Last week in Acts we came to that really that watershed moment when the dividing wall that excluded Gentiles from the covenant community was broken down in practice. It had already been broken down in principle at the cross, but actually in point of fact, it's crumbling down now in Acts chapter 10. For the first time, think about this, God has poured out the gift of the eschatological Holy Spirit on believing Gentiles. For the first time, even believing Gentiles have been baptized, which we're going to see this morning, in the name of Jesus Christ. According to his own plan and his own purpose from all eternity past, God in these last days has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. And so it's with those things, it's with all that kind of fresh in our minds, that we come now to where Luke continues in verse 19 of Acts chapter 11. It says this, so then, Those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. So we kind of have to now reorient, recalibrate ourselves. Because Luke is assuming that we've been reading along with him in this volume, and we have been, but for us it's been a little while since we were in chapter eight. In chapter eight, we read this. Now Saul was in hearty agreement with putting Stephen to death. We remember that. And on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. Notice that. And they were all scattered from Jerusalem throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about proclaiming the good news of the word. So back now to where we are in chapter 11, Luke tells us that those who had initially been scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, and we see that here. So there's Jerusalem at the bottom in the purple circle. And just up above you see Caesarea there where Peter. met with Cornelius. So in between Jerusalem and Caesarea, we have Judea and Galilee and Samaria. That's where the believers were initially scattered, all in that area. But now Luke's telling us that some of those believers have even made their way as far north as Phoenicia, which is that coastal territory, including especially Tyre and Sidon, all in the red there. And Cyprus, they took ship and went out to the island of Cyprus. And even all the way up, almost to where you start curving around the corner of the Mediterranean Sea, to Antioch. That's where they're kind of making their way. In all of these places, those three spots, there was a lot of Jews living. That was the diaspora, the Jewish dispersion. When the Jews from down here in Jerusalem, they're all refugees now from Jerusalem. As they make their way north, who are they looking for? They're looking for their fellow Jews. And so they find their fellow Jews, they connect with them, they begin to tell them what's happened in Jerusalem. Jesus, the Messiah, died and buried and raised again. Except Luke tells us specifically that they were speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. Now, we've been here, we were here last week, right? Many of us were. And so when we hear that, it's jarring to us. especially after Cornelius and Peter's vision. And yet, let's be patient with these believers, okay? First of all, it's only natural that the Jewish believers, especially Jews who were native to Palestine, like they'd lived there all their life, they only spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, it's natural they focus their evangelizing efforts on their fellow Jews. Second of all, it is still understandable, as impatient as we can be 2,000 years later when everything's so clear, it's still understandable that these Jews may not have most truly comprehended, as Peter did, that in every nation, the one who fears God and does righteousness is welcome to Him. All right, there's gospel good news for each one of us here today. But in any case, as patient as we wanna be, it's still jarring, right? We still don't like it. It still is discordant. And that's how Luke means it to be. So he didn't need to point out they were speaking the word to no one but Jews alone. He says that to set us up, in your handout, to set us up for what Luke says next. But there were some of them Men of Cyprus and Cyrene who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also. Proclaiming the good news of the Lord Jesus. I just want you to know that's all I want to do this morning is proclaim to you the good news of the Lord Jesus. But we can do that in a multitude of different ways as we unpack the Word of God, and so how we'll do that this morning, we wait to see. But we know that, first of all, in addition to the Palestinian Jews, in other words, when I say that, I mean the native, Hebrew, Aramaic-speaking Jews who were born and raised in Judea. That's them, those Jews. In addition to those Jews, there was also a large community in Jerusalem of Hellenistic Jews. These were Jews born elsewhere in the Roman Empire in Greek-speaking places who had relocated, who had migrated back to Jerusalem and set up communities there. So you had these Hellenistic Greek-speaking Jews in Jerusalem and you had the native Palestinian Hebrew or Aramaic-speaking Jews. Now some of these native Greek-speaking Jews who had been living in Jerusalem but were now scattered because of the persecution, they were originally from Cyprus and Cyrene, or Cyrenaica. So let's get our bearings here. There's Jerusalem. There's Cyrenaica. So when he says Cyrene, he means the whole area in northern Egypt there. Libya area. And then there's the island of Cyprus. So there were Jews from Cyprus and Cyrene who were living in Jerusalem and now they're all running from Jerusalem because of the persecution. And they are the ones, those Hellenistic Jews, they're the ones who make their way all the way to Antioch. And what do they do when they get there? They start speaking not just to Jews, But they start breaking out of those boundaries. And they speak to the Greeks also. By Greeks, what do we mean? Not people from Greece. So let's just get that out there. We're not talking about people from Greece. Might be, but might not be. We're just talking about Hellenized people. People influenced by the Greek culture of that day, which was universal. So the Greek-speaking native population of Gentiles, they were proclaiming the good news of the Lord Jesus. Now it's here that we need to take a moment to really appreciate what the city of Antioch was. We look at this map here now of the whole Roman Empire. You see there's Antioch in the yellow, and then we'll draw attention to the others in a second. So Antioch was a huge city. It was the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire. with a quarter of a million to half a million people, made Jerusalem look like a back country, backwater kind of a town. It was the third largest behind Alexandria in Egypt, in purple, and then Rome, of course, was the largest over there in Italy. It was the seat of government for the Roman province of Syria. So Syria's up there, Judea down where Jerusalem is. Antioch was the seat of government for Syria. Antioch had been founded 340 years earlier by the first ruler of the Greek Seleucid Empire. Now, I'm going to tell you something. I'm not going to waste your time with stuff that doesn't matter. I promise you. So, this is going to be really important. Antioch, founded by this Greek Seleucid Empire, the first ruler, a man named Seleucus Machaetor. He was successor to Alexander the Great. We all know Alexander the Great. So, Seleucus named Antioch after his father, Antiochus, and he made it the capital of his Seleucid Greek empire. What that tells us then, if you want to know what Antioch is about, the ethos of Antioch, it was from the very first a Hellenistic city. I mean, it was the definition of Hellenism. It embodied, it promoted Greek culture. Get the picture. That doesn't mean, though, that Antioch was populated by ethnic Greeks. In the first century AD, the majority of the whole known world, which that's the known world right there on the picture, the majority of that world had been Hellenized. Antioch, in particular, was a cosmopolitan. Everyone lived in Antioch. It was a Hellenistic center of education, of culture, of commerce, of religion, because it was a link. You can kind of make some guesses about the importance and the strategic significance of Antioch by the map. It was a link between the urbanized Mediterranean world, you see all that urbanized area, right, over to the west, and then the eastern desert orient area to the east. It linked those two. Not only that, but it linked the northern part of the Mediterranean with the Judean area, and down here to the south in the southern part of the Mediterranean. It kind of linked it all. In the first, so, Relations between Gentiles and the population of Jews in Antioch, there were about 25,000 Jews living in Antioch. Relations between them in cosmopolitan Antioch weren't quite as inflamed as they were in other Hellenistic cities. Like Caesarea, well you can't see it up there probably, where Peter was just having the gospel preached to him. which may explain in part why Gentile proselytes to Judaism were so numerous in Antioch. Antioch had lots of Gentile proselytes and Gentile God-fearers, like we saw with Cornelius. In terms of religion, well, five miles away from the city was a major cult center for the worship of the Greek goddess Daphne. and her consort Apollo, which meant there was lots of immorality, ritual prostitution. Antioch was notorious through the whole Roman Empire, and there's amazing examples of how other people fought about Antioch, for its immorality. According to one ancient writer, it was the abode of the gods. All the gods lived there. Zeus, Apollos, Poseidon, Adonis, and Tyche were all worshipped in Antioch. Now, okay, I have painted a picture. Now we're ready. In your handout, you know what the word is, right? Compare this world-class, cosmopolitan, Hellenistic, polytheistic city of Antioch in Syria With what? With this comparatively provincial, insulated, ethnically homogeneous, meaning you just find Jews there, essentially, the city in Jerusalem, in Judea, some 300 miles to the south. A city that was home not to multiple gods, but to the Temple of Yahweh and ruled by the Jewish Sanhedrin. Now, can you imagine any starker contrast than this? There's a real sense in which Antioch and Jerusalem were as different from each other as any two cities in the world could possibly be. And I'm not exaggerating that. And now it's in Antioch, so you gotta keep that always in your mind. When Antioch, when I say the word Antioch, you got a lot coming into your head. It's in Antioch that these Hellenistic Jews from Jerusalem, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, that's where you see in the green, that they are now proclaiming the good news of the Lord Jesus. Many of these Greeks, that are hearing the gospel were already God-fearers, like Cornelius would have been. But certainly we assume there were a lot of pagan Greeks who are hearing for the first time the good news of the Lord Jesus. And now we have a most amazing and most wonderful thing that happens. Luke goes on to tell us in verse 21, and the hand of the Lord was with them. and a great number who believed the message turned to the Lord. We remember language like that. It was used earlier in Acts. That's very familiar language. Of the Jews in Jerusalem, of the conversion of Jews in Jerusalem. Now Luke is using this same language of the conversion of, in your handout, Greeks in Antioch. Now this is a sense in which we should almost feel the need to pinch ourselves, remind ourselves how we even got here. How has this come about? How has this happened? I was remembering that in Acts chapter one, the disciples at the beginning of Acts were asking Jesus, is it at this time that you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel? That's where we started, brothers and sisters. And now we've got, all these great number of Greeks in Antioch turning to the Lord. Look what God is doing. Look what he does. But even then, even once we've pinched ourselves and reminded ourselves, oh yeah, this is how we got here, even then, there's a sense in which this is something entirely new. We've not witnessed the likes of this ever before in the history of the world. It's something wonderful. It's something unforeseen by all. The hand of the Lord, Luke uses the wonderful expression there, the hand of the Lord. Obviously, God is spirit. He doesn't have a literal hand, but it's picturing something, isn't it? A hand is a guiding hand. It's a controlling hand. It's something that's, in God's case, almighty and powerful. So we have this sovereign, overruling, providential power of the Lord that Luke sees at work in these miraculous circumstances. It's the hand of the Lord that's at work in Antioch, in and through the people of the Lord, enabling their labors to be fruitful. I just wanna remind us, and this is really a desperately important reminder to me, so I've tried to take this to heart personally, and then it's a desperately important reminder to all of us. When it comes to things of any real spiritual value, let's just be, this is true, right? This is real. If there's any spiritual value, if there's any real eternal significance at all, at all, When it comes to things related to the work of the kingdom, if God isn't in it, if God isn't in this, if God isn't, if the spirit of Christ is not actually and truly and really among us, if the hand of the Lord, to use Luke's language, is not with us, then there's no true success, there can never be. There can be no real and lasting fruit. We can have the form of godliness, right? But we'll always be lacking its true power. And that is a sobering reminder. I was sobered, but it's also an encouragement. It's an encouragement then to say, okay, then let me seek the Lord for his blessing, for his enablement, for his presence, asking that his hand would indeed be with us in all that we do. in whatever spheres he's placed you for the sake of his kingdom. I was reminded last week in conversation with our brother Luke of the psalmist's words in Psalm 127. Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless Yahweh watches the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. Now I've gone off a little bit, drawing an application there. But let's come back now to Luke's main agenda. Luke uses this expression, the hand of the Lord was with them, in order to emphasize that this new, this unforeseen work among the Greeks in Antioch is indeed, and it can only be, the work of the Lord. But no sooner, okay, this is all great, this is all exciting, wonderful, right? But wait a minute, hold on. Because no sooner have we seen this new development come about than a pressing question is raised. What is to be the relationship between the new work in Antioch among the Greeks and the work among the Jews in Jerusalem? You say, some of us might say, I don't know, that question doesn't interest me very much. Well, it's why Luke wrote this, because it interested him a great deal. And indeed, therefore, if it interested him, it ought to interest us. There is incredible significance to this. We remember Antioch is a world-class, cosmopolitan, I mean, I could, yeah, Hellenistic, polytheistic city in Syria, while Jerusalem is a provincial, insulated, ethnically and religiously homogeneous city in Judea. 300 miles to the south, there is so much, you cannot possibly over-exaggerate this, there's so much, humanly speaking, that could easily divide these two works, putting them in competition with each other. Now I'm not creating this thing just for dramatic effect. Luke was powerfully, acutely aware of this. It's why he writes this little part the way he does. It's in this light then, in light of the competition that could have been developed, the divide that could have been built up, it's in that light that Luke means for us now to go on and read in verse 22. Now the news about them, about these Greeks who had turned to the Lord in Antioch, reached the ears of that other church way down in Jerusalem. And they sent off Barnabas to Antioch. Now I love this. Why did the church at Jerusalem send Barnabas off to Antioch? Well, you could say maybe they're jealous. Maybe they're sending him on a mission to investigate and report back. Maybe there's a concern that these Greek believers make sure they know who's the boss church, right? That they submit to the authority of Jerusalem. Of course, if that were the case, it is impossible to understand why of all people that they could have sent, they sent Barnabas. Now we were introduced to Barnabas in chapter four, where we saw that he himself was a Hellenistic Jew born on the island of Cyprus. Now, who is it that's been preaching to the Greeks in Antioch? Hellenistic Jews born where? On the island of Cyprus. So who does Jerusalem send to Antioch? Just another one of those. We learned in Acts 4 that Barnabas was known, in keeping with the translation of his name, as the son of encouragement and for good reason. So in Acts chapter 4, Barnabas sold a field that he owned and he brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet for distribution to the poor, to any who had need. in Acts chapter 9. We remember that Barnabas was the one who took Saul's hand, as it were, and brought him to the apostles when all the rest of the disciples were afraid of him, not believing he was a disciple. So Barnabas makes it happen. He brings them together. Later on in Acts, we haven't got here yet, But later, when Paul will be of the really strong conviction that he and Barnabas should not take Mark with them on their second missionary journey, they don't want to take him with, because on their first missionary journey, he deserted them and had not gone with them to the work. Well, when that happens, it's gonna be Barnabas who splits with Paul and gives Mark a second chance, taking him along to minister where else? by Cyprus. Why did the church in Jerusalem choose Barnabas as the one to send to Antioch? Well, I'll tell you why. Because Barnabas was just the one to selflessly serve, encourage, and take the lead in establishing and building up this brand new work in Antioch. So on the one hand, the church in Jerusalem is not jealous of Antioch. On the other hand, the church in Jerusalem doesn't ignore what's going on in Antioch. Instead, what do they do? They send Barnabas, who's just the one God himself had in your handout prepared to be the right man at the right time for this critically important mission. That's why Luke goes on to emphasize in verses 23 to 24. Now this is an interesting thing because Luke doesn't include this next little section so that he can say, now I'm gonna give you a little character sketch of Barnabas, that's why I put this story here, so that you can all try to be like Barnabas. That certainly must be somewhat in Luke's mind. He gives us this sketch of Barnabas so that we can see the nature of the Antioch-Jerusalem relations. What did Barnabas see, oh, sorry, let's read it, who? Barnabas, when he arrived in Antioch and he saw the grace of God, he rejoiced. We're never as quick to rejoice, I think, as we ought to be, are we? How quick should we be to rejoice when we see, if our eyes are opened, to the grace of God at work in others? In any case, he rejoiced. And he began to encourage them all with a purposeful heart to remain true to the Lord. For Luke says, he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. He was just the man for the job. So I would ask again, what did Barnabas see in the things that were happening among the Greeks in Antioch? See, because you can see different things, right? He could have gone there and seen competition. Competition with Jerusalem. He could have seen success that's been coming about without him there. But he didn't see competition. He saw none of that. What he saw was what? The grace of God. Oh, that God would open our eyes to see grace. And not from our carnal flesh competition. He saw not the rival work of men, but the same grace that he knew was at work in Jerusalem. And so rather than be jealous, as we are so often prone to be, he rejoiced. What a good way to put to death jealousy than to replace it with rejoicing. For he was, as Luke says, a good man. Calvin writes, this joy is a testimony of sincere godliness, ambition, is ever more envious and malicious so that many seek for praise by reproving other men. Because they're more desirous of their own glory than of the glory of Christ. But the faithful servants of Christ, we could speak especially of servants whom God has called to lead his churches, but certainly of all of us, the faithful servants of Christ must rejoice, as did Barnabas, when they see the gospel increase. By whomsoever God shall make his name known. Not only was Barnabas not jealous for the sake of Jerusalem, not only did he rejoice, but he encouraged, he exhorted. What did he encourage and exhort? To keep on doing just what they were doing. He wasn't like, okay, you guys kind of had it, but now let me just take you where the rest of the way now. No, he just said, continue on in where you are. This is good. Remain now true to the Lord. Barnabas wasn't jealous for his own preeminence. Man, we are jealous for our own preeminence, aren't we? We can be. It's in our sinful nature. He wasn't even jealous for the preeminence of Jerusalem. He was jealous for the preeminence of the Lord to whom he was urging them to remain true. If humanly speaking, there is a whole lot that could and actually should divide these two works and put them in competition with each other. Now what do you see? This is the picture Luke is painting for us. What do you see in the choice of Barnabas as the one to send to Antioch? We see the Jerusalem church extending the right hand of fellowship. What a beautiful thing that is. Not self-promoting, not jealous for one's own advancement or preeminence, but extending the right hand of fellowship. We see further in their sacrificial willingness to give up a man like Barnabas. I mean, Barnabas, think of it. I'd love to have Barnabas here, and once he was here, I wouldn't lightly let him go. But they let him go. They sent him away. It was a sacrificial willingness to give up a man like Barnabas, which showed their investment in seeing the success of this new work among the Greeks. So just to ask us, and we've already kind of done this, but when you witness the grace of God at work in others, do you recognize it to be the grace of God? Even in other churches? Or are we jealous? Do we see competition? Or do we in fact see God's grace, the same grace that's at work in us? Do we see the rival work of men? Or do we just rejoice with sincere and simple hearts? and seeing the hand of the Lord, are we willing then to be fully invested in seeing the success of others? One other brief point that we can see from Barnabas's exhortation is that it is not enough to begin well, we must finish well. And in order to finish well, we must all have a purposeful heart, as Barnabas puts it. We must all be purposing. Are you purposing? That in our hearts, that we will, by God's grace, remain true to the Lord. Barnabas came, he saw the grace of God. It was good, it was wonderful. And Barnabas, yes, he had many things to say. But at a fundamental level, there was one thing Barnabas said to them. Stay true. Stay true to the Lord with purposeful heart. Here's all the more reason then for us to be like Barnabas. Yes, we can say that. Always then encouraging like he did, encouraging and exhorting one another. Stimulating one another to love and good deeds and all the more as we see the day drawing near. Luke continues now to narrate what happened in Antioch after Barnabas arrived, verses 24 to 26. And a considerable crowd, was brought to the Lord. Now this is in addition to the great number that had already turned to the Lord before Barnabas got there. And Barnabas then left for Tarsus to search for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it happened that for an entire year, they met with the church and taught a considerable crowd. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Oh, there's a lot happening here. It seems that there were so many coming to the Lord in Antioch who were believing and turning that Barnabas could no longer keep up with the work. Jerusalem had sent Barnabas. Now Barnabas says, we need some more help. Now it's been nearly 10 years. It's only been two chapters, but it's been 10 years since Jerusalem sent Saul off to Tarsus. It's been about 13 years since Saul was converted on the road to Damascus. So we can make a lot of guesses about what he's been doing for 10 years in Damascus, but undoubtedly he was doing kingdom work in some fashion or another. But now Barnabas remembers that Tarsus isn't that far from Antioch. And so we see there's Tarsus, just go up around the corner of the Mediterranean, there's Tarsus in Cilicia. Or you could take a boat from Antioch to Tarsus, a lot closer than Jerusalem. where Barnabas came from. Barnabas knows Saul's qualifications, but most importantly, Barnabas remembered, as you may be remembering, that the Lord had appeared to Saul and appointed him a witness to the Gentiles. And so, once again, You see what God is doing. The acts, right? It's the acts of who? The acts of God, in and through Christ and his apostles. And so once again, we see God acting. Just like God raised up Barnabas in Jerusalem as the right man for the right time in Antioch, now we see that all along, God had been preparing Saul in Tarsus to be the right man for the right time in Antioch. Does that not inspire faith? Faith and confidence in the master plan of God. I mean, I feel like that map now kind of visualizes for you the master plan of God for his church. Not just at that time, but in all ages. That's what we're a part of, brothers and sisters. God is passionate and zealous for his church. He's planning, he's preparing. Not only his master plan for his church in all ages, but for his people at all times. Yeah, just take time. Take time to rejoice, be encouraged with that. Now prior to this point in Acts, Luke has referred to the church only four times. I don't know if you noticed that, if you hear that. Let me say it again. He's referred to the church only four times. Every time, it's been a reference to the church in Jerusalem. Well, because essentially there's no church anywhere else. There never has been. or he refers to the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, which is really the Jerusalem church, spread throughout the whole territory of ancient Israel, that church. For the past 1500 years, that's the only place that the church, meaning the covenant assembly, whether the old one or the new one, has ever existed Now, in our passage this morning, we have both Luke's fifth and his sixth references to the church. We get the church two more times here in one passage. So in verse 22, now the news about the Greeks up there in Antioch, who had turned to the Lord reached the ears of the church, the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then in verse 26, When Barnabas found Saul, he brought him to Antioch, and it happened, Luke says, that for an entire year, they met with the church and taught a considerable crowd. I hope I don't go, I never wanna be dramatic, right? I want it to be my heart. But I pray that when we just heard that, we all just wanted to pause, and rejoice and worship. The church where? The church where? In that cosmopolitan, Hellenistic, polytheistic city of Antioch in Syria, 300 miles away from Jerusalem. The fact that Luke can call the community of Greek believers in Antioch by that name, Ecclesia, church, that's drawn from the Jewish old covenant scriptures that referred originally to the Jewish old covenant assembly, that's no small thing. That is no small thing. There's a sense then, now, in which there are two churches in Acts. Luke rarely, maybe once, uses church to refer to the universal church. He always refers to churches. And so these two churches in Acts that we have now are the Jerusalem church and the Antioch church. And now I want to see something else. It happens to be in the Antioch church. that the disciples were first called Christians. Now, oftentimes, we just skim over that. It's like, oh, that's interesting. Just a historical curiosity. That's where we started being called Christians. But that's not the point. Luke means us to ask, why were they first called Christians in Antioch and not and not in Jerusalem? The answer is simple, because in Jerusalem, if you were a Christian, they weren't called that, if you were a disciple, you could still be viewed by outsiders. They would all look at you as just another Jewish sect. But in Antioch, because the church was largely made up of Greeks, It became clear to all the people watching from the outside that this is not just another Jewish sect. It's something entirely new. And so therefore, probably as an expression of derision and mockery, it was the outsiders in Antioch who first assigned to the members of the church in Antioch a new label, Christiani, Christians, the partisans of Christ, the Judean king. That the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch, not in Jerusalem. Why does Luke emphasize that? Well, two things. We see how large the church in Antioch had grown, that they now have been assigned a new label. But we also see, and are reminded, how ethnically and culturally distinct was the church in Antioch compared to the church in Jerusalem. Yeah, because in Jerusalem, no one thought to call them Christians. In Antioch, they did. The Jerusalem church then, when we look at this map, that Jerusalem church down there represents the Jewish mother church that extends throughout Judea and Samaria and Galilee. That portion right down there, right around Jerusalem. The Antioch church now represents the Greek Hellenistic church. that soon will begin a mission throughout the entire Greco-Roman world. Now that's not to say the Jerusalem church was not involved in mission. No, it's not. But Luke is clearly setting us up this picture of that mother church in Jerusalem and the Antioch church about to begin the mission to the whole world. One thing I think that's interesting about this We should not purposely strive to be segregated churches. Neither was this a big problem, however, but there was a Jewish church. So a lot of what we have going on in our day, this would have been a disaster. There was no disaster here. Now we're compelled to ask one more time. What is to be the relationship? I mean, remember, you've got Antioch. Not only is Antioch different, not only are they Greeks, but I mean, now they got their own label that they're being called by, and no one's called Christians in Jerusalem. So we're compelled to ask, what's the relationship between these two churches? Between the church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch? I wanna ask you this. Can you see how the future of both churches depends on how this question is answered. This isn't like it's a relationship between Living Word Bible Church at Morris and some other church somewhere else. No, this was a specific moment in redemptive history when the answer to this question is going to determine the future of both churches for the rest of history. That's why Luke thinks this is such a big deal. That's why God himself is the one who guaranteed what the answer would be. Luke gave us the first half of the answer. What was the first half of the answer? The Jerusalem church chose Barnabas to send to Antioch. Now Luke gives us the second half of the answer. Brothers and sisters, when you read your Bibles and you come to this next little section, You have to see what Luke is doing. Why did he include this next section? Now in those days, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and indicated by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine all over the world, the sovereignty of God here. Did God ordain this famine just so this could happen? No, I'm sure he had many things he was working out in his sovereign plan. But I want to tell you one thing. One reason God ordained this famine at this time was so that what happens next would happen. This took place, this famine, in the years 45 to 48 A.D. in the reign of Claudius. And as any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the service of the brothers living in Judea." Oh, what a beautiful picture of brotherly harmony. How good and how beautiful it is. when brothers dwell together in unity, even when they're 300 miles apart, even when they're Greeks and Jews, even when they're in Jerusalem in Judea and Antioch in Syria, yet there's sweet brotherly harmony. They sent a contribution for the service of the brothers living in Judea, and this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders. Isn't that beautiful? Because that's what Luke sees here. He sees something both extraordinary and beautiful. Here are the Greek disciples in Antioch caring for, and in your handout, Luke uses the word serving. the Jewish brothers, brothers he calls them, even though we're talking about Greeks now, right? The Jewish brothers, 300 miles away in Jerusalem, the coming famine, remember, is going to affect the disciples in Antioch too. The famine's gonna hit them in Antioch. But because of the comparative poverty of the church in Jerusalem, specifically the church, They willingly sacrificed for their Judean siblings whom most of them had never and would never meet. Luke, you get a picture into his mind and what he's loving by the fact that he shines the spotlight on this beautiful work by kind of stretching it out a little. He describes both their willing determination and then their faithful doing. Look what he does. And as any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution to the service of the brothers living in Judea. And he could have just left it at that and said, you know that they did because they determined to do it. Good, end of the story. But no, then he says this. And this they did. And this they did. sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders. What a beautiful ending to the story of what God is doing in Antioch. See, there are two miracles that we have witnessed this morning, two miracles. On the one hand, we've just seen a Greek or a Gentile church Let that sink in. Established outside the boundaries of ancient Israel in Antioch, there's a world there, of Syria. Do we marvel at how we have come to this point in Acts? only as a result of the sovereign, providential, guiding hand of God. Working through persecutions, working through miraculous conversions on a road to Damascus, working through diaspora Jews living in Jerusalem, working through all sorts of things, working through visions to Peter. How did we get to this point? It's only possible because God has brought us here. And is it comforting then to know that God is still today sovereignly, providentially guiding and leading his church? God leads us all individually, certainly by his spirit, his word, through his word. But God leads and guides us all in and through and under the umbrella of the church of which Christ is the head. That's where we want to be. Does this then encourage us with purposeful hearts to remain true to the Lord? It does, doesn't it? Here's the church. moving outward from Jerusalem to all Judea, to Samaria, and now, brothers and sisters here, beginning the final mission, even to the end of the earth. That's the first miracle. The second miracle is that while there was everything, everything, humanly speaking, that should have divided these two churches and place them in competition with each other, there was instead at this pivotal moment in redemptive history, there was instead this beautiful giving and receiving of the right hand of fellowship. Hey, that's the miracle of the church. And it's the miracle God has been working in spite of all our dismal failings. God has been continuing to work that miracle for the last 2,000 years because, after all, the church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch are really only one church. Well, I pray that we will love to affirm this true catholicity. That's a beautiful word. this true catholicity of the church in our praying, in our giving, in our serving, in our worshiping. In short, may God cause us all, just like Barnabas, to be full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Dear Heavenly Father, we feel that we have just sat back as you have unveiled a mighty work before our eyes, a miracle of reconciliation, a miracle of newness that no man could have ever brought about. We thank you that we are part of this in the church today, 2,000 years later. Father, we pray that we would be those who rejoice to see the grace of God at work. That we would be selflessly willing to invest ourselves in the true success of others. Not seeing it with jealousy or competition, but rejoicing. We pray that we would enjoy in praying and giving and serving and worshiping, ultimately that giving and receiving constantly of that right hand of fellowship that you have brought about in the church, that we have seen so powerfully pictured and represented in Antioch and Jerusalem. And we thank you too, Lord, that you, who so sovereignly, so powerfully, your hand was with them, your hand was working in this whole thing with Antioch, that you're the same God guiding and leading your church today. We entrust ourselves to you. We're comforted. We're encouraged then with purposeful hearts to remain true to you. to finish by your grace as we've begun. We thank you for all these things and pray them in Jesus' name. Amen.