An Antioch Moment: Acts 12:25-13:3

INTRO> Thank you for joining us today as we take a quick break from our AXIOM series to celebrate and commission Parker and Lindsey for the work that God has prepared for them.

ILL> 6 years ago this past July Courtnee and I met with a group of people in what is now the nursing room there in the back. It was a season of transition as we where also talking to another church about coming on staff there and to be honest, I wasn’t the most excited about having the conversation. The meeting was going fine then Brandon Miller said, “Tell us everything that you would do if you came here to be our pastor.” There was a chalk board in the room and I wrote the words “Gospel. Community. Mission” I also wrote, “Elders, Possible name change” and “church planting”

APP> My theology and ecclesiology has always been the same from reading the Bible. From the very beginning of the Bible God tells us about the type of Math that he likes. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28

God’s plan was the bless the earth through the family by creating and multiplying more and more image bearers.This command hold true into the NT with Jesus Great Commission  : “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

Big Idea > The mission of the church is the mission of God which is to make and multiply disciples through the local church.

CONTEXT> We see this no more clearly than the entire book of Acts, the history of the church. Acts 13 is so significant because the gospel hasn’t really left the Jerusalem area, here we have the gospel going where it’s never gone before and it’s through the church in Antioch. I want to look at a few brief observations about this church and then here from Parker

1) A sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. v2

• • • • “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.” I want us to notice something here, look back at v25 of chapter 12 “when they had completed their service…”

APP> God often times reveals future missions when we have been faithful with past missions.

APP> We also see here a round truth. Every Christian servers and is a “missionary” but God calls certain people to specific tasks.

God appoints leaders and the church affirms those leaders.

2) A sending of the saints. v3

• • • • “… they laid their hands on them and sent them off…” I mean…. look at who they are sending off! These guys are heavy hitters! From an “organizational” stand point, this isn’t the move to make… but the church is an organism.

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.”

*ILL> In may of 1963 a group of people where “sent out” through a state organization and they met in a basement Of Margraet and Ted Cross.

(Call up Parker)

• • • Parker, give us a brief insight into what this next season for you and Lindsey looks like at Holy Cross.
    • What about this historic stream of the Christian faith has drawn you and excites you?
    • How can people pray for you?