2023 LBC Bible Conference (Session 3) Remain Faithful and Steadfast

Welcome, once again, as we continue our Bible conference with Mark Hamilton. It's good to have you guys here, still. We're going to open with a word of prayer before we sing. Lord Father, I thank you for how the conference has gone thus far.

I thank you for the first session, Lord, and for leading Mark in his speaking, and I pray that you would be with us and continue to be with him in his speaking and be with us in our hearing and receiving these instructions and your word, Lord.

Lord, give us boldness of spirit. Give us conviction and heart, Lord, that we would in our workplace and our families, wherever you have us, Lord, that we would be bold to preach Christ as Lord. Lord, might you put on our hearts that whenever we have the, even if a slight inclination, that we have the opportunity to preach him, Lord, let us take that up, and so not sin and omission.

I pray that we would be faithful to you and we would have a care and a desire, one, Lord, that you would be glorified and honored, but two, that we would have a burden for the lost and even a burden to make disciples, as you have called us to.

So I pray for all this, Lord. May we, as soldiers of Christ, arise, and in Christ's name we pray, amen. We'll turn in your hymnals to hymn number 378 as we sing, Soldiers of Christ, Arise. Please stand.

The Resurrection Hope of 1 Corinthians 15

Christ, arise. Philippians 15, verse 50. I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

You all may be seated.

So we've heard speak the word, we've heard preach Jesus as Lord, and now our brother is going to take us to the next step. Listen, be attentive, pray that God will use it. You know, it's so easy, it's so easy to sit and just take in information.

It's a little more difficult to think through and say, okay, what do I need to do with this? And how does this, how do I do this where I am in my world and the things that I face? So I'm anticipating again, the Lord blessing us as Mark brings us his word.

So Mark, preach the word.

Barnabas Sent to Antioch to Confirm the Grace of God

All right, we're back at Acts 11 and a couple more verses, we're almost at the homestretch. Remain faithful, speak his words, preach he's Lord and be a Christian is what we want to hang over your heads and impress in your hearts because that's the encouragement we need.

That's the encouragement we need in this day, in this time, in this hour. So I want to read to you again, 11, Acts 11, and I want to read 19 through 26 to set it in your minds once again, and we'll focus in on them, verses 22, 23, and 24.

Hear the word of the Lord.

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 coming into Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also preaching the Lord Jesus.

And the hand of the Lord was with them. 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 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. Thus far is the reading of God's holy word.

Let's pray.

God in heaven, we come to you because this is your word. And as we open this word, we pray that you would open our hearts, pour into us all that you have for us, give us the understanding and wisdom to carry out these words and these commands.

We pray, oh God, that we would leave here with great joy and gladness because of your grace that has been given to us. We pray, Lord, that as we think about remaining faithful, that we're not alone. The grace of God is your kindness, your wonderful favor to us to continue in this grace.

And so as we think about these words, we pray that you would magnify, amplify these words into our spaces and not only of our hearts, but our homes, this county, this state. We pray that the church permeates this culture with your truth and that we would never tire of being faithful in that which you've called us to do.

I pray that we would be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. This coming to the conference is not in vain. But Lord, unite us to this truth and ignite us to carry it out in Jesus' name.

Amen. 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.

Now we see very clear the Lord blessed this church. He is blessing this new planted church in Antioch. It is different from Jerusalem because it's in a different location, different people. It is not filled with Jews, the normal audience, but it is filled with people unlike them in the sense of their understanding of God, their lifestyle.

And so God blessed the efforts of this newly planted church. And now the call was to remain faithful, steadfast, one purpose. Don't change the message. Don't change the purpose. Don't change what has been successful in the home church in Jerusalem.

And there we want to look at three things as we look at these three verses. Three things. God blesses the church where there is the gathered body, the grace of God, and godly men. The gathered body, the grace of God, and godly men, godly leaders.

What more can you say to a church that has blossomed, that has been blessed by God, because of the grace of God and their faithfulness to God? What more can you say but to remain faithful? Remain faithful, keep on keeping on.

And we need to hear that from time to time because when things don't change or things look much of the same, that is a part of the ordinary grace of God, to continue doing the same things faithfully, albeit we need to hear.

Keep on keeping on. Remain faithful, steadfast, one purpose. And so when we look at these three things, the gathered body, the grace of God, and godly leaders, we want to look at how the gathered body is blessed and God has blessed.

We see that in the last session where God's hand is on this newly planted church, not because of the innovation, not because of the new tricks and the flashy lights or the things that they will implement in the church.

It was the ordinary means of grace, the faithful coming of the saints, the faithful gathering of the saints, the faithful communing of the saints. And I want you never to be discouraged or never to tire of that ordinary means of grace that God provides.

He does wonderful things through the gathered body of Christ and we see that in verse 22. This report, this report of this came to the ears of the church. Now this is the church in Jerusalem and they were hearing of what was going on in Antioch and not only did they hear what was going on, they wanted to see and confirm what was going on in Antioch.

They wanted to confirm that the blessing was happening, that God's hand was truly in the church and that they were staying faithful, remaining faithful to what happened in Jerusalem and now that it would be transplanted or carried out and carried over in Antioch.

The gathered body, the gathered body was a blended, was a blended togetherness. It was a one body of Jews and Gentiles and again I believe I mentioned that it was not manufactured, it was not forced because when the grace of God is on his body, when the gathered body in his name comes together, they come under that umbrella of consistency with Christ at the center and so Jews and Gentiles, people that don't dress like you, look like you, people that don't even talk like you, they were gathered together as a gathered body.

It was here that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians and we'll talk about that on the Lord's day but we must make note that they were called Christians because they were being Christians.

You know, this was the normal rhythm of life that was carried on from the headquarter church or the home church. From Antioch, the church launched the first mission and so they spread abroad into the European exploits of Macedonia.

They would, they would reach Europe and it is conceivably that we wouldn't even be a part of the church if the church doesn't move on and go into these places where God had pushed them because of the persecution of Stephen.

In fact, the murder of Stephen that scattered the saints far and wide and in scattering the saints far and wide, they scatter the mission and the message far and wide with the ability and the probability of reaching more people, reaching the saints of God, reaching his sheep, reaching those that belong to him.

I want you to never belittle the body, the body of Christ, the gathered body. Sometimes we get frustrated or if we can use that word bored, especially from the outside looking in when the culture comes into the church or they visit the gathered body and they don't see things that excite them.

When you don't see things that move their flesh and move their minds to be attracted to something other than the truth of the word, the centerpiece of the gathered body. We center around the word of God.

We center around the preaching of Christ, the speaking of his word, and that's something that is precious and that we need to cherish because this gathered body is replicated. This means of grace is replicated from Jerusalem all the way to Antioch, 300 miles away, almost the same distance as Buffalo to LaRue.

And if you think about it, so excited, so joyful, and so glad with the people of God that they traveled and they thought it worth it. They thought it was worthy to continue and replicate what God was doing in Jerusalem to take it all over the world.

The gathered body, they heard in Jerusalem and sent a representation and sent Barnabas to go check it out and confirm what was going on. And this is an awesome thing that the hand of God would be so mightily on the people of God that it would be seen and heard far and wide.

We want the truth of Christ to be seen and heard far and wide. We don't want to, again, make a name for ourselves. We don't want to have the attention drawn to us, but we certainly want to make much of our Christ, of our Lord, and what he is doing.

The evidence of that will be plainly seen to all. And so the gathered body is precious and the gathered body is necessary. The gathered body is not optional. The gathered body is absolutely vital, vital to the life of the church.

God blesses the church where there is the gathered, the gathered body in his name. Next, we see the grace of God, the grace of God. When he came and saw the grace of God, what is the grace of God? Can we take that for granted?

Do everyone know the grace of God? I'm depending on the grace of God right now. I hope you're depending on the grace of God when you hear his word. As Pastor Tim mentioned, we always, sometimes, always struggle, I would say, with applying that word in specific ways.

What do I do from here? What do, what do I, how do I implement this in my life? We don't have to struggle with that question in the sense where we are discouraged. But we struggle with that question because we belong to God and we want to please him and we want to submit our way to him.

We want to live as unto him. But the grace of God is a wonderful thing because it's his favor. It's his unmerited, unearned kindness. In other words, you and I can't do anything and work hard enough for this thing.

And that should give us great rest, great confidence. If you're working your finger to the bone, and you should, right? Paul says, it was the grace of God, but I worked harder than all of them. And so the grace of God certainly creates a response in his people.

But we don't work for the grace of God. And I've used the word manufacturer and makeup or force of more than a few times. But I want you to hear that because the grace of God was evident in this gathered body.

The grace of God is his favor. It's his blessing. It's a gift. It's this hand. It's his hand on us. As this grace of God is observable. That's one of the things that we see. What was going on in the church at Antioch is that his grace had permeated, and it was evident and observable.

It was not hidden in a corner. It was not where you have to look real close to see if God is working. God was indeed working because his hand was there. People believed and they were turning from their own way to Christ.

And so the grace of God is observable. It was observable to those that were without.

You can see it.

You can see where God is, what God is doing. You can see the work that he is accomplishing. And you can see that God can only accomplish what was being done. This mix of people could not have, mind you, no named people, no big names.

They were speaking his word. They were preaching he is Lord. And they were affecting a culture. They were infiltrating a culture, a big city with big city vibes, with all the vices, with all the shocking lifestyle, with all the immorality and the idolatry and all the things that goes along with most major cities and little cities.

But the grace of God was visible and evident. And God's hand, the hand of the Lord was with them. The grace of God is most visible to the world as it is seen in the church of Jesus Christ. We experience his grace every day.

We experience his grace week by week. And it should be visible to the people of God that we understand grace, that we depend on grace. And so this grace that was observable in the Antioch church, this church that was not an organization but a living organism, a body, a gathered body of believers where they depended and leaned and loved this grace.

They operated out of this grace. The body of people who are collectively known as followers of Jesus.

They were being Christians.

They were walking in a normal way. And when I say normal, I mean they were walking in this ordinary way, doing the same things that God had blessed, walking in grace, walking in the blessings of the Lord.

These followers who have been recipients of God's saving grace, they make God's grace.

Visible.

In other words, when you receive that grace, when you're a recipient of that grace, other people witness that grace. The world witnesses that grace. The world witnesses when you and I have been saved by amazing grace, saved by the grace that they indeed search for.

By grace, you and I were saved, are being saved and will be saved. And so to go back to the working definition, what is grace? Grace is the favor of God, the blessing of God, the unearned kindness of God.

And when we walk in that grace, when we understand that grace, when we cherish that grace, when we rest in that grace, that grace is evident to those that are lost, to those that need Christ. And it becomes a part of our speech, becomes a part of our proclamation.

If you're only fueled by, if you're not fueled by grace, you're living on fumes. If you're not fueled by the grace of God, you're living on fumes. You are running yourself to quit, trying to accomplish, trying to do, trying to be.

And one of the things that is so clear here in these few verses is that the grace of God was evident in this church. This gathered body believed the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe in his work and who he was, and they rested in that grace.

And God blessed that resting and that depending, that faith in him because he multiplied. And not so much again, we look at the church multiplication, but when people come to the Lord, that adds to the church, that adds to the church.

But the important thing here is that they were, they were saved unto the Lord. They were added to the Lord. That's a very, that's very different language as opposed to added to the church. But they were added to the Lord.

They believed and they turned and they were added to the Lord. And we that are recipients of this grace, we have to be reminded that we are not living by the dictates of our own will and not working to ourselves.

We're not trying to accomplish something to be saved or to gain grace. We're working and we're doing because we are saved, because we have this grace. And that makes all the difference in the world. When you live out your Christian life, when you are living in such a way that you are reflecting or you're living in response to what God has done, God loved us.

He first loved us and therefore we love him. We cannot twist those things around. We cannot flip those things around. We must rest in that divine order. God's grace also teaches us to deny worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, Titus 2 .12.

The grace of God doesn't just teach us that we have something, but the grace of God teaches us that we must do something. So anyone that understands grace, anyone that has this grace is not just living because God has done something and I'm done.

This church modeled the blessing of God and they not only shared their faith and preached Christ as Lord, but they rested in the completed work of Christ and they worked hard. They worked. They worked to represent the grace of God.

They worked to represent the blessing of God. Jerusalem was the home of the gospel advancement, the very place Christ commanded the apostles to be a witness to first. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

Because the work was done and the work was accomplished, so to speak, in Jerusalem, they were pushed out because of the persecution and now Barnabas was tasked to investigate what they were hearing, to confirm the word that was being preached and the grace of God that was reported to be present.

Barnabas himself was, again, from Cyprus, the little island off the coast, and Barnabas was named, his name was Joseph, but the apostle called him Barnabas. And it's interesting that they called him Barnabas because it reflected who he was.

Just like we read, they were called Christians because it reflected who they were. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. He was glad because he was an encourager. He was a lifter. He was an equipper.

Barnabas, which means the son of encouragement, it was Barnabas that sold the field.

Right?

And we are often distracted with Ananias and Sapphira who wrongly took their property and lied to the Holy Spirit. But before them, the precursor was Barnabas. He sold the field and gave the money to the church.

He laid it at the apostles' feet. The church in Jerusalem sent a man of God who was equipped with the gift of encouragement to encourage the new church that was being formed in Antioch. And so the report is this, it came to the ears of the church, and the church immediately sent a good man, a holy man, a man full of the Spirit to confirm what was going on.

This word encouragement or encourage has the meaning of exhorted. I pray that that's what I'm doing. I pray that that's what's regularly going on, that we're being exhorted. Not just preached to, yes, but exhortation is involved in the preaching where we're helping you apply it to life.

Live that preaching out. Live that information, as Pastor Tim said, out. Exhortation and encouragement go hand in hand. And so Barnabas is pleading with them to remain faithful. This is one of the things that I want you to go away with, to remain faithful, LaRue.

Remain faithful. Speak His word. Preach He's Lord. Be a Christian. We're finding out and we're seeing in clear language that, what a Christian is. Over the last couple of days, at least, we've seen to remain faithful is to speak the word of God, is to speak His word, to preach that He is Lord, to be faithful to that message.

And so Barnabas pleads and encourages and celebrates, and he's glad the Scripture says and tells them to remain faithful. Much like Paul, when he was in the synagogues and they were clamoring to hear more, they said to come back the next week, and he said to continue in the faith.

And so this exhortation is a gift of grace that God gives to some in the body of Christ. Yes, that's right. He gives that gift of exhortation or encouragement to some. It is one thing to teach God's word, but exhortation urges people to walk it out, live it out, for it to extend beyond the walls of greeting each other and fellowshiping with one another in the church.

Exhortation is indeed a part of preaching. So we have the gathered body. We have the grace of God, and now we have godly leaders. Godly leaders. You can't imagine a church without godly leaders. You can imagine a bad church.

You can imagine an unhealthy church. You can imagine a church that might be growing and overflowing, but that doesn't mean it has godly leaders. Godly leaders, godly men. Verse 24, for he was a good man.

We're talking about Barnabas, full of the Holy Spirit, and that's why he was a good man, because he was full of the Holy Spirit. You are a good man or a good woman because you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's not a title reserved for a few. That's a title reserved for those that are full of the Holy Spirit, that have the grace of God, that are saved by God. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.

But I want to just look at that for a moment. For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit. The true church, the church that God blesses throughout history, has never been without godly men. Luke states that Barnabas was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit, and so godly men, one of the things that is evident and clear, I believe, is that they recognize and admit that they need help.

Godly men recognize and admit that they need help, and they surround themselves with other men who admit the same. Hold them accountable. Lift them up. Encourage and exhort them. Barnabas knew that he needed help, and he had a gift from God to encourage and exhort the people, but the people needed discipleship.

And that's where we're moving on through this passage. We're moving on to the passage where we end in verse 26, where they had spent time, but to get to that point, to get to the discipleship, to get to the teaching, to the explaining, to building one another up, to stirring one another up, this good man, this encouraging man, this man full of the Spirit, Barnabas, knew just the person.

He sought out the person that could help them better teach the Gentiles. There was no other, no one other than Saul. When Saul first came to Jerusalem after Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, and the disciples were afraid of him, not believing he was a disciple, it was Barnabas who took Saul in and brought him to the apostles.

He brought him into the fold and introduced them and vouched for him and declared to them that he was indeed a disciple. He was indeed one who belonged to God. He had received the grace of God. Being an encourager, he recognized and helped equip the church further.

He pushed the church further along. This was a godly man. And again, this was not that Barnabas was particularly special. Indeed, he was special because God had reserved him and set him aside for this task.

But I want us to all understand that the church, whether new or old, needs godly men. Godly men full of the Spirit. Godly men that will remain faithful and steadfast. The church must have the gathered body accompanied by the grace of God.

And finally, godly men living out and depending on the power and the purpose of the Holy Spirit. And that's my challenge to you. I want you to just observe the church. I want you to observe the grace of God day by day in the life that you spend with each other.

The time that you spend. Observe the grace of God. Appreciate the grace of God. Look for the grace of God. Look for the effects of the grace of God in your life and in the lives of others. That's what we do as the gathered body.

And then we cultivate and we encourage godly men. And that's how we will understand and realize how God blesses the church with the gathered body, the grace of God, and godly men. That's my challenge to you.

That you, as you depart from here today, you think about these things. Because this is nothing fanfare about it. This is just the constant, encouraging, constant, exhorting, constant, lifting one another up in the grace of God.

Some people need to hear and be reminded of the grace of God. They're struggling. They're struggling in their life to be acceptable to God. Or to God. Or they're struggling to realize and rest in that unbelievable kindness that God only gives.

And I'm here to tell you to those of you that are stronger. Those of you that are bearing the infirmities of the weak. Trust in that grace. Exhort your brother and sister in that grace. You're the gathered body.

You're the one that is your brother's keeper in such a special way that you would lift them up. You would strengthen them. And in an effect, or as a result, the godly men, the godly men that will be, or take the forefront, or take the mantle of encouraging other godly men.

Earlier I said that godly men recognize or admit when they need help. We also need to be reminded of that again and again. Because we're not our own. We have been bought with a price. We belong to God and we are not our own.

We are not the macho men that the world wants to label us as. We're God's men. We're made men. Made in his image. Built and formed in his likeness. With all the humility, with all the grace that God can give.

And I pray that you, as the godly men under this, or in this congregation, will walk out these truths. Will walk out these truths along with the remainder of the rest of the congregation. Realize that you are the gathered church and realize that you are operating in the grace of God.

Because his hand is on his church. I don't have to wonder or I don't have to guess that his hand is on this church. But his hand is on this church because he promised that that would be so. For those that are faithful, that remain faithful and steadfast, that speak his word, that preach his Lord uncompromisingly.

And to those that are, those Christians that are gathered in his name. Let's pray together. Lord, I'm glad to see your grace operating in this place, in this church, with this people. I'm glad to come together in fellowship and commune with the body of Christ, 300 miles away from home.

But we come together in the joined hands and joined hearts to encourage one another. I have no new words, but I have your word. I have your word that is able to save and to strengthen and to encourage and lift.

And I came all this way to remind the people of God to remain faithful, to continue to speak his word. No matter what the culture says, no matter what the majority rules, no matter what policies are in place.

To speak your word, to preach no Lord but Christ, no king but Christ. I pray, oh God, that these people would be reminded, your people, your sheep, your beloved, would understand that we're Christians and to be Christian is to be like Christ.

Not only to proclaim his name, but to walk even as he walked. To live and think and believe and trust and be eager to do the father's will. So help us, Lord, we pray. We pray, oh God, that you would remind us of these things in the night season.

Don't let at any time them slip away. Let your word hold fast as we hold true to your truth. Truth and be blessed and be a blessing. For in Jesus name we pray, amen.

I hope you've been encouraged this morning that God works through ordinary means, right? That culture isn't changed by flash and dash, but by ordinary Christians gathered and reaching out to the world.

Tomorrow, our brother is going to finish. As he talks to us about Christians being Christians. So let's stand and we'll be dismissed with a word of prayer and we'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow on the Lord's day, all right?

Let's pray. Oh God, you have spoken to us through your servant. We have been told and reminded from your word, not his words, but your word, that the people of God gathered have the grace of God in the hand of God upon them, that you work through ordinary means and that we need to be steadfast and faithful.

And so father, that is our prayer. That we would from a base of just being faithful, speak the word and preach that Jesus is Lord for your glory and for the good of all the people around us. Help us father to consider these things and we'll thank you in Jesus name, amen.

We'll see you tomorrow.