The whole question of how we hear God’s voice has occupied people for centuries. Books have been written on the subject and there is far more to this question than can be answered in a short post! But as we look at Acts 13:1-3, we see three crucial elements mentioned which I think facilitated the response that was to lead to the first missionary journey and the spread of the gospel to the wider world.

Worship, prayer and fasting are mentioned in these verses, and it was from these activities that the Holy Spirit spoke (we are not told in what form, though the mention of prophets and teachers may hint that this came through a prophetic word). These three things need to be at the heart of every church’s life.

Worship involves all that we are and do. We often think of it in terms of praise – singing to God, bowing before Him, lifting our hands, playing instruments. The word itself implies service, however (Rom 12:1 in the NIV talks of worship, whereas in the KJV it talks of ‘reasonable service’), and the Message version of Rom 12:1 makes us realise that worship really is about everything: ‘your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life.’ In terms of church gatherings, I do believe there is a vital place for adoration, praise and worship, however, where our gaze is firmly fixed on who God is and what He has done and I’m firmly convinced from the Bible that music and singing have a vital role to play in this.

Prayer is our communication hotline to God and involves both listening and talking. The implication is that once they heard from God, they needed to continue to pray before action was taken. I’m convinced we often react and act first and pray second, and this is a problem every church needs to address. Prayer will often involve waiting on God. We have absolutely no clue from Acts 13 how long it was after they heard the Spirit speak to them that they set out on the journey, but it’s clear there was no precipitous rush. Often, we are in a much greater rush than God is; prayer keeps us in line with God’s timings.

Fasting means to go without food, not in order to lose weight but to spend time with God and to focus our attention on God. Fasting essentially is a way that we discipline ourselves spiritually, for we are so governed by our appetites. When we fast, we acknowledge that God is more important than our hunger, that ‘man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Matt 4:4) Prayer and fasting are often mentioned together, as in Acts 13:3, and this shows us that there must be discipline and sacrifice if we are to hear and obey God.

These three things need to be higher on our agenda than anything else, I think, if we are to hear from God the specific instructions we need to help us do His will.

What is the main business of the church? This is something which has been debated for centuries. Many things can be considered, but we must always remember that Christ is the head of the church and we are His body, not the other way around. He is the One who ultimately dictates what the ‘main business’ of the church is and His parting words to His disciples make it plain that making disciples has to be the key focus (Matt 28:18-20, Acts 1:5-8). This main goal of evangelism and missions is not just to reach the lost, however, but also to glorify God, for (as John Piper puts it in his book ‘Desiring God’), ‘the glory of God is the supreme goal of history.’

In Acts 13:1-12, we see a turning point in church history. Until this point, people have preached the gospel wherever they have been scattered, but this is the first time we see a local church (Antioch) sending out people (Barnabas and Paul) for the specific purpose of evangelism and mission. Howard Marshall says, “The importance of the present narrative is that it describes the first piece of planned ‘overseas mission’ carried out by representatives of a particular church, rather than by solitary individuals, and begun by a deliberate church decision, inspired by the Spirit, rather than somewhat more casually as a result of persecution.”

There are many questions left unanswered in this narrative, particularly as we consider the rather enigmatic manner in which the Holy Spirit makes His will known to them: ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ (Acts 13:2) We may want to know exactly how He spoke (through the prophets mentioned in the preceding verse?) and how it became clear what this work was to be and where it would involve them going, but our only clues are in the truths that this happened while they were worshipping and fasting. Worship, service, and self-denial are at the heart, therefore, of hearing God speak – and, it must be added, in determining how we respond. (Acts 13:3) We can’t offer formulaic answers, for God speaks to us personally and the manner in which He does this will vary according to individuals and situations.

It must have been a blow to the church to lose two of its leaders in this way, but they recognised the importance of the ‘main business’ of mission and evangelism and sent them on their way with their blessing and commendation. May we have ears to hear the Spirit’s voice as they did and be just as committed to mission as they were.

Shakespeare wrote, ‘Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.’ (Macbeth, Act IV, sc iii). All of you know that I’m most at home with words. They are my solace and strength in so many ways.

Over Easter I spoke about how death is an affront to us because God has placed eternity in our hearts. All humanity instinctively grieves over death because somehow we understand this was not how life was meant to be. All death causes us to stop, to reflect, to pause, and one of the strangest aspects is when the bereaved person wakes up on the day after discovering the death of a loved one and realises life is going on all around them as if nothing has happened. The sun has risen. The birds are singing. People are still chatting and laughing. You wonder how that can be so when your world has tilted and shifted so irrevocably. How can life go on when this life no longer will?

Our thoughts during a pandemic are relentlessly forced to think of death. Daily briefings pour statistics at us of confirmed cases and deaths related to Covid-19 in ways that mean panic and fear are stoked. I have been left angry and frustrated at this, because deaths occur every day and are not heralded or spoken about, and yet perhaps they ought to be. I don’t mean to minimise the grief felt at every death at this time, for each person’s death matters. But I am not at all convinced that this daily bombardment is helpful or healthy.

In the midst of all this, I am having to deal with death personally: the death of my father, suddenly and unexpectedly following a fall at his home. Suddenly, he is an additional death statistic that’s unrelated to the pandemic (and therefore unmentioned on the news bulletins), but his death brings death close to home. My family is mourning a father, a father-in-law, a brother-in-law, a grandad, a great-grandad. His church family feels shocked and helpless at the loss of their member. The manner of death doesn’t really change the reactions to death. I still woke yesterday and listened to normality with a strange sense of detachment, even in these abnormal times.

The truth is ‘in the midst of life we are in death’. I learnt this at an early age and have always been acutely aware of how fragile and precious life is. But, as Garry preached on Sunday evening, Jesus came to free us from the fear of death (Heb 2:14-15). I am confident my father is now in the presence of the One who defeated death and therefore my grief and mourning are filled also with hope. Whether we live or die, those who have trusted Christ as their Saviour belong to the Lord. (Rom 14:8) That’s all that really matters, and it’s why the gospel message must be shared with all at this time when, for once, death is allowed to be in our thoughts.

When I was at school, in both maths and English I was taught that double negatives make a positive: in maths, if you multiply two negative numbers, you get a positive number (I’m not sure I ever understood why) and in English, I was taught that two negatives cancel each other, resulting in a positive. ‘You ain’t seen nothing‘ means you actually have seen something.

Double negatives are sometimes used to create litotes, a deliberate understatement for effect. I think this is perhaps why the NIV translates 1 Corinthians 15:10 as God’s ‘grace to me was not without effect’), thus drawing our attention to God’s amazing and utterly effective grace. In Greek, we are told God’s grace is not in vain or empty or barren (J.B. Phillips translates this as ‘the grace He gave me has not proved a barren gift‘), but the English version does make us pause over the phrase to be clear we actually understand what Paul is saying.

Double negatives make us stop and think. Other versions put the positive spin on the phrase to make Paul’s meaning crystal clear (the Message version says ‘I’m not about to let His grace go to waste‘; the Voice version says ‘I have made sure His grace to me was not wasted.’) I quite like the linguistic effort of working through the double negative, however, to reach the conclusion that God’s grace is effective in every situation and for every person. Grace is that all-purpose ingredience vital for every day!

So, how are you coping, then, in this strange new world of lockdown? There’s a lot of talk about coping strategies online and about protecting and strengthening our mental and emotional health, about how to build resilience at a time when nothing seems quite normal anymore. A quick trawl through Facebook quickly reveals people cope in different ways: knitting, crocheting, crafting, sewing, baking, gardening and so on. All perfectly normal hobbies that are useful at any time.

But I’ve become somewhat alarmingly aware that some of my coping strategies aren’t tenable in the long-term and have been digging a little deeper into why I do these things. My main coping strategy has been to take advantage of the opportunity to shop for food and then to spend the rest of the day cooking and eating. My food bill has doubled since lockdown, even though I am supposedly only feeding two people now instead of more! I have spent a lot of time preparing wonderful meals: pancakes with berries and yogurt for breakfast (pretending I’m in the Mediterranean, presumably), making batches of cheese scones for coffee breaks, baking cakes to give to other people, cooking beautifully prepared lunches and dinners… and judging by the photos on Facebook, I’m not the only one.

When I question ‘why’, however, I realise that the superficial answer that ‘I’m a feeder’ doesn’t really cut the mustard. I have bought so many chocolate treats for my grandchildren (delivered to their doorstep like an Easter bunny on steroids) that they probably could have a treat each day for the rest of the year. I’ve delivered enough food in a week to my elderly father to feed him for a month (and his freezer isn’t that big!) Why?

In part, it’s to alleviate boredom, to use up some of the additional time I now have. In part, it is a desire to help others. But mainly it’s an attempt to pretend things are normal when they’re not. Because cooking and feeding are part of my known, familiar world, and I prefer that world to the reality I am actually inhabiting.

This present situation leaves us feeling helpless. Our usual routines are left in shreds. And that leaves me with guilt (I’ve always struggled with irrational guilt) and inadequacy (another familiar burden.) I’m not out there like the key workers, working as usual in unusual circumstances. However much I clap them and no matter how many morsels I make to pass on to them (and I’ve done that too!), I feel guilty for not being on the frontline. No matter how much propaganda comes my way telling me I’m saving lives and saving the NHS by staying at home, I don’t feel good about it.

Added to that is inadequacy – the feeling that I’m not doing enough or that my attempts to work in new ways (livestreaming church services, for example) aren’t hugely successful. My husband reponds to change and challenges with the long-legged aplomb of a hurdler, but I’m here in my usual schoolday sports’ day misery: staring at the hurdles and thinking they look like high jumps. The familiar ghost of inadequacy – that voice that tells me nothing I do is good enough – is as present in lockdown as in everyday normality. I don’t really know why I expected otherwise!

Coping strategies are one thing, and not to be despised at all. But they are not, in themselves, solutions (and that’s fine.) But if I’m honest, I find it much easier to hide in the kitchen making another meal than I do taking time out with God. I find it easier to do something with visible, tangible, edible results than I do spending time in prayer, waiting on God and studying His word and essentially living by faith. I don’t think I’m alone in that.

There’s been a lot of talk about ‘getting back to normal’ and some debate about how we’d all like the ‘new normal’ to look. Most of us admit that the rat race, dog-eat-dog, materialistic way of living that leaves us exhausted, too tired to play with our children and too stressed to enjoy friends and family time isn’t really the way we want life to be. But if we don’t learn to create a ‘normal’ with God at the centre, this period of lockdown won’t have taught us anything truly worthwhile or lasting. So I’m abandoning the kitchen for now and spending some of this Bank Holiday just chilling with God.

Garry spoke tonight on ‘The Messiah’s Manifesto’, initially speaking from one of Isaiah’s Servant Songs (Is 42:1-7). Here, we see that the Servant of God would be aided by God, approved by God and anointed by God, a bringer of justice, but not in the retributive way people were expecting. Instead, He would work with tenderness and gentleness, giving light, sight and liberty to all.

Jesus proclaimed and delivered freedom to all. Speaking in the synagogue (Luke 4:18), we see Him quoting from both Is 61:1-2 and Is 58:6, to show us who He was and how He would work. He taught about freedom (see John 8:31-32, 36), showing us that by His death and resurrection, He offered freedom to the prisoners and the oppressed. All of us were prisoners to sin, and His rescue does not involve tunnelling out or fooling the guards, but paying the price in full.

What exactly does Jesus offer to free us from?

1. We are freed from sin and its control

Acts 13:39 says, ‘Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.’ The law showed us how to be perfect and acceptable to God, but unfortunately, we are not perfect and cannot keep the law perfectly. Help is available, though. Rom 6:5-7 reminds us that we have to put to death the old life, which is not easy (firstly because we are so used to the way of sin and secondly because it is often enjoyable.) To play with sin, however, is to play with fire (see Prov 6:27) and we must cooperate with God to enter into the freedom from sin He can give us. (Rom 8:1-2)

2. We are freed from guilt

Our consciences are like the ‘app’ that tells us when we have crossed the line between right and wrong, but we can be either over-sensitive (as Paul realised when discussing meat sacrificed to idols) or desensitised (when our consciences are ‘seared’). We need to have a trained conscience, understanding that Jesus truly has freed us from the debt of sin and therefore we can approach Him with confidence. (Heb 10:22)

3. We are freed from our fear of death

Heb 2:14-15 tells us that Jesus has freed us from our fear of death. Without Him, we are lost, the curse of death is upon us and we have no hope beyond this life. All we could expect is ‘a fearful expectation of judgment’ (Heb 10:27), but Christ has died and risen again, thus breaking the power of death. All around us, we see a fear of death (perhaps exacerbated at the present time because of the pandemic), but the resurrection demonstrates how Jesus can free us. If He can free the disciples who were huddled together in a room even after the resurrection (John 20:19) and transform them into fearless evangelists who faced martyrdom with courage, He can do the same for us!

We’re very aware of manifesto pledges during political elections and how these are (usually) not worth the paper they are written on. Jesus the Messiah not only pledges to bring liberty; He makes good on His promises!