The Church At Antioch — Acts 10-11

0:01 So go ahead and start with, just reading the passage at hand. So today, we're we're gonna be reading and teaching from Acts chapter 11, continuing the study starting on verse 19. So Ray had gone through verse 18 and finishing up the story of Peter and Cornelius. So we start on verse 19 in Acts chapter 11. Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, spreading the word only among the Jews.

0:53 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of the people were brought to the Lord.

1:38 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found them, he brought them to Antioch. So for a whole year, Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. During this time, some of the prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agbis stood up and brought this, and through the spirit, predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world.

2:14 This happened during the reign of Claudius. The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we just thank you for your word.

2:40 We thank you for Jesus, that he died for us and that because of his death and resurrection, there is something called the good news that this passage could be talked about. There was great joy. So we thank you. We thank you for your hand at work among us. We pray...

3:07 I pray that you would take the word preached today and that it would be of your spirit, if there's anything out of your spirit, that you would make it quickly forgotten, but that your word would live in our hearts and it would have its maturing and sanctifying work in us, and it would reveal our hearts to us as we consider who you are and what you've told us. We pray that your hand would be upon us as it talks about your hand working in the Antioch Church. We pray this in the name of Jesus, amen. So, last time I preached, I covered a passage in first Act or the first chapter of Acts. And I made an allusion to this was kind of like the takeoff, if you will, the launch.

4:37 It's impressive. It might be the most impressive museum I've ever been. It's probably, I don't know, hundreds of real aircraft in many models. And it goes all the way from the first ever airplane that was developed right there in Dayton with the Wright brothers takes you all the way to the most modern aircraft. Most of them, especially the story of, because it's an Air Force Base Museum, the story of like military aircraft, but also civilian aircraft as well.

5:07 And as you walk through it, could probably take days if you spent your time. It would probably take a week if you really wanted to walk through everything. But it very interesting to see the possibilities of what is possible, but what we noticed, as you first started walking through these, they were showing you how they developed these airplanes. And there was something called a, actually, let me show it to you. It's a wind tunnel.

5:36 Worked at NASA for a short period of time in the Propulsion Systems Analysis Office as an intern. And they used giant wind tunnels to develop models. So they would put model wings and model aircraft, and they would watch how the wind would go over the model. And then they would learn, and they would use that to actually make real flying airplanes. And so models are something that...

6:14 There's gross simplifications of something that is either real or intended to be real so that us in our limited understanding can think through how that actually works, how real things in the real world work. So in this case, have this wind tunnel. See it there? See this wind tunnel? And they would blow wind across, sometimes a real airplane.

6:45 Some of them are so big they'll put a real airplane in it. Or something that looks kinda like a real airplane. You can watch it happen, and you learn what's happening in the real world because of this model. And so I'd like to present to you that this section, it's talking about Antioch. And this is a model church you could call Axar Wind Tunnel, if you will.

7:07 It's a description of real churches, real things that happened in the early church, and it's something that then we can look at these models, these examples in narrative form, in description, and we can start to understand the way God works in the church. And so that same frame, we're starting here in Antioch. So the first verse here, verse 19, says now. And so it's it's it's it's pointing to a time. And if you look immediately beforehand, we've just finished up this description of Cornelius and Peter and everything that's been learned so far.

8:41 I'm not sure if you can read it. Some of you may be able to see it and some not. But I put a timeline up. And so you have this dispersion that happened. See my arrow as a pointer.

8:54 You have this dispersion, and it started happening right around, like, chapter eight. Acts starts in 8030. In the first few chapters, in the first few years of this story, the church is just purely in Judea and it's very inward focused. This is a church in a specific stage. And so it's in Jerusalem mainly and it's in the first stage of the Great Commission.

9:27 So Jesus left them with the command to preach, to make disciples starting in Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, and then out to the other reaches of the world or the furthest extensions of the world. And so you see this starting to happen in Acts. And part of the issue is that as the church transitions, they're running into real constraints in terms of original disciple's understanding of what God meant when Jesus meant when he said, unto the farthest extensions of the earth, right, In terms of preaching the gospel. And so God had to forcefully send them out, right? They were starting to get a little bit comfortable there in Jerusalem and they're kind of inward focused.

10:32 Definitely God blessed the growth of the church there, but they were starting to get a little comfortable and God had to forcefully scatter them through persecution. And so that's what we call the dispersion. And so it's not exactly chronological where we are when it says now in verse 19. So what I'm saying is as we transition from Cornelius to the story of the church in Acts, it's not necessarily like Cornelius happened then immediately the story. But really the story of how Peter came to understand and help and even go back and defend this fact that if God has called these people clean, there's no way that we as Jews and the Jewish church can look at the Gentiles as unclean, right?

11:45 And we know from the description previous that that was something that was repeated three times a dream to Peter right before he ministered to Cornelius. And we know that Peter Peter has a long history of having to be repeated three times, if you remember. This idea that, hey, if I say this, you need to believe this. It just kept on happening. Know, from Peter, know, he first of all was able to recognize that Jesus...

12:32 He's one of the first to really say Jesus is God. Then right after that, he started berating Jesus saying, You shall not do this. You know you're not gonna die. And Jesus had to say, Get away from me, Satan. This is a strong saying, a hard way to hear something from God.

12:50 And of course, not long after that, they went into the Mount Of Ascension. What's the word? They went up there. What is it? Transfiguration.

13:04 Yeah. The Mount Of Transfiguration. And what happened? Peter put his foot in his mouth. He revealed a certain lack of understanding at some point in his heart and started comparing Jesus to the prophets as if he was not God.

13:25 And sure enough, Jesus had to correct him and say, hey, God the Father in vocal form with bringing the... Thunder said, No, this is my son. So he had to correct him. And so Peter struggled. Peter struggled with kind of stepping from his own kind of stubborn belief to hearing from God.

13:55 And God had to speak to him in multiple times and multiple ways even when he denied the Lord, right? And then the Lord had to ask him three times, Do you love me? Right? What was he doing? He was getting from Peter's mind to Peter's heart.

15:11 Peter came back, as we heard, and he described to everybody exactly what happened and he defended it. And that's where we find ourselves now. So probably... By the way, later, also in Antioch, long after this passage, it's Peter who is called out by Paul. And Peter has, after defended, after this hard learning, Peter then is called out, also in Antioch.

15:49 And Paul calls out Peter his... For... In action, he is now behaving like a Jew again. Even though he has said that the Gentiles are fully accepted, he's now suddenly behaving like a Jew when he sees other Jews, even though he'd been living as a Gentile. And so Paul had to call him out for that publicly.

16:26 And so we see it is hard. I think there's a lot to learn for us even today, that when we have a kind of, when we have the world in us, when we have a wrong belief, that God Himself, we need to be willing to listen to God's word and allow that to sink in, and that this is necessary for our own personal life so that we can really understand him and grow. And it's also necessary in the greater context of the church and how the church grows. So now those who had been scattered by the persecution, this is verse 19, that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. And I'll just show you the picture of that.

17:19 That is right here. So you have Cyprus. If they started out in Jerusalem and God forcefully caused them to exit Jerusalem because of persecution. And so mainly the leadership in a small inter core group was there in Jerusalem, as many of them were forced out. And so these are not necessarily the leaders, but these are just everyday, average people that had joined the church.

17:45 They've been pushed out. And they were all either Jews or people that had converted to Judaism and then got saved. So they were all part of the church. They were forced out. And so you have this group.

18:02 They were forced out. So you have the Cyprus Island here. You have Phoenicia, which is this section basically around Lebanon and kind of Western Syria and right along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. And then they even went another circle out and that was to Antioch. And Antioch is a city.

18:27 It was the third largest city in the Roman Empire. It had about 500,000 people, which is big by any standard, even modern standards, but in that day that was a true mega city. That was about as much as any kind of ancient infrastructure could really keep in terms of civilization. And the reason it formed there was because you can't see it in this map, but it's actually inland, but it's off a waterway. So a main river or waterway that ends at the Mediterranean Sea.

19:02 So Antioch is well into Syria. And so there was a major seaport right at the beginning of that river. So people could have goods from all over anywhere in the empire, then they would deliver it by sea up, and this was now a hub for where they could travel and enter into commerce and go deeper, farther inland, go north and south by land. And so this amazing metropolis had kind of formed there. And so we see that this group of Christians had traveled there and they started just spreading the word at the synagogues.

19:53 Made sense. Obviously, this is Jews. They're Jews. And so the easiest thing to do, these are the people that we would relate to, this is the people that we have common culture with, we're gonna do it among the synagogues. But something interesting happened here.

20:43 The people that they were perhaps their family. And they started to see men and women who had no hope. They started to see people who had placed all of their hope in money. This was an extremely rich and affluent area because of all the goods and services flowing through. The power structure was completely there.

21:11 And so they saw people that they identified as their own. They saw them without hope. They saw them in need of the good news, it says. So they started telling about the good news. And that's the way it often happens.

21:28 For us, you know, as God puts us in different places, if we've experienced the good news. And that is a big if because I think that even sometimes Christians, they have to be honest with themselves if their faith is primarily intellectual. I know that, I won't say I'm perfect at sharing the gospel, in fact, anything but. But I do know that there was a time when I could say my faith, I believe I was saved, but it seemed to have hit my mind more. I had a hard time sharing because the gospel is more than just an intellectual assent.

22:08 It's more than just a set of truths. Right? There's a reality. It is real good news that we believe is at multiple levels. And so they were sharing the good news because they were full of joy already.

22:27 They had something to share, right? And as we walk through a real model, have to kind of look at it and evaluate ourselves to see how it matches our church and how it matches each of ourselves personally as we look at these stories and we say, hey, do I look at sharing the gospel as good news? Or am I just sharing an idea? You know? That'll change how we share it and if we share it.

22:53 It'll change how we think about the people around us that God has placed us. And that we would want to share the good news. So verse 21, the Lord's hand was with them. And a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. So we look and I think kind of like a key part of the understanding as we look at this model is the fact that this isn't just a story about people doing things.

23:42 It's not that the program's bad. God uses programs. He uses the people right here. But the point is that the Lord's hand was with them. And so when we go out in ministry, whatever our church does, whatever phase we are in, however we feel God leading us and where he's placed us, if we do it without the Lord's hand, we have a problem, right?

24:04 We need the Lord's hand. It's one of the things that's blessed me is to see that the elders here at this church have put an emphasis on prayer and discerning the Lord's will. That occasionally we'll see a day for fasting and prayer. And that's not to pat them on the back. It's not to nod.

24:28 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Denzel. Thank you, Andy. But more to give glory to God and say, this is what we need.

24:36 This is important. We need to seek him. We need to seek his help. It's his hand. We're members of the body.

24:45 And we are his hands. So that's why I don't want to say, don't focus on the people. It's right in the scripture. They're doing it. But we can never forget that this is the Lord's hand.

24:57 That might be the single most important thing, I think, in this whole message, is that we need his help and that we are his hands and that when things happen, it is his hand doing it. And he will bring glory to his name. And so a number of people believe and they turn to the Lord, And that's a wonderful thing. Now, news of this reached the church in Jerusalem. And I think maybe maybe this news came like right after.

25:28 You're looking at things happening hundreds of miles apart. The only way news moves is with people at this point in time. There's no electronic movement of information. So eventually, word got back. People traveled back to Jerusalem.

25:46 And they said, Hey, way out in Antioch, we have some great news. People are getting saved. Even the Gentiles are getting saved. And so I'm thinking that probably when the news actually hit Jerusalem, it wasn't too long after the Cornelius and Paul affair. So they were kind of prepped and ready for it.

26:16 And so there wasn't the like, oh, you can't share with the Gentiles. Now that was, oh, alright, God's working. They were ready. And so God had prepared the hearts of those in Jerusalem through these series of events and he had made it just ready. Now, they said, instead of saying, hey, tell them to stop.

26:52 A little bit about Barnabas. So, he originally was called Joseph, which in Hebrew is he will add. In other words, God will add. They... After he...

27:12 It's said that as he sold land and gave generously in Acts four, that the elders gave him the name Barnabas or the Encourager. Okay? So that first act was very encouraging, but it seemed to be that this man, wherever you see him, had a special gift to connect people, to encourage people. He did it obviously through giving. He did it through words of encouragement.

27:44 He even took Saul, who everyone was very suspicious at the time, that we know as Paul. He took Paul in that early church back in Jerusalem, and he said... And he took him directly to the the church leaders, and he said, listen, you guys gotta catch up. God has really done something in Paul's life. So Barnabas seemed to have a kind of prophetic gift, if you will.

28:12 A gift of faith to see not just what people were now or what they had been, but also to see and believe what God could do to transform people's lives. And he was called here, it says it says, he was a good man, fully full of the holy spirit and faith, in verse 24. When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, verse 23, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all of their hearts. And so he... You could say that he was called Barnabas or the Encourager, and and then it's basically saying the Encourager encouraged them, you know?

29:00 And what did he encourage them to? To remain true to the Lord. And so that is something that we all need, encouragement. But if nothing else, I think newer believers need even more of that encouragement. Barnabas was kind of the...

29:20 After the tinder of a little fire, Barnabas is the extra wood, you know? He he took what was there, this early group of just lay preachers, lay lay people, people that were not professional. They went out, and they were living their lives. As And they were living their lives, they started to tell wherever God had put them about Jesus. But now Barnabas is taking that same little work, and he's encouraging.

29:50 And again, to stay true to the Lord with their hearts. And so the outcome of that is a great number of people were brought to the Lord. And so you started with growth. Barnabas comes. As he encourages the people that had already grown into the church, it doesn't say he ever preached directly to people.

30:11 I'm sure he did. But it really seems to be that as the church was equipped and encouraged, these early believers, these new ones that had been added, they were now leading more and more. And that's a big part of leadership and shepherding in the church is that their job, you see this in Ephesians four, Paul talks about that. He says that the people in the church are to be equipped by the leadership and the elders. And so that's exactly what Barnabas was doing.

30:43 And specifically, the equipping seemed to be very much related to the encouragement through preaching the word and directing people back to the Lord. You can imagine that when someone first believes, oftentimes, believers are the best to share with others because they're very excited. They can see a clear before and after. But then there's a lot of things that come up and you're not sure about. And you need...

31:07 Another translation of Barnabas' name is consoler, not just encourager, which has a slightly different connotation. He consoled. He was able to take these new believers that were up, they're real excited, but then they might get down a little bit. I fell again. I had a little sin.

31:24 This happened. A big sin maybe. Barnabas was there to encourage. But there came a point in the stage of that church. It was growing.

31:38 And Barnabas recognized the need for something more than what he was offering. I think that this relates a lot to what Paul talks about, this idea of milk versus meat. I think Barnabas, the encouragement that these young believers need, very much equated to the milk. They needed that, you know, that softer touch, an understanding heart, A word of faith saying, I know it's hard now, but God is doing something big in your life. Just keep on looking to him.

32:19 Keep on reading the word. And now people have grown, but it had gotten to a stage where more was needed. And I'm not gonna say that Barnabas was not a capable teacher. I think he really was. But everybody has their strength.

32:32 He was the encourager. And I think that what's about to happen also has a little bit to do with this idea of a multitude of elders, multiple shepherds in a church. The principle is that it helps to have multiple individuals sharing the load, as well as the fact that different individuals have different talents, and they're each going to help grow the church in their own way. And so Barnabas, a man full of the spirit, recognizes and he deserves that, yes, God's blessing, but that doesn't mean I need to get proud and take this church for myself. It's not mine.

33:17 I need help. So... He doesn't say that, but you see it in the kind of phraseology here. Verse 25, it says, then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. Now, if you look, Tarsus is a pretty...

33:43 It's it's about a week's journey either way, whether you go by land or or sea. So you can either go down this waterway from Antioch, and anytime you get in the water, it's a perilous journey, or you could risk getting attacked by bandits in some pass. He has to go over the mountains and go around. So it's about a week's journey plus or minus several days either way. There no way to be totally sure you didn't find somebody in an area like this.

34:16 You couldn't drive around or make calls. You had to kind of maybe check where you think maybe a church was, ask her, Have you guys seen this guy around? But he knew what he wanted. He remembered Paul. He had brought him to the believers.

34:33 He had first introduced Paul or Saul at the time to the elders there in Jerusalem. He remembered this man. And he said, I believe Saul is the right guy. They're still calling him Saul at this point in Acts. His name changes.

34:50 And so in verse 26, it says, When he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year, Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. Disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. And you can imagine if it's great numbers of people, it probably really was great numbers of people because earlier when there was growth in the church and Peter preached and there was 3,000 in one day, I don't think it says great numbers of people there. So this was getting to be kind of a megachurch most likely.

35:28 Probably a lot different than modern megachurches. I'm sure that modern technology allows a different kind of formation. But there was a lot of work to be done. And most likely, they had to do it in much smaller groups when they were teaching. And so there was a lot of work.

36:36 And so either he'll say, This is on the test, or sometimes he'll just slightly change... He'll use a different intonation about something he's talking about. You'll get a sense, this is really important. This might be in the test. And this idea that they were called Christians first at Antioch is an interesting idea.

37:03 The disciples... So first of all, it means that they were... Other people, outsiders, were calling them and identifying them as being of the party of Christ. And that's what the word actually means. It would be similar to like the Republican Party or the party of...

37:24 I think they would even say the party of a political figure, party of Caesar. It was considered by many not exactly a slur, but an identification that was definitely not positive. There's a social cost to be identified by Christ. Certainly the name of Christ, the idea of Christ even, a God that dies, seemed to be just an anathema certainly to the Greek mind as well as to the Hebrew mind. And so what was probably a very negative thing was something that, for the believers, ended up being something that they started identifying themselves with in the future.

38:18 They themselves would call them, call that, they would refer to themselves as Christians after that time. I think it's also noteworthy because this model church marks like a real shift that was happening from the church in the kind of base of operations in Jerusalem. The dispersion changed that, and yet there was still very much the leadership was still operating out of Jerusalem. And as we progress in Acts, you see that it seems like the church actually ends up being based later out of Antioch. And this was not just this very homogenous Hebrew church anymore.

39:03 It had now gained real maturity past this passage, okay, to the point where in one of the epistles, it talks about the elders in that church. I think three of them were Greeks at that point in time. It became known as Sending Off Point. It's where Paul and Barnabas later were commissioned in their missionary journeys. It was from Antioch.

39:35 And so Antioch becomes an extremely significant church in the future. And I would say the kind of a sign to calm a foreshadowing was that they were first called Christians there, that they became identified to the Greek world as Christians. By the way, the church itself, early in Acts, many times, multiple times, they were referred to as the way. And so that tended to indicate more of a Jewish way of thinking. You see this idea of the way throughout Psalms.

40:14 Psalm 8six 11 says, Lord, show me your path or show me your way. This was a continuation of that, a kind of an understanding, a Jewish understanding. And it was a changing of identification. So now they were identified with the way. They were following the way.

40:30 This is what they were doing. But now they're identified as Christians. And so Christ became that identification. It was a transition. So it's very significant.

41:20 This happened during the reign of Claudius. And we know, I was just kind of looking at it, it looked like there's actually a secular record of right around this time period of a big famine happening. And we can kind of tie it down from that reference to Claudius as well. And so here you have this church now. They had first received a precious brother, someone who was an important asset in that church, Barnabas.

41:54 And now it's come full life cycle. They've gotten the milk from Barnabas. They've gotten the meat from Paul, if you will. They taught and they taught and they taught great numbers of people. And now what you're seeing is the work has become effectual.

42:15 And so at verse 29, the disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. So they were providing a need that had been... They had so much faith that they weren't just hearing about a need that had already happened. They weren't hearing about starving brothers. Instead, their desire was to see that this didn't happen at all.

42:37 It was preventative. It was a faith that saw something that had not yet happened. And it was a faith that moved the hearts. There were many gods in Antioch many religions. And probably the most primary of those gods was their love of money.

43:01 So of all the idols, maybe the one wasn't an actual physical idol standing up, but the fact that they were very, very wealthy there. And so there, at this point in time, had been so transformed that their natural desire as a culture... Talk about the Bible, the truth of the word and the spirit's ability to transform our hearts. And it's most significant when what we would have done culturally is transitioned to something totally different. So you see, you know, the God of money is going to be selfish.

43:42 He's not going to want to give. And here, you see a transformation where they are seeing the needs of others and they're willing to give out of the money that they have now. And so now this shows maturity in serving the Lord and willing to give that money. And it also shows like a full circle where they had been given to spiritually. And they were giving back financially out of their spirit.

44:15 We know that when it comes to giving in general, this is not a talk about giving, but when it comes to giving in general, that in the New Testament, there's not a specific number, but we're told to give with joy. And as always, Jesus brought things to the heart. He got to the heart of the matter. He talked about the heart being important. And here you can see that it doesn't really say how much they gave, but what it does say is that they were they they are each doing as able.

44:51 That was the decision that they made. They wanted to give to these brothers and sisters living in Judea based on a prophecy. So they sent this gift by Barnabas and Saul. So you see again Barnabas and Saul being part of that and bringing it back. And you see not only was there a history with Barnabas and Saul, you see that ministry continuing very much related to Antioch where they're commissioned and they go together.

45:19 There was also the time when Barnabas and Saul, you saw how different they were. And so they had to separate for a bit. Again, this had to do with Barnabas seeing something in a young man who had a spiritual failure but believing that he could do something, and Paul disagreed. So you see that work out. And then you see them come together later as well.

45:47 So, anyways, there's a lot to learn, I would say, from the model we have in the church in Antioch. And I think, most of all, we have a lot to learn for our own hearts as we look at this and we just consider where we are, where our hearts are. Perhaps even where are our giftings. Do we have Barnabas'? Do we have Paul's or Saul's?

46:13 Who are we? What part of the body of Christ are we? And is God's worth having a reality in your hearts and it's working out so that people are calling us Christians, right? That it's evident to the world. I think these are things to examine for ourselves and desire.

46:37 I'm gonna pray. Dear Lord, we just thank you that you love us. Thank you for this example in the scripture of a model church and more than anything how you work. I pray that you would affect our hearts to want to be more like these examples of faithfulness, Barnabas and Saul, and even the early believers that chose to share the good news. And that they depended on your hand to do it.

47:05 And I would just pray that we too would seek to follow that model as you guide us in truth and in your word and in your spirit. And we pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.