We'll read these verses once again. Now the two candidates in persecution had arose over Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Then news of these things came to the years of this church in Jerusalem. and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch when he came and had seen the grace of God he was glad and encouraged him all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith and a great many people were added to the Lord then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch so it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. We'll stop reading there this evening. The Church of Antioch was a committed church. It was an evangelistic church. And it was an inclusive church. They were learning how to flex. We read today, and we have read each time, that they preached the gospel, but they preached it to the Jews only. In this segment you see them going a bit farther than that, and they ended up preaching the gospel to the Hellenists. Most would consider these to be Jews who were not Orthodox Jews, Jews who had taken up the Greek, the Roman way of life, spoke the Greek language as their speaking, communicating tongue, even in the home. They were not Orthodox, similar to the Orthodox liberal Jewish breakdown in our day. And they do not get along very well. They didn't then, they don't now. Later on we'll find out that as the many people were added to the church at Antioch, it took on a Gentile flavor. And this took a lot of flexing on the part of the Christians in Antioch. They included people that they normally would not in the church. Tom has alluded to some of that already in his messages. This is not an easy thing to do. There is a concept in church growth and church planning seminars called homogeneous growth units. I don't like anything that begins with those letters. I don't even like homogenized milk anymore. But what that means is the best growth unit for a church, and the way you should go about seeing churches developed, is to work with people who come from the same strata of society, who have the same practices and customs, who have the same income plus or minus a bit, who have the same kinds of jobs, the same kinds of education, and if you can get into that kind of a setting, you can really get a church to grow. That's not biblical. The early church had slaves and masters, equal in the body of Christ, rich and poor, Jewish and Gentile, different races, It crossed all these barriers. And we may as well get used to it because that's the way heaven's going to be. From every tribe and tongue. Confessing Jesus Christ. Now that's easy to say, it's hard to do. This conference to me has communicated an inclusive spirit. Have you felt that? How have there been some little details that say, hey, we want you to belong to this group? Can you identify some of the things that have been done to do that? Volunteers for Jesus. Can you identify some of those things? It's so normal you can't identify it. When I get out of the car at an unexpected hour and three people come out and a car comes out and the conveners come out And I understand that's a custom that you've had in place from the beginning. That says, we want you to feel included. Right? Can you clarify some more things? Yeah, here, let's talk. Part of it. I like the men standing by the stones tonight as we're walking down. What a nice touch. Somebody's thinking about you. We're going out of our way. Somebody's going out of their way, expending energy, walking through the whole program so they know just what a stranger feels like when they come to conference and certain things are in place to make you feel right at home. Isn't that right? That's why we feel at home. You're not here very long before you identify this is our conference. Isn't that right? Now those things are not accidental. It takes effort. It takes sacrifice. Every man that was standing on those stones helping you down sacrificed something the night. What did they sacrifice? Food. They didn't get the blueberry cherry. I did. Okay. They sacrificed that moment with the better hair that they always spend helping them along, you know? Sacrifice the first place. We all like that in the line. Right now, don't we? I mean, let's go. This time here. Let's get done with it. It's sacrifice involved. The church, the local church, is going to be successful at break time in between the meetings. We can't talk to the same people every week. You know that? I like to. I like to talk to the same three or four every Sunday. between ten, thirty and eleven. And I'll start looking for them. And I'll say, oh, wait a minute. There are other people that nobody's thought and said. Isn't that right? And our church is going to sit. We have to conclude. You know how awkward it is to go into a church and bounce from one group to another trying to get into a conversation at those great times? Anybody ever experienced this? It's a horrible feeling. You'll do that about two Sundays. And then you'll get the feeling, hey, nobody even cares. And off we go. This inclusive spirit reaches out to touch people who aren't just the same strata that we are. Talk to an old person for a change. Talk to a young person for a change. Be wonderful if one of the young people would take an elder out to McDonald's. Wouldn't that be me? They'd do it. You know, we can't eat all that junk food. You know, all that sort of thing. But let's try that once in a while. Works in every direction. The older to the younger, younger to the older, and those little kids to the teenagers, all this kind of thing. We try to include them. Take time to talk to somebody you normally wouldn't talk to. I think they're hard to do. It was one of the outstanding marks of the early brethren movement where brothers in the Lord would go to remember the Lord, some still in their clerical garb, soon to be disposed of. That's what they started at. If you're a believer in Christ, you're welcome. If there is life, In Christ, you're welcome. The light will take care of itself down the line. Life was the test. And we started out breaking down all the barriers. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you're my brother. You're my sister. Cross all the barriers. And reach out for including one another. Doesn't wait with this concept of clicks in the church. this little group and this little group and this little group moving through the church as isolated units they're all brothers and sisters one of another it's amazing how much enjoyment there can be in crossing those lines ignoring age differences background differences make it a purposeful choice in our lives to identify with someone in some other kind of a professional strata than we are We just don't meet with the blue collars or the intellectuals. Mix all those up and we can find we all contribute to one another. As we get to know one another's experiences and talents, we all find out that very, very few of us know very much about anything. We sort of have a, in our circles, we sort of have a premium on professional leadership. intellectual type people. We drive Buick or Oldsmobile. The Baptist drives Chevy. Christian Chinese drive VWs. They think they have a car. You know that. You're part of a different strategy. We normally do that and it's hard to break out of that. When we entertain, we entertain people like ourselves instead of people who are in other kinds of levels of function in life, other age brackets, other interests. We even fall into the pattern of entertaining people who will entertain us next. Have you ever played that game? You sit back and wait for the next invitation. It's your turn again to have the same group over. Back and forth it goes. It's a little game we play. The Lord says the Gentiles do that kind of thing. We should have open homes for people who can never pay us back. Have the people over that nobody ever has over. And we'll find that when we do that, there are enormous ties that come together. Now it can be dangerous. Remember what assembly we, when we first moved into our assembly in Chicago, we invited a couple couples over and didn't know anything about that. They hadn't been talking for a number of years. And they didn't know that we had invited one or the other. And there they come. Whoa. That was fun. But it helps. That kind of thing helps. Inclusive. Reaching out, breaking down those comfort zones that we all get into in assembly life, where we have our little group of friends and we do our things together, and a stranger is a threat. Have you ever felt that way? How to get over that? And reach out. Sounds like the telephone company. Reach out and touch someone. Yeah. the next Sunday when the next Sunday comes along and you are habitually going for the same pew to sit next to the same person in the same row to get up at break time and talk to the same people over the cup of coffee will you think about this and say hey there are other people in this group that I have never spoken to yet and I got to break out of that comfort zone out of those habits and extend myself And instead of just being with my close group of friends that I've developed in an assembly setting, break out of that and go to the people that I call them counsel. Make it a point to talk to somebody you haven't talked to before, and a stranger comes in, telling how wonderful it be if a half dozen people approach it in a natural course of events. And again, there can be some organizational structure to that to make sure it gets done. We need to do that sort of thing as well. Hand that up to chance. Because we don't do that by chance very well. Now, this is not an attack on close friends. To be sure, the Lord had seventy and he had twelve and he had three and he had one. We understand that. There are to be close friends. Most of us go through life with a lot of acquaintances, some good friends, but two or three friends can really channel. Kind that you can fill your heart, too. recognize you're not going to lose another friend. There are many like that. And that's natural. But we do not want to ever give the impression that our local assembly is a club with some sort of initiatory rights that are mystical. It's demonstrated this way. I was at a conference, a family conference on occasion. It was the softball game between the camp and the conference side. this group and the adults. Okay. I was standing there with one of the adults, and he said to me, how many generations do you have to be in the Assemblies, these weird things like that? I think you ever had a feeling like that. What, Hannah? There always used to be that at that game, and it happens in other conferences, I don't think it does here. where some pedigree assembly folks, you understand how you use the term, pedigree assembly folks will drive up just for the game. Have you ever had that? And you've been looking forward to the game all week, and this guy shows up for one day, and he glazes in Utah. That happens all over the country. And if you're in one of the... Main families have been in for a long, long time. That kind of thing carries a lot of weight. It should not. We're equal mandates in the body of Christ. And we've got to be sure we're not communicating that, hey, we go back some and you folks are junior members and when we want your opinion, we'll ask for it. Okay? Increase reaching out. It comes across in words like, welcome, welcome. Hospitality. You know, the good old custom that we have if a stranger shows up, they're out at dinner with us that Sunday. It's a wonderful custom. Let's keep those kind of things rolling that says this is a different thing. It's one of the great privileges we have in assembly life that is, again, rather distinctive. You can go around this country. And I have privilege of doing that. And I'll come into the city and the guy throws his keys at me for the car and says, oh, you drive in, come in whenever you want there at the refrigerator, make yourself at all. That's inclusiveness. And we want to communicate that to all God's people. We want to communicate that kind of thing to people that come to business. We want to be hospitable people. Church of Antioch learned that. It was a hard lesson. It didn't come real easy for them. There came a time when, boy, they tried their wings, and they were meeting with new people, and there were first the Hellenists, and then the Gentiles came in, and they were having a great time together, and they had a fellowship breakfast, and do you know what they had for breakfast? The Jewish and Hellenized Jewish, now Gentile, do you know what they had? They had ham and eggs, pork sausage. I mean, bacon, it was terrific. And then the word came that some of the teachers from Jerusalem are coming down. And Peter's eating away. You know, he's having the sausage and eggs. And probably for that evening, they had some of the crabs from out of the Mediterranean or those great blue crabs off the North Carolina coast turned red when he was eating them. Oh, that's good, isn't it? Peter's eating them. Peter's getting his first mix of this stuff. And he is loving it. But then the Jewish believers from Jerusalem were going to come and tell you this. And they build up all these barriers. They stop meeting with the Gentile believers. They clean up their act. Let these legalized Jews give them a hard time. And the church at Antioch built up something they had just ruined. They built up barriers. They excluded other Christians. Now, I got to tell you, the brethren have a habit of doing that kind of thing, too. And sometimes even amongst us who deny that, we have a tendency to think that we have special truths that others don't have, and we're just cut above the average Christian. We don't want to... It's true. But we don't want to... We don't want to communicate that. Craig that from the record. Okay. We don't want to communicate this. We have the truth, and it will die with us, maybe sooner than we think. It will die with us mentality. We want to include, reach out, make people feel at home. The church in Antioch was... Additionally, a church in which there was a multiplicity of gifts being exercised. Multiplicity of gifts, quality gifts, being exercised in a quality way. Barnabas, that was his nickname. It wasn't his real name. Barnabas means son of encouragement, son of exhortation. I kind of think that the disciples, the apostles, named him that because that was his gift, among other things. He was an exhorter, an encourager, a good man, full of the Holy Spirit. There were prophets. Now, we're not going to say there are prophets now. I'm establishing the point that there was a multiplicity of gifts. There were prophets who were functioning. Acts, verse thirteen, one indicates that. There were teachers. who were functioning in this particular setting. There was a multiplicity of quality gifts exercised by spiritually oriented people. And this is a mark of a successful church as well, I take it. An ideal church, like the church in Antioch, is a church in which individuals are giving their energies full blast to the spiritual gifts that God has entrusted to them. We were talking about spiritual gifts in passing and Tom and I are both tired about this whole business of spiritual gifts. You know, we've been on a run within the last few years. Everybody's got to identify what the spiritual gift is. I think it's healthy, but I'm not going to have a fit over that. Most Christians who love the Lord and want to live for Him are exercising their gift even when they don't know what their gift is. I think it's better to know what it is because it keeps us from doing things we shouldn't do where we have no gift. But these folk were exercising their gift individually. A lot of them. Can't say all, but there are a number of them mentioned in this specific context. One of the marks of assembly life, one of the contributions of brethrenism to the evangelical world, is this concept of multiplicity of gifts. It is in contrast to one person exercising all of the gifts. We need to recognize that. That part of assembly contribution has not been well received. in the evangelical world, not nearly as well received as the prophetic and dispensational contribution. That has been well received. And that is a major contribution we have made to the whole of the evangelical movement. But we have also said something about the fact that there is no such thing as clergy and laity. in the body of Christ. That's a leftover concept from the Old Testament priesthood. It is virtually a denial of the priesthood of all believers. And within the functioning of this church you saw numerous gifts being exercised by individuals within the church for the building up of the body of Christ. It's a healthy examination to determine what your gift is and to give your whole spiritual energy to the use of that within the local church. That is how we serve one another. Now I do something at school, and I think I'll take a minute to do it. I need one, two, three, four, five, six guys right in the front here. Six of you real quick. Quickly. Six guys. Come on. Now we need a pyramid. Make it, would you? Three, two, one. Three, two, one. It's not hard. Get your big guys down on the bottom. That's where they are. Oh, okay. Three, two. Okay, one more. Now, what makes this work? What makes this work is mutual dependence on one another. Okay? You can't do this alone. You all have to exercise your part in it. Now, let's demonstrate that. I'd like to throw on the right side just to back off. That's what happens. Okay, you can sit down. I'll give my hand. Okay, that was good. You can't build a pyramid by yourself. You can't build a church alone. It's mutually dependent one on another. If one person fails, the whole thing fails. Now, frankly, one can sort of take a little bit of the load off, and the other takes a little more, and it can peter-totter along a little bit. And that's what happens when we're not carrying our load in the church. It makes it a bit, but it's not what it's supposed to be. We are living stones. Peter tells us, builds us. into a temple for God. We are mutually dependent on one another. Church in Antioch has numerous individual gifts being exercised. And that's where I come to serve. We've already heard that church, the function of the local church, is not to get, it's to give. My mentality should be, I have a gift by the grace of God that needs to be exercised in the local church, and I'm going to do that. If it's teaching, I'm going to get a Sunday school class if I can have it, if I'm just a young person. If you're older on and you're developing into things of God, there are other areas of responsibility that you can put yourself into under the direction of the elders. What is it I can do to build up the body of Christ? Not so much what I can get out of it, but what is my part to put into it, to make it tick, to make it run? The church in Antioch had numerous gifts. And I love the way they exercise. We see them gathering together, prayer, fasting, serious concern for the exercise of their gift within the Bible. We need to give ourselves to them. Now, while they had numerous gifts, it's very interesting that another thing characterized a church that is not a competitive concept. For the whole history of the Antioch church that we know of in the New Testament, They have full-time workers giving their total attention to the building up of the church. Now that's a hot button issue in assembly life right now. Some people say there is a great conspiracy of faith that every assembly in North America should have a Dalek seminary graduate as a full-time worker. a real bad idea come to think of it. But you know, nobody's real thinking. Full-time workers are not a threat to the health of a local church. If there's any group of God's people who should know that, it is people that represent the South Eastern Assemblies of the United States. You have flourished under full-time workers. I am not certain that anywhere in the country there is a stronger group of assemblies than in the Southeast. And that is largely due to the fact that for years and years and years you have had godly men paying very close attention to the details of church life. Am I right or wrong on that? I think I said right. We need that. And it's not a new thing. It's not new in the Bible. I mean, I really would enjoy having Barnabas and Paul and full-time work in my assembly. That wouldn't be bad, wouldn't it? They continued for a whole year together. Whoa. That's good stuff. It is equally true in the brethren movement that it started out that way. This concept of anybody wants to speak, grabbing the mic and going at it. is not the way the assembly movement started out. We're mistaken if we think that's the case. You would have men, well-known men who later wrote doing the majority of the preaching, and I want to tell you they were trained and intellectual and brilliant men. They knew up from down in the things of God. They weren't novices. They weren't any man. And they certainly weren't every man taking a shot at ministry. Now, I really don't care how a person gets his Bible knowledge. There are lots of roots to Bible knowledge. But the pulpit should be filled with people who know the Word of God. And they should be able to communicate it. And teach it and preach it. An evangelist should preach who are evangelists. And that can be measured by people getting saved. Not just for everybody. Now there is gift for everybody, to be sure. But full-time workers, as in the early church here, as in the early portion of our brethren movement, as in many of the assemblies that you represent, are a major asset. to assembly life, not a deterrent. A properly functioning assembly will develop numerous avenues for exercise of gifts other than the pulpit. The pulpit ministry in reality is a minor part in the totality of church work. We understand that. Pastoral care, counseling, helping, visitation, All of those things play an important role. If we say we don't have pastors in our church, we are denying them the Scripture, where pastors are given as a number of the spiritual gifts. We are not saying that that person is the government, the whole government of a church. That's a different issue altogether. That is a plurality of qualified men. exercising government under the head of the church Jesus Christ. That is not in debate. That always must be. Full-time workers should not be considered a threat. Now the point of full-time workers is not that we should all have full-time workers. It's that the work should be done properly. That's the point. And in some assemblies, the work can be done properly without full-time workers. If the visitation is being carried on at the counseling, if the evangelistic visitation, if recycling, if all those things are being carried on within the structure of an assembly through multiplicity of gifts in which the men and women have enough time to do it all, getting done properly? Fine. Don't look around. That's a big issue. In our society when not only are the men required to work, but in many instances, because of today's way of life, ladies have jobs. How many of you ladies have jobs? Let's see here. A few younger generations coming up. I understand that's the way it's going to be. It's a changing world. Hours and hours are required. And one of the smart things we can do is say, let's take some of those... money and energies and invest them in someone who can take care of some of the details that aren't taken care of. I'm not saying get a clergyman. I'm not saying hire a governor. There are different issues. But I'm saying it is a help to have the details of church life taken care of on a regular, methodical, business-like, can I say that? Way. So that gets done properly. I had a friend come back from this, California. He said, you'll never believe the announcement I heard today. Well, the man got up after breaking bread and said, we've been missing, brother, so and so he's been going for six weeks. He died six weeks ago. It's not good to pick that up six weeks later, you know. You really can't do a whole lot at that point in time. That probably was some miscommunication in that whole thing. It has to be. But the fact is, we need to be on top of all of this kind of thing. And they have full-time workers. And I love the way this went about. I love Barnabas. He's teaching. He's ministering. He's working as hard as he can. And he can't pull it off by himself. And he goes and searches out and finds Paul over and towards us. Would you do that? If you were the shining light in a local church would you go get someone that's going to make you look like a Mickey Mouse operation that tells me a whole lot about Barnabas he had one thing in mind that I would have got people even if it meant I'm going to get a teacher that's sharper than I am a preacher that's better than I am and you will see soon that when they go out on their first missionary journey it's Barnabas and Paul and pretty soon guess what it becomes Paul and Barnabas and Pretty soon they had a little spat and it's goodbye Paul's heart. See what happened? He had the people at the first place in his life. Even if it meant getting someone that would put him in the shadow. And the Apostle Paul would obviously do that. And he goes off and brings Paul. And he was a gifted man. Now you could list a number of gifts that he has, obviously. And he comes and teaches and ministers and builds up that church. Not competitive. A gifted church. Individual gifts. But a church in which there was full-time attention to the details of carrying out God's Word. I say something to young people. One of the options of life that you shouldn't think of that. is serving Jesus Christ whole time. Did you hear that? A lot of attractive things out there. A lot of things that appeal to those senses that Tom was talking about last evening. The conformity to the world. One of the options you should consider is that you may have a life before you. That the Apostle Paul talked about making your living. by preaching the gospel. That's a good way to make your living. Welcome, is that a good way to make your living? Good way to make your living? A wonderful way. You should think about that. Look, serving the Lord full-time is not just for a bunch of dummies who can't cut it in a whirl. me some quality people like Barnabas and Paul who have a brain, who could be all those other things, who could be number one in this organization, and number one in this thing, and number one in the other thing. The work of God is not just for judges. We really can't make it in any other fashion. The missionary world is out there, and it's not just for people who are misfits. who can't get along with other people. And you couldn't really make it if you had to work in the real world. Look, folks, the real world is what lasts, and that's eternity. We need to think about that. The assembly, as a movement, will be needing more and more people if we are going to survive who are going to give their full attention to the things of God. And I wish for you young people and some of the older ones are too far down the line for that next. But they can pray for these front rows and for youth camps all over this country where young people are making hard decisions, sometimes turning their back on the very things that we have taught them are important in this world. You would be amazed at how many people, kids at a man's Bible college, go there against the wishes of Christian parents. because they will say, you're wasting your time. Where are you going to get out of it? Full-time workers are going to be needed. They're needed on the farm field more than we can imagine. They're going to be needed at home just as much in coming days. And I wish you would all consider that as an option to say, Lord, I want to be one of those people who gets all my attention. to the work of the church so that it is done properly in a way that's honor most of the Lord. The church in Antioch was a committed, evangelistic, inclusive, well-taught, gifted church with people who paid their full attention to it. You say, that sounds like a good turn. It is. We're not done yet. And we will see that as we put these pieces together, it is possible to have a church that is flourishing, that is committed to the things of God as we individually fulfill our responsibilities. And we pray that we do that. And imitate these people who were so godly that they were first called Christians. Amen. Britain. Father God, we pray that we may seek to imitate these characteristics in the churches that we represent. We long for gifts to be raised up, for attention to be paid to the details of church life, for a spirit to develop that make strangers and unsaved feel welcome and at home with the people of God. For an evangelistic fervor that will take the gospel to those of different backgrounds and different intellects, different statuses of society for commitment to the things of God. We pray for these things in the churches that we represent. and in our individual lives. We pray particularly for these dear young people that as they are in the process of deciding which way to go in their lives that they may consider that one way that may be before them is to serve you in a full-time way. Help them keep this as an option as they continue on through these formative years and help us all pray for them. You give them room to grow in the churches that we represent. We pray this in your son's name.