Scattered Acts 10:44-48

Thank you so much for joining us. As we take a look at the Book of Acts, we take things nice and slowly. As we look and see what God is doing in the big picture of expanding the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. My name is David Humphrey, and I'm the pastoral care and missions pastor here at United City Church in Umbel, Texas. We're excited to be your church family while you're incarcerated, but we're gonna be even more excited when you get out and you can come and be a part of our church in person. We love you very much. Please grab your Bible and a journal, perhaps a pen, and be ready to take some notes and let's learn together through the Book of Acts. All right, for those of you that are online with us that will watch this when you do, so glad that you have joined us tonight. Everybody in the room say hello. - Hello. - That's right. You can't see them, but I promise they're out there. There's a whole bunch of them and they're really happy, wonderful people. And if you're never getting the room, you'll like them. I promise that. We are gonna get caught up a little bit in Acts chapter 11 and I wanna give a little bit of backup.

It's so good to be back in the room with you guys. Just backing it up to Acts chapter 10 to make sure our context is strong. Remember, chapter 10 was all about the turning point in the whole Book of Acts where we're moving towards the Gentiles and we saw God give visions to Peter and who was of course a strong leader in the early church and we see God giving visions to Cornelius. God-fearing man who needed more than just a relationship with God, he needed the gospel. He needed to understand Jesus Christ and what Jesus had done for him, which he did. Remember the two visions intersected. Salvation came to Cornelius and to his house and his friends and family. We call that in Greek, his oikos, just the people that were around him. And we see so beautifully how salvation spreads through our oikos. I was thinking about this and how often we see this in our baptistry. Okay, raise your hand if you've ever been up to our baptistry during a baptism. I know a lot of you have. If you haven't, I'm just gonna tell you, you need to go up there sometime. Anybody is welcome, guys. This is not like this is privileged spot. If you wanna go celebrate somebody up close, it is amazing.

You know what we see in the baptistry a lot? Somebody gets saved, they come to be baptized. They're the first member of their family to get saved or to come back to Christ. So who comes to see them baptized? Their family members, their oikos, right? The people in their sphere. We've seen entire football teams up there watching football players get baptized. We see people in their sphere. And then it's very common that those people are back at church the next Sunday because all of those people are like, oh, this is good. Oh, I want a little bit. So then they start leaning in. We've had people come to Christ in the baptistry up there. Watching a baptism and they were like, I need that. And so guys, this is kind of that oikos spreading of the gospel message. And that's what we saw in Acts chapter 10. Of course, you remembered that the sticking point of Acts chapter 10 is that Cornelius was a-- - Gentile. - Gentile. And they're like, wait, does this for you? I'm not sure. There was a lot of confusion. But of course, God crossed all those divides, broke through the barriers. And of course, that's what the church continues

to be about until today, right? We cross divides. If that means we got to stay up to 11 o'clock at night to disciple somebody in South Sudan, then, okay, that's what we're going to do, right? We're going to cross that divide. If we need to go to a nursing home or to an elder care facility, then that's what we're going to go. If we need to go to Starbucks, we're going to go there. Wherever we are, we're crossing these divides. And then of course, last week, Paul brought a powerful lesson. Y'all saw me and my name was on the thing. I was watching. I just wasn't going to speak up with a cough and a laugh. Danielle and I were both there. But a great lesson from Acts chapter 11, as that was sort of recounting the story of the conversion and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, which of course left the circumcision party speechless and in all of God. I loved verse 18 of chapter 10, okay? Which is when they heard these things, they fell silent. They glorified God, saying then to the Gentiles, also God has granted repentance that leads to life. They were speechless from once. These guys were usually full of talk, but they were speechless and they were so excited. So I have asked Paul, if he would come up, he's got about a point or two that he wants to make that he wraps up his lesson from last week.

So Paul, come stand right up here with us and make those. And then we're going to jump right into verse 19, chapter 11. - Thank you for letting me step on your toes and doing this. - Feel free. - I usually do. - I usually do, right? I want to bring your attention to verse 16 of chapter 11. - Okay. - Okay. - I'm going to read it real quick. Remember, this is Peter speaking, okay? And he says, But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit I want to give you some context on that because I want you to remember the relationship that Peter had with Jesus Christ, okay? He had been one of Christ's best friends during his entire ministry here, okay? He had grown to love Jesus like like he had never loved anyone in this entire life And he he realized how how powerful the message that Jesus had the the one that he brought himself of salvation He became very close now remember Peter was always the impetuous one He was always the one that acted before he thought think cutting off Malchus ear and in the Garden of Gethsemane and so forth Yet when the pressure was on he denied his Savior three times as Christ told him he would But Christ reinstated him okay, so when he quotes this this this quotation of Jesus What do you think is going through his mind into his heart, right? He has lost Here on this earth his Lord. He's lost his Savior. He's lost his master his teacher his rabbi Do you not think that he lost his friend and he missed him? I think that had to be going through his mind and when I read this quote I think he must have said things that Jesus said hundreds of times in the sermons that he gave We just don't have record of that. That's right. That's point one for context now We'll go down to the verse that verse 18 that we just heard when they heard these things They fell silent they glorified God saying then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. I want you to go to

Luke chapter 15 verse 10 I Want you to understand the lesson that these men learned at that moment, okay? Luke 15 10 reads Just so I tell you now This is just after Jesus had told the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coins Mm-hmm, and this is how he wraps it up just so I tell you there is joy before the angels of God Over one sinner. Mm-hmm who repits? who Are the angels in the presence of constantly in heaven God This is God Rejoicing over one sinner repenting and these men that Peter spoke those words to Timely understood that lesson and accepted it. That's what we have to accept. That's what That's what David's talking about when he says take it outside these walls. Yeah, take the ministry everywhere No, and that's what they they did here. That is so good Paul. Thank you I actually really love this and I want us to just sort of sit here for just a second That it doesn't just say then the Gentiles repented It says that God Granted repentance that leads to life gods our salvation is not about even it's it's so much more on God Right. It is it is a gift of God. I mean only God can let the scales fall off and That's what he's saying you're God granted them repentance and what does the repentance lead to? Life Right, we think oh gosh. I don't want to turn away from whatever this thing is. It's got me tied up No, that's where the life is right when we when we forsake What that is and we move towards him. So I just think that's absolutely beautiful. Thank you for pointing that out We're gonna jump in at Acts chapter 11 and we're gonna continue now and we're gonna read verse 19 I want us to read all the way down to verse 30 I don't think we'll get that far tonight, but I do want to want to read that as it sort of closes out the chapter Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen Traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews But there were some of them men of Cyprus and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also

Preaching the Lord Jesus and the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord the report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch when he came and saw the grace of God. He was glad and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose For he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith and a great many people were added to the Lord So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul when he had found him He brought him to Antioch and for a whole year They met with the church and taught a great many people and in Antioch to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world, this took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined every one of them according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea, and they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. Now of course, there is a lot happening in 11 little verses here. That's why I just know we're only going to get to a few of them. But I want us to try to pull back a little bit and get an understanding of what's happening because it's like the story is both turning a chapter a little bit and also pulling back a little bit to the big picture of what's happening in the expansion of the gospel all around the region. Okay, so I love to see that the promise of Acts 1 8 just continues to be fulfilled. We remember we've said it probably nine out of 10 weeks that we've taught this over the last almost one year, we have said that's the crux of the whole book, that's the outline of the book. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and to Mary and to the ends of the earth. Okay, so we're seeing it finally get to the edge of the ends of the earth. Okay, which we got a whole long, we got a long way to go. But when you see this verse 19, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch speaking the word to know and accept Jews, that might be a little confusing because you might think, well, wasn't that like four or five chapters ago? I mean, like the persecution with Stephen, we know that. Remember he was the first martyr and that was in Acts chapter 7. I mean, we've been a while down the road. What he is saying here is he's orienting us to something that happened as a result of that persecution that now God is actually using the spread out. It was an involuntary spreading. Are you with me? God's going to get the message where it needs to go. Whether you want to go or not. Okay, he is not really dependent on us. He uses us because we,

if we choose to be used. But guys, he doesn't need us to get the gospel anywhere. He wants to use us. So he's helping us understand. So I want us to sort of look at this and it only makes sense if you look back to Acts chapter 8. So flip it back again to Acts chapter 8. And I want you to see how we've got Acts chapter 8 at the very beginning where we're just going to read verses 1 through 3. I want you to see some things that are related to this over here in chapter 11. So it says, of course, Saul approved of his execution. Remember, this is still pre Damascus road. This is still, this is Saul killing the Christians. There arose on that day, that's the day of the execution, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem and they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Okay, so do you see the parallel? That's where it says they were scattered. The apostles stayed in Jerusalem, the others scattered out. What we're reading in chapter 11 is, oh, this is what they did when they were scattered. So I'm trying to help you see, remember Acts is not just chronicled like January to December. You know what I mean? It kind of overlaps in the way the stories tell. So keeping going, it says, development buried Stephen, made great lamentation over him and Saul, of course, was ravaging the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women and committing them to prison. Quite a lot has happened in the last few chapters, right? That's where we left Saul. But now, of course, by chapter 11, now Saul's the one strengthening the church, doing the exact opposite. So here's what I have one thing that I have learned about God following him for over 30 years. Guys, he's going to get people where they need to be. He's going to get people where they need to be. He's going to move something around. Okay. Danielle and I did not ever have an intention of settling down in Umber, Texas and staying at this church for 19 years. I can promise you that was not on our plan. That was zero on the radar screen. Our plan was, oh, we're going to live in Brazil for the rest of our lives and raise our kids down there and be missionaries. And God's like, that's cute. You think that's what you're doing? I mean, really, I just think God is just a loving father that says, you know what? I see you're honoring me one step at a time, but I have a bigger plan. I've got something else. So that's what's happening here is he is moving his people where he needs them to be, but he's doing it through persecution. So when you think of the word persecution, Or a negative thing, right? I mean, who's signing up for?

Yeah, I'm going to go to the persecution class, right? Nobody wants to sign up for persecution. But guys, that's what you signed up for when you got saved. And if we're not getting persecuted, that's what's all, that's what's, that's abnormal. If we never experience any resistance, that's abnormal. We don't need to think persecution is abnormal. No, it's abnormal. If we're just going with the flow, I think we need to kind of examine something, right? 'Cause the world around us, the lost world, they're going this way, and you know, like in the chosen, I love the little fish, right? You know, they're going this way, and we got one little fish going this way. And this is us. And so if there's not some conflict in there, so that's what's happening is persecution. Listen, throughout history, persecution has been the fuel for the movement of Jesus. Always, when the persecution was, that's when the movement really started going good. So be careful what you pray for. So here's what we're seeing. The execution of Stephen led to this persecution of the church. They were scattered. That's how we get to Acts 11, and look how far they spread out. Now, I don't have a map behind me,

but some of you got them in the back of your Bibles, but just take my word for this. They says three different places where they had spread out. What were the three? Yeah, Antioch is one. Phoenicia and Cyprus. Now, probably you may not know where any of those places are, okay? I don't have all of this registered in my head either, but I want you to understand, Phoenicia is sort of north along the coastline. Okay, it's modern day Lebanon. Okay, so that's one of the first, you have to remember in all these Middle Eastern countries where Islam has strongholds. Do you understand this is where the church was born? All in the middle of all of those places. Those are the places where the church was thriving at the time. So north along the coastline, that's modern day Lebanon, then you got Cyprus. I bet some of my nails were Cyprus is. It's an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We used to have some friends that were missionaries in Cyprus for a period of time. So yeah, it's a beautiful little island right there in the middle of the Mediterranean. So then you've got Antioch, which is a little bit further to the north,

but it's inland, right? I mean, it's not on the island, it's landlocked there. And Antioch with a very important Roman city to the north. Now, all that's going to make a little bit more sense once we take a look, but I don't, I want to encourage you, if you got maps in the back of your Bible, look at them sometime. Like it actually is, it's interesting. So now you can find one that'll show you what's the modern day places and where are those? So those are places that even some people in the room have probably done a little traveling over that way. But as you just, as they spread out, I don't know if you noticed, but if you look at this, it's showing that the gospel is advancing. But it says very specifically who it was advancing to in this verse. So if we, if we look back at it, it says to the Jews, made it very clear to no one except the Jews. Do you see how specific Luke is being? As that, I remember every word is on purpose. It didn't just haphazardly, no. He's like, nobody but the Jews was getting the message as he's describing it right here. But we've just come out of chapter 10 and then this first half of chapter 11, which is all about the spread of it to the Gentiles.

So what we're seeing is a sort of a clash of worldviews. Okay, and we're gonna see how that is overcome in this little chapter. So look at what verse 20 and 21, it says, "There were some of them men of where?" Cyprous and Cyrene. Okay, now we got another place. We'll look at that in a second. What'd you say, Dave? - That's Cyrene. - Yeah. - Simon of Sire. - There you go. You're jumping in there. Who was Simon of Cyrene, Dave? - Hey, Jesus. - Oh, I think, yeah, we've heard of Cyrene before. - That's right, that's right, that's right. - Let's hear it. - Sandered and ruthless were his son. - Okay. - Yeah, later in your spot. - There you go. - So you see, Cyrene is a place we're gonna see more than once in this biblical story. First time we saw it was in Luke 23. It's in three of the gothables, but Luke is one of them. Luke 23, of course, which as we know, acts as continuation of Luke.

Right, written by the same author. So we've got Luke 23 is where you find Simon of Sire, carrying the cross. Now to some, I know where Cyrene is. - So not this man of Africa. - North Africa. If you look at the continent of Africa, there's like a little point up on the top that sort of sticks out there, juts out there. Cyrene is right up there. So this is some evidence here of the spreading It's actually in Acts chapter 2 and verse 10 with somebody read Acts chapter 2 and verse 10 for us. That's a real important chapter, Acts chapter 2. Somebody read it real nice aloud when you get there. Acts 2-10. Oh, just give it a try. And so what is this describing? Who is this group of people? They are the people that were at Pentecost. So guys, there were people from Cyrene. I don't know if they were Cyrenians or what you call them, but we can call them that who were at Pentecost. Okay? And what happened at Pentecost? We know that's when the Holy Spirit fell and many were saved and received the Holy Spirit. So I just want you to sort of see what's been going on. We see Cyrene again in Acts chapter 6. You've got some Jews from Cyrene arguing with Stephen, yep. Then I think it's very interesting that we see because they were all gathered there because of the left-enough festival. The people come and it's all, yep. The up-order of the Holy Spirit occurs not only so that the Jewish audience be seated. It's right. The city, people are like, "What the heck is going on?" and say, "Oh, they were directly at the Selena and the monastery are so explained." Yes. But he doesn't say, "Let me gather." All right. Who's the Jew? You? That's right. Everybody else, you can't. Some of you, you can't hear this. It was very public. Yes, public events. You're Advent. That's right. Public and available and present. The Jews and the Gentiles for faith,

the fish moles. That's big. That's exactly right. And so these, I like the Bible project, guys like to call these hyperlinks. You know what I mean? Where you're just sort of linking from this to this to this. These are, you're supposed to, "Oh, Cyrene, oh, I've heard that somewhere before." And then I sort of dig around and see. That's why the one that I knew of that's always registered with me is Simon of Cyrene, right? Because that's the most, the one that we know the best. But you see, it's sort of showing up again. So you've got these Jews actually from Cyrene in Acts chapter 6 arguing with Stephen. Acts chapter 6 is the, is the stoning of Stephen, okay? And there's some Jews there from Cyrene listed. But now what do we see the people from Cyrene doing? Coming to Antioch, speaking to the Hellenists and doing what? Preaching the Lord Jesus. So if you start putting the pieces together, what we now see is we've got some born-again believers in Cyrene. Now we don't know all of the story of exactly how that happened. Maybe they came back from Pentecost with the Holy Spirit and now they could suddenly see things differently. We don't know how that exactly happened. But what we do see is now we've got Cyrenians along with the people from Cyprus coming to Antioch, speaking to the Hellenists. Now again, we've got all these really weird names and if you're not careful, you don't know who these people are. Anybody remember who the Hellenists are? Greeks. Greek speaking believers, okay? Now generally speaking, when they use the term Hellenist, that's referring to Greek-speaking Jews, okay? However, context of this story and the way that this is told is making it look, I'm pretty sure that these are Greek-speaking Gentiles in this particular moment. What makes me think that? Because it says, let's look at the verse here. It says, let me get there. I'm sorry, let me get to my verse. Let's go back to verse 20. Let's look at this one little word. "There were some of them men of Cyprus and Cyrene coming on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also." That word also means, oh, they were, because he just got finished saying, oh, they were only talking to the Jews. And now he says, oh, they're talking to the Hellenists also. So that makes me believe, and a lot of the commentators that I was looking at believe, that these are Greek-speaking not Jews, right? These are just Greek-speaking Gentiles that were in Antioch because he says he's preaching to them also. And of course, preaching the same message, doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, you just need the Lord Grecians, okay? Yeah. So the word Hellenist, that's kind of a term about those who speak Greek and whole Hellenism and all of that. That's a... Hellenist is more of like an adjective for those who are Greek speakers. Yeah. You know the hell. Yeah. Hellen of Troy.

The most important thing here is we've got men of Cyprus and Cyrene coming to Antioch, preaching the gospel and the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. So what we're seeing here is more Gentiles being saved. But what's interesting to me about it from a physiological perspective is these are not Gentiles being saved because Peter's preaching. These are not Gentiles being saved because some of the other apostles are preaching. This is Gentiles being saved because the Holy Spirit has stirred up salvation in other parts of the Mediterranean and now they're starting to move around like missionaries too because if they came all the way from Cyprus on the island and Cyrene over on the other side of the Mediterranean and now they're over here in Antioch, that means they're moving around, right? They're going out of their locations and spreading the gospel. So that's who's preaching the good news now. And so Cyrene is actually modern day. Anybody know? Libya. Is that a stronghold for Christianity at this moment in time? Nope. No, it's not. But guys, Christianity has deep roots in the Middle East and I can assure you that God is moving in the Middle East. I know some of you guys can remember when everything started happening early this year in Iran, what did you hear about the church in Iran? Just being growing very much. Yeah, it's what I think if it's either it's one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing church on the planet earth. No. Underground. God's the gospel can't be stopped. I'm telling you, and you take it underground. It's even better. They're like, Hey, that's great persecution. No problem. We got it. So that's just, this is how we're seeing all these things tied together. So God's are down in Satan's life. That's right. Yes, exactly. Satan is Satan knows and he is fighting. I like this to me. This is pretty exciting when we see the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord, a great number. We don't know what that number was, right? We don't know if that's a great number like the one of for the hundred. I think 100 is a great number. Don't y'all think 100 would be an amazing number? We don't know if this is like a thousand like remember, like we saw, you know, in the earliest days of the book of Acts, but guys, a great number and it goes on down. Look in verse 24. What does it say there? A great many people. Guys, what Luke is trying to emphasize is it's not this exact number. Is it that's important? It's that the gospel is penetrating and it's liking a big impact. I mean, like a lot of people are being saved. So let's get to verse

22. The report of this, what is this? What is the report? Yeah, all these great number of people being saved. They're like, you got to you spread the word. So they didn't, you know, obviously we know they didn't get on the phone. They had to truck it up, truck it down the road. I guess the report came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem. It's kind of funny thing about the body of Christ, right? We got ears and we got no anyway. Maybe that was a little too much. All right. And they sent Barnabas to Antioch. Now, where have we seen Barnabas before? Yeah, who was one of the first people to vouch for Paul? Like you can trust it. This really happened. It was Barnabas, right? Barnabas was like, I promise you, I've been with this guy. This is legit. He really got saved. I know he was killing people yesterday, but today he's been saved and he needed to have some time to preach himself. Like that's normal. Okay, that's okay. That you don't have to just give out your trust immediately. Well, they sent beautiful things by Barnabas and I learned this year. His name really means encourage them to come. Yep. Actually, if the young Christ, I want to change my name to Barnabas. I want to be that guy. Well, you are that guy, Dave. You may have the name David, but you are an encourager. Anybody agree with that? Dave is an encourager. And so, yes, that's exactly what his name is. sounds good but let's let's go see because you notice things are happening that the apostles are not in the middle of so that's good right but it's also good to go let's go check on things let's make sure right that everything is is in order and that that we're teaching good sound doctrine and all those things because here's the thing when we try to contain a movement of God that doesn't ever work first of all God God's not going to fit within our little box well God you can you know what it's 10 o'clock we were done God no more moving Holy Spirit we've got you know brunch to go get that's not just doesn't work that way okay the movement of God moves on God's timetable and so they win and it says they sent Barnabas and when he got there it's interesting what he saw the grace of God how do you see the grace of God not the grace of God kind of feels like a like a principle but it says he got there and he saw the grace of God yeah that's what salvation is right if you see somebody being saved you see the grace of God how many of you saw a baptism on Sunday boom yeah if you were at the eight thirty or they're left there I got to baptize both of those it was just amazing guys you saw the grace of God you saw this like there's the evidence right

there God has brought that person right given that person the gift of repentance like we talked about right he has granted repentance to one more so it says that he saw the grace of God and then what was the result he was glad I mean doesn't it make you happy to see God like saving people and changing all these lives and I mean everybody I'll never forget when pastor Chris first came some of you guys remember some of this he said mark my words some of you guys remember this don't you he said the baptism is going to be busy he said we're going to see people saved and you know what when you start seeing people saved you start you a lot of people can sort of stop worrying about how the music's a little bit louder than I wish it was or you know what I wish they would wear this or they wouldn't wear that but you know what people are getting saved so you know what the gospel is going forward and so the main things start to kind of bubble up and it makes us glad when we see the grace of God and so then it goes on to say he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose we'll go back to that but now let's look at this description of Barnabas for he was a good me he was full of the Holy Spirit and he was full of faith again his name means son of encouragement and does anybody know where he was from this Bible trivia it's in the book of Acts we've already so we've been there i'll give you another hint it's a place that we've mentioned already tonight is he anyhow no he was from Cyprus so that's right see that that's his that's his spot we see it if you want to look it up it's in Acts chapter 4 34 through 37 there was not this is describing what happened there was not a needy person among them as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them brought the proceeds of what was sold laid it at the apostle's feet it was distributed to ages then he had nadiers verse 36 Joseph who was also called by the apostles Barnabas which means son of encouragement was a Levite a native of Cyprus all right so you see don't you know Barnabas was like my people are taking the gospel i'm excited you know like i'm a Mississippi guy so i get excited when like good stuff starts happening in Mississippi and you know there's a lot like my people me and Josh Thomas we like to talk about Mississippi right because Josh is another good Mississippi guy and and so i like to talk about that well i just i sort of picture Barnabas with that sort of attitude here like all right you guys are you guys are coming with it you guys are are following in and you know he was that son of encouragement so he was he was encouraging them and when he got to Antioch of course he's verifying it he knows this he's like okay i know the Cyprus guys i'm gonna go see what's really happening if they're if they're

really doing of course he saw the grace of God he was glad and then he exhorted them what what is the word exhorted mate it's it's another word for encourage and and exhort even has usually when i think of encourage it's it's almost a little bit of like a touchy I kind of saw your hand saying a little bit a little bit more push to it, you know So often on a Sunday morning our pastors don't just encourage us They exhort us Earlier in the evening when I was saying the majority of the people will always be out there We've got to get out there That is exhortation If I want to encourage you I'd say you know you really ought to You know go love your neighbor That's that's a little bit more like encouragement right an encouraging note Exhortation takes it up just a just a notch Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a little bit more of a of a not a push but a But an encouragement that that goes a little further any he encouraged them to remain faithful to the Lord With what? Steadfast purpose what what about that word steadfast? What does that mean? Okay, doesn't yeah, it's just like just kind of sticking with it Guys, it's one thing we've all known people and maybe there's been a time in your life where you made some exciting decision for Christ And it just kind of you know is generally stick with it Maybe your maybe your decision was I'm gonna go talk to those neighbors like I'm just gonna do it I don't care what they say I don't care what they do and then you just chicken now Right or you know what? I'm gonna read I'm gonna read the New Testament this year and you get to about I Don't know some one of those little letters, and you kind of just sort of Kind of flake on it guys. What what he's telling them is stick with it Stick with it with steadfast purpose Means he's reminding I I think and I'm not trying to I don't want to read into this more than what is there But what do you think would have been the purpose he told them that they have? Don't really don't lose your focus. I think he might have told him again. I'm just gonna say might Steadfast purpose like you are missionaries to right keep spreading the word

Because he's just seen it. Hey look those guys came over from Cyprus to tell you Now you need to go somewhere else and spread it guys I'm telling you the gospel cannot make it all across the Mediterranean just with with the apostles that was never gonna do it They were always gonna have to entrust them faithful men and trust the faithful women to get out there and get the job done and we're gonna keep seeing more and more of those faithful men and women as they as they go along so One other thing about this grace of God and then I and then I want us to I want us to talk at our tables a little bit I also like when it says he saw the grace of God and was glad The grace of God that he saw Of course, he saw all the new evidence all that all the new believers verse 24 He saw evidence of their salvation Okay, he got there. What do you think he might have seen? I mean, I mean doesn't give us the specifics but what evidence would there have been if he's okay? These people really did get safe. How would he know that? Well, make it okay the love that he had for one another some probably some baptism what's happening. Yeah, like Spiritual growth exactly these are people like they're doing what acts chapter two said Church communities do right because that's what they're still doing, right? When we're when we're helping fan the flame on churches being planted around if they're not doing acts chapter two I can promise you we're not we're not encouraging those churches because that's not a church if we're not doing acts, too, right? Fellowship breaking a bread prayer commitment to the apostles teaching So that has to be what he was starting to see these people have got a spiritual fire Right there. They're wanting to be together and so they're starting to see Of course, of course, you know the grace of God He saw was seeing those believers from his area traveling his missionaries and sharing their faith that the gospel spreading And that's why we celebrate what God is doing and so we'll wrap it up with just these these couple little verses here verses 25 and 26 We won't go into much of this, but I just want to read it because it sort of wraps up this little section So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for who? Saul and when he found him he brought him to Antioch Yeah, he's like you need to see you're not gonna believe this and then they stayed for a year For a whole year They met with the church and taught there's a big word a great many people

Guys the church in Antioch is the place where the disciples were first called Christians So this is a new term first time. It's used is here their first culture So in the beginning now, I'm certainly there were plenty who were who are looking down on all those Christians But Christian what it truly means it's baseball. Yes Christ follower it means Excuse me Belonging to Christ. That's a Christian Right, I grew up as a Mississippian, right? I'm like a son of Mississippi, right? That's my place They are Christians belonging to Christ. So Excuse me. So what I want us to do as we wrap up tonight is circle up around your table And I want you to answer at least one of these questions with the other people at your table's really small then Gather in with a couple of others, but I want you to tell the group. What was the most encouraging thing you saw in this passage tonight and Then what was the thing? That pushed you That said, oh, I think I may need to take another step forward. Okay, so something encouraging just kind of oh man That's amazing and something that was driving that was sort of exhorting you Okay, so I'm gonna pray for us and then we'll we'll wrap up our time And you just can enjoy your time at the table and I'm gonna come find a table too. Abba Father Thank you so much for your beautiful word. Thank you for all the details that you left us all the little breadcrumbs God that we just get to trace from passage to passage in place to place. Thank you so much God for the excitement of starting to see believers from other parts of the Mediterranean region starting to share the gospel and starting to see the movement of God not just moving through the apostles, but God just moving through those who received the Holy Spirit and who were were filled and Motivated to go and do what Jesus said. God. May we be the same in Jesus name amen All right circle up with somebody at your table be sure you know them Thanks again for joining us verse by verse through the book of Acts. I hope that you have learned a lot more importantly I hope that you'll apply these things to your life this week share it with a friend Great thing for you to just have some discussion with the other people around you share the things that God is doing in your life Again, remember the Bible is a book about God far more than it is a book about us. So let's learn about him Let's grow to love him more and more here at United City

This is not the only thing that we have on the panda app We would love for you to follow some of our other content watch some of our worship services Along with the music and the messages as well as podcasts We've got a lot of great content and we would love for you to to follow that And also if you would like to be in touch with us here at United City The best way to do that is by writing us a letter you can address that to prison ministry at United City Church 1 9 9 0 1 Townsend boulevard Umbel, Texas 7 7 3 3 8 We'll read that we'll pray for you and somebody will write you back God bless you and we'll see you in the word [BLANK_AUDIO]