February 22, 2026 | Global Grace

Global Grace | Missions Conference 2026

Acts 11:19–30

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. (ESV)

In Global Grace, Jed Gillis walks through Acts 11:19–30 to show what it looks like when God is at work, even when it does not look dramatic. Persecution scatters believers, yet the gospel spreads from Jews to Gentiles, and “the hand of the Lord” brings many to faith in Antioch. When Barnabas arrives, he “sees the grace of God” in visible change, people turning to the Lord, growing into “little Christs,” and beginning the work of discipleship that leads him to bring Saul to help teach for a year. Jed presses the point that brokenness by itself is not grace. Grace is God’s undeserved favor that frees people from performance, produces steady faithfulness, and gives real joy as you notice God’s work in ordinary lives. This grace does not stay contained. It overflows into mission and practical love, like the Antioch church sending relief to believers in Judea, and it calls you to keep going in grace while praying for God to send laborers into his harvest.

Transcript of Global Grace | Missions Conference 2026

Jed Gillis: I'll tell you upfront right now, I, I had an introduction written out, and I, God won't let me do that one. Uh, I don't know why. So I'm gonna start the introduction that I think is gonna introduce the rest of the sermon eventually. I'm not a hundred percent sure.

What Does it Look Like for God to be At Work?

Jed Gillis: What's it look like for God to be at work?

If we just saying all kinds of glorious truth, what does it look like? What would you see? If you look in your life today, can you look at things and say, God's at work there and there and there and there and there? Or do you sit back starving to see him work and not sure where that could ever happen?

And if you say, I'm hungry and I want to see God work in my life, church around me, in my community, in the world, if you say that, then what does it look like for God to work? Because it's possible, Matthew 13, when Jesus speaks about parables, he uses the phrase for people. He says they're seeing, but they don't see. They're hearing, but they don't hear. If you're hungry to see God work, is it possible that it's all around you, in front of you and you don't see it? 'Cause it doesn't feel like you want it to or it doesn't look exactly like you want it to.

I thought when Patrick referenced from Matthew 16, the phrase Jesus is being rebuked by Peter, like Peter's standing there rebuking God. But we can do that sometimes when God's not working the way we think he should work. Jesus, you can't do it that way. God, you can't work in my kids' life that way, or my parents' life that way, or my life this way.

So just think about if you're familiar with the stories from Matthew. You can call these to your mind. If you scan through Matthew 16 or even a little bit before Matthew 15, what did it look like for God to work?

Well, sometimes it looked like a desperate Canaanite woman saying, Lord, help me. Was God working then? Yes.

Sometimes it looks like the end of chapter 15 and he's feeding the 4,000. You had a woman who said, I'm hungry. I need your help. Jesus. God was working. You had a bunch of people saying, we wanna follow you. We want to hear from you. And God was working to miraculously provide from for them.

You go down in Matthew 16 to the section that was referenced in communion right before Peter rebukes Jesus. He's making one of the most profound, amazing confessions. Jesus says, who do you say that I am? He says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Sometimes it looks like that. Sometimes God works because he takes, he opens eyes so that someone like Peter, who is a fisherman comes out and says, yes, you are the Messiah, Jesus.

But then when that same Messiah told him, I'm gonna go die, it didn't feel as good. It didn't fit his idea of what God working looked like. So he rebukes Jesus.

And one of the beautiful things about that, you know, if, if it were me, if I were Jesus, I'd probably be far too petty. And I'd say, you know, Peter, if you're gonna rebuke me like that, why don't we just let you sit on the back row somewhere over here. I'll go find somebody else who will pay attention and listen, and maybe you'll figure it out. But you know what? Chapter 17 goes straight to the Mount of Transfiguration, and who's up there with Jesus? The one who rebuked him, Peter.

God works in ways that we might see and know and in ways that we don't. Maybe God worked in your heart this morning like he did in mine. Hearing voices, praise him. Maybe you heard people around you and the weight of your week felt lighter because you said, really all creatures are gonna praise my Jesus. Christ has defeated every sin. Cast your burdens on him. Maybe he worked that way.

Maybe if. I was encouraged this morning hearing some 10 and 11 and 12 year olds pray for missionaries. Is God at work there? In their hearts and not just in their hearts, through their hearts. Is God working when you see people turn from sin to love him more?

Say, well, it's just like one little thing, one little situation. I should have beaten that sin years ago. That's what God working looks like.

I think so many times we think all the stuff we do is our work and we forget. We see all these things God does, but we don't call them God working.

It might not be the way we think he works. It might not be the way we want him to. If we're going to take a missions emphasis, a global outreach emphasis for these three weeks, which don't end in these three weeks, these are just the time we dedicate to it, to remind us that this is part of what God is at work all around the world all the time. If we're going to, if passionate and engaged in prayer, in support, in relationship with our community and with people around the world, we better believe God is actually working. We aren't taking mere humanitarian ideas that we can work out and try to make happen somewhere, and hoping it makes people's lives better. That is not the gospel. We're going to say, God is at work and I want to join Him. We'll never be passionate for outreach if we don't believe God is working.

And I would encourage you, you won't be passionate for God's work in Kenya or Russia or Ukraine or China if you don't believe God is working here.

Snapshots of God Working Through Acts

Jed Gillis: I think that gets us to Acts 11, which is where I meant to start because I want to give you this morning in just a few minutes, a few quick snapshots of accounts from Acts, and I want you to put yourself in their shoes the best you can and imagine, what did it look like for God to be working? And how does scripture describe it?

In Acts 11, verse 19, I'll tell you how I picked these snapshots as well. We've been going through Galatians and studying really grace, and throughout the Book of Acts, there's some really interesting statements about grace. I think sometimes we think that, uh, there are these theologically flowery language. That God just sticks in and we forget that it actually has a meaning.

Almost like a, did you ever write a, a paper maybe in school and you had a word count and you get to the end of your draft and you're, you know, 20 words under your word count. We're all really good at adding words that say nothing, right? God doesn't do that. He didn't have a word count for this book.

Barnabas Saw the Grace of God

Jed Gillis: So when we read in Acts 11, and we get down to verse 23. We see when Barnabas came and saw the grace of God, he didn't put grace in there just 'cause he needed an extra two words with a prepositional phrase. What Barnabas came was he saw the undeserved favor of God that had been poured out and was live, uh, lived out impact in the lives of these people.

The story begins back in verse 19. When there were people who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen and they traveled as far as Fania and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews, was God working then? Obviously. How was God working? They were running for their lives. It wasn't looking like everything worked together really well. They were fleeing, but God was working.

There were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. In other words, this group came and some of them, they're preaching only to Jews and some of them come and they're preaching to to Gentiles as well, to Greeks.

They say the gospel spread all over the known world, not because people had a great strategy plan and five steps to a growing church. There was none of that. Gospel spread because God brought difficulty on the people who loved the gospel and they wouldn't turn from it.

So they went and they preached to Jews and gentiles. Now you have an assembly of believers, a church in Antioch that have heard the truth and they need to learn and they need to grow. They don't know what Jesus said about most things. They've barely heard anything at this point. Discipleship growth needs to happen. True worship needs to happen in their hearts. They need to apply what they've heard now about Jesus, right? They've been living their lives without Jesus. Some of them I'm sure, looked good and moral and some didn't, and as they're living their lives without Jesus, the gospel comes. They say, yes, Jesus is Lord.

Now they need to know what on earth does it mean to be a husband if Jesus is Lord? What does it mean to be a wife if Jesus is Lord or a parent, if Jesus is Lord? How does that like impact anything? So you have a church of people here who need to know how their, their relationship with their neighbors and their habits and their sins and their religious practices are all impacted by the gospel of the truth of Jesus.

Was God working then? Of course he was. It didn't look like that church had everything figured out yet. Of course not. But God was working.

So the church at Jerusalem hears about this, and you can see this in the, in the story as he keeps going, the report of this verse 22 came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. So they hear, Hey, God's working over in anti. They don't have internet. They can't jump on a Zoom call, no cell phones. So they say, we've gotta figure out what's going on because if God's working, we wanna be helping, we wanna participate in that. So they send Barnabas and Barnabas came in. Verse 23, says, he came and saw the grace of God.

What Did Barnabas Actually See?

Jed Gillis: So what did he see?.

Before we even say, what did he see? Let's note you can see it. There's something which can be seen that scripture inspired by God's spirit can say he saw the grace of God. Well, we aren't given video footage unfortunately. That'd be great. There's a little hint because it says that they turned to the Lord. Verse 21.

So he saw there was something that happened in their life. They had been trusting, facing some direction, and they turned to Jesus. We get that hint. We get another hint in verse 26, where it says, in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. If you wonder where that name came from, this is it. It means little Christs.

So Barnabas came and he said, these people have heard of the grace of God, of the favor of God poured out on them in Jesus the undeserved favor. They didn't like earn it, live really good. The undeserved favor poured out on them in Jesus, they've heard of it, and they're not trusting the same things anymore. They're turning to the Lord. They're living in a way that you say they look like a little version of Jesus. That's what he saw.

He didn't say, wow, they've really cleaned up their life and got their church programs all figured out, and they're really great. He said they, he saw the grace of God because he didn't look at what was going on and think they're becoming better parents and better husbands and wives, and therefore, wow, they're such great people. He looked at it, and he saw God is working.

When we look around, when you see somebody love Jesus a little bit more, do you see a person who's doing better or do you see the grace of God working?

Seeing they do not see. If you were on the ground in Antioch, what you'd see is a bunch of people who said, Jesus really is my Lord. And they're imperfect and they mess up all the time, but they're turning to him, praising him and loving him, and it makes a difference. And they saw the grace of God.

He saw people who aren't perfect, but they aren't the same. He saw people who have, as we've talked about in Galatians, this peace and rest in their souls because of the grace of God, so that they love their neighbors, even when their neighbors do wrong to them, so that they love their families well, so that they love their enemies, so that they reflect, as Galatians says, love and joy and peace, and patience and kindness and goodness. The fruit of God's spirit, which is his grace poured out in their life. Barnabas saw grace.

When we say you're seeing grace, you're seeing God at work and not just God at work in his power, although that's true, but God at work in his favor. That's why we talk about grace as undeserved favor. That's the definition of that. When you see grace, you don't just see a powerful God, you see a God who loves those people and is using his power for them. You can see grace.

Brokenness Does Not Equal Grace

Jed Gillis: I think in our modern evangelical context, we have a a weird confusion that can happen and we think that if you see brokenness, you are seeing grace. That's not necessarily true.

I can go to any drug den in America and I can see plenty of brokenness. That's not enough to see grace. What we see is we see broken people who no longer rely on themselves, but who rely on the favor of God poured out for them. When we see yes brokenness, people who don't have to put up a mask and say, I'm not broken. I've got it all figured out, that doesn't display grace, but neither does. I'm broken and there's no hope.

It's, I can't rely on myself, but Jesus is perfectly worthy. I can rely on him and he brings healing. Jesus doesn't say, come to me as broken, and just sit in your brokenness, and that's it. He says, come for healing.

Seeing God's Grace is an Opportunity for Joy

Jed Gillis: So what's Barnabas do? He gets there, he sees grace, he sees what's going on where the gospel has come forward. He says in verse 23, first, he's glad. If you don't see God working, you miss an opportunity for joy. If you think God only works if it impacts 10,000 people, you miss a lot of opportunities for joy.

Maybe some of you think of struggles in your life, sins in your life that you say, I've tried to beat this and I just can't seem to do it. If you only think God works, if you have defeated that sin and never are tempted by it again, you're gonna find a lot of disappointment.

But I'm afraid most of the time we struggle with a sin and we're tempted and we say, no, I'm not gonna do it. And we think, okay, good. I worked. I wonder if I can do it next time. Instead of, God did that. If you turn from sin, whatever sin you're tempted by one time, why did that happen? Say, well, I don't know. I don't know all the motives. Sure. But if you turn from sin to love Jesus, that didn't happen because Satan's working. Happened because God's grace has been poured out, and I think we don't sometimes continue fighting sin because we miss all the joy of saying God is at work. He did this. Barnabas sees grace and he's glad.

And he exhorted them. He encouraged them. Remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. Continue. What you're doing in hearing the gospel and turning to the Lord and living out that grace in a way that it can be seen is good, is worthy, continue.

There's Still Work to Do

Jed Gillis: And then Paul says, there's so much work to do. Now, why did he do that? What must he have seen in Antioch? You say He saw the grace of God. He must have seen a church that, I mean, everybody's just doing what they're supposed to do, right? No. Of course not. Otherwise, he wouldn't have said, there's so much work to do.

Notice what he does next. He says, all right, I'm going to to Tarsus, verse 25. Barnabas says, Hey, I'm gonna go find this guy Saul. He's a great teacher. And if you read New Testament and you read what Paul writes, you know, he's not afraid to correct people. You know, he's passionate, you know, he's hardworking.

So think about what it looked like. He saw Antioch, saw the grace of God and says. This is incredible and at the same time said, whoa, we got work to do. It's okay to say both at the same time.

That's true for your life. It's okay to say God is at work and look at what he's doing in my soul and say, whew, I got a long ways to go. It's okay to do that in your family or your kids, your brothers and sisters. To say God is at work in them. Look at that wonderful thing and yet say, and there was the rest of the day, that was pretty bad.

It's okay to say that in your church, and that's true whether this is your church or if you're visiting from another church. It's okay to look at the people around you and say, God is really at work doing some amazing stuff, and wow, there's work to do. That's exactly what he did.

So he goes, he gets Paul because Barnabas is this networker, connector, encourager kind of guy. He goes and says, Paul, we got work to do. I'd love to have that conversation. By the way, I really wish sometimes God had given us things that he didn't, which he knows what he's doing. He knows we didn't need that. But I'd love to know how he presented that to Paul, like what that conversation went like. Either way, we get the real short version. Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

Now we know Saul was in Tarsis. He was teaching. He wasn't sitting as a hermit going, well, I'm just waiting for somebody to show up. He was serving God there both studying and serving shows up. Barnabas says, Paul, we really need somebody like you. We really need your gifting because God's grace is really here and there's a lot of work to do. So he brings Paul and they get started teaching and discipling in the church at Antioch.

God's Grace Through Willing People in Ordinary Lives

Jed Gillis: So pause a minute and put yourself in the shoes of these people. If you say, imagine you were Paul, maybe he felt pretty comfortable in Tarsus. Maybe he felt like there's probably something out there I should do. He's teaching, he's serving like that means, you know, on Tuesday he's getting up, he's reading scripture. He's praying, he's talking with a brother or sister. He's going about his work, assumedly making tents. That's what he did later. It's a normal looking day. Live to the glory of God, ministering within the believers around him, sharing the gospel with those near him, and then God brings the opportunity along and Paul says, yes, I want to go.

Imagine you're Barnabas, you're sitting in Jerusalem, thriving, good church, lots of good friends, good spiritual fellowship, and then you say, we've heard this thing in Antioch. I don't know if he volunteered. I don't know if they, you know, voluntold him. I don't know how that worked. I can't imagine that Barnabas is walking the whole way to Antioch going, this is so miserable. I just really wish I didn't have to do this. Because when he gets there and sees the grace of God, he's ecstatic.

And then we're not told that Barnabas goes off and has this like, let's just imagine what could happen. I don't know. God, what would you do? I'm sure he prayed. I'm sure he did that. But what we're told is he shows up, sees the grace of God, sees a need and says, I know the guy for that. You guys stay faithful. I'll be back.

It's not, in many ways, mystically strange. He looks, he sees a need, but what is maybe mysterious to us? That he's not just looking and saying, here's human planning and all the strategies. He's looking and saying, where's God working? That's why we had to start that way this morning. What does it look like for God to work?

Imagine you were a new believer in Antioch. Show up. They preach the gospel. Good, okay, how does that impact my life? I don't know. And then somebody says, you know something about the book of Deuteronomy, and you're like, what is Deuteronomy? I don't have a clue what that says. I need somebody to help me. And they say, Jesus, oh, I trust in Jesus. They say he's the Messiah. Wait, what's that? 'cause they don't know all these things, and maybe you don't. And that's okay. You can do what they did, which is learn from scripture.

Barnabas shows up and you go, who are you? Like we know. Oh, Barnabas, we got him checked. He's that kind of traveling Christian celebrity who connects people. He's like B-List. He's not the A-list. That's Paul. But Barnabas shows up every once in a while. Like we know that story and we know that's kind of how it sounds. They didn't have a clue. Most of them. This guy shows up, you're like, should we listen to you? I don't know. They heard him telling them about Jesus and showing it to them in scripture and said, yes, they love Jesus so much. They go, he's telling me about my Lord. I wanna listen.

And their life didn't look all that radically unusual. They still went to their jobs. They fellowshiped with people in Antioch, but they learned from Paul and Barnabas when they showed up. When you read this account. And others in acts don't think, here's this story of God working that happens in this crazy huge, unusual way and miss all the moments of ordinary life, recognizing God is working through his word, through people walking miles and miles to go from Jerusalem to Antioch, to Tarsus, back to Antioch. Of people leading Bible studies and Paul saying, Hey, here's what the Old Testament means and why. It tells you about Jesus. Don't miss the ordinary things that God was working in that stand underneath all of these stories. It's possible to see grace. That's what Barnabas saw. He saw God working and he leaned into it.

Discipleship in Antioch

Jed Gillis: Turn over to Acts chapter 13. I said, when I wrote this down, I was gonna have to summarize it. Now I really have to summarize it.

Maybe you're familiar with this story, but if you start at the beginning of chapter 13, you see this same church at Antioch, right? The one that Barnabas came to, which is interesting, right? 'cause Barnabas didn't say, all right, I got Paul back. Peace. I'm gone headed to Jerusalem. Write me a letter. Right? He didn't do that. He stayed. He stayed there for about a year at this point.

And at the beginning of chapter 13, you see a description of leaders in the church at Antioch. Now, where did those leaders come from? We don't really know fully, but our best guess would be Paul and Barnabas trained them. Now you have men who are in fact, capable of leading this church in Antioch. They're worshiping and they're fasting. Notice that's God working in this story. It's God working through very normal things.

This would be like some of, you know, uh, we just had our, our elders retreat, our annual elders retreat. So we had seven of us gathered up at Carson Springs and we spent a lot of time in prayer, a lot of time talking about church and what God is doing in our lives and in the body here and planning and all of these things. They're doing the same kind of thing. It's the elders of the church at Antioch getting together, worshiping God, saying, okay, what is God doing and how can we work for him where we are?

And the spirit impresses on them set apart from me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. And this is the beginning of, we usually call it Paul's first missionary journey happening right in the middle of ordinary ministry. Life together as believers. God was working all along that step, and it didn't stay in Antioch, it went from there. And so Paul and Barnabas go out and they go to, it gets a little confusing down in verse 13, a different Antioch. See there it says Antioch and Sidia. That's not the same one. Antioch and Smyrna is the other one. Just two different places with the same city name. So not the first Antioch, the second one. Paul shows up and he teaches, preaches a message. We could go through the whole message. The really fast summary is God chose and protected Israel providing leaders for them and prophesied that a true savior, the best leader, the Messiah, one far greater than David would come, he did. His name was Jesus, and the leaders in Jerusalem didn't recognize him as the Messiah, so they fulfilled prophecy by crucifying him. However, Jesus didn't stay dead. He was raised and he appeared to many witnesses after that.

Freedom from Performance to the Law

Jed Gillis: And so Paul says, with these historical events, that's basically, uh, verse 17 down through 37, and you get to verse 38. And Paul proclaims the good news based on what he just told them. Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man, Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you and by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Can you imagine how that would hit somebody if you had lived saying, I've gotta keep the law, I've gotta do all of this stuff to please God and to be good enough. And you knew never quite freed you. It always felt like a burden. And listen to the proclamation Paul makes by Jesus. Everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Now, he doesn't use the word grace right there, but if you look down just a couple verses into verse 43, after the meeting happens, many Jews follow him.

They speak with him, and they say, what? We love what you're saying. So Paul and Barn, Barnabas urge them to continue in the grace of God. That whole message is really summarized, Hey, that was the grace of God. Continue in it. It's not about freedom By performance in the law, Jesus came so that he would free everyone who believes in him from everything that the law could not free them from. It wasn't performance. It wasn't, how do I measure up? It was God's undeserved favor towards them.

Continue in Grace

Jed Gillis: And so he says, continue in the grace of God. So you can see grace like Barnabas, you can continue in grace, which means we shouldn't think of grace as a one time magic pill. Like I have grace. That's the first step of coming to know God.

And then after that I go, well, I better make sure I live right and measure up or, or God, like we've talked about in Galatians, he'll, he might tolerate me, but it's not really favor. Now here we have this implied, at least that we're not supposed to think of it that way. We're supposed to think of grace as something that begins our relationship with God and something we continue in.

So Paul tells them to continue in grace, and the very next week we're told. That desire to continue in grace is tested because people along them come and Jews who don't believe in the gospel start coming to say, no, that's not right. And this church, small church at the moment, maybe of Jewish converts and Jewish unbelievers, this fight is going on and they get into a real theological squabble. Sometimes we forget, like that's what we're actually reading, right? They're, they're debating doctrine.

God's Grace Doesn't Stay Bottled Up

Jed Gillis: Was God working? Mm-hmm. And the good news is God's grace never stays bottled up. Those people who were saying, no, it's not Jesus. They're trying to say, don't trust that. That message of grace should be just tucked away somewhere, not believed in. And what we're told right afterwards in verse 46, Paul and Barnabas speak to the opponents and they say it was necessary the word of God be spoken first to you since you thrust it aside and judge yourself unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles for, so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. As many as were appointed to eternal life believed, and the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.

There were opponents all over the place and they were being told, you've gotta continue in the grace of God. And it got hard fast for them to continue in the grace of God. But when God is working through his grace, it doesn't stay bottled up. I said earlier. If we're gonna be passionate about global outreach, we have to believe God is actually working. And I'll take that a step further. You have to believe not only is God working, but no one will ever stop him.

Jesus said, I will build my church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. I don't care what's out there. I don't care what opponents of the gospel there are in this country or anywhere else. You don't have to look far to find not only evil, but horrendous, disgusting, evil. Go read some news sites if you don't believe me. But just like these Jews couldn't stop the grace of God from working, no one else will either.

See, we're never gonna be passionate about playing our really tiny little slice in God's work. If we think it all depends on us. We'll be passionate about working with God when we realize he is at work and he's not stopping and no one will defeat him. So I want to help him however I can.

You say I'm pretty small. I can't do that much. You don't have to. God can handle that. So join the way he's working, continue in his grace.

Commended to the Grace of God

Jed Gillis: Last section I'll point you to this morning. You can see grace. You can continue in it. Chapter 14. This describes what happened with Paul and Barnabas when they went out on their journey. This is looking backwards, saying now they're returning to the first Antioch, so if you keep up with them, they went from Antioch to Antioch, went some other places, came back to the first Antioch and it says in verse uh, 24.

Then they passed through Sidia and came to Paraphilia, and when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Italia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, the first one where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled.

Again, don't jump past that word grace. God did not put it in there to pat his word count. They were commended to the grace of God. The word commended means to give to someone else, to commit to someone to say, here, this is yours. Management of this is yours, care for this person. In this case, Paul and Barnabas care for them goes to God. When they encouraged Paul and Barnabas to say, here's the work of God that we think God is setting you towards, and Paul and Barnabas say, yes, that's where I'm headed. They commended them. They gave them over to the grace of God to say, God is the one in in charge.

It doesn't say, merely, although this would be true, but it's more vague. It doesn't say I'm commending them to God. They could have said that it would've been theologically, right, but he's saying something more than that.

He's not saying, well, this is gonna be a miserable existence and God hopefully will protect you, and I guess if not, you'll go to heaven. So it's okay. Like it's not that He's saying, I'm commending you. I'm committing you to the favor of God. In sending them to this work, he's saying, we're not sending you to miserable existence that won't ever work, to hoping that God will someday be pleased with you.

He says, we're commending you to the favor of God. And when you join in with God's work anywhere, probably we didn't think about it this morning. It's okay that we don't think about it this way every morning. There were some workers who walked outta here teaching some kids this morning. Every kid who worked that way, every worker who walked that way are committed to the grace of God for the work of God this morning.

Now it's a little bigger deal. Maybe we'd say when you send Paul and Barnabas and you don't know when they'll ever come back, the kids will be there at the end of the service, I promise. But when you join in God's work. It's not us trying to measure up to something to make some result happen so that we feel better. It's God at work and it's us being committed, commended to, given to the grace of God to say, I am safe enough to love these children who walk out of here, to go spend my time with them and care for them. I can do that because the Almighty God of the universe has poured out unbelievable favor on me.

You can step into, we talked from Galatians recently about bearing one another's burdens. You can step into the burdens of the people around you, and sometimes that's hard, right? Bearing burdens is difficult. Sometimes you step in and you think, I don't know if I can handle the emotional weight here at all, even just to help. Why can you do that? Because in the work of counseling, of bearing someone's burdens of helping them. It's not your energy, it's you are committed to the grace of God. I can step into it because God has favor towards his children.

Same language is used in chapter 15, the end of the chapter, Paul and Barnabas, who seem to have this thriving, wonderful partnership. Right? Well, if, if you know this account, you know where it ends, at least for now. They say, we're gonna return, we're gonna visit these cities. And Barnabas says, Hey, let's take this guy, John, mark. And Paul's like, no way. And it says They have a sharp contention about ministry partners, right? That's the language that's going on. They have this sharp contention and Paul says, no, I don't think so. So they go, they separate each other. Barnabas takes Mark and goes to Cyprus, and Paul takes Silas and goes somewhere else.

Notice what it says in verse 40. Paul chose Silas and departed having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. The same language say, wait a minute, can we really commend them to grace? I mean, they just fought. Yeah, absolutely we can, because commending them to Grace isn't about the perfection of the person who's doing it. It's about the God who loved him.

So was God at work then? Was God working when two teams went out instead of one? Yes. Do we feel like that's not the way I really want God to work? Okay, I can understand that, but let's have eyes to see what God is doing to see that God is at work. Pouring his grace out in our lives, in the lives of people around us, giving us opportunities to say, I want to step into the work of ministry, which could be children's church or Youth Abide, or Sunday school classes, or discipleship at a coffee shop, or Bible studies, or evangelistic outreach, grace, marriage, all kinds of things that go on around here. It could be any of those and you say, I wanna step into the work of God because God's grace can keep me.

Pray For God to Send Laborers Into the Harvest

Jed Gillis: It could be I'm gonna commit to pray for the missionaries. We prayed for this morning to hold them up and say, God is at work around the world and I'm not there right now. I'm not part of that physically right now, but I can pray for them and I will to take those people who we have committed to the grace of God.

And uphold them in prayer to connect with them. In our world, we have email and WhatsApp and letters and any other way you wanna communicate with them to hold them up and say, I'm praying for you. How can I pray more specifically to be involved in God's work in that way. Maybe

it's like Barnabas and it's, Hey, I hear God's work and over there I wanna go see it. Can we go do that? And maybe it's like Barnabas or Paul a little bit later and saying the gospel needs to go to Perga and Talia, so I wanna take it, not because that's my plan for my work, but because I know God is working not just here in this room, not just in Knoxville, not just in America, but around the world. And I know nothing will ever stop that because God's grace cannot be contained.

So pray to the Lord of the harvest that he sends laborers. Ask him to open your eyes to see where he's working and to give you joy maybe in places that you haven't even noticed he was working. 'Cause when we read the book of Acts, no matter what, it gets labeled sometimes. It's not really the acts of the apostles. It's really the act of Jesus.

I invite you to bow before God to respond to him, to ask him to open your eyes to see where he is at work and to strengthen you by grace to join him.

Closing Prayer

Jed Gillis: Father, if we could see everything that goes on. Not in the world. If we could just see every way that you were at work this morning in this room, I know we would rejoice. Lord, I think we would be staggered at how many things you are working at, how many hearts you are working to heal. How many people who feel hopeless and you are shining, maybe just feels like a smallest ray of light into their lives.

Of people whose marriages are difficult people, whose families are difficult, and your work right now in their lives is to give them just enough oxygen to make it the next step. But you are at work.

Of people who are battling sins and you have worked to convict them and work to strengthen them. And maybe they long to fight against that sin, but they feel so weak.

If you are at work of people who know every Bible answer for doctrines, but who feel cold and who long to have a deep hunger and thirst to worship you and long to be filled, you are at work in summer camps and seminary trainings and church planters and college ministries and refugee camps.

Lord, give us eyes to see. Fill us with joy and fill us with strength to join you in your work. And thank you that you, you win. That you are the victor, the one who conquers.

And so we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.