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How do you know when God’s hand is on a church?
Acts 11:19-30March 15th
How do you know when God’s hand is on a church? How do you know when God is blessing a ministry? Church history is filled with great men and women who would be considered failures when measured by our contemporary, success-equals-numbers formula. Let me share just one of many examples from modern missions.
William Carey is known as “the father of modern missions” but he’s an example of someone who failed when it came to playing the numbers game. Carey was born on August 17, 1761, in a rural community in England. He became a Christian when he was seventeen and later became the preacher of a tiny Baptist church in the town of Moulton. Although Carey sought ordination, the members of the ordination committee went to hear him preach and concluded that he wasn’t ready—an opinion they held for another two years!
Finally, after he was ordained, Carey began to be dissatisfied with the hyper-Calvinism of his Baptist associates, who seemed to have little concern for world evangelization. When a Baptist association asked for topics for discussion, Carey proposed what at that time seemed like a bombshell: “Whether the command given to the apostles to teach all nations was not binding on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world.” A fellow minister ridiculed Carey’s proposal and responded with the infamous words, “Young man, sit down, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.”
But William Carey was determined not to be passive about the Great Commission. With the help of the Baptist Missionary Society, he set out for Calcutta, India, and arrived on November 11, 1793, with his wife and children and a fellow missionary named, John Thomas. Carey’s motto was “Expect great things! Attempt great things!” But unfortunately, great things eluded him. In 1795, nearly two years after arriving in India, he didn’t have a single convert. To add to his misery, his five-year-old son, Peter, died from dysentery, and his wife, Dorothy, was so overwhelmed by grief that she lost her sanity and had delusions for the rest of her life.
Finally, in December 1800, after seven difficult years of missionary work, Carey was able to write home that his work had borne fruit—he had baptized a single Indian convert, Krishna Pal. For the next twenty-one years Carey and his associates established nineteen mission stations throughout India and translated the entire Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit, and parts of it into twenty-nine other languages and dialects. He also co-founded Serampore College in 1818. But after all those years of labor in a country with millions of people, the entire mission team could claim only seven hundred Indian converts—fewer than those who go forward at a single Billy Graham crusade!
Yet, you and I make a serious mistake when we judge William Carey’s, or any ministry, including our own ministry, solely in terms of numbers. Any vital ministry is a team effort. Its impact can only be evaluated over time and ultimately, in eternity. When Jesus preached in Samaria, He told His disciples, “The saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor” (John 4:37-38).
Like William Carey, sometimes we must work hard without seeing any results. At other times, we reap the benefits of other people’s labor and see large numbers of people respond to our ministry. But when we look down on the sowers and put only the reapers on a pedestal, we fail to understand the nature of ministry. The success-equals-numbers formula is both unbiblical and unfair to God’s faithful servants.
So how do you know when God is blessing a ministry? How do you know when God is blessing a church? We find a church that God is blessing in Acts 11:19-30 (p. 780). Antioch is a wonderful example of a church that God is blessing and it’s a model for us to measure when God’s hand is on a church? In this passage we see an example of impressive church growth. From a small group of persecuted refugees, the church in Antioch saw large numbers come to Christ. Three times the large numbers are underscored (vss. 21, 24, 26).
But the reason this church experienced such remarkable growth was not that the leaders employed the latest church growth principles. They didn’t study the demographics of Antioch and come up with a strategy to market the church to the masses. Rather, the reason for the growth was simple, “The Lord’s hand was with them” (vs. 21). This was a church that God was blessing. And that must be our aim, too, that God’s hand would be with us. To be a church that God blesses, we need to learn from the church of Antioch.
Please note this! Employing the principles that this church followed will not necessarily result in numerical growth, since God does not always grant numerical growth along with His blessing. We would also err to conclude that God is blessing every growing church, because the fact is that churches can grow by using slick marketing techniques. But we would certainly hinder God’s blessing if we knowingly violated the principles embodied in this church. If we want the hand of the Lord to be with us, then we would do well to study and follow the example of this church at Antioch. If you’re taking notes, let me point out Seven Principles so that we too can be a church with God’s hand on it.1. God blesses a church where every member is a minister. The founding and prospering of the church at Antioch was arguably one of the most significant events in the history of Western civilization. It led to the distinctiveness of the Christian church apart from the Jewish synagogue, in that it blended together in one church family both Jews and Gentiles. It was here that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. It was from Antioch that the church launched the first mission to Europe. You and I conceivably would not be Christians today had it not been for God’s blessing on this church.
One remarkable feature of this church was how it started. It wasn’t founded by apostles or pastors or trained missionaries. Rather, some unnamed believers who were scattered because of the persecution that arose in connection with the martyrdom of Stephen came to Antioch and began talking about their faith, not just to the Jews, but to the Greeks (Gentiles), telling the good news about the Lord Jesus (vs. 20).
The Greek word for “speak” (vs. 19, 20) is the word for normal conversation. The implication is that they didn’t preach, nor were they gifted speakers but in their everyday contacts, they told others about Christ.
It’s noteworthy too that while we know where they were from, yet they remain unnamed. That was wise. I believe that if they’d been named, we’d hold them up as missionary heroes. We’d view them as being a notch above the average church member, concluding that what they did was something that we could never do. But their remaining unnamed tells us that they were just everyday, common believers who’d met the Lord Jesus and wanted others to know Him, too. And we all can do what they did.
Please note also that even when Barnabas and Saul later rose to positions of leadership through their teaching ministry, this church didn’t depend on them in order to function and grow. They could send both of them off on a relief mission to Jerusalem, which would have taken at least a couple of months, and keep right on operating. Later, when the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul for the first missionary journey, the church could send off these two key leaders and keep right on rolling along. That was because this church knew the principle of Body life, that God has gifted every member and each one is expected to exercise his or her gift in ministry.
If the spreading of the gospel or the functioning of the church depends on the labors of full-time missionaries or pastors, ministry will always be handicapped. If instead every believer senses that obligation of serving Him and of telling others the good news about Him, the gospel will spread and the church will be built up. Every Christian should sense his or her responsibility to serve Christ and to witness to the lost around them.2. God blesses a church where the gospel is proclaimed as the power of God to save sinners. To understand this passage, we need to know a little about Antioch. It was located 300 miles north of Jerusalem and was the 3rd largest city in the Roman Empire, behind Rome and Alexandria. It had more than half a million residents. It was a center for commerce and a crossroads for travel and trade between Europe and the Orient. This made the city a melting pot of various races, including the Romans, the local Syrians, Jews, and others.
The city was known for its sexual debauchery. Five miles outside of town was the grove of Daphne, where worshipers of Artemis and Apollo pursued their religion of pleasure with temple prostitutes. Roman satirist Juvenal criticized the moral pollution of Rome by saying that the sewage of the Orontes (a river flowing through Antioch) had for too long been discharged into the Tiber (flowing through Rome). He meant that Antioch was so corrupt, that it was impacting Rome, more than 1,300 miles away.
It’s significant that when God picked a city that would become the center for missionary endeavors, He picked a cosmopolitan, morally corrupt city like Antioch. In this secular, pagan environment, common Christians began telling the simple gospel message that Jesus came into this world to save sinners, that whoever believes in Him receives eternal life and forgiveness as God’s free gift. The same gospel that is the power of God for salvation to the Jews proved to be the power of God for salvation to these pagan Gentiles as well.
The end of verse 20 says, “telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.” Yet, in telling the good news, they didn’t dodge the hard matters about sin and repentance, since we read that a large number who believed turned to the Lord. This means that these former pagans gave up their idols, their sexual immorality, their lying, and their corrupt business practices when they put their trust in Jesus as Lord. When Barnabas came, he witnessed the grace of God (v. 23). While you can’t see God’s grace, you can see the effects of it in a person’s life. He could see that God had wonderfully changed these people. Faith in the good news about Jesus as Savior can’t be divorced from repentance from sin.
One remarkable proof that the gospel is from God is that wherever it goes, it has the same powerful effect. The message doesn’t need to be changed when it is taken to a tribe of primitive headhunters. It doesn’t need to be intellectualized when it is taken to a sophisticated university crowd. Whatever their culture or background, people are all sinners who need to know how to be reconciled to God before they face Him in judgment. If we will tell the simple gospel message to those we come into contact with, God will bless us with conversions.
3. God blesses a church that is willing to break out of its comfort zones. Many scholars sense that there was a note of concern behind the Jerusalem church’s sending Barnabas to Antioch. Word had gotten back to Jerusalem, “Have you heard what’s going on in Antioch?” “No, what?” “A bunch of laymen are sharing Christ with the pagans, and they’re all meeting together, Jews and Gentiles, as one church!” Alarms went off! Red lights started flashing! It was one thing when the God-fearing Gentile, Cornelius, had become a Christian through the preaching of the leading apostle, Peter. That stretched the limit. But when raw pagans from a notoriously immoral place like Antioch started coming into the church through the witness of a bunch of laymen, it was time for the mother church to check things out! So they sent Barnabas. Some of the legalistic crowd might have even said, “Make sure that Barnabas gets that Antioch situation under control!”
Notice though what Barnabas saw and how he responded. Verse 23 “When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad!” If the apostles had sent some legalistic member of the circumcision party, he might have seen something else and had a very different response. He would have seen Jews and Gentiles eating together (Gal. 2:12), not keeping the ceremonial laws. Instead of rejoicing, he’d have been horrified. But Barnabas was a man who lived by God’s grace, and so he saw the grace of God and rejoiced.
No doubt he also saw a lot of spiritual immaturity in these baby Christians. New believers don’t drop all of their pagan baggage the day they get saved. A church made up of people from such various backgrounds as those in Antioch was bound to have some irritations and conflicts. Rather though than focus on the imperfections and problems, Barnabas focused on God’s grace in saving these people. Instead of slapping a bunch of Jewish rules and regs on them, he rejoiced at what God was doing, and then began to encourage them to remain true to the Lord.
Friend, what do you see when you see a new convert? Let me describe him: He’s 20 years-old, he wears a baseball cap on sideways, a T-shirt, and jeans to church. He has tats and an earring. But here he is in church, lifting his hands in praise to God as he sings of God’s salvation. Do you see a young man who doesn’t look like what you think a Christian young person should look like, and grumble in your heart? Or, do you see the grace of God who has saved that young man, and rejoice?
Howard Hendricks tells of the time he brought his neighbors, whom he was trying to reach with the gospel, to the Dallas Seminary Founder’s Banquet. The Founder’s Banquet is a major fundraising event. The seminary wants their supporters to come and see the kind of quality young leaders that Dallas is producing. When Hendricks got there with his neighbors, he discovered that his table was front and center. When they dimmed the lights, the spotlight on the stage shined right over their table. And his unsaved neighbor’s cigarette smoke curled up through the light for everyone in the hotel ballroom to see. Hendricks says that he could almost hear some dear old supporter in the back grumbling, “That’s how liberalism gets started in the seminary!”
God’s grace teaches us to accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God (Rom. 15:7). We need to treat others as God has graciously treated us. And please hear me, if I believed that we could reach pagans by buying ash trays for church…I’d do it in a New York minute because I’d rather them smell like Hell than go there!4. God blesses a church where grace is the motivation to remain true to the Lord. God’s grace also teaches us to deny worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age (Titus 2:12). Barnabas saw that these new believers needed to grow in their faith. Every pastor knows that it’s one thing to make a profession of faith, but it’s another thing to persevere and grow in holiness when temptations and trials hit, as they always do. God’s grace in Christ is what motivates us to live holy lives (Gal. 2:20).
Genuine conversion is a matter of the heart. Thus, Barnabas, true to his name (“Son of Encouragement”) began to encourage these baby Christians to remain true to the Lord. Perseverance in the Christian life is not an accident; it’s a matter of resolute purpose. Can’t you just hear Barnabas teaching these new believers, “Because God has been gracious in saving us, we must resolve in our hearts to follow Him and cling to Him no matter what kinds of hardships we encounter. We must purpose to deny ourselves and follow the Lord Jesus. Abide in Him! He’s the all-sufficient One who can meet your every need. He’s done the greatest thing by loving you and giving Himself for you on the cross. He won’t abandon or forsake you, even if He calls you to go through persecution or even martyrdom. Let His grace motivate you to resolve in your heart to follow Him and walk with Him no matter what!”
The church God blesses is made up of members who see themselves as ministers of Christ. They proclaim the gospel as the power of God to save sinners from every kind of background. Grace, not legalism, permeates this church, and grace is the motivation to go on in holiness with the Lord.5. God blesses a church where godly leaders set the example of holiness and faith. Verse 24 states that Barnabas “was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” Barnabas was a man of integrity. He practiced what he preached. Those who knew him well said, “He’s a good man.” The reason he was a good man was that he was full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith in the living God.
Barnabas’ heart was to seek the glory of God through the building up of His church, not to seek a name for himself. At some point, he began to realize that the work in this church in Antioch was just more than he could handle. Maybe he realized that he didn’t have all the gifts that were needed to see this church prosper. So he left Antioch and traveled a 100 miles to Tarsus to search for Saul. Barnabas wasn’t threatened to bring this gifted man back to Antioch to share in the work with him. And eventually, he took a back seat to Paul’s leadership in their missionary endeavors.
God will not bless a church in the true sense of the word if the leaders are not setting a godly example. I say, “in the true sense” because I know of many large, seemingly thriving churches where it has come out that the pastor was not living a holy life. We need to be careful not to mistake a large church with God’s true blessing. I hope you pray for all of our leaders at Grace, that we will walk in holiness with the Lord Jesus every day.6. God blesses a church where godly leaders are devoted to teaching God’s Word. Barnabas and Saul met with the church for an entire year and
taught considerable numbers. Then we read, “the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Probably this was a nickname that the pagans in town gave them. It meant, “Christmen.” It’s only used in the Bible three times. Here, then in Acts 26:28, where Agrippa chides Paul for trying to make him a Christian; and finally, in 1 Peter 4:16, where Peter urges his readers not to be ashamed if they suffer as Christians.
F. F. Bruce imagines a group of two or three of these unofficial missionaries in the streets of Antioch, with a small group gathered around them, listening to the gospel. Someone watching asks another bystander, “Who are those people?” The other answers, “O, those are the people who are always talking about Christos, the Christ-people, the Christians.” And the nickname stuck, just as Jesus people or Jesus freaks was the description that came out of the Jesus movement in the 1970’s. While it may have been meant as a term of derision, it really was a supreme compliment for the pagans to notice that these men were “Christ-men.”
It’s implied that the reason people identified them as Christians was that they lived in accordance with Barnabas’ and Saul’s teaching of God’s Word. The point of all Bible teaching should be to change the way we think and the way we live. It should transform our attitudes, the way we talk, and the way we act, beginning at home and extending into the world. Others should recognize that we’re like Jesus Christ because we obey His Word, because we have a Biblical worldview.7. God blesses a church where the members are devoted to spontaneous, generous giving. The Apostles and prophets were the foundation of the New Testament church (Eph. 2:20). Once the foundation was laid and the canon of Scripture was complete, those gifts passed off the scene. The function of a prophet was to edify, exhort, and comfort from God’s Word (1 Cor. 14:3). He was also to receive direct revelation from God to impart His message to the church. Our text tells us that a group of prophets came to Antioch. One of them, Agabus, predicts a coming famine. This church’s response was to spontaneously and generously give toward the relief of their fellow believers living in Judea, and to send the gift with Barnabas and Saul. Verse 30 tells us that they didn’t just come up with this great idea; they actually did it, apparently without any pressure or organizing from the leaders.
God will bless a church that sees a brother or sister in need and quietly, spontaneously, without pressure, gives to meet that need. The famine easily could have hit Antioch as well as Judea. The church members in Antioch could have said, “We need to look out for our own needs; let the Jewish Christians take care of themselves.” But they trusted God and gave to meet the needs of others. God will always pour out His blessings on a generous church.
God wants us to learn to be generous at Grace Church. This morning we’re starting something new, though we’ve been planning it for months. Our leadership team originally talked about it back in December. Today we’re pulling the curtain back on it so you can see it.
Obviously, we need a new building. It’s a critical part of what we believe that God has called us to do in this community. At the same time we don’t want to forget the lost world that is also our responsibility. So we have a plan and a means to focus on paying off the land. But this challenge can only be met if first…
#1. Each of us gives faithfully. Unfortunately, while our church is growing numerically, our giving is not. It’s apparent that many are holding back. We believe that in these uncertain economic times many of us are living by fear not faith. As God’s children though, we must remember that He is still on the Throne. And we need to give, trusting Him.
The truth is – most of us need to increase our giving. Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21). Focusing your treasure in this world indicates that your heart is in this world. And if our giving stays at the current level, we’re going to have to start making ministry cuts and none of us want that to happen.
Let me share also this new plan….
#2. Please give generously. After your regular giving (remember we’ve got to pay the bills, financially underwrite ministry, keep the lights on), then give to pay off our Land. Frequently, rather than increasing their giving for a project like our Land Fund, some just re-direct what they are already giving. That will only hurt us all in the long term.
Our leadership team though has determined that we’ll tithe off of every dollar that comes in for the Land Fund toward missions. We’ll designate 10% toward missions. Next week we’ll have special envelopes that you’ll find every week on the Information Table in the foyer.
Currently, we have several individuals going on short term missions trips in the coming months. We’d love to double that in the future. To finish paying for the Land, to underwrite more missionary endeavors – it’s going to take generous giving for our church family – just like it did in Antioch.So #1. Each of us must give faithfully and #2. We must give generously.
Conclusion: Antioch is an example for every church. It was a church founded by simple believers who knew that God has called every Christian to serve Him. They proclaimed the gospel as the power of God for salvation to every one who believed. They operated by God’s grace, not by legalism or tradition. They saw grace as the motivation to go on with the Lord. Their leaders set the example and taught them from God’s Word. They were generous givers, trusting God to meet their needs. And the hand of the Lord was with them, that church was blessed by God – and considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.
Don’t you covet that for our church, for Grace Church? Don’t you want to be a part of a church, like Antioch, where growth clearly comes from the Lord and where, also like Antioch, we become a center for worldwide impact for Jesus Christ? That’s God wants for us but we must do it His way! We want God’s hand on our church and He wants to bless us.