Breaking the Mold - 5

And with the singing of that congregational hymn, we open our Wednesday night service, welcoming you to this live stream gathering of the Beacon congregation and other friends, some who are scattered in many other places. We thank you for tuning in tonight. We are looking forward to our time together and pray that the Lord will bless it, even though we're not in physical proximity one to another.

Nevertheless, through technology, we are able to gather together around a common expression, a common time of worship, where we are all listening to the same thing and are all entering into worship together. And so we're grateful for that opportunity during these strange days of COVID, as many of us had hoped and probably thought would be either over or greatly diminishing by now, but that is not the case. It's still going on, and in some places the number of cases are increasing, as they seem to be doing right now in Alamance County, according to the newspaper this morning, and also according to another report that I received recently about a number of cases in several of the senior centers, rest home ministries of various kinds throughout the county. And so we continue to pray, we continue to trust the Lord with all of these needs, but we're very much aware that this virus, though it is not particularly dangerous for most people, it has the potential of being seriously dangerous for some people and even deadly for a small number of people, and particularly those who are weak and vulnerable. We are grateful that, as far as we know, nobody in the Beacon congregation at this time is positive for COVID.

Several who were positive two or three weeks ago have worked through it. They are well. They have returned to work.

They are no longer contented. They are no longer contagious. They are no longer testing positive, and they experienced relatively mild symptoms for which we praise the Lord.

Well, my wife and I, Marty, have just come back from a wonderful time in the state of Maine, and if you think COVID restrictions are somewhat difficult here in North Carolina, I can assure you that they are nothing like those in the state of Maine or in Massachusetts. We flew to Boston and then picked up a rental car and drove up to Maine, so we had a little bit of interaction in the state of Massachusetts before we drove to Maine. I won't go into all the details, but just to say the Lord was with us wonderfully. We were able to make all of our connections and travel smoothly, and everything worked out well. We were able to make the trip.

We were all worked out by our gracious Lord, and we were able to travel, but it was different, and we found a place where there are tighter restrictions, and you have to just be extra careful in those situations. It has been a refreshing time for us indeed, but we are glad to be back. We were glad for the good reports that we received of the reduced activities here at Beacon while we were away, thankful for the good service on the Lord's Day, thankful for the good offerings that we received this last Lord's Day, and I do now have some numbers, though I don't have them in front of me, but I'll try to email those to you tomorrow, but thank you for that wonderful thought, great faithfulness in giving. The Lord continues to supply our needs.

Titus chapter 2 verses 11 through 13 tell us, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We will, Lord willing, continue our people-present service this coming Sunday morning at 9.30. And this coming Sunday, two things to keep in mind. Number one, it's the end of Daylight Savings Time, and so you turn your clock back.

You fall back in the fall. You turn your clock back in the next hour of sleep, come rested on time on Sunday morning, and we will be together on Eastern Standard Time instead of Eastern Daylight Time. Number two, November begins our annual missions month. We have conducted a missions month in November for nearly all of the years of our church's existence. I don't think we started that in the very first two or three years, but we started it shortly.

It goes back to the 1970s, and we have followed that pattern all of these years, and we're going to be doing that again. But again, because of COVID, it's going to have to be a little bit different, and we're not meeting on Sunday night, and that's the time we normally have missionary presentations from missionaries who are in the states, home on furlough, able to pay us a visit, primarily missionaries that we are already supporting financially, but from time to time, new missionaries that we may be considering going into partnership with their ministry. But we can't do that because of what's going on, so we have lined up some video presentations from missionaries that we will be showing to you in the evening service as it's live streamed. As part of the live stream procedure, we will incorporate some reports from missionaries. This coming Sunday night, it will be Tom and Connie Chapman, who have served in the land of Chile for several decades. I remember when they first started deputation, and we were one of the first churches to partner with them in the work of missions before they ever went to the field the first time, and we have supported them and prayed for them and showed interest in their ministry over these many, many years, and we'll be hearing an 11-minute report by video through the live stream service on Sunday night at 6 o'clock.

You can look forward to that. And of course, even though things are not normal, we still need to raise the money for our missions budget, which we have done over these many years from two sources primarily. Well, the budget is made up from two sources completely, not primarily, but altogether. Our missionary budget is made up from two sources.

Number one, 10 percent of our general fund at the end of the month is transferred from our general fund checking account into our missions checking account, and that constitutes about $60,000 of our annual missions budget, 10 percent of our general fund offerings, which have been running around $600,000 annually for the last several years, probably going to be a little bit less this year because of COVID. But that's the first element and the smallest element of the two, because the second infusion of funds that comes into our missions account comes from the commitments of our people in the Faith Promise Program. And so we need to mention that to you, remind you of it, ask you to be praying about it. We're trusting that the Lord will enable us to not drop below last year's commitment. We would hate to have to cut our budget for missions, though we will bow to the sovereign will of God and whatever is indicated by the cards that are returned. But I'm praying that the Lord will enable our congregation to continue and if possible even exceed the figures that we enjoyed last year. Last year, our Faith Promise missions total came in at around $130,000, I don't remember exactly, but over $130,000, coupled with the $60,000, maybe $60,500 of the 10 percent from the general fund, gave us a working missions budget of a little bit over $190,000, let's say $195,000. And that's what we had to work with last year, and with that we allotted support to the missionaries that the Lord has given to us, tried to increase support where that is needed, and we're even now gathering information from our missionaries and from their sending organizations to find out where the greatest financial needs lie. And that helps us to establish our missions budget and to know where to allocate funds. And so this is a very, very important time for our church, and the Lord has blessed us in this over the years, and we are a missions-minded church. And every year, somewhere around 30 to 35 percent of our total disbursements goes to missions and benevolence.

We lump those two things together. Benevolence giving is only a very small part of that. Most of it is missionary support, but nevertheless we put those two things together. And approximately one-third of all of our disbursements go to missions, and we are thankful to be able to do that, and then our local church ministry is supported on the other approximately two-thirds of the funds that God supplies. So we are a missions-minded church.

I'm sure there are churches occasionally somewhere that may give a higher percentage of their income to missions than the Lord has enabled us to do, but there wouldn't be very many. And it's a tribute to the goodness of God and to the working of God's grace in the lives of our people that we are able to do that. Well, I will move on to the request side of our prayer sheet. We're praising the Lord that Ken Elliott has recovered completely from COVID, and as far as I know, everybody else who had it, we had several people positive about three weeks ago. As far as I know, everybody has completely recovered. We're praising the Lord that Drew Guthrie got a good report. He's battling cancer, and that was a good word to hear. And we are thrilled that Art Pope, who had a couple of biopsies and there were some current concerns about cancer there, and those tests came back negative, and so Art is not battling cancer, not facing cancer, though he continues, of course, to struggle with his COPD. In regard to government leaders, our government official of the week is Burlington Council member Harold Owens.

Harold Owens has been in Burlington government for a long time, and he is now a member of the City Council. Under members, Scott Hayslip will be having hernia surgery tomorrow. Pray for him. Nellie Hunter continues to recover from surgery on her elbow. Liddy Norris continues to heal from her cracked left wrist. Mary Shaw continues to recover from shoulder surgery. That's going to be a long, slow recovery. Shirley Watkins is recovering at home and doing quite well, is really gaining strength.

We rejoice in that. Dale Blaser, a friend of Pastor Carnes in Pennsylvania, is in declining health. Leslie Caldwell, a friend of Darrell Michael-Hannon, is recovering from heart surgery.

I believe that's in South Carolina. Amanda Duba is in need of a kidney transplant, that is the wife of Sherry Kane's grandson. Geraldine Pendergraf is scheduled for hip surgery, a friend of Drew Guthrie. Shirley Rocky has a former member, a beacon, many years ago, decades ago, had a small stroke and a pinched nerve, and we are praying for Shirley. Bill Truesdale is having serious surgery, and this request was forwarded to us by Darla Hayslip. In the area of sympathy, we have two families who are dealing with the deaths of friends, loved ones or friends. Number one is Dr. John Johnson, a brother to Jane Latour, who died of COVID.

He was traveling, became sick in Arizona, went to California, where he was admitted to the hospital, and was diagnosed with COVID, and he did not recover. The funeral will be on Saturday. It's up in the mountains of North Carolina, up beyond Boone, and please pray for that service. Pray for his wife, Becky, and his children and other members of that family. Our own Pastor Bob Latour will be having a part in the service, along with Pastor Eric Johnson of our partnering church, our brother church in Asheboro, North Carolina.

So please pray that the Lord will bless that time on Saturday. And then Pastor Michael Carnes has a friend in Pennsylvania who took his own life, and that's a real difficult time. His name is Ken Miller, and his wife is left behind, and children and grandchildren.

And so please pray for that family. Under the category of cancer, we're praying for Russ Elliott, who has a tumor on the lung and is recovering from surgery. That's Ken Elliott's brother. Sharon King Lynch has Hodgkin's lymphoma. That's a friend of Darryl Michael Hannon.

I think that is also in South Carolina. Gaylord Remel has lung cancer. That's Leanne Michael Hannon's father, and he lives in Wisconsin. And then Ben Vestal, Lori Craig's brother and Sue Vestal's brother-in-law, is under hospice care in Lynchburg, Virginia, and only has a limited time to live. And of course, we are praying for our pastor brother, Gary Hendricks, who has pancreatic cancer and is declining. So please pray for his wife, Sherry, and for the members of that family as well. I'm going to read the words of a hymn that we'll be singing this coming Sunday when we gather together with the Assembly of the Saints, a live people present service on Sunday morning at 930. And entering into our missions month, we're going to sing this missions hymn by Chris Anderson that we have sung often and have grown to love. And it says, go to the world for the sake of his name. To every nation his glory proclaim. Pray that the spirit wise will open darkened eyes, granting new life to display Jesus fame. In Jesus' power preach Christ to the lost. For Jesus' glory count all else but lost. Gather from every place trophies of sovereign grace. Lest life be wasted, exalt Jesus' cross. Love the unloved for the sake of his name. Like Christ, befriend those whose heads hang in shame.

Jesus did not condemn but was condemned for them. Trust gospel power for we once were the same. Rescue the lost for the sake of his name as Christ commands snatched them out of the flame. Tell that when Jesus died, God's wrath was satisfied.

Urge them to flee to the lamb who was slain. Look to the throne for the sake of his name. Think of the throng who will share in his reign. Some for whose souls we pray will share our joy that day.

Joining our song for the sake of his name. In Jesus' power preach Christ to the lost. For Jesus' glory count all else but lost. Gather from every place trophies of sovereign grace. Lest life be wasted, exalt Jesus' cross.

Let's bow in prayer. Oh, Father, how we want to be channels of your grace to others. Help us, Father, to be faithful in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And Father, by the work of your spirit, use it to change hearts and to gather from every race trophies of sovereign grace. We pray, oh, Lord, that you will focus our minds upon those things which are eternal even as we gather by means of live stream tonight as we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Turning to missionary communications, but I start first with a thank you note from Wendy Lynch and the family of Linda Bruner, her sister, who passed away last week. Pastors and Beacon family, I cannot express how much your prayers have meant to me over the last few weeks.

Thank you for your prayers, cards, and food during the passing of my sister. It is hard, but God has truly showed us grace and comfort in Christ, signed Wendy. I next want to read the latest prayer letter from missionary Stuart Waugh. Stuart and his wife Laverne have labored in Zimbabwe for many years.

At times, they have also labored in South Africa, where he is at the moment. Even the Waugh's are members of Beacon Baptist Church, though they haven't been able to be here for a long time now because of Stuart's health situation and his inability to travel. I think the letter is self-explanatory, so I will just go ahead and read. It's an account of what's been going on over the last few months. We want to thank you for your continued faithful to us and your prayers, your love, and your financial support for the work in Zimbabwe. We greatly appreciate the sacrifices you make, knowing that you are going through tough times with COVID-19 and the resultant effect on the economy. We pray for the Lord's grace and strength to uphold you. The last prayer letter you received gave some explanation as to the health crisis Stuart has been facing this year. Last March, cancerous nodules were found in the liver. Since that time, much has transpired.

During the past six months, Stuart's health deteriorated significantly. With the discovery of cancer, it was essential to have irradiated spheres planted into his liver to stop the spread. These needed to be imported from Singapore. And with the very strict lockdown in South Africa, no planes were flying. It was a race against time, and the Lord provided the way miraculously. The spheres were inserted, and the cancer slowed down and shrank. God gave us the time to wait for the new liver. At that point, while Stuart was undergoing workup procedures, a thrombosis was discovered in the portal vein. The doctors tried to dissolve it, but eventually had to resort to another surgery, which was a liver bypass.

These were great times of testing, and further tests were yet to come. During the workup, it was discovered that one of the patients in his ward had tested positive for COVID. This meant that he and I had to quarantine for two weeks with the real possibility that we would contract COVID, but by God's grace, he spared us a possible disaster. For the next month, Stuart was called for transplant three times and sent home each time because the livers were not suitable. On the fourth call, by the grace of God, the transplant took place on the first of September. The surgery went very well, but it was a huge shock to Stuart's body, and for three weeks, the doctors didn't think he would survive it. Then the Lord turned things around, and he began to improve remarkably.

Even unbelieving, hardened surgeons described it as a miracle. We thank the Lord for his goodness to us in providing a good liver at the right time. Stuart is now home, home in Johannesburg, a little apartment that he has there. Stuart is now home and recovering from the transplant. He came home after four weeks in the hospital and is making steady progress daily. The new liver is functioning well, and the anti-rejection medications are keeping it safe. He can walk for around 15 minutes and is able to work on the courses he wants to teach when he returns to Zimbabwe. At the moment, he is having regular blood work to monitor the liver functions.

These should decrease after three months. And up until February, he has more spaced testing, and after that, he should be able to return full time to the work in Zimbabwe. I will return there in December to hold the fort. We are deeply thankful to all God's wonderful people who prayed us through his years of deteriorating health. The pastors in Zim keep in close touch, and the works are growing. There are eight young men who feel that the Lord has called them to preach, and Stuart is eager to get back to Zimbabwe and start their training. There are also three new areas where people are asking us to come and to plant churches, and we are very eager to get back and get going. The Lord continues to provide for our current churches and pastors, and then she includes a letter from some of the pastors about some of the things that are going on now.

I'm going to skip that part. And he closes out by saying, God has been extremely gracious and kind to us, and has granted us this opportunity to continue with the work among our beloved people in Zimbabwe. We ask for your continued prayers for healing, for safety from rampant crime and home invasion, and for great grace to direct and empower our service for our Lord Jesus Christ. You are our helpers most when on the knees before the throne of grace. We love and appreciate you deeply, Stuart and Laverne. What a great letter.

Thank you for that update. Well, I have a letter here that I'm not going to read. It is from a government official, an elected official in the state of Virginia by the name of Christopher Head, who is a member of the House of Delegates, and he is calling attention to the prayer walk, which is sponsored every year before an election, or every election here, every year that has an election before an election, by missionary David Anderson, who we partner with in the ministry there. The Capitol Commission is the name of the organization that he works with, which is an organization that places men in each state capital for the purpose of reaching out to the representatives and workers in government offices and so forth, holding Bible studies and ministering to them. And this particular prayer walk, Capitol Commissions 2020 Cookout and Prayer Walk, is sponsored by a large list of senators and delegates. They're all listed on the back of this paper. I didn't count them, but it looks like for senators, there's more than 20.

And for delegates, there's more than twice that number. And Chris Head is going to be speaking at the meeting, which will be this Monday, November 2, from 5 to 7.45 p.m., a prayer walk on the day before the election, which is a good opportunity for me to remind you, I'm sure you're not unmindful of it, it's been in the news constantly, but there is a national election on Tuesday. Many of you, no doubt, have already voted early, but if you have not, let me encourage you not to neglect this civic duty as well as a wonderful opportunity for the people of God to influence our government through the voting process. Well, I don't have time probably to read any more letters. I did have one, I have one here from the Webster's in France that tell about the situation there, the lockdown requirements, and so forth. I also have one from Larry and Carol Bunyan in Montana that I brought to the pulpit the last time I was here on a Wednesday night and didn't have time to read it, and I still don't. And I had one as well, I didn't bring it to the pulpit, but one from Tony and Kathy Payne in South Africa, they labor a little bit north of Cape Town, but in the Cape Town area, and they report, they actually came to the states to be able to visit Tony's mother, 85 years old, who had some health needs and they felt the need to come home and to spend a little time with her, and while they were here, someone broke into their home in South Africa and stole, the list of things that were stolen is quite enormous.

A lot of money, a lot of materials for the ministry. I should have brought the letter, but I don't have time to read it, but it's actually a wonderful testimony of the grace of God, and Tony's attitude is just marvelous, and he said, what those thieves didn't know is, I dedicated all that to the Lord long ago, so they didn't steal it from me, they stole it from him. What an attitude. When you hold material things lightly and give them all to the Lord, it sure frees you up.

You're not nearly as anxious about the things, the material things of life as you would be otherwise. All right. Open your Bibles, please, to Acts chapter 11. And we continue in this portion, which I started in September. The first message was Wednesday night, September 9, and I did that, number one, because Wednesday night, every Wednesday night has a missionary focus, and I thought it was very suitable because it's a passage really about the beginning of the development of missions in the early church, what we call missions, but number two, with an eye toward missions month. We're heading into missions month, and I thought this would help prepare us for that.

And so we've been working our way through this, and I'm going to pick up where I left off last time, which would have been October 14. And what you have is a strategy of missions, you might call it a recipe for missions, what it is that we are trying to accomplish with missions, what it was that they were guided to accomplish, even though this was all new to them, but God, the Holy Spirit, was guiding them in these early days into the work of missions. And it boils down really to three areas, number one, evangelism, number two, church planting, and number three, ministry, that is the newly planted church getting involved in ministry. The already planted church in Jerusalem got involved in ministry by evangelizing and eventually planting a church in Antioch of Syria, and so now there is a second significant church, and we see its development.

I read the scriptures, and we will continue on where we left off. Acts 11, 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, who when they had come to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists 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.

They should cleave unto the Lord, the King James Version says. For he, that is Barnabas, 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 had 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, that 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 Claudia 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. Evangelism, faithful evangelists, scattered out from Jerusalem because of persecution, preaching the gospel wherever they went, but always to Jewish people, going to the synagogues, going to the places where Jewish people gathered and preaching the gospel to them, basically proclaiming to them that their long-promised Messiah has actually already come.

His name is Jesus of Nazareth, he lived, he died on the cross, he rose from the dead, he went back to heaven, and he is the way of salvation, believe in him. But some of these men who were from, they were Jews from the dispersion, when they got to Antioch, Syria, 300 miles north of Jerusalem, they didn't restrict themselves to preaching the gospel to Jews, but they began to preach to Greeks, to Gentiles, and God blessed that. And Gentiles believed the gospel by the work of God's Holy Spirit, and a great many were saved, that's evangelism. Now secondly, we see church planting, and church planting, the section on that, could break down to these three thoughts.

We have number one, investigation, number two, supervision, and number three, instruction. Investigation, the report came to the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to investigate, to go up there to Antioch, Syria, and find out if these reports were true. And he could send back word to the mother church, which no doubt he did. Barnabas, a mature man, a godly man, carefully chosen for this task, and he went to investigate on behalf of the church in Jerusalem, which is now going to become the mother church of the church that will form in Antioch.

Number one, investigation, number two, supervision, when Barnabas got there, he realized that there was indeed a great work of God going on. The Spirit of God greatly blessed the evangelism of these, what we would call laymen who were scattered from Jerusalem. Many were saved, but they were just, what should I say, a loose-knit collection of saved gospel, but they were not organized into a church. They were not being systematically instructed in the Word of God.

These men who had preached the gospel were not pastors and teachers. They were laymen, and so there was a great need for someone, someone who was qualified to come and to provide some supervision, to provide some leadership, to provide some organization to what was going on in Antioch, Syria, and that someone was Barnabas who had been sent up there for that purpose. And he taught the Word of God and encouraged these people to continue on with the Lord, but he recognized that there was a need for more systematic instruction. I assume Barnabas was doing what he could in that regard, and it soon became too much for him.

So there was an obvious need, and he needed someone to help him with this. The church, the group, it wasn't really a church quite yet, it was a fellowship of individual believers that needed to be organized into a church, needed to be instructed as a church, and he saw the need for help because this was a large group of people and he wasn't able to do it himself. And a likely solution in his mind was to locate Saul of Tarsus, a former Pharisee who'd been saved on the Damascus Road, had ministered powerfully in the city of Damascus in Syria, farther east from where Antioch is, had so effectively ministered there that the Jews in Damascus who did not believe endeavored to take his life and he escaped and came to Jerusalem and he preached the gospel effectively there. And the same thing happened all over again, the Jews in Jerusalem who did not believe in Jesus determined that they were going to put Paul to death, and so the disciples hurried him out of town and he went all the way up to Tarsus, which was his hometown, up in modern day Turkey, up in the area of Asia Minor, of the Galatian area, generally speaking, it's a little bit east actually of Galatia, but he went home and presumably was preaching the gospel there, we don't have any report really of what was going on there, but I can't imagine Paul being there and just sitting at home and reading the Wall Street Journal, I think he was busy preaching the word of God and evangelizing, but we don't have any report of large numbers of people being saved and of a church being planted, though it wouldn't surprise me at all if we find out someday that that is what happened, but at any rate, Barnabas knew that he was a capable man, the kind of man he needed to help him in what was going on in Antioch, so he went off to Tarsus, he left the people in Antioch for a while, they had managed before he came without him, and so he assumed that they could manage for a couple of weeks without him now, and he went off to Tarsus, located Saul, persuaded Saul to join him, this makes me think that Saul didn't have a group of people that were large enough to organize into a church because he was free to come, he didn't have a demanding ministry that tied him down and anchored him to Tarsus, he didn't say I'm sorry I can't come, but the Lord is doing a great work here and somebody's needed here and I have to stay and to strengthen this work and organize this work, but no, he was available, he saw this invitation as the leading of God, he came with Barnabas back to Antioch, and together the two of them began a systematic program to teach the word of God to these people, and we read about that in verse 26, well verse 25, then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul and when he had 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. They organized a systematic program of Bible instruction, they are taking this group of new believers, these newly saved men and women, these born again Gentiles with perhaps a handful of Jews as well, there were some Jews among them, we know that from the book of Galatians later on, and they started, it says they assembled with them for a year.

The details are not given, we can't say that they met any more than on the Lord's day, but I'm certain that they were at least assembling on the Lord's day and may have had other times as well, as we see the pattern of Paul and his missionary labors in the places where the book of Acts does give us details, we realize that in some places he instructed more often than on the Lord's day, but there was this emphasis upon the assembly, and so it was that for a whole year they assembled, that's the Greek word for church, ekklesia, the noun form, means an assembly, the church is an assembly of saints, the church requires assembling to be a church, we're talking about a local church, you can't be a local church if you don't assemble, you can't be part of a local church if you don't assemble with the church, and so they assembled regularly for a whole year, certainly Lord's day by Lord's day, and as I say, maybe other times as well, midweek services, we don't know, but during this time they, Paul and Barnabas, Saul as he was still called at this point, they hadn't started calling him Paul yet, Saul and Barnabas were teaching the church, for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people, faithful teaching, what are they teaching, the word of God, what are they teaching, they're teaching what is called in Acts chapter 2 the apostles doctrine, what are they teaching, they are teaching people the foundation of the Christian faith from the word of God, they are teaching them the scriptures, they are teaching them truths that have not even been inscripturated yet but will be as the New Testament is written, they are teaching them the word of God, and they are doing that regularly, week by week by week by week by week by week, now what does this tell us, well it tells us how important the word of God is to the formation of churches and for the continuation of churches, for the health of churches, for the health of Christian people, this is necessary, in the work of missions evangelism is not the end, it's the beginning, obviously you can't have a church until you have born again people to constitute the church, but you don't have the work of evangelism very far along until you have gathered those believers together into a congregation, an assembly of people that assembles on a regular basis and is taught the word of God, what else does this tell us, this tells us that the essence of preaching is teaching and we generally think about coming together on the Lord's day and we think about hearing a sermon, we think about a pastor preaching, that's what we call it, preaching generally, and we more often say that, we say the pastor is preaching, we'll say that more often than we will say he is teaching, and there's good reason for that, there's scripture that talks in exactly that language, however we need to understand that the essence of preaching is teaching, now I in some ways I take it for granted that Beacon folks understand this and most of you who are tuned in are probably members of our congregation, but there are probably others as well, but we need to be reminded of this, even those who have taught it before, and of course we've got members of our congregation who are relatively new to our church and maybe have never heard this before, but we need to understand that the essence of preaching is teaching and that teaching that is effective is going to have the element of preaching incorporated into it and that brings us to the question, what is preaching, what is teaching, what is the difference, how do they relate one to another, how do they interact together, and this of course, I'm not drawing directly from the text, it's not there, but the text causes me to consider this and to explain this to you, they assembled together with the church for a year and taught, taught a great many people, they were teaching, line upon line, precept upon precept, this is what the word of God says, but what makes teaching preaching is the application of the teaching to the lives of the people who are there, if you have teaching without application, you just have information, it's not bad, that's good, it's good to have information, it's good to have an understanding of the contents of the Bible, but what you need is teaching that applies that truth to the lives of the people who are there, teaching with application, and what we generally think of as preaching is the application of the word of God, it's teaching that is applied. You say, where do you get that, you didn't get that out of this passage in front of you in Acts chapter 11, well I get that from several places in scripture, but I can tell you that if you will examine the sermons in the book of Acts, you'll find that they fit this description that I've given to you, they always, nearly always have some scripture that provides a basis for teaching, a text if you will, sometimes several, generally almost always from the Old Testament because in the book of Acts the New Testament hadn't been written yet, so the preachers, the apostles, whoever was doing the preaching, would take some statements from the Old Testament and explain them, but if you will examine what they are doing, you will see that they are applying them to the lives of the people who are before them right now, they're not just saying, this is what Jeremiah told the people of his day, here's the information, here's what it says, period, amen, let's go home, they didn't do it that way, look at the sermons and you'll find out, they applied what was said, there were plenty of personal pronouns, this is for you, this is what you are to do, this is how you are to respond, now sometimes preaching is all application without any explanation and when that's the case, it becomes little more than the preacher's opinion, that opinion may be based upon his understanding of scripture, we hope it is, which would make it important opinion, it would make it solid opinion, it would make it helpful opinion, but if all it is is opinion, all it is is application, this is what you must do, this is what you must not do, this is what you must do, this is what you must not do and it's not drawn out of and anchored to the word of God, then it's preaching but it's not good preaching, it's not Bible preaching, the application is what we think of when we think of the term preaching, we know that without even explaining it, sometimes people say I don't like you preaching to me, what do they mean, I don't like you telling me what to do, that's the application, if all you did was just say this is what the Bible says and never say now this is what it requires of you, then nobody would feel like they've been preached to, they wouldn't say I don't like you preaching to me because you wouldn't be preaching to them, you'd just be laying out information that they can accept or reject and don't feel any particular weight, particular pressure, particular compelling reason why they must obey it but when the preacher starts taking that truth and screwing it down into the lives of the people who are there, screwing it as it were into the consciences of the people who are there, saying this is what God requires of you on the basis of what this says, that's the preaching part. So all I'm saying is and this is maybe in some respects more for preachers than anybody else but I think it's important for everybody to understand this, what I'm saying to you is this, good preaching is primarily teaching, that's where it starts. If it's preaching without teaching, it's not very powerful because it's not anchored in the word of God, it's human opinion but likewise, if it's simply teaching without any application, it's helpful information, it's useful information, I think actually between the two extremes, that one might be the most helpful but that's still not what the Bible shows us by the examples that we find in scripture. It's when the word of God is taught and applied, taught and applied. Now there's no way that anyone can say dogmatically from scripture that you must have X number of applications per sermon, you've got to have so much this percentage of teaching and this percentage of applications, that's the sort of thing that will vary with the preacher and will even vary from one sermon to another.

But both are necessary, both are required for it to be effective. But we see therefore that the foundation of good preaching is teaching. For a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And it's that accumulative teaching, yes preaching with application, but that's accumulative teaching week after week, month after month, even year after year, that has the life changing effect in the hearts and minds of people over time.

It takes time. Here they assembled for a whole year and taught a great many people. And at the end of the year, we're told, the disciples were called Christians in Antioch. At the end of a year of this kind of preaching and teaching, the people of Antioch began to notice that these people, if I could put it this way, were becoming a great deal like little Christs, so they called them Christians. Well, isn't that the whole point? Isn't that what the Spirit of God is doing in the lives of His people? Isn't God in the business of conforming us into the image of His Son, making us more like Christ, shaping us like Christ?

That's exactly what He's doing. And somebody took note of it. He doesn't say the disciples called themselves Christians in Antioch, they didn't. They were called Christians. It was those outside the church that started saying, these people are Christians. These people are Christ's ones. These are people who are followers of Christ and who are reflecting Christ.

How did that happen? It didn't happen simply because they were saved. It didn't happen with the evangelism. It happened with the teaching, teaching those who were saved. That had life-changing results, so that they were called Christians, and now a church is beginning to form. Now you have some organized structure.

Now you have some regular meetings. Now you have some spiritual leadership, Barnabas and Saul. Now you have people who are growing in grace and who's fellowshipping together, sharpening one another. Now you have a functioning assembly of believers, a church, not just so many born-again believers, independent believers.

So it's moving along, and at that point we're going to have to call it to a close, and we'll take it up again, Lord willing, next time, but now we're going to close in prayer. Our Father, how grateful we are that the work of your Spirit showed us our need, that the work of your Spirit took the Word of God and made it alive and convicting and powerful and life-changing for each of us who are born-again believers, and how grateful we are that your Word gives us the pattern for the work of the ministry and for the work of missions and what it is that we are to be doing as we preach the gospel across the world. Father, help us to be faithful and fervent in this work. We want to praise you that Ken Elliott and others have recovered so nicely from COVID. We want to praise you, Lord, that Drew Guthrie got a good report.

We want to praise you, Lord, that Art Pope also got a good report and got a report of negative in regard to his biopsies. We pray today for Burlington Councilman Harold Owen. We pray, O Lord, for all of those who have governing responsibilities in our community and in our nation. We pray, O Lord, for the elections on Tuesday.

We pray, O Lord, that you will mercifully guide us and help us, and, O Lord, that you will bring righteousness to our land. We pray for Scott Hazelep that you'll give him a good result with his hernia surgery tomorrow. We pray for Nellie Hunter and Liddy Norris as they're recovering from their recent surgeries, and for Mary Shaw, likewise, and for Shirley Watkins as she is gaining strength. We pray for Dale Blaser and for Leslie Caldwell and for Amanda Duba, who needs a kidney transplant, for Geraldine Pendergraft, who's recovering from hip surgery. And we pray for Shirley Rocky as she deals with this stroke, and we pray, O Lord, that you will give the doctors wisdom to know why she has had this and how to address it. We pray for Bill Truesdale as he's facing serious surgery on the 5th, I think, of November. We pray for the family of John Johnson as they gather for a funeral service on Saturday. We pray, O Lord, that you will minister much grace to them. And also for the family of Ken Miller, for his wife, for his children, for his grandchildren, for the members of his congregation, Lord Minister Grace, we pray. We pray for Russ Elliott, who has a tumor on his lung, and for Sharon Lynch, who's dealing with Hodgkin's lymphoma, and for Gaylord Remmel, who is dealing with lung cancer, and for Ben Vestal, who is also dealing with cancer and is under hospice care. And now, O Father, cause your truth to not only shine into our lives, but to fill our minds, fill our hearts with light and truth, to dispel darkness, to dispel sinfulness, and to make us more like Christ as we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.