it's(...) possible for guided aerial bombs to hit(...) their city and they get attacked 20 to 30 times a day by guided aerial bombs. And so he sends me pictures often of some of the damage, the destruction that happens. He's living in an unsafe place, clearly, a place that is unsafe every day. This is where Vlad is staying, his wife and girls live in the city where Katie and I live, which is Lviv, which is the city all the way to the west there.
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But our team sends a group of missionaries, a group of our team goes to the east about four times a year to be present with Ukrainian pastors and to visit our teammates that have been mobilized, three of our teammates have been mobilized in the Ukrainian army. So they were trying to get from Khadakiv down to where Vlad is, near Zaporizha, but the roads were too bad. They couldn't get there. Vlad called him and said, "Hey, I drove the road yesterday "and I got two flat tires. "You have a long journey ahead of you. "I think it would be wise for you to not come down my way." And so(...) the infrastructure that the Romans had built in that day provided the opportunity for these missional trips to start taking place. We might take that for granted today, but this is actually an important part. When Jesus came and he had commissioned his disciples, it actually was a time in history where it would actually be far more possible for the gospel to be spread very quickly.
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It's interesting to think about. Vlad, let's read this text. If you would like, you can stand for the reading. It's a long one, so(...) we'll read together. This is Acts 13, 13 through 52. Hear the word of the Lord. "From Paphos, Paul and his companions "sailed to Perga and Pamphylia, "where John left them to return to Jerusalem. "From Perga, they went to Pisidian Antioch. "On the Sabbath, they entered the synagogue and sat down. "And after the reading from the law and the prophets, "the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, "saying, brothers, if you have a word of exhortation "for the people, please speak. "Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said, "Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, "listen to me. "The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors. "He made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt. "With mighty power, he led them out of that country. "For about 40 years, he endured their conduct "in the wilderness and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, "and he was people as their inheritance. "All this took about 450 years. "After this, God gave them judges "until the time of Samuel the prophet. "Then the people asked for a king "and he gave him Saul, son of Kish, "of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled 40 years. "After removing Saul, he made David their king.(...) "God testified concerning him, "'I have found David, son of Jesse, "'a man after my own heart. "'He will do everything I want him to do. "'From this man's descendants, "'God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, "'as he promised. "'Before the coming of Jesus, "'John preached repentance and baptism "'to all the people of Israel. "'As John was completing his work, "'he said, "'Who do you suppose I am? "'I am not the one you are looking for, "'but there is one coming after me "'whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. "'Fellow children of Abraham "'and you God-fearing Gentiles, "'it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. "'The people of Jerusalem and their rulers "'did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him, "'they fulfilled the words of the prophets "'that are read every Sabbath.(...) "'Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, "'they asked Pilate to have him executed. "'When they had carried out all that was written about him, "'they took him down from the cross "'and laid him in a tomb, "'but God raised him from the dead, "'and for many days he was seen by those "'who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. "'They are now his witnesses to our people.(...) "'We tell you the good news. "'What God promised our ancestors, "'he has fulfilled for us, their children, "'by raising up Jesus. "'As it is written in a second Psalm, "'you are my son, today I have become your father. "'God raised him from the dead "'so that he will never be subject to decay. "'As God has said, I will give you the holy "'and sure blessings promised to David. "'So it is also stated elsewhere, "'you will not let your holy ones see decay.' "Now when David had served God's purpose "in his own generation, he fell asleep. "He was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. "But the one whom God raised from the dead "did not see decay. "Therefore, my friends, I want you to know "that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins "is proclaimed to you. "Through him, everyone who believes is set free "from every sin, a justification you were not able "to obtain under the law of Moses. "Take care that what the prophets have said "does not happen to you. "Look you scoffers, wonder and perish, "for I am going to do something in your days "that you would never believe, even if someone told you."
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As Paul and Barnas were leaving the synagogue, people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him. Then Paul and Barnas answered them boldly, "We had to speak the word of God to you first, "but since you reject it and do not consider yourselves "worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles, "for this is what the Lord has commanded us. "I have made you a light for the Gentiles, "that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth."(...) When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. The word of God, the Lord, spread through the whole region, but the Jewish leaders inside of the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city, they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium.(...) And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, you may be seated.
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You made it, it was a long one.
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But it's so good, right? We're hearing again a full clear picture of the gospel from the beginning, from the law of Moses and all the way down to Jesus. And Paul tells the local, the Jewish leaders there, "This is for you. You've been waiting for this moment. This is the moment you've been waiting for, and yet you're rejecting it. And so God is opening up the opportunity for the gospel to be shared with all."
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And when I read this passage, I think of, I see kind of four, there's four things that really jump out at me. And the first is,
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purpose and presence are so important. Paul and Barnabas went to the synagogue with a purpose. They were witnesses. Paul has met the Lord Jesus Christ and they wanted to share about what they had seen.
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They wanted other people to repent and believe in the good news. But in order for them to do that, they had to be present. That might seem obvious, but sometimes we might live with this purpose. We understand that our purpose is to do something similar. We've been commissioned to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all the things that God has commanded. And yet sometimes it's easier for us to just take an absent posture, a posture of, "I might be physically present with you, but I am not going to, I'm not gonna live into my purpose."(...) And vice versa, we might be present with others, but we might be living without purpose. It could have been, I mean, it'd been very easy for one of us, for someone like me to sit down in the synagogue and be invited to share about the good news of Jesus and to say, "Oh, no, no, let's not, no, I don't wanna do that." It's an easy thing to say, "Okay, I'm present here, but I don't wanna live with purpose. I want a more safe, a more comfortable life." And honestly, it's easy for us to kind of have that posture. What we see here in chapter 13 is presence and purpose working together. It's a really powerful thing. Really powerful thing.(...) I wanna share with you(...) a story about this man, Ivan. Now, he was from a city that is now currently under occupation. 2014, he had to leave his home, to leave, and then he moved just a little bit farther west, but he's still in Eastern Ukraine. And since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ivan has stayed, has stayed.(...) Why has he stayed? Because he says, "There are people here that if we leave, I leave, if the church leaves, they have no one else."(...) His presence(...) means a whole lot(...) to that area.
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But he's not just physically present. He's living with purpose. There are these young people that are still there in this dangerous city, very close to the front lines. And he says, "You know what? My purpose is to help them understand what it means to follow Jesus." His presence and his purpose are working together in beautiful harmony.
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Unfortunately, recently, in the last few months, they have had to relocate, but he didn't wanna go alone. He said, "We're all going together." They relocated from Eastern Ukraine to Central Ukraine and continued the church. He continues to be present with these young people. He continues to live with purpose, even though the context has totally changed. It's incredible.(...) I mean, there's so many men like Pastor Ivan(...) that are doing unbelievable works for the Lord Jesus in places that are scary to live in.
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The second thing I see in this text(...) is that(...) the clear gospel is powerful. I mean, Paul, Paul gets right to it. He just starts sharing the good news of Jesus. He starts with something that would be familiar to the Jewish people that are present in the synagogue.
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The clear gospel is so powerful. And we see the response.
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As they left the synagogue, the people wanted them to speak more. Please come back, tell us more about this. Many of the Jews in devout converts follow them. And the next Sabbath, almost a whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. I mean, the clear gospel, sometimes it can become so familiar, it can almost become second nature to us, where we don't even think about the fact that we sang about it, our first song. We are saved by grace and grace alone. We are only saved because of the work that Jesus did on the cross and His resurrection in the tomb.
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And that clear gospel is, it gives hope. It gives hope. This is my friend, Oleg C.
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He is a guy that I met when he was in high school. That was, I met him on January 30th in 2019. I met him because our team often teaches English in schools in Lviv, Ukraine. And most schools in Ukraine just have numbers. He was at school number 22, and that school just happens to be close to our local church. He was the only one that knew English at all out of his whole class. So he and I had a great time just talking in English together back in 2019. And he got connected to our English club. And I just tried to be present with him throughout COVID. When things were in lockdown, we would play Carcassonne online together, which is random, but that's what we did. I just tried to stay present with purpose in his life.
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And(...) Oleg C. is the first person that I shared the gospel with in Ukrainian. And you know what? He did not repent. He did not say yes.
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In fact, that was the summer of 2020. And it took several more months, even years, until on September 13th, 2021, Oleg C. repented and believed in Jesus. And now he's been baptized and he's part of our local church. That's 957 days of presence and purpose, where for 956 days, there wasn't a clear fruit or a clear result, right? And there were several times when people at our local church would just be like, "Oh, how are things going with Oleg C?" It's like, "Yeah, we still stay connected. I still meet with him on a regular basis." He read the whole New Testament and had a list of questions for me during our meetings before he repented and believed in Jesus. I mean, he was like seriously searching for truth,(...) but he needed, his father left when he was young.(...) He needed a father figure in his life. And this is unfortunately becoming more and more commonplace in Ukraine at a place where men are often mobilized in the Ukrainian army and families that should not be broken are broken.
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Healthy Christian families(...) have lived lives separately, where the men are on the front lines and the moms are raising the kids alone.
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And(...) we, Katie and I don't take for granted the fact that we can be present. I don't have any risk of mobilization. So we can be present with purpose at a time when it's much more challenging for Ukrainian men and leaders to be that.(...) Loshia got baptized, Oleg C got baptized. His nickname is Loshia. And now he serves in our local community, our local church. But I was actually, we were on home assignment in September. And I was physically present with him when he repented and believed in Jesus. But when we share the gospel, the clear gospel message is not, we don't want people to get connected to us. We want people to get connected to Jesus and to build a relationship with him and to get rooted in the local church. So because he was part of our local community, our local church community, when we were absent here in America, absent in Ukraine, they came alongside him and there was a tragedy at our local church, our youth pastors, tragically passed away. And that was a meaningful man in Oleg C's life. And the church, other youth came alongside him. And that was the moment for him where it all became real. When this family of believers(...) brought him in, even though he hadn't yet repented formally and believed in Jesus.(...) So the clear gospel is powerful.(...) And the church has the opportunity to live that gospel out in the way that we welcome others into our fold, into our family.
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The third thing I see is that the gospel is open to all. We see Paul quote a verse from Isaiah, Isaiah 46 verse nine. He says, "I have made you a light for the Gentiles, "that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." That's from Isaiah, that's from the Old Testament. Before the gospel seemed available to all people, there was prophecy spoken that it will become available for all people. And this is a picture of girls that attend our fusion music ministry at our local church. And the two in the middle are Genya and Lisa. They are going to be at our summer camp. They're going to hear the gospel shared clearly at our camp. And these girls, they wear offensive clothing with cuss words on them, English cuss words, which is always funny to me. But they wear offensive clothes. They try to be edgy and all this stuff. And it may seem to some Christians that, well, they don't belong here. They don't belong on our church property. But we see here clearly in Acts 13 that the gospel is open to all.
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That the gospel is for people like Genya and Lisa. The gospel isn't this closed off club where we get all the blessing and they just get to do whatever they do out there. No, no, the gospel is for all. As Jesus foretold, "You will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, to all people."(...) And the fourth and final thing that I see here, we see in the end of the text that(...) they are persecuted.
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They are(...) expelled by the leadership of the city. And what's the last verse say? It doesn't say that they were upset or angry that they got, that their differences caused this division from the city. They couldn't go back to the city anymore. They said they were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. And(...) I think for us as the church, opposition is,(...) I mean, basically guaranteed. There is going to be opposition. If we are going to be doing the work of the Lord, there is going to be opposition.(...) Again, Jesus didn't promise that everything would be easy and be good, but he promised his presence and his power.(...) And the disciples are actually overjoyed that they had the opportunity to share the good news at that city.
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This was a picture from our Spring Fest event. It's our largest evangelistic event that we do as a JVU crane team. We had 530 young people and leaders all gathering in the same place. They got(...) to sing together, they got to play games together, they got to have different evening activities, masterclasses. They did like a marketplace where they could sell handmade items. And at this event, the gospel was shared clearly. And it's about 30 different churches bringing their young people, many of whom don't know Jesus, have not repented to believe in Jesus yet, and they come and they hear the full gospel. And those leaders get to lead those young people in small groups. And one of the best parts of Spring Fest is getting messages from local church leaders after the event(...) and hearing stories of how God moved in the hearts of young people. For example, a leader named Anton, he brought 16 non-believing teenagers to the event along with three other leaders. And he said that Spring Fest was the last hammer hit
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for one of his guys to repent and follow Jesus. Another leader, Yevhen, who is close to the front lines, he brought people, he brought young people that(...) are living in danger every day. He said he was up till 3 a.m. one night with his small group of guys having deep conversations about questions they had about Christianity. He said this, "All such meetings gradually bring "a young person closer to God." And this festival, in my opinion, raised everyone to a new level of relationship with God.
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These people are living in oppression. They're living in a dangerous place. And yet this leader, Yevhen, has such joy that he gets to bring his young people to an event like this where they can just be teenagers for a few days. Not have to worry about the dangers of living a few miles from the front lines.
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So we see this power, there's power in purpose and there's power in working together. There's power in the clear gospel. There's power in being a church that welcomes all people in and shares with them the love of Jesus. And we can have joy even when times are hard, even when there's maybe expected or unexpected oppression and challenge.
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And so what does that mean for New Life Sterling? What does that mean for you guys today?(...) Well, this is the first sermon(...) back in Acts and there will be, you'll hear sermons in the coming weeks from people from your local community, your pastors, your leaders. And so they will have probably more context for your local church. But I would encourage you,
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enjoy an Acts burrito this week.
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Try to read the whole book of Acts from start to finish. I mean, it is just a beautiful picture of what the church can be, what the church is called to be. And it's also a beautiful picture of challenge(...) and hardship, but having joy amidst it.(...) And I don't know what your context is. I don't know if you work full time, if you're at home full time, if you're a student, if you're a professional, whatever your context is. I believe when Jesus gave his great commission to his disciples saying, go make disciples of all nations,
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baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey that have commanded you(...) and giving us his promise that he will be with us to the end of the age in Matthew 28.
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I believe that commission to his disciples are also commissioned for us as modern day disciples, modern day followers of Jesus.
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And so a disciple making lifestyle can look different for each of us.
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Kate and I never wanted to be missionaries growing up, never thought we'd be called overseas whatsoever.(...) That's not a calling for everybody. We understand that. But I believe a disciple making lifestyle is a calling for all followers of Jesus. And so what can that look like in your life as a professional, as a student, as a stay at home parent, discipling your kids, leading them to Jesus? It's an incredibly important call.
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So in closing, I wanna pray a prayer of blessing and a prayer of commission over New Life Sterling.(...) So would you pray with me?
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Holy Spirit, I ask that you continue the work you're doing here at New Life Sterling. May it be here as it is in heaven.
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I ask that you would continue(...) your movement here. Continue the incredible movement, disciple making movement of following you, Jesus. What does it mean to follow you
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and to fish for men and women? To follow you and be a disciple maker. I just ask that you give every single person here, Spirit, a clear picture, clear understanding of what that could look like in their own personal lives, a clear picture of what that could look like here at their local church.
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Only you know what the right thing is. You, Holy Spirit, you set aside Paul and Barnabas for a special work.
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I just ask that you would,
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that you would whisper in the ears of everyone here, what is their special call? What are you calling them to today? What are ways that they can live into a disciple making lifestyle? Take another step towards that.
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Continue the work you're doing in this wonderful place.(...) Guide(...) every step. May the path be clear, may the path be straight, and may they feel your presence and your power every step of the way. We ask this in your name, Jesus, amen.