New Church, New Family

Intro:

Good morning, Stateline. We’re very happy to be with you here today. Thank you to the Parris family for inviting us and set all this up. Me and my brothers grew up here in this area. We used to hang out with Jordan and Zach. I’ve still got some really fond memories of playing basketball, many times with Jordan and Zach, in the gym back here.

A quick introduction of our family. Tessa and I first met each other in Madagascar. When I first arrived in Madagascar, we had an 18 hour car ride before we got to where we were going to live there. And I swear we talked about Tessa half that time. The missionary family that had been there a while and had basically adopted Tessa just went on and on about here. “Tessa is such a great missionary. We wish all missionaries were like Tessa.” And, this will probably tell you a little bit about my personality, I thought to myself. I don’t who this Tessa girl is . . . but she’s going down. When I leave this rock, they’re all gonna be talking about Nathan. They’ll be saying Nathan was the best missionary they ever knew.

So, to make a long story short, Tessa and I met, and you know what they say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, marry ‘em. So I did. We served on the same team there for two years as singles then came back and got hitched. We studied at SEBTS, where Jordan Parris is now pursuing her doctorate, way to go Jordan! We went back to Madagascar in 2017, came back for a brief stint to take care of Tessa’s dad who died of Alzheimers in April, 2019 and got back to Madagascar just in time for COVID! We have two kids, Chyella and Jairus, and another on the way next month.

A lot of what Tessa and I have done in Madagascar centers around stories. Tessa first moved down to Toliara, the town where we live, in 2010 to begin working with local Malagasy to put Bible stories into the local dialects there. And it was those stories that I and others would retell as we evangelized, discipled, and planted churches among the tribes in the bush of Southern Madagascar. Now let me try to make it very clear, we do not work alone, we have had other missionary families and especially local church members work very closely alongside us this whole time. And what we’ve seen God do is that as we all spent time with these tribes, going deeper into relationship with them, telling stories from God’s Word in their dialect, these people began telling their friends and family what they were learning, and the end result is that we have upwards of a hundred new churches out in these rural, bush areas . . . the majority of which were started by the village leaders that first heard the stories.

Now, that was all before COVID hit. And we’re here to tell you, COVID has hit the rest of the world just as hard, if not harder. People have gotten sick. At one point we have a funeral every other day in our community. People are scared. People don’t trust the government. Churches have closed. People have lost their faith. At one point last year, the local, Malagasy church we attend split. Madagascar’s international borders have been closed since last year. To be perfectly honest with you, we got out but we have no idea when we’ll be able to get back. And in spite of all of that, we want to share with you why we have great hope and confidence for the future. We have watched as God has started to grow the roots of the church deeper and closer together. We have watched as churches take care of each other. And we are here to bear witness today to the fact that our hope does not lie in whether or not we can get back to Madagascar or whether or not Stateline has a pastor. We should have hope today because for a long time now, Jesus has been at work in this world forming a new kind of people, a new eternal family.

So let us tell you the story of how we have seen Jesus forming this new family both long ago in a place called Antioch, far away in a place called Atsimo Andrefana in Madagascar, and Lord willing, here in the churches of the U.S. of A.

The Story of Antioch (Acts 11:19-30)

It was a time of chaos in the church. People were dying. People were moving around. No one trusted their leaders . . . political leaders or even leadership in the church. And maybe worst of all, the community of believers they all called the church was breaking apart. Everything was changing.

Stephen was dead. He had been beaten to a pulp with stones by the religious community in Jerusalem. And with his death, suddenly there was a surge of persecution. Those associated with Stephen and the man named Jesus he worshipped began to disappear. Some of them were imprisoned. Some of them were beheaded. Many of them simply ran far, far away.

But . . . in those places and far off lands they ran to, they continued to tell people the story of Jesus. How the God of the universe, who made everyone, had come as a man, and let himself be killed to save all people. At first, these Jews only told other Jews about Jesus, their friends and family and other people like them. However, some these Jews, who had grown up around people of different ethnicities, began to tell other people about Jesus, people who weren’t like them and not just other Jews.

And the craziest thing happened. These other tribes and ethnicities started coming to Jesus in droves! Now word got out, and the church back in Jerusalem heard that different kinds of folk were trusting in Jesus and joining this new church there. So they sent out Barnabas to see what was going on, because Barnabas was a man of outstanding character and full of the Holy Spirit, so they knew they could trust whatever report he came back with.

Only he didn’t come back. Because when Barnabas showed up in Antioch, he was blown away by just how many people there were. He rejoiced with them and with what God was doing among these people, and just kept encouraging them to stay devoted to Jesus. And more and more people just kept joining them.

Eventually, Barnabas left and went looking for Saul. You remember Saul, right? The guy that stood by and gloated when they killed Stephen? Well, Jesus had gotten a hold of Saul too, and Saul was so high on Jesus it wasn’t long before people wanted to kill him too. So the church sent him away into hiding. But now Barnabas, and the church in Antioch, needed Saul. He travelled about 136 miles away (so imagine if went on foot or hitchhiked to the University of Georgia in Athens) to go and find Saul and convince him to come back with him. And he did. He found Saul and the two of them went back to Antioch and served the church there for a full year, meeting with everyone and teaching them.

It was here in Antioch that people first started calling Jesus’ disciples, Christians.

Now, one day, some guys who were prophets were visiting from the church in Jerusalem. One of them just stood up and began saying through the Spirit that everywhere they knew going to be hit with famine. Now when the church heard this, they gathered together whatever they could and sent it to help their Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. They sent this aide with Barnabas and Saul so they could take it to their new, church family.

I love this story. I think we need this story right now. COVID has not been easy on any of us. None of us know what is going on, and I don’t know how any of you has not thought “What in the world is going on?” We want to encourage you this morning, Stateline: the reason we are going to make it through this thing, whether here or in Madagascar, and be even better off for it in the long run, is because . . .

Our resilience as the church, the people from every nation, tribe, and tongue bought by the blood of Christ, has nothing to do with our personal security, our personal health, or whether or not America is a Christian nation.

(Main Idea): Our resilience as Jesus’ church lies in the fact that Jesus has been and still is making a new kind of people, an eternal family.

Jesus’ family is created out of adversity and reaches more people in the hard times.

I will never forget the first time I, personally, storied through the book of Acts with our Mahafaly churches. Of course you have the excitement of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the church grows. But basically after chapter 8, every single story began with the same bad news . . . “After Stephen was killed, after Stephen was killed.” “After Stephen was killed, the persecution began. After Stephen was killed, James was beheaded. After Stephen was killed, the church was scattered.” And the more I told those stories over and over again, the more it became ingrained in my mind, the death of Stephen and the chaos that event signifies, was the beginning the church reaching the known world.

See, we know Acts 1:8, but do we know Acts 8:1. It is the tragic death of Stephen and the terrible persecution carried out by Saul that ignites the first church planting movement. And I’ve got to point out, even though Jesus lays it out clearly in Acts 1:8, it’s only after Stephen dies that the church starts intentionally reaching out to people who don’t look like them, talk like them, or think like them. Stephen dies, persecution starts . . . and then Phillip goes to preach to the Samaritans. Stephen dies, persecution starts, and then the scattered people start telling the story of Jesus to Gentiles. I’m not saying that’s the only way to plant churches. I’d much rather us be able to reach people in calmer circumstances. But I believe the church, in general, is about to take a big step forward. Because when I look stories like this of what God did before, I know he can do it now.

Jesus’ family is strengthened not by individual effort, but by a diversity of people taking part in the mission.

Did you hear what Barnabas did once he got to Antioch? He immediately assessed that he could not help the church alone and he went and got help. Don’t forget that it was Barnabas who first validated Paul to the apostles. He had seen Paul in action and knew how gifted he was, especially working with Gentiles. And so he stops what he’s doing and goes way out of the way to bring Saul/Paul into what God is doing. Can you imagine how different the rest of the story of Acts would be if Barnabas didn’t bring with him into the work? Barnabas was a gifted man. But Antioch did not grow because it had a great pastor. Antioch grew because it had people like Barnabas who were constantly looking for how to involve other people, because that’s what grows the church.

Story about food distributions.

Last August, we started giving out food through our local, Malagasy churches from funding through Send Relief, which is part of the offerings you all give as a church to the SBC. The area where we live has been hit hard by drought and famine for years. Just for reference, in 2018 it rained two days the entire year. So when COVID lockdowns began, things hit a whole new level of bad. People in our area usually survive on less than a dollar a day, and because of restrictions, they were no longer able to make even that. So we decided if we were ever going to try and help feed people, now was the time. And we made sure to tell them it was all of you, the churches in American who had given, that made it possible. However, I can tell you with 100% certainty that food would have never made it the people that needed it without our local partners. They were the ones who could tell us who needed food most badly. They were the ones talking down the crowds of people who are only eating one meal a day when they were screaming they weren’t getting enough. They were the ones who organized the entire project in a way that could feed the most people. Some of these leaders didn’t even get any food themselves, because they knew people would assume they took a bigger portion. Some of these leaders turned around gave out their own food or even bought more food when more people showed up later after hearing we were handing out food. That wasn’t us. It was our Malagasy brothers and sisters. Do you see? Tessa and I on our own didn’t have the resources to feed all those people. That came from you all, from our cooperating churches. But even if we had the money and the food, Tessa and I also do not have the skills and knowledge to properly organize a mass feeding project in these impoverished communities. That came from our Malagasy brothers and sisters.

We need each other folks. If COVID has taught us nothing else I think it’s that. Now I really have no idea what that is supposed to look like during a time like COVID. I’m not saying we shouldn’t wear masks and do social distancing, or whatever we need to do if we think there’s a chance it will keep others safe. But . . . if the church is going to grow we have got to be creative and find a way to connect with one another. I know you all are looking for a pastor now. Think about Barnabas as a lead pastor. The first thing he does when he shows up in Antioch is he teaches and encourages everyone there and then immediately goes and brings Saul in to help him. No church needs one single talented, gifted, godly pastor to lead them. We all need to play our part and intentionally bring others along to play their part in what God is doing.

COVID has also reveal our racial tensions. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the specific reason Barnabas brings Saul to Antioch. Why didn’t he just bring in one of the apostles? When the church was planted in Samaria, Peter and John came down to inspect it. Why didn’t he go and get them? Because Barnabas realized that Paul was uniquely gifted because of his background and training to work primarily with non-Jewish people, people that didn’t look like him, talk like him, or think like him. Folks, that’s why you all as Southern Baptist Churches sent us out. We speak Malagasy, we have and still are learning Malagasy culture, the way that they think, and just in case it isn’t obvious, the Malagasy are not white, they don’t look like us. But we can and should be doing the same thing here that we do in Madagascar.

We’re living in a mission house over in Berea in Greenville. Y’all probably know better than me, but right down from the baptist church there is a community that doesn’t look very familiar. We ate lunch out after church there the other day and we were the only white people in the place, and everyone was speaking Spanish. If we want God to use us to reach the nations, we need reaching out to find Saul. If we don’t know a Saul already, then we need to pray God leads us to one. Again, I don’t know about here, but the roads in Berea are lined with Spanish-speaking churches. Are you telling me there is not one Spanish-speaking brother or sister that could we could not come alongside and work with to reach that community? Because, brothers and sisters, that is what we do and that is what Barnabas did.

Jesus’ family is defined by a bunch of people who shouldn’t be together, taking care of each other, and worshipping Jesus.

This last part hit me like a ton of bricks when I was studying this story. Did you notice that one little line about people first being called Christians? That is not just Luke, who wrote the story of Acts, way of filling you in on Christian history. He’s not just saying, oh yeah, that’s the first time the church was called “Christian.” Maybe you’ve heard, like I’ve heard, that people called the church that because they were living like “little Christs,” which is something like the meaning of the Greek word Kristianous.

But based on the flow of the story, what Luke is telling us is that this it was only when the church began reaching people who did not look like them, talk like them, or think like them that they were called Christians. Before that they were just weird Jews, Jews following Jesus as their king. But now, here in Antioch, you have people of all kinds getting together for meals, worshipping together, learning together and they’re taught by rich Jewish man, Barnabas and a Jewish rabbi, Saul. This did not fit in anyone’s boxes. They did not have a category or a name to call a group of people who were not 100% Jewish and not 100% Gentile. They didn’t all look alike, they didn’t all speak the same, and they didn’t all think the same. This group stood out so much that they had to literally make up a new word in order to describe what was going on. And the only thing people could latch onto as the common denominator was Jesus. It’s as if everyone in the community is shrugging their shoulders and saying, “I don’t know what they are, but they all worship this Christ character so I guess we’ll call them Christians.”

And then the very next thing we see them do is, these people, who shouldn’t be together but are because of Jesus, take care of each other when the next wave of adversity comes. See we don’t need God to stop all the chaos, because for the Christian what the chaos reveals is the love and care of Jesus through his family.

Story about Manoely’s arozazy.

The church in Madagascar is growing. They are not planting churches left and right. Not anymore. But they are growing deeper into relationship with each other as people who shouldn’t be together. Tribes who never live together are now helping each other. Tribes that once enslaved other tribes and then sold them to Americans are now eating together. Men who never gave a second thought to their wives or women in general are now helping their wives with the kids and cooking and giving their wives opportunities to lead in their churches. Elders are encouraging youth who are trying to figure out life and watching them lead out in evangelism. These are huge changes culturally! And we believe that God wants to do something similar here in our churches in America. It does not matter how bad things are or how much worse they get. God’s church will make it through and it will come through even stronger. But it will look much different than maybe some of us have every thought about. Because Jesus’ family is born out of adversity, strengthened by every one playing their unique part, as a bunch of people that look like they shouldn’t be together but are taking care of each other.