An Extraordinary Church Full Of Ordinary People

The Lord’s Supper

Ask the men to come and have a seat at the front.

The Lord’s Supper is a memorial to remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on the cross for you and me. He gave Himself to be tortured and to be put to death as a sacrifice for our sins. After three days, He rose again in confirmation that God accepted His sacrifice. If you trust in Christ to save your soul, the Bible says that God’s wrath against you and your sin is appeased. It will be turned away from you. Instead, God welcomes you as His very own child because when He looks at you, He sees Jesus. If you have not made the decision to trust Christ as your Savior, then you’re welcome to listen and observe what we do, but I don’t encourage you to participate as it doesn’t mean anything to you.

Church family, I want you to take note of one small adjustment that I’ve made in how we will serve the elements. When the men come around with the bread and with the juice, they will not be handing it to you. We may have done that for a time due to covid, but this ordinance is something for believers to participate in voluntarily out of obedience to our Savior’s command. So when they bring the plate around, if you wish to participate, you’ll need to take from the plate. It’s a small change, but we want to make sure our practice is in line with our principle.

Pray and thank the Lord for giving His body and shedding His blood for us.

Serve the bread

Read 1 Corinthians 11:23-24.

Partake

Serve the grape juice

Read 1 Corinthians 11:25-26.

Partake.

Sing ???

Review

Turn to Acts 11:19-30.

In Acts chapters ten and eleven, we saw the Gospel of Jesus Christ go to the uttermost in fulfillment of Acts 1:8. This had been our Savior’s plan from the beginning, but now, beginning with Peter, Jesus’ followers began to catch His vision. The Gospel was to the uttermost parts of the earth. Cornelius and his household welcomed Christ into their lives and when Peter returned to Jerusalem, the Jews welcomed the Gentiles into the church. There would be some growing pains as this change settled in, but the stage was now set for the establishing of local churches throughout the Roman Empire.

Message

Read Acts 11:19-21.

There is something refreshingly delightful about the ordinary.

Sometimes we may have this idea that if something is ordinary, then it is bad. In other words, the word “ordinary” often has a bad connotation to it, but that should not be the case.

“Ordinary” may suggest routine. Nearly every day, I have a routine where I prepare a cup of coffee, get my Bible, and spend time alone with the Lord. It’s a routine that I follow almost without exception. It’s an ordinary part of my life, but I look forward to that still, quiet moment before I hop on the proverbial rollercoaster and start my day.

“Ordinary” may suggest “common” or “average”, but that’s not such a bad thing either. I love to travel and I love to get away every now and then, but as the cliche goes, “there’s no place like home.” It’s great to travel and to visit other places, but there’s nothing like coming back to the region or to the place that is familiar territory to you. There is security in that which is familiar. There is stability in that which is common to you.

You see, being “ordinary” is not bad, in fact, as we’ve already seen in Acts, God delights in using the ordinary to accomplish His purposes.

Today we’re going to consider an Extraordinary Church Full Of Ordinary People.

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Ordinary people told others about an extraordinary Person - Acts 11:19-21.

Who were these ordinary people? They were followers of Christ who fled Jerusalem and resettled in the great city of Antioch. As they went, they told others about Jesus.

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Antioch was one of the greatest cities of the Roman Empire, just behind Rome and Alexandria. I read estimates that during this time period it had a population of anywhere from 200,000-500,000.

Acts—The Church Afire (19: The First Christians)

It was the melting pot for at least five cultures—Greek, Roman, Semitic, Arab, and Persian.

This city was the perfect setting for the Gospel to spread. It was the perfect setting for the establishment of another local church because Christ welcomes all who repent of their sin and come to Him by faith - whether Jew or Gentile.

One person said…

Acts—The Church Afire Ground-Breaking Preaching (Vv. 19–21)

These unnamed Jews from the island of Cyprus and Cyrene (in North Africa)—with no official direction, no human instruction, no precedent to follow, nothing but a burning love for Christ—took the message to Antioch without realizing the revolutionary greatness of their act. They were the first believers to bring the explosive light of Christianity into the midnight of paganism.

They brought the Gospel to Grecians. Now in Acts 6:1, we learned that this term referred to Greek-speaking Jews, but here, the context indicates that it means Greek speaking Gentiles, not Jews.

Consider this: Luke presents this narrative in context of Peter taking the Gospel to the Gentiles in Acts 10. He presents it in contrast of the Word being preached “unto the Jews only” in Acts 11:19. Then in the verses following we see the church in Jerusalem treating this as an unusual circumstance that warranted further investigation. This was not just more Grecian Jews coming to Christ - that had happened in Acts 6:1. This was Gentiles coming to Christ and the church in Jerusalem desired to know more of what was happening.

This would be an extraordinary church that would touch many regions of the Roman Empire by their missionary efforts. It will play an important role throughout the rest of the book of Acts.

These ordinary people told others in Antioch about an extraordinary Person - Jesus Christ. God was with them and blessed their obedience. Many people were saved. But I want to draw your attention to this fact: who carried the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the walls of Antioch? Not the apostles. No, it was ordinary people like you and me. This is how things get done in a local church.

Application:

The church at Antioch was not started by a gifted evangelist like Philip.

The church at Antioch was not started by the apostle, Paul. At this point he was still serving in his hometown of Tarsus.

The church at Antioch was not started by any named person of the New Testament.

It was established by unnamed, normal, every-day Christians who simply obeyed our Savior’s command to go and teach all nations. Isn’t it amazing what happens when we simply follow directions? God doesn’t need big-name preachers in order to get the Great Commission done; He only desires obedient Christians. Will you be that Christian?

As I’ve mentioned recently, we’ve had a number of guests from the community here lately.

It has been such a joy to meet our guests and to find out that they were personally invited to our services by folks in our church family. I can’t describe how wonderful that is to me, but I can tell you this: that’s how it’s supposed to work.

In Antioch, ordinary people told others about an extraordinary Person. Ordinary people told their life stories of how Jesus had saved them from all their sins and how He would save them too. God greatly blessed their efforts and before they knew it, a church, a local assembly of believers, had been formed.

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Ordinary people became known by an extraordinary Name - Acts 11:22-26.

Read Acts 11:22-26.

This is the third time that Barnabas is mentioned in Acts.

In Acts 4:36, he sold land and gave the money to the church at Jerusalem.

In Acts 9:27, he befriends Saul of Tarsus and brought him to the apostles in Jerusalem so that the church there would welcome him.

Now in Acts 11, Barnabas is sent as the representative of the Jerusalem church to confirm what great things God was doing in Antioch.

Obviously this man was well-respected and for good reason. It seems that in everything he did, he was an encourager. He was one of those people that when you were around them, they just made you want to live for God even more.

Read verse 23.

He comes to the church at Antioch and gets so excited about what God was doing among them that he becomes their biggest cheerleader! He was so excited! Wow! These dear people were living by faith and trying to please God in every way that they could so God was working mightily among them! It got this dear saint of God so worked up and excited that he probably just had to preach. He challenged them to cleave to the Lord and be devoted to Him!

Barnabas saw the potential of this church and he saw that he needed help to teach them. So who does he track down?

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Saul of Tarsus.

Saul had been quietly serving the Lord for several years back in his hometown. Notice this, Barnabas was a team player. He didn’t care who got the credit - he just wanted to serve the Lord and see people live for Jesus. So he went out, finds Saul and together, they returned to Antioch and stayed there for a whole year, teaching the people and equipping them to do the work of the ministry.

As they faithfully taught these dear people, they came to be known by a new name: Christians.

Wow! What a name! They became known by the name that they adored! They became known as Christians - as people belonging to Jesus Christ. Oh that the name “Christian” still had such depth of meaning in it today!

As the early churches began to include Gentiles in their congregations, they became recognized as a distinct group that was separate from Judaism. People began to realize that this was not just another sect of the Jews. There were many of those, but that was not what this was. This was a distinct group worshiping its own distinct Person: Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God!

Who was the first to become known by an extraordinary Name? Not the apostles. No, it was ordinary people like you and me.

Application: What name are you known by? Are you known as a Christian?

I’m not talking about the cultural Christian that posts a Bible verse on social media on Sunday and then lives a godless life during the week.

I’m not talking about the cultural Christian that had a preacher in the family back a couple of generations ago, so, they’re a Christian too.

I’m not talking about the cultural Christian that believes in God and even tries to live a moral life but does not know Him personally. What I’m about to say may not be popular, but they’re not any more a Christian than the others.

We have lots of those so-called Christians in our country, but they’re not Christians according to the Biblical meaning of the word. They don’t belong to Christ. They’re not one of His followers. And consequently, they’re not making a lick of difference in the fight to stop our country from its continual descent into godless secular humanism!

Why is our country becoming more and more godless? One reason is because there are many things and many people that are labelled “Christian” that have little to nothing to do with Jesus Christ!

“Pastor Tim, how can an ordinary person like me make a difference in our country?”

The same way that the first Christians made a difference in Antioch! Be different! Let Jesus shine through every part of your life!

So what about you? What name are you known by? Are you a cultural Christian? Or are you a Christian like the first Christians? I mean a Christian that more than anything else, is loyal to Jesus Christ. A true Christian has no higher loyalty. They have no one they want to please more. They just care about pleasing Jesus by living a life of faith in Him.

That’s the kind of Christian that our Savior wants you to be.

We’ve seen ordinary people told others about an extraordinary Person.

We’ve seen ordinary people became known by an extraordinary Name.

Now thirdly we see…

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Ordinary people gave an extraordinary gift - Acts 11:27-30.

Read Acts 11:27-30.

In the early days of the church, there were apostles and prophets. The apostles were eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus who were empowered to speak and to do miracles on His behalf. The prophets, like the Old Testament prophets, were used of God to foretell future events and to give Divine revelation to the churches while the New Testament letters were in process of being revealed by God, written down, and shared among the churches.

Agabus was a prophet through whom God revealed that a famine was coming.

The prophecy was fulfilled during the reign of the emperor Claudius (A.D 41-54.) [One person] notes that the reign of Claudius was marked by “a long series of crop failures in various parts of the empire - in Judaea, in Rome, in Egypt, and in Greece.”

Now notice again: who organized and funded the gift that was sent to the believers in Judea? Not Saul and Barnabas! No, it was ordinary people like you and me. The Christians got together and decided to send some funds to the poor Christians of rural Judaea who would be hit especially hard by this famine. So they gave, each one just doing what they could to help and sent the money to the elders - to the pastors - of that region. This is how things get done in a local church.

Application: You might not be able to give as much as someone else, but that’s not what God asks of you. He asks you to give according to your own ability.

Conclusion

Everything I read about the church at Antioch says that it was an Extraordinary Church Full of Ordinary People. In some ways, it reminds me of our church, and I mean that. But even more, you commit today to be that kind of church - that kind of Christian - because God delights in working through ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Invitation

Salvation

Telling others about Jesus

Being loyal to Christ - being known as a Christian

Faithfully giving your best unto the Lord