"Remaining Faithful to the Lord" (Acts 11:19-30)

Transcript:

Please remain standing as we read our sermon text for this morning. This will be from Acts, chapter 11, verses 19 through 30. If you are using one of the pew Bibles in front of you, this is on page 1093. 1093.

Hear now the word of the Lord from Acts 11, 1930. 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. 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. And the hand of the Lord was with them. And a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 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. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.

So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. 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. Now, in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, 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. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated.

And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together this morning in prayer as we prepare to hear from this great text from the Lord. Gracious Father, we do pray that you would help us, help us by your spirit to behold Jesus Christ seated on his throne in glory. We pray, Father, that by your spirit you would give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news that we continue to proclaim to this day of the name of Jesus Christ. Draw us to Christ by faith, lead us to salvation. We pray that you would strengthen and build us up and conform us more fully to Christ's image.

And we pray all this in Christ's name by the power of your word and through your spirit. Amen. Well, our passage this morning gives us a snapshot of the growth of the fruit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ worked out within the church and particularly worked out over time. There's an emphasis on the passage of time in this passage, that last piece, that the time issue here is so important. We are not told how long the Christians who were scattered into these areas preached to the Jews alone.

We are not told how long it took before some unnamed bold witnesses for Jesus to begin then sharing the Gospel of Jesus with Gentiles in the area. We are not told how long the evangelistic efforts toward Gentiles were gathering Gentiles into the church from this pagan area before then the word came to Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas. And we are not told how long Barnabas was working with the church before he realized he needed more help and went off to find Saul, or how long it took to find Saul. But we are told that for an entire year, Saul and Barnabas labored together in the church in Antioch until the Gospel was fully formed, bringing this pagan Gentile church that was formerly characterized by their wickedness all the way until they became characterized by Christ. It was here in Antioch that they were first known as Christians.

And so we see here what happens in the church over time. And this is a thing that we need to keep especially in mind. Because in the age of instant everything, we want microwave Christianity, we want microwave sanctification. If it has to be three minutes, fine. But better if you can get it down to one minute, just punch it in, set it, and forget it, walk away.

And we want these things to happen in our lives. We sang this morning about some of the remarkable things that Jesus did to raise the lame, to walk, to give sight to the blind. Those were truly amazing miracles. And we want those things to happen instantaneously in our lives, too. But the Lord used those extraordinary events to prove what God does.

Not always instantaneously, far more often slowly and patiently in the ordinary ministries of the church over time. And that's what we're seeing today. We're seeing today the passage of time. And I have. If you're using the sermon notes, I had a sermon theme that I liked.

Christ converts and transforms his people to the ministry of his church. But even this morning, as I was praying about this passage and as I was doing the McCheyne Bible reading, I'll tell you where this passage comes up. But another phrase From Luke, chapter 8, verse 15 came up that I want to use because I think it captures what this passage is all about. Bear fruit with patience. Bear Fruit with patience.

We're seeing the hand of the Lord working mightily but very slowly to our sense of time. And we need to catch up with God's slow, patient pace and not rush ahead of him. So we're seeing fruitful patience in three areas today. Number one in evangelism, number two in discipleship, and number three in mercy ministry. Evangelism, discipleship and mercy ministry.

We'll start with evangelism. Now, as we start this passage in verse 19, we read now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen. You may remember that we talked a little bit about that word for scattered that showed up also in Acts, chapter 8, verses 1 and verse 4, and how that word for scattering is related to the idea of the scattering of seed. It's a word that means, like the throughness of seed, seeds scattered all over the place. And it's a word that echoes a lot of the language that shows up in Jesus.

Parable of the sower, parable of the four soils, and in Luke, chapter 8, verse 15. Again, this is the reading for today from the McCheyne Bible reading. If you haven't read that passage for today, or maybe you're still going to do it, or if you haven't joined there, it's still time to join this McShane Bible reading plan today. The passage was this, where Jesus was explaining that very passage. And he says, as for that seed in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience.

The hundredfold return that was symbolized by the seed scattered on the good soil that grew up and bore much fruit didn't happen immediately. If you've grown anything, or if you know farmers or gardeners who grow anything, you know, gardening is slow, farming is slow. But God is indeed bearing fruit with patience. And here we are seeing even more ongoing overtime work that's happening from that scattering of the seeds. Not only scattering of the people, but scattering of the gospel with the people into these other areas.

First it traveled into Samaria, but now those who were persecuted had traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, moving up into the Southeast Asia Minor, what we would consider today to be southeast Turkey. And they're speaking the word there originally in verse 19 to no one except the Jews. But if you remember the stories that we've been looking at in chapter 10 and chapter 11, we're suddenly seeing the Gospel opening up into Gentiles. The Holy Spirit has indwelt not only ceremonially clean, ritually pure Jews, but also far off, pagan, defiled Gentiles. And in verse 20, we read there, some of them men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, on coming to Antioch, Antioch of all places, spoke to the Hellenists or to the Greeks there also preaching the Lord Jesus.

Now, Antioch was a thoroughly unclean. It was the third largest city in the Roman Empire. And it had a notorious reputation. It was particularly notorious because of the rampant sexual immorality in that area, because it was very close to centers of cult prostitution in the pagan, filthy, vile worship of the Gentiles of those days. We are seeing here the establishment of the first predominantly Gentile church.

And it's as though God chose to establish this church in the middle of the strip of Las Vegas. That's where God chose to do this great work. To show that it wasn't only ceremonial defilements like we talked about last time, but even filthy, moral defilements of sexual immorality. God is pleased to make clean what had formerly been defiled. And this is where we read the hand of the Lord mighty at work to draw those who are far off from the gospel to faith in Jesus Christ again.

These men, these bold, tremendous heroes of the faith from Cyprus and Cyrene, they're tired of just going to the Jews. They see the great need, the harvest there among the Hellenists, and they start preaching the Lord Jesus, preaching the gospel of salvation, preaching that you don't need to go through the rites and the rituals and the ceremonies of the Old Testament any longer. That for all those who bring their filth and their defilement and their sin and shame directly to Jesus Christ, the one who is true God, who is also true man through the incarnation, who lives perfectly, who died, who rose again. This one can save even the most far off. He can save those in Antioch, he can save those in Las Vegas, he can save those in Lansing.

Come to Jesus this morning by faith. The same Jesus still saves. But look at what's happening here in the midst of what you would imagine to be the hardest group of sinners to bring the gospel to. You see that despite whatever limitations these bold men may have had, the reason their evangelism is successful is in verse 21. Because the hand of the Lord was with them.

And it's because of the work of God's Holy Spirit, because of the hand of the Lord being mighty among them, that we read that a great number who believed turned to the Lord. We sang earlier. Wonderful grace of Jesus reaching the most defiled, whether you're considering this ceremonially or morally? That's this group of people. And we see the wonderful grace of Jesus coming to them as well.

So in this first part of this story, we are seeing evangelism. And I want us to think how we can seek fruit in evangelism with patience, bear fruit in evangelism with patience. Because evangelism is something that is very hard. It's hard for all of us. It is very often frightening for all of us because we try to think to ourselves, to whom should we speak?

Who am I supposed to be bringing this word to? And we try to divide people up into categories of those who are maybe clean and maybe more likely to believe the gospel of Jesus because they seem to be, morally speaking, better people versus those who are so far off that we maybe think, I don't even know if I'm going to get a hearing. To whom should we go? That's the first question. Then what should we say when we go to them regarding the question of who?

The scriptures, especially this passage of scripture, are so clear that we do evangelism not with an actuarial table. In other words, we are not doing evangelism based on calculation of the odds of who is most likely to come to faith in Jesus. We don't look at their lives. We don't look at the features of their lives. We don't think, well, they are doing this, but not that.

They are not doing that, but they are doing this. And we say, these are the people who are probably ready for the gospel. Do you know who needed the gospel here? Every single person in Antioch. Do you know who needs the gospel in our neighborhoods?

Every single person. Evangelism is not based off of the odds of those who are likely to convert. And it's not also based on the estimation of our skill level to change hearts and minds. Our hope in evangelism is not in the likelihood of the responsiveness of the sinners. It's never in the skill of our own presentation of the Gospel.

Our only hope in evangelism is the hand of the Lord, the work of the Holy Spirit. That's good news. That means we can be confident. But what about how? Maybe you are afraid that if you open your mouth, you will just make these things worse.

What if I say the wrong thing and they start hating Christians even more and they get further away from Christ? Well, I've used that very convenient self justifying, self excusing explanation too, so I'm with you in that. But that's all it is, right? That's all it is. We are conveniently justifying passivity and silence.

We should instead see the confidence that we have in the Lord. And again, we can see what the Lord does in patience over time. It doesn't happen all at once. You don't have to plan that. Evangelism is.

I'm going to lead this person through every step of the Romans road until they convert or I will not let them go. That's. You don't have to do that. You can do this patiently over time. How about just starting with something like, do you know that Jesus loves you?

Do you know that Jesus died so that your sins can be forgiven? If you were to go to heaven today, what would you say? And then if the Lord opens the doors, walk through them. If the Lord does not open the door, that's okay, because it's his hand and his hand alone that will save people. You don't have to bear the burden for that.

You can simply look to the Lord. And what you can do is realize that you are on an adventure of following wherever the Holy Spirit leads, wherever the Holy Spirit opens doors for you to open your mouth to share with the right people, not according to your calculations, but to according, but those on whom the Lord will have mercy. So the force of this passage is that we need to start with evangelizing all those who need the gospel, which is everyone. But the force of the broader passage is that we are not as the church to end with evangelism, conversion is not the only goal. It's not enough.

And so we need to move to the second section of this passage in discipleship. Now, you may remember that when Philip was scattered because of the same persecution that arose over Stephen, and when Philip was scattered into Samaria and he began boldly preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Samaria, after a time, after the gospel began to take root in Samaria, the church in Jerusalem sent up Apostles Peter and John to sort of bring more people the gospel of Jesus, lay hands on them, and to have the Holy Spirit come upon that area. So what's happening here? Well, as evangelism is growing in this new area again, the church at Jerusalem hears about this and they send someone to help. Not an apostle, but they send a man who is very well known in the church, a man with a very good reputation in the church, a man named Barnabas, so called his name meaning son of encouragement.

And in verse 23, we read that when Barnabas came and he saw the grace of God, that's another way of talking about the Hand of the Lord at work. When he saw the hand of God, the grace of God, he was glad. But he didn't just stamp it, mission accomplished here, and then move on. He went on. He exhorted them, he encouraged them, he tried to strengthen them and steel them for what was ahead.

He exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. The conversion is important. It's good. But you have all of these pagans who have been living thoroughly wicked pagan lives, formally doing pagan things in the worship of pagan gods. There is a tremendous amount of untraining and retraining and building people up to understand what it means to live their faith in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in doing this, this requires a tremendous amount of time to grow in the simple, ordinary means of experiencing God's grace in their lives. They need to read the Word of God, and they need clear teaching to understand the Word of God. They need training in prayer to shift from the mindless repetition of the Gentiles that Jesus warned about into the bold, wholehearted engagement with the God of the universe through the name of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And they need every detail of how they ought to behave in the household of God. But we notice that as Barnabas is doing this great work, this does not make the church more insular, more inward focused.

At the end of verse 24, we read, and a great work. Many people, in other words, more people were added to the Lord. When the church grows in discipleship ministries, the church grows in outreach. Now, here's where it gets really interesting, I think, as we think about how this applies in our own lives. We read at some point here, Barnabas realized that he needed help, so he left the work.

He had to leave the mission field in Antioch. And we read that he had to go up to Tarsus. We had previously met Saul, seen him converted to Christ, and then after he was escaping death threats, we saw him last in Tarsus a couple of chapters ago. And now that's still where he is. Barnabas goes, finds Saul and brings him back to come over and help.

When he had found him, he brought him to Antioch, and we read for a whole year. Now, the mission of these men is not to spend forever in these places. They are called to go from one place or another to continue spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ into places that have not heard. For them to spend a whole year. And it's not just they spent only a year there.

The language is they spent a whole year. There's an emphasis on the length of time here. They spent a whole year there, meeting with the church and teaching a great many people. And it's through this time, it's through this work of teaching and training in the word of God that these people who are particularly characterized by their pagan ways now come to be so associated and identified with Christ that we read that it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. That word that we still use is a word that means identified by or belonging to Christ.

So our application here is that we need to bear fruit in discipleship with patience.

And here is where I think about my own life and how impatient I can be. I think about the ways where I want so much sanctification so quickly. This past week, on Friday, I awoke and I was sitting down to read the Bible. I was praying, and I awoke and there were some things going on in my life, things outside of this church, but things that were going on in my life that had me distracted and irritated and frustrated. And I was struggling to just pay attention.

I was struggling when you're looking at the words on the page, but your mind is somewhere else. And I was going to the Lord and saying, lord, I do not like where I am. And frankly, Lord, I have a lot to do today. I need to focus here so I can get this done and move on to the projects in my life.

And the Lord reminded me that my heart is the project, that in all of the things that are raging inside of me at times, in all of the places where I need the gospel of Jesus applied to my own heart and frustration, irritation, bitterness, that all of these things I need to bring before the throne of grace. And I need time to sit with the Lord and let his word wash over me, to convict me of my sin, to look for him for encouragement and grace and to come back to him so that when I go to do whatever the Lord calls me to do in that day, even if it is less things than I hope to do, that I'm going in the right heart and spirit. You know, sometimes more often than I care to admit, I can become impatient with my own children because of their impatience. Why aren't you more patient? I say impatiently.

Forgive me, children. And I was thinking about the fact that my heavenly Father is never impatient with me. He is never impatient with me. Every step along the way, exactly what he wants to accomplish, crying out when I need to right every step I need. The Lord is such a good Father, so patient, so kind, and all of this takes time.

We want microwave sanctification but it doesn't want to work that way. Christianity is simple in many ways, and yet Christianity takes so much time to develop in the hearts of believers. What we've seen here, the time of the bringing of the gospel and evangelism, we're seeing here the discipleship that's being worked out for a whole year, an entire year. This third section in Mercy Ministry brings us to see sort of the fruit, a very clear measure of how deeply this sanctification has taken root in the lives of, again, these formerly pagan Christians in Antioch. Mercy Ministry verses 27 through 30 we read in several places in the New Testament that there are still prophets at work in the early church who receive the word of the Lord and bear witness to the work of the Lord.

We read in Ephesians 2:20 that the foundation of the church is laid by the apostles and the prophets as the word of God is coming and explaining what's happened in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And as that word of God is not only preached, but then written into the New Testament during that first apostolic age, their ministry will expire. But we still have the fruit of what they've given us written down in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Well, we read in verse 27 and 28 now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, named Agabus, stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. And this took place during the days of Claudius.

Now, we know from other historical records that there was indeed a great famine during the days of Claudius. This prophecy did come to pass. But what is important here is not so much the historical verification, as important as that is what Luke wants us to see from them. I mean, he takes that as sort of. And of course, obviously the word of the Lord would come and declare what would come to pass.

But what's important to hear is how the disciples respond to this. In verse 29, we read, so the disciples, they're not pagans. They're not those who are engaged in the filthiness of Antioch. They are Christians. They are disciples.

So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. Now remember, these are those who were former pagans. These are the Gentiles who are now brought into the church, and they're called disciples. And we read that they have compassion over other fellow believers whom they have never met, who will suffer in Judea. And so every single one of them, the disciples, determined Everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers who were living there.

And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. Now, what we are told in the Scriptures is that we are called to financial stewardship and we are called to generosity. We are called to give to our churches. And the biblical pattern is to set apart 10% of what we earn to give to the church and to seek God's leading then for free will offerings to meet specific needs above and beyond that giving, as we see here, free will offerings beyond the tithes, and there was more than one that was applied in the Old Testament, were a part of were a part of the Old Testament. And we read that that pattern, or we see that pattern consists in the New Testament of regular giving and then free will offerings to meats specific needs.

Now, again, what I want to see in this passage is we saw originally the gospel grip hold of the lives of Gentile pagans. And we see that gospel then transform and not only justify them, but sanctify them as they grow in grace. And now we see sort of an expression. Again, one of the most difficult tests for our sanctification is with our pocketbook as we think about how we use our time and our talents and especially our treasures. It's only one area of sanctification, but it is a particularly important test, a measurement of what the Lord is doing in our own hearts as we give back to the Lord what He has entrusted to us as his stewards.

Now I want to bring an application here to bear fruit in generosity with patience. The kind of sanctification we see here takes patience. And this is the kind of sanctification that has to be worked out in the life of the church. This week the elders and deacons met together in a joint meeting. We have quarterly joint meetings.

And the deacons brought a request to the elders. The deacons are tasked in the Scriptures with the duty of developing the grace of generosity in the congregation. That's a task that the deacons are charged with leading. It's a very important task. And we have tremendous deacons in this church.

And they brought this request to the elders and they said, we need teaching and instruction in this church on giving and tithing and generosity in the church. And the elders heard this request. And again, you also have tremendous elders here. And the elders want to shepherd this. The elders want us to grow as a church in our understanding of what we are seeing here.

This gospel taking root in discipleship being lived out and fleshed out even in the ways that we spend our time and our talents and our treasures. And so they've asked for some teaching on this. So after Easter, the plan is that we are going to take a break from the Book of Acts to look at some teaching and preaching on giving and generosity in the church. Now, I know this can be a touchy topic. I'm sure maybe some of you are not rising with joy to think about talking about your money.

But it's been a while since we have talked about this here and early on, honestly, talking about this subject was the last thing that I wanted to do as a pastor. I'd been blessed by my parents teaching me about giving. Early on, anything I made, 10% of it had to go to the church. And six years ago at my former church, my previous church, we had a capital campaign to try to meet some of the needs in our building. And I was very apprehensive about it.

But it became such an incredible blessing for the congregation to spend time just considering what the scriptures have to say. I once had a pastor mentor who said that a way he had learned to think about teaching his people about giving and generosity. He said, I realize, like, don't I want my people to be happy. I know that times can be difficult. I know some of you are struggling financially.

It's hard to think about how you would even start to give. I know that there is inflation, market fluctuation and job security issues that are real pressures.

What the Bible teaches us about giving is not about a burden to put on us. It is about being released from the shackles of the burden of greed and of grip to the things of this world. Giving in generosity is not the burden. Being shackled to your greed and selfishness is the real burden to your soul. And so as we think about what we're seeing here, we are seeing the joy of the grace and the hand of the Lord working to sanctify these people all the way.

Where when there is a need across the world in Judea that hasn't even arisen yet, there's some echoes here of the Joseph story. Some of you are studying the Joseph story in the Bible study and you think about the way that Joseph rose up and said, hey, we're going to have a tax on the times of plenty and then we're going to give it away in the times of leanness here, the disciples take it upon themselves, there's a need in Judea. Let's every one of us, according to our ability, meet this need. And so I'd ask you to start praying, start asking, where is the area of your own sanctification where you need to grow? Where is the area of the steps toward the Lord where you need to go?

Maybe some of you are coming out of deep pagan Gentile lives. Today you are here hearing about this gospel maybe for the first time today. You are hearing that the God of the universe so loved the world that he sent his only Son, Jesus Christ into this world to die for you so that you could be saved and cleansed of your sins. That gospel, you don't need to clean up your life before you come to Jesus. That gospel goes directly to the vilest offenders.

It came to me. And there are some of you who are dealing with some specific things in your life that are a real challenge to your faith. A challenge because they are bringing up and stirring up sin in your hearts. How does this passage teach you and call you to go back to the Lord, to look to him and the discipleship that you need today? And for some of you, I'd ask, where is your heart expressed in your giving and your generosity?

I'd ask you to start praying and thinking about these things. I'd ask you to see how will the Spirit of God, the hand of the Lord, direct us over the coming months as we seek to follow the Lord more closely and be conformed to Christ's image more perfectly. And so we lift all of these things up as we see this snapshot and this tremendous passage of Gentiles forged the image of Christ, the one who was rich beyond all measure, the one who became poor for our sakes and the one who did so so that we by his poverty might become rich. He stands ready and willing to save, and ready and willing to save you to the uttermost. Let's pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray that you would indeed sanctify your people in the truth of Jesus Christ. We pray that you would shepherd your flock here. We pray that you would call the wandering sheep who belong to Jesus, who this morning have heard his voice to come into the fold of Christ by faith in what Jesus has done for us. And we pray that you would do this, Father, that even today, one more Lord's day in a string of Lord's days, that you would continue to sanctify us more closely to Christ. We pray this in Christ's name until he comes again.

Maranatha, come quickly. Lord Jesus. Amen.