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The Gospel explodes in the city of Antioch, as the first Jew/Gentile mixed church is born.


Transcription (automatically-generated):

The Church was born on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem in Acts chapter Two and was made up almost entirely of ethnic Jews. It would be at least seven years before a similarly Gentile Church would be planted. That Church would be in Antioch, and we'll learn more about it in today's study. There were several reasons for that gap in time and why it took a while for the Gospel to make its way in earnest to the Gentiles. And when I say gentiles, I mean nonJews.

Firstly, a doctrinal foundation had to be established. The Church needed to be taught by the apostles and grow in their knowledge of Jesus, and the Jews needed to understand how Jesus connected to historical Judaism, how he was, the fulfillment of the Law, the end of the old covenant and the ushering in of a new covenant. That all needed to be sorted first before you add Gentiles to the mix. Sort of like if you're starting a home renovation project. It's always nice when you can do one project at a time rather than starting four different projects at the same time, and it's absolute chaos and nothing gets done as efficiently.

Gas is could or should. The second reason for that gap in time is that mature leaders needed to be identified and developed. Immature believers do not make effective missionaries and do not plant healthy churches. It would have been a disaster if, during the first year, people who didn't even really understand Christianity went out and started planting churches. It would be a recipe for all kinds of heresy and errant beliefs, and it would be a total disaster.

And then third, as we've seen over our two previous studies, the longestablished prejudices of the Jews toward the Gentiles needed to be eliminated. And this was beginning to happen through the Apostle Peter and some of the Hellenistic Jews who had less of a hard time with the concept of associating with Gentiles. If you recall, a Hellenistic Jew is someone who was ethnically Jewish but was raised in Greek culture rather than Hebrew culture. In other words, they were raised outside of Israeli territory in Greek culture, which was the predominant culture in the Roman Empire at the time. As we shall see, what God does in Antiochus will not be organized by the Church in Jerusalem.

It will not even be inspired by Peter's interaction with the Gentile household of Cornelius, which we studied last week. But it will be the first Church to be made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers. So we'll pick things up in Acts chapter eleven, verses 19, where we read now those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution that started because of Stephen made their way as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. Speaking the word to no one except Jews serving as the narrator, luke zooms out and flashes back in time to the moment when Saul began zealously persecuting the Church in Jerusalem, the time that we read about in Acts chapter One, where it says all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. And it turns out that they went even further than Judea and Samaria.

So let's throw this map up because it's probably about time in our study for me to just walk us through where these places are. Geographically. All the blue part is the Mediterranean Sea. And so if you're looking at the Mediterranean, we are at the far eastern side of the Mediterranean. You've got Turkey to the north and Greece is up in the top left corner over there.

And Israel is sort of over there on the right hand side, bottom right corner. Jerusalem down there in the bottom is in southern Israel. It's the territory known as Judea. Now, as you go up the coast, the coast of sort of northern Israel, Lebanon and southern Syria is a region known as Phoenicia. Back at that time in history, off the coast of Syria you can see the island of Cyprus.

And then above Phoenicia to the north is the city of Antioch. And as the Jerusalem Church scattered, returning to their homes across Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, they shared the Gospel with only Jews, because it was still their paradigm that the Gospel was a continuation of Judaism. And so, in their minds, Jesus was a Jewish messiah. And so those who wanted to follow him had to become Jewish. They believed that the good news of the Gospel was that the Jewish Messiah had come.

And so in their minds they're thinking, why would a Gentile be excited about a Jewish Messiah coming? This is only good news for Jews. And so you have to become a Jew to be able to even understand the significance of the Gospel. Philip's ministry to the Samaritans and the Ethiopian Eunuch, as well as Peter's ministry to the household of Cornelius, happened quite a while after the Jerusalem Church was scattered. And as it was being scattered, so most of them hadn't heard about any of these developments.

They didn't know that the Gospel had gone to the Gentiles and that Gentiles were being saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. As I shared a moment ago, our focus is going to be on the city of Antioch. It was located about 18 miles, or 29 km inland from the Mediterranean on the Orontes River. According to the ancient historian Josephus, it was the third most important and populous city in the Roman Empire, only behind Rome and Alexandria in Egypt. It was home to the Roman governor of the province of Syria.

And it had a population of this is massive. At that time it had a population of around half a million people and a large Jewish community that had been there practically since the city's founding in 300 BC. In Acts chapter Six, we read about the selection of seven men of good reputation full of the spirit and wisdom who were chosen to oversee the distribution of food to the Hellenistic widows in the Jerusalem Church. You might recall Stephen and Philip were two of those seven, and another was Nikolaus, who was described as a convert from Antiochus. Antioch was an advanced city built from scratch around the Hippodamian grid system that was invented by the Romans.

The pattern that cities are laid out in of having a grid, in many cases with streets and avenues, that was invented and implemented by the Romans. It was enlarged and adorned by Caesar Augustus and Tiberius. Herod the Great added colonnades all the way along the main street and actually paved the street with polished stone. It was a political and commercial hub with the goods and produce of the east passing through on their way to the west. The city was deeply pagan and full of sexual immorality, closely tied to the Roman goddess Daphne, who in mythology was the sexual obsession of the god Apollo.

There was a shrine dedicated to her about five miles outside of the city, which was home to rampant religious prostitution. With the possible exception of Corinth, Antioch was the most carnal and depraved city in the Empire. When the Roman satirist Juvenil wanted to insult the depravity of Rome, he commented that the Orontes River emptied its sewerage into the Tiber, which is the river that flows pastor Rome. In other words, Rome is bathing in the immorality of Antiochus, is what he was saying. As you can tell, it was a cosmopolitan city in the truest sense.

You had a large Jewish community; you had a political center of the empire where east really did meet west. There were staunch religious conservatives sharing the streets with wild hedonists. Cicero described it as a place of learned men and liberal studies. And so, you kind of have to love the fact that God said, I will begin reaching the Gentile world here because he does what he wants. In verse 20, it says "...but there were some of them...", some of those who were scattered from Jerusalem, "...men from Cyprus and Siren, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks."

And in this instance, that's referring to Greek-speaking, gentiles also proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus underline this phrase the Lord's hand was with them, the Lord's hand was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. Now, Siren was a Mediterranean port city located in present-day northeastern Libya. Let's put up that next map there again. And you can see it is a long, long way away. It's all the way over there on the left.

And so, my best guess is how these men from Syren end up in Antioch is that when the Jerusalem Church scatters, pretty much everyone heads north. That's what happens. They go up into Samaria, up toward Galilee, up into the Phoenician area, and then some, all the way to Antioch. And so that's just where everyone is going. They might not have had any food, and the only other people who had food were going in that direction.

And so, I would imagine that some of those who were scattering back to their homes in Phoenicia said, come and stay with us for a while and we'll make sure that you're safe because that is a long journey from Jerusalem to Siren. And so, what most likely happened is these men from Syrian began new lives in Antioch, whatever the case may be. They would have been Hellenistic Jews again, meaning they were ethnically Jewish but raised in Greek culture. Syrene was a Greek settlement. It was a Greek port.

And as we saw with Philip and the Samaritans, these Hellenistic Jews, as we said, were more open to ministering to Gentiles because they shared everyday life. They lived among Gentiles, whereas the Jews in places like Jerusalem did not live among the Gentiles and kept their distance from them. The Holy Spirit stirred the hearts of these men to share the Gospel with Gentiles and Antioch. And God moved. God moved.

He did a supernatural work, and a large number placed their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. This was something new in the history of the Church. Never before had there been a move of God that resulted in a large number of Gentiles becoming believers and joining the Church. And as the narrator Luke is intentionally choosing verbiage, that's highlighting the similarity between what God is doing in Antioch among the Gentiles, and what he did in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost among the Jews. In both instances, there was a move of God that was not the result of man's planning or strategies.

The good news about the Lord Jesus was proclaimed, and the Lord's hand was with them. Therefore, incredible things happened, and churches were born where none had existed before. Verse 22. News about them, about all these Gentile covet, reached the Church in Jerusalem and they sent out Barnabas to travel as far as Antiochus. The Jerusalem Church, you'll recall, was led by the apostles, who felt a duty to care for all of the churches.

That would soon prove an impossible task as the Church exploded in size. But at this point, they were still trying to be a mother church, so to speak. This is why they sent Peter and John to investigate what was going on among the Samaritans when Philip was ministering there. It's why they questioned Peter when he returned from ministering to the household of Cornelius. And it's why they felt an obligation to investigate the apparent mass conversion of Gentiles in Antiochus.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the elders in Jerusalem sent Barnabas, who was himself a Hellenistic Jew who was born in Cyprus. He would naturally be more open-minded than his brethren who had spent their whole lives in Judea. And it may be that he volunteered for the assignment and they eagerly said yes, absolutely. Please go. Verses 23 when he arrived and underline this the grace of God.

When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged all of them to remain underlying. Remain true to the Lord with devoted hearts. Luke reminds us again that what was happening, this revival unfolding in Antioch was due to one reason the grace of God. God was doing something profound, as he had in Jerusalem, Samaria, Luda, Joppa, Caesaria, and elsewhere. How does one exactly remain true to the Lord?

With a devoted heart. How do you do that? Practically, I put these verses on your outline. John's Gospel tells us jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you continue in My word, you really are my disciples. And the apostle John wrote in his first Epistle what you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you what you have heard.

If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the sun and in the Father. The Word of God, the teachings of Jesus, the Scriptures are the key to keeping your mind on God and on the things of God. We must grow in our knowledge and understanding of the Lord so that our faith does not rest on our emotional state. Hear me on this. We must grow in our knowledge and understanding of the Lord, so that our faith does not rest on our emotional state, but rather our grasp of the unchanging truths of who God is, what he has done for us, and who we are in Him.

Write this down and we'll talk about it more. Believers must remain in God's word to maintain a devoted heart. You must remain in God's word to maintain a devoted heart. And we'll soon see that Barnabas understood this truth, and it's why he wanted to see the believers in Antioch grow in their knowledge of the truth as soon and as much as possible. Verse 24 tells us that Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith.

Now hear me on this Barnabas wasn't full of the Holy Spirit and faith because he was a good man. Barnabas was a good man because he was full of the Holy Spirit and faith. In Proverbs 423, Solomon wrote this timeless counsel guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. And Jesus said, a good tree doesn't produce bad fruit. On the other hand, a bad tree doesn't produce good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit.

Figs aren't gathered from thorn bushes or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good person produces good out of the goods stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. Hear me on this. You cannot truly change the outer man apart from changing the inner man, for everything that manifests in the outer man flows from the inner man.

That's why we need Jesus to create in us a new heart by giving us his spirit. It's why we need to be filled with his spirit every day in a fresh way. If you want to get on the path to becoming a better man or a better woman, you need Jesus to give you a new heart, and then you need to be filled with his spirit daily. You know, when we're young in the faith, when we're young in our thinking, let's go back even before that, before we become Christians, our general thinking tends to be man. All the things that are negative about me are because of other people, things done to me, things coming from the outside.

When you become a Christian, you have to confront your sin. You can't become a Christian without recognizing that you are a sinner and you have wronged God. You and then when you're young in the faith, you notice the wrong thoughts that you have. You notice the wrong things that you do, and you think, I've got to stop thinking those thoughts, and I've got to stop doing those things, and I'm going to work really hard to not think those things and to not do those things. And then as you begin to grow in the faith and you begin to grow in spiritual maturity, that changes.

And what happens is when you have wrong thoughts, when you do wrong things, you now begin thinking, where did that thought come from? Where did that behavior come from? What's going on in my heart? And you begin to say, man, I need to spend some time with Jesus. Where is this coming from?

You know, it's coming from inside you, but you're concerned with what's going on in your heart because you understand that everything happening on the outside is flowing from the inside. That's where the issue is. The thoughts and behaviors of the outer man are driven by the inner man. That's why I say Barnabas wasn't full of the Holy Spirit and faith because he was a good man. No, Barnabas was a good man because he was full of the Holy Spirit and faith.

So would you write this down? Everything that manifests in the outer man flows from the inner man. Everything that manifests in the outer man flows from the inner man. When the Jerusalem Church did not believe Saul's conversion, it was Barnabas who sensed that God was working. He reached out to Saul and then vouched for him to the apostles, paving the way for fellowship between the former persecutor of the Church and the saints in Jerusalem.

And in just a moment, we'll see Barnabas display his generous and encouraging spirit once again. It says, and large numbers of people were added to the Lord as happened in Jerusalem. A large number were saved, then another large number were saved because God was doing something. Verse 25 then he that's Barnabas went to Tarsus to search for Saul and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the Church and taught would you underline taught large numbers?

Barnabas recognized that what the new believers in Antiochus needed most was to be aggressively taught and disciples in the faith so that they could grow into mature believers ASAP. And as he looked around, he realized there were not enough mature teachers in Antiochus. And the Holy Spirit brought to mind his old friend Saul. If you recall, the last time we encountered Saul, he was visiting the Brethren in Jerusalem and managed to stir up in just a few days trouble by getting into debates with the same Hellenistic Jews who had orchestrated the execution of Stephen. And seeing the writing on the wall, the leaders of the Jerusalem Church rushed him out of the city to the port of Caesaria, where they stuck him on a ship and send him off to his hometown of Tarsus for his own safety.

Let's put up our final map for today. And if you'll take a look, it's pretty interesting because you will see that Tarsus is actually really close to Antioch. So we would have gotten on a boat in Caesaria, which is just northwest of Jerusalem, down there, sailed up the coast, he actually would have gone past Antioch on his way to Tarsus. And so Barnabas goes there. There's no Internet or anything like that, he just goes to Tarsus.

It's the last place he heard Saul was, and he's able to track Saul down. And Saul has been ministering and ending people to Jesus and making disciples on his own in Tarsus, likely starting a church there. And I'll point it out one more time because I think it's so important. Barnabas response to the growth of the Church was not first and foremost, you know what we really need to do? We need to start a building project.

We've got all these people here, we got to do something really big. This is the number one priority, we got to build a building. But his first response, and there's nothing wrong with buildings, but it's not the most important thing. His first response was, we need more mature teachers, we need to get these people discipled as soon as possible. We need to teach them to obey Jesus.

That is the most important thing. The most pressing need from Barnabas perspective and the solution provided by the Lord, was the Apostle Paul, who partnered with Barnabas and together they taught as many people as they could, as often as they could for a year. If you are a new or young believer, this is one of the things you most desperately need. You need to be in the Word, you need to be taught the Word, you need to be growing in your knowledge and understanding of Jesus. So that you can grow in spiritual maturity as quickly as possible.

Let me encourage you with this. I have seen believers grow into more mature Christians in three years than people who have been in church for three decades for one reason. Those people spent three decades in a church that did not prioritize the Word and did not encourage them to be in the Word in a deep, regular way themselves. I've seen it happen many, many times. I've seen a three-year-old believer know far more about the Lord than a 30-year-old believer, because they were in the Word, just being saturated by the teaching of God's Word.

So if you're a new or young believer, listen. You can go to our website; find a series I taught through all four of the Gospels. Get to know Jesus. Priority number one. There's 129 messages long. It'll keep you busy for a while.

Do that. Start it, go through it. Listen to a message a day. On the way to work, on the way home, you'll be astounded by how much you will grow in your faith and in your understanding of Jesus. The three essential ingredients for growing Christians into maturity were all functioning in Antioch during this time.

The first essential ingredient is active membership in a local church, being part of regular fellowship, being around your brothers and sisters, sharing life with them, serving them, loving one another. The second ingredient being filled with the Spirit. They were praying regularly and faithfully and being filled with the Holy Spirit. And then thirdly, they were being taught the Word. If you're a new believer or a young believer, and you commit to being actively involved with a church family in a biblical way, if you commit to pray, seek the Lord regularly, be filled with the Spirit, and you're being taught the Word regularly, you're going to grow guaranteed.

I guarantee it. Barnabas is such a great example of how God uses different people to play different roles. He was a great man. But in terms of history, Paul's ministry goes down as unquestionably more significant in the eyes of historians. And yet there would have been no Apostle Paul apart from brothers like Barnabas, for without him, Paul would not have been accepted by the apostles in Jerusalem.

And without him, he would not have been brought to Antioch into the very center of God's move among the Gentiles. God's work is accomplished wherever obedient men and women care more about advancing the kingdom of God than they do about their own ego, comfort and desires. The Jew Gentile mix in the Antioch Church was seemingly not an issue at this stage. And again, this was likely because they were just used to living together in the same city and sharing the same streets. From the very beginning, the ethos of the Church in Antioch was completely different to the Church in Jerusalem.

Continuing in verse 26, we read the disciples were first called Christians, underlying Christians at Antioch. It's a term that basically means you're all about Christ, just as those who were all about King Herod were called Herodians in Matthew and Mark's Gospels. Historians tell us the term had a slightly derogatory bent to it. And I was thinking what would be a similar point of comparison? And the only one I can think of is how fans of Justin Bieber are called believers.

That was the idea with the term Christians is all about Christ Christians. And we don't know if the Church came up with the term or if it was placed upon them by the citizens of Antioch, but history would seem to support the latter assumption. As the people of the city noticed. They were always talking about Jesus. They were always talking about this Christ and were followers of his teachings.

The Church then likely embraced the term because they recognized there was a need for it. They were no longer Jews. And Gentiles. They were something else. They were part of the Church.

Therefore a new identifying term was needed and they did away with Jew and Gentile. And they just said, we're not Jews, we're not Gentiles, we're Christians, we're Christians. And to this day, the men and women of the Church agree that there is nothing greater one could be known for than loving Jesus, constantly speaking of Him and following in his footsteps. I'll take that all day. In the early fourth century, the Greek bishop and historian Eusebius published his seminal work, The History of the Church.

I have a copy in my office and in it he records a wave of persecution that came upon believers in Leon in presentday France in 177 Ad. And I'm going to read it to you. Some of it is a bit older, English, or just indulge me and I'll try not to choke up too much as I read this too. He writes the whole fury of crowd governor and soldiers fell with crushing force on Sanctus, the deacon from Vienna, on motorists, very recently baptized, but heroic in facing his ordeal. On a talus who had always been a pillar and support of the Church in his native Pergamum.

And on blandina. She's a woman through whom Christ proved that things which men regard as mean, unlovely and contemptible are by God deemed worthy of great glory because of her love for Him shown in power and not vaunted in appearance. So literally what they're saying is this woman Blandina was not physically attractive at all. But God moved mightily through her among this Church in Leon at this time. To indicate what God found beautiful is the character of a person inside.

When we were all afraid and her earthly mistress by that phrase earthly mistress, he's talking about Blandina's body. He says, when we were all afraid and her earthly mistress, who was herself facing the ordeal of martyrdom, was in agony, lest she should be unable to even make a bold confession of Christ because of bodily weakness. Blandina was filled with such power that those who took it in turns to subject her to every kind of torture from morning to night were exhausted by their efforts and confessed themselves beaten. They could think of nothing else to do to her. They were amazed that she was still breathing, for her whole body was mangled, and her wounds gaped.

They declared that torment of any one kind was enough to part soul and body, let alone a succession of torments of such extreme severity. But the blessed woman wrestling magnificently grew in strength as she proclaimed her faith and found refreshment, rest and insensibility to her sufferings in uttering the words, I am a Christian, we do nothing to be ashamed of. Sanctus was another with magnificent superhuman courage nobly withstood the entire range of human cruelty. Wicked people hoped that the persistence and severity of his tortures would force him to utter something improper. But with such determination did he stand up to their onslaughts that he would not tell them his own name, race and birthplace, or whether he was slave or free.

To every question he replied in Latin, I am a Christian. This he proclaimed over and over again, instead of name, birthplace, nationality and everything else, and not another word did the heathen hear from him. Consequently, the governor and his torturer strained every nerve against him so that when they could think of nothing else to do to him, they ended by pressing red hot copper plates against the most sensitive parts of his body. These were burning. But Sanctus remained unbending and unyielding firm in his confession of faith, bedded and fortified by the heavenly fountain of the water of life that flows from the depths of Christ's being.

But his poor body was witnessed to what he had suffered. It was all one wound and bruised, bent up and robbed of outward human shape. But suffering in that body, Christ accomplished most glorious things, utterly defeating the adversary and proving as an example to the rest that where the Father's love is, nothing can frighten us. Where Christ's glory is, nothing can hurt us. I am a Christian.

In verses 27, it says in those days, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antiochus. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine throughout the Roman world. This took place during the reign of Claudius. These prophets were men gifted by God to speak on his behalf, sometimes regarding future events. In this instance, God gave a prophet named Agabus a message of warning that a severe famine was coming.

So he stood up and shared this message with the Church in one of their services. At this time, Egypt was the breadbasket of the region, but she had a poor harvest. History tells us in 45 Ad. That led to a severe grain shortage and sky. High prices.

And this lines up with a historical famine that disproportionately affected Judea by 47 Ad. But I want you to notice how the church in Antioch responded to this news, and then we'll talk about why they responded this way. In verse 29, it says each of the disciples underline according to his ability and then underline the word determined, determined to send relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea. The prophecy specified that this famine would affect all the Roman Empire, which would have included Antioch. However, their first thought and concern was for the believers in Jerusalem.

Why? Because that's how grateful they were for the gospel that had come to them from members of the Jerusalem church. They felt eternally indebted to them, and they were grateful for the opportunity to express their gratitude in a practical way. We talked earlier about the importance of being in the Word to help one grow into spiritual maturity. And last week we talked about how a hunger for Christian fellowship and a desire to know more about Jesus are evidences of true conversion.

I suggest we see another evidence here of genuine conversion and spiritual growth in Christ gracious generosity. Here's a message a lot of people don't want to hear. When a person is genuinely saved, the whole person is saved, and Jesus becomes Lord of the whole person, including the wallet. That's just the truth. I'm not really concerned if it offends you.

When it comes to our money, the question is simply the same as every other area of life what do you want me to do, Lord? What do you want me to do? So write this down and we'll talk more about it. The Spirit works to produce gracious generosity in believers. Gracious generosity in believers.

We saw the Jerusalem church display gracious generosity toward their own congregation meeting needs among them from people who had come into the city planning to stay for just a week for Pentecost. We saw gracious generosity as the Jerusalem church gave to meet the needs of widows and orphans among them. And here we see that same gracious generosity at work in Antiochus now extending from one church to another church. It was a big deal that gentile believers were helping Jewish believers. It seems pretty clear to me that God was working through this famine to do a couple of things to humble the Jewish believers in Jerusalem who had to receive help from their gentile brethren.

And God was working through this famine to grow the love of those in Jerusalem for their brethren in Antioch. It was providential by God's grace. And I'm struck not only by the gracious generosity of the believers in Antioch, but also by their faith. Because when they heard Agabus's prophecy of the coming famine, they responded like people who actually believe they have a loving heavenly father who will care for their practical needs. They responded like people who actually believed what Jesus told his disciples that if they sought first his kingdom and his righteousness, their heavenly father would take care of all their practical needs.

And I can't help wondering what the response of the church today would be like in a similar scenario, if someone stood up and said, there's a famine coming to Canada, and we could all sense by the spirit that this was true, how would you respond? Would you panic? Would you think every man for himself? Buy gold, buy silver, find a gun, get some ammo. I love you all.

It's been a good life. I'm going to build a cabin in the woods and ride this thing out, god speed.

Or would you think, man, we better figure out how to get organized and make sure that all the brothers and sisters among us have their needs met, make sure they're taken care of. We've got to figure out how to really take care of each other and check on each other and share whatever needs to be shared to make sure that every need is met among us. I pray it's the latter. And because I love you, I always want to be truthful for you, truthful with you. If that's not your mentality now, if you don't practice gracious generosity now, you're not going to magically transform into someone who does when it's exponentially more difficult to do.

It's just not going to happen. Oh, I don't do it now, but maybe when it's harder to do, then I'll start doing it. Like, what? Really? That's just not how it works.

If your life isn't marked by gracious generosity now, ask the Lord to change your heart. Ask Him to change your heart. Look within yourself and say, I'm not characterized by gracious generosity, but I want to be, and I recognize I should be. Ask the Lord to change your heart, and then do your best to obey Him when you know what he's commanded you to do.

Verse 30. They did this. They took up an offering for the Jerusalem Church, sending it to the elders by means of Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas returns to Jerusalem, once again accompanying Saul as he meets with the elders of the Jerusalem church. This is the first time elders are mentioned in the context of a church in Scripture.

Jewish synagogues were originally led by elders, and that's likely where the model finds its roots. It bears repeating almost every time it comes up that eldership is the only model of church leadership in the New Testament. The only model. And when I say eldership, I am referring to a church being led by multiple elders who share authority and make important decisions together. That's the only church leadership model in the New Testament.

The New Testament does record one man, Paul, sometimes planting churches as the lone leader, but he always treats the task of appointing multiple elders with the highest urgency. That's always, like, a top priority for him. We got to get some elders, multiple elders appointed in this church. Following Saul's conversion and some shuffling among regional political leaders. The church in Jerusalem had enjoyed a time of relative peace for a few years, but that soon changed, as we shall see in chapter twelve.

As we keep going into there, verse one says about that time. This is somewhere between 41 and 44 Ad, about ten years after the founding of the church. In Acts chapter two, king Herod violently attacked some who belongs to the church. And if you've read the Gospels, it can be a bit confusing when you see the name King Herod pop up here in Acts, because you might think, isn't he the one who tried to kill Jesus when Jesus was an infant? Didn't he die back in Matthew chapter two?

And I'll do my best to bring some clarity to this, but I got to warn you, this is soap opera stuff. This is juicy history and would make a great TV show that believers would probably have no business watching. The Herods were a political family. Herod. The Great ruled Judea from 47 BC.

In 39 BC. He was dubbed King of the Jews by Anthony, Octavius and the Roman Senate and given authority over all of Palestine because he had done such a good job in Judea. His nickname is likely part of the reason why he was so offended when wise men Magi showed up one day from Babylon looking for a child who fulfilled an ancient prophecy that he would become the what, King of the Jews. Herod's like, well, this is a little awkward seeing as I'm the King of the Jews and if you're familiar with the Nativity, then you know how Herod the Great responded. He ordered the slaughter of all the male infants in and around Bethlehem.

Jesus was, of course, at that time safely in hiding with his parents in Egypt. Herod the Great died a few years after the birth of Jesus, and he could see his death coming. Concerned there wouldn't be sufficient grieving in Israel at his passing, he arrested a group of the most beloved civil and religious leaders in Israel and imprisoned them with a command to execute them upon his own death, because he figured at least that way there will be sadness across the whole land at the time when I die. Unfortunately, the men in charge didn't go through with his plans. When he died, Herod the Great married at least to ten women, including one named Miriamny.

She was a Hazmat, which means she was a Jew who descended from a famed line of Hebrews connected to a family known as the Maccabees. The Hazmanians and the Maccabees were legendary amen the Jewish people because both families had led rebellions against empires and freed Israel for a time from foreign influence. Miriamney gave birth to a son named Aristobulus. Aristobulus was one of at least nine sons that Herod the Great had between all the wives, and he was one of at least three that he had executed. Before his death, though, Aristobulus grew and fathered a son named Agrippa.

So Agrippa is the grandson of Herod, the Great. Agrippa's mother could see the writing on the wall. She was like, this family is messed up. And she didn't want her son to end up being murdered by her own family. So when he was just four years old, she shipped him off to be raised in Rome, where he grew up among the elites and became friends with future leaders like Gaius, better known as Caligula and Claudius.

Into his 20s, Agrippa seems to basically have been the life of the party. A lot of friends in high places, very charismatic. But he eventually burned through all the family money. But he loved living the high life. He didn't own a business, didn't hold a political office, and so this was a problem.

And so he was constantly involved in scams and things like borrowing money from politicians in Rome and then hightailing it off to Palestine. When he couldn't pay his debts, he got word that the Emperor Tiberius was looking for him because so many people in Rome were complaining about him being delinquent on his loans. And when he heard Tiberius was looking for him, he started talking trash about Tiberius, who's the Emperor at the time. So Tiberius has him thrown in jail. Well, in his late 20s, though, things get a little bit better because Caligula, his old buddy, ends up succeeding Tiberius.

And when Caligula rises to power in Rome and 37 Ad, he calls up his buddy Agrippa and puts him in charge of southern Syria. He even allows Agrippa to use the term king in those parts. Two years later, he expands Agrippa's territory south to include Galilee and Perez. And then when Claudius, Agrippa's other childhood friend, succeeds Caligula, he expands Agrippa's territory further south to include Samaria and Judea. And it is this Herod Agrippa that we read of here in Acts Chapter Twelve, a man tenuously holding on to power, desperate to keep his station among the elite.

And in order to do so, there were two nonnegotiables. If you were a territorial leader for the Romans, if you were a governor or a prefect and you oversaw any geographical region, there were two things you had to do. You've got to keep the peace and you've got to collect the taxes. You failed to do one of those two things you're done. And the problem was that the Jews were the hardest people to rule in the Empire because they were fanatical about their religion, strictly devoted to their laws, literally all willing to die rather than to worship Caesar.

And the Romans realized this, but they had this egotistical dream of ruling over all peoples, and they realized, listen, we're going to have to kill all the Jews before they'll actually submit to us. So everyone else in the empire had to make the pinch, offering once a year to Caesar and speak the words Caesar is God. The Jews were the only ones who had an exception because they would all die rather than do that. And these are the people that Herod Agrippa had to rule over. But he had an in.

He had an in. He had strategically married Miriami, a Jewish woman from a legendary Hebrew family line. And he was always looking for ways to ingratiate himself to the people he was ruling over the Jews and maintain their loyalty. So he even tried to live like a Jew, pretty half heartedly. I mean, it's hard to say that and then have ten wives and kill your sons and stuff like that.

But this is why we read in verse is that he violently attacked some who belong to the Church. You see, he picked up the vibe that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were opposed to the Christians. The religious Jews hated this sect of Christianity. And so to try and ingratiate himself to them, herod Agrippa decides, I'm going to start taking out the leadership of the Jerusalem Church to score points with the Jews that I'm ruling over to buy their loyalty. And that's why we read in verse is and he executed James, John's brother, with the sword.

The first thing he does is order the beheading of the apostle James, brother of the apostle John, and one of Jesus' three closest friends among the disciples. In Mark 1039, Jesus had told James and John, you will drink the cup I drink and you will be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples that the cup represented his blood. And we know that the baptism Jesus was speaking of was his death. And those words of Jesus were partly fulfilled in the martyrdom of James.

For the sake of clarity, I must mention that the James who wrote the New Testament Book of James is not this James, not James the Apostle. That James who wrote the book is not the brother of John, but the brother of Jesus, and was not one of the twelve disciples, though he was a pillar of the Jerusalem Church. This James is the first of the apostles to be martyred before the end of the first century Ad. All of them will die martyrs' deaths except for John. And they tried to kill John by boiling him in oil.

Would he miraculously survived? They sent him off to exile on the island of Patmos. The martyrdom of the apostles is one of the great evidences of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus because all those apostles were given the opportunity to recant, to take back, to withdraw their testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead and was God. In other words, all they had to do was say, okay, this has gone far enough, I admit it, we made it up. Jesus didn't really die, didn't really rise from the dead, their life would have been spared.

They didn't die surrounded by the other apostles or by brothers and sisters in the faith supporting them. They died alone. And to a man they died saying, Jesus is alive and he's God. And you might think, well, people believe all kinds of things, and people are willing to die for all kinds of things. That doesn't mean they're true.

Jeff, you're right. People are willing to die for all kinds of things they believe are true. But people aren't willing to die for things they know aren't true. And the claim of the apostles was not that they simply believed the resurrection was true. Their claim was that they had seen the resurrected Jesus, they had touched him and shared meals with him.

This is the difference. They were in a position to know whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead. They knew whether they had made the whole thing up or they had really seen him. They knew. And people don't die for lies.

And what did holding those beliefs gained them before their deaths? Power? Wealth, prestige, political influence, fame? None of the above. The Bible didn't become the bestselling book of all time until they were all dead.

Their beliefs got them thrown out of their synagogues, banned from the temple, excommunicated from Jewish society, family members and even spouses disowned them. They lost their jobs, they lost their income, they lost personal property, they were thrown in jail, they had to flee for their lives, and they were even killed for speaking the name of Jesus. Not only did they have no motive to lie, but they had every reason to come clean if they were lying. Every reason because it would have brought an end to their suffering and the threat of death. And yet, to a man, when facing death alone, they all died with the same testimony jesus is alive and he's got I can't say otherwise because I know the truth.

And there's only one logical explanation for their behavior. They were telling the truth. They were telling the truth. Verse three it says when he that's Herod saw that it the execution of James pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter too during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The Festival of Unleavened Bread is the weeklong time of celebration that immediately follows the day of Passover.

I'll ask the worship team to come up after the arrest. He put him in prison and assigned four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. Seeing the positive reaction from the people to the execution of James, herod Agrippa imprisons Peter, and his plan is to execute him before the people at the end of the weeklong festivities. Because the law forbade executions during the week of celebrations, he chooses this time because Jerusalem is going to be packed with pilgrims, thereby ensuring maximum viewership of Peter's execution. He takes guarding Peter extremely seriously.

Assigning four groups of four soldiers who each would have taken a sixhour shift on a rotating basis to make sure they were alert at all times. I don't think Herod was concerned that Christians would storm the jail and try and free Peter. I think he was more concerned about another supernatural jailbreak of the sort we read about in Acts, chapter five. The apostles, unquestionably, would have had a reputation of being supernaturally empowered and protected by God, and Herod didn't want to take any chances. And that's where we're going to need to end today on that cliffhanger.

If you can't put two and two together, this is a serious situation that Peter is in. James has already been beheaded and now Peter's there. They're going after the leaders of the church and the church is obviously very concerned and we'll see what happens next week. Two reminders in closing. Firstly, everything that manifests in the outer man flows from the inner man.

Trying to change the outer man without addressing the inner man is pointless. You can fake it for a while, but it will not last. It will not last. So, I just want to invite you in this coming time of communion and worship and prayer, if there's something in your life that you just don't like about who you are, about how you think, about how you act, talk to the Lord about it. Say, Lord, just change my heart.

Can I tell you; the Lord loves that prayer. He loves that prayer when we stop blaming everybody else for what's coming out of us, he loves that prayer. When we stop saying, I'll fix myself, and we go to Him and we say, lord, I can't fix this. I need you to do a work in my heart. If you're doing that for the first time or for the millionth time, your heavenly Father is available to you.

He's available and he loves a prayer that is essentially saying, please make me more like Jesus, please do it. Lord. If your life is not currently marked by gracious generosity, ask the Lord to change your heart and then obey Jesus. And if you want to grow in spiritual maturity, be active in the faith family of the church, ask the Lord to fill you with His Spirit every day, and get in His Word. Get in His Word, make a plan and then do it.

So, let's pray. Would you buy your head and close your eyes? Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your Word. Thank you for the truth of Your Word, that it speaks to us where we need to hear it most. Lord and Lord, we do just confess that our default condition doesn't lead us to become more like you.

But you've done a miracle by putting Your Spirit in us. And we know that the work of your Spirit is always to try and make us more like Jesus. You're always inviting us to accept that invitation. You're always working through all things to make us more like Jesus for our good. And so, Lord, in those areas of our life where we just recognize that the gas is just incalculable between who you are and how we're thinking or how we're acting, would you just come and change our hearts, Lord?

Do a work within us. Make us more like you. Jesus, we invite you to do that, and we ask that by Your spirit you would illuminate those areas or maybe show us those areas where we're trying to change our outer behavior. But what we really need is some heart surgery by Your spirit. So we invite you to come and do that, Lord.

And the Lord, we also ask that you would grow us in spiritual maturity, grow us in our understanding and knowledge of you. Grow us in our love for one another, grow us in our understanding of the work that you're doing in our lives and what it means to follow you. We're proud to be called Christians, not because of anything we've done, but because we bear Your name. And so help us to be people who talk about you all the time. Help us to be people who are just obsessed with you and with Your goodness and Your kindness and Your grace.

Give us that reputation, Lord. We love you. We're thankful for you. In your name, we pray. Amen.