Acts 11:19-30 Christ Builds His Church in Antioch

I feel like this sermon has been in preparation for about eight months, and that's not entirely.

Wrong.

The Church in Antioch and the Limits of Church Growth Methods

I would invite you to take your Bibles and open to Acts chapter 11, Acts chapter 11. We won't be back in Acts for a few weeks till Pastor Mike goes for vacation, but this morning he and Kim are suffering for the Lord in Rome.

I feel their pain. You know, years ago, I remember when Pastor Mike first proposed this, we used to go to the Shepherd's Conference every year, and even before I moved out here 21 years ago, we used to go to the Shepherd's Conference.

And on Saturday, we'd go to a restaurant in Pasadena, and we'd go to a bookstore in Pasadena, and then we'd go to Orange County, which is a little bit of a drive, and we'd visit a church down there on Saturday called Saddleback.

How many are familiar with Saddleback Church? I remember the first time going there, I thought, this is like Disneyland. This is so unbelievable. I mean, imagine if you will, flat parking lots, oh sorry, beautiful buildings, cafes all over the place.

I mean, they got people out in the parking lot to show you where to park and the whole deal. And I thought, that's one way to start a church, and we'll talk about that in a second. But another way to start a church is what we're going to see this morning, but let me just start with Saddleback.

Saddleback Church started with two young church planters, a dream, this is from their website by the way, a dream and a map in a flat parking lot. God gave Pastor Rick and Kay Warren the dream to plant a church for people who didn't like a church, and he led them to Southern California, a church for people who don't like church.

How would you do that? Well, they started with surveys. And here's a survey that comes from Rick Warren's experience planting the church, and it's designed to discover information about those who do not go to church.

So five questions. Number one, what do you think is the greatest need in this area? Then they note, this question helps get people talking, right? I mean, it could be anything, could be, I don't know, a parking lot, but it could be somebody could say the gospel.

Somebody could say, you know, more police officers, they could say any number of things, but it's just to engage with them. Question number two, are you actively attending any church? And then they parenthetically note, if they say yes, thank them and move on to the next.

Home.

After all, you wouldn't want to steal people that are going to another church. They note, to survey the unchurched, you don't want to color the survey with the opinions of believers.

Okay.

Question number three, why do you think most people don't attend church? Then they note, this seems a little less threatening than why don't you attend church, right? Why don't other people attend church?

Why do you suppose that is? Number four, if you were to look for a church to attend, what kind of things would you look.

For?

This question helps understand the kind of ministries that would appeal to the unchurched in the community. I can only imagine what kind of answers you would get. Number five, what advice would you give to a new church that really wants to be helpful to people in the community?

Or, what can we do for you? I mean, what's missing there? Christ, the Bible, those kind of things, small little caveats. Well, let's read our text and again this morning, we're going to see how Christ builds a church literally from scratch.

Let's read our text, Acts chapter 11 verses 19 through 30. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them. And a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Now, in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all.

The world.

This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined everyone, according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Well, let's pray for the word of God. Father, would you bless the preaching of your word this morning? Help us to better grasp not only how powerful you are, but how you work in the lives of your people.

Sometimes in ways that we cannot imagine, that we would not imagine, and how you bless your church by bringing exactly the right people at the right times. And you alone build your church. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Well, we know that Luke the physician wrote Acts, just as he wrote the gospel of Luke. And he wrote it as basically a continuation for Theophilus. And he wrote it carefully because he wanted to get the facts straight.

But you'll, if you really study the book of Acts, you'll see that not everything is in perfect chronological order. And there's a reason for that. Because if you have, let's say, two or three things happening at the same time, it would be very difficult to weave those narratives together.

So he doesn't do that. He finishes one narrative, and then he goes back in time to start another one. But the key text in Acts is Acts 1 .8. The Lord said, and this is right before he ascends, he says, but you, talking to the disciples, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. In Acts, we see how the apostles were empowered by the Holy Spirit to overcome opposition and persecution and to take the gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth.

And really, what we're going to witness this morning is a major step in that. And we'll explain. But so far in Acts, we've seen, as I mentioned just a moment ago, the ascension of Jesus. Imagine being one of the disciples and watching Jesus disappear, just go straight up into the heavens.

We've also seen Pentecost. We're not only, I mean, the big celebration for many churches is that people were speaking.

In tongues.

That's not the wonder. The wonder is that thousands were then added. Thousands believed after Peter preached. We've seen Peter and John heal a man who had been lame from birth. Remember as he went, as he was standing by the gate of the temple and they healed him.

We've seen the disciples arrested and told to stop preaching about Jesus. Stop all this Jesus stuff. We've seen the church grow spiritually in such a way that they gave to each other sacrificially. And right in the middle of that, we saw the example of Ananias and Sapphira who did not give sacrificially and actually lied and they were then struck dead.

We've seen the apostles arrested again and then released by an angel of the Lord. We've seen persecution. We've seen the stoning of Stephen. We've seen the gospel spread to Samaria. We've seen the gospel preached to a single man, the Ethiopian eunuch out in the middle of nowhere.

He believed. We've seen the conversion of Saul, the dramatic conversion of Saul. Peter's vision and the conversion of Cornelius the Centurion. In chapter 11, the last time we were in Acts, which was actually in August of last year, we saw Peter defending himself from accusations that he'd broken Jewish dietary laws.

How did he do that? By explaining the vision he'd received from the Lord that all foods were now to be considered clean. In effect, the finished work, and this is his point, the finished work of Christ had abolished the enmity between Jew and Gentile.

It's hard for us to fathom what these dietary laws did, how they kept the Jews separate. If one of the most cordial, intimate things you could do was having a meal with somebody, imagine them saying, well, we can't eat shellfish and we can't eat this and we can't eat that.

And no, those two things can't be mixed. All these kind of restrictions, it kept the Jews separate. And so now finally, Acts chapter 11, verse 18, when they heard these things, when the disciples heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.

They grasp the idea that now is the time when Jew and Gentile will be in one body together. So this morning we will see four actions that the Lord takes, that Jesus Christ takes to build his church in the city of Antioch.

Now why Antioch? Well, let me just say this. This might be the most significant church in the New Testament.

Why?

Well, first of all, it's not in Israel. It's actually, we'll talk about it, but it's in the Southeast corner of Turkey and it's the third biggest city in the world. There's Rome, there's Alexandria in Egypt, and then there's Antioch.

And thirdly, because it's going to be the launching pad as it were, this church is going to be the launching pad for maybe the greatest missionary team of all time, which is to say Paul and Barnabas. So how did the Lord build this church?

He used professionals, seminary grads, did he take surveys in Antioch to see what they wanted? What kind of programs would be helpful to them?

No.

It was simply the power of the gospel to save sinners by the work of the Holy Spirit. So we're going to see four actions the Lord took to build his church in Antioch. The first one, Christ used unlikely ends to build his church.

What do I mean by that? Well, unlikely means like persecution. Unlikely means to build. I mean, you certainly wouldn't think, hey, we're going to build a church. Let's use persecution. That wouldn't be what we would do.

But look at verse 19. Now, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. At the time when Stephen was stoned, this persecution was beginning.

And you can imagine the idea of being stoned didn't appeal to many. I wouldn't personally be in favor of it. Remember the first time I read about that, Stephen being stoned, I just thought I'm named after the guy who got stoned.

It's a horrible way to die. But Antioch is north of Lebanon. It is north even of Damascus, Syria, and it's on the Orontes River, which will come into play as we go along here a little bit. And it's not far from the Mediterranean Sea.

The Orontes River runs into the Mediterranean Sea. Antioch likely had somewhere between 25 and 50 ,000 Jews. So a fairly large population of Jews, maybe as much as 10 of the population could be anywhere from half a million to 700 ,000 people living in Antioch.

But a good size audience for Jewish believers or people who had left Jerusalem, who had wound up in Antioch to speak about Jesus. Now when you think about it, it's kind of amazing, right? You're fleeing persecution.

Why?

Why are they persecuting people in Jerusalem? Because they're Christians, because they believe in Christ, because they're speaking about.

Jesus.

So what do they do when they go to this new city? Text tells us, speaking the word. They were talking about Jesus. They were telling people, Jews in particular, that Jesus is the long anticipated Messiah.

Why would they do that? Because they understand what's happened to them personally. They've been forgiven of their sins. So they go to synagogue and they talk about Jesus. There's a boldness that attaches to that, right?

I fled persecution. I didn't want to die. And now I'm going to go into Antioch and still talk about Jesus. So unlikely means the persecution that spreads out the believers. Then unlikely men, look at verse 20.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. Some of these evangelists, not graduates from any training program or anything like that, not from, you know, having sat under the teaching of the apostles.

They were just men who had learned Christ and shared him. But they came, it says here, from the island of Cyprus, which is just south of modern day Turkey and Cyrene. And you read that and you go, I don't even know where Cyrene is.

Well, it's in Libya. So here's the question. What are they doing in Antioch? Why are they there? These people from Cyrene and Cyprus. Here's a really cool truth. We don't know. The Lord directed them there.

Maybe they had business there, but we don't know specifically why they're there. Now I would note that our ESV says he spoke with the Hellenists. Those would be Jews who spoke Greek and were basically cultural Greeks who had come to Christ, but they were of Jewish heritage.

But it could be Hellenists or it could be Greeks. And I think Greeks is probably right. And so we ought to take it in the bigger context, which is just Gentiles generally.

Okay.

So they spoke not just with Hellenists, but with Gentiles also. In other words, they weren't too picky about who they were preaching the gospel to. They wanted to tell everybody that Jesus alone can save sinners.

So unlikely men and also in an unlikely place, as I said, Antioch, very big city, third biggest in the empire, but it was known for a number of things. One was the fact it was multiracial. It was multiethnic.

It was very diverse. It was also diverse in terms of religion. But here's the key. One thing it was well known for was its immorality. And you know, if you talk about unchurched, Antioch was the definition of an unchurched.

City.

Oh, there were religious people, but their religions often included ritualistic prostitution. So it was very an immoral city, not the kind of place where you'd think, well, let's go build a church there.

This isn't like going to Salt Lake City or something. You know, you, you expect pagans to act like pagans in Antioch. And it had such a bad moral reputation that one Roman satirist, one comedian wrote, this says for years now, the Orontes River has poured its sewage into our native Tiber.

In other words, the river at Rome. Now, the Orontes River and the Tiber are nowhere near each other, but Antioch was known for being so filthy morally that even the Romans made fun of it. Now, despite the disorganized and untaught evangelists and the unlikely environments, the number of believers increased, looked at verse 21, and the hand of the Lord was with them, was with these untrained men.

And a great number who believed turned to the Lord. No evangelism program, no seminary, no pastors, no problem. The gospel is not dependent on cleverness, persuasive talk. What's it depend on? The power of God, the hand of the Lord.

It was Jesus's power. His hand was with these evangelists. Now how many came to faith? How many is a great number? What's a great number? I mean, it's like if you ask one of your kids, how many M &Ms did you eat anyway?

And they just say, what? A great number.

It was a lot.

Can you be more specific?

No.

Christ used unlikely ends to build his church. That's action number one. Action number two, Christ sent an encourager to strengthen his church. There was a need in that church, even though they didn't know it.

And the Lord met that need. Look at verse 22. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. Now what doesn't Luke write? He doesn't say, well, the report came to the ears of the apostles.

He doesn't say the church at Antioch knew that it needed help, so it asked Jerusalem to send somebody. But just as when the apostles heard of the conversions in Samaria, then they sent Peter and John to go check it out.

So now the church in Jerusalem is responding to this report of growth in Antioch by sending Barnabas and being an ethnic Jew from where? From Cyprus. He's going to fit right in. He was also well trusted by the church in Jerusalem, so they send Barnabas and he exercised his gift.

I mean, he had a gift and he exercised it. Look at verse 23. When he, Barnabas, came and saw the grace of God, he was glad and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

Now what happens to you if you go to a place you've never been before and you go into the church and you meet people who are like minded, who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who are excited to talk about the gospel?

Are you excited? Are you glad? That's exactly how Barnabas felt. Only he didn't know what he was getting into, right? He goes from Jerusalem, the church in Jerusalem, he goes to Antioch. He's heard the reports, but he doesn't really know.

And when he sees this, he is glad. Now you remember, or maybe you remember, Barnabas's name means son of encouragement. So what does the son of encouragement do? He's encouraged. He's glad by what he sees.

And so then what does he do? He encourages others, exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord. Those who profess faith in Christ, those new believers, are sometimes pretty easy to discourage,.

Right?

Or to convince to leave the faith. He wanted them to dig in deep, to stand for Christ. He didn't want them to turn out to be the rocky soil. So he's exhorting them to be strong in the Lord. Just as a reminder, what the rocky soil is like, Matthew 13, 20 and 21.

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately sees it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

So Barnabas is saying to these people, he's encouraging them. He's saying, persecution, temptation, trials are coming your way. You believe. So what do we say around here? Keep believing. What do you do with new believers?

How do you encourage them? You know, when I first started teaching at Grace Community Church, one of the classes that they, they trusted new guys with is fundamentals of the faith. You have to go through a program and everything, but you know what they encourage teachers of fundamentals of the faith to do every week?

They say you should include what the gospel. Think about this, especially when you're a new believer. But even when you're an old believer, can you hear the gospel too often? And the answer of course is no.

So I'm sure Barnabas is like, remember these things. Remember Jesus Christ, eternally the second person of the Trinity who took on an additional nature that of a man, then lived a perfect life, was wrongly sentenced to death, but voluntarily submitted himself to death.

Jesus himself said what? That no one could take his life from him. But he also said that he would lay it down for the sheep because death is the price of our sins, eternal death, meaning hell. And either we have to pay for our sins or Jesus paid for them on the cross.

Then he rose on the third day, just as he said he would, proving that he had satisfied the wrath of God as a satisfaction for us, for our sins, securing eternal life for us. If you want to encourage believers, especially new believers, remind them early and often of the Lord Jesus Christ, his finished work.

These people in Antioch had been saved and Barnabas is now in effect discipling them, strengthening their understanding of Christ. And there are amazing results. Look at verse 24, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.

Now I thought about this as I was reading this, I thought, OK, I don't know why, but I think about my funeral often, probably too often. But I thought, what if somebody said of Steve, he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

Well, if I was there, you know, I won't be there. But if I was there at my funeral, I'd be like, I object. Can you object at a funeral? You can object at a wedding, I don't know, funeral, but I'd be kind of embarrassed.

But this isn't just Luke's opinion. And by the way, he said exactly the same thing of Stephen and only of Stephen. But this isn't just Luke's opinion. This is the opinion of the Holy Spirit. Luke wrote Acts, but so did the Holy Spirit.

God's opinion of Barnabas, it's pretty awesome. But as a result of Barnabas's ministry, another considerable number, right? A bunch of M &Ms were added to the church. And this kind of conversion has never happened in the Gentile world.

We've seen a little one-offs, but never this mass conversion. Can you imagine being Barnabas? I mean, he's amazed, I'm sure, but he's probably thinking, what do I do now? I'm kind of at the end of my thread, I'm working, I'm doing all that I can.

All these people are being added to the church. Help me, I don't know what to do. So first action, Christ used unlikely ends to build his church. Second action, he sent an encourager to strengthen his church.

And then the third action, Christ gave gifts to grow his church. Gifts to grow his church. And what we're going to see immediately is Barnabas comes up with a plan. I'm going to go get Saul. Look at verse 25, so Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.

Waters calls this, commentator Waters calls this, a mark of Barnabas' wisdom and humility is his realization that he is unable, individually, to keep pace with the growing church. As he thought and prayed, the answer, I think, became obvious, Saul.

That brother is fearless, tireless, and he's also been trained by the risen Lord himself. Notice also the skill that Barnabas and Saul together have. Verse 26, first part of it, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. Now that language of looking for Saul and finding Saul indicates it probably took a.

Long time.

I mean, imagine a time, if you can, before Google Maps, you know, I mean, it's hard to imagine. Now, I remember when we moved out here, I told everybody, I said, we're going to get for the first time ever, we got cell phones.

And there was one reason why we got cell phones, not because they had maps in them, because they didn't back then, but it was so we could program Fred Thiebaud's phone number in there. So if you get lost, you call Fred, because don't call me, I don't know where you are.

Fred knows the lay of the land. But when Saul went to Tarsus, he didn't waste time. He was likely engaged in evangelism in and around his hometown. That's where he was from. So he was not easy to find.

It took some effort for Barnabas to find Saul. But imagine what Barnabas runs into Saul finally. Talk about an easy sell. Right? This is Barnabas who vouched for Saul before the apostles. When the church in Jerusalem was uneasy about Saul, the ravager of the church being admitted into its ranks.

It was Barnabas who vouched for him. And Barnabas says to Saul, hey Saul, I've got so many people in Antioch, so many new believers that I can't handle them all. Can you come and help me? Easy, done, right?

He went right away. And for a year, they trained these new believers. Also look at verse 26, the second part of it. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Now when you read that, you might think maybe they got together, you know, one Sunday and said we ought to have a name for ourselves.

How about Christians? But that's not right. Because then it would say in Antioch, the disciples first called themselves Christians. It doesn't say that. This is passive language. It was unbelievers that were calling them Christians.

They finally reached a point where they were no longer necessarily associated with the Jews, probably because they met on a different day of the week. But there was also a growing number of Gentiles in the church, so they were no longer ethnically Jewish.

And they constantly spoke of Christ to the extent that it stood out. Therefore, they were called Christians. What constitutes being a Christian today? Baptism, church attendance. In some countries, it's just a matter of birth.

When you're born, your parents fill out whatever religion you are, and that's your religion. Wouldn't you love to be known as these people were, as somebody who's a Christian, because they talk about Jesus all the time?

Heidelberg Catechism number 32 says this, but why are you called a Christian? The answer is, because by faith I am a member of Christ. And so I share in his anointing. I am anointed to confess his name, to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a free conscience against sin and the devil in this life.

And afterward, in other words, after this life, to reign with Christ over all creation for eternity. That's a good answer for why are you called a Christian? I like that. So first three actions Christ used, unlikely ends to build his church.

Christ sent an encourager to strengthen his church, namely Barnabas. Then he gave gifts, and we're about to see the second gift here in a moment. I probably could have combined these points, but I didn't.

Gave gifts to grow his church. And finally, number four, Christ tested his church to prove his work. If you want to know how good something is, how good the product is, you test it. So first we have Agabus predicts famine or predicted famine.

Look at verse 27. Now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all.

The world.

This took place in the days of Claudius. Now I'm not going to spend much time on the obvious question. Do we have prophets today, which is what everybody wants to know? And I'll just put it bluntly. No, only the cults have prophets.

There are professing Christians who claim or have claimed to be prophets. However, they also want to be able to be wrong sometimes. What would happen? I mean, that's okay if you're a baseball player, but in the Old Testament, if you're a prophet, you got something wrong.

You got stoned.

Why?

Because a prophet was not supposed to just wildly make predictions. He was supposed to say exactly what God had told him. And so to say something and then it doesn't come to pass, what does that say? God either was wrong or God lied.

Take him out and stone him because God doesn't lie and God's not wrong. So here's Jerusalem's second offering of help. And if we read through, and I won't, but Ephesians 4, and you remember this, Christ gives what to the church?

He gives apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. So they're second in rank there. There were prophets back in those days. Second in terms of gifts from the Lord. And Agabus isn't issuing a prophecy of the traditional sense.

In the Old Testament, they would usually either prophesy of judgment, which they did a lot, or of the coming Messiah. But the Messiah has already come and we're not talking about Israel anymore. So we don't expect prophecies of judgment per se, but he is speaking by the Holy Spirit.

But note, it doesn't say he prophesied. What does it say? He foretold or he predicted. What is the exact word here? Yeah, foretold. Some translations say predicted. So it's, he's speaking by the Holy Spirit, but this isn't a prophecy in the traditional sense.

But this is about a prophecy, a coming prophecy, and one that is not going to impact Antioch per se. But what does he, why does he even tell them that? It's so they would be prepared. And keep in mind that Luke is writing this after the famine has already occurred.

It impacted the Jerusalem church. So when the Antioch church gets this warning from Agabus, what do they do? They think, okay, there's a famine coming. We should prepare for it. How do we prepare? Well, one way would be to save food.

That's fine. But they save money. So when this famine takes place, they're ready. And what happens? Well, Antioch helps Jerusalem. God loves a cheerful giver and they were cheerful. Look at verse 29. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

This is monumental, right? This church that nobody planted. This Gentile church sends money to the Jewish church. What greater statements of unity could be made? This is the embodiment of there is neither Jew nor Greek or grew.

Jew or Greek.

Note that it's not the church at Antioch per se that sends money to the church at Jerusalem. Look again at the text, everyone according to his ability. In other words, it was up to every individual believer to give sacrificially, joyfully, which is the New Testament standard.

And they did so out of love for their Christian brothers and sisters who happened to be Jewish. The wall of enmity is down.

It's broken.

We're all one in Christ. And then look at who they send the money with, who their ambassadors were. People that, men that they didn't know that long ago. Verse 30, and they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

They trust Barnabas and Saul completely. They trust them when it comes to teaching the scriptures. So of course they're going to teach them with this money and everything comes full circle. Jerusalem had been concerned for the newborn church in Antioch and had sent men to help.

Now the church in Antioch is able to express its love and concern for the church in Jerusalem. And they do so by sending Barnabas and Saul. Also final note here, notice that they don't, Barnabas and Saul don't take it to the apostles.

Instead they take it to the elders.

Why?

Because we've transitioned now to a place where elders in every city are running the individual churches. Now in conclusion, how does Christ build his church? No surveys, no appeals to the unchurched.

The Lord Jesus Christ builds his church by deploying people and arming them with his word, his gospel, and empowering them with the Holy Spirit. The experts today, if you ask somebody, well, how do you start a church?

They would never accept such an unsophisticated, unscientific, unbusinesslike model as this. But Christ built the church in Antioch. While there's no human analogy, it would be like building a computer out of the spare parts, spare lawnmower parts, and spare engine parts that you have in your garage.

It would be impossible, but it's thoroughly possible for Christ. And when Jerusalem was sacked in 70 AD, when the Romans came in and put down rebellion there and sacked the city, Antioch became the center of the Christian world.

And even before that, it became the home of missions. If you take out your little book of maps and you look at Paul's journeys, where does that first one start from? From Antioch. From nothing to the sending church of Paul and Barnabas.

Praise the Lord. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this great example of the power of the Word of God, of the power of the gospel working through men and women faithful to their calling, who are just so thankful to be forgiven of sin that they can't constrain themselves, that they tell people about it profligately, that they just delight in sharing the good news that Jesus Christ saves sinners.

Father, help us to have that same spirit, that same joy, that same vibrancy. We pray for these things in Jesus' name.