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[ Music ] ♪ There God's sweet, sweet spirit ♪ ♪ In this place ♪ ♪ And I know that it's the spirit of the Lord ♪

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♪ There God's sweet expression ♪ ♪ On His face ♪ ♪ And I know that it's the presence of the Lord ♪ ♪ Sing Holy Spirit ♪

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♪ Sweet heavenly love ♪ ♪ Stay right here with us ♪ ♪ Filling us with your love ♪ ♪ And holy, blessed ♪

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♪ We lift our hearts in praise ♪ Without a doubt we'll know and be of every blood when we shall be in heaven. Amen. [ Music ]

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>> As a basis of the morning message, we wish to lift up the fourth verse of the 13th chapter of the book of Acts as it relates to Barnabas and Saul, it is said, so they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost,

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departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. The subject of the message, sent by the Spirit, sent by the Spirit.

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The 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, focuses our attention on the sending forth of missionaries. It is interesting for us to note the formula for new Christians in the first century. First of all, an individual became a convert.

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Having become a convert, that person became a member of the church. Then an evangelist, then a missionary. So this is the formula, convert equal member, equal evangelist, equal missionary. I can remember in my home church that this idea was expressed concerning every member

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serving as an evangelist and as a missionary. It was put this way, "Every saved soul is to save a soul." We are saved to serve. There is no such thing as a do-nothing Christian.

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If one is Christian, then one is actively involved, engaged in the work of the kingdom. If we do nothing, we cannot be Christian. So let us for a moment look again at the First Baptist Church of Antioch. Bonibus, who distinguished himself as a Christian by his compassion and generosity, is a member

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of the First Baptist Church of Antioch. Soon after his conversion, Saul, through his comradeship with Monobus, also becomes a member of the First Baptist Church of Antioch. It was a young church with an open and warm spirit.

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It was not bound by time-worn traditions, neither was the church stifled by the lifelessness of legalism and neither was it saturated with the rigidity of ritualism and the monotony of man-made creeds. It was a free church.

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People were free in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Jews and Gentiles were treated as equals. They were all free to be themselves. They openly demonstrated that agape love, the love of God, that love that runs from

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heart to heart and breast to breast. And that is why the disciples of Jesus were first called Christians at Antioch. was obvious that even in a secular and hostile community that these people were walking in the steps of the master. The church recognized her mission. The church

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must worship, the church must also witness. A church is alive when the church is on mission. The church is not the church when the church centers her attention only in praising God and with the raising of bigger budgets each year. The church is alive when it accepts the fact that the church is mission.

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The church is sent to the world. The church does not exist for herself. The church's task is to fulfill the command of Jesus Christ. "As the Father has sent me, so send I you," he says to his disciples.

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the church, I say, is sent to the world. We worship and witness. We are saved to serve. A man said to a worshiper who was leaving the sanctuary, "Is the service over?" The man replied, "The worship is over, but now the the service begins. Notice that this church responds to the call of God to

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write a new history. You see, Christian history is really putting into proper focus what is expressed in the word history. H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. History is his story. So what the church is to do is to tell his story, the story of Jesus Christ to the world. We have a story to tell to the nations. And we tell that story, his story, because it

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has become our story. So after fasting and prayer the Holy Spirit speaks saying, "Separate me, Barnabas, and Saul for the work whereunto I have called him." The The church is alive when it is made up of persons who have been called out of the world and commissioned through the Holy Spirit to be servants, servants of the Word, because

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they have a story to tell. It is through fasting and prayer that the church responds to the Holy Spirit and engages in mission. We sing, "Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord, by the power of grace divine.

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my soul look up with a steadfast hope and my will be lost in thine." To be consecrated is to be set apart. Separate me Barnabas and Saul, let them be set apart, there's something unique, something holy, something different involved in being set apart by the Holy Spirit. There's something special in

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being on mission. The church in Antioch has prophets and teachers. Prophets are are those who speak for God, and one cannot truthfully speak for God unless one listens to God. You have to listen to what God has to say before we have anything to say for him.

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The teachers are those who seek to enlighten others concerning God's truth. And so missionaries, Barnabas and Paul are from this church. persons who are sent. Now before they are sent it is said that hands were laid on them. This is a ceremony in which they are singled out and set apart for a

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specific ministry. And in the paragraphs that follow in this 13th chapter is an account of the first missionary journey. It is the church on the move. It is the church engaged in mission. It is a church fulfilling the great commission of our Lord. They are on the go, they go with God, they go with the Spirit. Now things were

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not as they are now. There was no National Baptist Convention, there was no cooperative program, there was no foreign mission board, there was no pension fund set up for the missionaries. They went out on faith. They went to Seleucia, went from Thence to Cyprus. At Salamis, they preached the Word of God in the

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synagogues. They went to the synagogues usually first, that was their missionary strategy, and there they found those who were more likely to be ready to receive their message. They went to the familia, the synagogue where people of God gathered together, where people were already waiting for the Messiah, who were

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already engaged in expectation for the Messiah. They'd been looking for the Messiah, they'd been studying their history and through the centuries this hope had been entertained and so the synagogue was a good place to go and to tell them that this Messiah for whom you have waited is here, he's already

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come on the isle of Taphos as they journeyed they found a magician, a false prophet by the name of Bar Jesus. Here's a man who made his money and had a considerable degree of prestige in the community by the trade of being a soothsayer. Some people call these two-headed folk. They're supposed to be

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able to tell you something. And he was considered a wizard. He was a part of the staff of Sergius Paulus, who was the governor of that particular region, and usually every wise person had a wizard around to try to advise him and tell him what he was to do and how he was to avoid difficulty and controversy.

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He is a soothsayer and his salary is paid by the government. And you know there is a tendency to associate the Holy Spirit with magic. People many times are inclined to identify with something that they can manipulate. The Holy Spirit, however, is not some hocus-pocus that responds to the payment of money.

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The Holy Spirit is not magic. The Holy Spirit is mysterious, but not magic. The Holy Spirit is God." Bar Jesus was afraid that he would be out of work when he saw Sergius Paulus' interest in the Christian faith, when he listened with interest to the preaching and the teaching of Barnabas and Saul. But as

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As we follow this narrative, we notice here that for the first time, the order is changed. Saul is now called Paul. He has a name change. Saul is the Hebrew name and Paul is the Roman name, but now his Roman name is used.

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And the writer says, "Saul, who is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, says to him, 'You're full of subtlety, you're full of mischief, you are an enemy of righteousness, you do not cooperate with God, you are seeking to prevent the work of God.'" notice is here that Paul is given preeminence in this story because prior

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to this time in the order it has been Barnabas and Saul but now it is Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Barnabas. They are sent by the Spirit and that's a lesson right there. Bonibus as you recall is the one that sort of takes Paul under his wing he's the one that sort of introduces Paul he paved the way for Paul and now

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after this and they are both sent out on a missionary journey Paul takes the place of preeminence over Bonibus but they are led by the Spirit. A lot of people can't work if they're not president. You know if I'm not the head, one man said, you know, you said if I were working in a match factory, I would have to work on the head of the

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match. And some people are like that. But Barnabas is to be complimented. Barnabas is to be recognized as a man who was possessed with the spirit of Jesus Christ that he's able to receive to the background and to let Paul have preeminence. And Paul becomes, it seems, the leader of this team. And it's a wonderful thing when you consider the fact that they are led by the Holy Spirit. We sing a song, "Let the Holy Ghost lead you."

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the Holy Ghost lead you all the way from earth to heaven. Let the Holy Ghost lead you. They are sent by the Spirit, they are led by the Spirit. Now they found they encountered some difficulties. In fact when they go to this strange place and Paul engages in this confrontation with God Jesus, this soothsayer, they

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encounter some difficulty but they go on because they are sent by the Spirit and you notice that John Mark is with them. Did you read that story John Mark is with them. John goes along. It doesn't say that John was sent but he went. A whole lot of people like that today. Like the little boy was answered when he was

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was addressed by his friend. He said, "I hear that your brother went into the army." And the little boy said, "No, he didn't went, he was sent." Many times people may go, but they're not sent by the Spirit. Many people are engaged in religious work, many are engaged in church work but are not motivated by the Spirit. But they are

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sent by the Spirit, they are sent by the Spirit and when the gospel is proclaimed and when difficulties arise, if you're not sent by the Spirit, you'll give up. John Mark departed from them, that's what the story says, he departed from them, he went home. Some say you may have gotten home sick. We don't know what, but at

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least when the going gets rough, John Mark goes home. And the gospel is received by the people with mixed feelings. In other words, if the church is the church, if the church is alive, and a church that is the church is alive, it is a church on mission. It's a church where the membership is engaged in missionary activity.

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Now, brothers and sisters, I'm not talking about taking a mission offering, and I'm not talking about giving those who come by a benevolent contribution. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about being actively engaged in fulfilling the mission that God has for each one of us is that we are sent to the world. We are sent by the Spirit of God to do the work of God in God's world.

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Now it's quite easy for us to be comfortable and to worship and enjoy good sermon and good singing and not engage in missionary activity. That's easy. The church at anyhow was so motivated by the Spirit that they selected certain ones that were gifted to go out and to carry the gospel beyond their borders. And when the gospel is heard, first of all we notice that there was jealousy.

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Don't think that if you are sent by the Spirit, if you're going to engage in outreach, if you're knocking on a door, whether it's an apartment or single-family dwelling or wherever it may be, if you're knocking on the door, don't think that you're going to always be well received. That was jealousy.

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Jealousy. There were those there in that synagogue that were jealous of the fact that Paul and Barnabas had come and they were receiving more attention than they had been receiving. Look I've been the president of this synagogue all these years and I've been talking and I've been

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teaching and they haven't had the kind of interest that that I see manifested here with Paul and Barnabas so they were jealous. They were jealous and they were victims of prejudice. They had already prejudged Paul and Barnabas. They already said, "Well, there's nothing to this." Some of them didn't even want to hear the details of

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what they were saying. They heard a little and so they left. And then underneath it all was selfishness. Selfishness. By Jesus here, the magician, the sorcerer. His objection is selfishness. These people are coming here and if Sergius Paulus accepts the gospel I won't have a job. So he's concerned

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about his job, he's concerned about his pocketbook, not the furtherance of the gospel. And then there was blasphemy, some blasphemed, they were against God. They were sent out by the Holy Spirit and so they were faithful to the task. While there was jealousy, in the midst of all of the jealousy that they manifested,

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the gospel was proclaimed and in the midst of their jealousy there was joy. and that's good news that wherever the gospel is proclaimed there is joy, there is joy. That was blasphemy, there were those who took the name of the Lord in vain, they were responding with not only disbelief but they attacked

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those who brought the message, but in the midst of it all there were those who were believers. They were sent by the Spirit. And so because they are sent by the Spirit, the Spirit is shared with others. They are filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit. That's the term that's

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difficult for many people to understand today. Be filled with the Spirit. One lady here in our church said some time ago, "Oh I'm so full." And one young person said, "What's she talking about? Being full of what?" She thought maybe she was full of grits or something. She talked about being full of the Spirit, full of Spirit.

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To be filled with the Spirit is to have your life filled with meaning. To be filled with the Spirit is to be able to say that my cup running over. I may not have many of the things of this world, but the Spirit has given me that inner satisfaction. I feel good about myself. I feel in right relationship to God and to

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my brother and my sister, I'm filled with the Spirit. I'm filled with the Spirit. And when one is filled with the Spirit, it doesn't mean that you have a monopoly on the Spirit. The Jews have no monopoly on the Spirit. You know, some people feel that you don't have to know much for the Spirit to be with you. And so they

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glorify ignorance and say, "Well, I may not have my degree, but I have the Spirit." Well, you don't have to know a great deal, but ignorance doesn't have a monopoly on the spirit. Some feel that because they have certain training that that means that they that gives them certain privileges and a certain entree to the

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spirit. No, the spirit is accessible to all, the learned and the unlearned. It's accessible to everybody. The rich and the poor, the just and the unjust, the spirit open to all. Their lives had been empty and meaningless before this time, but now they are filled with the Spirit. They're filled with the Spirit. And there's

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something wonderful about being sent by the Spirit. There's something wonderful about being guided by the Spirit. There's something wonderful about having one's cup to run over because of the joy of the Spirit as we read the last of that chapter it is said that the disciples, those who were believers, their lives were

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filled with the Holy Ghost. They were filled with the Spirit. For you see the Spirit breaks down barriers. The Spirit, the Spirit is that light that shines in the darkness. It's the Spirit, yes, the Spirit somehow enables us to overcome all of the alienation that we face in this world, the spirit. Thank God that he sends his

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spirit, God sends his spirit to be with us wherever we are in every condition and circumstance and that spirit fills our lives with meaning so that our cup is made to run over. Everybody has that privilege as we come now to the invitation. We invite you to accept the invitation to let the Spirit rule in

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your life, to let the Spirit fill your cup. We invite you to come. The door is open. The invitation is extended. By letter, a profession of faith, by restoration, we invite you to unite with the people of God here at Ebenezer. Lord, I here

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Of showers of blessings Thou art scattering fall, unfree. Show thy thirsty soul, refreshing. ♪ Let some drops ♪

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♪ Now fall ♪ ♪ On me ♪ ♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even me ♪

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♪ Yes ♪ ♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even ♪ ♪ Me ♪

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♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Let some drops ♪ ♪ Now fall on me ♪ ♪ Has not ♪

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♪ Fallen ♪ ♪ On me ♪ ♪ Has me ♪ ♪ Not ♪

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♪ O gentle Savior ♪ ♪ Sinful for my heart may be ♪ ♪ I am long ♪ ♪ In ♪

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♪ Thy favor ♪ ♪ Whilst thou ♪ ♪ Blessing ♪ ♪ All ♪

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♪ Bless ♪ ♪ Me ♪ ♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Yes ♪

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♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even ♪ ♪ He bought even me ♪ ♪ Was thy blessing ♪

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♪ Lot, Lot, bless me ♪ ♪ God bless me ♪ ♪ Bread of heaven ♪ ♪ Bread of heaven ♪

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♪ Ever ♪ ♪ Thou let me ♪ ♪ Feet on ♪ ♪ Thee ♪

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♪ Vine of heaven ♪ ♪ Vine, vine of heaven ♪ ♪ Let thine blood ♪ ♪ Atone for me ♪

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♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Yes, even me ♪ ♪ Even Jesus ♪ ♪ In this

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♪ Even me ♪ ♪ Even me ♪ Even me, Lord, even me let some drops now. ♪ I'm found ♪

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♪ On ♪ ♪ On me ♪ (audience applauding) Let us listen to our church clerk.

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We have Anita Davis who joins by profession of faith. Anita, will you come forth? You accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Yes.

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And you want to be baptized as an expression of that faith? Yes. All right. all who are in favor of accepting her on profession of her faith. Would you say aye?

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Aye. We're glad to need to have you to come to publicly acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of your life. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]