How does the gospel change things? Acts 11:19-30 sermon | Prescott Anglican Church
Text: Acts 11:19-30
The gospel does more than change what we believe; it changes who we are. In Acts 11, we encounter the remarkable story of the church in Antioch, where ordinary, largely unnamed Christians shared the good news of Jesus Christ across cultural boundaries. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, people came to faith, were nurtured in Christ, and grew into a community defined by their belonging to the Messiah.
On All Saints' Day, this passage reminds us that the life of the Church is built not merely upon famous saints and extraordinary leaders, but upon faithful Christians who preach the gospel, encourage one another, and care for those in need. Like Barnabas and the believers in Antioch, we are called to receive the gospel, grow in Christ, and then go out into the world, trusting that it is the Lord who brings the growth.
Let's pray and ask God for his wisdom. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the ways in which you worked through the saints in your church. For these men who came from Cyprus and Cyrene, for the prophets from Jerusalem, for Barnabas, and for those who shared the gospel with us and raised us up. We pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, we would be encouraging to one another to live in the truth of your gospel to preach it to others that likewise we may rise them up to be people that glorify you.
The Gospel Changes Everything
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Have you ever noticed how holidays kind of mark time? Undoubtedly, if you have children, you have pictures from Halloween, Christmas or Easter, or Thanksgiving, and you see them being growing and becoming the people that they are today. I was looking last night in particular pictures of Sam just because one popped up that brought back some memories and I had forgotten but Julie didn't forget.
She doesn't forget as nearly as much as I do that Sam's first holiday was spent in the hospital and the floor theme was under the sea or something like that. So I bought him a little turtle and we had a couple pictures of him playing with his little turtle and he still has that turtle. I think he still likes it. The next holiday was at the zoo and we were weather and Sam was a snowstorm. I don't know why he was a snowstorm. I don't know if you remember why he was a snowstorm. Lucy was a rainbow which is a little more self-explanatory and so on and so forth.
And then last year we just went to our neighbors and that was actually really a fond memory because a bunch of neighbors kind of rallied around us because we were really worried about how Sam was going to do it. We didn't want to expose them to a whole bunch of other kids. And then of course there was this year. And so I saw all these pictures and saw how the kids kind of grew over the years. And neither of them are the kids that they were three years ago or in Lucy’s case four years ago. And that's that's good and beautiful, right? And we've seen that whether you have kids or not.
You've known children and you've watched them grow. And it's it's just beautiful to kind of watch them grow into the people that they are. And the gospel acts a lot like this. It not only changes everything, right? We're going to see how these people at Antioch that came to know Christ were changed and defined by knowing Christ. But it grows them into that by the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's exactly what we pray that it does for us. The gospel changes everybody. For those in Antioch, as the gospel comes, the people receive it. They're nurtured, but then they're invited to act.
But before we can even get into this, we have to realize that what happened just leading up to this with Cornelius set the stage for the rest of this, right? Cornelius receives the gospel if you don't remember. And then Jerusalem's like, "Hold up. What in the world is going on?" And then Peter explains it to them and at least most of them get on board. And they're like, "All right, that makes sense." And that allows this whole passage to play out the way that it does. So that they'll send Barnabas.
The Gospel Crosses Boundaries
Now, one of the really interesting things that happens in Rome, it is kind of actually comparable to our day and age, although we have a much better place of enjoyment of this. For those of you that don't know, I'm I'm from Maine. We're almost as bad as Texas. We're not quite as bad as Texas, but we are profoundly proud of the fact that we're from Maine, and we're we're really kind of snobby about it. I had a parishioner in my church when I was still in Maine, and she lived in this little town, and she grew up in Massachusetts, which is bad in and of itself. No offense to those of you from Massachusetts.
I know there's one of you. And she'd lived in this town with her husband for 50 years. and he was born there. And she's like, you know, I'm still from away 50 years later. And no better story defines being from Maine than that. We ridiculously proud of that. Why I tell you this story is because I get really excited because every now and again I see a license plate from Maine and there's at least one person here who's who's who still drives around with his license plate. I think he actually lives near the church.
And the reason I talk about this is because Even though travel was slower, much like Rome, living in the United States makes it very fluid. You can get in your car and drive 3,000 miles and be the northern tip of Maine and still be in our country. And the worst thing that you're going to have to do is get gas and probably pay some tolls along the way. You can get in an airplane and pretty much freely fly anywhere in the country and beyond, but it's it's easy to travel.
And the fact that Rome had conquered a massive amount of the world allowed this thing to happen that when the Jews started to persecute the church, they just scattered and they could do that. And so they ended up in Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch. And they're not, if you look at the map, they're not that profoundly far. Cyprus or Phoenicia is a region just kind of west of Damascus, which isn't that far, but it's it's no longer in Judea. It's roughly where Beirut Beirut is. Now, if you want to look when you get home, Cyprus, of course, I think most of you would recognize it off the map.
It's it's an island just off the coast. And then Antioch. And Antioch is the one that we need to spend a couple seconds on because Antioch ends up being the central place in this in this story. It's now in modern day Turkey. It's it's got a similar name still. It's like Antakya or something like that. I should have written it down, but I didn't. But it's it's sort of west of where Aleppo is today, right?
And the reason that it's so important isn't just because it gets picked up here, but because it's the third largest city in the Roman Empire and by about halfway through the first century, which is about where we are at now in the history of the church, it's the it's it's got about half a million people. That's a huge huge city. and Wright tells this story. He's like, it's kind of like there's this place in Oxford near where he teaches that the joke is if you stand there long enough, you're going to see someone, you know, basically for the region.
If you go to Antioch and you sit in the in the center of town or whatever for long enough, somebody you know is going to wander by because it was such the center of the region. But also, you notice now we're well outside Judea. They're into a culture that is not their own. But of course, because Rome is the way that it is, people have traveled. So they stay these these Christians that fled kind of stayed insular. And it's interesting to kind of think about. I don't think it's just because they couldn't find common ground, right? To share the gospel with somebody that you largely agree with isn't particularly difficult.
But to share some the gospel with somebody whose culture is so radically different than you is really difficult, right? Like if you talk to a young person today and you say something about sin, they're going to kind of crumple up. They be like, "Oh, that sounds really like a weird thing." But if you talk about it, if you learn how to like contextualize it and talk about it like brokenness, this this sense that you know something is wrong, suddenly it starts to make a lot more sense. And then you can explain, well, that's because of sin. That's because of this thing called sin. Right?
And so when you have a difference in culture, it makes it difficult. But it doesn't seem like that's the only reason. It seems like they thought, "No, the gospel is for the Jews alone." But we're about to see, right? And Cornelius set the stage for us that the gospel is for everyone who will hear it. Right. And that's what the men from Cyprus and Cyrene show us. They come and they start to preach to the Hellenist. And it might be tempting to think here, well, they were Hellenists before and they were they were proselytes. They were they were Jewish converts. Isn't that just who they're talking to?
But the grammatical hints and the linguistic hints is that no, we're talking about somebody completely different. Right? You notice the phrasing is to the And if you go right back to verse 18 that when the Jews or the Christians in Jerusalem glorify God, they're saying then to the Gentiles also the grace that also God has granted repentance that leads to life. And it's the exact same phrasing but with Helenist and said and so this not only that but the hints from the passage tell us that no, we're talking about the Greeks. We're talking about those who speak Greeks.
Maybe Some of them are proselytes but probably some of them have em embraced the Grecian way of living. And so it's to the Jewish converts and the pagans alike to the Greeks and the Hebrews alike that God has granted repentance that leads to life. Now there's another really interesting thing that happens here as well. We have no idea who these men were. They're completely anonymous. And that reminds us of the beauty of this day, the beauty of All Saints Day. Because most likely books won't be written about us. Praise God for that.
But most likely the person who told you about Jesus, the person who modeled for you what it looks like to walk in Christ. The person who walked with you and helped you grow in Christ will also not have books written about them. They will, as Kimor said, preach the gospel to you and then die and will be forgotten. And that is exactly what it looks like to be a saint. But it's also why we have All Saints Day. So we can say, "Thank you, Lord, for my grandmother. Thank you, Lord, for my mom, for my friend, for that person who showed me who Jesus is because that was good.
And it also reminds us that we too are called to the same thing. To preach the gospel, to die, and to be forgotten. And then there's this wonderful sentence, the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. We notice through this whole passage that it is the Lord that is working. It isn't them that's adding to their numbers. It's the Lord that is adding to the Lord. It's not the rhetorical qual quality quality of the men from Cyprus. They don't make amazing arguments. They're empowered by the Lord. The hand of the Lord is upon them. They preach the gospel and people receive.
The gospel is for everyone and the Lord goes before us. I think this is one of the hardest lessons to learn and it comes up again and again and again throughout Acts, right? You are growing in Christ because the Holy Spirit is working in your life. Not because I'm an amazing teacher, not because whoever you're walking with who's encouraging you in that is an amazing person, but because the Holy Spirit is working in your life.
Barnabas and the Ministry of Encouragement
And so often we put this pressure upon ourselves to be amazing evangelists, to be excellent disciplers, to do all of these incredible things, but the reality is we're just called to live as Christians and to show people who Jesus is and to trust that the Lord will use that. And so if you feel like Moses and you're a terrible speaker, if you feel like somebody who isn't very smart or very well educated, it's okay because it is the Lord that adds to the Lord. And then the report of this came to the ear of the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
And there's a part of them that I'm sure wants to make sure that everything is kosher. I thought that was really funny. But there's a part of them that wants to make sure that everything that's going on in Antioch is normal and good and right and beautiful. But this is only half the story, right? But it's still perfectly reasonable. When we came into the that we're in. They ask those questions like, "Who are you? What is your culture? What happens on Sunday morning? Are you are you theologically sound? Are you preaching the gospel? Are you committed to Christ?" And they should.
And that was actually encouraging that they did that. And likewise, they should ask, "Hey, what's going on in Antioch?" But do you notice who they send? They send Barnabas. Does anybody who wasn't at Bible study remember who Barnabas is? Barnabas is the son of encouragement. He is the son of encouragement. So most likely, yes, they wanted to make sure everything was all right, but they also wanted to encourage this fledgling multicultural church in a strategically important place. And so they sent the son of encouragement. And he does what he does best.
When he came, he saw that the grace of God, he saw the grace of God and was glad. He exhorted them to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith and a great many people were added to the Lord. So, not only did he have the gift of encouragement, not only was he good at encouraging people, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, right? He's good, filled with the Holy Spirit, and full of faith. In other words, God had formed Barnabas for a mission such as this.
And so going back to that same exact challenge where you feel like maybe I'm not equipped for this thing that I feel like maybe the Lord is calling me to do. Look at Barnabas. God made him ready to go to the church of Antioch and to encourage them and to build them up. And he was exactly who they needed at that time. And he does what Barnabas does best. He sees the grace of God and exhorts them. Remain faithful with steadfast purpose. Remain faithful with steadfast purpose. The commentaries that I've been leaning heavily on this had such wonderful things to say about this this whole section of that. Right.
Stott writes when the Lord when We see the Lord adding to the Lord so that he is both a subject and an object and goal of evangelism. We have to repent of self-centered self-confident concepts of Christian leadership. Peterson adds furthermore the growth of in size of a church is closely linked here with the growth of maturity not simply its outward growth. In other words, yes, we have to faithfully steward the gifts that God has given us. We have to faithfully do what he is calling us to do, but we do it by humbly submitting to the Lord.
We do it by knowing that it is the Lord that adds to the Lord, not Ian that adds to the Lord, not Elizabeth that adds to the Lord or Chris or whoever I want to pick on this morning. It is the Lord. It is the Lord that adds to the Lord. And our calling is to humbly submit to that. Our calling is to repent of our self-righteousness and our self-centeredness and notice that the Lord adds. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this as we've been reading through this passage, but there's several moments that the question of why did that happen? May have popped into your head. It popped into mind several times, right?
Who are these men that came to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene? And why did they come from Antioch? From Cyprus and Cyrene. Did they hire some major consulting organization to say, "No, you need to go to Antioch and plant a church." I don't think What's going on here? Why does Barnabas go for Saul? The only reasonable explanation is that the Holy Spirit told them. The Holy Spirit came upon them a and they went, right? Look at the fruit of their action. that the men that came from Cyprus and Cyrene brought the gospel to those who were outside and a church flourished in Antioch.
And now look what happens when Barnabas goes and brings Saul. He finds him and he brought brings him to Antioch. And for a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. And to be really clear here, to be really clear, they may very well have been raising up leaders, but their only their sole purpose wasn't to raise up leaders. It was to make the whole body of Christ stronger in Antioch. It was to empower the whole body of Christ in Antioch and disciple them so that they might grow and walk in Christ.
And it's wonderful because eventually the Antiochians named them Christians. And it might be tempting to hear to think here, well, the Antioch Christians were like, well, we're Christians. That's who we are. But what is a lot more likely because what we know about Antioch is they liked to give people nicknames. Is that they called them Christians because they didn't understand. They didn't understand that Jesus Christ wasn't Jesus Christ as in Ian Dunn or John Smith or so on and so forth, but that Christ was a title for them. But it fits so well because they're the followers of the Messiah.
We are followers of the Messiah. We are Christians just as they were. And Wright puts this so Wonderful. They were the king's men. They belonged to the king, to the Messiah, to the one who came and saved them. They were defined by belonging to him. Just as you and I are called to be defined by belonging to Christ. Wright recaps this chapter so well, this section so well. The church needs not only people who really can take the work forward, but people who in prayer and humility to can spot the very person that God is calling.
In other words, throughout all of these moments, the church was attuned to what God may very well be calling them to. And then they acted. The men came from Cyprus and Cyrene. Barnabas went and then Barnabas got Paul and Paul brought them back and he helped them grow and disciple them and they were made new. We're called to live out this same passage. Most of us, I believe, believe the gospel and then we are discipled. We are grown in Christ. But we're not called to just stop there. The end of our growth isn't just to grow and to grow and to grow and to become these like super amazing people.
A Gospel That Teaches Us to Love
The end of our growth is to be sent out, is to care for one another, is to share the gospel and to help people grow as the Lord has helped us to grow. And one of my prayers over the next year is that we would grow into this even better. that we would encourage one another even better to grow in Christ and to preach the gospel in season and out of season. Now, the last couple sentences seem like kind of a jarring change. There's this pro these prophets, they come down, they're talking about things, and the temptation is to be like, well, why what does this have to do with anything else?
Christie knows the mass majority of them are unnamed just like the men from Cyprus and Cyrene and yet they do the work and they don't look for their own faith but one of us of them of course is named Agabus and he foretells a famine that will take over the whole world and it's funny people very much like to be like there is never a famine in the whole world right they'll find something like that in scripture never happened. Well, they mean the Roman world. Well, well, there was never a famine in the whole Roman world during the rule of Claudius.
But Claudius's reign was known being marked by greed and mismanagement and blight, right? And so, yes, there probably wasn't a famine all at at what 55 AD or whatever and caused all this mess. Probably early 40s is probably more accurate. But there was a bad enough blight that the historian of Josephus wrote of Judea that many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food. And so we have a record that yes, it was bad. And so maybe they didn't suffer in Antioch, but their brothers and sisters in Christ in Judea were suffering.
And that's the exact reason why the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to his brothers, the brothers living in Judea. Because Judea was kind of at the end of the rope. If we talk about like something trickling down, they were getting a drop by the time it got to them. And so things were really bad in Judea and so they had more and they sent. And we might think, well that's lovely. I'm doing Operation Christmas Child. I do the same thing. I'm not making fun of Operation Christmas Child. But we have to realize how radical this is.
The cultural norm, especially in the Roman world, was to take care of one's own, to take care of one's own. And not just one's own, but within their stratified culture, right? And I'm going to really simplify this because we're running out of time, but basically the rich took care of the rich, the middle class took care of the middle class, the poor took care of the poor. And that was as far as they were willing to go. It was a little more defined than that, but it was very stratified. and you didn't cross those lines, nor did you really have any desire to cross any sort of cultural lines. Right?
We saw this with the gospel going out, right? The gospel goes out to the Jews and then the Jews had to be reminded the gospel needs to go beyond, right? And so this is the culture that they're from. I said, "Now they're caring for people that are not like them, that are far away from them geographically, and that they will never ever meet. And if the gospel changed them so that they were ready and willing to do that and they sent back, I think we've seen this morning the most wonderful thing. The gospel changes everything. These Hellenists, these pagans come to know Christ. They grow in Christ.
They're nurtured to be more and more mature as Christians. And then when they're asked, they say, "Take. We will care for you even though you're far away. Even though we'll never meet you, even though you're not like us, we'll care for you because you're brothers and sisters in Christ." And that's what the gospel does for you and I. That's what the gospel does for those who come to know Christ. So when you meet Christ, he will not allow you to stay the same. But through the work of brothers and sisters in Christ, through the work of friends in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, he will nurture you.
He will help you grow. And he will help you to flourish. So that when there are those who don't know Christ, you might be ready to say, "Friend, let me tell you of this hope that I have." So that when you know that the church is suffering in some far away part of the world, you will send readily help. This is what Christ does for you because you have been given the Holy Spirit. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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