The Church Where It All Began - Acts 11

Well, good morning.

We are back in the book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles.

We were last here two summers ago.

It is a wonderful part of the Bible.

So in your Bibles, open up, please.

Acts chapter 11 and verse 19, page 920 in the church Bibles.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

Acts eleven, verses 19 to 30.

Let me pray.

Our God, would you teach us to do your will?

Would your good spirit lead us still?

That is our prayer as we come to your word, asking that you would do it in us.

For Jesus' name's sake.

Amen.

Amen.

So let's listen then to the word of God, Acts 11 and verse 19.

Now, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled 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 Agabas, 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 every 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 Saul.

Thanks be to God for his true and living word.

From where does your family come?

And what is your family like?

My family, if you were to do enough family tree work, probably we come from France, yikes, at the time of the Norman conquest.

What is our family like?

Well, among other things, we tend to have big noses.

It's very helpful for stopping your glasses falling off your face.

Now, your family.

Where does your family come from?

What is your family like?

What about your Christian family?

What about the church to which you and I belong?

From where does our family come?

What is our family like?

Our Bible reading today, you'll have noticed it is full of place names.

Makes you want to get out a map, doesn't it?

Hopefully we've heard of Cyprus and Jerusalem.

Might be able to find them on the map.

You can still find them on the map on a modern map, though for us they are a long way from home.

But there were strange names too, weren't there?

Phoenicia, Cyrene, Tarsus, and Antioch.

This passage, it's all about the church in Antioch.

What has the true story of the ancient church in Antioch got to do with us?

And the answer is this is where we come from.

Here is our family tree.

This is where we come from.

Here is the first Gentile church in the story of the global church of Jesus Christ.

Here we read of the birth and the growth of the first Gentile church.

This is our family story.

And here we find a window into the family-likeness.

What is our family like?

Not physically, you're not talking about big noses or long legs, but what we are to be.

So we learn here how the church is born and what she is like as she grows up.

We get a sense of her character.

Something very precious happened in this ancient city of Antioch, back in the days of the apostles, and we are given the story of this church so that we might take our place in the growing story, the growing family tree of the Church of Jesus alongside that first Gentile church in Antioch.

And as we read it, it's a bit like coming upon an old family photo from the early days of photography, or even a portrait of an ancestor painted centuries ago.

You look at it and you think, well, how do I measure up?

Can you see a family likeness?

So back to Antioch.

Let's think first about how the church is born.

The church in Antioch, she was born out of persecution and pain.

See that in the first verse of our reading.

Now, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen.

So Stephen, one of Jesus' first followers, he preached the word, he was full of grace and power.

He preached with great wonders and signs accompanying his words.

And the people of Jerusalem rose against him, they told lies about him, and they stoned him to death.

And back at the start of chapter 8, we read, and Saul approved of his execution, and there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered.

So the New Testament church, she started in Jerusalem, where the Lord Jesus was crucified, where he rose.

And it was that scattering, that forcible sending out of Christian people, because they could not live safely there anymore.

That scattering was the plan and the will of God to send the gospel out.

They were scattered north from Jerusalem.

Some went to the coastal region, Phoenicia.

Some jumped on a boat and went over to the island of Cyprus.

Others kept on going north to Antioch in the Roman province of Syria.

And it was a huge city, an important city, probably 500,000 people at this time.

It was the third city of the empire after Rome and Alexandria.

Now, what seems exotic and foreign actually is the Lord's constant pattern.

So often the Lord has scattered his people through persecution and pain in order to take the gospel out.

It's how churches are born.

Now, this church that is formed, who is she formed from?

Well, the church is formed out of the, well, I've called them the far from God people.

Let's think about that for a moment.

It was always God's plan to have a worshiping people drawn from every single nation under heaven.

That was baked into the covenant of grace that God gave to Abraham in the very earliest chapters of the Bible.

All nations would find blessing in him.

And so the risen Jesus, he told his disciples, Acts chapter 1, verse 8, and by the way, this is the theme verse of the book of Acts, Acts 1, verse 8, he said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Acts 1:8 Acts 1:8

Now in the first few chapters of Acts, we've seen the gospel spin out of Jerusalem and Judea, and then to Samaria, these half Jewish, half pagan people, and then chapter 10 to the household of a man called Cornelius, a Gentile, but also a sympathizer with the God of Israel.

And the closing verse of the last passage, the last section, 11, verse 18, it sums up something amazing.

Just have a look.

The end of chapter 11, verse 18.

Then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

And what began in one household, well, it's like a dam, then bursts.

And the Gentile church must now be born.

Now, something so important for us to remember.

Back in New Testament times, the people of the world were split in two.

There were Jews and there were Gentiles.

And we cannot imagine the significance of that divide.

There were those who were near to God, and there were those who were far away from God.

We sang in a hymn earlier about the middle wall being torn down.

So not just the barrier between us and God, but also the barrier, the wall between Jew and Gentile.

Now, these evangelists, these scattered, ordinary, suffering Christians, first of all, they spoke only to the Jews.

But then, verse 20, to the Hellenists, that is, to these Greek Gentiles.

That's just a word to us, but they have just taken the gospel over the greatest obstacle, the greatest wall, the greatest division of hatred that human beings can imagine.

It's one of the glories of the gospel, one of the unchanging glories of the gospel that those who are far away are invited in.

Those who, through their lives, background, conduct, sins are or feel the furthest away, the greatest of sinners, are welcomed and embraced, given repentance unto life.

So the church, she is born out of persecution and pain.

The church is formed from far from God people, and the church is born as Christians spoke the word.

Did you see that?

Verse 19, they were speaking the word.

Verse 20, they spoke, preaching the Lord Jesus.

This is God's timeless pattern, isn't it?

Unbelieving people come to faith in Jesus when Christian believers have courage to speak about Jesus.

Now these scattered disciples, they know that they had a job to speak, to seize opportunities to talk about their Lord and Savior Jesus.

And you can see from these verses that it was all kinds of speaking.

There was obviously private conversation as well as public speech and preaching.

They speak, and it is the sovereign will of God then to pour out his Holy Spirit, to bring people to repentance and faith whenever he sees fit.

And it's wonderful this story, isn't it?

So many were brought into the kingdom of God.

This little church, it wasn't little for very long.

They experienced what we would call revival.

There's great encouragement here.

We're all different, we have different opportunities, we have different natures.

But if we belong to Jesus, we can speak of Jesus such as we are able.

And hand in hand with Christians speaking of the Lord is the mighty hand of the Lord.

Do you see that?

And this is this is the bottom line, isn't it?

In the birth of the church, she is birthed by the mighty hand of the Lord.

Now our God He's invisible, yet his power is vast.

And sometimes Scripture uses that phrase, the hand or the arm of the Lord, to help us to remember the infinite power of our invisible God.

So verse 21, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and it was really obvious.

Had we been there, it would have been so obvious that the hand of the Lord was with them, a work of God was being done.

These humble, ordinary, scattered Christians, they were speaking the word, and the hand of the Lord reached out to bring numbers of unbelieving people to faith.

Far from God people, Gentile people, Antiochine pagans to faith in Jesus.

This is the constant pattern in the story of Acts.

It should be such an encouragement to us.

Christians speak, and the mighty hand of the Lord works.

Christians speak, and the Spirit of God comes in power.

Do you notice in verse 21?

We're given there the essential requirements for salvation, the essential requirements for life and forgiveness in Jesus.

We read that a great number who believed turned to God.

You see, believing and turning.

The way into the Christian life is the same for everyone.

Believing and turning, believing, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is and what he has done.

He is our sole grounds for life and forgiveness.

I place my trust in you, Lord Jesus.

Turning, a turning from living independently of Jesus, driving my own life, as it were, turning toward him, now living with him in charge of me.

That is the way in to relationship with this Christ.

And so the church in Antioch is born.

God be praised.

And a bit like when a child is born, I don't know, you're you're in the hospital, uh, baby's born, you want the midwife or the doctor the doctor to do some basic basic health checks, don't you?

And then you want the baby to grow up.

That's what babies are built to do.

And that really is the rest of our chapter.

The church matures.

First, the health check.

Uh, news from Antioch, it reaches Mother Church in Jerusalem.

And so they send this man, Barnabas, verse 22.

Now, Barnabas was not his real name.

Acts 4 tells us his real name was Joseph.

His nickname was Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.

That tells you something about the bloke.

How wonderful to be given that kind of nickname.

Uh, a son of encouragement.

He was known for his generosity and his kindness.

So along comes Barnabas to Antioch and he sees the grace of God, and it's a joyful thing, it's a glad thing.

And so he exhorts them to stick with the person who has made this glad thing happen.

Stick with Jesus for the long haul.

And really, that's what verse 23 means.

He exhorted them to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

Stick with Jesus.

Stick with Jesus.

You've started with Jesus, now stick with Jesus.

There'll be so many reasons not to stick with him.

The cost of following him means persecution.

The cost of repenting unto Jesus means saying no to sin.

But there's nowhere else to go.

He's the best treasure in the world, he's the only saviour, so stick with Jesus.

And what Barnabas does next is really important.

He goes in church, he goes in search of Saul.

Now, Saul, remember Saul from the early chapters of Acts.

This is Saul who had done everything he could to stop the spread of the gospel.

He was there when Stephen was martyred.

He was a murderer of Christians.

He ravaged the church.

He went from house to house, dragging away men and women to prison, until the Lord seized him and opened his eyes and showed him Christ and converted his heart.

And unbelievably, he gave Saul a job.

Read about it in Acts 9.

He said, He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

And you might think to yourself, of all of the people you could choose, Lord, you choose Saul to build your church.

Well, everything really from here on in in the book of Acts humanly depends on what Barnabas did next.

He goes to Tarsus to look for Saul.

I think there's a hint here that it was a pretty serious search.

It's the same searching word that Joseph and Mary did when they lost Jesus in Luke 2.

Maybe he was hard to find.

Certainly the last thing we read about Saul was him being sent into hiding because his life was in danger.

But Barnabas knew that Saul was the man for the ministry in Antioch.

And actually, from here on in, Barnabas takes a back seat, very humble man.

So Saul, by chapter 13, we discover he's also known as Paul.

He would be the leader of the Gentile mission.

And if you fast forward to the very last verse of the book of Acts, there is Paul.

He is boldly and freely preaching the gospel at the center of the world.

He's in Rome.

And where it all begins, track it back, where it all begins is this ministry to the brand new church in Antioch.

His ministry of gospel sharing, his ministry of establishing churches, building them up, helping them mature and put down deep roots in Jesus.

Because following Jesus is not a one-time expression of commitment.

It's well, it's what Barnabas said.

It's staying faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, it's sticking with Jesus.

And so Saul and Barnabas, they spend a whole year helping them do this, saturating the people of God with the truth of God.

Because that's how the church is established, that's how any church is established, ours, a church plant, any church, through the teaching of the word of God.

There's a body of doctrine that Christian people have got to learn.

What God is like, how you get saved, the church.

And there are implications of the gospel for the whole of life.

When you believe and turn to the Lord, well, that gospel then affects everything.

Okay, Jesus is Lord of my wallet and my marriage and my family.

Well, so what?

What does that then mean?

Well, that's what Saul and Barnabas spent a year doing with the church in Antioch.

So there's a job here, isn't there, for elders and ministers to teach?

There's also a job for the whole people of God, too, to be learners and growers in doctrine, in discipleship.

And that lovely thing at the end of verse 26 here the disciples were first called Christians.

Maybe that's no accident.

The Lord's hand was stretched out, people were saved, the truth of God was poured into them, and it must have been very obvious to the people around them.

And it's likely it was non-Christians who coined this term.

It was so obvious that here is something new.

Here's an astonishing new community that needs a new name.

Remember, back then there were two types of people.

There were Jews and there were Gentiles, but now here is a third race of men.

It's the Christians.

In a sin-darkened world, Antioch was a pretty dark place.

We're in a pretty dark place in time.

In a sin-darkened world, a real church really stands out.

People can say, these are the Christians.

It is what the world should say as they look at us.

Just think for a moment what it means to bear that name.

So if you're Christian people, in your baptism, you've had that name put on you.

You're belonging to Christ, constantly naming the name of Christ, being followers of the way of Christ.

It's a weighty thing, it's a heavy thing, it's a glorious thing.

And one amazing sign that this new Christian community in Antioch, it was really born of God by the hand of God, that even in year one of its existence, it was maturing in Christ-likeness.

Well, they obeyed God's word and they shared with their brethren.

And that's the last bit of the chapter, verses 27 to 30.

Some prophets came down to Antioch, including a man called Agabus.

Now we know from the New Testament that part of life in the New Testament church were prophets.

Prophets who came and spoke God's words like Isaiah did or Elijah did in the Old Testament.

And their job was to establish these new churches with the word of God.

You've got to remember that the New Testament was not yet written when the New Testament was written, or the foundation was established, and no need then for Elijah's or Agabas's or the such like.

But what Agabus's prophecy implied is actually something timeless.

So he said to the church in Antioch, your Christian brethren are going to starve.

Okay, there's going to be a famine all over the, well, over the ecumene, over the inhabited world, the known world, and there was.

And then notice the response of the church.

This growing church, when when they heard of the need, they didn't hoard.

Do you remember COVID and the toilet rolls?

All of a sudden, there's not a toilet roll to be had because someone's got 900 of them.

Not hoarding, but giving.

Verse 29.

So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

Not hoarding but giving.

And then they do it.

They send it, they send relief.

That means sending money.

Now the book of Acts tells us that this was part of the Christian faith from day one.

Making sure that no other Christian was in need.

And so they send their gift to the brothers in Judea.

Other bits of the New Testament tell us that it was particularly acute, this famine in and around Jerusalem, and especially felt by the Christians who were left there.

And so this Gentile church, they had been blessed by the Jerusalem church, and now they showed their love and concern.

Really simply, here is a basic test of being a Christian.

It is care for Christian brothers and sisters.

Do you love your brothers and sisters?

And is it visible?

This is of supreme importance.

This it actually contains all of these different seeds from the first ten chapters of the book.

It sets the scene for the second half of the books, which is almost totally about Paul's ministry.

But this bit, it's given us really so that we can spy upon, look upon Antioch.

This church, yes, she would become the base for mission for Paul and Barnabas, his missionary journey, his first one would begin and end here, his second and third journeys would always go through this church.

But she's given us as a model church.

I hope that encourages you.

Here is where we come from.

This is what we are to be like.

Let's bow our heads.

I'm gonna lead us uh in prayer.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, uh, we thank you for your mighty hand, which not only saves men and women and boys and girls, but builds us together in churches.

We thank you for the church of which we are each a part.

And we pray for our healthiness and our maturing.

We pray that our church family would be full of your word and obedience.

We pray that we would honor one another in the keeping of our membership vows.

We pray that we would rightly reflect the honour and privilege of bearing the name of Christian.

And we pray for our witness in the world.

We live in a dark place.

You have shown us wonderful light in Christ.

You call us to reflect that light.

And so we pray for us in our scattering, in the different places and locations and relationships where you put us.

Give us grace this week to make the most of every opportunity.

We do not want to be ashamed, but we want to be glad and rightly proud that we bear the name of Christ.

So would you fill us with your Holy Spirit to that end.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.