Acts 11:19-30
“For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.”
Sermon Transcript:
Thank you, pastor mark. That was, uh, certainly very kind. And you said it exactly the way I had written it down. So now, you know, you never, uh, you never know what, uh, the worship experience is gonna be like, it’s the coolest, and I use that word exactly the way it’s supposed to be meant. It is the coolest thing to me to watch the way the spirit works.
I had no idea what songs they’re gonna sing. They have no idea what I’m gonna be preaching, but that the spirit, um, Is at work to the ends of the earth becomes evident week after week after week. I’m sure you see it here. I’m sure the worship team experiences, the pastors of speakers, as they realize that there’s somebody over it, all who is overseeing this thing.
We can come in and really try to screw it up. And he has his way in making sure that his people, that their hearts have been prepared and that they are fed as they leave this place, that song. And, uh, I had never heard it before, but the, the words there’s no power, like the mighty name of Jesus. It’s really hard to sit here and not for me not to burst into tears.
Keep those words in mind. I’m gonna show my hand a little bit by the, by the end of, uh, my sermon this morning, the believers in Antioch will take for themselves. They will be given the name Christians. It’s the mighty name of Jesus. that they’re given and that they bear to their world. So lemme just start by saying good morning and greet and, uh, give you my greetings from Collwood.
It’s hard to not be there, but it’s a pleasure to be here with you this morning. I think, uh, as, as you’ve been following along and we follow along, um, this act series in Collwood, just like you are. Um, but mark has been using an analogy he’s kind of handed it to all of us who are part of this. This really, this act series really is a team effort among all of the pastors and has been so fun to be engaged in that team.
And, and in this series, um, even if we’re not speaking, our voices are being heard and it has been a lot of fun, but this analogy of a TV series or a multi act play, whichever the TV series probably works better for us. Because especially in this day of, in this age of being able to binge. Episodes are a whole season all at once, which is a wonderful invention.
Um, we, we kind of get our heads wrapped around that we can just move. Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, uh, through a series season, one of this series saw we’re following, um, what Jesus said, you will be witness my witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the other, most parts of the world season one was the gospel to Jerusalem.
And we, we saw that season two has been the one we are in now tracking the spread of the gospel into Judea and Samaria some area. And we’ve been following three main storylines and we’ve, this has been re reiterated many times, but it’s worth the telling the storyline of Philip, the storyline of solve Tarsis and the storyline of Peter.
And here we are at the end of season two, and I don’t wanna give away any there’s no, um, uh, uh, what am I trying to say? There’s no, uh, like, uh, spoilers for season three. I won’t give away anything, but we’re at the end of season two where we’re wrapping up season two. The last two series have been finishing up the storyline of Peter, but not yet.
We’re not done with Peter yet. There’s still chapter 12. Um, and today we’re going to reintroduce solf Tarsis who has been away in Tarsis, uh, for quite a, quite a while. Now we’re beginning to set the stage for season three, but whenever you’re teaching, whenever you’re walking through a historical narrative, the most important thing, or one of the most important things is to keep our bearings to understand where we are at all times in the story, because we can get lost.
This is a, uh, moving story and it’s not just to be wonderful if Luke just started here and he gave us all of the details all the way through, and we knew that we were following just chronologically, but this story is too big to tell like that. And so instead there is some jumping around chronologically.
If you’ve ever spent any time hiking in the woods, then you know, it’s easy to become disoriented as teachers. It’s our job to make sure you do not become disoriented. You always know where you think you are, the rule. Number one, when you’re in the woods, if you get lost, the first thing you do is you admit, you’re lost.
You sit down and you say I’m lost. Instead of running around in a panic, you, you kept you capture yourself and you figure out where you are. You know, they say X marks, the spot X marks the spot, but X on a map alone is completely worthless in determining where you are. You’ve all done it. You need to get to some place in the mall.
So you go immediately, cuz you don’t have any time to waste. You go immediately to the kiosk and there’s the map. And you’re looking for the thing that says you are here. And that is the most worthless information a map can give you because of course you’re here. Here is where you always are. I’m always here.
Even if I’m in my car here is where I am. As I move right here is worthless until. Here is related or becomes relative to some other something. It just needs something. So you look at the kiosk, you’re looking at, okay, I’m here and it says Macy’s is here and you look that way and Macy’s isn’t there. No Macy’s is there, okay.
This map’s upside down. So now you reorient yourself and you say, okay, my store is C 21 and it’s not near Macy’s, it’s near pennies. So I need to go that way right now. We know now X means something to you. Y because it’s relative to other things, when you’re in the woods, um, if you’re on a well marked trail, it’s pretty simple.
Usually if you’ve ever hiked in the woods, there’s a blaze. Somebody has walked down this trail before there is a trail, and they’ve painted blue marks in the trees or red marks, sometimes blue and red or pink trails, converge trails, diverge, which is exactly what’s happened in our story. But it’s easy because it’s mark and you just have to trust the trailblazer that he’s gonna get you to where you’re, you’re expecting to go.
Sometimes it’s just as simple as knowing where is north and where is south? The funniest thing? My wife has no sense of direction whatsoever. Whenever she says, she’ll say we need to go to Deford. And I say, where’s Deford and she always points here. Doesn’t matter. It’s it’s here. It’s over this shoulder.
She’ll say I need to go to my dad’s where’s your dad he’s here. So I’ll say Linda, Linda, the sun comes up here every morning and it sets over here every morning. It rides across the Southern sky in our hemisphere. So we know that’s south. That means this is north. And she says, and how is that supposed to help me?
I don’t know. Sometimes walking in the woods is as simple as keeping a feature of land on your right or on your left. There’s a mountain. If I keep that mountain, I’m gonna walk this valley through this valley, the Mountain’s there. I’m gonna, I have to skirt this lake all the way until we hit the stream.
And then I’m gonna walk this way out in the stream. And it’s that simple. Sometimes if you’re really lost. If you don’t know where you are, if the woods are deeper, sometimes you have to get the higher ground where you can say, I can see that mountain there. So I’m here. I can pull out my map. I can get out my compass.
I can, I can take a bearing to that mountain. And if I’m really lucky and there’s another one, and now I can really, I can find out exactly where I am, because I know where those things are. Um, in 1994, I was, uh, Linda and I were youth pastors for many years at our former church, um, at grace Bible church in Barrington.
And um, about 10 years we served as youth pastors. Actually, we went through four youth leaders under four youth, youth pastors under us as we were youth leaders. Now we worked alongside of four. I know to you at this church, that’s like, doesn’t even make sense for youth pastors in 10 years. Um, you’re a, you’re a blessed people.
On this, I used to love to take the young boys around, around in October, around Columbus day, we would do a, a trip, a camping trip, a real camping trip in the woods, up in the Adirondacks. We would go to a Faroh lake. We real, yeah. Wilderness region. I dunno if you’ve ever been up there, but it’s beautiful.
It’s easy. It’s accessible, but it’s a real hike. And on this one trip, um, it was that youth pastor’s first trip with us. We had about, I don’t know, 15 boys and I took my son. This was his first excursion into the woods, uh, overnight. Uh, he was eight I think. And he had his own, I got him a real backpack and he was loving life.
We’re walking on a trail and it’s digging in. He said, dad, I like the pain. So . I said you’re stupid. No. Um, let me fix your pack for you. Anyway, we. On this trip. And in our, in that youth group, we had a boy, a young man. His name was chip chip was if I said, um, Poe on Kung Fu Panda, um, that wouldn’t be, that would give you a good idea of, of, of how chip was built.
He was a big guy in every way. Um, anyway, one of the things you need to know about chip is chip also had been born with cerebral palsy and it wasn’t terrible. He, um, cerebral palsy is, you know, there’s levels of it. Chip, um, spoke. No problem. He, he limped a bit. And when he got, um, you know, distracted, his, his hands would curl just a bit, but he, but he was very, if you didn’t know he had it, you wouldn’t know that he had it.
Well, here we are in the woods and Chip’s a big guy. So of course, as we’re climbing fair mountain the next day, uh, the second day, Chip’s because he’s big. Not because he has CP, he’s falling behind the rest. The rest of the guys are running up the hill. Well, I just took off my, my son’s there. So I just took off with the, with the kids.
We got to the top of the mountain first and our youth pastor ended up staying with chip on the way up the mountain. So by we’re all done with lunch, when they finally hit the top of the mountain and the youth pastor we’re, you know, the kids are running around, we get gather ’em together. He said, okay, it’s your job to stay with chip on the way down, which is fair.
And as we’re going down, everybody’s gone and it’s just chip. And I, we’re having a great time walking down the hill and chip he’s behind me, lets me know he’s having a very difficult time because he’s concentrating on not tripping and he’s concentrating so hard. He said, look at my hands. And his hands were like, were, were useless to him.
That’s what he said. My my hands are useless because I have to concentrate so hard. So we were moving slowly down the mountain. He is a trooper. We get down in the mountain. I know we get to the, to the bottom, the, it hits the, the shore of the lake shoreline of the lake, and that’s great. And now I have to go west and that’s fine, but chip isn’t gonna make it.
And the sun is already very low in the sky. Fortunately, I gotta tell the story fast. Fortunately, we found a row boat over by our campsite must have been in duck. Hunter hit it back there, whatever, and the boys are having a blast, but I say to chip chip, you stay here and I’m gonna go get the rowboat and I’ll come back for it.
And he’s more than happy with that arrangement. So he sits down and I try to take a lay of the land to see where he is, where the shoreline, what it looks like, and didn’t really help me. But so then I take off, well, I know, I know because I’ve walked this trail many. That there’s gonna come a spot and I’m gonna lose the trail.
You always do. If it was broad daylight, you would lose the trail. It just dips down in this muddy, uh, hollow and it’s nasty. And you’re not, I’m not gonna lose the trail, but I know where the lake is. So I’ve got this distinguishing feature. And I know that if I just keep that to my left, I’ll be fine. I’ll hit the trail again.
Well, sure enough. I hit this spot. I lose the trail and I just, I just keep going. Right. Bush whacking it. I make it through, I come across a lean too, that I know there’s a family there and they have a dog and I don’t wanna get bit. So I just kind of keep my way around it. Soon enough. I hear people yelling, my name, yelling our names, and it’s our rescue crew and my son’s in the front.
And he’s so worried cuz dad’s in the dark, in the woods and we get around. Then we get the rowboat, we start heading out the lake and we can’t see anything. And we can’t hear anything. There’s no moon. It’s just dark. And of course we had heard from other campers that there was a bear spotted in the area.
And I’m thinking if this boy gets eaten by a bear, his mom is gonna kill me. So finally, we’re, we’re just rowing, we’re yelling chip. We’re not getting any back. And then we hear faintly off in the distance. Do you remember these commercials? We hear Ricola and Chip’s just sitting there yelling that, you know, yoing, Ricola.
And finally we hear him, we get him in the good, good news is the bear didn’t kill him. Or he, him and his mom thought it was the funny story. Well, that’s the way we want to keep our track. We need to keep our bearings when we’re telling a story, especially a historical narrative and our author knows that he is writing a historical narrative and he’s laid out breadcrumbs.
He’s laid out in markers, he’s blazed a trail and he’s letting us know exactly where he is. These markers. Are related to some of his markers are related to time. Some are related to place and some are related to people. What I wanna do now is I wanna read this story acts chapter 11. If you have your Bibles acts chapter 11 verses 19 through 30, let’s read this story and let’s look for these markers and see if we can’t figure out where we are in the story.
Acts chapter 11, verse 19. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Steven traveled as far as FIA and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one, except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cypress and sire, who on coming to Antioch, spoke with the, the Greeks, the heist 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 barn Barnabas to Antioch. And when he came and he saw the grace of God, he was glad. And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with stead F’s purpose for, he was a good man full of the holy spirit and faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.
So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he 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 was named AGAs.
Named Aus stood up and Fort told by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudias. So the disciples determined each one, 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 SA.
So what are these markers? Well, first of all, in verse 28, and this is huge, Luke says that this took place during the reign of Claudias Claudias. We know we don’t have to look at the Bible for this Claudias we know from world history was the Caesar. He was the fourth Caesar. He served after Caligula and before Nero, he was on the throne from 41 until his death in 54.
And we also know from extra biblical sources that a famine hit hit the, the Mediterranean, the region of the Mediterranean in the year 46. So whatever we want to do with the timeline of acts, bringing us up to this point, we know. That in the year 46, while Claudias was raining as emperor, there was a famine.
So that narrows our window down to about a five year time period because he began his rain in 41 and the famine starts in 46. So whew. We just brought it down. We have, we know we can triangulate from here where we are in the history of the world, in our story, another time marker. He, he says for a whole year, they met with the church and a great in verse 26 and a great number of P um, and taught a great number of people.
So in one of those five years from 41 to 46, Paul and Barnabas SA and Barnabas, I should say Barnabas and SA at this point, met and taught there in Antioch for an entire year. So if we said, uh, let’s say that the a agaist predicts in early 46. Well, then that means that Paul and, and the famine happens in that year, then that means.
in 40, in 40, probably from 45 to 46, Paul and barn, Paul and Barnabas saw and Barnas are there, but if it moves back a little bit, if he was in 45. So anyway, we’re, we’re within a window of just a few years, probably in the year, somewhere time between 43 and 45 is when this happens and then we have the word now, now is the time word always is.
It’s a word that is intended to get us to consider the question of time relative to this story. And we’re gonna look at that in, in, in a little bit verse 19, but before we do, let’s look at just these other markers there’s, um, place markers. I have a slide. I think I do. The big map. Do you have that one?
There you go. Can you see that at all? So if you remember Mark’s maps from previous weeks, there’s just, it it’s just been around Israel. You see, uh, sea of Galilee down to the, to the red sea. It’s that tiny little bit, it’s actually an area of about 75 miles is all this, but this is the world we mentioned, uh, siren Cyrene if you look at the word, it says new, the new Testament where right where the word, the T and Testament that’s where Cyrene is.
It’s all, it’s 800 miles from Jerusalem. Fania is the area that’s north of it’s where Syria is where Syria meets the sea. It’s a region north of dam Damascus, a big region, but it’s not, it’s not, it’s not a country. It’s just a regional thing. Um, all the way up to.
He mentions Antioch, Antioch. You see it? I think you can see it. There it’s way up there. Antioch was a famous city, uh, in, in the Roman empire. Um, he mentions Tarsus, which is around the curve. If you go Antioch, if you wanna across the ocean, it’s about 90 miles. If you wanna go around by land, it’s gonna be about 150 miles.
What I’m, what Paul, what Luke is letting us know is that the scope of the spread of the gospel now has quadrupled 70 miles from Jerusalem to se to, to Caesarea, but 300 miles to Antioch. That’s times 4 75 times four. If I’m doing this right is 300 it’s quadrupled. The spread of the gospel is growing. And then there are people markers that tie us back to our story.
Uh, oh, there what’s. Yeah, there we go. Our second map, 75 miles, uh, from Jerusalem Caesarea, you can read that while you can look at that while I, while I keep preaching, um, there are these people, markers, Steven Steven, we know from max chapter seven Barnabas, we met Barnabas first in acts chapter four. Um, his name is actually Joseph, but they call him son of encouragement.
And I can only think that probably they give him the son. Why wouldn’t they just call him encouragement? They probably call him son of encouragement, but cause probably he’s a younger man. When he, when he comes upon this scene, we learned that he is a, um, he’s from Cyprus. He’s a CPRI yacht by birth. We never hear that he has a wife or a family where we pick.
Barnabus is their, this is a great story in the prelude to the anize and SFI story, where the church, they, they took what they had and they sold it and they laid it at the apostles feet. Barnabus is the one who take, who sells a field and takes the whole amount that he took got from the sale. And he lays it at the apostles feet.
And then we know what happened with, with an, with Anai. And Saara the last word we have on Barnabus is chapter nine. We’ve already been through all this chapter nine as, as, uh, Saul makes his way down to Jerusalem and, and the believers in Jerusalem still don’t trust him. They know what he’s done. They know who he is.
They do not trust him. And Barnabas is the only one with the courage to take young Saul or Saul at that time and present him to the, to the elders, to the apostles there in Jeru. We learn about Saul. Saul is an anchor here. Saul is a character here. Saul. We heard first at the stoning of Stephen in chapter seven.
The last we heard of Saul was when he was introduced to the apostles. And there he is in Jeru, let he preaches Christ boldly. He pre Christ. So boldly in fact that they decide that the, uh, the Hellenistic Jews decide they need to kill him. And so Saul’s disciples decide to get him out of Jerusalem and they haul him off to Caesarea and they put him on a boat and they send him home to Tarsus.
And then again, Claudias we already said enough about Claudias. I wanna just give this little plug, if you are in the history at all, if you have never seen the BBC special eye Claudias, I would highly recommend that you watch at least a few episodes. I would highly recommend that you not have children present in the room.
Uh, it is, I would say PG 13 at best. but it gives such it is they sought historical accuracy and it will give you a glimpse into the world in which the church was born. So take my cautions, but also it’s, it’s it’s worth watching and well done. So let’s put it all together. Let’s, let’s move this story along.
Can we move in the direction that, that Luke intends with these markers in place? Let’s look at this story and see where we are. Maybe we can ascertain through these things now triangulate our exact location. What is it that Paul is trying to say? And if we’re gonna stick with our TV series analogy, which is a great analogy with multiple storylines and converging plots, then I think before this episode and you know it well, right?
The episode starts before they roll the opening credits. You hear the announcer’s voice on a previous episode of acts. The spirit of work to the ends of the earth and real quick, they cut to a scene. And in that scene, you see, um, they’d show a young man laying the price of his field at the feet of, of, of the apostles.
And you elbow your wife and you say, see, see that’s part of us. And then there would be the scene where the believers are saying to each other, we need to get out of Jerusalem or that Saul is going to kill us all. And one ask, where are you gonna go? And it replies, I don’t know, but I think I’m gonna go north.
I have family in Antioch will be safe there. And then there would be a scene of the, of the young man putting Saul on a boat in Caesarea and telling the captain do not let this man off this boat until you safely arrive in Tarsus. And your wife would say, see, I told you he’ll get away. Our episode here actually begins.
In verse 22, the report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent it to sent Barnabas to Antioch. If you remember last week, pastor Tim brought us to, to the point in the storyline where Peter is giving a report of the conversion of Cornelius to his household and his household to the Jerusalem church.
It wasn’t the sermon about the conversion. It was the sermon about the report about the conversion verse 22 is where our current story converges with the main storyline. But before that can happen before this episode, Luke graciously provides us with backstory and to do so. He backs us all the way up to chapter eight to the beginning of the Philip storyline.
That episode began like this. Now, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to a city of Samaria and proclaimed to them. The Christ. Now Luke goes back and he picks up like there’s a fork in the road there at that moment. He goes back and he takes the, this other fork and he starts very similarly.
Now, those who were scattered because of the persecution word, for word that arose over Steven traveled as far as Fania. So now they’re north north of Damascus, north of Galilee. They went north as far as FIA, Cyprus and island off the coast of, in, in the middle of the, um, Mediterranean and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews, but there were some of them, men of Cypress and Cyrene who were on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Helen to the Greeks, preaching the, the Lord Jesus and the hand of the Lord is with them and a great number who believed, turned to the Lord.
So from way back in chapter eight, at least. A decade prior to our current story, a decade earlier at the same time that Philip takes off by the leading of the spirit and goes to Samaria and preaches the word, other believers, other Jesus followers migrate north all the way to Antioch way up in Northern Syria.
And they, as they go, they preach the good news that they heard, that they’ve been being taught there in Jerusalem for these years, since the resurrection of their Lord. But they’re only sharing it with Jews because they’re Jews and they’re comfortable sharing it with Jews. And then some Ciprian and Cian believers who must not have gotten the memo arrived there in Antioch, and they share Jesus with the Greeks.
These are Greek speaking Greeks. These are Gentiles. pagans likely as well as God fearing Greeks, what Luke records for us. And it’s so important is that the hand of the Lord, the hand of Jesus was with them and a great number who believed, turned to the Lord. A great number of who a great number of Greeks turned to the Lord.
And if you’re tracking with me so far, and I hope that you are a fair question for you to raise right now might be. So you are saying that maybe Cornelius was not the first Gentile convert to Christianity. And I would have to say that that in all probability, that is exactly what Luke is saying. Let’s let that settle in a second for you.
Bible scholars, your brain just tweak a little bit. And so let’s just let that settle in. There’s a strong likelihood. That Cornelius was not among the first Gentiles to be converted, uh, to the way I picture kind of like this, the last episode Tim taught last week, the last episode, sending ended with a scene in Jerusalem where someone says then to the Gentiles, God has also granted repentance that leads to life and they rejoice.
And then this episode opens with some brother in the back of the room saying, ah, I don’t mean to upset anyone, but this has been happening up in Antioch for years. I thought you knew. I just thought you knew and whatever the case and however, and whenever they become aware, the Jerusalem church quickly sends a trusted man 300 miles north 300 miles.
And their choice for the job is our man Barnabas son of encouragement, the same one who sold a field in chapter. This is what Luke says. Barnabas found upon arriving. When he came, he saw the grace of God and he was glad he rejoiced and he exhorted them all remained faithful to the Lord was stead FFA, fast purpose for, he was a good man full of the holy spirit and a faith and a great many people were added to the Lord.
What did Barnabas find in, in Antioch? Luke says that he saw the grace of God and he rejoiced, it caused him. He saw the grace of God and it caused him to rejoice. I think maybe we see there a sense of relief. What am I gonna find when I get there? What kind of mess am I walking into Jews and Gentiles in the same place?
They might be eating food together. This is crazy. What, where, what, what were they sending me to do? Don’t they know I’m just encourager, but what he gets there and what he finds. It causes him to rejoice. What he found was at least as good as what he hoped and probably much better. What he sees is enough for him to encourage them, to continue doing what you’re doing.
Don’t stop it. Continue remain faithful in the Lord was stead F’s purpose. Maybe the words that he heard there in Jerusalem are still fresh in his ear. Then to the Gentiles. God also has granted repentance that leads to life upon arriving in Antioch, Barnabas fines, that the grace of God and the hand of the Lord have preceded him to this city.
This great city of Antioch. Let me say this about Antioch. However difficult. It may have been to be a Christian in Jerusalem here in the first century, it was exponentially more difficult. There in the, in the Roman world, in a city like Antioch, Antioch was richly diverse. And when I say richly diverse, I mean, every culture represented in the Roman empire was present here.
Every God present in the Roman empire and the Greek world was present here. And there’s also a large Jewish population. When I was preaching Christ in Jerusalem with the Jews, they may have wanted to kill me, but at least we had a common foundation in the scriptures. They were arguing from the word of God.
And I was arguing from the word of God. The difference is I saw the hope of Israel fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. And I just want you to see that too. And God open some Jewish eyes and some he didn’t, but at least we had this, at least we could argue intelligently with one another from scripture.
But here in Antioch for me to say that there is a son of God, an anointed son of God was ridiculous. The son of God sat on his throne in Rome. Caesar was both God and Lord. He was called the son of God. So when I throw out son of God, what son of God are you talking about? When I give you throw out the idea of an invisible God?
Well, where do you pray? If your God is invisible, where do you who’s in your temple?
In the Greek mind, you could worship Caesar and Apollo or any other D you desired at the same time. There’s no conflict. There’s a Pantheon of God’s and they’re not in competition. Always.
But the notion of an invisible God, who’s the maker of heaven and earth was strange. The notion of an anointed son of God, who was crucified and risen again, and now sits in heaven as Lord of all this utter ridiculous nonsense to the pagan mind. And if this is going to work, this thing, that’s happening in Antioch, where these pagan, former pagans have come to Christ and these former Jews still Jews have embraced Jesus as their Messiah.
If this thing is gonna work, if it has a hope, then Barnabas knows he’s gonna need some help. Who could he find who could teach the Gentiles, the word of God while at the same time, teaching both Jews and Gentile believers, how to interpret the sacred text. In light of the events that just took place Jerusalem just two decades earlier, when the Messiah came and he lived and he was crucified, he buried was buried and he rose again from the dead who could teach them that the long awaited hope of Israel had been fulfilled in this one, man, Jesus Christ.
The next verse says, so Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch with no way. Scripture gives us no clue what was happening in Tarsus. What was happening in Paul’s life, what he was doing, was he hiding in his mom’s house? Sucking his thumb, hoping nobody would kill him.
Chances are he was making tenses and he was actively preaching the word because he was fearless and he really didn’t care if anybody killed him because Jesus is Messiah. Messiah is Jesus. And I will go toe to toe with anybody who wants to disagree with me. It could be, depending on where you move the timeline.
Paul was here for up to a decade in Tarsus doing what we don’t know, but we know he was growing in the Lord. Barnabas hasn’t forgotten Saul. He hasn’t forgotten him. He remembers probably clearly what was said to Damas, to in Damascus to the prophet and Anais go for, he is a chosen servant of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel for, I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.
There’s not a man in the world who is as uniquely qualified as so of Tarsis to join Barnabas in this venture in Antioch. And now we have Luke and we have Saul and Barnabas in Antioch. And Luke tells us for a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. Now I wanna give you a little confession here.
When you’re handed a task, like, um, we, we need, this is the passage I want you to preach. It’s you begin looking at it. And I found this out back in, I think it was probably April that my name was put on the schedule with this and you start reading it and you’re slowly reading. You’re working your way.
You’re warming up to the, to it. But as you come to it, now, the pressure’s increasing because we’re getting closer to August 21st and you begin really looking into it. And, and you, I have to say, you get started to get nervous and you’re thinking there’s nothing to say here. There’s nothing to say, like, what’s, what’s the, what’s the punch?
Like, what am I gonna, what am I gonna preach here? I can only imagine poor Tim here this morning is pastor Tim here. He did a great job last week, but I can only imagine pastor Tim getting not the sermon, that was about the conversion of Cornelius, but the sermon that was about the report, about the conversion of Cornelius.
And he did a fabulous job. And when you’re sitting there, you’re you feel it’s not the nervousness, honestly. And I think everybody who’s. Taught the word would say this it’s the, the weight of presenting and representing the word of God in front of his people. That’s, that’s where the fear lies. And I wanna, I don’t want to entertain you, but I want you to enjoy this time with me here.
I, I, if you’re not, if you’re not learning anything, if you’re not engaged, then you’re not gonna learn anything. And you just turned me off a while ago and we’re done. And I come to this and I’m like, cause is all this passage does is just move us forward. And now we have saw in Antioch and on his, on the verge heading down to Jerusalem and that’s all that happens here.
Well, where’s the, where’s the import in that? What’s what are you gonna take away from that? Sometimes? What is not there is as telling as what is there, there are at least two things I think that we don’t see in this passage. And I think Luke is offering them up as glaring O. He set the stage for us. And when we come to this, we should see, wait a minute.
What about two things? At least two? And I wanna share two things that we don’t see. The first is in the last two episodes, Peter story of Cornelius and the report of the story of Cornelius. The spirit had to convince Peter in no easy way that what God calls clean. Don’t you call unclean. The spirit had to say it three times to Peter showing him the same thing.
Again, you think, come on, Peter did it three times. The sheet has to come down. One time sheet comes down from heaven and the holy spirit speaks to you and does this thing. You’re like, okay, I got it. Three times. He has to do it. And only after he was firmly convinced. could God allow him to make the trip to Cornelius’s house.
And we know why the spirit had to convince Peter because Peter was gonna have to convince the church in Jerusalem, the Jews demand a sign. But what we see here in our text is that these very ordinary run of the mill, you and I, Jesus followers needed no convincing at all. It was good news that they had received, and they would tell it to anyone who would listen.
Nobody had to tell them to share the good news with the Gentiles. If anything, someone was gonna have to tell them that they needed to stop. They had embraced a new reality in Jesus Christ. He had changed their lives and they wanted everybody to know, even at the cost of their own life. The second thing that we don’t.
is a grand spectacular display of authentication by now, we should be looking for this. Luke has set us up for this. We should expect to see a grand spectacular display of authentication. We had Pentecost, tongues of fire might rush you wind speaking in tongues. When the gospel went down to Samaria, we had another Pentecost like display as the apostles themselves went to Samaria, laid their hands on and the people received the holy spirit.
And then we just saw it for the last two weeks in Caesarea there in Cornelius’s house. The spirit descended on the Gentile converts, just like he had done in the upper room at Pentecost. Let me say this what’s happening here in anti. We’ll shape the direct, the direction of the church of Jesus Christ for centuries to come.
Antioch will be a pivotal play, a pivotal role in church history for centuries, Jerusalem by 70 ad is leveled. The movement from we are setting the stage here. Now the rest of the book is going to proceed from Antioch. This is the big movement of God in the world, and he does so with no fanfare at all.
This is huge. What is happening in Antioch is huge. So where’s the authentication of the spirit. The church in Jerusalem doesn’t even bother to send an apostle to check it out
and the answer may be subtle, but it’s here in the very next sentence. and in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians, Christiano, literally Messiah people. The word called there, there’s more than one word for called, even in our language, more ideas for called than just called it. Isn’t just spoken.
That would be the word Callo. The word here is crema it’s to receive or to take a name from my public business. I’m a blacksmith. They call me Smith. Smith is my name it’s to receive or take a name from my public business and we better translate it. And in Antioch, the disciples were first given the name, Christian.
It is what they are called. It is what they are about the business they were busying themselves with was the Messiah. They were Messiah people and the nonbelievers in anti. Recognized it
not only were they recognizing what these Messiah people were about. They were also learning from these Christians, what Jesus, the Christ was all about. And through the words of these Christiano, these Messiah people
and through their lives, many were being added to the church. And how do we know that these so-called Christians were in fact Christians? Where’s the authentication doesn’t that holy spirit have to come and blow over them and land on them and give them sign gifts and let have ’em speaking in tongue doesn’t that, that have to happen.
Isn’t that the authenticating work, the next paragraph goes like this. Now in those days, in these days, within the year that they’re there. 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 Claudias. So the disciples determined each one, according to his ability to send relief to the brothers, living in Judea. And they did so sending it to the elders in Jerusalem, by the hand of Barnabas and saw, they say the proof is in the pudding. The proof is in the pudding.
When confronted with the reality of the hard times coming their way. Don’t let that fact escape you a famine over the whole world. As far as I know, Antioch is included in whole world. A fam is coming to us and how are we gonna respond? Well, this is great news. We know in advance. Let’s get ready. Starts canning up the, the peaches let’s get ’em load up the pantry.
Why? So we’re prepared because famine is coming and we wanna be sure that we’re taking care of us and our ourselves and our own. That would be the knee jerk reaction of anyone, especially in a pagan world, but they respond apparently with no coercion. Nobody’s saying, this is what you do. We don’t even hear that Agabus says, but you know, there’s a lot of really poor believers down in Judea who could really use your help.
We have no indication of any of that. Instead what we see immediately, a knee response, an otherworldly alter cultural response to this knowledge of need each one, determined to give according to their ability to send relief to those that they knew would need help. One year they’ve been sitting under the teaching of Paul in Barnabas, as well as other teachers in chapter 13, verse one, we’re gonna be introduced to some other teachers here.
Um, I don’t wanna steal any under there. These disciples sat under Paul’s teaching and the teaching of others, others who came up from Jerusalem, others who had been taught by the ones who had, who sat at the master’s feet. Probably the text of their sermons probably was dominated with the sermon on the Mount, our last series.
They heard the words of Jesus, the master over and over and over again. They knew that the world would know that they were disciples of his because of their love for each other. But they also knew that that love was not confined to the vacuum of the church. Building that that love spilled over. And it looked like this.
I say, love. Your enemies and pray for them. Bless those who persecute you. These were the words of Jesus that are ringing in their ear. And when given a chance, what do they do? They act like Jesus. They are Messiah people. They are the Christiano. They are the Christians. This is the authenticating sign of the genuineness of their faith.
We don’t need to speak in tongues. We don’t need mighty rushing winds. We don’t need tongues of fire. We need to see the spirit at work among us. And that’s all we need. This is the authenticating sign. This is the proof that the spirit was among them. It was their love at the center of it all, what they knew, what they learned, what they were learning, what they were applying was love.
This is what Barnabus was hoping he would find. This is what he was looking for. And he found that the spirit had already proceeded him to this city. The people learned from Saul, but I can’t help, but wonder what was Saul? This young apostle who didn’t have the privilege of sitting at Jesus’ feet for those years that he was with us.
What were they teaching him? And what was he learning in the company of these believers there at Antioch, we teach what we’re learning the way it always is. We teach what we’re learning. Paul was teaching them what he was seeing and what he was learning. Paul learned that the only authentication needed was the evidence of the spirit in the life of a disciple or the life of, of a body of believers.
When pressed by the Corinthian believers. To present letters of recommendation to prove that he’s an apostle, he laughs and he says to them, this is in second Corinthians chapter three. Don’t you know that you are our letter, you have the spirit. What more proof do you need from me or anyone else? I believe that Saul here is learning and confirming here in Antioch, his feet, getting dirty in the streets of Antioch.
What would become his theology and what would become the theology of the Christian Church? Pastor mark quoted. Andy quoted Andy Stanley I’m quote I’m quoting pastor mark quoting Andy Stanley. I think it was last week. Andy Stanley said of these, this account. These Christians were called. These believers were called Christians first in Antioch that they were not changing religions.
They were changing allegiance, a new king, a new kingdom, old things had passed behold, all things had become new. Listen to just these two verses that the apostle Paul would pen not many years from now from this occurrence. I think these two verses succinctly aptly convey Paul’s motive for living in this world as a Christian, as one of the Messiah people, I think you have these verses second Corinthians chapter five for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this.
No conclusion, no control. The love of Christ controls us having concluded this, that one has died for all. Therefore all have died and he died for all that. Those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him and who, for him, who for their sakes died and was raised again. Another similar one, the next one.
Galatians is two 20. You may have this one memorized. I have been crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives me and the life. I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This is what Paul is learning. As he walks the streets of Antioch.
This is what he’s learning. As he rubs elbows with the Christians there in this pagan city. This is the heartbeat of the gospel for Saul and for Paul Christ died for our sins, according to the scripture. And he was raised again, according to the scripture, the distinguishing features of appalling theology is our union with Christ, both in his death and in his rising again to newness of life.
This is Paul’s theology. We are in Christ. And it is in the light of the Messiah people it’s in the light of this reality that the Messiah people live their lives in this world. This is what Paul works into everything that he writes that we are in Christ. I’m gonna pray. And then we have, you have the video, right?
Okay. I’m gonna pray now. And then where I’m gonna show a video that I came across this week, which just caused me to weep like a baby many times. I wanna share it with you. And when it’s done, you’re dismissed. I won’t come back up. I’m gonna pray. We’re gonna watch the video. It’s just a song by Michael card.
You’re gonna love it. If you have to go, please feel like free, like free feel free to go. But when it’s done, just let it settle on you for a minute in the song. He’s gonna ask this question. So now I ask of you, this is asking Jesus. I ask if you speak the word and tell me true in light of all you’ve done for all you’ve done.
What should I do? within this new reality, could I become your hands and feet to bear your life and your likeness act on the belief. Let me pray. God, we live in a world. So similar to Antioch. So like this city, and like in that day, people are judging us whether or not we are the Messiah people, but sadly, whether we like it or not, they’re judging you based on how we live our lives.
Oops, Lord, may the truth that we’ve been studying and learning here that was happening, that was tearing up the Roman world. The truth that as the followers of Jesus Christ, we have moved into a new reality. There is a new king. There is a new kingdom. There is a new family and we are part of it. God, I pray that you would burden our hearts.
Lord, let us feel the weight of what it means to bear the name, Christian in this world and feeling the weight of what it means to bear the name, Christian in this world. Let us move forward. Let us go into this world. Let us rejoice. Let us share the Christ who has changed our lives with a world that needs Christ to change our lives.
Lord, this is up to you and to your spirit, as you work in your people here, the Messiah people gathered here this morning, and I pray these things in the name of our Lord Jesus, the Christ, your Messiah. Amen