Breaking the Mold - 4

Greetings once again in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and welcome to the midweek live stream service from Beacon Baptist Church 1622 Kirkpatrick Road Burlington, North Carolina.

Here it is October the 14th. The COVID situation started, well I don't know exactly when it all started, but I think we canceled services about the middle of March. So, and then we went a couple of months with no services and then started meeting on Sunday mornings. And here we are still meeting on Sunday mornings at a very reduced rate. No Sunday school, no children's classes, and live streaming on Sunday night and Wednesday night. We recognize that it is what God has appointed and we are convinced that whatever our God ordains is right.

And so we are grateful to be children of the king and confident of his wise rule and recognizing that all that he does is good and gracious for his dear children. So, this Sunday morning we will be gathering together here in the auditorium at 930. We invite you to join us.

We will ask you to wear a mask unless you have a medical condition that makes it prohibitive for you to do that. We will ask that you fist bump or elbow bump instead of shake hands. We will ask that you space yourselves in the auditorium.

We have some of the pews marked to remain empty so we have to scatter ourselves around. But we've been having wonderful services and we've been having a few visitors. And we would be delighted to have you whether you are a member or a visitor.

And I recognize that primarily I'm talking to members and attenders of Beacon Baptist Church, but we are also aware that others tune in from all parts of the country and even some from other parts of the world. And so welcome and thank you. And I can imagine in my mind that I'm talking to members of our church that I have not seen face to face for many, many months. And I miss you. And I hope you miss us.

I know you do. And I understand you are one of those that's in an especially vulnerable category and I understand your need to stay in. But oh, I look forward to the day when you will be able to join us again. And I'm grateful that some who were unable to join us for a while have now been able to do that. And we have seen an increase in the numbers of those who are meeting with us on Sunday morning. We had announced last Sunday that starting this Sunday, this coming Sunday, October 18, we would begin having our Sunday evening service as a people present service.

But we have changed that. We've had several cases of COVID infection in our congregation. In fact, we've had more reported cases of positive results, positive testing results in the last week or 10 days at the most than we have had since the beginning of the pandemic. We've only had a handful in all of those months.

And now we've had another handful in the last few days. And so with that in mind, we think it would be more wise if we would hold off and just continue the schedule we're on now but not increase the number of gatherings at this time. So we will continue live stream Sunday night at six o'clock. Pastor Michael Carnes generally conducts that service.

And then, of course, Wednesday night, which you are listening to, tuning into at this time. We would encourage you to download and listen to the messages from our Bible conference that we had last week with Dr. Jim Oreck from Louisville, Kentucky. It was an outstanding, outstanding conference, wonderful ministry of the word. Many people have reported that their hearts have been blessed. I would love for you to have your heart blessed similarly. And you can do so by visiting the Beacon Web site and downloading those messages either on audio, audio or video, whichever works best for you. And listen to them.

They will be very profitable for you. I am sure. Have you not known? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth? Neither faints nor is weary.

His understanding is unsearchable. Keep that in mind as we deal with the covid pandemic. Well, let's update you on some things. We're praising the Lord that Nellie Hunter's surgery went very, very well on her elbow, and she will now be recovering over the next several weeks. We are also thankful to report that Judah Veroy surgery did well.

Or rather, his healing has gone well from a rather severe cut that he had on his heel. We have had, as I've already mentioned, a number of covid cases in our congregation. I can report to you that none of them have been severe. Nobody has been hospitalized.

Nobody has had severe symptoms. Amy Freeman is one of those, and she has reports that she's doing very well with her covid. Ken Elliott and Sue Elliott, likewise. I've talked to Ken on the phone and Sue by email, and both of them report that they are doing very, very well.

We praise the Lord for that. Nancy Verdi is another one, and she is doing well. In fact, I had the latest update from her just today by email, and she tells me that her symptoms are very minimal, and she's feeling very good. So those are the ones we've heard from, and there's some others that we're waiting to hear from. Claudette Delorge also has tested positive, as has Kelsey Perry is the final member of our church who has tested positive.

So we have however many that is, five or six folks who tested positive recently and are dealing with that. Art Pope is waiting on a report from a recent biopsy. It's been quite a few weeks now since he had that, which encourages me to think that nothing serious has showed up, or the doctor would surely be calling him in for a consultation on dealing with something serious, if that's what the MRI showed. But in the meantime, he's also having difficulty with his legs and with the veins in his legs, and he's also having that addressed.

So please pray for Art Pope. Mary Shaw had extensive shoulder surgery today. She will now be recovering from that over an extended period of time. Shirley Watkins continues to recover from her recent time in the hospital at Peak Resources, and that's a place where there's been another outbreak of COVID in the county. I understand that they're handling it well. They've isolated one section, and Shirley seems to be doing fine. No reason to think that she has become infected, but she's there. And so we mentioned that when you pray for Shirley, please pray that the Lord will protect her from COVID. We're also praying for Jesse Pope, a niece of Art Pope, who has had one brain surgery and is scheduled for a second one.

That's out in the state of Washington. And also for Isaiah Slauson in the state of South Dakota, that's the grandson of Walden Pam Atkins, and who is having surgery this coming Monday, spinal fusion, which will be the 22nd operation that he's had on his back over his lifespan. He must be about, I don't know, 12, 13, 14 years old now. It's hard to keep track of time.

It flies by so quickly. But 22 operations he's had on his back, three of them. Well, this will be the third one this year to previous ones in the summer. But this is supposed to be the last one, and we hope it truly will be, the last anticipated surgery on his back forever.

He has spinal bifida, and this has been a long, long, long series of operations one after another for him. We are praying for our Christian brothers and sisters in the highlands of Papua Indonesia, who are facing intense and very, very violent persecution at this time. For missionaries, we are praying for Grace Goodman and her surgery recovery in Alaska, for Trevor Johnson in the United States to address health issues and family issues, Paul Snyder and Trish, also in the United States, for health and family issues. We're getting good reports from the Sniders. Things seem to be going well in every area of concern. Stuart Waugh is doing well.

I meant to bring my cell phone to the pulpit and read the latest text that we have about Stuart, went off and left it sitting on my desk back in my office so I don't have that for you. So I will just simply say that we did have a text forwarded to us from Laverne, and it tells us that Stuart is doing well, making progress. His liver continues to function well. He has a few things that he's dealing with, which the doctors say are normal and should all clear up within three months of his surgery, which is now, I suppose, at least a month behind us.

So he's got a couple of months to go. Things are going so well that Laverne plans to return from Johannesburg, where she's there with Stuart. She plans to return to their home in Zimbabwe, I think in December, and then Stuart's planning to go in January, if the doctors release him to do that. But that's what they're doing at this time, so we rejoice in that. I might also mention that the Hoka family, missionaries that have been worshipping with us while they're getting training at the airport, right almost within sight of our church here, are also in Alaska. That's the field of service that they're going to, as did the Gutamans before them that worshipped with us during the time that they were here. They're not going to be with the same organization. They're not going to be working closely together, but it is a missionary aviation ministry, and the Hoka's are out there now investigating the organization that they'll be working with.

But they will be returning, for there's still some training before they'll be going to Alaska, Lord willing. We do want to express our sympathy to the family of Noah Foley, the 13-year-old who died recently from a strange condition. Our heart goes out to the family. We pray for him. We're praying for Ken Elliott's brother, Russ Elliott, who has a tumor on his lung and surgery on October 23rd. We're praying for a friend of Gloria Hendry, who has cancer. We're praying for Pastor Gary Hendricks, who ministered for 50 years in the eastern part of Alamance County.

In fact, part of that time, I think, even was in the western edge of Orange County. But at any rate, he's been there in the Mebane area all of his time, and he has pancreatic cancer. We're praying for him and for his dear wife, Sherry, and their family and their church family as they're dealing with this severe cancer. And we continue to pray for Gaylord Remel in Wisconsin, who is recovering from his heart ablation and is facing lung cancer.

He is the father of Lee Ann Michael-Hannon, who is a member of our congregation. Well, I promised you some missionary communications, and one in particular, which I'll get to second. But the first one is just a short note from missionaries David and Anju Anderson with Capital Ministries, holding Bible studies and ministering to legislators in the state of Virginia. And they wrote a note, Dear Pastor Barkman, we appreciate so much your faithful care and partnership with us in prayer for our civic leaders. We miss you and pray that God will give you strength and bless you with peace.

Love, David and Anju Anderson. I told you in my email that we would be reading a letter tonight from David Castles in Chelmsford, England. David is a dear brother, powerful preacher. We've had him here to preach for us. I've lost track of how many times over the years, the first time back in the mid 1980s.

So that's how far back it goes. And one of our favorite preachers, he really blesses us with the ministry of God's word. And we also have the privilege of providing a little bit of support as he pastors a small congregation in England that is not really large enough to support their pastor fully.

They're doing the best they can. But he writes, Dear Brother Greg, another year is soon to be upon us. He's anticipating 2021 as in previous years, we are sending a calendar from the United Kingdom as a mere token of our deep appreciation for the love and fellowship shown to us by the Beacon family. He sends a calendar every year. This is the most, what should I say, spectacular one yet. I'll show it to you if you can see it. It's a calendar of London. Beautiful pictures. I can't wait to hang this up.

Doesn't start until January 2021, so I'll have to wait a little while. But every month has a beautiful picture from the city of London. Some of these places that are pictured on the calendar I have been to and others I have not, or at least I don't remember seeing them.

But that's the calendar. I continue the letter. At this point, the COVID-19 situation continues to have a large influence in daily life here, as in the USA and much of the world.

Many questions are being raised, but so few satisfactory answers are forthcoming. The one absolutely constant comfort is that God, who holds us in His secure grasp, is sovereign above all and in complete control, and He cares for us more than we can know. In His providence, the Lord has used this virus to keep us, for the time being, in the pastoral role in Chelmsford. Chelmsford is a town, I forget how many miles north of London, not terribly far.

I'll take a stab and say 30-something in that range. Could be a few more, could be a few less, but quite a few people in Chelmsford commute every day to London to work, taking the train to do that. He says, we are thankful that while it was not our plan, it is evidently His will and mercifully it is also very agreeable to the church here. He had told me some time ago that he had planned to retire and move back to Ulster, Northern Ireland, in his retirement, but he tells us that he's still in Chelmsford in the pastorate there and that this is because of COVID-19. I'm not sure exactly how those two facts join together precisely, but I'm just reading what he wrote.

I did talk to David, oh, probably within the last two months by telephone, and he talked about this then, but it's still not clear in my mind exactly what it is about COVID that has kept him in Chelmsford. At any rate, he says, the book by Puritan John Flavell, The Mystery of Providence, encapsulates so much of benefit even in the title, The Mystery of Providence. Just one brief quote will be helpful at this time. There are several things to be distinctly pondered and valued in one single providence before we can judge the amount and worth of it. First, the seasonableness of mercy may give it a very great value. That it is timed so opportunely and occurs just when needed makes it a thousandfold more considerable to you than the same mercy would have been at another time. Thus, when our needs are permitted to grow to an extremity and all visible hopes fail, then to have relief given wonderfully enhances the price of such a mercy, end quote. And then he writes, please give our sincere prayerful regards to all who gather at Beacon, your financial support, and more than that, your prayerful support remains a rich encouragement. In the bonds of sovereign grace and Christian love, we wish you all God's richest blessing. In 2021, David and Isabel Castles, and below it, 2 Thessalonians 3, 16.

I move on. I have an email communication from Scott, Emmeline, and Daniel Delory in the Philippines. The Delory's worshipped with us here at Beacon for several months before relocating to the Philippines.

Emmeline is from there, and Scott, of course, is an American, but he has ministered in the Philippines in years gone by, and he's returned there basically in his retirement for the purpose of continuing ministry in that needy land. And he writes, Dear Beloved Brethren at Beacon, I recognize that this update is long overdue since I departed for the Philippines in June. The Lord was profoundly merciful to me while traveling alone to the West Coast and then on to Manila in the midst of a pandemic. From March 10 through July 23, the Lord shielded our family from medical issues as we traveled. Once reunited, we began the final leg of our journey together as we relocated to Baguio City.

I may not be pronouncing that right. After a two-week visit with Emmeline's family in Quezon City, we eventually arrived at Baguio on July 24. Sadly, shortly after arrival, Emmeline was stricken with COVID and hospitalized for 12 days. Mercifully, she was largely asymptomatic, and her confinement was mostly precautionary. Nevertheless, her hospitalization was followed by another 14 days of quarantine. The day after her return from hospital, I was afflicted with dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness. I was hospitalized for four days with dangerously low blood platelet counts. Perhaps some of you have heard Trevor Johnson speak of battling dengue.

It is particularly painful and debilitating. In short, all of August and one week of September, we're lost to sickness and recuperation. The last few weeks of September have been spent getting settled and exploring the territory, seeking a house to rent, finding new family doctors, homeschooling Daniel, and searching for a church home. After a rocky start, we're slowly making progress.

In God's kind providence, COVID delayed the start of the school year, and the delay has granted us some catch-up time with Daniel's lessons. Through it all, our merciful Father has remained near to us, constantly reminding and reassuring us that He is with us at all times. We are grateful to be receiving the prayer sheets and updates from our friends at Beacon. These allow us to pray specifically and maintain a connection with you all. Meanwhile, we would cover your prayers as we get settled here, find a church home, and seek new ways to serve God. Thinking of you all and remembering the bonds of love, Christ, we shared in such a short time before our departure, warmly in Christ, Scott, Emmeline, and Daniel, Delorey. It's so good to hear from them. Well, I have two more letters, one long, one short. Maybe I'll read the short one first. This is from the Green family, Jesse and Hannah and their two small children, who were with us at Beacon, I can't remember if that was a year ago or two years ago, but they were with us when they were on deputation.

I think that was last year, but maybe the year before. Anyway, as they were starting their deputation to go to the field, and because the field they're going to is a dictatorship and a country that's very hostile to Christianity, I'm not going to mention the country because the live stream goes out all over the world. So I'm assuming that Beacon folks know what country it is. I'm going to read the update. I'm going to leave out any references which would identify exactly where they are going to minister.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we pray that you are doing well. As far as our plans go, not much has changed. The necessary paperwork from a country close to the one that they hope to go to permanently, to be able to apply for visas has not yet come in.

Once we get this and our visas, we can move to a particular place and begin learning a particular language. Our scheduled meetings went well. Like so many people, they were locked down because of COVID for several months, and then they were able to start booking meetings again, and he's reporting that those have gone well. And we were able to be at some new churches and make some new friends. We were also able to be with some churches and friends that we have already partnered with, but have not been able to see for some time. It was encouraging to be with them and see God at work in their lives.

I skipped some things. Then how to pray. First, pray for God's direction in going to the neighboring country where they'll learn the language. Pray that God will help us grow our faith in Him and what He is doing in keeping us stateside. God ultimately did not create me for the country they're going to, but for Himself. God has called me to glorify Him wherever I am. I must encourage myself with this whenever I am discouraged that I am not in country where they're going. Second, pray that God would use us wherever we are to glorify Him.

Whether this happens while we visit churches, while we are in our home church, or while we are with our family and friends, may God be glorified. May God keep and bless you in Christ, signed Jesse Green. Do I have time for this letter from Larry and Carol Bunyan?

I think not. It's fairly long. I'd love to share it with you. But I'm sure it will take me more than five minutes to read. I think I better get into the word or we may not make it. I'm opening my Bible to Acts chapter 11 as we return to this same portion of God's word where we have been visiting and studying this portion together over the last several weeks. Our first message from this passage was September 9, and here we are at October 14. This is, for those who have not been with us before, this is an account of how God caused the Gospel to break out from among the Jews, Jews only, which was the concentration at the beginning, and start to bring in significant numbers of Gentiles. Now, the Gentiles who are converted in Acts chapter 11 are not the first Gentiles to come to Christ, they're the first ones to come in any great numbers, and the church that is planted in Antioch in this passage is the first predominantly Gentile church. There have been Samaritans saved before this, but we have not read of a church in Samaria up till this point. There have been others saved like Cornelius the centurion in Caesarea, but no church. At least not one, there may have been a church that was predominantly made up of Jewish believers that he attended, it wasn't there at the time that he was saved. We read of the Ethiopian eunuch who was saved in the desert, he's an individual, went back to Ethiopia. We are quite confident that in his return to Ethiopia the Gospel spread there, others were saved, eventually a church was started, in fact a whole number of churches.

We have a whole branch of Christianity that grows out of Ethiopia and in Egypt, and that is the Coptic church, Coptic Christians, they trace their beginning back to the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts. But this passage documents the first time when there was a large ingathering of believers from among Gentiles and the planting of a church in a Gentile city. I've entitled this section Breaking the Mold because there had been a very strong assumption that the Gospel was to go to Jewish people, and though I think it's obvious that the early Christians believed that God was going to save Gentiles, I think it's also clear that their mistaken concept was that he was going to save them by first bringing them into the fold of Israel, in a sense making them proselytes to Judaism, and then from there becoming followers of Christ. So that basically they followed the same path that these Jewish believers did.

As Jews they received Jesus as the promised Messiah, so they went from becoming worshipping believing Jews to worshipping believing Christian Jews who believed that Jesus was their Messiah. And they thought, I think, that that's the way God intended to bring Gentiles into the family of God, but they were mistaken. God did not intend to bring Gentiles in by way of Moses, by way of Judaism, by way of circumcision, by way of kosher dietary regulations, and so forth. God intended to bring Gentiles in by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved not by becoming Jews and then believing in Jesus, we are saved when we believe in Jesus.

We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and that alone means faith in Christ alone, not faith in Christ plus circumcision plus dietary laws and so forth. So this is the account where that truth became clear in the minds of these early Christians who were almost all Jewish believers. And so with that explanation and background we read again Acts chapter 11 beginning at verse 19. Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, they were Jews of the dispersion, they were Jews but they were not Jerusalem Jews, they were dispersion Jews from Cyprus and Cyrene who were accustomed to intermingling with Gentiles. When they came to Antioch 300 miles north of Jerusalem, a major Roman city, when they came to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists, that is the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and had seen the grace of God he was glad and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul, and when he found him he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. And in those days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Let's pray. Father, open our hearts to understand the portion of your word that we have read and to learn from it what you have appointed for us to learn.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you've been listening to previous broadcasts or previous messages which are also broadcast, from this passage you know that I have divided it into four sections. Number one, evangelism. Number two, church planting. Number three, deprivation.

And number four, response. We've already studied the section that deals with evangelism, the innovation that took place as these faithful evangelists carrying the gospel first to Jews broke out of the mold and began to witness to Gentiles as well. And that innovation, which surely it was, received divine endorsement because we read the hand of the Lord was with them and a great many believed. And so Gentiles turned to the Lord. Gentiles repented of their sins.

Gentiles in great numbers believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is evangelism. But secondly, we're talking about church planting because I think it's important for us to understand that when we're talking about what we call missions, and that's what is in view here, the missionary heart of the early church and a pattern of missions that is developing here, a strategy for missions, a way of carrying out the work of worldwide missions, that when we're talking about the work of missions we're not talking about evangelism only. We're talking about evangelism that when God blesses to save souls moves to the second step which is to establish churches. To establish a church in the locality where the people are saved or if they are scattered in several communities then churches in each of the communities where people are saved. And so in a sense we could say that the goal of missions is church planting. Now you can't go into an area where there are no churches without first evangelizing. Obviously you have to find ways to preach the gospel where there are no churches. And we see that being done throughout the book of Acts.

Most of the book of Acts from this point forward is going to be the record of the apostle Paul's missionary labors. And we see how he would go into a city. There were no Christians. There were no churches. He would find a place to preach.

If there was a Jewish synagogue he would begin there. And he preached the gospel there until they kicked him out. And they almost always did.

After some weeks they became irritated. The ones that did not believe that this Jesus that Paul was preaching about was indeed the Messiah of their Old Testament scriptures. They rejected that message and they rejected the messenger and kicked him out of the synagogue. In which case depending on the situation he would go elsewhere in public places to preach or in some cases.

There were enough that went with him who did believe who left the synagogue and followed Paul. And so he already had a body of believers that needed to be organized into a church and trained. And then they would be responsible for reaching their community. Church planting is the goal of missions. Churches are to take the responsibility of evangelizing their community. The missionary evangelist brings the gospel to an area but when God blesses it with the salvation of souls he's not done.

He's just started. Now he plants a church. And when that's established sufficiently that it can carry on without him, he will leave it behind in the hands of leaders, elders appointed in every city.

And will go on to another place and do the same thing all over again. Evangelize with the goal of planting a church and leaving a church in that location. That's why we read later on toward the end of the book of Acts when Paul says something like, I've completed the work that God gave me to do. There is no more work for me in these parts.

You say, what? Have you successfully evangelized everybody? Is everybody saved?

No. They're far more unconverted than converted. Well, why can he say there's no more work for me in these parts? He can say that because he's seen churches planted in every location. And now he needs to go to places where there are no churches. These churches will continue proclaiming the gospel in their community to the multitudes who are unconverted. It wasn't Paul's goal to convert everybody to Christ, though he would have been thrilled if that had happened, if that was God's purpose and plan for him. It was Paul's purpose to plant churches and leave them the responsibility of evangelizing their community. And that was his work as a missionary that should be understood as the work of missionaries in our day. And so we're talking about the missionary heart of the local church, step number one, evangelism. And we've read about that, how that happened in the city of Antioch. Step number two, church planting. Now, how did that come about?

It was very much a cooperative effort. We have investigation, supervision, and instruction. Investigation, verse 22. Then news of these things, what things? Well, verse 21, the hand of the Lord was with him and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. The news of great multitudes of Gentiles believing the gospel in the city of Antioch, that news spread, as we read in verse 22, then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem.

Okay, a report comes to the mother church, and what happens? And they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. In other words, they sent Barnabas specifically to this city in Antioch, where the report was coming and many people saved. He was to go to that place and probably to report on what they'd heard, to confirm it, and to report back to the mother church. But as it turns out, the need of church planting was so great that he never made the journey back to bring a report to Jerusalem.

We'll get to that in a moment. But Barnabas is chosen for this task because he is a godly man, a mature man, a trusted man. I think I showed you the last time his first appearance in this record is in Acts chapter 4. His name was Joseph, who was a dispersion Jew who had come to Christ and was well thought of by the church in Jerusalem, by the leaders of the church. And one of the things that he did was he sold a piece of property and came and brought the proceeds and laid them at the apostles' feet. But one of the other things we learn about him is that his name was changed, or at least a different name was given to him. We might call it a nickname, but the apostles called him Barnabas, which means son of consolation or son of encouragement, because his life and testimony, his words, his spirit, his manner, his way of ministering to people was so effective.

It was so encouraging. It had such a beneficial result upon others that he was named Barnabas, son of encouragement, son of consolation. And when they needed somebody to go to Antioch to find out what in the world is happening up there from these reports that we hear, who did they send but Barnabas, this son of encouragement. And so he arrives on the scene, verse 23. And when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. And the church is growing. We read already that a great number beleived by the witness of these persecuted Christians who came and broke out of the mold and preached the gospel to Gentiles. Now Barnabas, who is himself a leader in the church at Jerusalem, he is a recognized preacher of the word of God, he comes to Antioch and he begins to minister to these people.

And what happens? The hand of the Lord is with him and a great many more are added to the Lord. But what we are seeing here is another step in church planting. This church, it isn't a church yet. It's a group, a fellowship of Christians, but they have no organization, they have no leader, they have no God-called, God-gifted, God-appointed pastor or pastors to teach them. They are just a loose fellowship of believers.

Can I say something here? From time to time someone will ask me, what do you think about the home church movement? Well that's not an easy question to answer because not every home church is alike. But many of them are not churches. They're called home churches, but many of them are a loose fellowship of believers. But there is no recognized pastor or pastors, there are no recognized deacons, there is no recognized membership, there is no understood level of accountability and so forth.

I mean I could go on and on about the things that are generally missing. Not always, there are exceptions. It's not a building that makes a church a church. A church can be a church meeting in a house. They did many times in the New Testament. That's not only not unbiblical, that's very wonderful if in fact this group of people that's meeting in the house develops into an organized New Testament local church. But until that happens it's not, you can call it a house church or a home church, but it's not a church. And what there was in Antioch was not yet a church. Now these were members of the bride of Christ, the universal church because they were saved, but as far as their local fellowship was concerned they were not yet a church.

They needed something more and Barnabas came to supply that. And when he came he saw the grace of God. How did he see the grace of God? How do you see that?

That's what it says. When he came and had seen the grace of God, was glad and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. How do you see the grace of God? The grace of God is the power of God that is invisible in itself. It's kind of like the wind, the wind blows where it wills and the Holy Spirit operates as He wills and the Holy Spirit administers grace. How do you see the grace of God? Well what you actually see is the result of the grace of God. You see the fruit of the grace of God, just like the wind. As Jesus said in John chapter 3 with Nicodemus, the wind blows and you don't see the wind but you hear it.

You see the effects of it. You see the trees blowing. When the wind blows strong you know it's blowing stronger.

When the wind blows gently you know it's blowing gently. Not because you see the wind but because you hear a loud expression of the wind when it's blowing strong, a quieter expression of the wind when it's just a zephyr. You see the results of the wind blowing. When it's a real strong wind, a hurricane, you see some pretty devastating results.

And that's what you see. You see the effects of the wind, that is the Holy Spirit at work. And that's the same thing with the grace of God. It's virtually the same thing.

We're really talking about the same thing using different words. But how do you see the grace of God? In the lives of the people that God's grace has changed.

Barnabas got there, what did he find? He found people that formerly worshiped in heathen temples, bowing down to idols, praying to idols, making offerings at the altars of idols. They were no longer doing that.

They stopped that. They put their idolatry. They are now worshiping the one true God, the invisible God, the maker of heaven and earth. He found people who formerly had lives that were very licentious, that were very sinful, very much contrary to the law of God. It's interesting how false religion so often justifies and even promotes immorality and lascivious living.

That's so common. That's the way it was in paganism. That's often the way it is in America today, particularly when you're dealing with some of the cults. These weird cults, I'm not talking about necessarily the larger cults, the people that come and knock on our door. I'm not saying that they're necessarily that way, but these weird communal type cults that have a father figure and so forth, it's generally a cult of adultery and immorality that is practiced, justified, sanctioned, and given some kind of a religious covering as if this is somehow honoring to God.

It is in the false religion of the false god that they represent. Of course, that's the way all the pagan religions of that day were. The Roman gods, the Greek gods, they almost all involved temple prostitutes. In many cases, both male prostitutes and female prostitutes take your pick because the society was filled with immorality that went both directions and was encouraged.

They had something for every style of immorality. This was taught, this was presented as if this is a way of worshiping God. You have a relationship with a temple prostitute, that's an act of worship. If you're taught that, it's pretty easy, even if you know deep down in your heart that can't be right, it's pretty easy to say, yeah, I like that, I like that kind of religion, I like that kind of teaching. They're giving me a rationale, a cloak, a respectability to the sinful desires of my heart. Isn't that wonderful?

No, it's not. It's leading you straight down the road to hell in bondage to your sin and blinded to the truth. It's not wonderful, but the carnal mind living in darkness steeped in sinful desires thinks that's wonderful and loves religion like that. But what did Barnabas find? He came to Antioch and he found multitudes of people who had thought this way, who had lived this way, who had changed. And now they were living lives of decency and morality and godliness and purity and had laid aside their worship of idols and had laid aside their immorality. And they were reading the scriptures and studying the word of God and meeting together for mutual edification. And when Barnabas got there and saw the grace of God, that is, saw the evidence of God's grace, so powerfully at work in this congregation, he realized this is God at work. The reports are true. In fact, the half has not been told. Like Candacy, Queen of Ethiopia, who came to see Solomon, remember, she heard the reports in her home country about how magnificent was his kingdom, how wealthy was his kingdom, how well organized was his kingdom, how wise was the king. And she thought, this has got to be exaggeration. It can't be true.

Nothing could be quite that good the way it's painted to me. So she decided the only way to tell was to investigate for herself. So this was a pretty big undertaking. She took a great retinue of people. There was quite a train of chariots and conveyances that went with this whole small army of people with Candacy, Queen of Ethiopia, to visit King Solomon. And she saw it with her own eyes, and she listened to his wisdom with her own ears as he talked to her.

And her conclusion was, why, the report that I heard didn't give the half of it. It's more magnificent. It's more impressive. It's more amazing than even the reports that came to me. And that's the picture I'm getting here in Acts 11. Barnabas comes to Antioch to investigate these reports that have come to, how do they call it, the ears of the church in Jerusalem. And now he's come to investigate, and when he sees the grace of God, he says, why, this is more wonderful than the reports indicated. I'm amazed.

I would hardly believe it if I weren't here and could see it for myself. And so he recognized the work of God. He recognized lives that were changed. He recognized people who had been completely turned inside out, people who truly did turn from their sins, had left that behind, were walking a narrow path pleasing to God, no explanation for it except the new birth, the work of God in their hearts, the grace of God. And so when he saw that, he was glad and he was encouraged, and he encouraged them that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord, that they should strengthen their commitment and persevere.

And so this is what Barnabas did. He's, remember, son of consolation, son of encouragement. He's encouraging them to continue on with Christ. But he recognizes that there's still a need. Verse 24, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.

Verse 25, then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. Now, we're not going to have time to get into that, but what he sees is we need to organize this group of believers, the St. Louis Fellowship, into a church with order, with discipline, with sound doctrine, with recognized preachers, spiritual leaders. That's what comes next, and they need to be instructed systematically and regularly and deliberately over a period of time. And that's what comes next, to turn this group of born-again believers into a real, strong, local church, organized along New Testament lines. Well, we are going to have to stop there and conclude with a word of prayer. Father, how we rejoice in studying this report in Acts chapter 11.

It is wonderful to our ears and instructive to our minds and helpful to our thoughts as believers who are interested in the spread of the gospel throughout this world. Now, Father, we want to praise you that Amy Freeman and others are doing well with their COVID diagnosis. We praise you that Nellie Hunter's surgery went well, and she's now recovering.

We praise you that Judah Veroy is doing well from this serious cut which she had. We pray for Burlington Council member Bob Ward, that you will guide him in his role of civic responsibility. We pray for Claudette Delorge with her COVID diagnosis, and Ken and Sue Elliott likewise, and also Nancy Verde and Kelsey Perry. We pray for Art Pope and for his needs, and Mary Shaw that she might recover from the surgery she had today. We pray for Shirley Watkins, our dear sister, that you will protect her from COVID as she's recovering at peak resources and others in that place, that you might protect them. We pray for Jesse Pope in the state of Washington. We pray for Isaiah Slauson as he's facing his 22nd surgery on his back this coming Monday.

We're glad, oh Lord, that he's coming to the end of the road on these surgeries, and they anticipate this to be the last one. Father, I pray that it may go well and that he may recover and that this will be very beneficial to him. We pray for Pam Atkins as she's out there helping Thomas and Christy and the family and keeping the children, helping with the children, the younger three children as Isaiah is going through this time. We pray for the Trevor Johnson family and the Paul Snyder family and for Stuart and Laverne Waugh, and thank you so much for the good report we've received from them. We pray for the Noah Foley family as they deal with this heart-crushing loss of their 13-year-old son. We pray for Russ Elliott with a lung tumor and Tammy Ferguson with cancer and Pastor Gary Hendricks with his cancer and for Gaylord Remmel, we pray, as he deals with cancer. Now, Father, we commit ourselves and all of these needs into the omnipotent hands of the gracious Heavenly Father who has called us unto yourself, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.