Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – ACTS 13:1-13

The sermon text today will be Acts 13:1-13. We will not begin the Sabbath sermon this week. I’ll start that next week. I wanted to recapitulate Acts 13:1-13. So, please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Now, there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers: as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch and Saul.

As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.

And they had also John to their minister. And when they had gone through the isle of Cyprus, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus, which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.

Then Saul who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said, “Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.” And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness.

And he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.

We thank God for his word and pray that he may illuminate it to our understandings. Please be seated.

Well, hopefully you have a couple of handouts or outlines, handouts, whatever they are, that you received coming into the worship service today. And the main one we’ll be working our way through is the one entitled “Points of Application from Acts 13:1-13.” And I’ve just drawn out six points here. I kind of thought of that one song by Bob Dylan that Victor has on his answering machine where he talks about at one point in the song, “Did the record just skip?” And you may think the record kind of skips today back a week or two and really most of the things I’m going to be talking about today are points of application that we’ve touched on briefly for the last couple of weeks, but I think they’re important.

I think it’s important to make sure that not just those who can keep up with what can be sometimes a fast delivery style and maybe words that aren’t as clear as they could be, but I want all of us to understand these words and apply them to our lives.

Acts 13, as we said, is kind of the beginning of the second portion of the book of Acts and it’s the story—it’s the transition now from Peter to Paul. Saul becomes Paul; he becomes known more by his Roman name because now the gospel is penetrating the uttermost parts of the earth. He will go to synagogues. By the end of the next chapter or two, he will have made a self-conscious decision to turn away from the Jews and to go to the Gentiles, although that will happen in the context of the synagogue and most of these Gentiles would be God-fearers.

Now, that’s a good point of application right there for us to think about a little bit. And I’m going to touch on that more next week and the week after. But you remember that we talked about when you see God-fearers in the New Testament, that’s talking about the Gentiles who would go to the synagogues to hear the word of God. Now we’re all Gentiles. We’ve not come into this through the faith of the Old Testament and through the lineage of that particular physical seed. So really, God-fearers is a categorization that should apply to us as Gentile believers. And so the fear of God is very important in terms of salvation. I’ll stress that the next few weeks to come.

But in any event, this is a big transition here in Acts chapter 13. And what’s set up for us here in many ways in microcosm will be played out a lot over the weeks to come. We have seen, for instance, last week, Sergius Paulus, a leader, a prominent official, the head of the island basically—civil head, Roman civil head—become converted. But we’ve seen opposition to that conversion and a perverting of the ways by a man who is identified for us not just as a false prophet or as a sorcerer, a manipulator of the physical and spiritual forces of the universe, but rather one who is identified also as a Jew.

Just as the first magician that Peter had to deal with was also a convert. He was baptized and brought into the household of faith. And in the context of that, Peter had to rebuke him for seeking to buy the ability to give people the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so we have this perversion of the faith and within the faith by the unbelieving Jews. And that’s going to be Paul’s enemy throughout his ministry. And so that’s set up for us here.

What we see in microcosm with Sergius Paulus is Elymas the magician, Bar-Jesus claiming to be the son of Jesus, son of Joshua really—the son of the devil—and then Saul/Paul ministering the word to the elect Gentiles. That’ll be played out throughout the rest of the New Testament and indeed even into our day and age. So these are big pictures here and I want us just to think through several points of application now—things we’ve already talked about and the text teaches—but I want to make sure that we all understand this stuff and see the specific points of application to your life.

That’s another frustration I have. I get up here and we get this big vision out from the scriptures about societal change. Our eschatology drives us that way. Our system of ethics teaches us to take the word of God and apply it to every area of life. Well, it can be frustrating. You’re sitting there. You’ve had a busy week. You’ve come together now in the rest, the victory of Christ, and you want to hear what God has to say to you. And first of all, he wants to encourage you that Christ has won the victory for us. But he does want to give you a message to take to the nations. How do you do that?

Well, I think there are some very simple things that this text can help us think through in terms of that you can apply to your life specifically instead of just the big vision and the big weight of the world on our shoulders.

There’s another song that I listened to this last week where I think one of the lyrics goes, “I’m a soldier of fortune.” Then over and over the refrain goes, “I’m wearing my .44 so long it makes my shoulder sore.” You know, we’re involved in a societal war here, a cultural war that’s been talked about a lot in the last 50 years, but it is real. And it is between the forces of good and the forces of evil. And most of the people are on the forces of evil, both conservatives and liberals.

And for us to go out into that culture continuing this warfare, it can make our shoulder sore. You know, the .44 is a weapon. Well, the word of God is a weapon. It’s a sword. It’s a sharp two-edged sword. You’re able to go forth in battle, but it gets weary. And so, you and it gets even completely wearing and frustrating if you don’t know what your limits are of your particular calling.

So, let’s look at some of these points of application then and try to understand what we’ve learned here the last couple of weeks and kind of nail this stuff down to make sure we’re doing it and to be confirmed by God that this is much of what we are doing as a church and have done for a number of years.

## First: Identification of the Congregation with the Work of the Ministry

We have at the beginning of Acts 13 two men commissioned. They’re commissioned by a call from God to set them apart for the work of the ministry. All of the congregation will not go forward as missionaries. Two men will—well, three actually. John Mark will go along as their assistant, underling, but two men are primarily commissioned here. They’re commissioned by the whole church. So right away we have a differentiation of function.

Some people are more involved directly in going out and engaging in the cultural warfare that Saul, Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark engage in. Even there’s a differentiation of function. We’ll see Saul now taking the preeminence over Barnabas. By the time they leave this place in verse 13—the first time we read it this week—it’s now Paul and his company. It’s not Barnabas and Paul or Barnabas’s company. It’s Paul and his people, people that are around him. There’s a shift. There’s differentiation of function between Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, and Barnabas.

There’s also a differentiation of function with Mark. He goes along not as the front man here. He goes along as an underling, an assistant, a servant. Now, everybody’s servants, but he’s that in a very direct fashion. He’s going to minister to these guys when they’re thirsty. He’s probably going to get them water, you know. He may assist in baptisms, but he’s going along to do whatever they would want him to do because what they want him to do is to make their job more efficient for the work God has called them to do.

Okay? So, we have this differentiation of function. But there’s not a differentiation where some people are doing the work of the ministry and some aren’t. The ordination that occurs here, the laying on of hands means that we have—I’ve repeated this many times—in every believer, ministry. When the origin of the idea of laying on of hands, of course, is the hand of God upon somebody, and that hand of God can come upon for good or for evil. The hand of God comes upon Elymas in a judgmental fashion.

But the hand of God is portrayed as coming upon these two men as empowerment and call to office. But there’s also identification portrayed. In the Old Testament, you would lay your hand upon the sacrificial animal. He would die, but you would say, “I identify with this animal. He’s carrying my sins. That’s me out there dying.” Identification.

Then when the Levites are chosen to replace the firstborn of the nation of Israel—that’s what they were. The whole tribe is set apart. There was a countdown and everything. When they’re chosen to represent the people to a particular calling, particular special office or ministry in the church, they have their hands placed upon them. All the congregation of Israel places their hands upon them. Now, we don’t know how that happened. We don’t know if literally every hand went upon them. But we know that representatively all the congregation was involved in the ordination of the Levites and therefore we see the ordination of special officers—particularly deacons and elders—but then special ministers in the sense of these missionaries going out.

Now, and we see ordination happening with that. We want to recognize the identification of the church with the ministers and with their particular mission. So the whole church is involved in missionary work, maybe not directly, but they’re identified with it, you see. Differentiation of function, not a differentiation of some doing ministry and some guys not. You’re doing the work of the ministry. That identification of the ministers is pointed out for us in the ordination of Barnabas and Saul to the mission field.

You’re part of the team and it’s very important that you understand that. Nail that down. If you don’t understand that, talk to me. Talk to Elder M. Talk to Deacon G. Talk to other men at the church. You’re part of the team here. You’re not a bystander. You’re not just observing the work of the ministry. You’re involved with it. Now, we’ll talk about how that works out a little later, but identification first of all.

## Second: The Importance of Special Officers

This is shown by two things. We have now the beginning of the mission to the Gentiles. And in preparation for that, we’re told in the very first verse that the church in Antioch, the local church that does the sending—not a denomination, not a presbyter, not a confederation—a local church in Antioch that does the sending, they do it after they’re organized and ready for battle.

We’re told they have five men, military strength. Five fingers in a hand. A hand makes a fist. Five people. They’re organized. They’re ready for work. Now, those special officers are designated for us; who they are is specifically named for us. And we talked, you know, we sang a psalm last week, Psalm 83, where the opponents of God are named here. The advocates of God, his special ministers in the local church are named for us. They’re important. It’s important to know their names. And it’s important to recognize the importance that God places upon those special officers in assisting the role of the church.

Secondly, it’s pointed out because two men are sent out. These men are sent out and other people aren’t. Special officers are important. The scriptures want us to understand that right from the get-go here as the gospel is going to go out and penetrate the whole known world at that time.

If we’re looking at going, taking the gospel of Jesus Christ and obedience to the Great Commission to the uttermost parts of the earth—and this is a day missionary Sunday when we talk about and share about the prayer requests of missionaries. I’ve got a sheet prepared for you, three pages actually down in the gymnasium. We’re talking, thinking about world missions that should always be on our mind somehow in the back of our mind, praying that the gospel might go forth.

Well, the way God does that is special ministers set apart for that work. It’s not simply personal contacts. It’s special people, special ministers of the church called to go forth. So, it’s very important to recognize here the importance of special officers in the church. You want to recognize them. You want to understand whom God has called. And that’s one of your first duties.

Now, we’re getting down to actual application for you. What do you do about this? Well, that means that your participation in the government of the church in terms of selection of special officers is exceedingly important. If these men are so important, then their selection and ordination are exceedingly important. And one of the biggest responsibilities the adults of this church have—husband and wife, working together, talking together, coming to a joint decision—is relative to the selection of special officers.

We’ve got three officers in this church minimum contingent, you might say. Certainly not up to military strength yet. We want to add officers as the months and years go before us here. And to do that, your involvement is critical. And so, you have to be able to discern and know the call of God upon particular men’s lives.

But having selected special officers, you should pray for them. I know that Elder M. would greatly amen this at this point in time. We have made very good progress, but we’ve struggled with difficult issues the last few weeks. Both of us have. We need your prayers. You know, if the identification you have—don’t think the Antioch sent these guys out and then didn’t think about it. They got a report back when the missionary journey was over. And you can bet they were praying for them in the context of their missions.

So there’s the second responsibility you have: for church officers, or not just officers. If this church commissions men to go out into a particular ministry, into a missionary activity, for instance, you want to pray for those people. You have the second obligation in addition to selection. You want to pray for the special officers of the church on a regular basis.

When somebody tells me, “My wife and I spent time praying for you and Elder M. today,” that means a lot. That encourages me a lot. Okay? And forget the psychological impact. Prayer is real. God says that he moves in terms of the prayers of his people. Now, we don’t understand how that works out. But I don’t understand how the light switch works either, but I use it.

And if God says prayer is important to him, he wants to hear your prayers and he moves in terms of the world based upon the prayers of the church individually and collectively, then we have an obligation to pray. So you should be praying for the officers of this church and for those missionaries that we’re asking you to pray for as well.

You should thank God for them. You know, remember the model that communion gives us: the sin of pagan man is to not be thankful. He does the same thing we do. He gets up every day. He takes hold of some job. He works at a job. He creates things for people. He rearranges the substances that God gives us intellectually or materially. He offers it to the world and he may be successful.

But the thing that Bill Gates doesn’t do, at least as I understand it, talking about a public figure here—it’s hard to know who public figures are—but the thing that many of these public figures don’t do is to begin that process with thanks to God. Thanksgiving is an essential aspect of the Christian faith.

When it comes to your officers, your prayers should first of all include thanksgiving for them—that God has placed them in the context of the church so the church can fulfill the work that Christ has called us to do. Thanksgiving. And you should support the officers of the church. Support through prayer. Support through your tithe.

The local church is supported through the tithes of God’s people. That’s how the officers are supported. That’s what the tithe is for. The tithe went to the Levites, those special men that you have identification with and yet have been called to special office. So, the use of your tithe is for those purposes.

Now, I think that Mr. [name] is right that the church of Antioch—we talked about this—the tithing, the support of the missionaries that go out: these five guys at Antioch are supportive through the Levitical tithe, I think. But then when Barnabas and Saul go out as missionaries, now something else happens. Antioch may give free will offerings to the work of that mission, but it’s not a portion of their tithe being redirected. The tithe is for the work of the local church. So I believe that the scriptures teach that missionary activity should be supported above and beyond the tithe through the free will offerings and gifts of the people.

And we see Paul making that request, that knowledge known, that truth known throughout his epistles where he talks about the collections. He talks about the support that people have given to him. He talks about the Philippians helping him in his ministry through financial support.

And so missionary activity should be supported by the people above and beyond the tithe. We have a process now this month. We’re supporting the special ministers of Christ Church who are translating good reformed works that proclaim the glory of God through acknowledging his sovereignty to the language of the Chinese people and then getting those books over there in Chinese. And we have a provision at the communion—after communion, during communion—the alms box that goes to provide for those who are poor in spirit and poor in intellectual ammunition to deal with the expansion of the kingdom of Jesus Christ in China.

And so that offering should go to that missionary activity. We ask you to give. We ask you to give liberally.

Now, Paul’s model is that he goes out and tent-makes. So many missionaries should go out and be self-supporting. But you know, we have a particular situation in this world right now where you and I have a lot more resources than those people in other countries. That’s the way it is. We have all kinds of luxuries, you know. We have all kinds of things, economic blessings that has given to this country. And so we have the ability to give of our excess so that other missionaries and other churches can be supported through our financial assistance.

Now, you’ve heard that pitch made from a socialistic guilt-manipulation perspective, and that’s not what I’m talking about. But I am talking about financial stewardship. And I’m saying that if you have the ability—I’m not asking anybody to go into debt. You know how much I hate debt. I’m not asking you to short your family. I’m asking you though to consider the excess funds that God provides for you and use those funds for the support of missionaries that you know will carry the full gospel of Jesus Christ into another people group, another nation, another area.

You know that we have the thing that probably most of us have just despised over the years: the whole idea of faith promise giving. And what that is perverted into in our day and age is that faith promise means that you try to move out on faith before God and make a pledge that you’re going to support some missionary—give them $10,000 this year—and you can’t afford it. So, you’re doing it on faith.

Well, you know, that’s not a biblical understanding of what faith is. Faith is the assurance of what God has promised us, though we can’t see it. He doesn’t promise to give you $5,000 for a missionary.

The origins of it—it’s interesting. Last a year or two, year and a half ago now, I heard in a small group the man whose father had originated the faith promise system. As it turns out, at least as it’s become popularly known today. This man is the pastor now of a huge church in Canada that uses this and teaches faith promise giving throughout the world. But his father was interestingly enough a Presbyterian minister, and the origins of the faith promise system, apparently according to this man, was the idea of covenant. And it used to be called covenantal giving or covenant was associated with it. And we got rid of the word covenant. They didn’t like that. They put instead faith promise instead of covenant.

The idea of covenantal giving is this: you know what your resources are and you covenant before God. “God, I can afford to support this particular missionary agency to this degree of my well-being. Not moving beyond what God has enabled you to do, but simply acknowledging these are the resources he’s given to me and I covenant with God that I’ll support this particular missionary endeavor with this much money of my excess.”

The idea is if you’re going to send a missionary out from a church—if we, for instance, get down the road here five, ten years—we got a number of elders we want to send a couple out; it would be good that they could plan out a system of financial support if they’re going to a totally impoverished area until that church can become self-supporting. And the way they do that is by getting commitments from the people—covenant.

We would say covenant rules all of our lives. Hopefully covenants that they’d be supported to that end, you see? And that’s the origin of faith promise. Now, it’s been distorted, but in its origins, it’s really not a bad system at all—to covenant before God to support somebody.

So, we have a requirement by way of application: to consider and select officers; to pray for those officers with thanksgiving; and then to support the officers and the special ministers of Christ’s church that are ordained by his people and called by the Lord Jesus Christ to go out.

## Third: The Importance of Worship and the Advent of Christ

These texts have stressed to us the importance of worship and the advent of Christ. Now, this may be—my wife thinks this is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it is—but it is significant again that verse two told us that it was as they ministered. And I quoted commentaries. I quoted some of the Greek words there used before. The implication is it was during the formal worship services of the church while they were fasting that the Holy Ghost said, “Separate unto me these men.”

During worship, God gives the picture, the revelation of what he wants to accomplish relative to these two fellas. Okay? Worship is an important time. It is an advent of Christ.

You remember what we have here is now the commission of men to go to the Gentiles. How did this start? We had the commissioning of the twelve—to go to Jerusalem and Judea and to Samaria. And how did they start? They started the same way. They had a group together—eleven praying and waiting for direction. And God first gives them direction by choosing, making up Judas’s spot with Matthias. How? By lot.

What was being stressed there? The appointment of Jesus Christ of the twelfth disciple, the twelfth apostle, not of man. What’s being stressed here as the ranks of God’s people are being filled up and positions are being filled to take the gospel now to the uttermost parts of the earth? What’s being talked about is the call of Christ through his spirit of these two men. It is not the agency of men.

Now, it never is really. I mean, later on when churches ordain elders, they vote for them and everything, they don’t get a special vision from God. But still, the idea is that the beginning of a thing helps us to understand how it works its way out. And God wants us to understand that as churches ordain men, it’s the call of God. Now, that’s fallible. We make our decisions as we understand best. And sometimes we make mistakes. But here at the beginning, no mistakes, because Christ has clearly chosen these two men and somehow miraculously communicates that through his spirit, which speaks things of Christ, to the officers of the church. So they’re stressed.

But worship is stressed as an advent, a coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to establish his kingdom. And he comes through the work of the spirit to give direction for the special officers of the church. And that is placed at the beginning of this cycle here, the beginning of the second half of the book of Acts, in the context of formal worship.

This is an important day. The Sabbath day is an important day for lots of reasons. Richard had helped lift this thing up higher, right? This pulpit got up higher. It’s elevated to help us remind that we’re getting words from God when his scriptures are spoken. Now, my words aren’t infallible. My words aren’t words from God. We used to at another church have an arrangement. We had a pulpit here and a pulpit here, and we’d read the word from there. We’d preach from over there. That’s a nice, good picture of the differentiation of men’s words from God’s words.

But the point is, we’re trying to raise up your thoughts with an elevated pulpit to remember that we’re worshiping God at the throne room on high. That’s why we do the “Sursum Corda”—lift up your hearts—as the psalms tell us to do. That’s why we lift up our hands to remind ourselves and our kids we are going up. We’re going up for a heavenly perspective.

I mentioned music. I heard another song last night. I was listening to several times. It’s a very interesting song by Van Morrison where he strings several songs together. And he goes from seeing through the idea that when I’m having a difficult time, see me through. Then he goes to talking about how he’s a soldier of fortune. Then he gives the line about the .44 and his shoulder getting sore. And again, as one of your officers in this church, those sentiments are things that Richard and I can identify with.

He goes from there, however, to then talking about how I’ve got all these things. I’ve got the cars. I’ve got cars out there in the garage. I’ve got color TV. I’ve got mobile phones. I’ve got computer programs. Why is it that we’re still on the chain gang? The answer is big brother, which is an interesting perspective. That’s right.

Why do we feel oppressed in this country today even though men are incredibly productive in many ways, economically blessed? Because the country’s worshiping the civil state. They’ve rejected God. Just like Israel did, they are worshiping Molech, king big brother. But then the answer to that is Morrison then talks about going out away from the city, up into the mountaintop where the clear, cool water—cruel clear crystal water—runs down from the mountain.

And he gets up there in the mountain, and then everything slows down in the song. Up to now it’s been pretty “boom boom”; slows way down. Gets up on top of the hillside, looks down in the city, and peace comes. And for a while, all he does is breathe—on this song, inhale, exhale. Slow down.

We come together on the Lord’s day. We come out of our hectic lives. We got hectic lives, don’t we? I mean, we’re homeschooling most of us. We’re working hard. Our wives understand their vocational calling in terms of the home—to beautify the home and also to engage, if God sees fit, to purchase a field, etc.—consider those things, assist the husband, develop relationships in the context of the family. We’re busy folks. We got church stuff. We’re involved with most a lot of us anyway—vocational, civil, political matters we get involved with from time to time. Just had an election. We’re busy. And we need to get away from that and get up high on that mountaintop where the water of God’s word pours down on us and cools us and refreshes us and give us a heavenly perspective of what is going on.

You know, I was at Richard’s place this last week. And for those who don’t know it, it’s open now. Go over there. He’s there from 10:00 to 5:00, Tuesdays through Fridays. They make beautiful stuff by the foresters there. I would recommend that somebody either find a good source for tabernacle or temple models or create one. I’m sure there are some out already.

You know, in the Old Testament, David talked about the night watches and the night meditations. And there are meditations in the scriptures that are described as meditating upon God’s temple. The architecture of the temple tells us things. God spends a lot of time in Pentateuch giving us details of temple architecture. Why? Because he wants us to think about that stuff.

In terms of worship, God gives us patterns for worship. And we don’t know the end answer here. We don’t know the only answer. But we’ve tried hard to model our worship service according to the patterns of God’s word. Worship is dialogue. God speaks. We respond. The word you hear first here is God’s word. Then we repeat back prayers of confession. He tells us a word, then we sing to him. He gives us the word through the sermon. We respond by offering ourselves.

Worship is covenant renewal. Moving through the confession of sins, acknowledging what God has done. Worship going through—and as taught to us by the order of the sacrifices in the Old Testament, we’ve thought through this stuff a lot. And we’ve tried to, in many cases—a lot of this has had to be very original thinking and searching out sources who have tried to self-consciously think of biblical patterns for worship.

Are we screwed up? Undoubtedly. Do we err? Yeah. Do we sin? Yeah. But we’ve tried—maybe falling short of the mark. The worship services here are geared to be something that you can meditate on. And in terms of application, that’s the application for you.

Recognize the importance of coming away from the world, gathering with God’s people, getting up on the mountaintop and hearing a correct perspective and seeing through God’s eyes the affairs of earth. So it forms that pattern for us. And then to meditate upon how this thing works. It’s important that you learn to live your lives in antiphonal response to God’s word.

It’s important that you see the importance of thanksgiving. Before we eat the bread, we were talking last week, I think, at our prayer meeting about manners. I would love to see—I’ve worked a little bit on it—but I’d love to see more of a development that manners come from the awareness that common meals have their model in the holy meal of God on Sunday, the agape, the love feast, and then the Lord’s table.

And so, we’re considerate. I always like to remind my kids when we pass the bread around for communion: everybody eats it at the same time, don’t they? Well, you, if you’ve been raised in a family that stressed manners, you know that when the food’s being passed around and, you know, I confess before God I don’t do this all the time or even frequently—but what you’re supposed to do is wait for all the food to be passed during your meal at home. That’s manners.

Why is that good manners? ‘Cause it’s a reminder of community. We don’t eat in isolation. As soon as the stuff is slopped on our plate, we don’t pick it up and start eating it, ’cause we’re not there primarily just for ourselves to get physical energy. We’re there to commune with the family. And we’re there to commune with the Lord Jesus Christ. And God says he’s present in the camp of Israel.

It’s why you go to the bathroom someplace else. God says. And you use a shovel in the army of God in the Old Testament and cover that stuff up away from the camp. “I’m present with you,” he says. And good table manners is a recognition that not only are God’s people present with us, he’s present with us.

Now, we get that emphasized at communion, but it’s true the rest of the week. Is God not with us during the rest of the week? No. This is a magnification here of truths that are common throughout the week. And so, worship is very important. And I would urge you to meditate on it. We’re going to try to provide some aids toward that. And I’ve already come up with a little pamphlet or two. I’m still working on a little brochure on how we worship at RCC. It would be good for you to take that, spend a little time maybe on one of your Lord’s days going over it with your family. Teach your children the importance of worship. Teach your children that this is not something we just dream up. We’re really in the presence of God. Our worship is directed to him ultimately, not ourselves.

And then after we come and meet with him and worship him, we rejoice with each other—all these models in the Old Testament. So we’ll try to provide some educational aids. But again, in terms of your application: think through the worship service, meditate on it. If we can get some models of the tabernacle in some of our homes, meditate upon those things. Think about the architecture of God’s place in the Old Testament, what it means. Why is it the Holy of Holies?

I saw—I was watching a court scene. I don’t remember if it was a TV show or something on TV where there was a judge. I have no recollection of what the show was all about. Oh, maybe I do. Maybe it was. I don’t remember. Anyway, the point is: if you go into a courtroom, many courtrooms used to, and some still do, they’ll have a fence right around, you know. If the judge’s bench is up here, the defendants are sitting in here, there’s a fence up there with a little gate on it. Why do they have that little fence there? That seems kind of silly.

Well, it does seem silly until you recognize that’s the tabernacle again—the Holy of Holies, where God’s throne room is, where the real Judge of all judges with the law of all laws in his presence. That’s where he rules. And to get in there, he had to go through several areas. And those areas are fenced off. There’s an actual fence around that thing.

It’s important to see that. It’s important to understand why we fence off the table of Jesus Christ. Levites—some Levites, their job in the Old Testament was to carry spears in the context of the temple and the tabernacle. And if guys tried to get in who shouldn’t be gotten in for whatever reason—lepers, whatever it is, not circumcised, whatever it is—they were supposed to chuck that spear through them and stop them from entering.

See, so worship is important here. It’s important for us in the text and it’s important for our lives to understand what we’re doing. It is easy to get discouraged. David says, “I almost tripped. Almost wanted to be like those guys that seem so successful, whose net worth is two billion. And I thought to myself, what is the point of my righteousness? Almost slept. Till when? Till he goes to the temple, till he goes, sees those fatted calves being slaughtered with ribbons on them. Then he sees the end of the ungodly.”

We come together, like last week. We sing Psalm 83. And then that reminds us, “No, no, no. We don’t want to be like Herod. Yeah, he had that great silver robe for a while. And then soon that silver robe turned into worms.” See, so worship is important to give us a sense of understanding of how the world works.

## Fourth: Ministry to God Contrasted with Sinful Pride

Ministry to God is contrasted with sinful pride, stressing the need for humility. Herod is contrasted with Barnabas and Saul. Do you remember how Herod does not give God the glory? Later on, Barnabas and Saul in their missionary journey—people say, “Oh, your gods will worship you ’cause they heal somebody.” And they tear their clothes and say, “No, no, no, no. They give all the glory to God.”

There’s a contrast drawn for us there. There’s a contrast between Bar-Jesus, supposedly the son of Joshua, supposedly the son of pride (the Syriac version puts it)—undoubtedly pumped up with his own pride and self-importance. He’s filled with all guile, deceit, lying, and malice, wickedness. Paul, on the other hand, is filled with the Holy Spirit.

Who’s really bar Jesus? Paul is. He’s the son of Jesus Christ, declaring his word. And Bar-Jesus, Paul says, “You’re not the son of Jesus. You’re the son of the devil.” There’s two seeds. And you’re not the right seed. You’re not the seed of the rule of the woman. You’re not the seed of the church. You’re not the seed of Christ. You’re the seed of the serpent. You’re just like those Pharisees were. You’re a brood of vipers. You’re part of that brood,” Paul says—Jesus says through Paul—to Elymas.

And why? Because he’s puffed up. He’s prideful. Pride is a terrible, terrible thing. Your responsibility, your application to this is to root out pride in your life. I’ve provided a handout again. Let’s look just briefly at Psalm 10.

Same outline I gave you several weeks ago, but this is combined with the same thing I read last week from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. A member of the congregation asked if I can make that available for taking home this week. I did. All of you can take it home, of course, if you want. You don’t have to. But it’s a good way to think through pride.

You know, pride is the mother of all sins. Some have said it’s the thing that God puts at the very least of the thing that he hates. Pride.

Psalm 10: “The wicked in his pride persecute the poor. Let them be taken in the devices they have imagined. For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire. He blesses the covetous whom the Lord upholds. The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts. His ways are always grievous. Thy judgments are far above out of his sight. As for his enemies, he puffs at them. He had said in his heart, ‘I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.’ This is Herod. This is Elymas puffing at the enemies. ‘I’m never going to be moved. I’m okay. I don’t have to worry about God.’

His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud. Under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He’s full of mischief and vanity, just like Elymas was. Vanity is deceitfulness, emptiness or lies, and mischief, malice, just like Elymas. He sits in the lurking places of the villages and the secret places. He murders the innocent. His eyes are privily set against the poor.”

Terrible picture for us printed here of the prideful. But look at verse four again: “The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts.”

See, that’s the proud man. Why? Why is he proud? Because he’s puffed up in his own abilities and God is not in all his thoughts. To the extent that Christianity does not pervade what you do in your life, you’re proud. Plain and simple. And if you have areas of your life that you’ve not allowed the word of God and the presence of God to dictate to you your actions, you’re proud.

Is God in all your thoughts? God is supposed to be in all your thoughts. The thing that keeps him out of your thoughts is sinful pride. And that pride is reflected through your speech. It’s reflected through your actions. And it’s reflected ultimately in God’s judgments against you.

Because while the proud man says there’s no God, he’s not going to do anything. He doesn’t see. He doesn’t care. Psalm 10 goes on to say, “Oh, yes, he does. Yes, he does.” Says in verse 11, “He has said in his heart, ‘God hath forgotten. He hides his face. He’ll never see it.’” And then the psalmist prays out in precatory fashion against these men.

“Arise, oh Lord. Oh God, lift up thine head. Forget not the humble. Wherefore do the wicked condemn God? He has said in his heart, ‘Thou will not require it.’ See, that’s why God isn’t in all his thoughts—because he doesn’t believe in God’s judgments in the earth. Thinks the earth just kind of goes on the way it is.

‘Thou hast seen it,’ the psalm has said. ‘Thou beholdest mischief and spite to request with thine hand. The poor commits himself unto you. You’re the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man. Seek out his wickedness till he shall be found no more.

The Lord is king, is king forever and ever. The heathen are perished out of his land. Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble.’”

Psalmist says he thinks that. But the truth of the matter is, in response to the prayers of God’s people, God brings forth his judgment upon the proud. And God’s judgment are in the earth so that man might remember that he is but man. God does see it.

And so pride is the keeping God out of every thought that we have and instead replacing that thing with our own wills and our own desires.

Now I want to just stress this—some of the things we talked about already, really—but I wanted to make sure we understand this in terms of how to identify pride in ourselves and by way of application in our children. There’s another point of application.

If God gives us these big contrasts between Herod and Saul, between Saul and Barnabas and then Elymas and Saul, and if part of that contrast is focused around the sinfulness of pride, then the application for that in our lives is to root out pride in our hearts and pride in our children’s hearts.

After all, the most important task we have in terms of proclaiming the gospel of Christ is working with the disciples that he has placed in the context of our family. That’s the next generation. We’re weak warriors. You know, people think of this church. I had a lady once tell me, “Well, I’d like to go to your church, but you’re kind of like the Marine Corps. You know, I don’t think I could cut it there.”

People look at this church as if it’s some kind of strong thing and we’re all great, valiant warriors. We know we’re not. We know we’re weak. We know we err a lot. We know we sin. We got to tell people when we’re wrong. We sin, of course. But what we are hopeful for is that our children will be trained up as mighty warriors from their earliest days so that they won’t be like us.

We’ll look at that in a couple of minutes. I always think of Bill Gothard. First I ever went to hear him talk. He drew this chalk drawing, you know, and he talked about how the whole world is sucked off this way to the evil. And what he was trying to do is raise up a people to shine as a bright light and move the whole center back that way. And that’s the way it works. And that’s what God, with or without us, is doing in the nation today.

And it’s homeschoolers. I’m not saying there aren’t good, godly people in public schools, Christians, or good godly people in private schools. But I know that where God is working in our culture today is in the context of the homeschooling community. And those children are being raised with a self-consciousness about the faith and its application to their life. They’re being raised with a sense of personal self-control and self-discipline, hopefully under the power of the spirit, that is going to change the entire face of this nation. That’s what’s going to happen.

We saw Kurt Bumcraft over at Richard’s place the other day. Nine thousand now registered with the state of Oregon in terms of homeschooling notified. Used to be when we started this stuff two, three thousand tripled since those days. And we don’t know how many are reporting. I probably think a lot of them are now. But the point is a lot. It’s a growing, big growing thing, not slowing down by any way, shape, or form yet. That’s why Christian Supply is now looking at marketing to that audience because there’s dollars out there—millions of dollars in Oregon alone being spent on homeschool materials.

It’s important. And what’s important about it is what God’s doing. So God sets this up. Well, if we’re going to be successful in that, one of the biggest things we have to work in our kids is the danger of spiritual pridefulness—that they are better because they are going to be better. They’re going to be better people than the world around them. But we have to keep them from pridefulness by pointing them to God over and over.

And that’s why it’s important, in terms of application, to root out pride in yourself and then to try, as much as possible, to get your children to understand this—one of the seven deadly sins, this core of the seven deadly sins—and to see how terrible it is in God’s sight. He hates pride and he wants us—you know, it says in the Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is to hate pride and its manifestations.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you’re a Christian and a Gentile, you better be a God-fearer. And you should be if you’re a Jew, too. But the point is it’s emphasized for us. And that means if you’re going to fear God, you better hate pride and the manifestation of pride in people’s lives. And you want to teach your children by way of example and by your word to hate their own pride, not to live with it at all.

I have seen in my short tenure amongst the small group that we’ve ministered to here, I have seen pride chew people up and spit them out, swing their heads around. You’d think they were that gal in The Exorcist or something going every which way. Pride is terrible. It is a terrible thing.

You know what? The civil, when the pop culture around us recognizes how bad something is, you know, it’s got to be real bad. And I’ve heard several songs in the last few years about pride. Bob Dylan: “A whole lot of people dying tonight from the disease of conceit.” And he’s right.

I thought about Herod or I thought of that song when I was reading about Herod. You know, pride makes you think you’re too good to die. Then they bury you from your head to your feet—is what Bob Dylan says in that song. And Herod thought he was too good to die. And bam, God’s word comes upon him. The judge comes to him. Elymas thought he was too good to be afflicted by God. Bam. And he’s blind. And instead of leading people around, he’s got to be led around.

God deals with pride. And our culture even recognizes it. Chris Rea, I think his album was called “God’s Slippery Banana Peel.” And one of the only songs I ever heard off of it on the radio was—it just went over and over again at the refrain: “You’ve got too much pride. Too much pride. It’ll drive a man crazy. Drive a man wild,” or something like that. “Make a man crazy.” It’s right. This culture is filled with pride, right?

It is taught in the public schools. The seven deadly sins used to be taught as things to avoid. Now, most of them are taught as things to do. You’re supposed to have self-esteem. You’re supposed to have personal worth. You’re supposed to be puffed up in your knowledge of yourself.

Now, it is true there’s a biblical appropriateness to recognizing the giftings God’s given you. And maybe it’s good to instead of calling it pride to call it arrogance. But my belief is this culture teaches arrogance. We should know that the sin of prideful error—arrogance—is the exaltation of oneself and the debasement of God. And we should know that the ways of pride is to trust in one’s strength.

Dorothy Sayers wrote about the seven deadly sins, and she said this is the most terrible thing about it: is that it doesn’t attack you at your weakness. Pride. It attacks you at your strength.