Changed at Antioch

Text: Acts 11.19-30

Maybe you have asked yourself the question… “what did we do before _________? There are some everyday examples like emails, ring door bells, and pizza ranch but if you ever wonder what it was like before all you need is a father figure and he will be happy to explain to you how things were back in his day.

Imagine navigating through a bustling city without a map, relying solely on vague directions and the hope that you’ll find your way. This was the reality for travelers and explorers for most of human history. Getting lost was a common, frustrating, and sometimes dangerous part of the journey.

Now, fast forward to the 1970s, when a group of scientists and engineers began working on a revolutionary technology for the U.S. Department of Defense. They envisioned a system of satellites orbiting the Earth, capable of providing precise location data to anyone with a receiver. This was the birth of the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

Initially, GPS was used exclusively by the military, but its potential for civilian use was undeniable. By the 1990s, GPS receivers became available to the public, and the way we navigate the world changed forever. Today, with just a few taps on our smartphones, we can get turn-by-turn directions to almost any destination on the planet. We’ve all experienced the convenience of GPS—no more getting lost, no more fumbling with paper maps. It has become an indispensable part of modern life.

Consider how transformative GPS technology has been. It’s made travel safer, more efficient, and less stressful. It’s enabled us to explore new places with confidence, knowing we have a reliable guide to lead us.

This changes everything.

It changes the way people think about things. It may even change the way in which something is done. These kind of events propel you forward, and when you had that moment when you experienced that thing, you never go backward to an old way of doing things.

And in our text today, in the Book of Acts, we’re going to witness a moment that changes everything in the life of the local church. In fact, what we’re going to see from Acts chapter 11 sets the stage for how we get to experience church today, and we’re going to see this theme that’s repeated throughout our text.

The Church at Antioch…

1. Changed Evangelism

If you’re taking notes, if you’re into writing things down, I’d encourage you to jot this down, because it really is going to be the foundation in which we see everything play out. -Understand that the Gospel is a power that changes everything and the church confidently lived with the Gospel front and center. Antioch, through the power of the Gospel, changed the game for the church, and they changed the game for the church first in evangelism.

So, let’s go to Acts chapter 11. We’re going to start in verse 19. Let’s read this morning how the church of Antioch changed the game for us first in evangelism. This is what we read in verse 19:

Acts 11:19–21 KJV 1900

Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.

Notice how events in the book of Acts are linked together, and if we’re not careful, we’ll read right over a significant link to a promise that Jesus made way back in Acts chapter one, verse eight. Remember what Jesus said there?

Acts 1:8 KJV 1900

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Just before his ascension, Jesus outlines the global reach of this mission. He says the Gospel is going to spread through the local churches, and it’s going to look like what happens when you chuck a rock into the middle of a pond. The Gospel is going to hit initially there in Jerusalem, but those ripples are going to spread quickly, and they’re going to go out to Judea and out to Samaria. They’re going to go out to the ends of the Earth.

But notice that Jesus didn’t say how it would travel. -meaning, what was going to be the cause or the reason of it going out? We get the answer to that a little bit later in Acts chapter eight, verse one. This is what we read. This is going back just a few weeks ago.

Acts 8:1 KJV 1900

And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

It was going to take persecution to drive them out of the comfort of their own city, and some of them traveled up to Phoenicia. Others went to this island nation of Cyprus about 100 miles off the coast. And then another group of people landed all the way up in Antioch, which is about 300 miles away. And what’s fascinating to me is, as we read about their scattering across the lands, they’re sharing the Gospel as they do that.

This persecution may be driving them out from their city, but it’s not shutting them up. So, they’re moving about, but they’re still talking about the Gospel. The Bible tells us here that most of them, though, are only sharing the Gospel with other Jews…Why because they until last chapter there were no Gospel presentations to the Gentiles. Now they are a part of the target.

To fully appreciate what these men are doing an Antioch, we need to know a couple of things about this city. Antioch was a massive city in the Roman Empire. It’s the third largest at this time. There are over a half a million people living within its boundaries, and because it was a central hub for trade and commerce between Europe and Asia, it had this eclectic mix of culture, ethnicity and religions.

In fact, by the time that Luke is writing this, there’s some 18 different ethnic groups living within the city. It’s incredibly diverse, and somewhere along the line in Antioch’s history, walls were built up to fence off these different groups from each other. It’s literally a city divided from the start up, where the Jews had their quarters, the Greeks had theirs, the Syrians theirs, and the Romans theirs.

I don’t know why they did this. Maybe it was to keep peace. Maybe this was to preserve culture. I’m not really sure why they built it up in a grid with walls like this, but we know from history that Antioch had this reputation of being a wicked, wicked city. -incredibly corrupt, incredibly immoral, second only probably to the city of Corinth. It was a wicked city, even with all the walls that they had segregating everybody. And yet, Acts is telling us that the Gospel flourished in this environment. We would think it might have the opposite effect, but instead, it flourished.

The Gospel is our hope:

Romans 1:16 KJV 1900

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Why did the Gospel spread like a wildfire in a wicked city like Antioch? -because these men were doing something different. We don’t know a lot about these men. In fact, we don’t even know their names, but we do know that they spoke the Good News about the Lord. The Greek word for “speak” that’s used here in verses 19 and verse 20 is the word that’s used for normal conversation. -meaning that they weren’t preaching when they went to Antioch. It was, rather, as they were going and having their normal, everyday interaction with people, they were just talking about the Gospel as they went. This is the picture of Gospel conversations.

Being able to articulate the Gospel as you’re just going about everyday life.

Church, we can’t underestimate the power and the significance and the impact that just speaking the Gospel to our friends and neighbors. We can’t under-sell that. It still works. It’s still impactful. It’s still the way things are done, where we speak the Good News about Jesus in everyday life. The church at Antioch changed the game of evangelism. They showed us today how to be involved with people who are far from God in their sin, who have different cultures from ours, who have different religious beliefs than we do, and how we’re to learn to live faithfully and graciously and wisely among them as we just go about speaking the Gospel to them in normal conversation.

2. Changed Discipleship

The takeaway from this whole section here is a four-word statement about this thing: The Gospel requires engagement. It’s not something that you can avoid. You have to be engaged with the lost around you. The church at Antioch changed the game of evangelism. They also change the game of discipleship. Let’s continue reading this narrative in verse 22 about how they did that.

Acts 11:22–25 KJV 1900

Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul:

Can you imagine the shock and concern that went through the minds of the church leaders back in Jerusalem when they heard that these laymen were sharing the Gospel with pagans in Antioch? And now they were all meeting together, Jews and Gentiles, in the same church as one church at the same time.

So they sent Barnabas. Now, verse 24 gives us a bit of a spiritual profile of Barnabas, and from what we read here and what we know about him from throughout Scripture is, he’s the kind of Christian that you would point someone to and say, “Hey, go and be like him.” You want somebody to copy? You want somebody to become? Be like Barnabas. We’re told that he was a good man.

Now, good doesn’t mean not bad here. Good means that he was righteous, that he was obedient to God’s Word so consistently that his character was blameless.

Full of the Holy Spirit, and he was full of faith.

The focus here isn’t his skills.

It’s not his gifts.

It’s not his talents.

It’s not his resources.

I’m sure he had all of that. Like many of us, we’re all gifted and talented in certain ways. The focus of the text isn’t on those things. Instead, it’s focused more on his great faith that he has in the Lord. And it’s because of that faith that the Lord fills him with His Spirit to go and to do good.

And we get to see the overflowing of Barnabas’ faith and how he encourages these new believers when he gets to Antioch. The Bible tells us that he rejoiced at what he saw when he arrived, because (get this) worshipping with Gentiles, for him, that was a whole new experience, right? That was a game changer moment for him personally. -to experience church with Gentiles. And yet, he was open to what the Lord was doing.

He wasn’t critical of what he saw. He wasn’t trying to make that church be the Jerusalem church. Instead, what we see is that he was committed to helping these new believers grow in their faith. He was committed to teach and to encourage them in what it means to remain in the Lord, what it means to be faithful.

Let’s be honest. To abide in Christ the way that John 15 tells us to, that doesn’t happen by accident, right?

As he’s serving there in Antioch, the game of discipleship starts to change. Verse 24 tells us that a large number of people were being added to the Lord, and as they became more grounded in The Word, their witness to the lost increased, and people were responding. This is what it looks like when we say around here “disciples who make disciples”. This is that phrase in action. This church was exploding in growth, and Barnabas realized, I might need some help in this thing. I need to have another discipler come along and help these people move a little bit deeper into their walk.

Barnabas had some choices. He could have gone back to the church in Jerusalem and gotten some men from there, sure. But he didn’t. Instead, he sought now to find where Saul was, and he found Saul. The Bible doesn’t tell us that God told him to do this. It just tells us that he did it. And I think this makes sense as a helper. Barnabas remembers Saul from their time together in Jerusalem. So he knows him; he trusts him. He knows that Saul has been set apart to be an apostle to the Gentiles. He knows that and would thrive in this very diverse environment in Antioch. And for the next year, verse 26 says, Saul and Barnabas taught the church.

Discipleship doesn’t happen overnight.

Some of us try to do the whole thing in one day. You just can’t do it. It takes commitment. It takes dedication. Ease some of that pressure on yourself, and stop trying to do the whole process in one day. What we do know, in the course of the year (that may seem like a long time in some situations. I think in this situation it seems really fast), this new church, these new believers, are radically changing how their city looks.

We know that because of verse 26, how it ends. It says that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

All right, this is the turning point in Christianity for us right here. -because they were so different from the culture that was around them, they didn’t fit in any pre-existing box. And remember, Antioch is a city of boxes, where everybody stays in their own section, right? “Here’s yours, and here’s yours.” No one blended together. No one crossed the boundaries.

Everybody stayed where they’re supposed to, and these Christians here were breaking all the rules. They defied all the boxes as people were literally climbing over walls and crossing boundaries to meet together and to worship together. And the locals there didn’t know what to call them. They see this thing happening, and they see it gaining momentum and getting bigger and larger, and they didn’t know what to call them.

“Well, they don’t fit in this box, and they don’t fit in that box. And none of them makes sense in this box. What are we going to call these people?” And so they looked at how they were acting and how they were living there. “I guess we’ll call them Christians.” And they created this whole new classifications of people. This hadn’t existed before like this. -the merging of cultures and peoples from different parts of the world worshipping together like this.

I want you to see the destructive nature of the world.

Satan never changes up the play.

He had Antioch broken up to keep them locked in sin and blindness. The Gospel wasn’t held in.

He had every race partitioned off. Wasn’t enough to keep the Gospel out.

Can I just put in front of you a very important truth He is still running this play today.

We have

White guys for this party member

White girls for this party member

Notice that they have us divided by gay, straight, black, white, rich, poor. And on and on and on. This is a way that our enemy likes to keep his control over man. And it is very effective. Unless you have a Gospel like the good news of a God that sent his son to die for sins so that he could draw us all to him.

God’s plan is not that his saints make churches of on color or another. But rather that we would be faithful to live without compromise with the world and and love people despite the particular box they have chosen to stand in.

The church in Antioch is giving us a picture, giving us a glimpse of what Jesus’ Kingdom is going to look like when it’s fully consummated, when every nation and every tribe and every tongue is going to be worshipping together at His throne. It’s going to be an awesome day, and Antioch has given us a picture of what that looks like. Barnabas and Saul and the Antioch believers there, they model for us that to be a disciple of Jesus is to make disciples of Jesus.

– Question to consider: Is the life of Christ in you being multiplied through you in your community?

I’ll give you a question to consider. This is just something for you to give yourself a personal evaluation, and it’s this question: Is the life of Christ in you being multiplied through you in your community? Is the life of Christ in you actually being multiplied through you into others? -maybe people that you work with, maybe folks that you live in the same neighborhood with, maybe people that you just are around, kind of naturally, in the marketplace, or maybe with teams that you travel with or maybe in your school, depending on who you are. Is the life of Christ being multiplied through you?

The church here in Antioch is changing what personal discipleship looks like, and as a result of their reach and of Barnabas’ and Saul’s building them up in their faith, they’re also going to change the game of personal ministry. They’re going to change how the local church ministers and serves and cares for other people.

3. Changed Ministry

Let’s wrap this up in Verse 27, how this Antioch church does that. You see how thorough and effective the Gospel is when you see it transform us at the base level.

Acts 11:27–30 KJV 1900

And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea: Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

I think it’s fitting how this passage ends today, with us getting to see full circle the work of the Gospel in the life of this new local church. -how they started off as pagans.

Then they heard the Gospel, and from hearing the Gospel, they became new believers. From there, they became active in sharing their faith. Then they grew in their understanding of the Word of the Lord. And now, they’re determined to show fruit of their salvation through good works.

This prophet from Jerusalem, Agabus, comes and tells about a famine that’s going to hit, and this is something that you can read about in history books. Josephus even writes about how significant this famine was for years, especially in the region of Judea. And while most believers in Antioch would probably start stockpiling stuff for themselves, and if they had anything extra, if they had any remainder, they would send that out as relief to other people, these new disciples do something completely different. They do the exact opposite. They went into this spontaneous action of collecting goods and funds and relief to send ahead to the believers in Judea.

So we learned a couple of things that changed the game from ministry based on their actions.

First, what the disciples did in Antioch was selfless. Famine hadn’t even started yet, and these new believers were just determined to go ahead and get relief. -not stored up for themselves, but to send that ahead to the believers in Judea. They were selfless. They demonstrated for us, others before self.

Secondly, it was generous. Verse 29 tells us that each of the disciples gave according to his ability, which means they no doubt were tapping into some of their reserves, and they just had enough faith and trust that God would take care of them if that famine reached up into Antioch. I love their “just do something” mentality here.

Look, this church knew that they couldn’t reach or they couldn’t feed or help everybody that was going to be affected by this famine, and they didn’t let that stop them from doing something. They were committed to doing something. They weren’t trying to do everything. I think that’s something notable for us to keep in mind.

And thirdly, their ministry was corporate, and this is a game changer. The Antioch church was caring for another group of believers who were different from them culturally different from them, ethnicity and geographically not even close to them. And it was probably really humbling for those Jewish believers to get aid and get support from the Gentiles. But isn’t that a beautiful demonstration of God’s love and unity in Christ? -that both churches belong to Jesus and that in Christ, we are brother and sisters, and now we get to experience the joy of serving one another.

I’ll never forget the impact that a local church had on my family years and years ago. I’ll try to be quick with this story. My mom was nine months pregnant with me at this time. I was due at any moment. I was ready to make my entrance into the world, and my dad got kicked by a horse. So Men, if your spouse is nine months pregnant, I encourage you not to do anything risky like go mess around with horses. My dad got kicked, and it actually punctured his small intestine. My dad got really, really sick, and the family didn’t know this until he got really, really sick. He’s now rushed to the hospital. He had open stomach surgery then to fix this hole in his intestine.

– Every member is a minister and every minister has a ministry

We have a phrase that we use here around Calvary. -that every member is a minister, and every minister has a ministry. We’re unapologetic here that we have this expectation of serving one another and being served. Whether it’s within this building and these ministries on this campus or in our community. And that comes from our being made new in Christ. -that when Christ reconciled us to himself, we’re a new creation. The old and broken ways in which we found fulfillment and purpose and meaning in life are now gone. Now we have adopted this new life in Christ where we find true fulfillment, true identity, and real purpose. And we live as a community of disciples devoted to Him, to one another, and also to our community here in the Valley.

I love with the church of Antioch models for us and how they change the game of evangelism, how they change how people would disciple one another, and how they changed the game of ministry. And all of that paved the way for churches like ours, Calvary, to exist the way that it does here on this campus and in this community. -doing the kind of reaching, building and sending that we’re getting to do here. It is awesome to be a part of. I am so proud of this church and being able to serve with you all as we reach this community for the Gospel of Jesus.