The Antioch Moment

The last sermon I preached in a series on The Gospel of Matthew

note: Starting in 2021, I preached through Matthew. The whole Gospel, every verse. I was led to do that by a sense that our church was discerning leaving the United Methodist Church, and whatever the decision was, we needed the firm footing of the Gospel, and since Matthew is the Gospel most self-consciously referential to the Old Testament, it would really ground us in the whole of Scripture. 106 sermons later, we had just voted to leave the United Methodist Church, and two months later, we would be officially out. But we had to pay attention. The goal was never to leave the United Methodist Church— the goal was to be faithful to Jesus, His Mission and His Method.

So here we are. The last sermon from Matthew in this series.  I cannot promise that I won’t preach from Matthew again.  In fact, I can promise that I will.

A bit of history.  We started in January of 2021.  It is now April 2023. 27 months.   106 sermons.  Why?  It’s funny; apparently word has been out among other churches and pastors that I have been preaching through Matthew.  In my defense, I do not think anyone can say that we only talked about Matthew.  I could have preached to you largely the same substance from books we significantly interacted with these past 27 months:  Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Ruth, 2 Samuel, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, Zechariah, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and some other books I am surely forgetting to mention.  Anyway, one pastor asked me why I was preaching through the whole Gospel.  Because I felt like the Lord made it plain for me to do so.  I firmly believe that prayer is as important as study in the preparation of a sermon.  Seeking where to go in the Word, over and again in prayer, Matthew’s Gospel came up.  And I think I understand why.  It was in order to prepare Trinity Hill for a number of challenges: standing firm on the Gospel message in a culture that cannot be expected to, and in a denomination that was unwilling to, and most importantly, to truly live into our vision to bring glory to God by making disciples through Gospel-centered worship, community, service, and multiplication, we needed to seriously wrestle with the Gospel’s demands, especially with the Gospel that is clearest that Jesus is King and Lord, and clearest about the Great Commission.

And so, I remind you, although perhaps some of you remember, that we are repeating the Scripture from the first sermon.  For, we did not start with Matthew chapter 1, verse 1.  We started here, at the end, with the Great Commission, with the kingly authoritative command of Jesus, and then we went to chapter 1, to see the royal genealogy of Jesus, to see that He does indeed possess all authority in heaven and on earth; that He has no rivals, that He will have no divided loyalties among His followers; and that frankly, we should tremble at His Word, and in all seriousness ask if we are actually willing to obey the Lord.

Now, to start with, I want to look at a kind of recursive irony in the Gospel, this idea that Jesus is not very important, that even His family thought He was crazy, and especially in the last days of His life, the cocky self-assurance of the Jewish leaders.  They thought they had won.  Jesus was crucified, dead and buried.  Pilate has a great comment when they ask him to post a guard to keep the disciples from stealing His body and saying He is alive.  Pilate says, “you have a guard. Make the tomb as secure as you can.” Prophetic, when read with this emphasis… make the tomb as secure as you can.”  And then in today’s reading, when Jesus has been resurrected, they have to retreat to their plan… “tell people the disciples came and stole His body.”  You have to ask, “how did that work out for you?”  It’s hard to stop someone who has risen from the dead.  The Early Church had an organic faith—they did not need to be told to share their faith.

After a study of the book of Acts, this much is clear: the outcome of the Early Church’s discipleship process was that any believer could easily and quickly share their faith.

Want to see the fruit of the Early Church’s discipleship process? Turn with me to Acts 11, starting in verse 19.  In the Early Church, Antioch was the most important church.  Or maybe I should say, in the modern church, the church of today, the ancient church at Antioch is the most important.  So, let’s read Acts 11:19-30.

There is so much going on here.  Perhaps you remember that I have told you that the Gospels exist in a discipleship context.  Everything Jesus says and does is in the context of discipleship.  So, we do not read the Gospels primarily for information.  We read it for equipping.  We read it to see what we should be doing.  It’s stunningly simple when you see it that way.  Jesus teaches you to gather some people together with you, who you will teach His way to.  You pray. To the Father. For healing.  That demons would be cast out. Wherever you go, you share the Gospel.  And He gives you all the content—parables, teaching moments.  What if the Gospel moved from you knowing that Jesus told the parable of the sower and you may even know what it means—what if you go from knowing about it to teaching it to others?  Do you see now why we emphasize Discovery Bible Study and its simple questions: What is the Spirit saying to me in the passage?  What am I going to do about it?  Who am I going to tell?

Look at what happened in Antioch.  Look at how these early believers lived out what Jesus taught them.  At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, in a resurrection appearance, Jesus gives the Great Commission: go into all nations, making disciples, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.  Go.  Not stay.  Go.

If the church stays put, two things may happen.  You will wither on the vine because God does not need you.  Or, He will make you uncomfortable enough, perhaps through persecution, to force you out of the building to spread the Gospel.

The first people run out of Jerusalem persecution sought out their fellow Jews to tell them the Good News.  But some, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch, and took the Gospel to non-Jews. Verse 21 says “and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.”

The report came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.  Why?  Because they had to see what was going on.  Something strange was happening.  The Gospel was spreading, but not through the work of the appointed apostles.  There it is, plain as day. No reading between the lines, no arcane theology, just a simple description that I think we ignore or gloss over because if we read it and obeyed it… well, lots would have to change. We’d have to go out and make disciples in our daily living!  What we have are some early believers going to a new place, perhaps on business, perhaps on mission, but they are going to tell people about Jesus!  Please turn with me to Mark 15:21.  While we are getting there, who carried Jesus’ cross? READ 15:21.  Where is Simon from?  Cyrene.  The same place the men who carried the Gospel to Antioch are from. Notice that Mark adds the names of his two sons, Rufus and Alexander.  Listen to Romans 16:13, that list you probably think no point in reading, just Paul saying “Hi” to his buds.  “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.”  Simon, Rufus, Alexander, their mom… men from Cyrene.  The earliest tradition tells us that Rufus and Alexander were early missionaries in the church.  They went, preached the Gospel, with no approval from the apostles.  Because that is what believers in Jesus do.  Why would you wait for permission to tell anyone about Jesus?  Why would you think you need some training, some education? Two reasons.  First, you want an excuse to not do it.  I am untrained.  I did not go through the Bible study for this.  The second reason is because it’s the wrong question.  It’s not why wait for permission… it’s how can we keep quiet?  How do you keep quiet?

So Barnabas goes to Antioch, but first he goes to Tarsus to get Paul, to take him to Antioch, and they spend a year teaching the church.  Now, we have to jump ahead to Acts 13.  Because here is where Antioch becomes the most important church in the world.  “There were prophets and teachers it says, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, a lifelong friend of Herod, and Saul.”  Let’s pause.  Simeon Niger is probably the same who carried the cross. His nickname Niger, is Latin for black.  Means he perhaps had very black hair, dark skin, or was indeed, a black African, being from North Africa.  Lucius… again, another man from Cyrene.  [READ 13:2-3]

Friends, this is still a very tight-knit group. Men who were in Jerusalem when Jesus was killed. Barnabas, an early Jewish believer. Saul, recently converted.  John Mark, the young man who fled naked in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This is a small movement, they all know each other from those fateful days in the Spring of the year 33 A.D.  They are a small group but gaining steam.  Saul and Barnabas leave to preach the Gospel, assisted by John Mark.  Thus began the huge missionary expansion of the early church.

Did you notice, it started in a prayer meeting?

Much like the Methodist Movement.  On May 24, 1738, some people, including John and Charles Wesley, were in a prayer meeting.  There was intense prayer to God.  There was worship.  There was speaking in tongues.  While someone was reading Luther’s introduction to the Book of Romans… think about this.  The Book of Romans, the Word of God is so powerful that an introduction to it can have such power that John Wesley suddenly knew in an instant that his sins were forgiven, that Jesus had died for him.  As he put it, “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” which is to say an experience he had never had before, one that was a very powerful feeling in his chest.  That is the beginning of the Methodist movement.  Wesley started preaching about the experience, about the need for salvation because all are sinners, because they are going to Hell without Christ… he discovered that he was not welcome!  His journal in those days is full of things like “preached the Gospel of free grace to sinners.  It seems I am no longer to preach in such and such church.”  Can you imagine the plain message of Methodism not being welcome in established churches, to the extent that masses of preachers and entire congregations would feel they had no choice but to leave… ah, there is nothing new under the sun.  So Wesley, desperate to preach the Gospel of redeeming love, began to preach outdoors if he could not preach in the churches!

The Great Commission got aholt of John Wesley.  He took it very seriously. He went, making disciples.  First step was to preach the Gospel, the grace that stands between sinners and the stormy blast of the wrath of God.  Then, he gathered those whose souls were quickened into small groups called classes.  We would know them as Emmaus reunion groups or Life Transformation Groups.  I think you should hear this: the revival kicked off in that prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street in 1738 lasted about 160 years.  And I can tell you when it ended for us: in 1900 when the Southern Methodist Church quit requiring people to be in Methodist accountability groups.  We quit making disciples.  We gave into a foolish desire to go to church and be nice people.  We cut ourselves off from the source of our strength, from the foundation of our evangelism and discipleship.  We had to substitute something else in its place.  And here’s what you got: pastors in charge of a service that is supposed to be encouraging, uplifting, and lead people to come to church and be nice. Fancier buildings and properties, so people could see that prosperous and nice people go to our church.  Hiring staff to carry on the ministry, to do it on your behalf.  Look, we have great staff… but do you know what their real job is?  Not as much to do the ministry because they are paid to run the programs that will bring more people to the church, no, their job is to equip, encourage, and help you to carry out the ministry that God has placed on your heart!

I wonder if we can’t see ourselves in those disciples in their bewildered days.  They were grieving.  They were confused.  They felt like what they had known and given their time and treasure to was over.  They were not sure about what was coming next.  Sound familiar?  Part of what Jesus offers them, offers us, in such moments is clarity. Purpose.  Go.  Make.  Baptize. Teach.

They did that.  What He said came true: you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.  But that message, that purpose, that vision, that Great Commission was not just limited to the 11 apostles left at that time.  It was for all Christians in all times.  And they took it seriously enough that some who were not apostles went abroad telling the Good News of Jesus Christ.  And then the church in Antioch had its moment.  They obeyed the Lord’s command and the Spirit’s call.

Trinity Hill is on the edge of an Antioch moment.  We exist to bring glory to God by making disciples through Gospel-centered worship, Gospel-centered community, Gospel-centered worship, and Gospel-centered multiplication.  That mission statement was in a nearly-finished form before I came here.  My friends and mentors could not believe that I had landed at a church that had disciple-making and multiplication as a stated goal and value.

I wonder if we might say that if a church finds itself a little confused, a little in mourning; a change in pastor after 22 years; a global pandemic; leaving the denomination we all have known and loved (in truth, I can say I have not changed where I was when Bishop King ordained me; I have not left the Methodist church—they left me); and wondering what is next… a church that finds itself in that kind of situation probably needs to pray and follow Jesus’ commands.  Deceptively simple, isn’t it?  Hard to see when we are preoccupied.  But we should Go. Make. Baptize. Teach.  In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.