Acts 16: Sent to Others and With Others

Introduction

You come back from grocery shopping with five bags and a fragile bottle. You want to carry everything up in one trip, all under your arms, and in front of your apartment door you realize you cannot reach the key in your pocket. Raphaël G. opens this message with the kind of situation everyone knows: we want to save time, manage on our own, depend on nobody. And that is where we see that some missions require other people.

We live in a culture that values individual performance and heroes who succeed alone. Without realizing it, Christians can slide into this idea: what God has entrusted to me, I will do alone, like a superhero. We become so focused on the mission that we end up forgetting the essential thing: people. "Mission is lived with people and for people."

This is the third message of the Apostolos series, "everyday ambassador," devoted to the life of the apostle Paul, at the Église Évangélique Apostolique de Genève (EEA). After being sent and being transformed, today's theme is relationships, drawn from Acts 16: the ambassador is sent to others, and is sent with others.

Message Outline

1. All Sent, All Imperfect

An apostolos is someone sent, an ambassador of Christ. "Once Christ is written on your heart, he is also on your T-shirt": you wear the jersey, you represent Christ where God has placed you.
Some are sent far away, others to their family, their building, their neighborhood, their workplace. Before being sent to the nations, Paul was first sent back to Tarsus, to his own people.
God does not send perfect people. Paul was a fundamentalist who became a disciple, "a terrorist turned witness." He is the living sign of grace: "no one lives too far from God's grace."
Paul is not an unreachable hero. We should not look at him and say "how great he is," but rather: "it is incredible what God did in the life of an ordinary man like you and me."

2. God Chooses Who He Sends You To

In Acts 16:6-10, the doors close one after another: the Holy Spirit keeps Paul from speaking the word in Asia, and the Spirit of Jesus does not allow him to go into Bithynia.
Luke does not say that Paul lacked faith, or that he was disorganized, or that it was spiritual warfare. It is the Spirit who closes the door. "Paul had good intentions, but it is God who gives the direction."
The preacher speaks to the person who has been sending out résumés for months and receives only rejections, and to the family looking for housing and seeing only closed doors. Without making it an absolute truth, he suggests that the Spirit may be closing one door in order to open another.
"Closed doors may not be a sign of God's disapproval, but of his redirection." God may be saying no, no, no, in order to say a big yes, perhaps right next to a neighbor who needs a testimony.
A conviction of the church: "you are never blessed only for yourself, you are blessed to bless." God is already at work in your office, your building, your family. The question is: how will I take part in what he is already doing where he has placed me?

3. Your Context Is Your Mission Field

What would change on Monday morning at the office, or on Tuesday evening at the soccer or chess club, if you saw that place as your mission field? The preacher answers: absolutely everything, right down to your relationship with the noisy neighbor and with the boss.
Before becoming a pastor, Raphaël G. was an architect in an office in Geneva. An introvert and avid reader, he spent his lunch breaks alone in the park with a book and wonderful moments with God.
One day, he understood that God had placed him in that job to be a blessing to his colleagues. He decided to eat with them every day at noon, with his little Tupperware: listening, joining the conversations, "simply being human."
After a few months, a colleague who had worked with him for two years invited him to dinner and opened up. Later, this colleague, who is not a Christian, asked him to pray for his son, who was about to undergo another operation and was at risk of losing his sight.
"It is no accident that you are placed where you are." You are no longer just an architect, a psychology student, or a mom at home with her children: you are an ambassador of God's kingdom in this office, this university, this home.

4. A Vision Always Has a Face

In his vision, Paul sees neither a place, nor an opportunity, nor a project: he sees a Macedonian begging him: "Come over into Macedonia and help us!" (Acts 16:9).
This detail matters. Paul comes from the Middle East, he grew up in Tarsus and lived in Jerusalem. The Macedonian represents a new world for him: another language, another way of thinking, laughing, and eating, other political and religious ideas. In passing, the preacher reminds us that Christianity is not first of all European: it was born around Jerusalem and spread through Africa and Asia before reaching Europe.
God seems to say to Paul: "Never forget who you are an apostle for." This face must stay imprinted on his heart. He is not sent against ideas, but to a person to love and to serve.
That colleague who thinks completely differently, that neighbor with a strange lifestyle and political ideas far to the right or far to the left: "you don't need any plan other than Jesus Christ." Love them through Jesus and serve them.
Robert Mulholland: the ultimate test of our spiritual life lies in our relationships with those around us. John Mark Comer: love is the ultimate test of our spiritual formation.
Paul was sent to all kinds of people: the jailer in Philippi and Lydia, young Timothy, rich people like Erastus and poor people, Priscilla and Aquila, Greek philosophers, Elymas the magician, the paralyzed man in Lystra, the slave Onesimus and his master Philemon. No barrier, no forbidden context.
"When you look at the face, you see the person Christ sees," beyond clothes, jewelry, and ideas. Paul approached the Thessalonians gently, "as when a nursing mother cherishes her own children," ready to give them not only the gospel but his own life (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).
You are not the other person's savior. Christ is the savior of the Macedonian, of Paul, of the people you find strange in Geneva, and of you as well. True mission happens when you and the other person are transformed by God's love.

5. Sent With Others: An Embassy

Jesus says it at the last meal: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35). What gives credibility to the message is the relationship between Christians.
Paul is rarely alone: Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Luke, Titus, and many others. Romans 16, after a masterful letter of theology, ends with a long list of names: Phoebe, Priscilla and Aquila who risked their necks for him, Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus and Junia, Ampliatus, Urbanus, and so many more.
"It is impossible to be an ambassador of Christ without being connected to an embassy." Ambassadors together form an embassy that represents more clearly who God is.
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a communion from all eternity. How can anyone represent a community alone? The preacher quotes Frédéric Godet: the love of Jesus gives the measure and nature of the disciples' love for one another, and without this love it is impossible to reflect the love that unites the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
He also quotes Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."
A confession: a little over fifteen years ago, his prayer was literally: "Lord, I want to serve you, except with other Christians." A few months later, coming out of a theology class on God at Bible school, he understood in tears that it is impossible to represent him alone.

6. Paul, Barnabas, and Mark: A Story of Reconciliation

After his conversion, nobody in Jerusalem wanted to talk to Paul, the former persecutor. Except Barnabas, who sat down with him, listened to his story, introduced him to the other Christians, and brought him to work in Antioch as a colleague.
At the start of the second journey, Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark. Paul refused, because Mark had left them in Pamphylia (Acts 15:37-39). Another translation says it was "not reasonable": for Paul, Mark was not useful. The disagreement was so sharp that they parted ways: Barnabas left with Mark, Paul with Silas. Even separated, neither one went alone.
Years later, in his spiritual testament, Paul writes to Timothy: "Take Mark, and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service" (2 Timothy 4:11). Break, then reconciliation: "this is the story of the gospel."
You do not choose the people you are sent with. You are sent with all your brothers and sisters, those sitting next to you on Sunday, with their personality, their story, their way of speaking and dressing.
Henry Ford, who was not a Christian, said: coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, working together is success. We need to learn to look at other Christians for their potential, not for their limits.
A value of the church: "difference completes us." The eye can't tell the hand, "I have no need for you"; the parts that seem weaker are necessary (1 Corinthians 12:21-22).

7. Changing Glasses

Rereading this story, the preacher noticed that Paul himself had been seen as a burden, and then treated Mark the same way. Paul was not perfect: he looked at Mark with contempt, as we sometimes do toward another Christian.
The good news is not that we are the best. It is that Jesus has looked at us differently from the very beginning. On the cross, he looks at each person's face: "I am doing this for you, because I want you with me."
He does not look at religion, political ideas, clothing, or wealth. He looks at us the way Barnabas looked at Paul and Mark: "You are very useful."
The closing prayer asks God to "change our glasses": to look with his eyes at those who are not like us, outside the church as well as inside it, to remove "the gaze of the police officer and the eyes of the judge," and to love as Jesus loved. It also invites anyone who feels like a stranger or judged by Christians to open their heart to God's kind gaze.

Key Takeaways

God's mission is not reduced to tasks: it is lived with people and for people.
Closed doors are not necessarily God's disapproval. They can be a redirection toward those he wants you to join.
Your office, your neighborhood, your family are your mission field. You are blessed to bless.
A vision always has a face: no difference of culture, ideas, or lifestyle should keep you from loving.
We do not represent God alone. Ambassadors together form an embassy, with imperfect brothers and sisters who are useful for ministry.

Personal Application

Which doors are closing in front of you right now, and how could you see them as a redirection rather than as God abandoning you?
What would change on Monday morning if you saw your workplace or school as your mission field?
What face, very different from yours, is God putting in front of you so that you will love and serve that person?
Is there a brother or sister in your church whom you have judged "not useful," like Paul with Mark?
In what area are you still trying to serve God alone, without other Christians?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why were the doors closing in front of Paul in Acts 16?

Luke mentions neither a lack of faith, nor poor organization, nor spiritual warfare. He writes that it was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, who did not allow it. For Raphaël G., Paul had good intentions, but it is God who gives the direction of the mission and who chooses who he sends you to.

What does "a vision always has a face" mean?

In his vision, Paul sees neither a place, nor a project, nor a task: he sees a Macedonian, a man from another continent, another language, and another culture. It is as if God were reminding him who he is an apostle for. Differences of culture, political ideas, or religion must not keep him from loving and serving.

Can you be an ambassador of Christ without the church?

No, answers the preacher: you cannot be an ambassador without being connected to an embassy. Jesus says that the disciples' love for one another will make them recognizable (John 13:34-35). Since God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a communion, no one can represent this divine community alone.