The church At Antioch — Acts 11-15

0:01 It's great to see you. There's a couple of things I need to tell you. I left my watch at home. See? Now, on my watch are two wedding bands.

0:19 Now, I carry them on my watch because when I work at the hospital, I wash my hands about 100 times a day, and that causes a little bit of a problem with the wedding band. So, I wear it on my watch. So, I worked yesterday and I got home and I put it on the charger and I left it at home. So, I just want you to know I'm still married. We still have nine children and we are happily married.

0:43 And so, thirty seven years. Thirty So, I just want you to know if you don't see my wedding band on or my watch, that's where it is. Number two, we had quite a year last year since we saw each other. I think it's been about exactly a year. And I am very grateful that you scanned the globe and you asked me back.

1:07 I mean, could have got a lot of other people, so thank you. But more importantly, lots of travels and miles have happened. I was telling somebody tonight, I think over this last year I met somewhere around 3,000 people, and so I just, you you can't keep up with that. Bill McDonald did, but I can't. I don't know how that would sound.

1:26 But the Lord's taken us through quite a few journeys. So, since we saw you last, boy, what happened? My daughter had appendicitis, ruptured case in March of this year, last year. That's kind of embarrassing for an emergency room physician to confess that he missed the appendicitis in his daughter. That would be like the lowest point of my career.

1:52 And she had a two month recovery. After she recovered from that in May, I was at Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp. I was preaching there and my father-in-law fell. He was on the weak side. He had a stroke about a year ago this time and he was on his weak side and he fell and he suffered a subdural hematoma.

2:10 And so that was a long hospitalization and a long recovery, and about five months later he was released from rehab. Then, just before Christmas, he's almost 90, he's going on 90, he fell again in our garage. It wasn't serious, but he did break L3 in his back, so he has a little compression fracture. And so that put him in the hospital. So he was in the hospital over Christmas and rehab, and we just got him back last week, and yet our lives are taking care of our elderly father.

2:42 So if you're wondering why my wife is not here, it's not because we're having marital problems, it's because she's taking care of her dad. And she would like to be here. But our lives have changed a little again to care for him. And so, thank you for your understanding. But she sends her hellos, tells everybody hello, and wants you to know that she's praying for us.

3:05 All right, that's a brief synopsis of this year. But it's been a year of trials for us. Really has. So we can thank the Lord he's brought us through them all. One of the things that was icing on the cake was Christmas Eve.

3:17 It was about minus five back in Kansas City and we had family over. Everybody's gonna spend the night and the pipe bursts. Yeah, tell me about it. And it's like five degrees minus five outside. So I made some phone calls and the Lord sent over a Christian brother to fix it and we had it fixed within two hours, which was kind of, I don't know, borders on miraculous.

3:39 So, thank the Lord for all that he's done and his faithfulness to us. Now, what I want to talk about is what's behind you here. Have you visited the Church of Antioch? The reason why I want to bring this up is because I hear a lot of people, they come and go to churches. I've been to countless churches this last year.

4:00 So I feel like I've visited a lot of places. Sometimes when you're in a church, somebody says, Well, I'd like to visit other churches, see what they're like, see what they do, what they are and what they're not. And I have no skin in the game about that. That's between you and the Lord. But it occurred to me that maybe we ought to visit the churches that we have in the Bible.

4:21 I mean, that'd be a good place to start, right? And the reason why this is helpful is because you all sort of started over in a sense. You know, not really, but yes, kind of. And so you've gone through so much transition and there's been a measure of stability this year. So sometimes you may wonder, well, I wonder how other churches do it.

4:45 Well, I think we should ask that question to the New Testament and ask, well, I wonder how they do it. I wonder what made them tick and what things they learned and what things we can learn as we look at those churches and specifically what things we don't want to repeat and what things we do want to repeat. Right? So, we're gonna just look at it from that perspective. Now, I've selected the Church of Antioch.

5:08 I am pretty sure you've probably never heard a message on the Church of Antioch. Alright? The Antioch of Syria, not of Asia Minor, okay? Now, on the other times that we have to speak, I must have miscalculated. I thought we had like eight sessions.

5:23 We don't? We do. There are two per session. That's great. I love this place.

5:31 All right, no. So I'll tell you, I've selected a few churches to talk about that we'll go through, and some of them are very passionate and moving for me because the Lord used them in my life to actually totally change me. So some of those are very special. But tonight I want to talk about the Church of Antioch. Now let me see if I can be tech savvy as my son is at home.

5:51 I like to travel with him because he tells me everything that I should or shouldn't be doing. There we go. Can I bring it up? There it is. Here's your outline.

6:19 Oops, that's not what I wanted. I'm supposed to get rid of that and then I'm supposed to do this. It works. Alright, let's turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter eight, or excuse me, we'll eventually be in the different chapter. Let me just summarize this slide for us.

6:36 You can see that in Acts chapter seven there was the persecution that began with Stephen's martyrdom. And then if you remember, Paul kind of went on a tirade after that as he was persecuting the church. He was actually called Saul then not Paul. And the church was under a great deal of kind of consternation and what happened was the Lord decided to change the equation and he saved Paul in Acts chapter nine. Well, was a game changer in the book of Acts and as Paul was being saved, you flip over to the other end of the country of Palestine and there's Peter.

7:17 And Peter's out there, he's in Caesarea by the sea, all right? That's over by the Mediterranean Sea. And he is in Joppa or Yapa Yava. And so, he's called to go to Caesarea. And guess who's in Caesarea?

7:31 That's Cornelius. Now, it never says in the text that he was a person of peace. It says that he was a fellow that was very interested in the things of God. And in so being, would, being a Gentile, he would practice Judaism practices. And so, was crying out to God and God sent him Peter.

7:50 And Peter then begins to witness to the house of Cornelius and they get saved. And the only reason why we know they got saved is because they received in the same manifestation the Holy Spirit that they saw on the day of Pentecost. And so Peter goes, Wow! God is opening the door to the Gentiles. I can't believe it!

8:10 Well, Peter then relays that whole story, the whole scenario, to the church that's in Jerusalem and they go, Ah, God is moving, isn't he? Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth and they announced to the Gentiles this new plan of salvation. Well, persecution is scattered and those early converts had to move out of the Palestine region and some of them ended up in, of course, Antioch. Now this is where we get to Acts chapter 11 and I want you to turn to Acts chapter 11 and we're gonna talk about the formation of the church. Maybe I should change colors.

8:48 What color should we change to? How about green? Would green be better? There we go. Okay, Acts 11.

9:00 Now, when we talk about the church of Antioch, it's a very interesting place. I want you to see, let's begin reading in verse 19. But now those who were scattered after the persecution of the rose over Stefan traveled as far as Phoenicia, that's up the coast, you know, day Lebanon, Cyprus, that's an island, and Antioch, which is a little further north along the coastline, Antioch of the Mediterranean, preaching the word to no one but Jews only. But some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, so local areas, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, now that would actually be Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

9:55 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. And when he came, he had seen the grace of God. He was glad and encouraged them all with the purpose of heart that they should continue with the Lord for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith and a great many people were added to the Lord. Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. His name hasn't changed yet at this point in the narrative And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

10:27 So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people And the disciples were first called Christians. Notice a couple things. Persecution drove distribution. Did you notice that? Hardship or distress drove declaration.

10:53 That's a very important principle. You see, many times as a church grows, as we get going, we will find difficulties. There will be hardships. In the case of the early church, it was the persecution that had really been brought on by the Judaizers against this deviant sect of Judaism, these Christian people. And so they were forced out of their homes, were forced out of their regions, and they had to disperse within the Roman Empire.

11:20 Now normally, you and I would think, that would be a death to the movement or the death to the work, but that's exactly the opposite. The door actually opened, it didn't close. Distress led to declaration. And I think we should understand that. That as you grow as an assembly, as this fellowship grows, you will have distress.

11:42 It may come in the form of outside external persecution or internal difficulty or health problem or loss of life or illness or debilitating or some sort of debilitating disability. But I would suggest to you that that's not the end, that's actually the beginning. I know what we say. We say when God closes the door, opens a window or whatever you want to say, and all that's kind of cute and trite and all that stuff, but it turns out the nugget of that little cliche is really true. That God was moving people out so that the gospel would be distributed in a broader region across a ripe empire that had the infrastructure to allow propagation of the gospel.

12:27 You know what we call that? Genius. That's what we call that. Now, notice also that as the gospel went up there, there were some who were only preaching to the Jews as you can see where was that in verse 20, or excuse me, verse 19, but then they decided to step over the boundary and decided to give the gospel to a people group which was non Jewish. Now remember, the early church was made up of Jewish people.

12:58 Peter was a Jew. John was a Jew, right? And Jesus was a Jew. And so, when they gave the gospel, they thought it was supposed to be kept within the boundaries of the Judaism state, if you will. But when the Holy Spirit took that gospel out and gave it to Cornelius, a Roman centurion, Italian, right?

13:20 All of a sudden, everybody's paradigm had to change. That this is not just something for us, this is something for all. And this is brought out by, later, by the Apostle Paul who writes of this situation and the concept in Ephesians chapter two and three, and he says, God has broken down the middle wall of partition that was separating us from the commonwealth of Israel and by joining us and making us one new man in Jesus Christ and so you could see that that teaching of Ephesians is actually beginning to be put into place in nugget form in this particular historical rendition. So they were following that path. It was already done in Caesarea by the Sea.

14:01 The apostles and the elders knew about it in Jerusalem. So what's the big deal? Let's give the gospel. No, what's the teaching point here? You know, I think that the Lord is going to open up doors for the Gospel for us.

14:16 Do you know how I know that? The rest of the world is coming to The United States. We received 800 Afghanistan's in Kansas City. 800. I went to a couple of our young people.

14:34 You guys' age, right? You guys' age. Right here. Right there. And I said, what do you think if we, you as students on the, it's a community college campus, started a little club for foreign students?

14:51 Now, I can't do it because I'm like an old guy and I would be like a professor, so I can't go. But you are a student and that means you can do anything as long as it's under the auspices of the campus. Freedom of speech. Why don't you use it? So, they started that.

15:07 And we ended up ministering to 400 Afghanis. Right? Now, they're closed people. Muslim. But, boy, they sure like to talk when you bring them beds and food.

15:21 Help them with their driver's license. Help them find a place to shop for food. How to actually get a car and learn to drive. You see, I think that we should think like the early church did and their early church thinking was that we should, the gospel needs to go broader than our little comfort zone. Now, if that's happening by application to us in a little town in The United States with a bunch of Afghanis, I'm pretty sure that that will be a recurrent theme within our culture.

15:57 Now, you gotta think about it. That means you can be a missionary without leaving your country and not learning a new language. It doesn't get any better than that. That is like handing you a gold platter, isn't it? What's the problem?

16:13 Well, we have to think outside the box. Our paradigm has to change and so I think it was changing here. Boy, at this rate, we'll never get through the text tonight. All right, now, once that happened, people started getting saved, verse 21, a great number believed. So what happened then?

16:27 The apostles were still in Jerusalem. They sent Barnabas to check out the story. They heard about it. Now, that's what we call great leadership. Great leadership.

16:38 A work of God's going on? Let's go find out. Peter was at the last one. He told us firsthand, Barnabas, would you go? Remember, Barnabas has another subtitle, the son of encouragement.

16:49 What does that mean? Well, he's an encourager. That's what that means. And so he's the right guy for the job. So when he got there, he was thrilled.

16:56 Look at what it says. When he came, in verse 23, had seen the grace of God, he was glad. Now, the thing that made Barnabas glad was not the number of people. The thing that made Barnabas glad was not the new production of life. What made him glad was that he saw the hand of God doing something miraculous.

17:19 His joy was in the grace of God moving amongst people. He saw God in it and not human dimension. Not human effort. Not human prowess and cleverness. He saw God in it.

18:01 I was participating in what he's already doing. But quite frankly, everything that 's happened in our midst and everything that's growing and magnifying and souls being saved and baptized, that's God. And we get to be the children that get to praise that and praise God for that. And this is Barnabas, he's saying, my perspective is that he saw the grace of God, the faithfulness of God. He was, it says there, had seen the grace of God, he was glad and notice what he did next, he encourages everyone.

18:34 It says that he encouraged them all with the purpose of heart that they should continue in the Lord. That's what an encourager does. Don't give up the fight, recognize that what the battle is, know that the Lord is on your side, that he can walk with you and that he changes you and that he fills you with his spirit so that your desires are different and your priorities are different and it's something that could not be measured by human scales. This is what he's saying. That was an that is a tremendous encouraging like language for these newfound believers.

19:05 Now notice this. Notice that there are a couple lessons. It says here that Barnabas was a good man, full of faith. You see, the thing that your assembly will require, and I think already has and has had in the past, is really good shepherds. Right?

19:32 You need that. Now, I'm an elder shepherd. And end up shepherding a lot of people all over the world. It's not a boast. That's just what it is.

19:47 But one thing I realized is that there's a big difference between a plain old shepherd and a good shepherd. It's attached, that descriptive adjective is attached to the title that Jesus Christ gave himself. I am the good shepherd. Now, saints, I need you to think about this. The shepherds here are not only those who are recognized, but many others who do shepherding work.

20:19 If you have a bent or a hankering for the flesh, you're gonna make those shepherds' lives be consumed by you. Trust me. You will consume all the available energy of the shepherds within your meaning. That's not to say that you don't have struggles. But it is to say that if the problem is walking away from sin, if the problem is actually dying to yourself, die to yourself.

20:50 It's just that simple. And you'll find out that some of the great consumption of all the shepherding moments in this meeting will actually be able to be provided for others who need shepherding. But if it's just as simple as dealing with that which is wrong before God, a stubborn spirit, an independent heart, a self will, pride, deal with it. Steve, how do you do that? Well, I think what you do is you go into your closet and say, I'm an angry man, God, and I can't get rid of it.

21:26 Every time I try, I get angry. Every time I don't want to get angry, I get angry. Every time I'm angry, I get angrier. And I'm just an angry man, God. And I don't know what to do with it.

21:38 And I hear you're a miracle worker. I hear you can change a man from death to life and I need you to change me with my anger. You see, that's where it begins. It's not like the shepherds are your coaches and you go, you can run farther. You can jump higher.

21:58 It's not that. You know what it is? The shepherds are encouraging for you to do what you should do already and that's die to yourself and let the life of Christ fill you. That's what he's talking about. See, that first step is fundamental for the growth of the body of Christ.

22:19 So, yes. Yes. The need for shepherds is there. The character that Barnabas had. A good man.

22:27 Full of the Holy Spirit. Shepherds who are both official and unofficial. You cannot shepherd without the spirit of God controlling your life. Without him actually infiltrating every thought and passion and moment of your soul. Many call it, from days past, the exchange life where my life gets consumed by Christ so that you begin to see Christ and not me.

22:52 Thus, they were called Christ like ones. You see, shepherds, that's what is needed here. And if you aspire to be a shepherd, that's what must happen to you. Ladies, make no mistake. You shepherd.

23:02 You shepherd. Well, Steve, how do we shepherd? How about those children that you prepare dinner for every night? You shepherd those children. So, this fullness of the spirit is not just an injunction for leadership.

23:15 It's anybody involved in the shepherding motif. Now, I found something very amazing in my own life. I can say I'm filled with the spirit. But you can't find any evidence of it. One of the things I've been convicted about is reading the book of Numbers and preparing to go to Israel.

23:37 You know, they got in trouble more for muttering than any other sin. And you can hear, they muttered, I can't believe we're gonna die to Moses and give us any water. And it says next, and the Lord heard it. Thought to myself, well yeah, I mean he's got like twentytwenty hearing. You know?

23:56 Of course he's gonna hear it. Did you ever meet somebody like that? I heard that! You know that guy walking away. I heard that.

24:02 My wife has got twenty ten hearing, so. You see, muttering, complaining, grumbling. Well, that, that will thwart a church faster than you know. So, the shepherd, those involved with shepherding work, maybe we should begin there. Alright, there's a second lesson and that's of course that the spiritual leader or the spiritual nature of a church requires spiritual leaders, yes, but also teachers.

24:36 Look what it says in verse 22, departed for Tarsus, departed for Tarsus, brought Saul, he found him, brought him to Antioch and for a whole year they assembled they, the church, and they taught a great many people. You see that? You can't have a growing assembly, a thriving assembly, unless you teach the word of God in the story. So, you know, the leadership here, the elders, they asked Steve, would you come back and teach at our conference next year? I'm sure you can find somebody better, but listen, I understand what you're doing.

25:16 You're wanting this assembly here to have the word of God. And I can see that as a priority and the elders here that is what we want. So we're going to teach the word of God. And so if you get labeled as a place that all you do is teach, you know what we call that? A compliment.

25:34 Because that's exactly what that is. Not teaching about social issues. Not teaching about some sort of theory. Teaching the word of God. For a whole year they did that and they grew.

25:45 And they grew exponentially. This was how this church was formed. Now, as you go forward, I think the lesson is clear. Never run away from the word of God. Now, I'm not just talking about conferences, but that's a big one.

26:01 But I'm talking about house to house teaching. Then I'm talking about when you guys are getting together on Saturday night or Friday night and you're just kinda like, hey, you wanna play a video game? Why doesn't somebody say this? Hey, why don't we just open up the book of Jude? Jude, it's short.

26:15 We can get through it in a night. Right? That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about where it becomes a normal pattern of discussion and behavior so that instead of defaulting to something that might not matter at all for eternity, you default to something that matters forever in eternity. And one of my favorites is prayer.

26:37 Let me tell you, that makes a huge difference. Did you know right now in this country, six a. M. Every morning central time, you can join a prayer meeting? It's hosted by a brother named Mark from Quebec.

26:50 And he does speak English, not just French. And let me tell you, I wasn't on that. My son, who's 16, William, he heard about it at the Believer's Bible Conference. Which I might add, I didn't see any of you there, but next year, it's okay. And so, you know, he hears about it.

27:06 So he starts joining them, okay? 6AM. You know what I like to do at 6AM? Roll over. That's what I do at 6AM.

27:15 So, I get up one morning, said, William, you been up? He says, yeah, was on the prayer call. Prayer call. Yeah, you know dad, the one we heard. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:24 Dad, yeah. They were asking about you. Yeah, they're wondering where you were. I got up the next morning at 05:30. I was on that call, baby.

27:35 Okay. So, listen. Make that the norm. Prayer and the word of God. That's what we ought to do.

27:43 Lessons, lessons, lessons. Okay, let's move on. Now at the beginning, there was definitely commitment as I mentioned and they taught, but notice this, they became Christ like ones. That was their label. Now who gave them that label?

27:56 Well, it was actually a label from the world. They looked at them and they said, boy, you guys look like this Jesus person you've been talking about. And the answer is, yeah, that's right. That's what you want to be. May this church be the Church of Antioch in Cleveland.

28:13 May this church be labeled. Well, all you guys are concerned about is Jesus. Oh, guilty as charged, thank you very much. That's what you want. So that the word of God is permeating every single paradigm and thinking and perspective of all of your existence governs every decision, governs every moment.

28:58 Then the disciples, notice the response, verse 29, Then the disciples of which church? Of Antioch, each according to his ability, alright, there was no sort of comparison, there was just whatever God's given you, determined, that means that they made an intentional decision, to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. In other words, you guys in Judea, Jerusalem, you sent us Barnabas and he's helped us so much. The least we could do is help you in a time of famine and so as soon as they heard the need through the prophet Agabas, they said, hey, what can we do about it? Do you hear that?

29:33 Do you see that? You see that reciprocal nature of the body of Christ in two different Do you see how this church is actually thinking outside the box that that there is a a healthiness to them that they hear of a need and and and they've received so much blessing. The last thing, the the first thing we should do is bless them back and so what did they do? This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul, a trusted group of men. See, a healthy church needs consistent, solid, nourishing teaching.

30:06 I mentioned that a healthy church needs to think outside its own walls. That's a real sign of tremendous health in your body. Now, I have to confess to you, our assembly was given young people. Like yours, you probably have, what, 20, 30 young people between the ages of, say, 15 and 35. Ours has about the same.

30:33 And so, the elders, we were praying three years ago that the Lord would move our young people to embrace the work of the local assembly. Just like this. And what he did is he had our young people bear, and this is true, the entire evangelistic load of the assembly. Do you know in the last fourteen months, we've had seven outreaches. Seven outreaches.

30:58 It started last year with what we call a, or not 2022, but 2021. It started out with just a simple fall festival and we invited the neighborhood and it was raining when we passed out the flyers. We didn't expect anybody. We had 175 people come to that. In this day, if you have 175 people walk on church property, that is miraculous.

31:21 So, then we went through the winter and we got into spring last year and we had this Easter event. And, you know, most of the world feels guilty to come on Easter, so we invited them to come anyway because they felt guilty. And the brothers asked if I'd preach a message. It's called the forensic look at the cross. And I did all the medicine that went into suffering a torturous death on a cross.

31:40 There's a lot of medicine in it. So, everybody's going, Oh, wow. I didn't know that. But I got to give the Gospel. Ask me how many people came to that that was unsaved.

31:48 15. Right? So, we get into the next, last year's summer and we had a VBS, right? We had 30 kids come to VBS, but on the last night, guess how many parents came? 15.

32:02 Two weeks later, we had another VBS. This was all in Spanish. It was all in the front lawn of one of our Hispanic brothers. And guess how many kids came to that? 15.

32:11 How many parents came on the last day? 15. Two weeks after that, we had an outreach in the region where about five assemblies came together. It was an old fashioned tent meeting except it was actually a barn because it was on a fairgrounds. We had 130 at our peak and one person got saved, got baptized last fall.

32:29 And we saw the work of God. I'll never forget it. All the saints around the region were saying to me, Steve, we'll try it this year. See what happens. That was on day one.

32:40 By day 14, because we did fourteen days in a row, just an old fashioned one, they're all saying, When we do this next year... Hear that? Oh, it's just tremendous. You see, what I saw was God raise up a group that thinks outside the box about the lost. We started kids club and guess what?

33:01 We picked up three or four people just walking by traffic, coming to the meetings regularly hearing the gospel. Then we did another outreach at Christmas time. We had a Christmas party at our home and you could bring your friends, family and enemies and we had 150 people, 120 people come, 15 people, 10 people came to that that were unsaved. We had a Christmas and cookies where we featured the children and guess how many people came to that? 20 people came to that.

33:28 And we had another event, a Christmas program, and another 10 people came to that. I'm telling you, this is tremendous when you can think outside that box. And that's what was happening in our assembly. Okay, look at this. A healthy assembly will have leadership on board with this outlook.

33:46 They're thinking that way. I think Barnabas and Paul are the same way. And of course, they had this disciple making chatter in the background. Barnabas went and found Saul. Saul was not a known entity at this point.

33:59 Remember, he had spent several years in in Arabia and he was thinking it all through and developing the theological constructs that he eventually wrote about. He was sort of invisible for this for a bit of a period of time from the biblical record. Barnabas took him and he brought him in and all of a sudden, Saul's name goes from Saul to Paul to the apostle to the Gentiles. And it happens over about a twenty year window of time. Discipleship was always in the background chatter.

34:27 I don't know what you think, but this is a great church. And if I was alive then, I wanna be part of that place. I actually think that place could be here. I really do. You have the makings of everything that God would use as an Antioch in the middle of Ohio.

34:48 That's what I think. And I think that the Lord will answer our prayer to see revival amongst his assemblies all across The United States, North America and the world. Because every morning when we meet at six a. To pray, that's exactly what we're praying for. Isn't that beautiful?

35:14 There is plenty of gift. I'm gonna read verse 25 of chapter 12 and then the first four verses of chapter 13 and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem so they deposited that gift that they sent for the famine and when they had fulfilled their minister, they also took with them John whose surname was Mark. Oh, Discipleship is always in the background chatter. Now, in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. What does that mean?

35:41 Well, were probably doing their gift, Barnabas, Simeon, who was also called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, so he was kind of of that household, and Saul. That's five guys right there. And as they ministered to the Lord, that means they served the Lord and fasted. What's fasted mean? Devoted to God.

36:06 The Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them. Then having fasted and prayed, laid hands on them, conferred to them their own approval and confirmation, they sent them away, so being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went to Seleucia. Now, let's just look at this for a minute. Notice they had plenty of gift. I believe that if you are an assembly here and you're lacking certain gift, ask the Lord to give it to you.

36:33 Twice in the history of our assembly, we were lacking evangelists. I asked the Lord to send us an evangelist and he did. One of them we sent to Japan to be an evangelist. The other one stayed at home. Still encouraging with evangelism.

36:48 And you know, that was actually one of our ladies. Fantastic evangelist. Then, so so we we have the gifts that are there but notice that they are busy gifts. It says that they ministered or serve the lord. Now, this this is a very important concept.

37:03 We might have talked about it last year in Ephesians chapter four and verse 16 and it says this, that God will cause an increase in growth as every joint and sinew, every part of the body, does its share, Christ will, or God will cause it to grow. So, it's sort of this idea that if you work out your muscles, they get bigger. You can't tell that about me, but you know, sort of, okay? And what he's saying is that principle is the same principle for the local assembly. And as I give you gift, don't be afraid, but go ahead and put your hand to the plow and work within the leadership's direction and council.

37:42 Now, have to tell you that our little, we get criticized as assembly for many things and some of those criticisms are very appropriate. But one of the things I think is a very big bonus is that you can actually have the greatest latitude of creativity to use your gift in the local meeting. We rarely, if we've rarely said to anybody when they come up, hey, we were thinking about this idea. We've rarely said, nah. And even if we had to say, nah, we would say, can you refigure it, configure it this way?

38:18 And they go, oh yeah, we never thought of that. You see the assembly is one of the greatest places where you can actually exercise your gift. Just follow the leadership's direction. Listen, I can tell you leadership does not want to snuff you out. Leadership wants you to grow and blossom to be what God has called you to be.

38:39 And so you got the latitude, you've got the range to do that. Now, of course, you don't do it in the flesh and you don't do it by your own might and power. No, no, no, no, no. You do it with the guidance of the spirit of God and him either opening or shutting the door. Of course, that's true.

38:54 But you have something that is rare. You can exercise your gifts. You really can. Alright, notice this. They were devoted.

39:04 See that word, fasted? Fasted, in the Old Testament fasting, the term is sometimes translated in English. It says, anguish of soul. Anguish of soul. See that's the idea of fasting.

39:18 Fasting isn't just like, you know, what is it, intermittent fasting so you can lose weight. If you fast for that reason, great. But don't call it spiritual. Okay? That's just because you want to.

39:29 But the Bible uses fasting so that you can deprive yourself of physical food, which isn't easy, but you can take the energies that you would normally devote to physical nourishment, take those energies and apply them to spiritual issues to devote yourself to God. Now, personally try to fast. I'm not very good at it, but I do. And I used to fast twenty four hours. And you know what I was after the end of twenty four hours?

39:57 A grouch. You know that word hangry? That was me. Kind of ruined the whole spiritual thing, by the way. So, my wife said to me, because she's really smart, Why don't you just do one meal and not be hangry with us?

40:12 Okay. I started to do that. And you know what? A, I was happier. B, I took that one meal and I devoted myself to the things that were spiritual.

40:22 And sometimes it was just me and the Lord with an open bible as I prayed and the Lord would do work on my soul. Soul work. You see, that's a hallmark. That is a sign of a healthy assembly. Devotion to that degree.

40:37 Now, that doesn't have to be everybody. You don't have to call a meeting for that. You can. But really, according to the principles of fasting indicated by the Lord Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, it's really supposed to be somewhat private and devotion, a private devotion to God himself. When you fast, don't let everybody know.

40:57 No. Wash your face. Act like you're fine. Right? That's what he said.

41:02 Now, saints, you can't measure that, can you? The elders aren't going come here and say, did you fast this week? You're going say, yeah, because I had to work so hard I couldn't eat. And they're going to say, it didn't count, right? No, no, no.

41:17 You're not going to have, like, the survey that's done to see about your spiritual barometer. Just do such devotion privately and the entire climate of the assembly will be totally transformed. Can you imagine that? Now, I think, as a group of people in our assembly circles, because that's what we are. That's where the Lord's put us.

41:42 I think if we could make that a normal part of our existence, I think, I think revival is not a distant goal. It's a present reality. And I for one would like to see that reality in our circles. Alright, let's move on. Okay, the Holy Spirit.

42:04 In this situation, where people are exercising their gift, where there's service, the gifts are being used, where there's devotion as expressed by fasting, The Holy Spirit has a opportune, a prime case, a perfect scenario, the perfect storm to actually communicate his will. Sometimes we go, what is god want us to do? What does god want us to do? And we haven't really fulfilled those previous three requisites of the gifting, the service and the devotion. And so yet, when we have those in order, now the spirit of God can direct and it's not like a mystery.

42:37 Oh no, does God want this to happen? I don't know, help me please. Focus on this preparation of soul and the spirit of God's clarity is not a mystery anymore. That's what I think we need. So many times people say, Well, pray that God would be clear.

42:56 Excuse me. Do you think he mutters? I don't think so. Do you think he's ever non clear? Have you ever read the Old Testament?

43:03 He is so clear. Remember Sarah? Well, Sarah laughed in her heart. No, I didn't. And the Lord said, yes, you did.

43:14 How much clear do you need to be? Right? I mean, he just called her out on it. Didn't make a big deal about it. Was one of those lies of fear.

43:22 He didn't make a big deal. He identified it and moved on. That God is clear. We don't have to pray about being clear. God is clear.

43:28 The problem is not the clarity of his speech or his voice. The problem is what it takes to prepare a heart to hear the word, hear the voice of the Lord. That's what it is. It's everyone God using your gifts as he's ordained and serving the Lord. Not necessarily each other, but the Lord which benefits everyone else.

44:10 Missions trip. We talk about missions today like it's something on the back of our hand. Yeah, missions. Got it. But this was the first time that God had sent out two people intentionally to go to the Gentile world.

44:25 That's how it began. Don't you want to be that church? Maybe God would have a new movement that would actually help all those who have gone through destroyed families. And you here are devoting yourself to him. You here are praying.

44:42 You here are using your gift and saturating yourselves with our God. You put yourself in the prime position for the spirit of God to move. And he moves in a way that gives you a ministry to help all the broken families of Cleveland. You know what we call that? The church of Antioch.

44:59 That's what we call that. I call it a great church. So the church had that clear direction. Confirmation of the spirit. They did what they should have done and that's they prayed again.

45:10 See that? They prayed again. That's in verse three. And then they sent them out. They sent them out.

45:18 They didn't wait. They didn't procrastinate. They didn't say, oh, we don't want to lose you. You're so valuable. We can't handle it if you can't ever fall apart.

45:26 You know, they're not going to fall apart because the spirit of God is holding them together already. And so, they send them out. Let them go. And you know what happened? They're away.

45:37 Probably about a year, year and a half. They come back and now you're up into the end of chapter 13. I won't turn to it. But you know what they did? They got back to Antioch.

45:47 They gathered the assembly. They gathered the church together. They relayed what God had done. Not what they had done. What God had done.

45:55 And they stayed at home base for a while. You see, this church at Antioch is really extraordinary. They were developing a sense of camaraderie. Today, the word is, woah, what we need is community. No, what you need, what you need is a functioning body of Christ that has Christ as his head where there is universal usage of the gift as unto the Lord so that there is devotion of heart in both fasting and prayer.

46:22 And that's what the spirit of God then begins to do. He brings a community of a quality that far outstrips just eating together or far outstrips playing sports together or far outstrips raking leaves together. It is a glue that can only be explained by the spirit of God. I want that, don't you? I want that with all of my heart.

46:44 I want the bride of Christ to experience what we've never known before. And this is it. Alright, let's move on. Lessons. Body life, as I mentioned, all the gifts being exercised, both visible and invisible.

47:00 I recognize all the gifts are not speaking gifts. Don't think that that's escaped me. The reason why I know that is because my father-in-law has no speaking gift. But man, if he didn't do what he did, we wouldn't be a church. That guy is doing so much behind the scenes and I'm watching my 21 year old son follow the same path and he does so many things behind the scenes no one knows and it holds us together.

47:24 That's every joint and sinew doing their job. Devotion, as I mentioned, prayer and intercession. And the missional mindset, that's a very common phrase in seminaries today and churches today. We need to have a missional mindset. Sounds so cool, right?

47:37 Missional mindset, like, you know, mission impossible? No, not at all. Missional mindset, we are actually thinking about the lost in other places. And today, you can think about the lost who are actually over at the university, going to college, getting an education, and they can't speak English. That's the missional mindset.

47:57 Alright, let's move on. I have to move. Maturing church. Alright, chapter 15. What time am I supposed to end?

48:05 Twenty minutes ago? Alright. I promise you won't be much longer. Alright, turn to chapter 15. I'll summarize.

48:13 So, you had people coming up from Judea, and they were saying things like, Oh, you have to have that surgical procedure to really be born again. That's a teaching back then. Was nature, the common dogma of the Judaizers, those who still wanted to hold on to the Old Testament law. Today, we still have people like that. I just submit, I just have one thing to say to you, Galatians.

48:36 Galatians. Right? Now, that was heavily influential there and so what they decided to do was to send. I'm sorry about the typo there. They decided to inquire of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.

48:49 And so what they did is they sent a delegation and Paul and Barnabas were part of that delegation. They quickly identified, oh boy, made several typos here. They quickly identified the dilemma because when they got there, the Pharisees who had this particular, the converted Pharisees who had this particular opinion brought it up again. So they talked and Peter talked first and then James, and after it was all said and done, they wrote this letter and the letter said, listen, we don't think that you should be held to the stipulations of the law. You should be released from the stipulations of the law.

49:20 And yet, hold on to the holy character that the law was identifying. So, don't eat meat sacrificed to idols, meaning participate in all the debauchery that goes with an idolatrous worship and all the sinful activity. You maintain your holiness. You see that? It was identifying not the letter of the law but the spirit of the law.

49:41 That was so key. And so, the early church had a dilemma and they sought help and they sought help from those who had been at the ground floor of the early church. And this is exactly what I think is important for us today. You see, you cannot be an island. So, sorry.

50:21 That's normal. Every New Testament book was written because there were problems. Corinth. That was not a good one. Ephesus.

50:32 Galatia. Colossa. Every New Testament. Thessalonians. They thought the second coming had already happened.

50:40 Every New Testament. So if if you think you're gonna be problem free, I I I'm sorry, but I would have to tell you, you're wrong. In fact, you could say that you might expect more problems because the enemy wants to take you out. How do I know that? He comes to kill, steal and destroy.

50:59 Jesus said it. So problems. So we don't wanna fear the problem. We wanna fear the Lord. And let the Lord actually minister to us through the problems and we watch his hand.

51:11 Call upon me in the day of trouble and you will praise me. So he got trouble, call upon the Lord. As an assembly, as elders, and as individuals, as husbands and wives, call upon the Lord. Number two, you can't be alone. Assemblies must guard against the island mentality.

51:29 See, they they didn't stick around in Antioch and says, well, we're gonna figure this out. We're gonna figure out. They said, well, let's go talk to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. You see that? That's tremendous inter assembly dependency.

51:43 Antioch sought clarification from those they regarded with respect. Inter assembly reception. They were received when they got to Jerusalem. They heard everything that was happening just like it should be. You know, there was a sad situation I heard of, and it was in another city in The United States, and there was an open assembly, you know, open assemblies where we receive you upon your testimony with a letter, if you have a letter, you know, those kind of things.

52:17 But a closed assembly, sort of operate in a little different. Many of you are probably from that background where there's a sense of, you know, you can't really be part or in this fellowship until you've crossed the threshold of some parameters that sometimes are a bit undefined. Well, there were two meetings like this. They both worshipped the Lord like we do. They both preached the gospel.

52:38 Everything was the same except this. They didn't know, one place didn't know the other place existed. Do you know how I know that? About 40 people left the closed meeting, came to the open meeting. I went to go preach at the open meeting and I met all 40 people.

52:52 And I said, Tell me your story. They told me their story. And they said, Quite frankly, we didn't know this open assembly was here until last year. What? What?

53:04 What? You know, what I found is that God uses the entire spectrum of Christendom. I've learned lots from other speakers and other men and, quite honestly, some other women, too. And what I've learned is that I need to understand there is an inter assembly necessity, And I would say inter body necessity. I was on a call with the prayer group again.

53:38 Eric Smith. Do you know Eric Smith? He's in Florida now, but he was in Upstate New York. He's one of our evangelists in our circles. The guy thinks, bleeds evangelism.

53:47 Breathes evangelism. Everything is evangelism to him. So gentle. He said, he was telling us the story and he said he was out at the street and he was just passing out tracks and some guy came up to him and he said, you know, I'm an evangelist. I used to do just what you're doing.

54:03 But I got so discouraged. I just got so discouraged. But I can see you here today And God's reminding me what I should be about. Let me join you. Now, he didn't know that guy from Adam, literally.

54:18 And yet, there was that bridge across waters that we normally wouldn't cross. Now if that's true in that dimension, I would say it should especially be true within our assemblies too. So I am grateful that you had asked me to come out, that you elders asked me to teach for sixteen, twenty weeks about eldership and meet with the men. I am grateful that you would do that. And you know what?

54:41 Our assembly did that too. We had guys come in to help us with stuff that we were not doing well, and evangelism was one of them. And we we ask people to come and and give ministry on a certain thing because we were clueless. That's what we need. That is a normal part of growth, of maturation And I think it happens both within the assemblies with one to another because that's where our circles are, but also sometimes it happens outside of those lines, outside of those boundaries.

55:10 I can't tell you how many times I was encouraged. I'll tell you about a patient that I saw she was from the Baptist Church. I was working a Sunday, I never worked Sundays and this Sunday I worked and it's ten a. M. I was kind of moaning and groaning.

55:25 We call that whining and complaining which actually is my PhD in whining and complaining and I went in I was whining and complaining and I said ma'am how are you today? She goes well I don't know I had this thing and it happened and I'm kind of worried. Listened to her story, took a book to test, I came back an an hour and a half later. I said, well, tests are all normal and as best I can tell, I think you're okay. Well, Doctor.

55:47 Pross, this has just been the best Sunday I've ever had. Just like that. And you know what? Next thing I know, I'm praying with her and I was blessed. That's great.

56:15 We're almost done. It says this, so when they were sent off, they came to Antioch and when they gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter, and they read it, they rejoice over its encouragement. Now Judas and Silas, what did they do? They stayed around and they taught some and then the church themselves sent their greetings back and they said, thank you so very much. And Paul and Barnabas and Silas, they continued to preach the word of God.

56:40 See that theme? It's never far from the maturation growth process of the assembly. There is a continuous stream of the word of God. Now what happens in the end? Well, Paul eventually goes on another missionary journey and Barnabas does too, except of course, as you know, at Antioch, they disagreed overtaking John Mark.

57:06 That's a sad chapter. A sad thing. I'm sure in heaven now they're going, Man, Barnabas, I'm so sorry. I should have never said that. I'm sure they're apologizing to each other, right?

57:15 Turns out that Barnabas was right. Because later on, Paul says, and you bring John Mark to me because he's valuable. Back in this chapter, he wasn't valuable at all. Paul had anything to do with him. So, he had this kind of whiff and we don't get any more history about Barnabas' work.

57:30 But I think it was very encouraging. And we have all this data about Paul's work and they finish that second missionary journey and guess what they do? Paul comes back, Caesarea, then goes down to Antioch, goes up to Antioch, and he stays there for a season. He comes home. Don't you want that to be your assembly?

58:10 It's maturity. It's home. I pray that would be your assembly. That this assembly would have all the features of the Christ like ones at Antioch. From the young to the older.

58:29 That's what you want. I wanna give you a picture of exactly what God was doing in the New Testament and Antioch gives us this picture. It's beautiful. It's robust. It's delightful.

58:40 It's inviting. Oh, saints. Let's make it our picture. Alright. Let's pray.

58:50 Dear Father, thank you that we could come tonight and just sort of open this way and just think about visiting another church. We visited Antioch and it's been nice. Boy, it's been nice. And so many of those things that you showed us, would yearn. I yearn for those in my own assembly.

59:06 But I yearn for those, for all the assemblies across North America that you would do what you do. So, please, Father, allow the saints here. It's been a long evening. But allow them to capture the movement of your spirit, the teaching of your word of God, and be captivated by what you do. In Jesus' name, amen.