You might be a Gospel Missionary if: – Acts 18:22-23

In these two verses, we begin to see Paul’s Third Missionary Journey.

So I thought that it might be a good time to review his first two evangelistic trips.

And then we’ll close with a dozen or so general observations.

Ideally, you should be able to anticipate just about every point I make through the first part of our lesson.

But first, the other day a preacher friend of mine sent me a little e-mail funny, which I forwarded to several.

It was entitled: “You might be a Southern Baptist if……”

You believe you are supposed to take a covered dish to heaven when you die.

You have never in your life sung the third verse of any hymn.

You think God’s presence is always strongest in the back three pews.

You clapped your hands in church last Sunday and felt guilty about it all week.

That gave me the idea for the title to our message: “You might be a Gospel Missionary if…”

But before we get to that let’s make that quick review.

Paul’s First Missionary Journey.

Paul’s First Missionary Journey began with the call of God while he was ministering in his home church.

That was in Antioch, Syria.

He actually began as the junior missionary to Barnabas,

although Paul may already have had more experience in missions than this elder brother.

They first traveled to Selucia, from which they sailed to the city of Salamis on the island of Cyprus.

After preaching among the Jews there, they crossed Cyprus to the capital of Paphos.

They may have preached throughout Cyprus, but of that we aren’t told.

In Paphos their preaching became known to the Roman governor, Sergius Paulus, whom ultimately the Lord saved through the preaching of Paul.

From Cyprus the missionary team sailed to the province of Pamphylia and the city of Perga,

But they didn’t have much of a ministry there, possibly due to the lack of Jews who lived there.

It had been their general plan to preach the gospel to the Jews first, and then to the Greeks.

Perga is famous only as the place from which John Mark deserted the company.

Traveling inland, Paul and Barnabas came to Antioch in the province of Pisidia,

and there we have one of Paul’s sermons recorded in Acts 13.

And there was the first place where the missionaries had some major opposition – from the Jews.

So they moved on to Iconium, and again there was persecution against them.

Traveling east from Iconium into the province of Lycaonia in the district of Galatia, they ministered in the city of Lystra,

But the Jews of Antioch and Iconium followed them,

and it was in Lystra that Paul was stoned and left for dead.

After he was restored to life and immediate good health, he and Barnabas moved on to Derbe.

One of the better known converts in Galatia was Timothy, who later replaced John Mark.

After evangelizing Derbe the team returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch.

They strengthened and encouraged the new converts there, established churches and ordained pastors.

Then they traveled south to the coast city of Attalia and returned to their home church in Syria, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God.

While home, they continued to minister the Word of God,

and they made a trip to Jerusalem to talk with the Apostles about their evangelization of the Gentiles.

Paul’s Second Missionary Journey.

Having received Apostolic encouragement in regard to their work among the Gentiles,

Paul suggested to Barnabas that they should take the letter of James and the church in Jerusalem to their Galatian converts.

Barnabas was amenable to the idea, but he wanted to take his nephew John Mark, and Paul balked.

The two men couldn’t be reconciled over this issue, so Barnabas and John went to Cyprus,

But Paul took his new friend from Jerusalem, Silas, and traveled inland west to Galatia.

In Lystra they enlisted Timothy, and began to visit all the churches of Phrygia and Lycaonia.

After that the company pushed north toward the Bosporus on the northern edge of what is now Turkey,

But the Holy Spirit somehow let them know that they were not to minister there or in any part of Turkey.

After traveling almost aimlessly for a while they ended up in Troas, where God gave Paul a vision about sailing into Macedonia.

Their ship docked first at Neapolis, and the missionaries walked up to Philippi.

There their most notable converts were in the households of Lydia and the jailer.

And, as you know, the missionaries were arrested and beaten by the Gentiles.

Upon their release they traveled southwest, passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica.

In Thessalonica they had a short, but powerful ministry which ended in more Jewish persecution.

In Berea it was essentially the same thing.

But then Paul was hurried off to Athens where he witnessed before the Areopagites on Mars Hill.

And from there he moved on to a successful ministry in Corinth.

After about two years in Corinth, Paul felt led of the Lord to return home, which he did via Ephesus, Caesarea and Jerusalem.

That is a summary of the first two missionary journey’s of the Apostle Paul.

It would be wonderful, if you could visualize those two trips.

It’s not that there will be a quiz when you get to Heaven,

but with that itinerary as a foundation,

it would help you to remember some of the initial events which brought gospel to your door.

Now let’s move on to some general observations about the work of the Lord.

You know that you’re a gospel missionary when…..

There were very real, physical risks in doing the work of a pioneer missionary.

Paul was beaten, stoned, attacked, threatened, jailed, tortured and otherwise abused again and again.

But as far as he was concerned, his sufferings were not worthy to be compared with the glory that was to be revealed in him.

And his sufferings were nothing compared to the salvation of those heathen.

The value of a single soul outweighs the value of the world or any suffering which we might endure in this world.

An obvious corollary to that was that his companions were in just as much danger as he was.

They didn’t exactly endure everything that he did, but they did suffer and they had the same potential sufferings as he did.

What if Paul was married and had taken his wife and three kids with him throughout all this?

Not only would he have endangered them,

but there would have been the likelihood that he wouldn’t have been as daring as he was, trying to spare them.

There is good reason why Bro. Nimmo feels so strongly that pioneer missionary work should be done by unmarried men working in tandem or in teams.

I’m not ready to say that only unmarried men should be missionaries,

but in primitive and pioneering situations, it is not only wise, but it is also Biblical.

The Gospel can physically endanger everyone involved.

Third, it appears to me that the missionaries traveled light.

They didn’t take huge libraries, lots of extra clothing, a ton of medical supplies and the kitchen sink.

In fact, it appears to me that they took next to nothing but the necessities of that day.

They could, and did, pick up and move to new cities in an hour’s time, or in an afternoon.

This was in agreement with the instruction that the Lord Jesus gave to his disciples earlier.

“And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece.”

Sometimes their stay in one location was for a long period of time, and sometime it was short.

We seem to have the idea today that a missionary is supposed to root himself to one site, until a church is established there and only then should he move on.

He is permitted to have satellite preaching points, but only if he has his eyes fixed on one city or town in particular.

Paul and his company let the Lord determine the place and the length of their ministry, and it varied from place to place.

A corollary to that is that there was not necessarily a church established in every city.

As I have said before, Paul was not a failure in Athens, just because a church wasn’t established there.

One man may sow, and another may water, but the Lord gives the increase and harvest to whomever He chooses.

The man with the watering can, may not get credit for planting the seed or harvesting the crop,

but if he faithful carried out the responsibilities that God gave him,

then his reward in Heaven will be as great as either of the others.

Observation six: Sometimes the ministry is understood and sometimes it isn’t.

And I’m not referring to the lost people with whom the missionary may be working.

Paul’s ministry was probably not understood by John Mark, who witnessed it first hand.

And the Judaizers who tried to thwart and disrupt the ministry certainly didn’t understand it.

The missionary has to remember that he is first and foremost the servant of the Lord.

It is to Christ Jesus that he must give an account.

And after Christ, the only church that he needs to consider is his own home church.

He should not loose sleep over what any other Christian or church might say or think about his work.

Another thing that we see is that Paul had a variety of companions and co-workers.

At times they were skilled and experienced, and others were novices and timid.

At times Paul was surrounded by helpers and at other times he was alone.

In fact, there were occasions when he was forsaken of all human assistance.

In some of his letters he refers to helpers who had left him for one reason or another.

“Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.”

But even when he was forsaken, he wasn’t – for the Lord never left him.

Even the Lord Jesus had been forsaken, but at the same time He wasn’t.

In some places the missionary will see the conversion of souls, and in other places he will not.

Sometimes those people will be saved in outstanding and obviously miraculous ways.

But sometimes the Lord will convert souls in almost a causal fashion

Often the greater the river, the smoother and deeper and less spectacular it appears on the surface.

And then in some ministries, there will not appear to be any converts at all.

A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of spending a few minutes with a Christian from Burma, who spoke glowingly of Adonirum Judson.

Judson, labored for years without any outward results.

But God was in his ministry just as much as He was in Paul’s.

Observation ten: the ministry has its times of great joy and other times of great distress and dejection.

Eleven: there will be days of abundance and days of penury.

For Paul, there were periods when the mission flourished and joyfully took care of their missionary.

There were other periods when some of the churches sent support so that once again there was plenty of food on Paul’s table.

But there were other days when Paul had to work with his hands, just to keep body and soul together.

Lastly, hopefully, as with Paul’s ministry, there will be a human legacy.

In Galatia, Timothy was saved, and became a missionary, carrying on the work that Paul had begun.

And in Corinth Paul helped to establish Aquilla and Priscilla in the things of the Lord.

And those two passed on what they knew to Apollos, and Apollos gave the gospel who untold others.

If Christianity was a pyramid scheme,

Paul would be one of the grand pubas, the gold stars, the crowned jewels of the pyramid.

He’d be right under the man who founded the scheme in the first place.

But Christianity is not a pyramid.

And yet, that is somewhat the way that it spreads and grows:

One person tells another, and he tells another.

And if that second person tells two others,

and they tell two others, soon the number reaches a hundred, and then quickly to a thousand.

If every child of God brought two others to Christ, eventually every community would be saturated with the gospel.

How many have you brought to the Saviour?

If we see anything in looking at these two missionary journeys,

We should see that despite the permanent principles of the work, the ministry is a kaleidoscope of variety.

It’s our job to discern what the Lord wants us to do, and to do it, leaving the results to the Lord.