The Promises of Hope
Notes
Transcript
A Church to model after
Intro
Welcome back to Cross and Res! It’s been a little while since we’ve been in this place, and it’s good to be back.
If you’ve been with this summer you know we’ve been studying the book of Acts. We have been walking through the first 11 chapters so far and we’ve been seeing some themes and wanting to grow in our boldness and faith.
I’d love if we could take a few minute and maybe a few of you could share what a couple of themes you’ve seen so far in the book of Acts? What has been helpful to you this summer?
Give a couple of minutes for people to share
Those things are really great. Acts helps us see how the early church grew and expanded. As we look now into the end of chapter 11, an important church appears.
It’s the church in Antioch. And I think the church in Antioch gives us an example to follow. If we are looking to model ourselves after a church, the church in Antioch is a great one.
There are no perfect churches by any means. And I know the church Anticoch wasn’t perfect. There are no perfect churches, because there are no perfect people. But there are churches that God uses in magnificent ways, and this church in Antioch God uses profoundly to build his kingdom and spread the gospel.
This is important for us, because we want to be a healthy church. We want to be a church that makes an impact. We want to be a church that makes disciples, we want to be a church that God uses to reach the world. All for the glory of God. Isn’t that we want right?
So I want us to read this passage in Acts, and primarily worship Jesus for his grace and provision. To marvel at how he radically used faithful men and women in Antioch to build a church, that went to the nations, but to impact the rest of human history. And then secondly, I want us to learn from the church in Antioch so we might be more like them.
Sound good? Aright let’s jump in.
Why Antioch?
Acts 11:19 (ESV)
19 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.
Let’s begin with gaining some context and looking back.
The passage begins by sharing that for Jesus followers Jerusalem was getting dangerous. A good man named, Stephen who was the first person killed because of his faith in Jesus. If you gave your allegiance to Jesus, then your life was in danger. This caused the church in Jerusalem to scatter. Some were left behind in Jerusalem, but many left.
Where did they go? They went to a region called Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.
Here’s a map of some of the geographical places mentioned in this passage.
(Slide)
The term "Phoenicia" is Greek (Phoinike, "land of dates, or palm trees,", the land being generally designated as the "coast" or "borders of Tyre and Sidon". In the Old Testament it was the land of Canaan.
You can also see Cyprus and Antioch. Both will be important locations for the spread of Christianity.
But, let’s focus on Antioch as a city and as a church for a little bit.
Antioch as a city, was one of the biggest in Roman Empire. IT had about a half a million people. The only bigger cities in that time were Rome and Alexandria. It is located what is now south east Turkey. It has a military hub for Rome, and was the capital of Syria. This was a booming city. You could think of it a New York City of our day. It was commercialized, and popular. Simliar to New York it was made of many different people and nationalities. It had major roads that went through it, and it had people from Africa, India, Asia. You had Greeks, romans, Arabs, and Jews all living there together. It was extremely diverse.
When you think about a place for a church, maybe you would pick Antioch or maybe not. It was filled with cults and people of all different religions. Again, probably very similar to a place like New York. But, in reality it’s probably not that different than a local college campus like here at EMU.
There are reasons why our network of churches want are strategically wanting to plant churches on college campuses like this one.
A college campus has immense international possibilities! In fact, Antioch would have been the very first international church.
Up to this point in time, the church was really only reaching Jews in Jerusalem. Last week, we just read that God was going to fitful what he promised in Acts 1.8 and take the gospel to the ends of the earth and he was going to use the church in Antioch to do it.
If you had to name one church that changed the course of history forever, it was probably this church in Antioch.
So how did the church in Antioch do it?
How did the Antioch church change history?
The Church shared the gospel widely
Acts 11:19–21
19 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
Okay, so some disciples of Jesus, left their homes to escape persecution. Some of the them though didn’t share their faith with people who were different than them. They only spoke to other Jews about Jesus. But there were a few, who saw the great opportunity to share the gospel with people who were different than them. They preached Jesus to everyone, and God started to save people. And not just a few, or some, but a great number!
How cool is this. Think about that. There were some Jews living in Cyprus and Cyrene, You know where Cyprus is.
(Slide)
It’s this island. Look where Cyrene is. It’s over there in Africa. It’s probably about 1000 miles from Cyrene to Antioch by road.
These men some who moved around a 1000 miles, joined a church and then started sharing the gospel to people who were different them.
The texts says they shared the gospel with Hellenists. It’s not completely clear, who Luke was referring to when using the word Hellenists. At the minimum of who he was describing is people who spoke Greek. Maybe it was greek speaking Jews who weren’t pursing God, or maybe it was greek speaking non Jews.
Basically think if you moved to Paris, and you joined a church and you just started sharing the gospel with any one who spoke English, maybe they were Americans or French, or anyone else you met. That’s what was happening here in Antioch.
And God blessed it. And blessed it with power! The phrase “hand of the Lord” is often used when God uses his mighty power.
A gospel explosion is about to happen. The church in Antioch is a church to model ourselves after because they shared the gospel with everyone who could understand them. It didn’t matter what they looked like, where they were from, how similar or different they were. They were going to share the gospel.
Will you be willing this year to share the gospel with someone who looks different than you? Will you be willing to cross racial, social or economic lines for the change to share the gospel. If these men from Cyrene and Cyrpus didn’t take that risk, it’s very possible we wouldn’t be here right now.
If we are willing to the share the gospel with anyone who will listen, our church could impact the nations, and even history itself for the glory of God. Is there any better way to make your life mean something than that?
I just want to point out for a minute the goodness of God in what’s happening in this passage. God is using something hard and difficult like persecution to bring the gospel to the nations.
This reminds of God’s promise to use all things for his glory and our good. Even something horrible like persecution, God brings the salvation of people who would have never heard despite of it.
I don’t know how hard things will get for us in the years to come, but we can trust and worship God that he has plan and his plan is good! The hero of the start of this amazing church is Jesus. Jesus was the one they were sharing about, he was the one with power behind their message.
In fact, we don’t even know the names of the men who shared the gospel in Antioch. We don’t need to be famous for God to use us. And if we had name recognition, it isn’t about us. It’s about Jesus who had a plan from the beginning to use men who suffered persecution, who’s names are never recorded in history to bring about the church that would change the world.
That is just like our God!!! And now we get to praise him and worship him, and be in relationship with him.
The church was discipled
The church in Antioch was growing rapidly. There were lots of people meetings Jesus, and what they needed was to be discipled well. This next section of Scripture we are going to see how two men, Barnabas and Saul are going to disciple the church.
Acts 11:22–26
22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, 24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. 25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.
Here’s summary of what’s happening. The church in Antioch is exploding. All kinds of people are coming to faith and the church in Jerusalem was like, hmm..that’s interesting. Maybe it’s good and God is at work, or maybe they were skeptical. I know when I hear of explosive growth in area or church, I’m not sure whether to be happy or skeptical.
So the church in Jerusalem picks this guy Barnabas to go check things out. You might remember that Barnabas has been a key character so far in Acts. He’s been encourager and servant in the church. He befriended Saul, when everyone was skeptical, so he seems like a good person to go see what’s up.
He gets to Antioch and he’s impressed. He sees the grace of God all over the church and rather than be skeptical, he’s joyful. He thinks to himself This is true, genuine growth. This church is experiencing something from God.
I want to point out that any healthy church needs the grace of God on it. Human effort can grow a church but it won’t be healthy. We can systems, strategies, methods that get people to come to church, and to some degree see people grow, but without the grace of God it’s not worth it. Barnabas wanted to see what this growth was all about, was it human effort, or the grace of God. And it was the grace of God.
Here at New life, we need the grace of God to be on us before we need better strategies or methods in discipleship. New Life let us pray for his grace on us.
Barnabas is a good guy, with wisdom and full of the spirit. He wants to disciple the church well. How does he disciple them? He encourages them. He is the son of encouragement after all. So what does he encourage the church to do? He says keep going. “Remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.”
We all need encouragement in discipleship. The church was doing well, and he could have come in and said, you’re doing a great job, but we got to change some things. Let’s sing some different songs, let’s make this place look more like the church in Jerusalem.
But, in Barnabas discipleship of the church, was to encourage them. He tells them to remain faithful to the Lord, which automatically assumes that they were already faithful to the Lord. He saw their hearts, and he said this is great. You’re on the right track. Keep it up!
If our church is going to be good at discipleship, we need encouragers. There is no doubt that disciples need good teaching and theology, but they also need encouragement. New Life, Let us grow in our encouragement of each other.
Barnabas words stick, and a great many people came to know and love Jesus. These new believers need someone to shepherd them, someone to help them grow and develop. Barnabas remembers this guy named Saul who had a special calling to teach the Gentiles, and he is like, I know just the guy for the job. So he heads off to Tarsus to find Saul to offer him this chance to teach, lead, and disciple this church.
Saul hears what happening from Barnabas and agrees to come back, and for a year Barnabas and Saul meet with the church and teach them about Jesus.
Discipleship in the church involves encouragement, but it also involves teaching, instruction and training.
There are a lot of good things that happen in the church. We sing great music, we have great relationships, we can even have a lot of encouragement, but with out God’s word teaching us, instructing us, it will be incomplete.
And the best way for us to get that teaching and instruction is through faithful disciple makers who teach others what they know.
There are two great questions to stop and ask at this point.
Are you seeking to help, instruct, and teach others what you know about the Word of God? Are you seeking to learn, listen, and grow from others who know about the Word of God?
These things can happen simultaneously. I am not done learning, and growing. Erik is not done learning and growing. I need to be listening, and being taught. And at the same time I can be sharing what I know with others to help them.
New Life - may we not be afraid to instruct and be instructed for our own discipleship just like the church in Antioch.
What happens next is that the impact of the instruction of Saul and Barnabas is so great, the disciples are called Christians for very the first time in history.
Notice, they weren’t calling themselves Christians, they were called Christians. The city of Antioch noticed something about this church. They noticed their lives were transformed. They weren’t normal, they weren’t living like the culture. They were living like little Christs. The discipleship of the church created people who looked and lived like Jesus. The city took notice and said you are like Christ. And for the time Jesus followers were named Christians.
Toady, it’s easy to call yourself a christian and have no resemblance to Jesus. Christian is often an identify to anyone who wants it. A person calls himself a christian because they want to, or because they go to church one a year. I wonder what would happen if let people call us Christians, rather than call ourselves Christians.
If we are going to be a healthy church, people need to notice that we look like Christ. They need to see something different about us.
A great way to show how different we are is to show a radical kind of love. Let’s look at the radical love that the church in Antioch had.
The church loved well
Acts 11:27–30 (ESV)
27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
We don’t have enough time to get into the idea of prophecy in the early church. But what is happening is that a guy named Agabus from Jerusalem comes to Antioch and says just a heads up, there’s going to be a famine that is going to be rough. There’s not going to be enough food.
The disciples in Antioch out of radical love, determine how much they each can give and they send it back to the elders at the church in Jerusalem.
This is radical love and generosity isn’t it? How often do we hear of churches helping each other? Yeah, maybe when one bigger church helps start a smaller church. But not like this. This doesn’t seem to be funds coming from the church budget either. This is each person, thinking about how they want to help believers from a different town and giving as they had ability.
Remember the famine hadn’t even happened yet. The church in Antioch heard it was coming, but they weren’t experiencing it yet. They didn’t know how much they needed, they just felt love for their brothers and sisters in Christ and they gave sacrificially.
It was a humble and selfless act. They weren’t thinking about how to store enough up for themselves. They weren’t thinking about how they could make it, they wanted to put others before themselves.
Let us be a church that has a radical love that impacts how we give. It doesn’t matter that you are a college student. You can give out of your ability. Our lives should be marked by a radical love and generosity for those around us with whatever God has given us.
Conclusion
When I read about this church in Antioch, and as spoiler the church there continues to be the main sending church for Paul on his missionary journeys. I can’t help but be thankful for how Jesus used this church to change the world and history.
It’s not impossible that our church could do the same. I am not saying I have goals for us to reach this many people, or send this many missionaries. But, I know that if we share the gospel with boldness and faith. If we take our discipleship seriously and we encourage one another and teach one another with the Word of God and if we love radically with generosity our church will be used by God in ways we will never know. We can see people lives change forever and who knows how many lives could be impacted by that.
New Life let us be a church that sets our heart on Jesus, and remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. Let us go and tell anyone and everyone about the gospel. And may we love with a radical and selfless love.
Let’s pray that God would do that in us.