Acts 11:19- 30,13:1-3 Our mother church

Sermon delivered by Christopher Hobbs on 14^th September 08

Thirty years ago there was a tv series that took hold of the popular imagination, ‘Roots’, where Alex Haley went back in to the history of where his ancestor had been taken from the shores of Africa and made into a slave. Or more recently there’s been a programme which investigates the background of famous people, for some to discover that they had relatives killed in the Holocaust, or were related to long dead murderers. Around the world there are many people who are interested in genealogy. They have computer programmes and get past copies of registers of baptisms and weddings. I can’t summon up enough enthusiasm to do that sort of research myself, but I’m always glad when some relative of mine is pursuing that interest, that is as long as they pass on the information. It’s interesting to know where we come from. Even though we are completely unique, we all started with ancestors.

Well individual churches have ancestors too. This church was planted when the houses were put here, about 70 years ago. There are still a few people who have been part of the church for almost all that time. Many of us have come from other churches and have joined this church, others have only ever been Christians here. It would be fascinating to find out where each of us were when we became Christians, and who had influenced that person who taught us the gospel, and so on, going back in a sort of spiritual genealogy. How long, how many generations, would it be until we came back to the time of the apostles? How long till we hit someone who had been present with Jesus.

You might think that the “mother church” would be in Jerusalem. That is where Jesus died and rose again. That is where the apostles were based. Everyone has heard of Jerusalem. That’s where ultimately we would expect the line to end. And it nearly would. But there’s somewhere else – somewhere that we probably haven’t heard of - that was almost more important for people like you and me, people whose family most likely were never Jewish.

Antioch is the modern day Antakya in the very south of Turkey, near the border with Syria. It’s inland a little from the Mediterranean, on the river Orontes. After Rome and Alexandria it was the most important city in the Roman Empire of those days. Because of the persecution of the church by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, believers in Jesus had spread out and left Judea. Verse 19 tells us that some went south to Phoenicia, some went west to Cyprus, and some went north to Antioch. They didn’t go east because of the desert. They were ‘speaking the word’, that means talking about what God had done in Jesus – the ‘word of the gospel’, but they only told people who were Jews by race, the same as they were.

If the only people who were told the gospel were Jews, there would only ever be a small number of people to know about Jesus Christ. But some people from Cyprus and some people from north Africa, on coming to Antioch, verse 19, “spoke to the Hellenists also, proclaiming the Lord Jesus”.

These were Jews from Cyprus and Cyrene who had been in Jerusalem, and become believers there – maybe they were present on the Day of Pentecost. When they got to Antioch they didn’t just proclaim the Lord Jesus to people of Jewish culture like themselves, they started to tell people of a Greek culture too.

They “proclaimed the Lord Jesus”. Proclaim is a grand sounding word. It’s what you do with an important announcement. How did they do that? What did they say? We don’t know. Maybe just by saying, Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the one we should obey and worship. Jesus is the one who is the Judge and Ruler of All.

If Jesus is the Lord, then we need to listen to him about how we live our lives. We need to listen to him about our plans. We need to seek his approval in what we do. He needs to have control over everything. We sing that song, ‘I am not the boss’. ‘Jesus is the boss of everything’.

We think to ourselves who is going to listen to that message? Who is going to change his life, live differently, ditching all the old gods, and worship Jesus? Would anyone? Would we have listened if we were in Antioch? Is that what we believe now?

Well lots of people did. This is big. Verse 21 “The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord”. It was

(1) Something new, undirected, inclusive (vv 11:19-21)

Think for a moment these were not paid professionals doing the proclaiming. These were ordinary believers. They hadn’t done any training courses, or been at good churches for a number of years. They weren’t exclusively men, or exclusively women. They simply knew Jesus was the Lord and they told other people. No one told these people to tell the Hellenists about Jesus being Lord, they just did it. They did it no doubt, because they realised that Jesus wasn’t just their Lord, he was the Lord of All.

And the people they told were different from them. The natural tendency of the Jewish person is towards a sort of racism. They are the chosen people. They should only marry someone of the same race. They should treat Jews differently from how they treat other people.

These Cypriots and Africans did something new. They proclaimed the Lord Jesus to the Hellenists, people of a definitely Greek culture. Somehow it was as though they realised that the gospel included everyone.

What they did was quite contrary to their tradition. They didn’t say ‘we can’t do this, we have never done it before like that.’ So they were not traditionalists.

They were not hierachical. They didn’t say, ‘but the apostles haven’t told us to do this – we mustn’t do it’. What they did was from the bottom up, not the top down. They got on with sharing the gospel because they wanted to.

They were not racists. They saw that what they believed was good for all people.

So these Cypriot and African people who were the church in Antioch could be called our mother church, because they were the ones who started telling people who weren’t Jewish about the Lord Jesus. The end of verse 26 tells us something else about them, “and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’.” They went on so much about Christ, the anointed one, the King, the Lord, that people called them the people who talked about Christ. Christians.

And by the hand of God a great number became believers and turned to the Lord.

How did the people become Christians? People spoke about Jesus, and, the hand of the Lord was with them. It was their work, the work of those Cypriots and north Africans, and it was God’s work: both together. We can’t make people Christians however clever and fearless we may be, that’s God’s work; but God makes people Christians through people talking about Jesus. If we don’t talk about Jesus and what he has done, then people won’t become Christians. Where are the Cypriots and north Africans among us today?

We in Europe need to re-discover talking about Jesus, proclaiming him, speaking the word. We throw up our hands! What do we do in a post-Christian culture, where the media and the opinion formers consciously want a ‘multi-faith’ society, or a no faith society, but not a Christian one? What do we do in a society like London that has become very private, and racialised, and where religion is not talked about? Well we in St Thomas’s Oakwood could note that talking about the Lord Jesus isn’t something that we need permission from someone at church to do. We don’t have to have done a training course first, though we could put one on if you’re interested. The first people to tell others about Jesus were ordinary believers, not special missionaries.

I wonder whether you are feeling a bit guilty like me. Not because we don’t talk about and really live for Jesus, though I certainly feel guilty about that, and maybe you do too. More about the crossing cultures. I’ve heard people say St Thomas’s is a rich person’s church, or a middleclass church, or a church where you can’t go if you are somehow different from what is considered normal. And that is a sad thing if it is true, because the truth about Jesus is not something that we should keep to people like ourselves. The truth about Jesus is something that did cross cultures and still does. And if we are part of the reason that people think it’s a monochrome church, then we need to make a conscious effort to share our lives with people who are different from us. Maybe we have to stop waiting to be spoken to, or to vary where we sit, or invite someone for a coffee, and that’s just in here…There’s a world out there where everybody is different, with a different history, a different genealogy, but the same gospel for all.

But the second thing about this church which was great at sharing the gospel with people is that was not enough. Sharing the gospel is basic and necessary. They were full of love for Jesus and speaking the word, but it is also clear that they were

(2) Needing exhortation and teaching (vv 22-26)

Verse 22

News 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 rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion…Verse 25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they associated with the church and taught a great many people,

The church in Jerusalem chose wisely when they sent Barnabas – another Cypriot, a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. He was encouraged by what he saw. He saw the grace of God. He saw that the Hellenists were saved, as the Jews were, by God’s amazing grace, not by anything good that they had done. Barnabas thought it was great that the Hellenists were also becoming Christians. But he could see that that church needed something more - to be told to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion.

He knew that even when we are true Christians we need to be told to remain faithful to the Lord. And we need to be told it every time we come together. Everything in us, in our very natures, and working on us from our culture, works to keep us from being faithful to Jesus and loving him above everything else. I find I want security from money or friendships. I need to be reminded that Jesus wants my love, not just my creedal statements. He wants my devotions, not just my donations.

Maybe you are in a prayer partnership or prayer triplet – we could consider it our duty to help the other person to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion. We could see that the coffee time after church, or the time after home group, or that time on the phone or email, is partly a time for reminding and being reminded about really following the Lord Jesus.

Yet Barnabas knew that the church needed something even more than he could give them, something more even than being exhorted to follow more closely day by day. And he went to go and get Saul as a co-leader and teacher. Funny isn’t it – a real reversal. In a way the church in Antioch was founded because of the persecution that Saul was giving to the church, and now Saul was coming as a teacher, an expert in the Old Testament and the gospel.

One of the great things about being here at Oakwood is seeing each year the new group of students who come to Oak Hill College, and realizing that some of them were active enemies of Christ; others were people who have grown up in the church and now hear God’s call to serve him full time; and maybe even here there are people in Oakwood who too will give up a lucrative life, and train to teach the word of God. Because the church needs to be taught the word.

The church in Antioch needed to be taught. It didn’t need to stop talking about Jesus and spreading the word, but it needed exhortation and teaching to keep on the right track.

And if I felt guilty about not talking enough about Jesus, or keeping in my comfort culture zone, how would I feel now, realising what Paul and Barnabas achieved in only a year, when I’ve been here eleven! But we live in a part of the world where we can all easily take responsibility for our own Christian education. There are great resources in books, courses and the internet. If we are not growing in knowledge, and the sermons here are not helping us, we can all do something about it.

Thirdly these first Christians show us that they were

(3) Sensitive to the voice of God – not ‘isolationist’ but generous in money and people (vv 27-30, 13:1-3)

The prophets in the church brought God’s voice to the people. Whether it was Agabus, warning of the famine that was to come, or the prophets telling the church to set apart Barnabas and Saul, the church heard what God was saying, and they acted on it.

Just think – hearing about the famine that was to come, before it had even started, made the disciples decide to send relief to the church in Judea. They were going to have the famine there in Antioch as well, but they realized that as they were able they would help the believers back at the headquarters. No doubt they knew the apostles would use the money wisely. That may have helped them give, but more than that, the Antioch church was not independent – it wanted to help even that church in Jerusalem that was not that keen on Gentile members.

But perhaps the even greater generosity is in the first part of chapter 13. They had a wonderful leadership team at the church, but the Lord told them to send off two of them, maybe their best two, and send them off for the work of proclaiming Christ.

I’m conscious that in my ministry at St Thomas’s we are still concentrating on the teaching and exhortation, that we need to be better at hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit; I am conscious that we are not good at worshipping the Lord and fasting; but with that aren’t you conscious that we have a number of workers here, and a good income, when there are places particularly overseas or the poorer communities where there is virtually nothing, or where the pastors are hardly paid at all. And I am conscious that I would not want to lose our best people to full time work somewhere else. But the message needs to keep going out. We need to be generous with our money and our people. Just because we should all be talking about Jesus, doesn’t mean full-timers aren’t necessary.

Maybe there’s someone here who believes she or he has heard God’s call to serve: we see that can’t be a purely individual thing, the church has to affirm that call also. But if you think you may be called to go out in mission, then talk to someone about it.

Just think. A church in a place we have hardly heard of, Antioch, a mixed church of people who loved Jesus Christ, is a great model of sharing the gospel, being built up in the faith, and sending people out into ministry. Surely we need to pray for many more Antiochs.