Sunday, October 29, 2023 AM

As we look to your Word, that you would supply both the desire, the interest, and the illumination of your

Word to us by your Holy Spirit. I pray that you would give us joy as we consider your grace to us by your

Son and through your Spirit. We thank you for this very special day full of thanksgiving and communion and rejoicing.

I thank you for each one who has come here today by your providence. And may you bless our communion.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I invite you to open your

Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts. We'll be in Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 and we'll be reading verses 19 through 30.

Acts chapter 11 verses 19 through 30. The acts of the risen

Lord Jesus Christ that we have been surveying in this book include causing

His people to go. He told them that they were going to go. He commanded them to go and He made sure that they went.

He's a good shepherd that not only provided the means for them to go and gave them the instructions about what they were supposed to do, but made sure that it happened.

And not only does He have His people go, but He also gathers them. He does not leave them scattered.

He's a good shepherd. And He provides for their gathering. And that's what we've been thinking about these past few opportunities here in the book of Acts.

The gathering of Christians together is for the establishing of the work of Christ.

And also for its encouragement that we will be able to encourage one another in the work for Christ.

And it's also for expanding the work of the Lord. And we're going to see that as well in our passage this morning.

I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word beginning in verse 19,

Acts chapter 11. Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but 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. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the

Lord. Then 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 and 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.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. As we think what it means to be a

Christian, our understanding of what that means comes from the word of God.

That by God's grace has been provided to us faithfully and accurately and effectively in our own language.

That we may read it for ourselves, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, in the light of Christ that we would know the word of our

Heavenly Father. And we could see what it means from His own word.

What does it mean that we're Christians? It was not always that way. And we are giving thanks to God at this time of the year, recalling the

Lord's many graces to us. And that we stand at the end of a 500 plus year stewardship of the grace of God.

We sang hymns together this morning. It's because of the

Reformation. We're going to have communion together this morning, and partake of the elements ourselves.

That's because of the Reformation. You are hearing a message preached to you in your native language.

That's because of the Reformation. You own several copies of God's word in a variety of translations in your language.

That's because of the Reformation. This morning I hope that you prayed to the

Lord your God, in the name of Jesus Christ, wherever you were. And the fact that you did that with all confidence, and didn't second guess yourself, is because of the

Reformation. Many of our brothers and sisters suffered and bled and died in that process.

God is good to bring us to this point. Here we are today. As Christians, we have no

Pope. But in Christ, we have a Heavenly Father. As Christians, we have no clergy.

But in Christ, we are all priests, with a high priest. As Christians, we have no magisterium.

But in Christ, we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that we may know the Word of God. As Christians, we have no system of sacraments.

But in Christ, we have communion with God, and with one another, by His grace.

And as we come to our passage here in Acts, we get to see what Christians were doing some 2 ,000 years ago.

And reflect on the fact that we're doing much the same today. And that Christ is continuing to do

His work, and to build His church. Now we've thought about the reasons to gather as Christians.

And those reasons are not going to be apparent to us by a survey of our culture.

By a survey of where we stand in our particular age of technology.

Or an evaluation of the current economy. We will not find reasons to gather from any of those sources.

But we do find reasons to gather given to us in the Word of God. We gather to establish the work of the

Lord, and to encourage the work of the Lord, and also to expand the work of the

Lord. Notice with me, the latter part of verse 24, the expansion going on here in Antioch.

We read, And a great many people were added to the

Lord. A great many people were added to the Lord. That's not the first time we've heard that expression in the book of Acts.

We find it in other places as well. Back in chapter 2, when

Peter preached his Pentecost sermon, and told his audience to repent and flee the judgment of God, to flee the perverse generation that was under the judgment of God, those who received his message of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen again, those who gladly received his word, those who believed the gospel, were saved, and they were added to the

Lord. And in fact, we read that the Lord was daily adding to Himself those who were being saved.

Now, as we begin to think about that, there's something to that. It's not simply that somebody comes to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, having their heart changed by the regenerating work of the

Holy Spirit, so now they're born again and bound for heaven, and that's all that there is.

But that when the Lord saves sinners, He does not leave them to go grazing off by themselves in whatever pasture they may find.

But He adds them to Himself. He brings them in.

He knits us together as one flock. So it's not simply that we're saved by the

Lord. Indeed we are, and praise be to God. But our salvation is in Christ, so we are added to the

Lord. Not just saved by the Lord, but added to the Lord in our salvation, which means our salvation cannot be envisioned as isolated, separated from our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Because we're all coming to the same shepherd, coming to the same Savior, and so it is the most natural thing in the world for Christians to gather.

Our hearts are burdened for those who claim

Christ and find many reasons not to gather. We look after them.

Often we will find them with very genuine reasons that they cannot gather, and then we bear one another's burdens and we try to minister to them.

But if we find someone who has no interest in gathering, that is a very concerning problem.

Because to be added to the Lord means that we want to gather together. When we read in Acts 2 about those being added to the

Lord, we see that they are gathering over and over again in fellowship and in prayer and attending to the doctrine and the teaching of the apostles.

In chapter 5, the very first time we hear the word church in the book of Acts, we read in Acts 5 .14

that people were being added to the Lord, but it was in the context of the church gathering together.

We've already heard this in verse 21 of our own passage here in chapter 11.

That the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. They are turning to the Lord, coming to the

Lord, but it's in the context of the saints' gathering. Now, in some sense we have been trained to think that the main way to expand the work of the

Lord is to disperse. There can be no expansion of the work of the

Lord if we're too focused on gathering. And I understand something about what is meant there.

That if all we ever do is just show up in one place and think we've done everything that we're supposed to do, then we can lose the idea of going, but we've already talked about going in verses 19 -21.

We've already established the importance of going. We ought to be going even if we're persecuted.

We should be going, proclaiming the word of the Lord in the power of God. And so we're not negating the fact that we're going.

But what we see here and throughout the book of Acts is that the work of the Lord is expanded and that expansion always happens with a robust gathering of the saints.

The gathering of the people of God. And expanding the work of the

Lord requires at least three, many more actually, graces from God.

This is not a recipe for church growth that I'm going to give you. I'm not going to give you a three -step action plan for us to expand the nickels and noses of our church.

But I do want us to observe together in this passage the way in which

Jesus Christ blesses His church so that His church grows.

How does He build His church? By what graces does He build His church? Grace number one, we see that to expand the work of the

Lord, it requires a team. It requires a team. When so many people were added to the

Lord, what did Barnabas do? Verse 25, Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek

Saul. Now, that's a hard thing to do, I would think. Barnabas is a son of encouragement.

He wants to shepherd. He wants to exhort. He wants to disciple. He wants to minister.

And look, here's all these baby Christians running around in Antioch. Most of them are

Gentiles. And to leave this fledgling work in Antioch to travel to Tarsus in an attempt to go find

Saul wherever he was, that's a challenging thing for him to do.

That means that Barnabas is putting a very high value on not doing it himself.

He's saying it's more important that I go get help than that I stay here.

So, Barnabas, I think, understands the need. What does he understand?

Maybe he's thinking of the plural leadership going on in Jerusalem from which he just came. He came from Jerusalem to see what was going on in Antioch.

When he got there, he realized, I'm going to need help. Why did he know that he needed help? Because of the fact that the church in Jerusalem had a plurality of leadership.

Not just one person, but there were many men leading together as we have here in our church.

Pastor appreciation is also Elder Appreciation Month. And I greatly appreciate my fellow elders.

Why did he think of Saul? Well, he was the one who introduced him to the church in Jerusalem. He was probably one of the ones who helped

Saul escape the murderous intent of the Jews in Jerusalem to help get him to Caesarea and get him on to Tarsus.

Barnabas thinks of Saul, and so he goes and grabs Saul and brings him to Antioch to help.

And later on, we read in Saul's travels in Acts 14, verses 21 and 23.

Once again, we have a group going together. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God.

Notice verse 23. So when they had appointed elders, notice the plural, in every church, notice the singular, elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the

Lord in whom they had believed. Now, it is in the history of our church that many decades ago, when

Brother Harry Boydston was preaching through the book of Acts and came to this passage, he realized that there should be a plurality of elders in every church singular, which started him on a path of looking to bring in a plurality of elders to lead.

Praise God for that. You know, it wasn't perfect.

I've read the notes. The first thing I did my first year here is

I went back through and I looked at all the elder meeting notes. The Lord is good.

And He has brought us along to this time. The Lord is blessing as we obey Him in this manner.

It requires a team to expand the work of the Lord. Now, Jesus is the only one who was the one servant.

Jesus is the only one who was the one servant who bore it all, and He did it all, and He saves us all.

He's the only one who did it by Himself. But how did

He instruct us? He gathers 12 disciples. He sends them out two by two.

He told them to make disciples who would make disciples who would make disciples and thereby to multiply.

And what did Jesus say about those who wanted to be first in His kingdom, but that they should be a servant of all?

Meaning that I should be looking to help others grow and helping others to serve if I want to lead.

The guru model, where there's one go -to guy, is pagan.

It's pagan. To have to go up a mountain to go find the guru, or to find some way to get through all the bureaucracy to get to the guru.

That is a pagan model. Do you remember

Paul later on in his life? Look over 2 Timothy 4. The plaintive tone of Paul as he communicates to Timothy.

2 Timothy 4 verse 9. He says,

Be diligent to come to me quickly, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed it for Thessalonica.

Cretans for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia, only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.

Antiochus I have sent to Ephesus. Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come, and the books, especially the parchments.

Do you hear, Paul? I can't do it on my own. There needs to be a team.

Amos 3 .3 says, How can two walk together unless they are agreed?

Wonderful proverb for us to pick up and to consider and even to flip upside down.

Let me ask you this. How can two agree unless they walk together? When the

Lord puts upon you a desire to serve and to minister, to do something for His name and for the good of one another in our church or in some other facet, let me encourage you to consider the blessings of a team.

Let me encourage you to consider the blessings of a team. As you lead and as you serve, let me encourage you not to walk so far or so fast that you end up on your own.

You have to walk with others in order to have the opportunity to agree together about the work of the

Lord. Consider the blessings of a team. It is the grace of God that He would bring us together in communion, in Him, and thus we can serve together.

Another grace that we should consider in how the

Lord expands His church is time. Not only does the expansion of the work of the

Lord require a team, but it also requires some time.

And the good news is that those two go together really well. What you can do initially on your own because of your skills and because of your insights for the

Lord, you can get a little bit done really fast on your own.

But if you slow down and you labor to disciple others and encourage others and show them by serving them how to labor for the

Lord, much more will be done over a longer period of time. And time is a grace from God.

Time is something that the Lord gives to us and we can rejoice in that. And notice in the text, it says, verse 25,

Barnabas departs for Tarsus to seek Saul. Verse 26, And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

So it was... Notice 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. So for a whole year. Notice the note of time. Sometimes Paul only got three weeks like in Thessalonica.

Sometimes he got three years like he did in Ephesus. Here in Antioch he has a whole year to labor with Barnabas and to disciple and to teach the people there.

You're taking too long, Saul. Taking too long, Barnabas. Man, a whole year?

Shouldn't you wrap up what you have to do in a four week series and move on?

Come on, let's get chopping. But time is a grace from God.

Do you ever feel like you are rushed? Ever feel like you don't have enough time to get the really important things done?

I want you to consider the grace of God in time. In Matthew 13, we have several parables where Jesus explains what it's like to live in His kingdom.

After all, He's been telling His audience time and again, this perverse and wicked generation is about to pass away.

It's under the judgment of God according to the standards of the old covenant. It's going to be completely wiped out and done away with.

The temple is going to go away. The priesthood is going to go away. Sacrifices are going to go away.

The old covenant wineskins are going to go away. And things are going to be new. But, even though it's the end of this age, it is not the end of the space -time continuum.

Life will go on. And what's it going to be like to live in my world?

Jesus is saying to them, so He says, this is what it's like to live in my kingdom. And one of the things that He stresses in these kingdom parables is time.

Now, notice in verse 24, another parable

He put forth to them saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?

He said to them, An enemy has done this. The servant said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up?

But he said, No, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them. Notice, let both grow together until the harvest.

And at the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.

And later on, Jesus clarifies that the field is the world, not the church, the world.

And he says that over time, all of this is going to be sorted out and he's going to take care of it. Have you ever tried to grow something?

Boy, that takes a lot of time. It's hard to wait. I was always picking my watermelons way too early because I didn't want to let them ripen and take the time.

Another parable, verse 31, He put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field which indeed is the least of all the seeds, but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

Now, if you've ever looked up on Wikipedia a mustard plant, you'll notice that it is not a tree. But in Jesus' story, it is.

Surprise! This mustard seed grows into a tree. And that will, of course, take a while.

Verse 33, another parable, He spoke to them, The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, yeast, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until it was all leaven.

And three measures of meal is a lot.

It is a massive mound of dough getting bigger by the yeast inside of it.

That'll take a while, though. Have you ever tried to wait for your bread to rise, your dough to rise?

I was kicked out of my house as a young lad because my mother had her cake rising and I was not allowed inside because I stomped and the cake would fall.

And I had to stay outside for hours. Things take time.

Jesus says it's going to take time. Luke 19, 11 -12,

Now, as they heard these things, He spoke another parable because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately.

Therefore, He said, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.

It's going to take some time. It's going to take some time. It's been 500 years.

506 years since Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses up on the door of Wittenberg Chapel.

And did you know that there was about 1 ,500 years of church history prior to that?

Isn't He a good shepherd? Isn't our Lord a good shepherd? I rejoice that today from Indonesia to South Korea to Sweden to Venezuela to North Africa to South Africa and even in Canada, our brothers and sisters are gathering together and worshiping the

Lord. It's taking time, but isn't Christ doing such a good job?

Why does it take time though? Can't God just do it? Ephesians 2 verse 7 says that in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which

He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which

He purposed in Himself. Notice verse 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times,

He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in Him.

Why? To the praise of the glory of His grace. That's why His timing, not our timing.

So it's going to take some time, but that's a grace from God. He says it's going to take time.

That's right. Be faithful. Don't despise the small things. The only things that are meaningful are the things that get done really fast.

No, the most meaningful things get done over a long, long period of time, and that is what we are seeing here in Acts chapter 11 in the expansion of the work of the

Lord. And the last grace required in this expansion of the work of the

Lord is truth. Not only a team, not only time, but also truth.

You know, Bible details, and I love Bible trivia.

My brother found our old Bible trivia game from decades ago the other day and was playing with his family.

But Bible details disorganized away from Christ are just facts.

But organized in Christ, we have truth. Because He's the way, the truth, and the life, and He is the light of the world, and all things are reconciled in Him.

And so the third grace that is necessary in this expansion of the work of the

Lord is the most essential of all, and that is truth. Now, notice in the text that they were teaching for a year.

Verse 26 says that they assembled with the church and taught a great many people.

They taught a great many people, which means they were laying things out on top of each other to try to reinforce the needful beliefs, the needful information that these disciples needed.

What were they teaching them? Obviously, they were teaching them the truth of Christ. Christ handed

His truth to the apostles, and the apostles handed that to the church. And over time, they were writing it down into what we have as the

New Testament. So they were teaching Christ to the disciples.

That's what they were doing. They were teaching Christ to the disciples of Antioch. And do you know what happens by the grace of God?

When we hear about who Christ is and what He has done and all of His glory and His intentions and His desires and His purposes, you know what happens?

We begin to look like Him and sound like Him and value things in our world like He would value them.

So you see the result of the teaching, don't you, in verse 26? They taught for a whole year, and the disciples were first called

Christians in Antioch. See, it worked. They teach Christ, they teach

Christ, they teach Christ, and then they look like Christ and they sound like Christ, and they love like Christ.

Jesus said a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.

He says it is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant his master.

Is that enough for you? Is it enough for you to be like your

Teacher Christ? Is it enough for you? Is it sufficient? Is it satisfying?

Do you find it good that you as a servant of Christ would be like your Master? We live in a day and an age where so many people not only deny the sufficiency of the

Scripture, they deny the sufficiency of Jesus Christ Himself. For so many today, it is not enough for them to simply be like Christ.

It is not enough for them. They need something more. They've got to add something to the virtues of Christ, but we don't need to.

We are Christians. The redeemed of the Lord are not identified by anyone or anything else other than Christ and His Gospel.

Indeed, we are male or female. We are indeed of families and tribes. We are of nations and an empire.

We have various persuasions and preferences, but all these things are eclipsed by the glory of Christ.

If we would not deviate from Christ's glory, we ought not to hyphenate our name or hyphenate

His name. I'm not a such -and -such hyphen Christian.

Just not. Because no one and nothing else belongs at the right hand of God. I'm a

Christian. It's enough. It's enough that I am like my

Master. I'm like my Teacher. Colossians 3 .10 -11 says, we have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of God who created

Him. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian,

Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all and in all. Notice, wherever the

Gospel goes, it is Christ's own seed that grows.

That's how you can identify it. The work expands as the church gathers, and the gathering includes

Hellenist and Hebrew, religious and irreligious, educated and uneducated,

Christian, entrepreneur and wage worker. The glory of Christ so shines upon all men that none of us may retain our own personal glory when we are gathered to Him.

So we are gathered to Him today. We are gathered to Him today in communion with one another and with Him.

Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this time. We thank You for the reminders from Your Word today. I pray that You would give us the grace to believe and to rejoice and to so live.

And we pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.