ANTIOCH OR ANTIQUATED

ANTIOCH OR ANTIQUATED Acts 11:19-30 13:1-3 Romans 12:1-2 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of direction and inspiration: the Holy Spirit; the Word of God; William A. Beckham, The Second Reformation; Elton Trueblood, The Company of the Committed and The Validity of the Christian Mission; Juan Carlos Ortiz, Disciple; Paul Borthwick, Stop Witnessing and Start Loving July 13, 2003 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] The Marks of the Antioch Church 1. A Church for the SCATTERED (Acts 11:19-20) The persecution that began with the stoning of Stephen back in Acts 7-8 forced the almost exclusively Jewish church out of Jerusalem, their comfort zone. The result was that the gospel went into new territories. But it went primarily only to Jews (19). The one exception was a group of Christians who had already had experience in more cosmopolitan settings. These daring believers shared the Gospel (successfully as it turns out) with Gentiles/Greeks/non-Jews. There are always a few who see beyond the immediate and the Comfortable-those who are willing to risk in order to see the mission expand to wider possibilities. Let's pray that the Lord will always send us the pioneering, apostolic missionaries who are willing to go beyond the borders to reach unfamiliar, but lost, people with the saving message of Christ. 2. A Church for the UNREACHED (Acts 11:20-23) The reason the church is continually being planted in new areas: The lost are there! It's been said that the church is one generation away from extinction. And it's true. I will venture further to say that if the church brings the Gospel only to our kids and our kin, we will fall way short of the goal of Matthew 24:14 -having the gospel preached in the whole world before He comes. I thank God for the Bob and Jan Claus' who refuse to see retirement as a time of relaxation, but have invested themselves time and again in challenging and often dangerous mission work. I thank God for the Brent Gregory family, and the Jim and Cindy Buis' who leave lucrative careers to get out into a new and unfamiliar culture for the sake of the Gospel. The list goes on: Tim and Sue Eckert in Niger, Etienne in France, Terry and Susan in Jericho Scott and Michelle in Brazil, ten volunteers who leave their jobs and homes, using personal vacation and unpaid leave time to serve needs in the name of Christ in Guatemala, twelve year old Bobby Claus who is now serving in Jamaica, and the over 30 who have gone out short- and long-term from this church in mission work. I pray we will always see ourselves as unsatisfied to stay on safe shores, but always willing to go and send for the sake of the Kingdom. This is the reasoning behind the multiplication of cell groups: to reach new areas, new oikos groups, new neighborhoods with the salt and light of the Gospel. May we be found faithful to always go when called. 3. A Church for the NEW CONVERTS (Acts 11:21-26) A "great number" believed in Antioch (that is mentioned twice). It seems to always be the case that brave, sacrificial outreach expands the boundaries of the kingdom. And once a new culture is penetrated with the good news, it spreads like leaven in a loaf. Once the great number started coming to the Lord, the apostles over in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to them. Why? Well, they probably just weren't too sure this was all legitimate ministry up in Antioch. The other reason-I believe God's reason-was that new converts need pastoring, and Barnabas was nothing if not a good, caring and capable pastor (24).     But it wasn't long before Pastor Barney realized he needed help. Where did he turn? He turned to the man he had helped to ingratiate to the church in Jerusalem after he had converted from church persecutor to radically saved saint. He sent for Saul, knowing that he had a heart for people and the Gospel, that he had a calling to preach to Gentiles, and he had a lot of guts. The dynamic duo served the growing church, doing lots of discipling. Again we read of "great numbers" as the scripture describes the group that Saul and Barnabas taught (26). How do you disciples new converts? Good question! The Word tells us they continued to do exactly what Barnabas did when he first got there, namely, "he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts." [webmasters note: Acts 11:23] Friends, this is what the new believer needs-someone to come alongside him and encourage him to remain true to the Lord with all his heart.     That's what our Design for Discipleship program was created to do. Not just another classroom ordeal. It is set up to get two very important people together: the new convert and a more experienced sponsor who can disciple him. It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of this connection, this ministry. I have seen literally hundreds of people, newly converted to the Christian faith at a Crusade or Revival meeting or through some evangelistic encounter brought to church and ignored. And that at the very time when 1 Peter 1 says they are most hungry ("craving") the Word. Yet they are left out like a baby left on the front step. This ought not to be. New Christians, the babies in the faith, are to be quickly and purposefully discipled, developed and then deployed to reach others who live in their "Antioch". 4. A Church for the HUNGRY (Acts 11:21, 26; 13:1) Church is responsible to link up disciples in relationship. Take advantage of that natural craving for Christian nurture. And start making leaders out of converts. We should be very serious about getting teachers with students, Paul's with Timothy's, and disciples with sponsors. What will that take? Grown up Christians who are willing to: 1) study through the Bible study course work, 2) be paired up with a newer Christian of the same gender, and 3) lead them through the two-to-three months worth of discipling and ministry. 5. A Church with Gifted Leaders (Acts 11:25-28) God outfits His church with gifts that the church needs. Make no mistake-it was He who sent Barnabas and Saul both to Antioch, and to the larger mission field to which they were called. And know that He also outfits and equips the church, any and every church, with the gifts and leaders they need. 6. A Church of Generous Givers (Acts 11:28-30) One of the greatest lessons a church must learn is generosity. God Has in His wisdom NOT chosen to fund the church with heavenly airdrops. As He always has, He works through His willing people to support the work. Generosity drives the kingdom. The great lesson every church must learn is that all our resources belong to God, and we are to handle them wisely and faithfully. The great lesson each believer must learn is generosity. Someone insightfully quipped that the pocketbook is the last thing to get converted. And that ought not be. People who are saved by grace are enabled to be the most generous people on the globe. Are you? 7. A Church of Sincere Intercessors (Acts 13:1-3) The church that is serious about doing the will of God must pray. Nothing great ever happens without prayer. First Church of Antioch was a place and a people of prayer. Look at them worshiping and seeking the Lord. That's when He spoke to them and gave them the leading they knew they needed. The church must pray. From the elders to the cell groups, even to the meetings for various ministries are to be bathed in prayer. We encourage that every meeting be marked by sincere prayer for the mission-at least a third of the meeting time devoted to prayer. Someone might object, "You'd never have time to get anything done!" Prayer gets geometrically more done than talk and discussion! And if there is anything left over that 30 minutes of prayer didn't get done, it doesn't need to get done! 8. A Church of GO-ers and SENDERS (Acts 13:1-3) Picture an unselfish church, praying for, and sending missionaries that's the church at Antioch. It was in a prayer meeting that they first heard the leading of the Spirit of Christ that they were to send a couple of missionaries out to the rest of the Gentile populace in the Roman Empire. Not just any missionaries either! God wanted their own beloved Barnabas and Saul to go for Him. That was a real sacrifice for the church! Why the Antioch Church doesn't happen in 21st century America -Enculturation - the Nemesis of the Antioch experience To enculturate means "to cause to adapt to the prevailing cultural patterns of one's society" Of course, that can be good or bad. See Romans 12:1-2. I want to speak to four key components of our culture & how they militate against vital faith and ultimately erode away the kind of characteristics that marked the Antiocheans. I love Tupperware. I am holding a hamburger mold. This is what you use if you want a nice, thick, neat hamburger to put on the grill-none of those raggedy edged pseudo-hamburgers! A glob of meat goes into the container, then this piece with the nice handle on it goes in over the meat, and is pressed down forming a nice attractive burger. J.B. Philips' translation of Romans 12:2 - "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold." The devil uses the process of mashing and forming us into something he designed-something unusable by God. There are four components of worldly thinking that the enemy is trying to mold in our minds and hearts. And if we let him get this molding done, we will find ourselves utterly UNlike the First Church of Antioch. 1. Self-centeredness - selfish concern for only "me & mine", looking out for Number One The pilot was sitting in his seat and pulled out a .38 revolver. He placed it on top of the instrument panel, then asked the navigator, "Do you know what I use this for?" The navigator replied timidly, "No, what's it for?" The pilot responded, "I use this on navigators who get me lost!" The navigator proceeded to pull out a .45 and place it on his chart table. The pilot asked, "What's that for?" "To be honest sir," the nav replied, "I'll know we're lost before you will." One of the most appalling things about our culture is the degree to which people refuse to care for others. The devaluation of the worth of other human beings is a symptom of our distance from God; so is our elevated opinion of ourselves. Little quiz - you're headed to the mall. It's very hot outside and you're looking forward to the air-conditioned comfort of the stores. What are you thinking when you pull into the parking lot? BEST, CLOSEST PARKING SPOT. Have you ever wondered about others who need a closer spot than you? Besides, won't the exercise do you good? Ever been to a Christian concert with real "headliner entertainment"? Two hours before the doors open there are all the Christians maneuvering closer to the door than the other Christians. Then when the doors open, they rush and almost trample each other so they can get the best seat, displacing others so they can get the blessing of being up close to the stage. The question I want us to consider is-Is the world squeezing me into this mold of self-centeredness? 2. Materialism - preoccupation with the accumulation of riches, "stuff" and earthly security Closely related to the worldly tendency to be self-centered and self-serving is this value system. In a society as rich as ours, this is a powerful problem. In poorer cultures the temptation to the idolatry of riches and possessions is not as strong, because they don't have the resources to buy or own any more than they need. We do, and we do. Sometimes, when I hear the stories of the poor people in Guatemala and I start to feel genuine sympathy for them, I wonder to myself, "Maybe I'm the one who should be pitied." In a society where every street corner has a sign or billboard, advertising something I should have, where the rich are addicted to Nieman-Marcus, the not quite so rich to Famous-Barr, and the rest of us to Wal-Mart and yard sales, we have a problem. We are allowing the world around us to ensnare us with materialism. What's wrong with that? After all, we are blessed in this great country! Aside from the fact that the poorest of the poor around the globe starve and have not, while we have a hundred times more than we need, and that, at least among Christian people, there ought to be dramatically more generosity demonstrated-aside from that minor issue, there is the matter of what our Lord taught us. Really, it's a warning as much as it is a teaching: "No man can serve two masters…you cannot serve both God and Money." (Matthew 6:24-25) "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kind of evil. . . .Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share." (1 Timothy 6:9-10, 17-18) Materialism is a strong, addictive god. It traps us into trusting in things for our security. That has, then, an immediate effect on our commitment to the true and living God. I am more committed to amassing more stuff than I am to being available to His purposes. When the Lord makes a rightful claim on a portion of what He has allowed me to have, I am less willing to be generous in my giving because I have, at best, tucked my money away for my own security, or at worst, already committed it to creditors who allowed me to get my stuff now and pay later. Either way, I am stymied in the one Christian discipline that most clearly demonstrates my commitment to God-giving. Generosity is the acid test of discipleship. Materialism erodes a generous spirit faster than a mudslide. 3. Isolation - disconnectedness from other people and community, cocooning We need community. It makes us human. It makes us real. The beauty that comes from experiencing God's love through exposure to the body of Christ is much like the quality of becoming "Real" in the children's book The Velveteen Rabbit: "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to those who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." There are two ways that the church is waylaid by ISOLATIONISM. The first is that they cloister themselves away from the world around them in an attempt to maintain holiness and be unspotted by the world. But when we become a holy huddle we forfeit mission to those who need it. This is what one writer calls the Christian "ghetto mentality". When we isolate ourselves in the warm womb of the fellowship and never bother to serve the world around us, we may call ourselves the church, but it's nothing like what Jesus intended. The other way in which isolationism invades the church and weakens her effectiveness is when believers are proud and independent, and see no need for the company of other believers, or the community of the Holy Spirit. In a sense it's almost the opposite of the "holy huddle" syndrome. Either extreme is deadly to the mission of the church. I hope to deal with this subject a little more thoroughly in a couple of weeks. But suffice it to say that Satan knows how important your vital connection to others in the faith is, and he is doing everything in his power to drive wedges between you and fellow believers. Don't let him win. Don't forsake thew assembling of yourselves together…The world will draw you away. The pressure of pagan ways of thinking will, in fact, cause you to water down your commitment. Don't conform - Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Caterpillar-butterfly. Say to the world around you, "I have made a commitment to the Lord Jesus…" 4. Hedonism - deification of comfort and pleasure, '"It's all about me!" In a nutshell, there are three things wrong with hedonism: 1. causes us to be secure in something other than the true God 2. dethrones God and puts our wishes in place of His will. 3. plagued by an addiction to the god of pleasure, the Christian will be far less useful in service to the Lord. The Antioch Church is not populated by believers who have allowed themselves to remain self-centered, materialistic, isolated and hedonistic. Such believers will have a difficult time being committed to service to the scattered people of the world who need the church. They will not be happy members of the Antioch Church-a church for the SCATTERED. Such believers will never find the level of motivation needed to reach out beyond themselves to lost people who are different from them, people of other cultures. They are never fully on board in the Antioch Church-a church for the UNREACHED. Such believers have little time or interest in helping new believers become established in their faith. They're too busy with their own agendas. Who has time to meet one-on-one with someone who is hungry for the Word and help them learn the basics of the Christian life? I'm a busy person! The Antioch Church is a con-gregation of busy disciplers helping one another grow. Wherever people are hungry to know and experience God, there you will find the members of the Antioch Church-preaching, teaching and ministering to great numbers of people. They know they are a part of the church for the HUNGRY. When you're looking for the Antioch Church, look for leaders whose sole obsession is serving. Such leaders rise in churches where people know their gifts and they are encouraged to use them in service to God's flock. They are less worried about externals than they are about people growing. They are connected to people, self-sacrificing, not sold out to materialism. Believers who allow themselves to be squeezed into the world's mold don't feel comfortable in First Church of Antioch, because they are surrounded by generous people who give generously of their resources for the kingdom work through their church. They are busy looking out for number one while the church around them is giving sacrificially for the sake of others. You rarely find people who are self-centered satisfied to spend time with others praying for kingdom matters. Praying over a harvest basket is just another ho-hum detail in the ritual of Sunday morning. There is little passion to intercede for missionaries, pastors and church outreach. Believers who are squeezed into the mold of worldly thinking are only wondering, "What's the church done for me lately?" Sincere intercession has given way to consumer mentality. People who are caught up in materialism, self-centeredness and personal comfort are very uncomfortable with the idea of sending someone away to mission field, and horrified at the prospect of their going or their kids going. They find it hard to dig deep into their pockets to fund ministries to people different from themselves. Hedonists are rarely comfortable as members of the Antioch Church. Conclusion It's "honest to God" time. Do you recognize yourself anywhere in that list? Is there an area or two where you recognize you've been enculturated into the mold of worldly thinking instead of kingdom thinking? Because we are sinners, and we tend to let inertia and the pressures of the world make us into its image, we have to be diligent to keep God's kingdom in focus. It's easy to be a Christian chameleon and simply adapt to our surroundings, but God has called us to be aliens in this world. That means we are to stand against ungodly ways of thinking, not being conformed to the patterns of this world, but being TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind. Are you willing to recommit yourself to such transformation? Before God, will you confess sins of isolationism, hedonism, materialism and self-centeredness? Because enculturation is so sneaky we do have to be on our guard, watching vigilantly. We have to work at this idea of not being pressed into the mold of the world's thinking. Harry Morgan was a seasoned pickpocket in London. For years he made a sizable income as a thief. He got so good at it that he was never caught. One day Harry Morgan was converted to Jesus Christ. He was thrilled in his newfound faith. But he was so addicted to picking pockets that he found he couldn't stop. His hands weren't converted! He decided to get drastic. Today on the streets of London it's not hard to pick out Harry Morgan. He's the only man who in the middle of summer is wearing thick wool gloves.     [Back to Top]