Teaching Summary: What Now? (Acts) Give God Your Days
Acts 13:1-12
Man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. That’s Proverbs 19:21, and it’s a good place to start, because most of us plan for the days we can circle on a calendar. Weddings. Graduations. Birthdays. Those are the days we remember. But those aren’t the days where relationships and intimacy are actually grown. That happens on the other days, the ordinary ones, when we keep showing up through washing dishes and folding clothes and conversations over morning coffee. And so it is with God.
In the church at Antioch, a small group of leaders, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul, were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the way they regularly did. Nothing dramatic was happening. It was an ordinary day. And it was in the middle of that ordinary day that the Holy Spirit spoke, setting apart Barnabas and Saul for the work he was calling them to.
That timing isn’t incidental. For an entire year, Paul and Barnabas had been in Antioch, teaching these new believers the way of Jesus, attuning themselves to the Spirit’s leading, day after ordinary day. And after a long string of days nobody would have circled on a calendar, they heard from him. The church in Antioch didn’t just give Jesus their lives. They gave him their days. That’s the beginning of Paul’s missionary journeys, and the road that eventually carries the gospel of Jesus Christ across the Roman world starts right here, in an unremarkable rhythm of worship, prayer, and fasting.
The apostle Paul is unique in church history. There’s only one of him. None of us are going to plant churches across an empire the way he did, or write half the New Testament. But building a life around daily spiritual practice, worship, prayer, fasting, in community with other believers, isn’t unique to Paul. That’s ordinary. That’s available to every single one of us.
A compass doesn’t create true north. The pole is always there. But hold a compass too close to a piece of metal, and the needle swings wherever the interference pulls it. Move it clear of what’s crowding it, and it settles, quietly, on what was true the whole time. Step outside in the dark and at first you see nothing, not because the stars aren’t there, but because your eyes haven’t adjusted yet. Give it a few minutes, and you realize the dark isn’t so dark after all. That’s what spiritual practices are doing. Worship, prayer, fasting, community, none of them move God to speak. God is already speaking. These practices clear the interference and let your eyes adjust, so you’re able to attune to what the Spirit is already saying.
How many of us have surrendered our whole lives to Jesus, but haven’t given him our days? We don’t drift from communion with God because we stop loving him. We drift because we let our days fill up with duties and distractions, one small thing at a time, until there’s no room left. Our hearts and minds are like ground that needs daily attention. Left alone, they don’t stay empty. They fill in with rocks and weeds, not because we planted them, but because that’s what happens to ground nobody’s tending.
I don’t want to take this somewhere it doesn’t need to go. This isn’t about guilt. It isn’t about shame. It isn’t even really about the simple point that you should just spend more time with Jesus. You already know that. Here’s what I actually want to say. People who experience real communion with God, who are able to discern his leading with any confidence, who get used by him to advance the work of Jesus in the world, tend to be people who practice things like worship, prayer, and fasting, together with other believers. Not perfectly. Not every day without fail. But regularly enough that when God does speak, they’re positioned to actually hear it. There’s nothing to earn here. His voice isn’t for sale. But some effort is required, and that’s exactly why we’ve built the resources we have, to help you build an ordinary, sustainable rhythm of showing up with God.
From Antioch, Barnabas and Saul were sent out to Cyprus, where they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues. It wasn’t long before they ran into real opposition. In Paphos they met a sorcerer who went by two names. Bar-Jesus, meaning son of Joshua or son of Jesus, and Elymas, meaning sorcerer. Here was a man carrying a name that means salvation while actively standing in salvation’s way, working to keep the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus from hearing the word of God. Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, confronted him directly, and Elymas was struck blind. But notice what happens next. Sergius Paulus wasn’t amazed by the miracle. He was amazed at the teaching about the Lord. The sign wasn’t the point. It cleared space for one man to actually hear, and he became the first Roman official on record to believe in Jesus.
Paul’s boldness in that moment wasn’t improvised. It was formed over a year of ordinary devotional rhythm, and opposition, when it comes right after you’ve genuinely sought and heard from God, isn’t necessarily proof you got it wrong. Sometimes it’s proof you got it right.
So here’s where this lands for you this week. Not a program. Just three questions. Who will you practice with, since Antioch never did this alone. What single practice, worship, prayer, or fasting, will you actually commit to. And when, in a day you already have, will you make room for it. You already belong to Jesus. This isn’t about earning anything further from him. It’s about giving him something you may not have given him yet. Not your life again. Your days.
