Sermon Tone Analysis

What is the measure of a Christians walk with the Lord?

Is it how much Christianese they know?

Maybe it’s how much Bible they can repeat?

Maybe people measure it by how much stuff they do for the church?

All of these things are sure fire ways to measure a persons walk with the Lord but there is one that I can almost guarantee you have never thought of that is a high mark in your own personal walk with the Lord.

There is one measure of a believers trust in God's care that is actually between the believer and God Himself, and this measure is in the realm of giving.

Generosity in the church is not just about seeing what you do but your own heart before God.

He is the only One who needs to see what you do.

God has built His church and God has brought people to His saving grace, and through out Scripture when this happens people are so transformed by the reality that there is more to life then what this world has to offer that they could care less about this world.

They are also so grateful for the fact they have been saved from an eternity damned to hell that they don't hold back in caring for God's people.

They are so deeply changed that they don't have a shallow relationship with the Lord but a deep relationship that ends in generosity especially in caring for other believers.

The have recognized the Hand of the Lord at work in their city and in their lives and in growing His church, when the Lord calls them into action they don't hold back.

The gospel message came to them and God provided this message, the teaching and the encouragement and now through this church God will provide for them and for others.

The Hand of the Lord Provides for His Growing Church

Let's take a look at Acts 11:27-30; Acts 11:27-30.

Remember the gospel message spread to Antioch which is a city in Asia minor outside the boarder of Israel.

The Church in Jerusalem has heard of this gentile church growing and sent out Barnabas who is excited about what God is doing there and he encourages them to continue and also calls Saul to help teach and disciple this growing church.

The people there are transformed by the Hand of the Lord in such a mighty way that the entire city gives them the name Christians, Christ followers.

Now we find the first official act of the church is to help one another.

This is still the Hand of the Lord at work in His church and we see first that the Hand of the Lord provides Spiritually.

The Hand of the Lord Provides Spiritual Blessings

Look with me at verse 27 and 28.

Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

28 One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world.

And this took place in the reign of Claudius.

As this church in Antioch is growing and the people in the church are being encouraged, taught and discipled, it is evident here that they are not out on their own.

The hand of the Lord has been at work in growing the church and now we see God provides more spiritual aide to the church.

Prophets have come from Jerusalem to Antioch.

These prophets are a part of the foundation of the church.

Now the prophets of the New Testament are not exactly like those of the Old Testament.

These prophets came to declare the word of the Lord.

They came from Jerusalem.

The text doesn't tell us how many prophets there were only that they were multiple.

Only one is named in verse 28, Agabus.

Now these prophets would come in and they would proclaim the word of the Lord, declare His truth to the people.

Now there are very few instances in the New Testament were a prophet predicts a future event.

This is one of them and later in Acts this same prophet predicts Paul's arrest.

In any case the prophet was one who spoke for God, he spoke God's truth and only God's truth.

The job of the prophet was to reveal the word of God to the people and that is what these prophets were doing.

As the church grew the prophets were for the most part replaced by the pastors and teachers of the church.

In any case here we have a prophet and his job was to provide spiritual aide to the church.

He does so here.

Agabus stood up more than likely in a church service and directed by the Holy Spirit, not of his own accord, told the church of an impending calamity.

There will be a famine all over the world.

Hard times were about to come.

Of course Luke then tells us by looking back, that this famine did happen.

It seems as though it is a side note but it was written for two reasons.

First, it provides the time line of when this event happened.

Keep in mind Luke is writing to a man named Theophilus for the purpose of explaining to him the events of the growth of the church.

Theophilus would have known of this famine and of Claudius.

So this would have helped establish a time line for him.

Now there is no record of a famine that decimated the entire known world as it did in the day of Joseph in the book of Genesis.

This famine during this time was sporadic.

There is record of Egypt suffering a famine from a flood.

There is also record of Judea suffering from a lack of food as well.

Theophilus could have heard this and thought ok I know when this took place.

This also helps us establish a time line as well.

This is no longer just a story in a book, it is history.

The second reason Luke might have added this statement of when the famine occured, because there has always been only one test for a prophet, especially one who foretold a future event, it had to come true.

In the Old Testament if a prophet foretold a future event and it didn't happen they would have been stoned to death.

This is not a gift anyone should just jump up and say they have, it came with a great deal of responsibility.

(320) Thus this legislation, which appeared to be divine, made this man to be esteemed as one superior to his own nature.

Nay, further, a little before the beginning of this war, when Claudius was emperor of the Romans, and Ismael was our high priest, and when so great a famine was come upon us, that one-tenth deal [of wheat] was sold for four drachmae, (321) and when no less than seventy cori of flour were brought into the temple, at the feast of unleavened bread (these cori are thirty-one Sicilian, but forty-one Athenian medimni), not one of the priests were so hardy as to eat one crumb of it, even while so great a distress was upon the land; and this out of a dread of the law, and of that wrath which God retains against acts of wickedness, even when no one can accuse the actors

This recording adds to the validity this is an actual event in history.

God had placed prophets in the early church for a reason and the reason was to proclaim His truth that has always been the job of the prophet.

Between, Barnabas, Saul and now Agabus the Antioch church is receiving some very strong spiritual insight.

Remember this particular church is very new and very young and as I said last week they are salivating for the revealed Word of God.

God provides it to them.

Now I am not sure if these prophets came on their own, moved by the Spirit or if they were sent by the church to encourage this foundling group of believers, but one thing I do know for certain is God was at work in it.

When people are salivating for the Word, when people are hungry for the Word of God, God puts people in their path to provide for them a means of spiritual growth.

That was the case in the first century church and that is the case in the church today.

The only reason why the church has a hunger for the Word today is because in every generation God raises up those who can declare His word.

God did this in the book of Acts, then in 1517 God did it again.

The church had fallen away from following God and exalting God.

Salvation became something you had to work toward and what was worse then that was the fact that church would prey on peoples emotions to make money so that they could build new churches, they call this indulgences.

Authority of Scripture was null in void and the authority of God was not in the church at all.

The priests controlled everything.

Until a young Augustinian monk came along and actually read the Bible.

And when he read this verse it shook up and the church was rocked by it as well.

“The just shall live by faith alone.”

This changed his life for ever and became the battle cry of the protestant reformation.

God used this man to go out and declare the truths of Scripture to all of Germany.

This man is Martin Luther and he was the spark that caused the fire of the reformation to burn brightly and bring the Scripture into the hands of the common people and those people salivated over it.

They were able to read God's word in their own language and hear sermons about faith, hope, grace, being justified by a foreign righteousness that is not their own.

They were taught you can't earn your way to heaven, you can't buy your dead relatives out of hell, the payment has already been made and that payment was made on the cross.

Repent and believe in Jesus Christ, and only in Him can you have Salvation.

This was the message of the reformation, this is the message of today and this was the message that went to the people in Antioch.

These message didn't just come by chance, the Hand of the Lord was in it to provide these people what they needed.

They received the Spiritual nutrients to help them grow, and God was sure to send them this nutrients through such men as Barnabas, Saul and now Agabus.

These people were fed what they needed and this spiritual food helped them grow and caused godly character and hearts of gratitude for what God has provided for them.

Spiritual blessing.

This spiritual blessing is now reciprocated by the Antiochian church through generosity of God's physically blessings

The Hand of the Lord Provides Physical Relief

Verse 29 reads, "And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea."

They didn't wait, this foundling church jumped into action.

This seems to happen with the churches in Acts.

This happened in the Jerusalem church when it first began.

Look with me at Acts 2:43-47

The early church felt a sense of awe, they were amazed at what God was doing and how He was working.

They had a sense of community, they were together in verse 46 it quantifies it by saying, "day by day continuing with one another with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart."