Small church, Big Impact
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
Good evening everyone and welcome to our midweek Bible Study Tsunami. I don’t know about you guys but I have been enjoying this study in Acts and as always, I’m really excited to have the opportunity to fill in for our Pastor.
Make sure that you guys are praying for Brother Mike as he is on his way to meet his newest great-grand baby.
If you have your Bibles go ahead and turn with me to Acts chapter 13.
Tonight we are going to talk more about the Holy Spirit. If you were here Sunday, you can consider tonights text as an example of what it looks like when the church functions in the power of the Holy Spirit just like when Jesus went to Galilee in the power of the Holy Spirit in Luke 4.
If you remember, last Wednesday Mike took us through an intense episode of persecution against the church and how the church responds to that persecution through fervent prayer. If you remember, the Apostle James is murdered and Peter is captured.
Through the intervention of Angels sent from God and the prayers of the saints, Peter is miraculously rescued and Herod is struck down by the Lord.
Acts chapter 12 ends with “The word of God increased and multiplied.” I thought it was really helpful last week how Mike mentioned the strategy of Herod for stopping the Christian movement in Jerusalem was to kill the leaders so that the movement would end but what we see and what the reality is is that the church experiences most of it’s growth through times of trials and tribulations.
Verse 25 of chapter 12 says,
And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.
This verse is a pick up from Acts 11:30. If you remember, in Acts 11 Barnabas went out to find Saul and once he found him, he brought him back to his church in Antioch. Antioch has turned into a sort of home base for the early Christian movement. Chapter 11:26, we see that Barnabas and Saul lived in Antioch for a full year making disciples and growing the church.
And then Barnabas and Saul left Antioch to take a love-offering down to the church in Jerusalem because of a famine that was affecting them. Saul and Barnabas were most likely in Jerusalem as James is killed and Peter is arrested. But this persecution has no affect on their missional motivations.
This is where we pick up in chapter 13. Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark arrive in Antioch to continue making disciples and building the church in that city..
I think there is a lot that we can learn from the church in Antioch. Not just from their generous spirit with how they cared for the church in Jerusalem but also from their obedience and their missional spirit.
Let’s pick up in chapter 13:1,
Acts 13:1–3 (ESV)
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Acts 13 really marks a shift in focus in the book of Acts. This is when Luke now follows the Apostle Paul exclusively and this is when Paul’s missionary journeys begin. This is a really important moment in the life of the early church.
Verse 1 tells us that there were Teachers and Prophets present at this meeting and then lists them out, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul. These were the leaders in the church at Antioch. The church was meeting together, they were worshipping the Lord, they were fasting.
And this is when they heard from the Holy Spirit. They could have been hearing from the Holy Spirit through the Prophets that were present. We don’t really know that but what we know is that they heard from the Spirit and he told them exactly what they were to do.
They were to commission Saul and Barnabas to go on the first Mission Trip. In the midst of trial and persecution, this church is compelled by God to send out missionaries. This just goes to show you, no matter what our church is going through, whether it is financial trouble or real tribulation and persecution (like it’s illegal to be a Christian), our priority is always mission. We are always called to send out missionaries to both foreign lands and locally. Nothing that the enemy throws at us changes this. Mission is always what we do.
Being able to live on mission both in our context and in other contexts is not something that we work toward. It’s how we should be functioning now. Remember, the church at Antioch was a small house church but their impact was truly great.
Really, what I think the main take away of chapter 13:1-3 is that even,
A small church that is obedient to the Holy Spirit’s leading will make a great impact.
A small church that is obedient to the Holy Spirit’s leading will make a great impact.
This is good news for us because we are a small church similar to the Church in Antioch. So tonight, I have five takeaways from Acts 13:1-3 and from the example of the church in Antioch. I hope and pray that this will be helpful to our body. The first takeaway, or principle, is this,
Rely on the Holy Spirit: (Acts 13:2)
Rely on the Holy Spirit: (Acts 13:2)
This past Sunday, Mike taught on the Holy Spirit. Who he is, what he does, and how we are to interact with him. I think Mike did a good job and explaining just how important the Holy Spirit is to the life of a Christian. I really appreciated that he spent a Sunday to address the Holy Spirit just because I do think that we kind of act like he’s the weird uncle that we have to like. Do you have a family member like that? “He’s weird but he’s ours.” That’s sort of how some of our tribe in the SBC treats the Holy Spirit. That or he’s just an impersonal force.
He’s so much more than an impersonal force or a weird uncle. He’s God, amen?
As Mike said on Sunday, we are called to be both filled with the Spirit and we are called to walk in the Spirit, just like Jesus did while he was here on earth.
What we are seeing in Acts 13:2 is a church made up of individuals who are both filled with the Spirit and are walking in the Spirit.
The church in Antioch had the same Spirit that Jesus did and they knew just how dependent they were on the Holy Spirit.
They’re probably feeling this more than even since Saul, Barnabas and John Mark arrived back from Jerusalem. These three guys most likely were in Jerusalem while the persecution of Acts chapter 12 was happening. They saw first hand how fast persecution can ramp up. And persecution can come suddenly and we should be expecting it and preparing for it by worshipping the Lord through things like prayer and fasting.
In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus told his followers what would happen in the years before his return. He said in Matthew 24:9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.”
He said that this will happen so expect it.
The church in Acts all the way through Constantine lived in constant persecution. There are places around the world today where the church is living in intense persecution. Places like Iran and China. What’s crazy is that when persecution is bad, the church grows the most because they are more dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Missiologists today will tell you that the most vibrant and fastest growing churches are the underground churches in Iran and China.
Do you remember what the early church leader who was an elder at the church in Carthage, Tertullian, said about martyrdom and persecution,
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Early Church “The Blood of Christians Is Seed”
The more often we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.
The more persecution that the church faces, the faster it grows. The blood of Christians is seed.
But we don’t have to wait for persecution to get here before we depend on the Holy Spirit. Right now, the church in America is experiencing relative peace. We have things like freedom of worship and freedom of assembly. I’m not saying that we should be wanting tribulation to come our way, in fact there are instances in Scripture where God’s people are told to flee persecution.
What I am saying is that relying on the Holy Spirit can be a lot harder in times of peace. We have to really want it and we do have to work for it, at least at first.
The church in Antioch was dependent upon the Holy Spirit for guidance through a dark world and we must be too.
I think Mike is right when he says that we should be expecting trials and persecutions to come our way in the church of America. It could come from the Christendom 2.0 crowd because historically Christendom has always resulted in Christians persecution Christians. Or, it could come from the Radical Left or maybe even Islam will rise up in our land.
It doesn’t matter who it’s going to be coming from, what matters is that we are relying totally on the Holy Spirit for guidance because it will come. We must seek his guidance and follow his leading regardless of what he leads us to do.
Remember, the Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness to face temptation from the Devil. Holy Spirit can led us down hard paths, too. This is where we need to trust him and rely on him for his power to accomplish his will.
Dependence on the Holy Spirit is not an option if we want to see any missional fruit, if we want to see the gospel really take root in our communities.
This is how the early church functioned and it’s how we must function. This is a challenge in the American church simply because we’ve gotten comfortable.
You know, there’s this AW Tozer quote that I just think is so good, and it kind of hurts. He said, “If the Holy Spirit were to leave the church today, 95% of the church wouldn’t even notice.”
Why wouldn’t they notice? Because they’ve turned the church into something that looks more like a club or a fraternity and instead of relying on the Holy Spirit, they rely on things like have programs for every age group or a ministry for every demographic. Really, they’re simply replying on their own wisdom for strategy instead on relying on the Holy Spirit for his direction and guidance.
The American Church has lost that reliance on the Holy Spirit that the early church had. We must rely on the Spirit through a posture of worship and humility.
And that is the second thing in your notes. It is this:
Establish Worship and Prayer as Foundations: (Acts 13:2-3)
Establish Worship and Prayer as Foundations: (Acts 13:2-3)
I think it’s really interesting that we see a glimpse of a church in the first century and what we see is not a group of Christians discussing strategy or a next plan of action. Instead, what we see is this church was actively seeking guidance from God himself through worship, prayer, and fasting.
Have you guys ever read through the history of the Kings in the Old Testament. I like to listen to the Dwell Audio Bible app at night when I’m falling asleep and right now I’m in 2 Chronicles. I love reading about the kings and how some of them honored God with their lives and kingship while others acted wickedly.
One of my favorite Kings to read about is King Asa. Asa started reigning when he was just seven years old and for 36 years, he reigned justly. He was a good king up almost until the end of his rule.
In 2 Chronicles 16, we see an episode in Asa’s life where Baasha, the king of Israel, goes up against Judah, which is where Asa was ruling. Because of the looming threat of Baasha’s attach, Asa took some of the gold and silver from the House of the Lord in Jerusalem and gave it to Ben-hadad, king of Syria, to break covenant with Baasha and to align with Judah.
Essentially, what Asa was doing was strategic warfare. Something any worldly-wise war general probably would have done. But God took issue with what Asa did. Why? Because he didn’t seek the Lord in worship before he started strategizing.
In 2 Chronicles 16:7, God sends Hanani the prophet to King Asa to give him a message. Listen to these words:
2 Chronicles 16:7–10 “At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand.
God comes to Asa and he says to him, “why are you relying on the King of Syria? Did he give you the Ethiopians and the Libyans? Those huge armies? Where is the King of Syria now?”
Listen to what Hanani says next,
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”
Because Asa did not seek after the Lord and ask him for his help, Asa’s kingdom would be in perpetual war. Listen to that verse again and really think about it:
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.
The Lord give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. We need the Lord’s support more than anything and when we are worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth, our hearts will be blameless toward him because we will be refined by the Spirit of God. Can you imagine what we can do with God’s strong support? A whole lot.
If we are not seeking after the Lord through worship and prayer, we will fail miserably or we will build something through our own effort and risk displeasing God.
Listen, it’s good to make strategy for mission but if it does not begin with prayer and worship and fasting, we run the risk of going against what he wants us to do and as a result, we will experience missional failure. We run the risk of doing mission in our own effort and displeasing God, the very one who sent us on mission to begin with.
We have no problem trusting in God for our salvation but as soon as it comes to doing the things that he has commanded us to do, like sharing the gospel and going on mission, we fall right back into relying on own wisdom and our own experiences instead of asking God for help.
This is what we see in the church of Antioch. We don’t know the details of what they were discussing amongst themselves but we do know that they made no plans until they heard from the Holy Spirit.
Let me ask you, as a church, are we relying the Spirit for direction? Are we asking him what he wants us to do? Again, strategizing is okay but it has to start with worship and prayer. One of the reasons why I love Wednesday nights is because this is exactly what we do after our study. We pray those frontline prayers just like the early church did and I love it. And of course, this is something that we need to improve on but I do think that we are relying on the Holy Spirit with our plans.
I do wish the rest of our church was involved with Wednesday night prayer because can you imagine what would happen on Jones Road if our entire church met together and just prayed to the Holy Spirit, asking him what it is that he wants us to do? It would be awesome.
But going back to Acts. We’ve seen that we need to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit and that we must begin our strategy with prayer, worship, and fasting. But look at who all is involved in this meeting… and this is the next thing in your notes:
Seek the Holy Spirit in Community: (Acts 13:1-3)
Seek the Holy Spirit in Community: (Acts 13:1-3)
Luke lists Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul. And he calls them Prophets and Teachers. What he didn’t say is that these men were the Pastor, Elder, Presbyters, Overseers/Bishops. He doesn’t list any titles. Instead, he introduces them by what they were doing. Their roles, if you will.
We don’t know much about these men other than Barnabas and Saul. I think that it is interesting that Manaen is mentioned as a life-long friend of Herod the tetrarch. This is not the Herod that was killed at the end of Acts 12. This is Herod Antipas, the Herod that Jesus stood before during his trial. I know that this is speculation, but I can’t help but to think that that episode somehow led to this man becoming a disciple of Jesus. Either through his friend Herod telling him about it or he was present himself. It’s just another example of how the Holy Spirit can and will use anyone.
The church of Antioch was a small but diverse church. And they knew exactly how each person was gifted to serve the church and there was real community involvement within this body. What you do not see is a paid staff member of the church making all of the decisions.
This is yet another example of how every single person is important for the direction of the church. Why is that? Because the Holy Spirit speaks every member of the body. Not just the “super-christians” or the staff. Instead, every single one of us has been gifted by the Holy Spirit in a special way. Every single one of us is absolutely vital to the functionality of this church.
When we are seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, yes, we should be seeking him in our private lives, but more importantly, we need to be seeking his guidance and direction in the context of the public gathering.
So while the Antiochian church is seeking the Lord through worship, God the Holy Spirit speaks and tells them exactly what he wants them to do. But look at how these early believers responded to the call of God, and this is the next thing in your notes,
Obey the Spirit's Call: (Acts 13:2-3)
Obey the Spirit's Call: (Acts 13:2-3)
Obedience is the secret sauce to effective ministry and mission. Our churchues today does not talk about obedience nearly enough in my opinion.
When God calls us to do something, we can know through the Biblical witness that he will always do great things when we are obedient to his calling and direction.
This is true of both our church’s life and in our own personal lives.
When I was taking my Baptist History class in seminary, we had to read the biography of Adoniram Judson, the first missionary to Burma.
I remember this story of when Adoniram first graduated college and seminary, he was offered a job as an Assistant Pastor at a great church in Boston, where he and his mom lived.
As everyone was congratulating him, he said, “My work is not here but God is calling me beyond the sea.”
That church, I believe, is still standing today but from the churches that Adoniram Judson planted in Burma there have been over 50,000 converts. All because he was obedient to God’s calling. You know that it would have been a lot easier to in his home town having a cushy job but look at how much greater the impact of being obedient can have.
Maybe God is calling you to do something. It could be talking to your neighbor that’s a grouch. Maybe it’s throwing a front yard BBQ for your street. Step out in faith and do what he has called you to do. Because if you are obedient, he will bless it. Who knows, maybe if you went and talked to the grouchy neighbor, you’ll learn that he’s a pretty good guy or maybe he’ll even repent and follow Jesus as a new disciple. Either one of those things would be a blessing.
And this is true for churches. I think it is pretty clear that the Holy Spirit has given our pastor and leaders vision of where we need to go as a church. One thing that I have been praying for the past few weeks is that we could just have unity over these things and I think we really have it. After our family meeting Sunday, I just felt that everyone was on the same page and now we are gearing up to following God the Holy Spirit and where he wants us to go and I’m just so encouraged and excited about what God is going to do in the coming months.
So, obedience to the Holy Spirit is really important for the life of our church and in our own private lives.
Here’s the next thing in your notes,
Empower and Send Out Missionaries: (Acts 13:1-3)
Empower and Send Out Missionaries: (Acts 13:1-3)
The church in Antioch was a small church acting as a hub for mission and because of that, they made a great impact.
Because this small church heard the call to send out Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark, the gospel eventually made it to the ends of the known world of that day. And because the gospel made it that far, it made it to us. We are here today because this small church was obedient to empowering and sending out missionaries into the world.
This is how we need to be as a church.
Because most churches in our context measure success by how big their church gets or how many programs they got going on. Some churches measure success by how many campuses they can start or how many buildings they own or a number of other things. I don’t think that is how God measures success. Instead, I think that he measures success by how many disciples we are making. Not church members, but disciples. People who love Jesus and worship him in Spirit and in Truth.
Have any of you heard of World Vision? It’s this organization who’s spreading the gospel in some of the poorest places on earth. I wanted to read something to you that they put out in an article in 1980. I know it’s old but I think it’s really relevant to us today.
It’s a little long so please bear with me,
Stan Mooneyham wrote (“World Vision,” July, 1980),
The other day when I was reading about a certain church, I came upon the fact that it “seats 900.” That’s a common enough way of describing size. The Houston Astrodome seats 50,000; the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 91,000. But, I wondered, is seating power the way a church should be measured? Wouldn’t sending power be more relevant? I’d like to know if that church sends 900. Or even 90.
Perhaps we’ve gotten in the habit of lumping churchgoing with spectator sports, where it is the coming and not the going that is important. That may help to explain why we attach such importance to glossy, fast-paced church services in which even ushers are expected to perform with the choreographed precision of the Rockettes.
The entertainment industry knows all about slickness and image, and if we are trying only to fill seats, that’s probably the route. But it seems to me that the church might better be trying to empty its seats. The church is, or ought to be, a sending agency. A recruiting office, as nearly as I can tell, doesn’t talk about the number of recruits it can hold, but the number it has sent. Come to think of it, I have never seen a very big or a very plush recruiting office. They don’t have to be, because the action is somewhere else.
That is how the church at Antioch measured success and I think this is how we should measure success. I can’t wait until we start these discovery Bible Study huddles so that we can send disciples out into the community to make more disciples and maybe even establish more churches.
So, as before we spend some time together in prayer, let’s remember these five things,
Let us rely on the Holy Spirit. Both as a church and individually.
Let us establish a foundation of worship and prayer.
Let us seek the Holy Spirit in the context of our faith community.
Let us seek obey the Holy Spirit when we hear from him.
Let us empower and send out missionaries.
Again, I’m really encouraged by where we are as a church. I think that we are following the Spirit’s direction and I just want to encourage you to really get involved with things like the DBS huddles and mission trips that we may be going on in the future.
Next week, I assume Pastor Mike will take us through the beginning of Paul’s first missionary journey. There’s a lot we will learn about living on mission in the coming chapters.
Let’s pray and then we will end our stream and then those of us left in the room will spend some time together in prayer.