Have you ever ADMIRED a particular church? You heard or read about the things they do and the way they do them and you thought, “Now, THAT is a church!” Perhaps like me you ADMIRE Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois-and they have a lot to admire-a wonderful pastor-BILL HYBELS-one of the greatest preachers I’ve ever heard-written tons of great books. In addition to their famous pastor they also have a beautiful facility-it has its own bookstore and EATERY with four or five restaurants right in the foyer! Is that convenient or what!? Willow Creek is a church that is revered for it’s commitment to EVANGELISM. In fact they are the church that originally coined the term “seeker service”-a worship service designed to appeal to non-Christians. Willow has a good sized lake on their property and several times a summer the entire church walks down there to witness a huge baptismal service where hundreds of new believers symbolize their commitment to Christ. I watched a video of one of those services this spring-and it brought tears to my eyes. It was so moving-I remember thinking, “God is really using that church!”
Maybe like many Christians you’ve ADMIRED Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, California where Rick Warren pastors. It too is a HUGE church with tons of services each week-all of them packed! And whereas Willow Creek is known for its evangelism, Saddleback is known for its DISCIPLESHIP. One of my favorite writers and speakers, Lee Strobel is on staff at Saddleback and if I’m not mistaken, this is his main area of responsibility-discipling Christians. Plus, their pastor Rick Warren has developed a series of classes that members go through-to help spur them on to Christlikeness. Thousands of churches have used his “baseball diamond” model of spiritual growth. So there’s a lot to ADMIRE about THAT church as well.
Maybe you ADMIRE other great churches like FBC, Atlanta, where Stanley pastors or the world’s largest church in Seol, Korea where thousands of it’s members wake up every morning at 4AM to pray for two or three hours. They spend this time interceding for the church and the people they minister to before going to work each day. And, I could go on because there are a lot of ADMIRABLE churches in the world today.
When I first graduated from seminary back in 1983, I served on staff at a little church about 15 miles north of here-FBC, Damascus-and the church in our county that I admired most back then was REDLAND. I remember reading about all that Redland was doing and thinking to myself, “That is a GREAT church! They don’t mess around! They always do things top notch! That is the church to watch!” In fact I was constantly going to my pastor in Damascus and telling him, “Jimmy, we could learn a thing or two from Redland Baptist Church.” And-I know I’m “slightly” biased-but I still ADMIRE this church!
Sermon:
Now I bring up the subject of ADMIRABLE churches because, as I’ve studied the book of Acts I’ve added another one to my list-and I’m referring to the church at Antioch. As I told you the week before last-this church was a growing, ministering, evangelizing church-even though it was located in one of the most pagan cities in the world at that time.
Antioch was sort of the “red light district” of the world back then but that didn’t stop the Christians who lived there-no-they boldly shared the love of Jesus. Well, this week our text from Acts 13 and 14 tells us more about this church and the things I have read there have increased my admiration of that church. As we study together over the next half hour I think you’ll see why.
But, before we do that I want to point out that we have come to a real transition point in our study of the book of Acts-this history book of the early church.
- First, at this point there is a change of PERSON.
Luke moves from an emphasis on Peter to an emphasis on Paul. In chapter 15 there is one more glimpse of Peter, but other than that from here on out Paul takes center stage.
- Second, there is a change of PROCLAMATION.
Luke records the fact that Christianity eventually moved from an emphasis on the Jews to an emphasis on the Gentiles. We see that at Antioch because there for the very first time the gospel is deliberately, purposefully preached to Gentiles and this pattern is followed throughout the rest of the book. Paul often began his church starts in synagogues but the vast majority of the emphasis from here on out concerns the Gentiles of the world.
- And then third, as I have already alluded, we also see a change of PLACE.
Luke moves from an emphasis on the church in Jerusalem to the church in Antioch. It becomes the ADMIRED church-the church to watch. Now, as I said, our text is two whole chapters so we don’t have time to read them in their entirety but I do want to read the first few verses so take your Bibles and turn to Acts 12:25. We’ll read through Acts 13:3.
Acts 12:25
25 – When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, (taking the offering collected by the church at Antioch for the church in Jerusalem to help them face the coming famine) …they returned from Jerusalem taking with them John, also called Mark.
Acts 13:1-3
1 – In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.
2 – While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
3 – So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
Now-let me ask you, how many of you have ever ADMIRED another person? Sure you have. We all do both when we’re young-and even when we’re old-and the fact is we tend to pattern ourselves after the people we admire. We want to be like them. Well, I think the same thing is true of CHURCHES. We emulate churches that we look up to. With that in mind I’d like to point out four reasons I admire the church at Antioch in the hope that here at Redland we’ll make sure we always embrace these same admirable qualities-things that make any church truly great.
1. And the first admirable trait that stands out to me was Antioch’s wide DIVERSITY.
We see this reflected in their staff. Look at verse 1 of Acts 13 again.
“In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.
Now, this is not just another Biblical list of hard-to-pronounce names. No-it is a roster of church leaders that indicates a great diversity of backgrounds. Barnabas was from the island of Cyprus. He was a Levite-a Jewish priest. Then there was Simeon, who also had the name, NIGER, which was a Latin word meaning “black-skinned.” Many scholars think he was Simon-the man who was forced to carry Jesus’ cross. Third mentioned is Lucius who was from Cyrene, a region west of Egypt on the coast of Africa. By the way, you may remember that it was men from Cyprus and Cyrene who first went to Antioch and began to teach the Greeks (Acts 11:20). In other words Lucius was a missionary, church planter-and was probably one of the founders of the church at Antioch. Lucius is also a Roman name so he was a Gentile-brought up in Roman culture. And then there was Manaen-a member of high society who had grown up with Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee and Perea that we talked about briefly last week. In fact, the Greek word in verse one that we translate as “having been brought up with” can literally be translated “foster brother.” So Manean and Herod Antipas might have been not only playmates as boys but members of the same family which would have made Manean a prince. And then we have Saul with his impressive education and rabbinical training.
So, to summarize, we have a Cyprian Jew, a black man named Simeon, a Roman Gentile from Cyrene, an aristocratic prince, and a highly-educated rabbi-Is that staff diversity or what!? As I said, I’m sure this was reflective of the entire church’s make up. And I admire that about Antioch, because that’s what every church should be like-a small picture of the entire body of Christ where as Paul puts it in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female-all one in Christ Jesus.” Those Christians in Antioch understood the lesson that Peter learned in his encounter with Cornelius. They knew that, “God is no respecter of persons.” (Acts 10:34)
You know, every year we have to fill out a report that tells how many people came to Sunday School and how many people are in our youth program or music ministry and how any baptisms and additions we had this year, etc. It’s called “a uniform church letter” and it’s your typical report-tons of questions to answer. But don’t get me wrong, it’s important to keep good records and communicate them to Nashville. It helps allocate resources, like much-needed finances for new church starts, etc. But there’s one part of this “report” I don’t like. It’s the section where you have to designate your church as being either an “Anglo church” or an “African-American church” or a “Hispanic church” or a “Chinese church” and so on. Well, I’m sure they have good reasons for this portion of the form but I think they should add another designation-BIBLICAL church-to indicate a church that is like this church in Antioch in that it reaches out to all races and ethnic groups! I mean, I can understand the need for a Korean church or a Hispanic church in the beginning-to reach out to people who speak those languages but I believe that eventually that church must mature to the point that it reaches out to all people groups. It must be DIVERSE if it is to be a truly BIBLICAL church.
And, I’m sure the diversity of the Antioch church was one of the reasons it grew so quickly because with such a wide variety of backgrounds this church was better able to reach out to the many ethnic groups that populated the city of Antioch. I mean, the members of this church could go to the Jews and Greeks and Romans, men, women-slaves and free and say:
“Listen, the gospel is for all people…not just Jews…not just Greeks….not just men…not just women…not just slave…not just free. The ground is LEVEL at the cross! The gospel is for everyone and that means it’s for you. Let me tell you about Jesus!”
And this leads to a second thing I admire about this church.
2. Evangelism was absolutely PRIMARY.
I mean, from the very beginning the members of that church saw EVANGELISM as their MAIN task. Everything they did: worship, discipleship, fellowship, ministry-everything revolved around this one foundational purpose. The staff and members of that church must have understood that witnessing-leading others to faith in Christ-is the only reason we are still here on earth. And they were right. Personal evangelism IS the reason our hearts are still beating on this side of eternity. God keeps us here instead of bringing us home to Heaven for one reason only-so that we can tell more and more people about His love in sending His Son.
By the way, his should sound familiar to you because we studied this principle last year during the 40 days. Remember? As Warren puts it:
“There are only two things you can’t do in heaven. One of them is sin and the other is tell people who don’t know it the Good News about God’s love. Now, which of those two reasons do you think you’re still alive for?”
Well, as I said, the Christians in Antioch obviously understood this principle-long before Warren-because the HEARTBEAT of that church was EVANGELISM. It was primary. It was foundational to everything they did. I say this because back in chapter 11 Dr. Luke tells us about the founding of this church. And he says that from the beginning its members seemed to spend their every waking moment, “…telling the good news about the Lord Jesus” to everyone. Because of this commitment verse 21 says,”the Lord’s hand was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.” And a great number did. In fact, by 325A.D., more than one fourth of the population of the city of Antioch were Christians-that’s over 200,000 people! Talk about mega-church!
We also see how primary evangelism was to this church here in Acts 13 as they respond to the command of the Holy Spirit and send two of their five “pastors”-Barnabas and Saul-over a third of their full-time staff-off on the first ever church-sponsored mission trip. And this wasn’t a week-long mission trip like we do. No-Paul and Barnabas were gone for two years. When they finally came back the church sent Paul and other “staff members” out again and again! Would you do that? We know what it’s like to be without a pastor for a long time here at Redland. And if you’ve ever served on a pastor search committee or a youth minister or music minister search committee, then you know how hard it is and how long it can take to get a staff member. Well, these people believed in evangelism so much they sacrificially sent their pastoral staff off again and again so that more people could hear the good news of Jesus.
I admire this commitment to missions and evangelism and one reason I do is because it indicates that they were truly Christlike people. In fact, their actions remind me of something Henry Martyn once said, “The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions and the nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we must become.” Those Christians in Antioch must have walked closely with Jesus indeed to be so missionary minded! Well, all churches should emulate the Antioch church in this. All Christians should take Jesus’ command to take the gospel into all the world this seriously. As Emil Brunner said,”The church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning. Where there is no mission, there is no church; and where there is neither church nor mission, there is no faith.” A church not concerned about missions or a Christian not involved in evangelism and missions ignores the one major task for which Christ left us in the world. Evangelism should always be primary.
And that leads to a third thing I admire about this church.
3. You see, the members of the church in Antioch considered fulfilling the Great Commission a PERSONAL responsibility.
This was a church that was started through person to person evangelism-and one that continued to grow in the same way. Each of its members saw witnessing as their PERSONAL responsibility. Unfortunately, this kind of attitude is rare these days because many Christians seem to think evangelism is the job of the pastoral staff-or even the deacons or other church leaders-but not Antioch. No-EVERYONE shared their faith. Everyone witnessed to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and when their efforts bore fruit and people became Christians the church discipled them such that they too learned to share their faith with others-who became Christians and learned to share their faith and so on and so on.
In evangelistic circles this is know as the principle of MULTIPLICATION and it is the only way we are going to fulfil the Great Commission. Let me illustrate why I say this by showing you how powerful this principle really is. If I were to win one person to Jesus every week for the next 16 years-832 people would be saved. 52 times 16 equals 832. If I were to win one person to Jesus every DAY for the next 16 years, 5,840 people would be saved. 16 times 365 equals 5840. If I were to get REALLY serious and win 100,000 people to Jesus every day for the next 16 years-I know that’s far-fetched but play along with me here-if I were somehow able to find enough time in the day to do this, 584 million people would be saved-a little less than half the population of China.
BUT, if I were to win one person and then disciple him or her for the next six months and if the two of us went out and each won another person to Christ, that’s a total of four Christians and that may not seem like much. But if we discipled them to share their faith and if they each won one and discipled them in the same way and if this continued for 16 years with Christians PERSONALLY sharing their faith at this rate and then discipling each new Christian to do the same-Well, are you ready for the grand total?-Here it is. In this way at the end of 16 years, 4,294,967,296 would be saved. That’s almost the entire population of the world!
Now, I know it’s a little optimistic to think that the practice would continue out exponentially but it does show how powerful this principle can be! I mean, if even a fraction of the Christians in the world adopted this principle of evangelism followed by discipleship where a new believer was taught how important it is to share your faith and how to do so-well, you can imagine how fast we would give everybody on this old world an opportunity to respond to the Gospel.
And this is why it is so important for all churches to be like Antioch-we must realize that the call to evangelism IS for ALL believers. Each of us must be discipled such that we are willing to share our faith-but unfortunately that’s not the way it is in most churches because for one reason or other most Christians shy away from sharing their faith. They never reproduce themselves spiritually.
I want to illustrate this with a football story. Use your imaginations to picture the following:
One little team, which averages about 120 pounds per man, is lined up on offense against another team on which each man weights well over 300 pounds. They’re big muscular guys-GIANTS!
Well, the coach of the first team-the little guys-calls the first play for Johnson, who is the fullback, to take the ball off tackle. But instead, the quarterback fakes a hand off to Johnson and tries a bootleg around the end. That play fails-the quarterback is smothered. Well, the coach sends in a player who tells the quarterback once again to give the ball to Johnson, but instead as the coach watches with great frustration the quarterback gives the ball to the halfback, who goes straight into line and is absolutely creamed. Once again the coach sends instructions to give the ball to Johnson but as the ball is snapped the quarterback hands off to another player who is flattened by one of the giants on the other team. Well, this time the coach yells from the sideline, “HEY! I said, ‘Give the ball to Johnson!'” And on the field, Johnson steps back from the huddle and yells back to the coach, “Johnson doesn’t want the ball!”
Well, that is a picture of the tragedy of the modern church. Christians whom our “coach” the Holy Spirit calls to take the gospel to a friend or neighbor or co-worker respond by saying in essence,
“Johnson doesn’t want the evangelistic ball! Let the pastor do it! The world is too big and bad! I don’t want to take the gospel out there! Get someone else!” Well the Great Commission-will only be accomplished when churches are bold enough to follow the example Antioch has set and disciple it’s members such that they see evangelism as their PERSONAL responsibility. Each of us need to realize that the ball is in OUR hands. We’ll talk more about this in October-because this year’s fall campaign will be a study of Hybels’ book, Becoming a Contagious Christian.
Anyway, I admire this church’s diversity, the fact that their philosophy was such that evangelism was PRIMARY and the way their members looked at fulfilling the Great Commission as being their PERSONAL responsibility. But I also admire…
4. …the spiritual MATURITY of it’s members.
I see this maturity reflected in two members of their staff-Paul and Barnabas, who as I said were the first missionaries ever to be sent out by a church on a purely evangelistic mission. And I refer to these two as being “mature” because of the way they responded to hardship. I mean, they didn’t seem surprised when things got rough out on the “missionary road.” In fact, they seemed to EXPECT suffering and persecution because they didn’t quit when things went south-and boy did they!
First off, this first mission trip was a VERY long journey-Paul covered the equivalent of at least 13,400 miles-on the open sea-through storms-over rough mountain roads. No luxury liners-no planes, trains, or automobiles-only slow moving leaky sailing ships and sandal-shod feet. It was a physically ARDUOUS trip. Many of those miles carried them through unsafe and hostile places that were largely controlled by bandits who eagerly awaited an unwary traveler to attack and rob. As far as we know they weren’t robbed this first time out but they did face one hardship or adversity after another. For example in Paphos, Paul, Barnabas and John Mark, Barnabas’ cousin, whom they picked up in Cyprus-well, they had to confront a demonic magician-a tool of the devil who advised the Roman proconsul there much like Wormtongue did King Theoden in The Lord of the Rings. Remember that evil character that Gandalf had to deal with?!
From there they journeyed to Perga in Pamphilia and in that rugged region several biblical scholars believe Paul contracted malaria, an illness that plagued him off and on for the rest of his life. So, it wasn’t easy going! In fact things got so tough that young John Mark deserted them at this point and returned to Jerusalem. Like “Johnson” he didn’t want the ball!
Well, from there they journeyed to Psidian Antioch where Paul preached in a local synagogue. His message was well received and he was invited to speak further. In fact on the next Sabbath pretty much the whole city turned out to hear him speak but some of the Jews got jealous at his speaking to the Gentiles and they were run out of town. When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Iconium once again they had great success initially but some of the Jews stirred up a sort of lynch mob and planned to stone them but Paul and Barnabas found out about it and left town.
In Lystra God used Paul to heal a crippled man and that drew a great crowd who eagerly listened to what they had to say. In fact many people there in Lystra thought Paul and Barnabas were gods-but then some of the Jews from Iconium who had followed the two arrived and stirred things up such that Paul was stoned, dragged outside of town and left for dead.
But this didn’t stop them. They kept on traveling and sharing their faith no matter how much opposition they encountered. From my perspective this first missionary journey seemed to be great success followed by great suffering-a cycle that was repeated over and over again. In fact, I think the way Paul knew if he had a good Sunday was to count his bandages on Monday. Then they’d bind their wounds and get back to the work. They never quit! Now, I want you to look at Acts 14:22 where they showed this form of spiritual maturity by saying, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” In other words these two had grown up enough spiritually to know that as Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this world you WILL have trouble!”
Years later Paul would write the church at Philippi and say,”It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him but also to suffer for Him.”
So-if they are any indication of they type of Christian that made up the church in Antioch, then that was a MATURE church indeed. Wouldn’t you agree?! They were mature enough to know that they could EXPECT hardship on this fallen world if they lived for the Lord. They didn’t believe any of the “health and wealth gospel” garbage that many TV preachers deliver these days while all the time encouraging their listeners to send them more money. No, these guys were grown up enough to know that if we live for Christ we will face tough times. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen. This reminds me of a bit of prose composed by Amy Carmichael. It goes like this:
“Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side or hand? Hast thou no scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be, And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole: can he have followed far who has no wounds nor scar?”
If we follow Jesus-if we live as He wants us to live-we will have scars! We can expect them!
This is a lesson that we need to understand because these days more and more immature believers seem to think the Christian life is some sort of spiritual Disneyland. And Christians with these unrealistic-unbiblical expectations are going to be disappointed.
I was listening to Chip Ingram this week and he said something very applicable to this point.
He said “The distance between expectation and experience is our level of disappointment and frustration.” And he’s right. Many Christians give up or grow bitter because their experience of the Christian life doesn’t match up with their expectations. To illustrate this principle of life let me share a little personal example. Last week Sue wanted to go to the Homegoods store in Olney. Now, let me be honest. I don’t like to go to that store-to me it’s just a little less unpleasant than going to Marshalls and I hate going there. I mean-those stores just go against my make-up as a man because it’s a place NOT to go and get things-no, it’s a place to go a LOOK for things that you usually don’t find. You look and you look and you look-and about your twelfth trip you find something that is such a good deal you keep coming back time after time looking and looking and looking and looking. Well, Sue is much more patient than I am because I need to FIND more often than that! Okay-as I said Sue wanted to go to Homegoods – so to curb my pain I suggested we get some ice cream at Coldstone which is the new VERY popular ice cream parlor across the parking lot from Homegoods.
Several people have told me it is the best ice cream on the planet and I wanted to try it out and, Sue is an ice cream lover so she agreed and we headed out. Now, understand I EXPECTED to be enjoying my double dip ice cream cone while Sue led me slowly up and down the endless corridors of Homegoods. But, when we arrived there was a line of customers at Coldstone-a long line-way out the door-I think it stretched all the way to Laytonsville. Let’s just say it was long enough that I knew I wasn’t getting any ice cream. But-we had come all that way and Homegoods was just a few yards away so we went in and looked and looked and looked and looked…and didn’t FIND anything. Needless to say my EXPERIENCE did not come close to my EXPECTATION. I expected to be thrilling to the taste of strawberry or peach or butter pecan or rocky road ice cream. Instead my evening was spent looking and looking and looking and looking…all the time trying unsuccessfully to hide my husbandly frustration. In short I expected pleasure and got only pain.
Well, that’s the way it is for many Christians-they aren’t mature enough to know that if we live for Jesus we can EXPECT pain. Our Lord never promised us an exemption from life’s troubles.
But they don’t understand this so when they face hardship or heartbreak they respond by either GIVING UP-like John Mark did. You know, “If that’s Christianity, I want nothing to do with it. Count me out.” Or by GIVING IN-like many Christians do. It’s to hard-it’s too painful to live like Jesus and so instead they do the easy thing and go with the flow of this fallen world of ours. But mature believers aren’t like that. When the expected tough times come they don’t GIVE UP. They don’t GIVE IN….now they GO FORWARD like Paul and Barnabas. And in so doing they experience ABUNDANT ADVENTURE! God uses “grown up believers” like this to turn the world upside down! No lifestyle even comes close to being as fulfilling!
Invitation:
Now-I think you can see why I admire this church so much-perhaps you’ve added it to your own list of “admirable churches.” But as I said earlier what I really hope is that this has inspired you to embrace these same qualities and please understand-We do this not so we’ll be a church that is ADMIRED by others but rather so we will be a church that pleases our Heavenly Father. We want Him to be proud of us don’t we! Don’t you want God to smile as He sees all we do in His name? I DO! Another thing-I want you to be sure to understand that a church is nothing more than its people-so to be an admirable church like the one at Antioch, we must each reach out to all people…red, yellow, black, and white, for they are ALL precious in His sight! We must do all we can to keep evangelism primary. We each must consider fulfilling the Great Commission as our PERSONAL responsibility-it is our reason for existing. And we must all strive for spiritual maturity such that we don’t quit when times get tough.
LET US PRAY
Father God,
Take the scales from our eyes so we can see how we need to change so as to become the kind of Christians-the kind of church-that makes You proud. Break us and melt us and remold us into the kind of people that turn the world upside down. Use us to lead the lost and hurting to faith in You. Give us the courage and the strength we need to go forward in spite of hardship and opposition-help us to follow You wherever You lead. Give each of us a taste of the abundance and excitement that awaits people who live this way. I ask all this in Jesus’ name. AMEN
As we sing our hymn of invitation, I invite you to respond publically in any way that God leads whether it is to publically profess your faith in Jesus Christ or to join this ADMIRABLE church or just to ask us to pray with an for you. Come now as we stand and sing.