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Intro:
What is success?
How would you define it?
Maybe you would define success as having a lot of money
Or a definition of success would be having a perfect little family with a white picket fence
And I’m so close you guys....so close (show picture)
Let me hear some of your definitions
So we’ve got some different definitions, but one thing was true in all of them…success always is based on the achievement of something right?
If you play sports, success is winning the trophy
If you are in a play, success is everybody remembering their lines and the play working perfectly
If you are at your job, success is hearing your boss tell you you are doing a great job
Which I hear all the time
But success is always the achievement of something
So when it comes to the church....how do we define success?
Some may say it’s defined by the amount of people that attend that church
So in Cumberland, Cornerstone would be considered one of the most successful
Others may say a successful church is determined by how relevant they are
Is the music basically the Christian version of coldplay?
Does the pastor wear distressed jeans and have tattoos?
Not necessarily wrong
Do all people feel super welcome and comfortable there
Still, another determiner could, and often is, how much money the church has
Or maybe it’s whether or not the gospel is preached weekly, which is important
Well, winner winner chicken dinner, tonight is your lucky night because we are going to see the answer to the question:
What makes a church successful?
How does a church achieve what it was designed to achieve?
We are going to look at three (there are more) attributes of the church in Antioch tonight
And just for a frame of reference, the church of antioch plays the largest role in the missions movement that we have or will ever see?
Why?....because we are the outcome of this Antioch moment that we are going to read about tonight
Foundation - The Word of God
Read
The church of antioch, their foundation was firmly rooted in the Word of God
We notice two things that point to this in verse 1
1.
The diversity of the men of God
There are listed for us 5 men, from vastly different backgrounds
Barnabas - who we know is from Cyprus (), an island off the coast
Simeon, who was called Niger - Which literally means he was black-skinned, most likely from Northern Africa
Lucius of Cyrene - also, from a city in Northern Africa
Manaen - now get this, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch…you know, the one who beheaded John the Baptist…yep, lifelong friend, possibly even a step-brother of a cruel murderous man
Saul - and, well....if you don’t know who Saul is by now…then this has been a hopeless exercise since September!
But do you see the diversity here…men from totally different locations, totally different backgrounds, and totally different skin colors
2. But not only were they diverse, they were all prophets and teachers in the church of antioch
They were the pastors, if you will, of the church of antioch…they were the leaders of the church in antioch
Which points out something to me, and hopefully to you, about the church in antioch
You didn’t have to be of a certain race
You didn’t have to be of a certain social standing
I.e.....these men all came from different backgrounds and circumstances....you’ve got Manaen who grew up in a palace for goodness sake
You didn’t have to necessarily act a certain way, again, different cultural backgrounds =’s different ideas and practices in daily life
And to me, this is proof that their foundation, their common goal, was the Word of God, which we see demonstrated in the fact that they were all leaders, pastors, in the church.
They all relied on the Word of God as the foundation, and as the glue that held them together
And my prayer for us, is that we will always be, as Strive, a group that is bonded and held together and standing upon the Word of God
Not held together by a person, or events, or anything else
It is the only thing strong enough to do it
And so if we want to be a successful, God-ordained, God-pleasing church, this has to be our foundation.
Focus - The Glory of God
This next attribute is so closely tied to the first one, that it is almost a result of the first attribute being true in the lives of a church
Here’s what I mean…if our foundation is the Word of God, meaning, if we find this to be of utmost importance, we believe this, we trust in this....
Then, as an outcome of that our Focus will be on the glory of God.....that’s our second point here in what we should try to mimic and imitate from the church in antioch
Standing on one leg illustration - focus on a certain thing....you can stand
But what does it mean to be focused on the glory of God?
It means that we believe, and I mean truly believe that everything we do is to be done to the glory of God....which is impossible by the way…because we are sinners
But if our focus is on that, then we will work our hardest to glorify Him....not to earn, but to glorify
Look at verse 2 with me
While they were worshiping and fasting to the Lord
They were willing to take the focus off of themselves in a very real way of fasting
What is fasting?
What is the point of fasting?
Fasting is two-fold:
Saying I want YOU more than anything
But it also exposes idols in our lives…things that take too much importance
See, when our foundation is right, our focus will be too
Fully Surrendered - To the Mission of God
And those two attributes lead us to our 3rd and final attribute
You can all breath a sigh of relief
The church of antioch was fully surrendered to the mission of God.....regardless of what that would or could look like
So what do we mean by being fully surrendered to the mission of God?
We mean being completely open to doing whatever it is God would ask us to do
Look at verse 2 & 3 with me
There are a couple things we can see from these verses:
1.
Because they were grounded in the Word and focused on the glory of God, they were able to rightly discern what it was God wanted them to do
They heard the Holy Spirit say to them, you see Saul and Barnabas over there?
Well, yeah, they’re our senior pastors, they’re the two most vital to our church, of course we see them.
Well the truth is, if
I want them to leave, I want them to go
Hey God, us again, are you sure?
Because they are kinda important to us
They were able to hear, regardless of what the message was, because they were fully surrendered
2. Secondly, they were willing to listen
A lot of us hide behind the whole “I’m just waiting for God to tell me where to go.”
Well, I can assure you, if you get your foundations right, if you get your focus right, and if you are willing to fully surrender....he’ll use you in a magnificent way
The church leaders were fully surrendered and listened to the leading of the Holy spirit, as we see at the end of verse 3.
And as Paul and Barnabas head off on the first missionary journey, what is about to happen is only by the grace and mercy of God…but Christianity is about to explode in a way that is still affecting the world today.
The ripples are still rippling
A Church Like That
I don’t know about you guys, but I want to be a church like that, I want to be a youth group like that
One that is willing to lay aside man made religion and find our foundation in the Word of God
One that is willing to focus less on ourselves and what we want, and what makes us happy, and would rather glorify God
One that literally, as a church, as Strive student ministries, says, Here we are Lord, use us however you want to
Which brings me to our last point.....Application
Application
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