Well, good morning. It is good to see you here today. If you would take your copy of the Scriptures and turn to Acts chapter 11, Acts chapter 11. And while you are doing that, we will dismiss our children, third grade, three years old through third grade, three years old through the third grade to their junior church. And we will pray for them here in just a moment. Now, we have, if you're a guest with us today, we have been in a series for quite some time in the book of Acts. And we're just kind of going verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Last week I read the first 18 verses of this chapter as an introduction to the last part of chapter 10. And really, Paul was just giving a succinct recalling and recounting of all the events in chapter 10 of the first part of chapter 11. So today, our text will begin with verse 19. I'll begin there, and you follow along as I read. 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 Hellenist, 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 Ghost and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarshish 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. Let's pray. God, You are an amazing God. You indeed, as we have sung this morning, are a holy God. You are a righteous God. You are a just God, and we praise You today. God, You are so good in allowing us to gather here today. to worship You collectively, to allow us to hear the Word of God preached, that we would have a chance to respond to Your truth. God, thank You. And Lord, I pray this morning that as we spend time in this text, that You would use it to instruct us, encourage us, Help us, admonish us, rebuke us if necessary. And may all that is said and done in the remainder of this service be honoring and glorifying to You. In this we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. You know, I don't know if it's just at the beginning of the year. Maybe, I would hope, all throughout the year, you have some measure of concern about your health. That's true for most of us. In fact, many of us here in this room, you kind of do an annual checkup with your doctor. You go and they poke, they prod, they do maybe a various test, and ultimately, the doctor determines, hey, you're pretty healthy, keep up the good work, or Oh, there's some concerns, and we need to do something about some things. You know, we go to the doctor to at least help navigate and determine, hey, am I healthy? How do we know if the church is healthy? Well, we go to the Word of God, right? And we look at God's Word and we say, hey, how as a church are we doing? I think this is a great text to do that. Here's a church at Antioch. It's a brand new church. And there are some distinct characteristics of this church that I believe are pleasing and honoring to the Lord. And this morning, why don't we do some comparison, okay? and see, hey, how as a church are we doing in these particular areas? There's four of them that we'll look at today, the first one being evangelism, evangelism. You say, oh, Pastor Todd, that was kind of the topic last Lord's Day. You know, are we going to hit that again? Yes, because it's in the text. And, if God deems it worthy of repeating, it's worthy for us to look at again, and we have to ask ourselves, hey, how are we doing in this matter of evangelism? Of course, in verse 19 we find that because of the persecution that arose when Stephen was stoned, there were people scattered hither and yon. They went to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. At the end of chapter 7, Stephen is stoned. In chapter 8, the first four verses read as follows, Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentations over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. How did God sovereignly see to it that the gospel was going to spread? He used persecution in the church. Scholars determine that there were some 25,000 believers at this time in the church of Jerusalem. Many of them were scattered abroad. We find in our text today, they went to places like Phoenician. I've got a map here for you. I want to show you, and hopefully you can at least see this a little bit. But right here is Jerusalem, all right? And this region right here is Phoenicia. And then they went as far as Antioch. This is known as Antioch, Syria. There is also another Antioch in this region called Antioch Pisidia. So there's two Antiochs, and that's how they're differentiated sometimes in Scripture. But they also went to Cyprus. This is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. And then all the way over here in Cyrene, we find that there was a gentleman or some gentleman who came and they were preaching the gospel in Antioch. And so the gospel is kind of going everywhere as a result of the persecution of the church. Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire. It is estimated there was between 300,000 and 600,000 people who lived in Antioch. Even by today's standards, that's a sizable city of maybe upwards to a half million people. It was a wicked, wicked city. It was full of immorality. It was full of idolatry. It was full of paganism. As I was reading some things about Antioch, I couldn't help but think, maybe in current day reflections, or maybe sometime in history as time goes forward and we look back, I wonder what people would say about our city. Indianapolis, Indiana, honestly it could be sad that we are an immoral city, or a wicked city, or a pagan city, much like Antioch. But it became really a vibrant place for Christianity. It became the base for Christianity. It became the base for Paul's missionary journeys. It became a very important place for Christianity. And it says that they were preaching initially, in verse 19, just to the Jews. Apparently, word had not gotten out about Peter's interaction with Cornelius. Word was slow to spread. And initially, these evangelists, as they had done previously, were just preaching to Jewish people, but we find in verse 20, that men from Cyprus, that little island right there in the middle of the Mediterranean, all the way over to Cyrene, they came, and who were they preaching to? They spoke to the Hellenists. Now, oftentimes when we find this word Hellenist, it is referring to Greek-speaking Jews. You may have a note in your Bible, as I do, that references this as being Greeks, or that is Greek-speaking non-Jews. So how do you get there? Well, this is one of those places where you have a textual variant, and there is manuscript evidence for both ways, so really you kind of have to look at internal evidence. And I think it makes sense that Luke points out that initially they were preaching to Jews, but these men came from Cyprus and Cyrene, and they were speaking to Greeks. So, I think the differentiation there would really make sense that we take this as Greeks. You may have a translation that actually already has that in, but that they were referring to Gentile people. They were speaking the gospel, giving the gospel to Gentiles, to Greek people. And the Word of God was spreading rapidly. Verse 21, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. What is a critical, critical phrase there in verse 21? And the hand of the Lord was with them. Yes, they were being faithful and giving the gospel. But it is God who does the saving. Amen? You know, we give the gospel to somebody, but it is not us who saves them, it is purely God who does that. It is God's work. It is God's sovereign work in the heart of an individual who saves an individual, and that's what God was doing here. He was saving people. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. How true that is. Even in giving the gospel, apart from him, we can do nothing. It is God who does the saving. And it says, a great number who believe turn to the Lord. As we've talked about previously in this book, this is faith and repentance. It's two sides of the same coin, that they were coming to the Lord in faith, and they were repenting of not believing in Jesus Christ, and they were coming and believing in Him." Well, word got out about this evangelistic work that was taking place in Antioch. In verse 22, the report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and who did they send? Barnabas, Barnabas to Antioch to investigate this evangelistic effort. This was not the first time that this has occurred. In Acts chapter 8, it says, now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent to them Peter and John. Hey, we're going to go see what is happening in this Gentile region. Antioch is some 200 miles north of Jerusalem. So, they send Barnabas up to this area, and Barnabas, he was a great choice. Where was Barnabas from? He was from Cyprus. So he was from a Gentile region. He was a Jew who grew up in a Gentile area, a Gentile region, and he was just a great choice to go to this Gentile area. Remember we encountered him all the way back in chapter four? What's his name mean? It means son of encouragement. Barnabas was an encourager. He was an exhorter. And he came to be a help to these individuals. He was a Levite. He was from the tribe of Levi. He assured the believers in Jerusalem in chapter 9, hey, Paul's an okay guy. This guy Saul eventually became known as Paul. Hey, he's an alright guy. In fact, he accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey. Barnabas was a key individual in the early church. And he's described in our text today as being a good man. This is the idea of He was an excellent man. He was morally a good man. He pleased the Lord. And it says He was full of the Holy Spirit. This word full is the exact word that we find in Ephesians 5.18 of be filled with the Spirit. He was controlled by the Spirit of God. He was doing exactly what God had called him to do. And it says that he was full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. He was strong in His trust in God. He was controlled, if we could say, by His faith. As I was going through this this week, I was kind of thinking about this. If someone described you, if someone was writing something and they put down your name and a description, how would they describe you? Would it be anywhere close to this? that you are good, that you are full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. That would be a great description for any one of us, wouldn't it? That we're just walking with the Lord closely, and that someone would describe us as a person who just is full of the Spirit of God. all that we would by God's grace strive to be that kind of person. And I love in verse 23, Barnabas' response, and when he came and saw the grace of God, he saw manifested the grace of God, and what's the text say? He was glad. That should be the automatic response of any of us when we see the grace of God manifested. When is the last time that you look kind of at your own life, your own circumstances, or maybe the life of someone else, and you just got happy, you just got glad because of the grace of God? Boy, that should be a regular occurrence in our life of just saying, God, wow, you've answered prayer in that person's life. You've answered prayer in my life. God, that's just grace. God, you have met a need for so-and-so. I've been praying for so-and-so, and oh God, you answered that prayer. Praise God! That's grace, and it should make us glad to know that God is showering us with His grace. In this particular case, it was the result of evangelistic efforts. It was the gospel that was going forth, and people were getting saved. A church was beginning to form. You know, I found it interesting this past week, it was just a really interesting thought for me. As I've mentioned to you, I often listen to messages or try to during the week of people who preach on the text that I'm preaching on. I try to do some of my own groundwork first and then just listen just for my own soul and my own thinking. And one preacher I was listening to this week suggested this. He said, you know, if I was going to plant a church somewhere, He said, I don't think I would make it my first priority to rent a building, to put out a sign. He said, I think I would go and just spend all of my time sharing the gospel. And then when there were some converts, then maybe we would think about renting a building and putting out a sign and developing a church. That was just food for thought for me. And I'm not saying if anybody doesn't do it that way that they're doing it wrong. I'm just saying it was an interesting thought for me to say maybe that's something to really consider and think about. Of that we evangelize first, we see converts, and then a church begins to form. But the evangelism didn't stop there. The church began, it originated through evangelistic work, but that evangelistic work continued. Look at verse 24, and a great many people were added to the Lord. As time went on, these new converts began sharing the gospel with others, and the church at Antioch was established through the proclamation of the gospel, and they continued to spread the gospel. So this first characteristic is that of evangelism. How are we doing? Can I remind us this morning of this? We could possibly, in any one of these categories that we'll look at this morning, kind of step back and be critical of even our church. But can I remind us who is the church? It's us. We're the church. We who have gathered here this morning, we are the church. And so if there is even a legitimate room for criticism or for improvement, we've got to look at our own heart, our own lives, and say, hey, it's got to begin with me because we collectively are the church. So evangelism is the first characteristic of the church at Antioch. Number two is faithfulness. Faithfulness. Verse 23, Barnabas is there, he's rejoicing in the grace of God, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. He encouraged them. The Son of encouragement was encouraging. He's saying, look guys, you've just come to Christ. You're beginning to grow in your faith. Remain there. Don't give in to the tugs and the pulls of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Be faithful. Remain. Continue where you are. and be faithful to the Lord. What is Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 4-2? It is required of stewards that they be found faithful. The word steadfast, he says that you are to be faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. It is the word, in the original language it's cardia, it means heart. And so the idea there is that you are to remain faithful to the Lord wholeheartedly, with a steadfast or a wholehearted purpose, a plan, that you are planning in advance with your whole heart to remain faithful to the Lord. This was not anything new for Barnabas. After the meeting of the synagogue broke up in chapter 13, Many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. In the context, there were apparently some people who put their faith in Christ, and he's urging them to remain in the grace of God. Continue to be faithful. This past week I was reading about a man whose name is Walter Orthman. Walter lives in Brazil. In April of 2022, Walter turned 100. Just a few weeks prior to that, on January the 6th, 2022, He was deemed by the Guinness World Book of Records to have worked the longest of any human being on earth at one place. He worked for a textile company for 84 years. He started when he was 15, and when he was 100, he was still working at a textile company. I mean, sometimes we look at a person who's been at a company, and rightfully so, you know, 30, 40 years, and wow, that's a long time. Eighty-four years is a long time to be at one company. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Commitment. You know, we as believers, we fight a battle, don't we? That's why God said, look, I'm giving you a belt, and it's truth. I'm giving you a breastplate, and it's righteousness. I'm giving you shoes, and it's peace. I'm giving you a shield, it's faith. I'm giving you a helmet of salvation. I'm giving you a sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Because we are in a battle, and it's tough, it's challenging to be faithful sometimes. But God calls us to take that armament and He calls us by His grace and by His enablement just to stay faithful, stay at it. Sometimes it's not flashy, sometimes it's not anything spectacular, but it's just the day in, day out being faithful to God. Just day in and day out reading your Bible and praying. Just being faithful. It's day in and day out as you have opportunities to share the gospel. It's day in and day out loving your family. We could spend a long time right there, couldn't we? Sometimes that's challenging. But just faithfully loving those with whom you live, your family. It's being faithful in child-rearing. I was talking with somebody this week, and we were just talking about the fact that one of the most difficult things on the planet is to be a parent. And if you have children, it's never that you end parenting. You just continue parenting, you know, even when they leave the house. And I say it's one of the most difficult things in the world. It's a massive blessing. Don't get me wrong here this morning, okay? It's a massive blessing. Children are heritage from the Lord. It is a tremendous blessing, but it's hard. It's hard, it's challenging. Sometimes you just don't know what to do. But be faithful. Just day in and day out, be faithful. Be faithful in ministry. So many of you here in this room, you are a great example of that. That just for decades, you have been faithful in whatever area you minister in this church, that you have just faithfully done it week in, week out, year in, year out, decade in, decade out, and you've been faithful. God calls us to faithfulness, to be committed to Him. Last evening, I watched a little bit of the Chiefs-Dolphins game. Steve's cheering back here, yes. And, you know, I was just amazed, honestly amazed, that with wind chills around 28 below zero, that stadium was pretty full. There were tens of thousands of people in that stadium just cheering for their team. You know, I have run across at times pastors who to me can have a kind of a silly prideful spirit of, you know, bless God, we don't close our church for anything. I'm not talking about this, okay? I'm just thinking, could we just for a moment make a legitimate comparison? to people who are committed to their team, they sacrifice for their team, they're willing to sit out in just frigid, frigid temperatures and cheer for their team. What are we willing to do for Jesus? Are we faithful? Are we willing to sacrifice, are we willing to be committed to Him whatever the cost, whatever the need may be? Are we faithful? Well, evangelism, faithfulness, thirdly, spiritual growth. Spiritual growth. Verses 25 and 26. So Barnabas, many, many people are getting saved, many people are coming to Christ. What does Barnabas do? He takes off. You say, wow, he's abandoning the work. No, he's not abandoning the work. He goes to Tarsus and he looks for Saul. The word look there is a very interesting word, and it's the idea that it was arduous, it was difficult, it was not easy at all. It took him some time and some great effort to find Paul. He went to find Paul for what reason? To bring him back to Antioch so for at least a year they could disciple these new converts. You know, this is in part fulfilling God's ordained calling upon Paul. For in Acts 9.15, he says, that He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles." He's coming back to a predominantly Gentile region to disciple new converts. You know, Paul would later write to the church at Colossae, In Colossians 1, 28 and 29, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me. Helping others grow spiritually was a big, big deal for Paul. It's a big deal to God. It should be a big deal to us. That we are growing spiritually, we're helping others grow spiritually. Paul says here, I'm warning, I'm admonishing, I'm counseling others, I'm imparting truth to others, I'm teaching them, and I do so with great effort. He says, I toil. It's the idea of working to the point of exhaustion is the meaning of the word there. He's giving maximum effort to see others grow spiritually. It begs the question, who are we discipling? Who are we helping? Who's discipling you? You've heard us say this many, many times, that really for all of us, we should be pouring into someone, someone should be pouring into us. How's that working for you? Is there someone you're discipling? Is there someone you're pouring into? Now, for some of you here this morning, you've got younger children at home, and you say, hey, that's kind of my focus right now. I am pouring into my own kids. Praise God for that. Who's pouring into you? Is there someone that you're discipling? Is there someone that you are helping to grow spiritually? You know, a wonderful way to do that is through our prayer groups on Wednesday night of just getting together with a small group of people, and you're just pouring into each other, you're praying for each other, you're encouraging each other, you're helping each other to grow spiritually. Is there someone that maybe you have some one-on-one accountability with, maybe some one-on-one study? Maybe there is someone that you know well enough that they're willing to admonish you or, when necessary, even rebuke. Saying, man, I'm concerned. Man, you've taken a left-hand turn in your spiritual life, and I'm really, really concerned for you. But that we're helping each other grow spiritually. That's what Barnabas' heart was. He says, hey, I'm gonna go and get Paul. I'm gonna bring him back. And for at least a year, they're pouring into these people. Was that time well spent? Boy, you bet it was. because they were growing closer to the Lord, they were growing in their Christian faith. And we find at the end of verse 26, and in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Now, there's a debate whether believers came up with this name or whether pagan unbelieving people came up with this name and gave it to the Christ followers. But really that's the meaning of the name. It's Christ followers or Christ ones. Hey, these people are people who are serious about following Jesus. They are Christians. They are Christ-followers. You know, the story is told of Harry Ironside. Harry Ironside was a preacher from about the mid-19th century, or he lived from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, was a well-known preacher. And one time he was visiting in China, and he kept being introduced as the best I can do with this, and if I'm slaughtering this Chinese, forgive me, but Yasu Yan. And he didn't know what that meant. But everywhere he went, he was introduced as Yasu Yan, and he finally asked, hey, what does this mean? And they were introducing him as the Jesus man. You know, I like that. That's not bad at all. The Jesus man. A Christian. Do you bear that title, that name, with pride. I am a follower of Christ. I am a follower of Jesus. That first came about in Antioch, followers of Jesus. So, there is evangelism taking place. There is discipleship taking place. These people are admonished to be faithful. But in verse 27, it says, now and these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, there are prophets. Most often the prophets were what we would call foretellers. They were giving truth from God. Sometimes they would foretell events, and in this case, a prophet by the name of Agabus was foretelling a time of great famine. It says all over the world, and really that would be referencing all over the Roman Empire. And so what does this new church do? These predominantly Gentile people, they say, wow, we've got some great concern for the believers back in Jerusalem, in the Texas of Judea, and we are going to raise some funds to give to them. It says, so the disciples, in verse 29, determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. This was a caring spirit. They were caring for other people. It doesn't sound like it took a lot of convincing. But they just, their automatic response was, hey, there is a need and we are going to meet that need. We are going to help other individuals, other brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ because of this famine. You know, it's very similar to what we find in 2 Corinthians 8, verses 1 through 5. Paul writes, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify. and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this is not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us." Here you've got this group of churches in the region of Macedonia. According to the text, they are extremely poor. And what was even in the remotest realm of possibility they gave, but Paul says they gave beyond that. They were begging Paul, hey, can we please be a part of this? Does that sound foreign to us? I hope not. That when we know of needs within certainly our own church, maybe outside of our church, that our spirit is, how can I help? What can I do? And the answer is not always financial, but there are times when finances are important, and they help an individual with a very specific need, and that as a congregation, we can give towards them. And can I say this? I don't know of another church that's more generous than our church. You guys are a giving group of people. And I am so thankful for that. But may we never lose that. May we ever be expanding in that. That we care for people. We don't just adopt the warm and be filled kind of mentality. Hey, I'll pray for you. And if we truly are praying, that's good, that's right, that's proper. But sometimes we need to step in, step up, and say, hey, how can I help? I'm going to open up my wallet and I'm going to help you in a tangible way." That's exactly what these folks were doing. You know, Paul writes in Philippians 2, 3 and 4, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only on his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Paul is not preaching, hey, neglect yourself, do harm to yourself so you can help someone else. He's saying, look to your own interest, but also, hey, look to the interest of others. Look around and see who has a need and how you can help. I love Romans 12, 10. Love one another. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Be a blessing to others. Be a help to others. Care for other people. So, we come up with these four characteristics out of the text that this church at Antioch was an evangelistic church. They came to be through the spread of the gospel. They, in turn, were spreading the gospel. They were faithful in their walk with God. They were admonished to be faithful. They were growing spiritually. They were caring for other people. Now, this is not an exhaustive list of all that a church should be, but from this text, I think these are four characteristics that should exist in a church that pleases God. Specifically, these are four characteristics that should exist, should be prominent in our church. How are you doing? How are we doing in these specific areas? Let's pray. Father, would You help us here for just a moment to be honest in our evaluation of our own hearts, our own lives, our own habits? Are we evangelizing? Are we praying about it? Are we seeking opportunities to share the gospel with others? Are we being faithful to You, God? Just day in, day out, just steady and faithful. Are we growing spiritually? Are we helping others to grow spiritually? Do we care for other people? Do we demonstrate that through a generous, giving spirit? God, help us to take honest evaluation of these areas. And God, if there's one or more of these areas that by Your Holy Spirit You would kind of nudge us today that there needs to be some room for improvement, God, would You help us to be willing to do that? God, if necessary, may we just say, God, forgive me for my actions or lack of action in this area. God, help me. to grow in this area, or however you would deem to use your truth and your Word in our hearts. God, I pray that You would and that we would respond rightly, and we pray this in Jesus'