Let’s Go to Antioch
Text: Acts 11:19-30
Introduction
1. Illustration: I heard a story about a guy who applied for a job as an usher at a theater in the mall. As a part of the interview process, the manager asked him, "What would you do in case a fire breaks out?" The young guy answered, "Don’t worry about me. I can get out fine." That’s exactly how many in today’s world respond to a lost and dying world around them. If you asked them "What would you do if Jesus came back tomorrow?" they would probably respond, "Oh, don’t worry about me. I’d be fine." But what is all too easy to forget is that you’re an usher! It isn’t enough just to get out yourself. You are responsible for helping others know the way.
2. Now I know what some of you are thinking right, “preacher, you sure do preach on evangelism a lot!” Well, there’s several reasons for that. First, I’ve been preaching though the Book of Acts, and the early church did a lot of evangelism. In fact, Acts tells us that they told people about Jesus everywhere they went. Remember, the title of this series is “Acts: The Blueprint for the New Testament Church.” If we want what they had, then we must do what they did.
3. Second, I talk about evangelism a lot because it is vital to our survival as a church. Let’s be honest, the core of our church is in their 70’s and 80’s, and they won’t be with us here on earth forever. Eventually we’re going to need to replace them, and the best way to do that is to tell people about what Jesus has done for them. Now, we’ve been doing a better job of that, but we still have work to do.
4. Let’s look at what the early church did. Read Acts 11:19-30.
Transition: If we are going to be a New Testament Church we need to say
I. Let’s Go (19-21).
A. Preaching About the Love of Jesus
1. The eventful explosion of the gospel with Peter at the house of Cornelius that we’ve talked about the last couple of weeks was a major turning point in the Book of Acts, but the Holy Spirit was also working in other places. In v. 19 Luke tells us, “Meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. They preached the word of God, but only to Jews.”
a. Luke here is referring to the events of Stephen’s martyrdom back in chapter 7 and the results of that event in chapter 8:4, “But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went.”
b. In doing so, Luke is signaling a new section in his account of the early church. The church is about to embark on a new adventure of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.
c. However, there was some work that had to be done for this to happen. You will notice at the end of this verse that they were still stuck in the rut of only preaching to the Jews, and in doing so, they were excluding the rest of the world.
d. This was not God’s plan. He always intended to take the message of his love and forgiveness to all the world.
2. But the Holy Spirit was guiding some to take a risk of faith. In vv. 20-21 Luke tells us, “However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene began preaching to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. 21 The power of the Lord was with them, and a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord.”
a. Some believers who went to Antioch and had the courage to take the message about Jesus to the Gentiles.
b. One of the things that we should notice here is where they went. Antioch was a town of about 300,000 people, and it was the third largest city in the Roman empire, only surpassed by Rome and Alexandria.
c. What this teaches us is that they went where the people were. They took the message to the place it could have the biggest impact.
d. For years the church has done things to try and reach new people like having an event like a revival, concert, or VBS.
e. Now, for a time this worked, but that time has come and gone.
f. We’ve tried what I call “Field of Dreams” evangelism. In other words, if you build it, they will come! So, we thought well we’ll just spend money we don’t have to build bigger and better buildings, and people will just flock to us.
g. Well, all that really accomplished is to make more and more in debt. Church if we are going to reach people with the message of the gospel, we’re going to have to go to them!
3. Another thing we should pay attention to is they didn’t do it in their own power.
a. In v. 21 it says, “the power of the Lord was with them.” Again, this goes back to what Jesus had told them in the beginning, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8).
b. The power of the Lord was with them, and look what happens, “large numbers of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord.”
c. They relied on the Lord’s power and the result was huge!
d. They did what they were supposed to do; they went to where the people were and relied on the power of the Holy Spirit and great things happened.
B. Go Into All the World
1. Illustration: A 4-year study funded by the Lily Endowment designed to identify and analyze highly effective examples of evangelism by congregations in 7 mainline denominations reached two primary findings: (1) Of the 30,000 churches that qualified for the Mainline Evangelism Project, only 1/2 of 1% (.0005%) are baptizing a significant number of adults (conversion baptisms). This translates to 150 churches of a qualifying survey pool of more than 30,000. The average age of churches qualifying in the study as evangelistic was 89 years.
2. We have been commissioned by Jesus to go into all the world and preach his gospel.
a. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:19-20).
b. For right now I want to focus on the first part of these two verses. “Therefore, go…”
c. This is not the command of these two verses: it’s actually a very strong assumption.
d. If translated literally, it would read, “as you are going…,” or “having gone…”
e. It’s an assumption on Jesus part that we would go because we can’t fulfill the rest of the verse if we don’t go. You can’t make disciples, baptize, or teach if we don’t go.
f. So, let’s think of it this way, “as you are going to the grocery store…”
g. “As you are going to work…”
h. “As you are going to the doctor’s office…”
i. “As you are going to the restaurant…”
j. Tell people about Jesus!
Transition: If we going to be a NT church, as we are going we need to say…
II. Let’s Teach (22-26).
A. Teaching Large Crowds
1. Well, in the church world, we like to know what’s going on. So, “When the church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch...Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith. And many people were brought to the Lord.” (Acts 11:22;24)
a. When the church heard what was going on in Antioch, they decided to send Barnabas to check things out.
b. Barnabas was a good choice for many reasons. First, he was a good man. The word good here actually means righteous, so, when it says he was a good man it is referring to his being godly. He was the kind of man who not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk.
c. Second, he was full of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Luke makes distinctions that are subtle and can be easily missed.
d. When he says he was “full of the Spirit,” he means he was continually filled with the Spirit to the point of overflowing, as compared to others that Luke says were “filled with the Spirit” (Keener, vol. 2, 1845).
e. So, Barnabas had a special and unique anointing of the Holy Spirit.
f. It’s like the difference between dinner after church full and after Thanksgiving dinner full!
g. Third, Luke tells us he was strong in faith. This was going to be an important aspect to Barnabas’ character, as it would take great faith to see the vision that God had for the church moving forward and the strength to stand behind that vision.
2. Luke also tells us, “When he arrived and saw this evidence of God’s blessing, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord.”
a. There was a fourth element to Barnabas’ character that was going to be very important; he was an encourager.
b. In fact, he had acquired the nickname “Son of Encouragement.”
c. He got to Antioch and saw the wonderful things that the Holy Spirit was doing there, and saw evidence that God was blessing this “Jesus Revolution.”
d. So, he did what came naturally to him, he encouraged them to stay true to the Lord.
e. This was important because Antioch was a very wicked city filled with immorality and sexual perversion.
f. These new believers were going to need encouragement to stay true to the Lord amid this sinful society.
3. In addition to all these other qualities, Barnabas was also very wise. He knew these knew believers were going to need good teaching. So, in vv. 25-26 Luke tells us, “Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. 26 When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.)”
a. Knowing that these believers were going to need good teaching, and realizing that wasn’t his gift, Barnabas goes to get help.
b. Fortunately, he knew someone who was extremely gifted at preaching and teaching, his old friend Saul.
c. Now, when last we heard from Saul he was in Jerusalem, and he was making the Jewish religious leaders angry. So much so they wanted to kill him!
d. So, the apostles sent him to his hometown of Tarsus. That was where Barnabas went to look for him. However, this was not going to be easy, since it was about 100-mile trip on foot, and then he had to find Saul in Tarsus. But he was successful and brought Paul back to Antioch.
e. These the two missionaries made a good team, staying in Antioch for over a year teaching large groups of people.
f. Now, Luke gives a curious side note; he says the believers were first called Christians there. Now, that seems like a nice thing, I mean we are called Christians, and we proud of being called by that name.
g. However, this was not a name that the believers gave themselves, but rather the population of Antioch gave them that name.
h. The term is used only two other places in the NT (Acts 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16), and believers didn’t start using it for themselves until around the second century.
i. So, it probably was meant as more of an insult; kind of like “damn Yankee,” or “bless your pea-picking heart!”
j. Yet, things change, and I am proud to be identified with Christ my Savior!
B. Teaching Them to Obey
1. Illustration: William Barclay writes: It’s possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to be a camp-follower without being a soldier of the king; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling one’s weight. Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man. He said, "So and so tells me that he was one of your students." The teacher answered devastatingly, "He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students." There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student. It is one of the supreme handicaps of the Church that in the Church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.
2. The Great Commission is more than going, it’s teaching new believers how to be disciples of Jesus.
a. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:19-20).
b. The imperative or command of the Great Commission is to make disciples. A disciple is someone who have learned under a teacher how to be a follower of the Jesus.
c. Church, disciples don’t just happen; they must be taught how to be a disciple.
d. Someone must teach them!
e. Well, who’s going to teach them, preacher? YOU ARE!
f. It’s called being a mentor. We need more Christian mentors. Someone who has been taught and is able to pass that wisdom on to others.
g. How do you do that? First, you need to be reading your Bible daily. You can’t draw water from a dry well!
h. Second, we need to be willing to learn. In other words, if we offer Sunday school classes people should show up for them.
i. Third, you must be willing to share your wisdom with others. Teach other people how to do it.
Conclusion
1. If we are going to be a New Testament church, we need to say…
a. Let’s Go
b. Let’s Teach
2. What’s the point preacher? If we want to grow as a church we have to go and tell people about Jesus, and then we need to teach them how to follow him.
