Sermon Idea: God fulfills the great commission through local churches with godly leaders who worship the Lord, are led by the Spirit, and send their best on mission.
Introduction: Every time Kelsey and I have the privilege of serving as messengers at the SBC annual meeting, we eagerly anticipate the sending ceremony, where new missionaries are commissioned. We eagerly listen to their stories, their destinations, and their tasks. It’s a moving celebration and time of prayer that can’t help but affect you as you watch.
A part of this commissioning ceremony always stands out in my mind. It is the easiest to overlook, but of fundamental importance. As each missionary is presented, they are identified as being sent by a local church. Kelsey and I rejoiced at so many local churches we recognized sending missionaries. I find this so moving because it reminds me that God has given the great commission to his church. Organizations may assist and partner with local churches, but they are never to compete with or replace God’s ordained agent for fulfilling the great commission, the local church.
We first learned of the church in Antioch in Acts 11:19-30. It was this congregation that had as part of its membership both Jews and Gentiles. It wasn’t long before that local church in Antioch partnered and supported the church in Jerusalem by sending financial aid during a famine (Acts 11:30). Very early, they possessed what we might call kingdom-mindedness. They pursue the good of other local congregations.
In our text this morning, the church in Antioch becomes the first local church to send out missionaries to plant more biblical churches. The local church is God’s means and method for fulfilling the great commission.
Aaron Menikoff & Harshit Singh write in their book, Prioritizing Missions in the Church, that churches are the origin and end of missions.
“….churches are both the origin and the end of missions. They are the origin in that churches send missionaries—missions originate in the local church. Churches are the end in that the goal of missions is faithful, healthy churches.”
If we seek to emulate the missiological method of the Apostle Paul, Barnabas, and the church in Antioch, we need to recognize that the church’s mission isn’t to go out and make individual followers of Jesus. The local church fulfills the Great Commission by making disciples and gathering them into local churches.
The Book of Acts provides excellent examples of this.
In Act 11, the gospel reaches Antioch, and we read in verse 21, “…a great number who believed turned to the Lord.”
When word reached the church in Jerusalem of what was happening in Antioch, they sent Barnabas to minister to the new believers. Along the way, he grabbed Paul, and we read in verse 26, “For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people.”
The great number saved is now described as an assembly, a congregation, i.e., a church.
In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas preach the gospel in Derbe, and we read in 14:21that after they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch (Ac 14:21). So they preach and make disciples. But now listen to verse 23.
23 And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. (Ac 14:23)
The disciples were gathered together in churches, and part of Paul’s missionary work was to appoint elders (plural), that is, pastors, in every church. It wasn’t enough to gather Christians and call them a church. Paul provided them with structure and biblically faithful leadership to equip them for the work of the ministry. The work of the Great Commission is the planting, support, and strengthening of healthy, biblical churches.
Beloved, we should not think of Waldo Baptist Church as an amusement in search of customers. We are not a business concerned only with financial interest. We are not a humanitarian organization.
Waldo Baptist Church and every local church are outposts of the kingdom of heaven through which God works to raise up, support, and send workers to plant biblical, healthy churches.
As we look at Acts 13:1-3 together now, let us reflect on our own congregation. Are we a church centered on the Great Commission? Do we believe that we exist to support and strengthen the efforts of biblical church planting?
I want to highlight three major things about God’s work through the church in Antioch that I think are still applicable to us. God works through this local church’s leaders as they teach the Word of God, the church members as they worship and commune with God, and the church’s sending in obedience to God.
God fulfills the great commission through…
I.) Local church leaders who teach the Word of God
The identified leaders are called prophets and teachers.
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. (Ac 13:1–3)
We are given not only names, but also geographic details about each person. Although it is not the main point, it is worth noting that this list of leaders demonstrates considerable diversity. Saul and Barnabas are both Jews, but the former is a Pharisee, and the latter is a Jew who speaks Greek. Simeon, Lucius, and Manaen are all Gentiles. Lucius was from North Africa, and Simeon, called Niger, is Latin for “black.” Manaen was a lifelong friend of Herod and would have had an upper-class social standing.
These men come from different places, speak with different accents, and are shaped by different cultures. Yet, they are united in Christ and the work of the Spirit as they teach the Word of God in their church.
The men mentioned here are prophet-teachers, those who teach the Word empowered by the Spirit for the edification of the church. Antioch was a church given a solid biblical foundation from the very beginning. In Acts 11:26, we read, “For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people.”
We now read in Acts 13 that multiple prophet-teachers were instructing the church in Antioch in the truth of God’s Word. We are not given insight into exactly which texts they read and taught, but we know the church is worshipping, praying, and listening to the Spirit’s leading first and foremost because they’ve been people formed by God’s Word. Perhaps they reflected on passages like Isaiah 49:6
I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Is 49:6)
Or perhaps they were often taught Isaiah 52:7.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Is 52:7)
The church in Antioch was ready for obedience in this moment because of the instruction given to them from God’s Word and their humble reception of it. God had formed the saints in Antioch into a sacrificial, missions-centered local church by the teaching of his Word.
The most common first step in any article, book, or talk about how to get local churches more involved in the Great Commission is to teach the Word faithfully.
Our people should know that from beginning to end, the Bible is about God’s plan to redeem a people for himself through the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son. Our people ought to know that in the Bible, God’s will for the nations is made so clear: “…my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth,” the prophet Isaiah says.
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Our people should get a glimpse of the glorious vision of Revelation 7:9.
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Re 7:9–10)
Before churches become mission-centered, they are first bible-centered. Find me a church bored with and indifferent to the Bible, and I’ll show you a church bored with and indifferent to the nations.
We need not only to believe the Bible, but also to trust in its sufficiency. What I mean is this: we go to Scripture to learn not only what we are to do, but how we are to do it.
In preparation this week, I skimmed through Heartcry’s booklet explaining their mission and methodology. The second of their eleven core values for missions is the sufficiency of Scripture. Listen to this carefully.
“In our desire to fulfill the Great Commission, we will employ those means (i.e., strategies and methodologies) that are clearly set forth in the Scriptures. The more we stray from the biblical standard and rely upon our own ingenuity or cleverness, the less we will see the power of God and the advancement of His kingdom. It is a contradiction to employ unbiblical means to propagate biblical truth. It is equally dangerous to employ means that are not warranted by the Scriptures to fulfill the very tasks that the Scriptures assign to us.”
Faithfulness as a church comes not only from confessing belief in the Bible, but also from submitting to it in how we do ministry.
After noting the diverse group of prophet-teachers, the text shifts to the church’s corporate worship gathering. Look with me now at verse 2.
II.) Local church worship and communion with God
It is as they are worshipping God in prayer and fasting that they are led by the Spirit to affirm the calling of God on Saul and Barnabas.
2 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.” (Ac 13:2)
As we have seen numerous times in Acts, the great works of God and the fruitfulness of God’s people are preceded by worship, particularly prayer and fasting. It is their communion with God that leads to deeper communion, enabling them to discern the Spirit’s leading.
A greater experience of God is possible through sincere biblical worship and a pleading with him in prayer. It may seem simple or overly obvious, but the practice of many churches suggests the opposite. Too often, we prize our ideas, initiatives, and plans over a patient and persistent commitment to prayer.
One of the simplest ways to apply a passage like this is to prepare for corporate worship in prayer before the church gathers and then to spend much time in prayer together as we gather. One of the things we should do, it seems to me, if we often find ourselves dissatisfied with our corporate worship gatherings, is to ask whether the root of that dissatisfaction is what happens when you’re here or what’s not happening before you get here.
If there is no preparation, expectation, prayer, or intercession, if there is no heart of thankfulness at the reality of meeting with God and with his people, it shouldn’t surprise you when your experience seems to lack.
Beloved, God’s work through the saints of Waldo Baptist Church will come out of the overflow of our joyful communion with him. Let us gather, having prayed, asking God to meet us here, worship in awe of his presence at his invitation, and be attentive to his voice in his Word as he teaches us. If we do that, we’ll be prepared vessels ready to be used for the advancement of the gospel and building of Christ’s church.
III.) Local church sending in obedience to God
In response to the Spirit’s leading, the congregation affirms and commissions Saul and Barnabas with the laying on of hands. Then they are sent out.
3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. (Ac 13:3)
This is not an ordination, as perhaps you’ve seen done before. This is much more like a commissioning service. There are two things I want you to see about this.
- The whole congregation is present, affirming and sending Paul and Barnabas. One of the easiest ways to slowly cultivate a deeper love for missions is to do all you can to be a faithful, meaningful member of this local church. That may not make sense at first, but hopefully it will if you heed that encouragement. Prioritize members’ meetings and don’t miss them. Help us not be distracted by lesser things, but keep the mission at the forefront. If the local church is the method of fulfilling the Great Commission, then your membership in a local church is vitally required for your participation in the Great Commission.
- Pray that the Lord raises up godly, qualified saints for this work, and prepare your heart to send them out if it be the Lord’s will. The church at Antioch didn’t just send any warm body to the mission field. These brothers were missed in Antioch. They were leaders. They were beloved. A massive hole was left in their absence. Healthy churches often send their best to plant or strengthen churches.
The local church is God’s means and method for fulfilling the great commission. I want to leave you with a final note and a question.
The note is to bring home the centrality of the local church for missions. Paul and Barnabas eventually come back and give their report to their sending church.
26 and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. 27 And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles (Ac 14:26–27)
What would make us care about this so much? If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, why would we care about sending missionaries and planting churches?
We care because God has been gracious to us by forgiving our sin, reconciling us to himself, and giving us a people to belong to—the church. The mission God has given us is to make as many disciples as we can, baptizing them in the name of the triune God and teaching them all he commands us.
End with a clear gospel proclamation and a call for a response.
Nathaniel R. Martin 