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Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Pattern for the Church 1. He will be reading out of Acts 11:19-30.
There are 361 different people, groups, even within our own country. So we have a great responsibility to take the gospel, and God is bringing the world to us, and we should share Christ with them. It’s Hope Worth Having radio program from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and I’m Mike Sanders, senior pastor of the Open Door Church, and delighted to be with you today.
Thank you for tuning in. We’re going to be in Acts chapter 11. This time we’re going to begin in verse 19 through 30. We’re going to talk about God’s pattern for the church. Many times churches look to other churches on how to do church, but really what we need to do is look into the book of Acts because that’s God’s pattern for the church.
So a lot to learn here and a lot for us to unpack. So let’s get right into God’s work today. I want you to take your Bible, and I want you to join me in Acts chapter 11, verse 19 through 30. I want you to remember that God is always at work.
And not only is God always working, but He wants you and I to join in in what He is doing. Not only just within our own families, but what He is doing literally around the world. When Jesus in John chapter 17 was praying, and as He was praying to the Father, He said, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
In essence, Jesus is reminding us that each of us have been sent by God that we are on assignment from heaven. That God has a plan, He has a purpose, and that as He is working out His great cause in this world, that each of us as His servants are called to be on mission.
for God. We must wake up every day recognizing that God has an assignment for us, that there are people who are going to cross our paths, that God is calling us to serve and minister to, that there are things that are going to unfold throughout the day that God is bringing about His great purpose and glory in the lives of others.
When we come to Acts chapter 11 as we’ve been tracking through this book, we cannot forget the overarching theme of the book of Acts. It is the triumph of the gospel in all the world despite the politics, despite the persecution, despite the problems and the circumstances.
The gospel is triumphing. The gospel is moving forward and that’s what we see as we read from chapter to chapter as Luke shares with us. the details of different stories, we are overwhelmed and touched in our heart that this gospel that Jesus Christ has given to us, this good news that teaches us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and we are all in need of a savior.
And Jesus Christ is that savior and he went to the cross and died for our sins and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. As we come down to chapter 11, verse 19 through 30, we see the early church’s mission of spreading the gospel is continuing to the Gentiles.
You might recall that in Acts chapter one, verse eight, that Jesus gave the commission to the disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
At the outset, the church was doing great in spreading the gospel in Jerusalem and even parts of Judea. But it’s really not till Acts chapter 10 that we see the gospel going farther and wider into the uttermost parts of the earth, into Samaria and places that had never heard the gospel.
It is in Acts chapter 10 that we see kind of a transition as Peter comes to the full enlightenment and understanding that what God has called clean, we cannot call unclean. And that Christ is the fulfillment of all that the law required and therefore the good news of the gospel goes beyond just Jerusalem and it goes beyond just a particular race of people and it is to be taken to every heart and it is to be broadcast to every whole.
Peter has that unique experience with Cornelius where he is able to go into the home, share the gospel. of Christ, and not only does Cornelius come to Christ, but his whole family comes to Christ. It is a momentous change in the hearts of the disciples.
We pick up in verse 19, and we see the Bible says, now those who were scattered after the persecution, you got to stop there because you have to remember that that persecution certainly not only began in chapter 4 and chapter 5, but we see it reemerging in chapter 8.
But what was happening is the people of God were being spread out, God working even in persecution, and the Bible says that that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but to the Jews only.
But some of them were men from Cyprus, and Cyrene, who when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. Here’s what I want you to see. And the hand of the Lord was with them.
And a great numbered believed and turned to the Lord. Verse 22, then news of these things came to the ears of the church of Jerusalem. And they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. And when he had came, he had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart, 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. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.
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 in Antioch. In these days, prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
Then one of them named Agabus, stood up and showed by the spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples each according to his ability determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. In this short passage, we see God’s pattern for the church, God’s pattern for believers, God’s pattern for us as followers of Christ.
And I want to point these three things out to you because this becomes our template as believers. This becomes our template as a local congregation. The first pattern I want you to see is the church was active in evangelism.
Verse 19 through 21, we see that the gospel went as far as Phoenicia, and this was a area that we would know today as in the Middle East towards the Lebanon area. And so the gospel is going from Jerusalem, Judea, even farther out into Phoenicia, but you also know that the gospel went to Antioch.
We go back to our text and we see in verse 19 that they were preaching the Word in Antioch. Then we come down to verse 20, but some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene who went and they had come to Antioch and they spoke to the Hellenists.
What were they preaching? The Lord, Jesus. They were lifting up Christ. We see that the Cyprus and the Cyrenians, they were Greek speaking people who were spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ, and they took it to Antioch, which was a major city in the Roman Empire.
The third largest city in the Roman Empire. And what was the result of their evangelism? What was the result of them preaching, teaching, proclaiming, talking about Jesus? Well look at verse 21 again, the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.
You and I have a mandate upon us that as we look and see how the early church operated, we have a responsibility to be fully active in evangelism. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to share the gospel of Christ with those in our world.
You might recall when Jesus in the gospel of Luke chapter 8, he had cast out a demon in the life of a man, and his response to this man who was so full of thankfulness and praise towards Christ, Jesus said to him in verse 39 of chapter 8 of the gospel of Luke, return to your home and describe what great things God has done for you.
And the Bible tells us that this man went his way proclaiming throughout the city what great things Jesus had done for him. That’s really what evangelism is, is we’re just telling other people of the great things that God has done for us.
How Christ has saved us from our sin. I remember many years when I first came to the open door church that one of the members had passed away, he was promoted to heaven, but his daughter was not a fan of Christianity nor did she even want to have to endure any kind of a funeral service.
And as I was sitting down with her trying to help her plan for the funeral service, she told to me right to my face. She said to me, now Pastor Mike, I don’t want you telling people how to be saved at this funeral.
And I was kind of taken aback and I was listening to her and of course she gave me her reasoning and I said, well I can certainly appreciate you have a different opinion than your father. But are you okay if I share a little bit about his faith and how he came to Christ?
And she said, oh sure, that’d be great. I said, wow, this is awesome. Because here’s the thing, people, we all get saved the same way, man. And so I was glad to brag about her dad and how he came to Christ and I just kind of interjected and once I was up there, there’s nothing they could do.
But I said, hey, this is how you get saved. And so I want you to know that that’s what we do. We brag about Christ. Some of you might feel like, man, it’s just so hard for me to be engaged in evangelism.
You might feel intimidated by it. You might feel like you’re inferior and there’s no way that you could do that. But I want you to know that we need to keep it simple. You don’t have to memorize long sets of verses.
You don’t have to memorize all these different formulas on how to be saved because we all get saved the same way. Now you might ask the question, why don’t we do this? Why don’t people evangelize? Well, I just jotted down three reasons why.
Number one is that we believe the myth that people are not interested in spiritual issues. But I want you to note that in a recent Gallup survey it discovered that 65 million Americans have no church home.
And that 34 million of them said they would attend if somebody would just invite them. How about that? 34 million people are waiting for an invitation. It is rare church. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen.
It is rare for someone to just pop in and just come to church. I remember during the COVID days when we were all watching the service online and we were here, me and the band and the sound people and streaming people in the back there.
But there was this gentleman who just came. He just came. We didn’t have a greeter. So I had to run out there and greet him. And so I said, hey, this is what’s going on. You understand? And I said, but you’re welcome.
And so he was my one audience. He sat in the back row there. I haven’t seen him back since. But anyways, it is rare for people to just pop in. But when they’re invited by a friend, when they’re invited by a family member, when they’re invited by someone that they come across or that they meet, what a blessing that is.
And so I don’t want you to be under this impression that somehow people do not want to talk about spiritual issues. The second reason we don’t engage in evangelism is because of fear. We might have the fear of others in that we’re not sure how they’re gonna respond.
We’re not sure what their reaction will be to us and maybe that they would not like us anymore or maybe that they would be upset that we have shared the gospel with them. Remember, their rejection is not a rejection of you, it’s a rejection of our savior.
You don’t have to take it personal. Your job is just to plant the seeds. You don’t have to live in the fear of rejection but we also may have the fear of failure. We might think, man, I really can’t do a good job and I don’t wanna mess this thing up and I don’t wanna be the reason because I failed to do the presentation right that I might cause somebody to go to hell and be separated from God forever.
I wanna tell you as I’ve been out there trying to engage people in spiritual conversations, there’s many times I’ve fumbled the ball, misquoted the verses, couldn’t remember a Bible verse. Have you ever been there?
Am I the only one left? Do you all ever have those moments? But you know what, God gloriously works because people are saved through the power of the Spirit and the word of God, not because Mike Sanders said a certain thing or did it a certain way.
And that’s how the Lord works. And there’ve been times I’ve thought, man, I did everything like it should be, crossed every T, dotted every I, why doesn’t this person get saved? Because it has to be a work of God.
So you don’t have to be afraid of failure. The third reason I think we don’t engage in evangelism is because of ignorance. We may not just know how, we just are not aware. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 3 .15, to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready, always, to give an answer to every man that’s asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
It’s good to take training classes. It’s good to read books on evangelism. It’s good to learn more how we can effectively engage people in spiritual conversations. But ultimately, I want you to know that you need to live a life that is so honoring to God that people say, man, why are you so joyful?
Why do you have so much hope? And you just answer. You just give the reason of why you are a person of hope. And that reason is because you have put your faith and your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You would be amazed how many times that you are in situations where you can share your faith and you can share the hope of Christ with others. You just have to be alert to it. You’re already there. You just have to be aware of it.
Now, in the book Strangers Next Door, Immigration, Migration, and Missions, if you’ve not read that book, you need to read it. But in this book, it reminds us that there are more unchurched people groups who live within the boundaries of the universe.
United States than any other country besides India and China. There are 361 different people groups, even within our own country. So we have a great responsibility to take the gospel, and God is bringing the world to us, and we should share Christ with them.
We should be open to engaging in evangelism. This is what the early church did. Remember our Lord and Savior that in the gospel of Luke 19 and verse 10, he said, the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
The second thing that I want you to see is the pattern of the early church relating to that they were committed to discipleship. Let’s go back to verse 22, and let’s look. It says, then the news of these things, all these people getting saved, God’s mighty work.
In these particular places, the news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they set out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came, he had seen the grace of God. He was glad, encouraged them all that with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord.
When we think of discipleship, discipleship is the birth and the growth of a believer by which we become more like Jesus every day. When we are discipling others in the church, we’re calling them to a higher commitment to Christ.
We are calling them to a deeper walk with the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 10 .25, it is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant like his master. Jesus is our master, Jesus is our teacher.
It should be the desire of every Christian to be like Christ. When the Jerusalem church heard how great things were happening as these new converts were coming to the Lord, Jesus, that the Jerusalem church wanted to help establish these new converts in the faith and so they sent their best discipler.
His name was Barnabas. Barnabas is a name that refers to the son of encouragement. That is what Barnabas means, to be an encourager. Barnabas was a great example of what being a true encourager entails.
Scripture frequently sums up a person’s life in a single sentence and we see that in Barnabas in verse 24. Go back to verse 24 of chapter 11. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.
Barnabas’ original name. was Joseph were introduced to him in chapter four of the book of Acts. But he had a graciousness about him. He had a way about him where he was always encouraging others and so the apostles gave him the nickname Barnabas, which means the son of an encouragement.
That’s a great name, amen. Would you like to be known as that as an encourager? Barnabas was known for his willingness to seek out those who were struggling and to encourage them along the way in the work of the Lord.
Did you see that back in verse 23? That he was glad and what did he do? He encouraged them all. What did he encourage them all? That with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord. This was the message of Barnabas.
And not only was he encouraging the church at Antioch, these new believers, but he took the initiative to reach out to Saul, who would later become Paul. and to get him connected to the church at Antioch.
Barnabas played a key role in helping the church to receive Saul into the family of God. You know the story how Saul was a persecutor of the church and there was great fear among the church family. Here Saul is now claiming to be a believer.
Is it possible that he might try to infiltrate us? Is it possible that he might turn against us? No, Barnabas was the man who stepped up and said, his faith is genuine and we need to recognize that God’s hands on this man and we need to let him be a part of the church family.
So he was a true encourager, a discipler and Barnabas and Saul would take time for a whole year teaching and developing the church. Look at verse 26, when he had found him, meaning Saul, he brought him to Antioch.
So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many of people and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Each of us would be a better person if we would be like Barnabas and if we had some Barnabas in our life.
We need to think of those terms and when it relates to discipleship. So many times we look at discipleship as more formal, we see it as something like classes, which I think that’s certainly a part of it, but I think sometimes more is caught than taught and we need to remember that we need people that will help us along the way, that we need those encouragers in our life.
We need people who will help us to stay faithful for the Lord and we need to be those kind of people to others in the church family. The Bible teaches us that the word encourage has the idea of putting courage into someone.
And that’s the way I see Barnabas as he is going to the church at Antioch as these new believers are coming to Christ and they really don’t even have an Old Testament or a background that much in Judaism.
They’re Gentile believers, they’re just coming to Christ and they’re trying to leave their old lifestyle behind and they’re trying to follow a savior. They’re trying to give their life fully to Christ and Barnabas was that encourager helping them along the way.
And he connected them to a good teacher of the word of God Saul. We all need encouragement to keep growing. I wanna challenge you in your own life to think about who can I encourage this week? Who could I send a text message?
Who could I send a card? Who could I pick up the phone? Who could I have lunch with, breakfast with? Who could I encourage? Look, God has not just called us to sit and soak, but he certainly called us to serve.
And as we serve him, as we think about others, think about many times of how in my own life, how God had always had different people in my life to encourage me in the faith. It wasn’t that they were scholars or that they somehow had all this Bible knowledge, but they were just faithful people who loved God and who were always encouraging me to live for Jesus Christ.
Many of you know my story and how I came to Christ and I was invited to ride the bus to church, little church of about 50 people, and that was on a high special day. But anyways, our bus driver, he couldn’t even read.
He had to leave school early to take care of the family. And yet he was such an encouragement to me, my brother and sister. To this day, all of us are active in our churches, all of us married to Christian spouses, all of us having Christian families, and here God used this man greatly in our lives because he was an encourager.
I wanna challenge you to think about people not only in our own community of faith here at the Open Door Church, but others throughout the community, others throughout the region that you could encourage because God has called us to encourage people in their walk of faith.
What was the outcome of the discipleship in the church? What was the outcome of having a man like Barnabas who was encouraging others and a man like Saul who was teaching the Bible? What was the outcome?
Well, look at verse 26 at the end. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. They were first called Christians. Most likely it was the Romans who looked at their lives. They saw something distinct and different about them.
Be a Christian, the word literally means little. Christ, little Christ. How wonderful for others to recognize by your actions and your beliefs that you are very much like Jesus. That’s what it means to be a Christian.
So as these new converts are being discipled in the faith, they are becoming more like Jesus. I want to challenge you to A, be that person who is every day striving to be more like Christ, but also be that person that is striving to help others be like Christ.
And there’s a key component to that that is important because sometimes we let the perfect destroy the good or be the enemy of the good you might have heard. And that is that we must learn to accept people where they’re at in their faith and help them to take that next step.
As a pastor, I recognize that not all the people are going to be committed as some of the people. I gotta understand that I have a core in my church. I have people who are gonna be here a few times a year and people are gonna be here a few times a month.
Now, some of you, you’re here all the time. It’s so wonderful. But my goal was to get you to take that next step. Whatever that next step is, that God would challenge you to go to the next level in your faith and to encourage you to become more devoted followers of Christ, more committed in your walk, and helping you to become deeper and stronger in your faith so that as you are living your life in your homes,
as you’re living your life in the workplace, as you’re living your life in the community, that people notice that you’re different. Not in a weird way, but that you are like Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to notice the third pattern in the church.
We learned already, first of all, that they were active in evangelism, committed to discipleship, but the third pattern is that the church was devoted to ministry. They were devoted to ministry last week.
Pastor Seth shared with us a lot about ministry and service, and he did a great job. We appreciate his message, and I’m not here to reiterate it, but I just want to add a few more things to it, not that it needed anything added to it, but according to the passage, I have to stay true to the passage so I couldn’t really get around it.
But in verse 27 through 30, it says, in those days the prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.
Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. The entire Roman world was experiencing a crippling famine.
Well, God is at work and He wants you to join Him. And part of what He is doing is He’s certainly working through the church. And He has a special plan for the church, so I’m grateful for that. And we are reminded that every one of us as believers are on mission.
Have you signed up for our newsletter? We have a Hope Worth Having newsletter, so we encourage you to go to our website, hopeworthhaving .com and you can just sign up for the newsletter and we can send it to your email.
We can physically send it to you however you want it, but sign up, keep up with what’s going on in the ministry and how God is working. And we thank you again for being a part. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.