Sermon Tone Analysis

As we have been digging through the book of Acts we have found that the gospel message has spread far and wide.

The church has grown from a small group of 120 followers of Jesus Christ in Acts 2, and God has been adding numbers to them the entire time.

Salvation has not only come to the Israelites but as we have found it has also gone to the Gentiles.

The Hand of the Lord has been hard at work in Growing His Church with or without the apostles.

What has grown His church to this point are people who have trusted in Christ and can't contain the truth of who Christ is and what He has done in their place.

Now the city of Antioch, the third largest Gentile city in the Roman Empire has received the message of the gospel, they have heard the good news of Jesus Christ.

Not only did they hear it but they also trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

God's at work in building up His church and God will do this work.

He requires faithful servants who will go out and spread His message, and He also requires servants who will encourage the people to stand firm in what they believe, but it doesn't end there.

If all the church was about was just telling people about the good news of Jesus Christ and encouraging people to pray and to follow Him then do you know what we would have, shallow churches that only know the the gospel.

Matthew 28:18-20 says this,

Jesus tells the apostles to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Making disciples is two fold, evangelism, telling them the good news of Jesus Christ which brings about belief in Jesus Christ which causes them to become disciples of Jesus Christ.

The expression or the outward sign of the inward change of become a disciple is through water baptism.

Water baptism doesn't save but it does publicly demonstrate that you identify with Jesus Christ.

Sadly this is were a lot of church stop.

People are saved and then baptised but the third part of this is what really grows the church, God's church, "teaching them to observe all that I commanded you."

With out the teaching portion how do people know who Jesus Christ is, how do they know what He has commanded or why He has commanded it?

How do people know how to live a life dedicated to Christ?

Notice also teaching is not about just telling people facts about what you know.

Anyone can spue out facts, people need to know how do those facts relate to their lives.

Here is the thing about discipleship, being a disciple means you are always learning, being a disciple means you are always pursuing Godliness, Holiness and as long as we walk this earth we will never be perfected but we strive to get there.

This is the job of the church, salvation and sanctification.

We can't be sanctified without the truth of God's word, John 17:17 , Sanctify them by your truth, Your Word is truth.

This morning we will continue to look at The Hand of the Lord in Growing His Church.

We have focused on the gospel growing the church and encouragement growing the church and this morning we will focus on teaching growing the church.

The Hand of the Lord in Growing His Church

Let's go ahead and look at our text this morning, we will be focusing on Acts 11:25-26 but for context let's go ahead and read verse 19-30

So we have seen how the news about the spread of the gospel in Antioch has reached the church in Jerusalem and the elders of the church sent Barnabas out to find out what was going on.

When he arrived in Antioch the scene of the people being saved from damnation sparked a celebration for Barnabas and he encouraged the church to stay dedicated to the Lord.

Barnabas was motivated to do such things because of the Holy Sprit that worked in him and the faith he had in God's grace and work.

As Barnabas continued to encourage the believers God continued to add numbers to the church in Antioch.

So as the church grew Barnabas noticed he needed help and these people needed more then the encouragement he could offer so we find in verse 25, "And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul."

Barnabas goes looking for Saul of Tarsus.

Barnabas has met Saul years prior in Jerusalem after Saul had returned from Damascus were he had that life changing encounter with Jesus Himself.

Barnabas had spent time with Saul while in Jerusalem so he knew Saul's temperament and gifts.

Why does Barnabas go looking for Saul?

Why doesn't he just continue to encourage people in Antioch, since considerable numbers are being brought to the Lord.

Simple answer, because encouragement to stay the course involves training and education, and Saul was the right guy for the job.

Barnabas knows were Saul is and so he heads out on a mission to find him and bring him to Antioch.

This looking for Saul was not just be chance.

God had His hand in this.

As we continue we will see that The Hand of the Lord Calls the Teacher.

The Hand of Lord Calls the Teacher

Barnabas went all the way to Tarsus to look for Saul and it was not easy for him to find Saul.

In verse 26 we read, "and when he had found him," which paints the picture this was not an easy endeavor.

There were no photos back then, there was no Facebook or twitter.

There is also no guarantee you will find him through family because it is possible he had lost ties to his family for the sake of the gospel message.

So Barnabas knows what city Saul is from, but he has no idea how to find him when he gets there and it takes him a while to locate him.

This is God at work in bringing Saul to serve as the pastor teacher of the church in Antioch.

Why didn’t Barnabas go back to call Peter or John to come and teach?

As we have looked in Acts we have seen the gospel message spread to Samarians and even to Cornelius the gentile and each time Peter went to investigate and stayed around to teach a little, so why not go back for Peter?

It had a lot to do with who these people were.

The Jews who were getting saved in this region were Hellenistic so they followed Greek culture and spoke and wrote primarily in Greek.

Even their Bibles were in Greek.

Peter would have been able to manage but it was not his culture and he was still trying to acclimate to the reality that Salvation was going out to the Greeks.

Not to mention the church in Antioch was not just made up of Hellenistic Jews but also of pagan Greeks.

Which means they were bringing their pagan culture and background into the church and it needed to be handled accordingly.

This is a completely different culture all together with a completely different background.

Peter understood the Hebrew Scripture and the Hebrew culture and he could have acclimated to the Hellenistic Jews but he knows nothing of how the gospel relates to these pagan Greeks or how to deal with their background in philosophy as well.

Greeks chased after wisdom and this infiltrated the church.

So Barnabas is not drawn to go back to Israel to find Peter or an apostle, no, on the other hand he is drawn to Tarsus to find a man who he is acquainted with and who he knows can help him as he continues to work with this ever growing gentile church.

Saul is the perfect choice for the teacher God needs to work with this church.

Saul is very well qualified in Jewish teaching and in God's Word.

Later in Acts 22 when Saul is arrested and accused of defiling the temple with Gentiles he says this;

He speaks to them in their own dialect and he provides his pedigree, he is a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but he didn’t stay there.

He was brought to Jerusalem for the purpose of being educated and he went to the school of Gamaliel.

Verse 3 continues and we see what he has learned under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today.

Saul learned the Scripture and he learned the traditions of the Hebrew life.

They were typically in their early teens, somewhere around 13-15 when they began their synagogue training and it is believed that Saul was in his early to mid 20’s at conversion so Saul was well trained by Gamaliel.

Saul or as he becomes know later, Paul writes out his qualifications as he writes to the Philippians.

See this he was "circumcised on the eighth day," this is according to the law and means he is a covenant member of Israel.

He is an Israelite not a Greek and to stress that he is an Israelite he can even tell them which tribe he is from, "the tribe of Benjamin," which holds high esteem within Israel.

He also considers himself a "Hebrew of Hebrews," meaning even though he is from Tarsus he was raised as a Hebrew, was able to read the Hebrew fully understood the Israelite culture, religion and Scripture.

Paul makes it very clear when he is dealing with the proselytes, the Hellenists and the Judaizers what his pedigree is because he is showing Christianity is not about works but about faith.

Having his rebuttal here gives us a good understanding of who Saul is and how important he thought he was.

Still on the outside looking in he was well trained and he was the best man for teaching these people in Antioch and even though Paul says he counts all this as worthless, and he should, it is only worthless because of the "surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord"

Saul's training was important but look at what he says in the rest of this text to the Philippians.

This is the purpose of the one who is called to teach, not to live for himself or to be puffed up or to puff up others or to have works under his or her belt but a person is called to teach by God for the purpose of "being found in Him," having a righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith" so that the person teaching, "may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;" with the final purpose to, "attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Paul had already understood this by the time Barnabas went to look for him.

Barnabas spent time with Paul in Jerusalem and got to know Paul.

He knew Paul's pedigree but he also knew Paul's character and heart and he knew Paul was called for such a time as this, to go out and teach.

Education is important and I would argue strongly that for pastors a requirement.

People should be called to be teachers because being a teacher holds a higher accountability.

This doesn't mean don't be a teacher it means your actions best match your teaching.

Character is important.

Paul speaks a lot about character.

He understands how important the character of a teacher is and the reason why is because the teacher is called to instruct believers not in moral behavior but in being Christlike.

The teacher is not called because of his intellect, the teacher is not called because he is verbose the teacher is called because the teacher has been set apart to be a learner first, a true disciple of Christ.

That was Paul and Barnabas knew this, Barnabas knew his own limitations and he knew Saul's giftedness and he knew Saul would be the one who was called for the task of teaching.

The Hand of the Lord is in the Calling of a Teacher, The hand of the Lord is also in Creating Christ Followers.

The Hand of the Lord in Creating Christ Followers

Once Barnabas finds Saul, "he brought him to Antioch."

So Barnabas and Saul return together to Antioch to this thriving church that God is growing.

They have been encouraged to stay the course, to run the race.

This encouragement is a part of discipleship but there is still a portion of discipleship that is missing, that is the educational part of discipleship.

Discipleship and teaching is more then just a Sunday morning Sermon.

This text doesn't say they only met on Sunday mornings, it says that they met.

They gathered together so they can be discipled through a learning process.

This is not just a process of expounding knowledge but a process of instruction that points people to good discernment that is coupled with godly character.