SPEAKER_00: For those of you that may not know me, my name is Jesse, and I preach.
SPEAKER_00: So take your Bible, if you would please, and turn with me to the book of Acts, chapter number 11.
SPEAKER_00: Acts, chapter number 11, this morning.
SPEAKER_00: My heart has been ministered to by the music, and there are certain times, as a pastor, you know you cannot add to anything that has been sung.
SPEAKER_00: I am mindful of the fact that our Bible closes with those words.
SPEAKER_00: Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I say, Lord, let it be today.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be today.
SPEAKER_00: It would not bother me one bit to wake up in heaven tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've got any problem that the Lord's return would not solve.
SPEAKER_00: It would not hurt my feelings a bit that the next time we worship together, we worship together in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 11 and verse number 19.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to consider the rest of the chapter here in the book of Acts today.
SPEAKER_00: And as we study this passage today, we are going to be blessed to be in the delivery room as a brand new baby word is born.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm fascinated by words, by linguistics, by their etymology, their history, by their uses.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it that for those of us that are Appalachian Americans, we know exactly where over yonder is?
SPEAKER_00: I've been over yonder and I may go over yonder later.
SPEAKER_00: And you hear that word yonder and you think, ah, well, that's just the way those mountain folk, those hillbillies speak.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is that yonder is proper old English.
SPEAKER_00: It's good English to say, I need to run over yonder.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fascinated by that because as English speakers, we have uh a vocabulary, or at least in our language, we have at our disposal about a million different words.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us have a vocabulary of around 30,000 different words that we use that would be different for all of us depending on uh where we were raised and depending on our education and our job and those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: Some of our vocabulary is specialized and technical based upon what we do with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But truthfully, if you want to just get through as an English speaker, you only need to master about 3,000 words.
SPEAKER_00: Fairly small vocabulary.
SPEAKER_00: They say on average that the grown, the average grown English-speaking man uses 10,000 words a day.
SPEAKER_00: The average grown English-speaking woman uses 20,000 words a day.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a joke in that, and I'm just going to keep rolling right on past it.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the phenomena of the English language, which is true for every language, is that words come and words go.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, your great-great-grandparents had no idea what a microwave was.
SPEAKER_00: That word would have been meaningless to them.
SPEAKER_00: But eventually, because of that technology and invention, that word came to be a common English word.
SPEAKER_00: And that happens even now.
SPEAKER_00: Up to the present day, there are words that are used that then become officially recognized by the good people at Merriam-Webster and other dictionary companies.
SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, the following sentence I'm about to speak is actually English.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, I needed to clean up my floor drobe, but instead of doing that, I spent all day bedrotting and cozy maxing, watching Tradwives Aura Farm on TikTok.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you understood that, what I want you to do after church today is go outside and touch some grass.
SPEAKER_00: It would be good for you.
SPEAKER_00: The word that is going to emerge in our text today, you can see in Acts chapter 11 and verse number 26, is the English word Christians.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word Christianus.
SPEAKER_00: Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And as this word Christian that we use all the time, that we think perhaps very little of, we assume we know what it means, as we see it born into the world here in Acts chapter 11, this is a good place for us to stop and ask, what is a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: What is a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: If you were to ask my mama, who lives in an assisted living center in Caldwell County, what is a Christian, she would give you an answer, what she believes a Christian is.
SPEAKER_00: If you asked a Muslim on the streets of Saudi Arabia what a Christian is, they would give you an answer.
SPEAKER_00: But it would be very, very different.
SPEAKER_00: If you were to ask people, the beginning of the Christian movement during the first century who were not Christians on the outside looking in, what is a Christian, they would give you an answer.
SPEAKER_00: They would say, and they have recorded this.
SPEAKER_00: Those Christians, they're cannibals.
SPEAKER_00: They go to their worship services and they eat the body and blood of somebody named Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They said that the early Christians were atheists because they did not believe or worship the gods of the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: They said that the early Christians were incestuous.
SPEAKER_00: They talk about how much they love their brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: They had an idea of what a Christian was, and they were terribly wrong, just so there's no confusion.
SPEAKER_00: We're not cannibals, we're not atheists, and we are not incestuous.
SPEAKER_00: I'm against all of those things, just so you're clear.
SPEAKER_00: What is a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: If you ask most people in Henderson County, North Carolina, the neighboring places, they would have an idea of what a Christian is.
SPEAKER_00: And for many, a Christian is just anybody who's not other.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're born in Western North Carolina, it's kind of by default.
SPEAKER_00: You're born to a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Chinese parents have Chinese kids, skinny parents have skinny kids, and people in Henderson County, they have Christian kids.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we are.
SPEAKER_00: Christian is somebody who is just kind of raised up in what is a Christian culture.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning, what I would like for us to do is I would like for us to read this passage, strip away all of our judgments, all of our opinions, all of the cultural ways we may define a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Read this text, see how it is this word came into being, what it means, why it was used, and ask ourselves, if these people were Christians, what are we?
SPEAKER_00: If they are Christians, what are we?
SPEAKER_00: Let's read this together.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 11, 19.
SPEAKER_00: The Word of God says, Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Then Barnabas departed from Tarsus to seek Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people.
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
SPEAKER_00: This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
SPEAKER_00: The grass withers and the flowers fade.
SPEAKER_00: But the word of the Lord abideth forever.
SPEAKER_00: As you come into this sort of middle section of the book of Acts, you are encountering a time in the history of the church when the church is growing beyond its Jewish roots.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity began as a very Jewish movement led by very Jewish leaders with very Jewish followers in a very Jewish place, relying on Jewish scriptures, and it's all very Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: But beginning in Acts chapter number 10, we start to see how this Jewish movement is uprooted from its Jewish soil and replanted among non-Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 10 records for us the Christian conversion of the first non-Jew, a Roman army officer by the name of Cornelius.
SPEAKER_00: And through the remainder of the book of Acts, trickling down to where we are today, Christianity takes a very Gentile flavor.
SPEAKER_00: It has a very Gentile accent.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm very thankful for that because you probably didn't notice, but I have a certain Gentile accent.
SPEAKER_00: And the only way that the gospel would ever be preached in this hillbilly accent is for the gospel to begin to take on a Gentile flavor.
SPEAKER_00: But as that happens in the book of Acts, it's not going to be the first church in Jerusalem that is the epicenter of this new growth.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually going to be this church that begins here in Acts chapter 11, the Church of Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: The Church of Antioch is going to be the church that sends out the first true Christian missionaries in Acts chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: The Church of Antioch becomes sort of the home church of the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes the sending church in the book of Acts, which we'll look at as we go.
SPEAKER_00: How did the gospel, the message of Jesus, get from Jerusalem to Antioch?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the scriptures tell us there in verse number 19 that it dates back to persecution that arose over the death of the first Christian martyr by the name of Stephen, which is recorded in Acts chapter 7 in verse number 8.
SPEAKER_00: And as Stephen is murdered, and as the enemies of the Christian church begin to feel emboldened, and as they become more bloodthirsty against these first Christians, some of those Jewish Christians ran for their lives.
SPEAKER_00: We may think that's not very courageous, it's not very bold, there's not a lot of faith in it.
SPEAKER_00: But hey, sometimes you just got to live to preach again another day.
SPEAKER_00: Discretion is the better part of valor.
SPEAKER_00: And so they run.
SPEAKER_00: But as they run seeking safety, the Bible says they take the message of salvation with them.
SPEAKER_00: So that when the Bible says that they are scattered, in verse number 19, that word scattered is the word for dispersed.
SPEAKER_00: It's not merely that they're running for safety, but it is that God, like a farmer sowing seed, is sowing them to the four winds, and they take the message of the gospel with them.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that they take the message as far as Phoenicia, a hundred miles away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They take the message to Cyprus, an island some 250 miles away from Jerusalem, and they end up in Antioch, 300 miles away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: That is as far from Jerusalem as Cincinnati, Ohio is from Hendersonville, North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00: They are taking the gospel with them a long way.
SPEAKER_00: And what seems to be a satanic triumph in the death of Stephen becomes a gospel victory as the hand of the Lord takes the message further than anybody would have imagined.
SPEAKER_00: Initially, the Bible says that those very Jewish believers take the gospel and they only preach to Jews in verse number 19.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them, whose names have been lost to history, some anonymous brothers, just put it together.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this gospel is for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: And so we should preach to everybody that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so they come to Antioch preaching the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it's in Antioch we're told that these people who believe in the Lord are first called Christians.
SPEAKER_00: People in Antioch in the day, they knew what a Jew was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew what a Roman citizen was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew what a Greek was.
SPEAKER_00: Antioch and Syria, they knew what a Syrian was, they knew what an Antiochan was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew what a rich person was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew what a poor person was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew what a slave was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew all of these different groups of people had labels for wealthy, had labels for people in poverty, had labels for healthy and sick, important and unnecessary.
SPEAKER_00: They knew all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But now they're going to the market.
SPEAKER_00: And as they buy up their groceries, they're hearing all these people talking about somebody called the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As they go to work.
SPEAKER_00: They're hearing about these people that worship the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They're being told about this Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Who are these new people?
SPEAKER_00: What do we call them?
SPEAKER_00: How do we categorize them?
SPEAKER_00: And they lump them together under that Greek word Christianus.
SPEAKER_00: Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They are Christ people.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to do today is I want to talk about these Christ people, asking that question.
SPEAKER_00: If they are Christians, what are we?
SPEAKER_00: What are we?
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about this word.
SPEAKER_00: Christianus.
SPEAKER_00: What is a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first, when we think about that word Christianus, the word Christian, you need to know first that the word is derivative.
SPEAKER_00: It is a derivative word.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is that if you take the word Christ out of the word Christian, you have nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You have nothing.
SPEAKER_00: The word is derivative of the word Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Just as our English word car, we've got a parking lot full of them, the English word car is derivative from the earlier English word carriage.
SPEAKER_00: Same way.
SPEAKER_00: The word Christ lends itself to the word Christian.
SPEAKER_00: People are talking about a Christ, they're worshiping a Christ just like we've done today.
SPEAKER_00: They're singing to a Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world is going on in Antioch?
SPEAKER_00: Who are these people?
SPEAKER_00: The word Christian is derivative from the word Christ because the understanding is that if you take Christ away from these people, they have nothing.
SPEAKER_00: They sing about this Christ, they worship this Christ, they pray to this Christ, they're telling us about this Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They believe that this Christ is their righteousness, this Christ is their future, this Christ is their hope, this Christ is their peace.
SPEAKER_00: If you take Christ away from them, they're nothing.
SPEAKER_00: To which the Christians would say, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: You take Christ from us, there is nothing.
SPEAKER_00: He is our hope, he is our joy, he is our peace, he is our future, he is everything to us.
SPEAKER_00: We are Christians.
SPEAKER_00: But that means we have to answer the question.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what in the world is a Christ?
SPEAKER_00: What is a Christ?
SPEAKER_00: They're talking about Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What is Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to be clear on this.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to belabor this point for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: I do not want you to think that Christ is a name.
SPEAKER_00: It is not a name.
SPEAKER_00: It is not as if you have Mary Christ and Joseph Christ and then outside of Bethlehem they had little Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened.
SPEAKER_00: The name Christ or the Greek Christos is a title, not a name.
SPEAKER_00: Very much like my name is Jesse.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you call me or may refer to me as Pastor Jesse.
SPEAKER_00: My name is not Pastor Jesse.
SPEAKER_00: That's my name and my title, and they just kind of come together and it's just sort of me, right?
SPEAKER_00: Same way with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was his name.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is his title.
SPEAKER_00: But what is Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Why was this title given to him?
SPEAKER_00: The word Christ relies very heavily on the Hebrew word for an understanding of a Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And that literally means, and the word Christos means an anointed one or a chosen one.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because in Jewish history there could be three occasions, maybe more, but three specific occasions, when a person would be set aside, they would undergo an anointing ceremony where somebody would place olive oil on their forehead, set them aside for a specific office or task.
SPEAKER_00: First would be when they were chosen to be the king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You can read about this happening a number of times in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: They would be anointed.
SPEAKER_00: They would be chosen as king.
SPEAKER_00: It happened when they were set aside for the prophetic ministry to declare directly the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They would be anointed as a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And it also happened when a priest was set aside for his priestly ministry, anointed as a priest, chosen to represent the people of God in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now these early Christians are coming along saying, We know the one who is our prophet, our priest and our king.
SPEAKER_00: We know the one who has been chosen by God as the king of Israel, the son of David, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and the King who will return to establish his kingdom for all people.
SPEAKER_00: He is our King.
SPEAKER_00: They would say He is our prophet, not merely sent by God to be a messenger from heaven, but He is the very message on the heart of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who comes to declare to us the truth about who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And they would say he is also our priest who takes us into and represents us in the presence of God, who is also set apart as the one sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And they tie that to what is a very Greek concept when they say Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Greeks may not have understood everything about the Jewish Messiah, but they would have understood the concept of Lordship.
SPEAKER_00: That is a title of divinity.
SPEAKER_00: Their gods were called lords, but it's also a title of authority.
SPEAKER_00: A Lord is the one who is in charge.
SPEAKER_00: A Lord is the one who rules.
SPEAKER_00: He is the master.
SPEAKER_00: And they are saying that we have believed, the Christians were preaching, we have believed in the one who is God of very God, and we have believed in the one who is Lord over all men.
SPEAKER_00: We have believed in the one who has stepped into all of the prophecies that predicted him, who fulfilled all the laws that came before him, who was sacrificed for the sins of the world, who rose again and who reigns as Lord of Lords, and you must believe in Jesus the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And for everything that may or may not be considered Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say to you today, if that's a Christian, I sure want to be one.
SPEAKER_00: Because today, as a Christian, I still believe that Jesus is everything the Bible says he is, that he did everything the Bible said he did, that he stepped into the story of Israel to redeem the world, that he died for sinners, that he rose again, and that he sits now on the right hand of God, ruling and reigning as King of kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: These people believed.
SPEAKER_00: It says they believed in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the response from the Antiochans who became Christians is represented with three phrases.
SPEAKER_00: They believed, they turned to the Lord, and they were added to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now I wish I had time to talk about all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: They're all vital to understand how we respond to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to key in on the last one.
SPEAKER_00: Before we get there, first they believe, not merely intellectually, not merely the claims of the Bible, but they believe personally, trusted personally in Jesus for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Second, they turned to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's another way to say they repented.
SPEAKER_00: They turned from their idolatry, they turned from their sin, they turned even from their good works, and they turned to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says this: it says they were added to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I read that and I recognize that in Christian conversion, in an essence, there's something that is active, repentance and faith, and then there's something that's passive.
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't get me wrong today.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is not a good thing that you do to get God to save you.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift that God gives you.
SPEAKER_00: The goodness of God, Romans 2, 4, leads us to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in Jesus is not a good work that you do to get Jesus to save you.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is merely trusting Jesus to do all the work for you.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift of God according to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, while it is a gift from God and a work of the Holy Spirit in us, we must believe for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We must repent.
SPEAKER_00: You are commanded by God to do those things.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, the Bible says that these people were added to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Something occurred in them and to them that they could not do for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Something happened that was deeper than their decider.
SPEAKER_00: Something happened that was deeper than their thinker.
SPEAKER_00: Something happened that was deeper than their feeling.
SPEAKER_00: And they were supernaturally added to the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, they were united to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They became one in Him and one with Him.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been added to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: See, I could ask you today if you ever believed in Jesus, and it's Hendersonville, man.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody believes in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I could ask you, have you ever been saved?
SPEAKER_00: I could ask you if you are a Christian, and most everybody would say, Yeah, of course I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in Hendersonville has a third cousin somewhere that's a preacher, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that when it's true.
SPEAKER_00: So that when they get married or when they need to be buried, they can call this guy up and say, hey, brother, we need you.
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in Hendersonville has a church.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them that they don't go to.
SPEAKER_00: They hadn't been in 20 years, but you ask them, well, where do you go to church?
SPEAKER_00: They say well, I'll go over there to No Hope Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You know, preacher so-and-so is my cousin, third cousin.
SPEAKER_00: He's a preacher of that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Hadn't set foot in that place in the Carter administration, but that's their church.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way we think in this part of the area.
SPEAKER_00: We're all Christians, of course.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not going to ask you if you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ask you, have you ever been added to the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had your sin added to his righteousness so that all of your sin was forgiven and removed as far as the east is from the west?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had your past, as dark as it was, added to his future, so that your future became glory in heaven and joy evermore?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had your death added to his life so that your death was swallowed up in victory?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been united to Christ by a supernatural divine work of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Friend, you cannot do that for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But I will say this.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to turn to him today, you can be added to him.
SPEAKER_00: And understand today that the invitation to Christ is exactly that.
SPEAKER_00: These people understood that.
SPEAKER_00: I think we've had so much lay, so many layers of culture and tradition put on top of it, we've lost it.
SPEAKER_00: But the invitation to Christ is the invitation to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not merely an invitation to join with a church, it's not merely an invitation to participate in religious traditions, however they are defined, but the invitation to Christianity is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus invites you to himself, saying to all of us, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' invitation is come to me.
SPEAKER_00: He is Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Because you remove him, you lose everything.
SPEAKER_00: So the word Christianus, the word Christian is derivative.
SPEAKER_00: Second, and I need to move quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Second, the word Christianus, the word Christians, here the text, is plural.
SPEAKER_00: It's plural.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples, plural, were first called Christians, plural, in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: The first time that the word Christian ever makes its way into human vocabulary, it's not talking about a Christian, it's talking about those Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that is not to say that there's no such thing as an individual Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I am a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible does use the word Christian in the singular several times to talk about one person being or not being a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's important that in this text we see Christians living together.
SPEAKER_00: The people who had been added to the Lord were added to the people who had been added to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And you see in this text how they share their lives together in remarkable ways because for Christians, for Christians, church is not an event to attend.
SPEAKER_00: For Christians, church is a people to belong to.
SPEAKER_00: So what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: This incredible outpouring of the Spirit, the growth of Christian followers in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: They hear about this in the Mother Church of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And the Mother Church of Jerusalem says, Well, we need to go check this out.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know if they're thinking, well, we need to make sure this is legitimate.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to go affirm that what they're preaching actually is Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they're excited and say, hey, we need to go encourage these people, which is what happens.
SPEAKER_00: But regardless, the Church of Jerusalem sends a man by the name of Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't seen Barnabas since he first connected with the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: And from there he's mentioned earlier in Acts chapter number 4, a gracious, generous, godly man.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Bible tells us about it that he is a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That gives you everything you need to know about Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: He's a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there you go, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so Barnabas comes to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Notice verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to the church, and when he had seen the grace of God, he was glad.
SPEAKER_00: When he came to see these new believers, the Bible says that he saw the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: He saw in their community the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this with me.
SPEAKER_00: There are many things that we believe in strongly that we cannot see.
SPEAKER_00: I believe my kids love me.
SPEAKER_00: I believe my wife loves me.
SPEAKER_00: I believe most of y'all like me.
SPEAKER_00: I've got like three, alright?
SPEAKER_00: I'll take it.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'll take it.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: I can't see my family's affection towards me, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's invisible.
SPEAKER_00: It's intangible.
SPEAKER_00: Over the past several years, we've seen so many different communities in our country marching for justice.
SPEAKER_00: And however they may define that or however they may want to achieve it, it still betrays a conviction that there is this intangible, invisible thing called justice.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't see justice, can you?
SPEAKER_00: Grace is one of those intangible, invisible realities that you can't see.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in the church, please don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: In the church, grace is made visible.
SPEAKER_00: Now we believe today in grace.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that God saves us by his grace, keeps us by his grace, preserves us, preserves us by his grace.
SPEAKER_00: God's grace can be defined as any positive movement from God to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's grace.
SPEAKER_00: The undeserved favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it described as God's riches at Christ's expense.
SPEAKER_00: All those things are appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: It is God being better to you than you deserve.
SPEAKER_00: That's grace.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't see that until you get around God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And the church makes grace visible.
SPEAKER_00: So how does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there are clues in this text, but I think we can see them in our church as well.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we stand in that baptistry and we baptize a new brother or sister in Christ who has been added to the Lord, and we say, based upon your profession of faith, I baptize this my brother or sister in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the grace of God made visible.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we gather around the Lord's table and we take of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus through bread and wine, well, here we do juice.
SPEAKER_00: But every time we do that, we are seeing the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, also every single Sunday morning, when we come into this place, and people who are fighting the darkest battles of their lives come and they lift up their hands to Jesus and they say, Lord, come today.
SPEAKER_00: We want to see you today because we know the day's coming when we will look upon you face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And they say, All creatures of our God and King, all the mountains and all the hills and all the trees and all the cats and all the caterpillars, join and praise to our God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the grace of God made visible.
SPEAKER_00: When a bereaved family who's lost a father or a mother comes into this place and they say goodbye to that body for the last time, preparing to commit it to the earth and the sure and the certain hope of the resurrection of their dead, and they worship and they cry while they sing, It is well with my soul.
SPEAKER_00: That is the grace of God made visible.
SPEAKER_00: Today, when I sat in a Sunday school class and I heard an incredibly gifted brother open the word of God and teach my heart, that is the grace of God to me made visible.
SPEAKER_00: You see this in the church as they come together, living as Christians in community, and I think you see it profoundly in the example of Barnabas himself.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens in verse number 25.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul.
SPEAKER_00: So he comes to Antioch and he sees all of these new Christians.
SPEAKER_00: He sees God doing something unique and something special.
SPEAKER_00: And for a while he leads them well.
SPEAKER_00: He oversees it well.
SPEAKER_00: But it seems like the work probably outgrows him.
SPEAKER_00: He realizes he needs help.
SPEAKER_00: So where's he going to turn for help?
SPEAKER_00: He's going to turn to the man that we will know as the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: They haven't seen each other for many years, but he goes and finds them, knowing that Paul is the right mixture of passion, dedication, commitment, and love.
SPEAKER_00: He is exactly what Barnabas needs and what the church in Antioch needs.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 26, he finds them together.
SPEAKER_00: They come and they work for a year and they taught a great many people.
SPEAKER_00: And it's during this season that the word Christianus arises for these disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Couple of things that I think are very, very important here.
SPEAKER_00: One is that these Christians, together as a group, are being taught.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: People that are following Jesus and walking in his footsteps.
SPEAKER_00: People that are learning in the school of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the people entitled to the name Christian.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't say that church attenders were called Christians.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't say that good people were called Christians.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that the disciples were called Christians.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in the book of Acts, the word disciple is used for Christians many, many more times than the word Christian is used for Christians.
SPEAKER_00: The word Christian comes from the outside, from people that say, we've got to label them.
SPEAKER_00: But the label the church took for itself were disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we should believe in discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: We should believe in being taught.
SPEAKER_00: We should believe in learning.
SPEAKER_00: We should believe in growing.
SPEAKER_00: And we should believe in pouring into others.
SPEAKER_00: Whether we are the people learning, like the Antiochan believers, or whether we are the people teaching, like Paul and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: And as a church, we want to embrace that.
SPEAKER_00: And so Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Horton, who is our discipleship pastor, is about to unleash on our congregation some next level discipleship that we need, desperately need, so that we're more than just cultural Christians, but we are disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so I am so excited to enlist you in Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Horton's discipleship boot camp.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm calling it unofficially.
SPEAKER_00: And he and Miss Lisa, who are our discipleship power couple here at Mud Creek, they are going to take time to develop disciple makers to disciple the rest of us.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to begin to see over the next few months, and then as we move into the next year, you are prayerfully going to see an explosion of discipleship that is going to just inject steroid of growth in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And I cannot wait to be here with y'all next summer and see the growth that occurs.
SPEAKER_00: But also, there's the example of Barnabas to learn from here, who get this, is as the preacher, the pastor, the leader, whatever, is in charge of a dynamic growing ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly he would give glory to God and never to himself, but in a sense, all eyes are on him.
SPEAKER_00: He's the guy.
SPEAKER_00: If there's a question that needs to be answered, they go to Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: He is it in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, he's willing to give all of that away to Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Because he knows it's the right decision for these Christians in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: He gives away his notoriety, gives away his celebrity, gives away his opportunity by giving away his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: How can he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you how?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows that this is not about him.
SPEAKER_00: It's about the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And so if he is taking a step back so somebody else can do better, then he will do it for the sake of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible tells all of us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas is embodying that really basic Christian principle that we all struggle with in Philippians chapter number two, that's encouraging us that nothing be done with selfish ambition or conceit.
SPEAKER_00: But in lowliness of mind, all of us should esteem others better than ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to be, these verses, verse 4, let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interest of others.
SPEAKER_00: That really ought to be the kindergarten of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, that's the PhD program.
SPEAKER_00: That's the advanced degree.
SPEAKER_00: Because we struggle to do what Barnabas did.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody struggles with it more than people leading in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've got all this pride and we've got all this insecurity and we're convinced that nobody can do it as well as we do it.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Barnabas models for those of us that lead in ministry the conviction that the best way to do ministry is to give it away.
SPEAKER_00: Raise up somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of the church, give it away.
SPEAKER_00: And so there are opportunities in our church, and time is always the enemy of good preaching.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm running out of time today.
SPEAKER_00: There are opportunities in our church for some of you to step into ministries for it to be placed in your hands.
SPEAKER_00: To serve and to grow and to take responsibility for things that have belonged to staff members who currently are stretched too thin and are pulling their hair out because they need help.
SPEAKER_00: Where does that help come from?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are a couple things we could do.
SPEAKER_00: We could hire some more people, or we could like let the church be Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We'll move on.
SPEAKER_00: Third.
SPEAKER_00: I knew it wouldn't sell third.
SPEAKER_00: The word is derivative, the word is plural.
SPEAKER_00: The word is accurate.
SPEAKER_00: It's accurate.
SPEAKER_00: This is the right title to give these people.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Simple.
SPEAKER_00: Because they actually act like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They're following Jesus and they're modeling Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They're living like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And you see that so clearly in the last little paragraph that's given in the text.
SPEAKER_00: Where it says that as the cords of fellowship are strengthened between the church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch, Barnabas comes, but also prophets come.
SPEAKER_00: One of these prophets from Jerusalem is a man by the name of Agabas.
SPEAKER_00: And we can debate forever about what the New Testament gift of prophecy meant and what it means.
SPEAKER_00: But one thing is clear: this guy had it and this guy used it well.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes and predicts that there will be a famine that will occur, that will adversely affect the believers in Jerusalem, that they will not have enough to eat and they will need help.
SPEAKER_00: This is documented.
SPEAKER_00: Luke documents when it happens in the days of Claudius Caesar, who preceded Emperor Nero.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of extra biblical documentation this happened.
SPEAKER_00: He sees, through the Spirit of God, suffering on the horizon for God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And he tells the Church of Antioch, and what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: When they hear about a need that they can meet, they act like Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And they try to meet the need.
SPEAKER_00: They model the self-giving concern and love for Jesus in verse number 29 that the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
SPEAKER_00: Those Christians in Jerusalem, they're going to have a need.
SPEAKER_00: We can meet it, and we're going to do our part to do it.
SPEAKER_00: That is Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Seeing a need and stepping in to meet it because Jesus saw our need and stepped in to meet it.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: You're thinking, all right, Pastor, you can't resist.
SPEAKER_00: This is the part of the sermon that talks about giving.
SPEAKER_00: And you're about to come at us hard with giving.
SPEAKER_00: You're about to tell us that we're never more like God than when we give.
SPEAKER_00: You're about to tell us, John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave.
SPEAKER_00: You're about to tell us that if God would bankrupt heaven by sending Jesus to save us, we should be willing, as Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Horton said, to put everything in the offering plate, saying, Lord, it's all yours.
SPEAKER_00: You're about to tell us all that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Duh.
SPEAKER_00: But instead of doing that, instead of telling you what to do, can I just encourage and affirm you the way Barnabas does here?
SPEAKER_00: Can I just encourage you and affirm you, Mud Creek Baptist Church, you do this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Last Sunday morning, we'd announced for a couple of weeks that we were going to take up an offering for our ministry partners in Hokie Singo, Mexico.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have been to Hokie Singo, others you've heard about it for years, but you've never been.
SPEAKER_00: But we told you about some needs that this church, that those leaders had, we asked you to pray and we ask you to give.
SPEAKER_00: And last Sunday morning, when you were given an opportunity to meet a need, you responded to the tune of$12,000.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not going to come up here and beat you up for being stingy because you're not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to affirm to you that that is Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: That people who say, I will give because Jesus has given everything to me.
SPEAKER_00: So to finish up today, what I see about these early Christians is this.
SPEAKER_00: It's simple.
SPEAKER_00: These are people that believe in Jesus, they believe certain truths about him and they trust in him personally.
SPEAKER_00: And these are people that are trying their best to live like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We can reduce Christianity to either sort of intellectual propositions.
SPEAKER_00: I believe the Bible is an important book and Jesus was a good man.
SPEAKER_00: For some people, that's Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: We can reduce Christianity to a certain set of ethical behaviors.
SPEAKER_00: I care for my neighbor, I don't judge people, follow the Sermon on the Mount, however, and some people would say that's Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is believing in the heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who's died for our sins and has risen again from the dead, trusting in Him to save.
SPEAKER_00: But it is also His life lived out in us.
SPEAKER_00: And if you take either component away, you're not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Not in any meaningful sense.
SPEAKER_00: If what you believe has not transformed the way that you live, you're not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: But if you live a fairly respectable and decent life and you do not trust in Christ as your Savior, you are not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Not in a biblical sense.
SPEAKER_00: And so I ask you, if these people are Christians, if they believe, they've been added to the Lord and they're living that out in their daily life, what are you?
SPEAKER_00: What are you?
SPEAKER_00: You can leave here today as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You can.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've come here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody would say you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You thought you were a Christian your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: But you realize today you've never believed in Christ like this, and He's not living through you like that.
SPEAKER_00: That can change for you today.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you, I suspect, probably are Christians.
SPEAKER_00: In the sense that you do believe in Jesus the way Scripture tells you to.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, if you're going to be honest, if we were looking at the way you live, maybe lately or the last few months or years, nobody's going to accuse you of being a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: If they put you on trial for it, there would not be enough evidence to convict you.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to come today and just tell the Lord, Lord, I've been a rotten Christian.
SPEAKER_00: But I have a great Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: Live through me.
SPEAKER_00: Change me.
SPEAKER_00: And He will.
SPEAKER_00: And you can leave here today as a Christian.