A Church Like That

Intro:

What is success? How would you define it?

Maybe you would define success as having a lot of money

Or a definition of success would be having a perfect little family with a white picket fence

And I’m so close you guys....so close (show picture)

Let me hear some of your definitions

So we’ve got some different definitions, but one thing was true in all of them…success always is based on the achievement of something right?

If you play sports, success is winning the trophy

If you are in a play, success is everybody remembering their lines and the play working perfectly

If you are at your job, success is hearing your boss tell you you are doing a great job

Which I hear all the time

But success is always the achievement of something

So when it comes to the church....how do we define success?

Some may say it’s defined by the amount of people that attend that church

So in Cumberland, Cornerstone would be considered one of the most successful

Others may say a successful church is determined by how relevant they are

Is the music basically the Christian version of coldplay? Does the pastor wear distressed jeans and have tattoos?

Not necessarily wrong

Do all people feel super welcome and comfortable there

Still, another determiner could, and often is, how much money the church has

Or maybe it’s whether or not the gospel is preached weekly, which is important

Well, winner winner chicken dinner, tonight is your lucky night because we are going to see the answer to the question:

What makes a church successful? How does a church achieve what it was designed to achieve?

We are going to look at three (there are more) attributes of the church in Antioch tonight

And just for a frame of reference, the church of antioch plays the largest role in the missions movement that we have or will ever see?

Why?....because we are the outcome of this Antioch moment that we are going to read about tonight

Foundation - The Word of God

Read

The church of antioch, their foundation was firmly rooted in the Word of God

We notice two things that point to this in verse 1

1. The diversity of the men of God

There are listed for us 5 men, from vastly different backgrounds

Barnabas - who we know is from Cyprus (), an island off the coast

Simeon, who was called Niger - Which literally means he was black-skinned, most likely from Northern Africa

Lucius of Cyrene - also, from a city in Northern Africa

Manaen - now get this, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch…you know, the one who beheaded John the Baptist…yep, lifelong friend, possibly even a step-brother of a cruel murderous man

Saul - and, well....if you don’t know who Saul is by now…then this has been a hopeless exercise since September!

But do you see the diversity here…men from totally different locations, totally different backgrounds, and totally different skin colors

2. But not only were they diverse, they were all prophets and teachers in the church of antioch

They were the pastors, if you will, of the church of antioch…they were the leaders of the church in antioch

Which points out something to me, and hopefully to you, about the church in antioch

You didn’t have to be of a certain race

You didn’t have to be of a certain social standing

I.e.....these men all came from different backgrounds and circumstances....you’ve got Manaen who grew up in a palace for goodness sake

You didn’t have to necessarily act a certain way, again, different cultural backgrounds =’s different ideas and practices in daily life

And to me, this is proof that their foundation, their common goal, was the Word of God, which we see demonstrated in the fact that they were all leaders, pastors, in the church.

They all relied on the Word of God as the foundation, and as the glue that held them together

And my prayer for us, is that we will always be, as Strive, a group that is bonded and held together and standing upon the Word of God

Not held together by a person, or events, or anything else

It is the only thing strong enough to do it

And so if we want to be a successful, God-ordained, God-pleasing church, this has to be our foundation.

Focus - The Glory of God

This next attribute is so closely tied to the first one, that it is almost a result of the first attribute being true in the lives of a church

Here’s what I mean…if our foundation is the Word of God, meaning, if we find this to be of utmost importance, we believe this, we trust in this....

Then, as an outcome of that our Focus will be on the glory of God.....that’s our second point here in what we should try to mimic and imitate from the church in antioch

Standing on one leg illustration - focus on a certain thing....you can stand

But what does it mean to be focused on the glory of God?

It means that we believe, and I mean truly believe that everything we do is to be done to the glory of God....which is impossible by the way…because we are sinners

But if our focus is on that, then we will work our hardest to glorify Him....not to earn, but to glorify

Look at verse 2 with me

While they were worshiping and fasting to the Lord

They were willing to take the focus off of themselves in a very real way of fasting

What is fasting?

What is the point of fasting?

Fasting is two-fold:

Saying I want YOU more than anything

But it also exposes idols in our lives…things that take too much importance

See, when our foundation is right, our focus will be too

Fully Surrendered - To the Mission of God

And those two attributes lead us to our 3rd and final attribute

You can all breath a sigh of relief

The church of antioch was fully surrendered to the mission of God.....regardless of what that would or could look like

So what do we mean by being fully surrendered to the mission of God? We mean being completely open to doing whatever it is God would ask us to do

Look at verse 2 & 3 with me

There are a couple things we can see from these verses:

1. Because they were grounded in the Word and focused on the glory of God, they were able to rightly discern what it was God wanted them to do

They heard the Holy Spirit say to them, you see Saul and Barnabas over there?

Well, yeah, they’re our senior pastors, they’re the two most vital to our church, of course we see them.

Well the truth is, if

I want them to leave, I want them to go

Hey God, us again, are you sure? Because they are kinda important to us

They were able to hear, regardless of what the message was, because they were fully surrendered

2. Secondly, they were willing to listen

A lot of us hide behind the whole “I’m just waiting for God to tell me where to go.”

Well, I can assure you, if you get your foundations right, if you get your focus right, and if you are willing to fully surrender....he’ll use you in a magnificent way

The church leaders were fully surrendered and listened to the leading of the Holy spirit, as we see at the end of verse 3.

And as Paul and Barnabas head off on the first missionary journey, what is about to happen is only by the grace and mercy of God…but Christianity is about to explode in a way that is still affecting the world today.

The ripples are still rippling

A Church Like That

I don’t know about you guys, but I want to be a church like that, I want to be a youth group like that

One that is willing to lay aside man made religion and find our foundation in the Word of God

One that is willing to focus less on ourselves and what we want, and what makes us happy, and would rather glorify God

One that literally, as a church, as Strive student ministries, says, Here we are Lord, use us however you want to

Which brings me to our last point.....Application

Application

For 13 chapters now, we’ve seen the Holy Spirit doing something miraculous in and amongst believers havent we?

And why? Because they were willing to be led by the Holy Spirit

And tonight, we’ve seen even more proof that God is longing to work through believers, if we will just step out their and DO SOMETHING!!!

And so, this summer…we’re going to! We need to put into action what we see way believe. We need to demonstrate authentic faith. We need to learn how to get out of our comfort zones, and get into the zone of being led by the Holy Spirit

Backyard Bible Club

I need to be able to count on you

[Art Azurdia] What is authentic faith? The cultivation of an optimistic outlook on life with a kind of spirituality attached to it? A holy hoping for the best? Is this how you think of faith? Authentic faith is the confident assurance in events not yet seen Faith is not a call to believe in things when common sense tells you not to Faith is not a mindless stab in the dark It is not a crossing of the fingers and hoping for the best It is not a leap into apparent nothingness It's a word that speaks of reasoned, careful, deliberate, intentional thought Thought upon what? God and his promises If you are absolutely gripped by the coming realities that have been promised to you by God, then how you live your life in the present will be radically different than if you did not possess that certainty This is what faith is, my friends! Positive certainty expressed in action Authentic faith is not merely believing in God. It is believing God Taking God at his word, living in obedience to his revelation whatever the cost because you know down deep in your bones that God will always do what he says, that his speaking is his doing It is an abiding assurance in God and his promises that animates you to persevere in your obedience to Him Do you wish to be a more consistently obedient, steadily persevering Christian? A stronger Christian? A more courageous and outspoken Christian? Then you need to strengthen your faith! Your faith instinctively strengthens in direct proportion to the expansion of the object of your faith! You expand your understanding of the object of your faith and faith itself will obediently follow The object of your faith--if indeed you are a Christian--is Jesus Christ and all of his promises Is your faith weak? It is owing to the fact that you don't know the object of your faith well enough But when Jesus Christ becomes progressively bigger, or better yet, your understanding of who he is progressively conforms to reality, your faith will become increasingly stronger But how does that happen? By immersing yourself in the faith-arousing Word of God Read of Jesus Christ! The same powerful Word that long ago brought the universe to life is the same Word that can bring you to life and furnish you with a faith that is truly and authentically Christian