Ajay Thomas - Advance Initiative

Pastor: Ajay Thomas

Acts 11:19-30

Acts 13:1-3

Transcript

 Acts 11 starting at verse 19. Now those who were scattered because of the
persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and
Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them,
men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also,
preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great
number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of
the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw
the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to
the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit
and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went
to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to
Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many
people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. Now in these
days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, Agabus,
stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all
the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined,
everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers leaving in
Judea, and they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and
Saul. Now to chapter 13, starting at verse 1. Now they were in the church in
Antioch, prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simon who was called Niger, Lucius of
Cyrene, and Menian, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. While
they were worshipping 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. Praise God
for his word. Sincere greetings to you all. It really is a gift for me to be
with you all. I think the world of the Moran family, and so to me it really does
feel like getting to meet your siblings family, my brother and sister's family.
And so as Matt said, we spent a season overlapping together in Boston, and that
season in Boston really was like a womb of ministry training for us. And we sort
of both came out in two different places, but sharing so much of the same DNA
that that season put into our hearts and lives. So for example, I came to your
property and it says gospel community and mission. If you drove six hours to
Philadelphia, you'd come into our church building and you'd find gospel
community and mission right there on the walls because we share so much of that
same DNA. Your desire to make and mature and multiply disciples, that's core to
who we are. Your desire to see the gospel advance and plant churches, that's the
same heartbeat that we have. Though I'm meeting you for the first time, I do
want you to hear maybe even because of the season we spent together, so much of
the DNA of this church is shared by some brothers and sisters you don't know
down in Philadelphia as well. Part of that commitment to being a church planting
church that we got in Boston is why we started this thing that Matt shared with
you called the advance initiative. Our work, our aim is to try and see a global
movement of gospel centered, multi-ethnic churches, particularly that are
planted by or among South Asians. Just a quick word on that last part. I don't
know if you know, but South Asians now represent the largest people in the
world. So for example, India has now eclipsed China as the most populous people
in the world so that one out of every four human beings in the world is South
Asian. A quarter of the human population, every fourth person you would meet in
the world is South Asian. And so while I'm the minority in this room, I
represent the global majority, right? And yet at the same time, what's true is
while we are the most represented people on earth, we are among the least
represented in the kingdom of God. And that thought strikes me, which is if you
walked a human street, you would bump into a South Asian with every fourth
person. But if you walked at least right now the streets of glory, we would be
among the least represented. More than anyone else in the world, South Asians
have missed out on the good news of Jesus Christ. And so not only if you're
South Asian, but if you care about the gospel and the advance of the gospel,
then a quarter of the human population has to be somewhere on your radar. And so
our desire is to see how can we see a movement of gospel centered, multi-ethnic
churches planted by or among South Asians. And if any of that resonates with you
in any way, I would love to catch up with you. So please know right after
service, I'll be here and would love to talk with you more. But as I think about
church planting, whether that's in Philadelphia or your desire to again, make
mature, multiply disciples, to see the gospel advance here in Buffalo and in
your region and to the ends of the earth, like you just taught your children.
There's one passage of scripture that has sort of shaped my thinking on that
more than any other. It's probably the one that I come back to over and over
again. And if I had one thing to say to a friend church, to a partner like you,
and I want to express again my gratitude to you for your partnership with us.
But if I could share one passage, it'd be this one in Acts 11 because the church
that you find in Antioch is sort of the exemplar par excellence. It's the best
example of a church planting church or a gospel advancing church or a church
that is committed to making maturing and multiplying disciples. In fact, more
than any other church in the New Testament, this is probably the most prolific,
fruitful church in the New Testament, maybe in the history of the world. For
example, if you've read other parts of the New Testament, if you've ever enjoyed
or been benefited from the letters to first Corinthians or second Corinthians,
if you've read Ephesians or Philippians or the letters to the Thessalonians, all
those books are in your Bible because of the church at Antioch. In fact, a good
chunk of the New Testament is in our Bible because the church at Antioch became
a church planting church that not only reached its own region, but became this
launching pad for global missions and to see people, all the families of the
earth blessed through this gospel. Antioch became this prolific, fruitful church
planting church. Most of the New Testament is in your Bible because of this
church. And so given our shared commitment to wanting to see this gospel
advance, I think we would do well, brothers and sisters, to consider this church
at Antioch. And so four things that I want to draw from this passage that I
think are marks of what a disciple-making church looks like or a gospel-
advancing church looks like or a church-planting church looks like. I'm sure
there's much more we could consider, but four thoughts that I want to draw from
this passage. Here's the first. In a gospel-advancing church, we need ordinary
people doing the work of ministry. If Community of Grace is going to be a
gospel-advancing church, a disciple-making church, a multiplying church, then we
need ordinary people doing the work of ministry. See how the passage begins with
me. This is Acts 11 beginning at verse 19. It says, now those who were scattered
because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia
and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were
some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the
Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with
them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. Okay, here's my
question for you. If Antioch is what I've said it is, the most prolific, most
fruitful, gospel-advancing church in the New Testament, maybe the history of the
world, my question would be, who planted the church at Antioch? Or maybe even
which visionary, omnicompetent, superstar, celebrity pastor started the church
at Antioch? And what's interesting is, it wasn't Paul. It wasn't Barnabas. It
wasn't James or John or Peter. It wasn't Matthew or Thomas. It wasn't any of the
names that you would know. In fact, what's interesting is, if you read the book
of Acts, Dr. Luke, who wrote the book, has lots of names everywhere, but none
here when it comes to this church. Instead, all we're told is that those who
were scattered because of the persecution, there were some of them, men of
Cyprus and Cyrene. In fact, we're not given any names. All we're given is some
anonymous pronouns, some theys and thems, and those men who went from Cyprus and
Cyrene. No names, just pronouns. What the text is telling us is that essentially
an army of ordinary, unnamed, regular Christians are scattered because of
persecution. Do you see that in the text? That because Stephen was stoned, Acts
chapter seven, a few chapters earlier, Stephen is one of the first martyrs of
the Christian faith. Stephen gets stoned and it's almost like blood goes out in
the water and all the sharks come out because Stephen is stoned. This great
persecution arises against all the Christians. And so now all these ordinary
regular Christians are running like refugees out of Jerusalem and they're going
north to Phoenicia and they're going east and west and they're running
everywhere and some of them happened to come to Antioch. And so you've got these
ordinary Christians running everywhere. We don't know who they are. In fact, the
one thing we know about them is who they're not. Because if you read in Acts
eight one, it says they were scattered except the apostles, meaning all the
names you do know, they were still in Jerusalem. The Peters, the James, the
Johns, the Matthews and the Thomas, they were still there. And so what we know
is that this army of ordinary, regular, unnamed believers run because of
persecution. They head everywhere as refugees and the only thing they take with
them is that Jesus had said to them, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And armed with that they go. And
here's what's amazing about Acts 11. You see, up until this point, what you have
in Acts is largely a, a Jewish movement. Like the entire Jesus movement up until
this point is largely a Jewish movement, meaning if you read from Acts one to
11, you largely have Jewish believers taking the Jewish scriptures about a
Jewish Messiah and telling other Jewish people about it. That's the movement of
Acts. So far it's Jewish believers taking the Jewish scriptures about a Jewish
Messiah and telling other Jews about it until you get to Antioch because now
they get to Antioch and historians tell us this was probably the third largest
city of the Roman Empire, a city with half a million people. And what made
Antioch unique in its day was that this city actually offered citizenship to
foreigners. And because of that, you had people, historians tell us from as far
as Persia, maybe as far east as India and China in the city of Antioch by this
time. And so they get to Antioch, the third largest city, this cosmopolitan
metropolitan international city. And verse 20 says, when they get there, some of
them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists
also preaching the Lord Jesus. They get to Antioch and the ordinary Christians,
no ministry professionals among them, no apostles, no one with a ministry
degree, no PhDs in theology, just the regular ordinary folk. They get to Antioch
and they begin verse 20 preaching the Lord Jesus. Preaching where? Not on a
platform, no pulpit. They preached at the cubicle at work. They preached in the
classroom at school. They preached at the dinner table in the neighborhood. They
began preaching the Lord Jesus. And all of a sudden what happens? Acts 11 is
hugely important because up until this point, again, largely Jewish, you might
have had a small sort of trickle of Gentiles here and there. You had one
Ethiopian eunuch here, one Italian soldier named Cornelius there, but now you
get to a city with half a million Gentiles. And all of a sudden it's like the
gospel jumps the Jewish fence and penetrates into this world and the dam gets
thrown open and the gospel floods a city with half a million people from
everywhere in the world. And the result is what? Verse 21 and the hand of the
Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. You know
what acts 11 is saying? I think acts 11 is saying we don't need celebrities and
superstars. We just need ordinary Christians who have the hand of the Lord with
them and a great many who believe turn to the Lord. We don't need if a community
of grace is going to be a disciple making multiplying church, it won't be
because there's three or four really gifted people who stand here. It'll be
because every ordinary regular Christian armed with this good news has the hand
of the Lord with them as they seek to be witnesses for Jesus Christ. That's what
you see in the church at Antioch. It's remarkable friends. I was thinking just
this is how God's gospel works. Armies of regular people. For example, that's
how that's how war works. I was just thinking the other day, if you think of
World War Two, if I asked you name some of the generals of World War Two, like
maybe you could come up with MacArthur, maybe you could come up with Patton or
Eisenhower. After that, I don't really know. 16 million people fought in World
War Two. 16 million Americans. I could probably name you three of them. That's
how things happen. It's the names of ordinary people that will never be known,
that will never be recognized. And yet it's their work that wins the war and
wins the battle. And so it is even with the advance of the gospel. The most
prolific, fruitful church in the history of Christianity was planted by some
people whose names we don't even know. That history has not bothered to record.
Friends, I hope that that's an encouragement for you. I hope that that means you
and I have a role to play in this gospel advance, in this work of seeing the
gospel break to the ends of the earth. You and I have a role in that. And when
we're sane, that really is all that we want. Like when we're sane, we just want
to point some people to Jesus. And then when our time is done, die and go to
glory. That's what we want. When we're insane, then we need our names and lights
and we need to be seen and recognized and identified in something special and
super. When we're sane, when we know what the gospel has meant into our hearts,
then we know all those things we're looking for, we already have in Jesus
Christ. We go, I have already been found. I have already been discovered. My
name is already written, in fact, in the Lamb's Book of Life. I will be
eternally significant. I will never be forgotten. I will eternally endure. I
will last forever. Everything that I long for, I already have. And when that
gospel sits on my heart, then I'm freed to go. All we want to do in this life is
point some people to Jesus, live our lives faithfully, die and go to glory. When
I think of this, I'm reminded of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is one of
the heroes of the faith when it comes to this. If you know the story of John the
Baptist, everyone was clamoring about John. If it was today, John would have
been the celebrity pastor. John would have had stadiums packed full of people
and everybody would be reading his books and listening to his podcast. And
listen, everyone went to John and they would pester John all the time. John, who
are you? Who are you, John? Tell us about you, John. John hated all the
interviews. In fact, John's only response to who are you was to tell them who he
was not. In fact, John's response was, listen, I am not the Christ. That's the
one thing you should know me. I'm not the Christ. But they would keep going.
John, no, no, tell us who are you? Who are you? Finally, John would say, you
know who I am? I am the voice of one in the wilderness saying, prepare the way
of the Lord. When I think of that, I'm reminded of this moment in our political
system. Every year we have that State of the Union address or every now and then
that State of the Union. And regardless of whatever your politics are, on that
one night, everyone comes to DC. All the who's who, all the people who matter,
all the VIPs, all the people in power, they all come to the Capitol building,
they all assemble together and you can see the cameras. They're standing,
they're shaking hands and they're networking and working the room. And all of a
sudden into that clamor, the back door opens. And if you've ever watched the
address, a man comes out and to be honest, you have no idea who that man is. You
don't know what his title is. You don't know his name. You don't know how he got
into DC or why he was allowed into the Capitol building. But a man comes out and
with a loud voice, this man says, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United
States of America. And then everybody in the room stands to their feet and
begins to applaud. And for seven, eight minutes, the president makes their way
to the front and then every eye locks towards the front. And you know what
happens to that man? Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Like that back door closes, he
slips out and no one thinks about him again. No one wonders where did he go?
What's he doing today? Nobody cares because now every eye is looking forward to
hear from the president. John says, you know who I am? I'm that guy. I throw
open some doors and I say to the world, ladies and gentlemen, Jesus the Christ,
the Messiah of the world. And my hope is that everyone locks in on him and
everyone flocks to him. And I slip out the back and no one should think about me
again because the anthem of my life is that he must increase and I must decrease
when we're saying friends. That's all we want as well. When we are gospel saying
all we want is to point some people to Jesus, die and go to glory where we will
be eternally remembered and rewarded. The Bible says if you give a cup of cold
water in Jesus name, he will not forget that. What thing will you do for Christ
that will be overseen, unnoticed, unrecognized, insignificant? No. 15 million
people want a war and so we need armies of ordinary regular Christians who
advance the gospel and make multiplying churches. If we're going to be a gospel
advancing church, we need ordinary Christians doing the work of ministry.
Second, in a gospel advancing church, we see teams of diverse people united
around Christ. In this gospel advancing church, a second thing that I think you
see in Antioch is teams of diverse people united around Christ. Read with me
from verse 22. It says 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 a great
many people were added to the Lord. Let me pause there. What happens now is word
travels back to headquarters, back to Jerusalem, that God is up to something
over there in Gentile Antioch. And so headquarters now has to respond. They
didn't come up with the plan. They have to respond to what it seems that God is
doing. And so they send someone to go and investigate. So they send Barnabas.
And the text says in verse 23 that when Barnabas got there, he saw the grace of
God. That is such a peculiar phrase. How do you see the grace of God? The grace
of God is not like floating in the air that you see. How do you see the grace of
God? I think that he saw what God's Spirit was doing. He saw Persians and
Chinese and Indians coming to faith in Jesus Christ. He saw the gospel, jump the
Jewish fence and go to the Hellenists and then come to faith. He saw that God's
grace was there. And so having seen the grace of God, he exhorted them. He
encouraged them to remain, to keep doing what they're doing. In fact, Barnabas
name means son of encouragement. And so Barnabas Barnabas them. That's what he
did. He encouraged them. He exhorted them. He affirmed what God was doing and
simply told them, keep going. So you've got this outside sort of guest pastor
coming to say, I see the grace of God here and just keep going. Keep being a
church that is making, maturing, multiplying disciples so that this region and
the ends of the earth might get this gospel. This pastor simply affirms and
exhorts and encourages what God's doing. And as a result of that, the text says
another wave of growth came and the Lord added those who believe not because
Barnabas started anything, but simply he got the regular ordinary Christians to
keep doing what they're doing. And so now you've got this church twice over
growing. And so what does Barnabas do? Barnabas humbly goes and fetches a
teammate. Verse 25. 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. So now you've got Barnabas and Saul serving this
church together for a year, but it won't be just the two of them because if you
skip over to 13, our brother read for us a list of names. 13 verse one. Now
there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who
was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaon, a lifelong friend of Herod the
tetrarch and Saul. One verse, we get five names because it's what? It's a team
of people, but not just a team. I think what Dr. Luke is emphasizing here is
that it's a diverse team of diverse people united around Christ. Just consider
these names. Barnabas is a bicultural Jew from Cyprus. Simeon called Niger,
which literally you'll see a footnote. It means black. It's a black African.
Lucius is from North Africa. Manaon is a friend of Herod the tetrarch, meaning
he's lived in the palace courts in the upper class of society. Saul is a Jew.
He's a Roman citizen. The point is this is a team that's diverse,
socioeconomically diverse, some in the palace courts, some with nothing
ethnically divorced, diverse, racially diverse in every way this Gospel gets to
this cosmopolitan city and now you've got people from everywhere coming to
faith. It's leaders even made of this multi-ethnic team and the result of all of
this is what? Verse 26, and in Antioch, the disciples were first called
Christians. Isn't that amazing? For 2000 years, friends, we who follow Jesus
Christ have called ourselves Christians, but how did we get that name? There's
no verse in the Bible says from now on you shall be called Christians. We got
the name because the city of Antioch looked at what the grace of God was doing
and going. We have no category for what this is. We need a new name to describe
it. You see, up until then, they knew what a group of Jews look like. They knew
the Persian section of the city. In fact, historians tell us the city of Antioch
had these walls to separate out the ghettos of different international
communities, but now you've got this place where all of them are coming together
and what do we call this thing? They're not Jews because they're not only Jews
and they're not Persians because they're not only Persians. What do you call
this thing? And it's almost like the name they probably heard all the time was
Christ and they got called Christians. It's at Antioch that they were first
called Christians, this new category of thing. Brothers and sisters, your
desire, like you taught your children, is to see this gospel go to this city and
its people and to this region and to the ends of the earth, to people who are so
different from you. And why do we desire that? Why do you have that impulse? We
desire diversity. We desire for the gospel to jump the fence to all people, not
because it's fashionable in 2025, not because it's in vogue, not because it's a
trend that'll come in and out. You see words like diversity, words like
inclusivity, they'll fall in and out of fashion. But the scriptures are saying
it has been God's agenda from the beginning of the world that this thing should
be for all peoples everywhere. Diversity is not our idea. We're simply stealing
God's thunder. God has said from Genesis on, I'm going to bless you so that
through you all the families of the earth might be blessed. Or Psalm 67, I want
to pray for blessing so that this blessing might overflow to the ends of the
earth. You see, that's God's heartbeat throughout the scriptures. And in fact,
it's what you see in acts. Just think of how acts begins. When acts begins, the
Holy Spirit falls on them at Pentecost and what happens at Pentecost, except
that there's a signal that this thing is for all people at once. When the Holy
Spirit comes, what happens? I have a friend named Robin Koshy. He has this great
line about this. He says this. He says, isn't it amazing that the first time
people are preaching the gospel after the ascension that it is in every language
at once. What is God saying except that no language or culture has precedence in
the Christian faith? No language and no culture. The first time the gospel is
announced after the Holy Spirit comes, it's not in Hebrew because this isn't
just for the Jews. And it's not in Greek. And friends, it's not in English as
though America is the epicenter of the Christian world. It is in all languages
at once. So as to say from the hour this thing has been conceived, it is for
everyone. This gospel is for every one. And I want you to hear like if you were
to think in other world religions, you might be able to profile what a adherent
to that religion looks like. Have I told you what a Muslim looks like? I mean,
there's a way in which even the Arabic has to be read in Arabic, the Quran,
because that's the language, the holy one. If I were to tell you what is a Hindu
look like? If I were to tell you what is a Buddhist look like? Can I tell you if
I were to tell you what does a Christian look like? You know, the honest answer
is if you think of a white Anglo Saxon Protestant male, you would be just about
100 years too late. Because the locus of Christianity keeps shifting so that now
it is global and south more than it is anything else. Because this thing from
the hour it was born has been for all peoples everywhere. I'll tell you the
absurdity of the reach and inclusivity of the gospel hit me this one time when I
was watching this YouTube message of this Korean preacher. And so I'm watching
this Korean man preach in Korean, there's translation at the bottom, into what
looked like a stadium full of Korean people in Korea. So I'm watching this man
and I'm listening to this message and this man during his sermon says something
like, our fathers were in the wilderness. And then he starts rattling off the
names of Zebulun and Naftali and Dan and I'm watching this Korean rattle off the
tribes of Israel and talk to this stadium full of Korean people in Korea, in
Korean about our fathers in the wilderness. And I couldn't help but go, does
this guy know he's Korean? And then as soon as I said that, I sort of looked
down and thought, oh my goodness, I have brown skin from India. Like can I tell
you, I'm an Indian from India. I couldn't tell you the first thing about the
Bhagavad Gita. I don't know about Ram or Vishnu or Shiva. I grew up with a
hundred other Indians kids singing, Father Abraham has many sons and I am one of
them. And we thought it was perfectly sane for us to do that. Do you know how
ridiculous it is that a hundred Indian kids are singing, Father Abraham has many
sons and we're one of them? It's every bit as ridiculous as a bunch of Europeans
singing it. Because this gospel started with just Israel and Jewish people and
then it jumped the Jewish fence so that all peoples of the earth might be
brought in. And now I'm telling you, I could name Neftali. I know what the
Passover is. I know the celebrations of the feast of the tabernacles. I know
these scriptures as though they're my own. I'm literally telling you, I'm a
child of Abraham. How did that happen? Except this gospel has been for all
peoples everywhere. That's the impulse of a gospel advancing, disciple making,
multiplying church is to see this thing go out everywhere because Antioch showed
us that Jesus is not only Israel's Messiah, he is Lord of all the world and his
blood is too powerful for it to be narrowed to one people, but is sufficient for
all peoples everywhere. And so through your witness and through your work and
through your partnerships, may this church be a gospel advancing church for all
peoples everywhere. Third, in a gospel advancing church, we see gospel driven
generosity and sacrifice. In a gospel advancing church, we see gospel driven
generosity and sacrifice. Let me read for you verse 27. It says, now in these
days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of them named Agabus
stood up and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all
the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined
everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea
and they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. But
the text says is, as this church is now growing, a prophecy comes that there's a
famine in Jerusalem and what happens? The text says that the disciples
determined that they have to give the disciples, the regular ordinary Christians
and the pews decide we have to do something about it. It's amazing. It's not the
few leaders in the front that sort of then guilt or manipulate the congregation
to give, but the disciples decide we've got to be a part of this. These Gentiles
in Antioch feel such kinship with their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem that
on hearing the need there, they determined spontaneous wasn't a part of the
budget that year. Spontaneous decide we must give a part to this and so the
disciples determined that everyone is going to give according to their ability
to meet this need. But what you'll see about this gospel advancing church is not
only it generous with its possessions, you'll see this church is marked with a
generosity to give and release to the advance of the gospel in every way, not
only of its possessions, but even of its most prized people. If you keep
reading, you'll see that in 13 they're willing to not just give money, but their
leaders as well. We read the text. The first verse gives us the five names of
the leaders, but then in verse two, while they were worshiping, this is Acts 13
to 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've called them. Then
after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. She
catch the picture. Here's this church. They're in a prayer meeting. Maybe
they're praying for Antioch, their city, they're praying for the region. Maybe
they're praying for the peoples that represent all the earth that are in their
city. They're praying and during that prayer meeting, the spirit says, I need
you to set apart Barnabas and Saul. You think of that friends, if you've got a
five person elder team and two of them happened to be Barnabas and Paul, I mean,
one of the guys literally wrote most of the New Testament. If that guy's on your
teaching team, you're trying to do everything you can to keep that brother. And
the spirit says, I need you to send Paul and Barnabas, literally the two most
senior leaders at the church, two out of the five people. And yet the spirit
says, I need you to send them out and they are ready to then do this with their
prize people, just like they had done earlier with their possessions as well.
Because this is the posture of a gospel advancing church, a disciple making
multiplying church. This is the posture. Why? Because this is the posture of the
gospel. What do we do when we do this? We simply reflect what God's posture has
been towards us because how did God give towards us? He did not give scraps and
leftovers. He emptied heaven of the most prized thing heaven had, namely Jesus
himself. And then when Jesus got here, what was Jesus's posture towards us?
Except this. I mean, literally they strung him up on a cross naked with nothing
left to give. That's Christ's posture towards us. And so when we give, we
reflect the generosity of God who has been this way to us. And we do not respond
this way to that gospel. We do not hoard. We do not hold. But we do this to a
God who has done that to us with our possessions and even with our most prized
people. I tell you, our season in Boston has marked me because that small
church, as he mentioned, when I left, I was 2008 just a small growing church.
And yet I remember my last sermon in Boston was acts 20 the scene where Paul is
leaving these Ephesians that he had loved and they go to a beach and at the
beach it says the text says they literally fell on his neck and they all wept
together because they loved one another so much. And yet this is what they were
willing to do. And I remember thinking that church in Boston is going to go back
to the beach over and over and over again. And they did it with us and they did
it with Matt. And now because of that, there is gospel work in Philly and in
Houston and on the other side of the world. And that's what Community of Grace
has to do. If it's going to be a gospel advancing church is going to have to go
back to the beach over and over again, parting with your possessions and your
people to see this gospel advance in response to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Fourth and finally, in a gospel advancing church, we need a desperate dependence
on God to do the work. In a gospel advancing church, we need ordinary people
doing the work of ministry. We need diverse teams of people united around Jesus
Christ. We need gospel driven generosity and sacrifice. And then fourth and
finally, we need a desperate dependence on God to do the work. I think if you
read this story and you stand back from it, what becomes unmistakable and clear
is that at the end of the day, this most prolific church in the New Testament,
this gospel advancing church, it wasn't because of Saul and Barnabas. And it
wasn't even because of the armies of ordinary Christians. If you stand back from
the story, you go, this thing was the work of God. I mean, it's so unmistakable
and clear. It's the hand of the Lord that was with them that turned a great many
to believe and turn to the Lord. But just stand back from the story itself and
tell me it's not so evident that this is God's doing. I remember listening to a
sermon by a man named David Platt and he pointed this out and it just blew my
mind. Think of the story for a second. How did the church at Antioch begin? The
church at Antioch begun because a man named Stephen got stoned. So Satan in his
brilliance figures, I'm going to kill Christianity and I'm going to kill
Christianity by killing Stephen. And who was there by the way, to kill Stephen
except one man named Saul of Tarsus. And so Saul figures, I'm going to kill
Christianity by killing Stephen. As a result of that very act, a domino falls
and the domino that falls is a great persecution begins to take place because
that great persecution takes place. Another domino falls, which is they scatter
everywhere. Phoenicia and Cyprus and Cyrene and Antioch. And because they get to
Antioch, they start preaching the gospel to the Christians there. And because
they preach the gospel there, this gospel advancing church is born. And when
that church needs someone to pastor it, who do they fetch except one Saul of
Tarsus? And when that church is going to send someone out to global missions,
who do they send except Saul of Tarsus? It's almost like God is saying, you're
going to kill Christianity. I'm going to have you plant, pastor and be sent out
by the very church you tried to kill. Who does that except the hand of the Lord?
Who's the architect of the church at Antioch? Who's the mastermind behind all of
this except the Lord God himself? And so what do we need to do? We need a
desperate dependence on God to do the work. They expressed that dependence in
that they were fasting and praying. And it's during that fasting prayer meeting
that the Spirit said, set these two apart. And so we need that. We need a
desperate dependence that at the end of the day, it won't be because community
of grace, engineers or architect something, but rather a desperate dependence on
the hand of the Lord to be with this community so that the gospel might go out
from here to this city, to this region and to the ends of the earth. So that's
what I'm praying for you, brothers and sisters, that this gospel would produce
here ordinary Christians that do the work of ministry and that this church would
be through its ministry and its partnerships pivotal in seeing the gospel go to
the ends of the earth so that diverse people might be united around Christ and
that this gospel would produce in here a posture of generosity so that you might
give your people and your possessions in response to how God gave to you and
that all of that might be housed in a desperate dependence on God to do the
work. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for these brothers and sisters.
Thank you for the good work that you're doing here. As a friend from outside, I
see the grace of God here in what's being taught and what's being shepherded and
what's being pastored. God, I pray that you would encourage these brothers and
sisters to keep doing what they're doing and to advance the gospel. Pray that
your word would bear fruit in their lives and pray what Matt taught the children
would be what's true for this church, that this church would be blessed, that
you would bless them and keep them and make your face shine upon them and be
gracious to them, that you would lift up your countenance upon them always and
through blessing them, they might be a blessing to the ends of the earth. This
we ask and pray in Jesus name. Amen.