Acts 13:1-12 "The Flourishing Church"

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Good morning, Southwood.

It's good to be with you.

Great to be in the great state of Alabama.

Again, I married an Alabama girl.

Where's Fran?

She's in here somewhere, my wife.

There she is, right down here.

Married a beautiful girl from Birmingham, Alabama.

I met her in Christmastime of 1983.

We both happened to attend a conference that was put on by Campus Crusade for Christ,

CRU it's now known as, and they had a national conference for all college students to come

together the week out of Christmas in 1983.

It was one of the coldest winters in American history.

My diesel car actually froze over while I was there for the week.

But we both attended this conference, 20,000 students.

I was sitting on the end of the row before the beginning of the first talk in this arena,

and this beautiful red-headed girl comes walking down and says,

Hey, my friend and I got lost from our group.

We ran in from the buses.

It's real cold out there.

Can we sit next to y'all?

I said, Absolutely, you can.

I had a good seat that day.

God was kind to me.

Fran sat down next to me.

We listened to Howard Hendricks speak.

We did the little prayer group together afterwards, and I invited her with my friends to go to Wendy's.

Well, Fran was this pretty redhead.

Believe it or not, I had red hair at the time.

I have no hair left, but I had very red hair at the time.

And so we go to Wendy's, the red-headed restaurant.

So there we are, standing in line.

We've been there, known each other for about an hour and a half.

And she says to me, Hey, you know, if we got married, we'd have all red-headed kids.

And we did, and we do.

We have four wonderful red-headed children, three daughters and a son.

Two of those daughters are married.

We have two grandchildren now.

We are so thankful.

It's fun to sort of be in this middle space of life.

That's a euphemism for 55.

You're sort of on the back end of things.

There are great things about growing older.

There are hard things about growing older.

One of those is that you write, can read the same book that you've read just a couple years before.

And it all seems new to you.

Like you don't remember any of the twists or turns or what's going to happen.

I recently was on a plane.

I didn't have anything to reread.

So I looked on my Kindle and I saw The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

And so I pulled that down again and reread it.

And it all seemed so new to me again.

I just read it before.

But it's kind of like the main character, Rachel, in the book, who has fuzzy memories.

She's trying to call back things.

And so the journey of the book is sort of her remembering true things as they are.

But there's a key sort of figure in the book.

And that is that Rachel rides the train every day from the suburbs into London and back to the suburbs.

And it seems the train will stop going to and from at the same juncture.

There will be a stoppage almost every day at this spot that's sort of at a low area at the bottom of a subdivision.

And she likes to look out the window of the train.

And she'll often see early in the morning with them sipping coffee or in the evening with them out on the porch drinking a glass of wine.

This couple, she's made up names for them.

She calls them Jason and Jess.

Jess, Jason has that look of the man that she would want to be with.

And she just imagines what kind of a loving, amazing husband Jason is.

And Jess is so beautiful and has that kind of figure and sort of manner that you think,

Oh, I would love to be like that.

And they look so happy together.

Oh, Jason and Jess.

Well, as the book unfolds, right, things are not as they seem for Jason and Jess.

What may look like a good marriage from a distance, right, is not at all.

Same can be true with churches, right?

You're coming up on 30 years.

You've had an amazing story here.

You have one of the nicest facilities really in our entire denominational network of the Presbyterian Church in America.

You've had great leaders in the past.

You have great leaders here now.

God has done much through you to promote the gospel going forward in this region.

But what does it really look like now at 30, you know, sort of fully matured?

What does it look like to be a flourishing church?

We won't want to be fooled about that.

What's it really look like to flourish as a gospel community?

It's an important question to ask when you think about what's going on in the broader church across the board in North America right now.

If you think just about evangelical congregations, congregations that promote the gospel of Christ,

that are preaching Christ both to Christians and those yet to become Christians in the hope that they will be converted,

congregations that believe the Bible is the word of God, that Jesus really is fully God and fully man,

that he was born of a virgin, that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, that he died truly, was crucified and buried,

and that he rose again from the dead.

Evangelical churches.

Evangelical churches are suffering in North America.

The bellwether leader for the evangelical movement is the Southern Baptist Church.

The Southern Baptist Church in the last 10 years has lost a million members in North America.

Gone from 16 million to 15 million.

I have a friend who heads up missions in the state of Georgia for the Southern Baptist Church.

He told me that the most commonly occurring number for Southern Baptist Churches in Georgia,

the number of baptisms each year now is zero.

It's not the average.

It's just the most commonly occurring number.

That's troubling.

It's troubling if you look at statistics that tell us that 80% of evangelical churches are either plateaued

or declining in terms of attendance, in terms of membership, in terms of missional engagement and community,

in terms of involvement and discipleship.

In the PCA, we have continued a small growth curve across the last five years.

We have grown 1%.

A year this last year that we have figures for, from 16 to 17, we grew only 0.2%.

So our growth curve is slowing down.

What does it mean to be a flourishing church?

It's really important to ask.

I can think of no better place to go than the book of Acts to answer that question.

Acts chapter 13, we meet the church in Antioch,

Acts 13 · chapter mention

and we discover the church that is flourishing and how the gospel is flourishing there

and how the gospel flows from the church in Antioch.

Let's read these verses together.

Acts 13, verses 1 through 12.

Acts 13:1–12

Hear God's word to you.

Now, there were in the church in Antioch prophets and teachers.

Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene,

Menaon, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said,

Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia,

and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews,

and they had John to assist them.

When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos,

they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus.

He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence,

who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

But Elemas, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name,

opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit,

looked intently at him and said,

You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness,

full of all deceit and villainy,

would you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?

And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you,

and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.

Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him,

and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had occurred,

for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Let's pray together.

Father, hear us now.

We're asking you.

We don't want to be confused, as we so often are, Lord,

about what real flourishing is in a marriage,

in a family, in a business,

in an organization, in a community.

Father, especially in a church,

show us the flourishing church from here in Acts.

Show us the church at Antioch and those who went out from them.

Show us the beauty and the flow of the gospel afresh,

that we might flourish collectively here at Southwood,

that we might flourish individually as your people,

in and through and because of the gospel.

Lord Jesus, we pray it all in your name.

Amen.

What does a flourishing church look like?

First, it looks like a generous church.

The flourishing church is a generous church.

If you think about the church at Antioch,

when you read in the earlier chapters of Acts,

how it gets established,

they are started, right,

because persecution drives people out of Jerusalem

in the earliest days of the church after Pentecost.

And people persecuted get scattered,

and they begin to drift around the Mediterranean world.

And some come to Antioch,

and they're preaching to Jewish people

the fullness of what Judaism was,

the hope in Jesus, the true Messiah.

And so Jews who have stayed Jews very culturally,

but also Jews that are called Hellenists,

those that are either from other parts of the world

and have been converted to Judaism,

or Jews that have lived in Greek-speaking kinds of places,

in Roman kinds of places,

and they're called Hellenists.

They're called these people

that are sort of from outside the normal way of Judaism.

All these together are coming and hearing about Jesus,

and a church is formed, and it's beautiful.

And so the church in Jerusalem

sends up one of their leaders, Barnabas,

the man who's called the son of encouragement,

the one who took a piece of property

and sold it all and laid it at the apostles' feet

and just said,

do whatever you will with this.

It's the Lord's to build his kingdom.

Barnabas goes,

and he goes and helps establish the church there.

And as you see the church get going in Antioch,

what's so beautiful is,

after they're formed

and they're first called Christians in that place,

Acts tells us earlier,

that a prophet stands up,

Agabus, you know,

Agabus is like a guest preacher.

You really don't want Agabus to come to your church.

He always says something hard and difficult when he comes.

I promise I won't be Agabus.

But Agabus stands up and says,

there's gonna be a worldwide famine.

You know what the response of the church in Antioch was?

Let's take up an offering.

Not so we can just make sure

that we're taking care of ourselves and our people.

Let's give it back to the mother church in Jerusalem.

They're gonna have greater needs than we do.

More people are gonna pass through Jerusalem.

There will be greater needs of hospitality.

There may be more persecution

that comes there alongside of this famine.

We need to take our best

and give it back somewhere else.

This is how the church in Antioch functions

from the very beginnings.

This is who their founder was in Barnabas.

This is who they were even as they got started.

But now things get ratcheted up

to a whole nother level.

This is next level big time.

Because what happens is they are worshiping the Lord

as they are praying and as they are fasting.

What does the Holy Spirit say to them?

Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul

for the work I have for them

to take this gospel to the world.

Give me Barnabas.

Give me your church planter.

Give me this guy who is the son of encouragement.

This one is so full, is modeled what generosity is.

I'm gonna take him from you.

And Saul?

You know this guy who is this amazing teacher

and preacher and writer and thinker

and evangelist and apologist and philosopher

and pastor.

I want him too.

What generosity was required of this church?

And they embraced it and welcomed it.

How do you do that?

How do you give in this way?

How do you do like Barnabas did

to take a whole piece of property

and just give it away?

How do you function like the church did in Antioch

from the beginnings and saying,

here we're gonna take up an offering

and we're gonna give it away.

We're not worried about us here.

We're giving it to where the needs are greater.

How can you take in a church

that is thriving and growing

and is the gateway for the gospel

in the whole Mediterranean world,

how can you take not just one leader,

but both of your leaders

and send them away in mission?

How do you do that?

Only when you're in touch

with how God functions through the gospel.

How God gives his best away

for us and his one and only son.

How Jesus gives his position of power

and honor away in the heavens

considering not equality with God

and status with God,

something to be grasped and clutched,

but humbled himself,

taking on human flesh,

remaining God,

but also becoming fully human

like us in every way

except for our sins

so he could humble himself

all the way to the point of death,

even death on a cross

so he could bear the weight of our sins

before a just God

so that we could live and know God

together with him and the Spirit forever.

A God, Father and Son,

who give the Spirit,

the one who's so much a part of them,

the connection of love between them

that's so real and so deep,

he's a person,

to pour out that Holy Spirit

to come live in us,

broken, sinful, weak,

frail people

that the light of the glory of God

should shine through the cracks

of our lives.

That's the generosity of God.

The only way

you can be this kind of people

is when you're in touch

with God's generosity

through the gospel.

Like that,

it's everywhere in the scriptures,

right?

It's just everywhere.

God,

the Psalms we read this morning,

God loves to be kind to us.

He loves to be generous to us.

He loves to welcome us.

The stories of the Bible

are just full of it.

I love the whole,

I'm just reading now

in my Bible reading plan,

the book of Hosea.

It's so lovely.

God tells Hosea the prophet,

go marry a woman

who lives on the street.

Go marry a woman

who's a prostitute.

Go marry a woman

who's a prostitute,

and she's not going to stop

being a prostitute

after she becomes your wife,

but marry her,

love her when she goes away.

Go find her,

and welcome her,

and woo her back,

and bring her back home,

and tell her you love her again.

Because that's how much

I love Israel.

That's how much

I love my people.

Getting in touch with that,

as the church at Antioch did

through worship,

and prayer,

and fasting,

is key to being

this generous kind of people.

So before we move on,

where does God want you

to show his generosity

in fresh ways?

As this church is turning 30,

where are the fresh ways

God wants Southwood

to be radically generous,

to be giving your best away

financially,

your best away

in terms of time

for this community

or the broader world.

Giving yourselves away

in terms of

thinking about

what does Southwood

need to give

Huntsville in the region

that would radically bless,

that would make

this region say,

we thank God

that this church

is in our midst.

And what does God

want each one of you

individually

to do afresh this fall?

Wake me up

when September ends,

Green Day sings, right?

Well, the summer's fully over,

the fall is good.

Where does God

want you to engage

to wake up

and be generous

in fresh ways

such that change

comes a little of your time

to a neighbor

that you know

is so lonely?

engaging someone

who's hurt you badly

and saying to them,

I really do forgive you.

I don't want to hold

the past over your head.

I want to go forward.

I want to show you

the generosity

of love and forgiveness

because that's what

the Father has done

with me and Jesus.

Where does God

want you to be

radically generous?

I just want to tell you

one story

before we move on.

Peter mentioned it,

but,

you know,

I not only got to marry

a girl from Alabama,

I got to live in Alabama

for a while,

got to work at Auburn

with RUF,

Reform University Fellowship,

if you don't know it,

our campus ministry

associated with

the Presbyterian Church

in America,

and God blessed

our time there richly.

We were there

in the early 90s.

God really began

to work a true revival

on that campus

during our time.

It was wonderful.

We literally got to work

each year with thousands

of students

talking about

the gospel of Jesus.

It was an amazing season.

But we could never

really raise our full support

as missionaries.

And no matter how many

students you work with,

they don't pay the budget,

right?

And so we kept working

and working

and working with churches

and individuals,

and we couldn't overcome

a huge deficit

that we had

as we began our time there.

And as we were

in the middle of our time,

we still had a $10,000 deficit,

which was about

almost half of a year's

salary at that time.

And we were going to have

to look for other work.

We just couldn't make it work.

And so I'd been

to all kinds of churches

to people,

and we just couldn't

close that gap.

And I get a phone call

one day from a woman

named Lee

in Selma, Alabama.

I'd visited her church

previously.

And I answer her,

and she says,

Paul, this is Miss Lee

over in Selma.

Hey, Miss Lee,

how are you?

Paul, you know,

I work with the women

in the church

for the region,

for the Presbytery,

for the Presbytery

Women's thing,

what we call the Preswick.

Yes, Miss Lee, yes.

We would like you

to come over

to Warrior Preswick

in Camden

this spring

and be our

Showers of Blessing

love speaker.

Yes, Miss Lee.

And we would like you

to bring Fran

and your two pretty

little girls.

Yes, Miss Lee.

And I'm thinking,

they're going to collect

an offering

for the Showers

of Blessing love gift.

And it's not going

to pay for our gas

to drive to Camden

and back.

And we're going to have

two little girls

in the back.

It's going to be

a long day.

Okay.

So I never thought

about that again

until months later

when it was the day to go.

We pretty up

and shine up.

We drive over.

We get there.

And in the Warrior Presbytery

women's meetings,

they actually had

name tags for everybody

in the shape

of bumblebees.

and they sing

a Christian bubble

and be song.

This is true.

It's about 1992,

circa.

Real.

And so we had

the little breakfast together.

I preached the sermon

to them.

They loved all my wife

and little daughters.

And then Miss Lee

stands up and says,

Paul, now it's time

for you to receive

the Showers of Blessing

Love Offering.

And she began

to describe

what they had done.

You know,

Warrior Presbytery

is western Alabama.

Warrior Presbytery

is the region

that covers

the poorest part

of the United States.

Poorer than Appalachia.

A lot of the towns

where these churches were

don't have stoplights.

A lot of these congregations

don't have pastors

because they can't afford

to pay them.

But she described

what the women

in these churches did.

Bank sales

and sewing circles

and got their youth

to do car washes

and special events

to raise money

for the Shepherds

of Blessing

Love Offering

for Auburn RUF.

I know nothing

about this going on

all year long.

And so,

I come to this event

and I stand up

and Miss Lee says,

and here is,

Paul,

our gift

and it's $5,000.

And I started crying.

Every time I tell

this story,

I cry.

And I started weeping.

And she said,

Paul, don't cry.

That's not the surprise.

She said,

when we started

back in 1973

when the PCA was formed

and we formed

the women

in the church movement here,

we wanted to start

an orphanage.

And we put aside

a CD for that.

We realize now,

20 years later,

we're never going to be able

to start an orphanage.

We want to take that money

and give it to you.

And that was $5,000.

And I left Camden,

Alabama

with no deficit,

with people who had been

radically generous

for the mission of God.

And I have never

been the same.

Where does Jesus

want to tell stories

like that

in the next 20 years

through you?

and in the full seasons ahead.

The flourishing church

is a generous church.

Secondly,

think about this.

The flourishing church

is a creative church.

Beautifully and radically creative.

You know,

so much has been written

about the rise

of the creative class

in our time.

A gentleman named

Richard Florida

wrote a book on this

called The Rise

of the Creative Class.

And Florida talks about

how cities like Huntsville

are so working

to get creative peoples

to come live

in their communities

and they're trying

to make that way easy.

And Florida writes

about the different

cross sections

of people

who are creative

types of people,

typically entrepreneurial

business people.

Artists

are creative people.

Millennials typically

are more creative

than others of us.

How do we get

these people groups

to come here

and live in our city

so we can become

a creative place?

You know what?

I've never heard

a cross section

of people

described as creatives

as evangelical Christians.

By Richard Florida

or anybody else.

Maybe that's because

they're oppressing us

or maybe because

we just aren't.

But the church

in Antioch

is radically

and beautifully

creative

right from the very

beginning.

As I said,

they took this offering

up in generosity

and said,

let's give it back

to the mother church.

What we see

Saul doing here

is changing

his name to Paul,

moving out

of a Hebraic name

to a Latin name

to say,

I want to be

all things

to all people.

I want to connect.

The creativity

of even changing

his name

to connect

in mission.

In Antioch,

we learn earlier

than Acts

that Christians

are first named

Christians.

Do you know

why that was?

Because there are

so many different

kinds of people

from this Hellenistic

Jewish spread

of people

coming together

around the gospel

that they couldn't

identify them

by race or place

so they just had

to call them

by their connection

to Jesus Christ

the Messiah.

And so the first

time we're ever

labeled Christians

is there.

The diversity

and the beauty

of that community.

Think about what we know

about the early church

beyond Antioch.

How the church met

in the middle of the night

at like two or three

in the morning

creatively.

Why?

Because there

was less risk

of being attacked,

of being persecuted,

of having the meetings

broken up.

And because

so many people

who were slaves

could come in the

middle of the night

and worship freely.

They had

the only space

available given

to them

was that space

in the middle

of the night

and the church

just says,

let's meet

then.

You see

this church

in Antioch

here

so beautifully

laying out

a mission strategy.

Let's send

people out

in pairs.

Let's send

Barnabas and

Saul

who becomes

Paul.

Let's send

John Mark 2.

Let's even

send 3.

Now,

we're so accustomed

to that,

right,

with missionary

teams going out.

There was no precedent

for this

other than Jesus

sending the disciples

out two by two

on occasion.

Beautiful

creativity

for the life

and mission

of the church.

Where does God

want you,

Southwood,

at 30?

With your roots

in the ground,

firmly planted,

to exercise

creativity

in fresh ways.

What do we know

about being

and doing church?

God wants us

to do

the word

read and preached.

God wants us

to do

the sacraments

and baptism

and communion

regularly

for all of us

to not only

hear the word

but to see

the gospel

lived out

to actually be able

to feel it

and to taste it

and to eat it.

And God wants us

to pray

together

and individually.

Word,

sacrament,

prayer,

those are the things

that are never changing

in the life

of the church.

But out of that basis,

everything else

is blue sky.

Everything else

is creative.

How do you spawn

that creativity?

How do you grow

in that?

How do you say,

what are the fresh ways?

I love what you've

sort of done

even this fall,

right?

You sort of said,

let's change things over.

Let's have worship first

so our communities

of mission

and life together

can discuss

what we've learned

in this sermon

and think about

how to apply that

and carry that forward

out into the week.

I love that creativity.

What are the other

creative steps

God wants you

to take collectively?

Where are the creative places

God wants you

individually

to just live

out the gospel

in fresh ways

in his mission?

Well, the way

you get fueled

for that,

the way you get

energized for that,

the way you're

mused for that,

if you will,

is back to the gospel

itself.

Think about God's

creativity in the gospel

to say,

I will step into

the picture myself.

The world I have created,

the world I am

ruling over,

I will actually

step into it

in human likeness

to bring renewal

and blessing

and salvation

and forgiveness

to it.

That is stunning.

Don't let the nature

of the story,

you having heard it before,

take away how creative

that is.

Think about how Jesus

exercises his ministry

in beautiful ways,

connecting with people,

telling stories

they could understand

and yet backdoored them

with the surprising

wonders of the gospel.

Where does the Lord,

out of that movement

of the gospel

and the creativeness,

want us to go

and be his creative people?

The flourishing church

is a generous church,

the flourishing church

is a creative church.

Lastly,

the flourishing church

is a humble church.

It's a humble church.

As this mission unfolds,

as this generosity

and creativity flow out,

what was required

of the church at Antioch?

Can you imagine

what it would have been like

the first Sunday

after Paul and Barnabas left?

Can you imagine

Peter and the whole staff

being leaving

and sent out on mission

in fresh ways

and you're going to meet

the next Sunday

and you go,

well, now what?

Who are we?

How do we do this?

We are suddenly

not the same church

with the same sets

of gifts and blessings

that we were

even a week ago.

What do we do?

God, you have laid us low.

Imagine the humility

that was required

of Barnabas.

He goes out.

He's been this key leader

in Jerusalem.

He's been the planter

and leader in Antioch

and the Holy Spirit

has moved and directed

for he and Saul

to go out on mission.

He was the one

who brought Saul

to Antioch with him.

He was the one

who stood up for Saul

back in Jerusalem

with the leaders there.

To tell them

you can trust him.

When nobody else

wanted to trust Saul,

Barnabas does.

Barnabas trains him.

Barnabas gives him

every platform

Saul has had

for ministry

to this point

and yet as they get started

in this missionary journey,

right here

within the first few verses,

Saul begins to lead.

Saul begins to become

the one through whom

God preaches his message.

Saul is the one

through whom

miracles are performed.

Soon you're not going

to hear very much

about Barnabas at all.

Where did the first

missionary journey

take them?

Where was their first stop?

Cyprus.

Cyprus is Barnabas'

home island.

All of this

has been required

of him

back in his hometown.

Humility.

Saul,

you can really

bind up the humility

required for Saul

in the name change.

How many Pauls

are here beside me?

I'm sure a handful.

I'm painfully aware

of the etymology

of Paul.

Do you know

what Paul means?

little.

Would that was more

true of my body.

Little,

tiny,

small.

Paul is going

to take a whole

journey forward

in his ministry

growing down

into that name.

Suffering.

Taking beatings

one lash

less than that

which would kill

a person.

Beatings with

the whip,

beatings with rods,

being stoned

and left for dead

multiple times.

Near drownings

in rivers

and near drownings

at sea

after shipwreck.

Fevers

and diseases

and difficulties.

This thorn

in the flesh

that he lives with

all the way through

which some believe

is either

an ongoing

fever problem,

terrible problems

with his eyes,

perhaps some kind

significant physical

deformation

in his body.

But then

Paul says

writing about

all this,

it's all these

things,

yeah,

that are hard

but it's my

daily concerns

for the churches

that really make it

hard,

that really break me.

Paul was going

to spend a lifetime

growing down

into that name.

How do you do that?

As a church

collectively,

how do we do that

as individual Christians

like Barnabas

and Saul?

The only way

you do that

is by contemplating

the gospel.

And what you realize

when you contemplate

the gospel

and when you worship

and pray

and fast

the way they were

doing in Antioch

is,

you realize

two deep truths

is,

number one,

this is the Jesus way.

This is God's way.

God's glory

is in his humility.

Jesus says

throughout the whole

gospel of John,

my time has not yet come,

my time has not yet come,

my time has not yet come

to be fully known

and glorified.

And suddenly he says

in John 12,

now is the time,

the hour has come

and the Son of Man

will be glorified

and the Father

who sent him

will be glorified

as he is crucified

and lifted up

from the earth.

God's ultimate glory

is in his humility.

And the other point

as you focus

on the gospel

is

that if this is

the Jesus way

then it's going to be

the way of his followers

that there is

no other way

the gospel

can go forward

except we humble ourselves,

except we give our lives away

as Paul did,

except we are willing

to take the back seat,

the second chair,

to even go off stage left

the way Barnabas did,

the gospel can't go forward

with that kind of humility

flowing through us.

The gospel demands it.

To carry our crosses

and follow Jesus

means we are humble people.

Where does God want

to humble you afresh?

For you to embrace humility

afresh,

to give up your power,

to give up your position

afresh,

to just go love

in his name,

to give up status,

to give up the right

to hold a grudge,

to give up the right

of playing the victim card

and humble yourself

and serve in Jesus' name.

This is the hardest part

of flourishing,

but the creativity

and the generosity

can't flow

except through the channel

of our humility.

I want to leave you

with a story

of where I've seen this

played out in my life.

My wife grew up

in Birmingham.

Her family were charter members

of Briarwood Church.

She remembers

when Briarwood Church

came into the Presbyterian

Church in America.

She was there

for that meeting.

She has great memories.

She went to Briarwood School

growing up.

And Fran is,

if you get to know her

even a little bit today,

the kindest,

most generous person

I've really ever been around.

I'm not just saying that.

I mean,

if I've learned anything

about love and generosity,

I've learned it through her

toward others.

But she would tell you

that's not the way.

Paul's not seeing it all right,

number one.

But number two,

that's certainly not the way

I've always been.

And growing up,

she at Briarwood School,

the beautiful little

Christian school

with a group of girls

was sort of

in the mean girls pack.

If you've ever seen that movie

with Lindsay Lohan,

she was one of the mean girls,

like the Rachel McAdams character

who were making life

miserable for others

that don't fit

their model and grid.

And she had a couple of friends

and they sort of ruled

that little Christian school.

Well,

a new friend came to town

somewhere at the end

of elementary school,

early in middle school,

and Fran decided,

I want to make

Tammy's life miserable.

I don't like her.

And so I'm going to make it

hard on her

and I'm going to

ignore her.

I'm going to be mean.

I'm going to orchestrate

so that Tammy's life

is kind of bad.

Well, Tammy's mom

kind of watched this play out.

Her name's Beth.

And Beth decided,

you know,

if you've ever been

in that space,

I've been in that space

as a parent.

You ever been in that space

as a parent?

What do you want to do

to the child

that's making your child's

life miserable, right?

You want to strangle them, right?

If your child's ever been

bullied at school,

like you want to strangle

the child.

Better,

you would love to strangle

the parents of the child

who's bullying your child, right?

Beth did not take

that approach.

Beth began to try

to find out about Fran

and her situation

to discover

that her mom

had significant illnesses

she was battling

that incapacitated her,

that Fran's dad

was a doctor,

a beautiful Christian man,

but often absent,

chief of staff

at a major Birmingham hospital,

and that Fran's siblings

were older

and sort of gone,

and that Fran

really didn't have anybody.

And so Beth decided,

I'm going to,

instead of hating

the daughter,

the girl who's making

my daughter's life miserable,

I'm going to love her.

I'm going to humble myself.

I'm going to try

to be creative.

I'm going to try

to be generous

and just give to her.

She found out Fran

didn't ever have lunches,

so she brought

an extra lunch

for her

as well as for her daughter

and stuck it in her locker.

She worked

so that Tammy and Fran

could do things together

and after school activities

sort of behind the scenes.

She then worked

in realizing

Fran didn't really have

a place to eat supper

at night

and invited her over

for dinner often.

Invited Fran

on family vacations.

Fran and Tammy,

instead of being

these enemies,

become best friends.

they still are

to this day.

And Fran would say

what she learned

about loving

in Jesus' name,

she learned

from reflecting

on best love

to her

when she utterly

did not deserve it.

Where does God

want to write

beautiful,

fresh stories

like best story

in Fran,

like Fran's story

in teaching me?

Where does God

want to play

that forward

through you?

One thing's for sure,

if the church

in Antioch

didn't function

this way

with this generosity,

this creativity,

this humility,

if Barnabas and Saul

didn't embrace it

and embody it,

the gospel

wouldn't have gotten

to us today.

This is how

the gospel

broke out

from the Mediterranean

world.

This is how

the gospel

began to come

to Gentiles.

This is the story

of the Gentile mission

breaking out

in fullness.

Sergius Paulus,

another Paul

who Paul connects

with,

and there'll be

many,

many,

many others.

Where does God

want to make

a new outbreak

of the gospel?

Through you,

collectively

and individually

as the flourishing

people

of his gospel.

Let's pray together.

Father,

we thank you

for this time.

We praise you

for your goodness

and mercy

to us

through Jesus.

Help us,

Lord,

to just catch

the gospel afresh

so that we might

see the generosity

there,

the creativity

there,

the humility

there,

Lord,

and so that

we might live

it out.

Thank you

for Southwood.

Thank you

for the ways

that's marked

her across

her 30 years,

but I pray

that like the

church at Antioch,

there would be

a ratcheting

up of this,

just like we saw

a ratcheting

up of that

in the book

of Acts,

that there would

be a ratcheting

up of that

here,

and that change

would come

to Huntsville

in the world

because of it.

Please,

Lord,

do this good work,

we pray.

In Jesus' name,

amen.

Amen.

For more information,

visit us online

at southwood.org.