The Engaged Church

Sermon Summary:

The story of the church at Antioch in Acts 11 reveals a revolutionary moment in Christian history that continues to speak powerfully to us today. When some unnamed believers from Cyprus and Cyrene began sharing the gospel with Gentiles in Antioch, they shattered religious and ethnic barriers that had defined the faith community. What makes this account so compelling is that these weren’t apostles or famous leaders—they were simply available believers who recognized that God’s love extends beyond any human boundary. The result was explosive: a diverse, generous, Spirit-filled community that changed the world. The presence of Barnabas, whose very name means ‘son of encouragement,’ reminds us that every church needs people who champion what God is doing, especially when it looks different from what we’ve always known. This church became known for their Christ-likeness, their radical generosity during famine, and their willingness to send out their best leaders as missionaries. The principle at work is beautifully simple yet profound: when God’s ability intersects with our availability, miraculous things happen. We’re challenged to loosen our grip on our resources, our preferences, and our comfort zones, recognizing that everything we have belongs to God. The question before us isn’t whether we’re qualified for God’s work, but whether we’re available. Are we willing to say yes before we even know what God is asking?

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Sermon Points:

• Focus on the Gospel of Jesus
• Presence of the Lord’s hand
• Acknowledgment of the diversity of the community
• Grace of God
• Gladness of God
• Relational
• Growth in numbers
• Receptive to newcomers
• Responsive to teaching
• Making disciples
• Generous
• Diverse in leadership
• Sensitive to the Spirit’s leading
• Adventuresome – respond in faith without knowing everything

Key Takeaways:

• The breakthrough moment in Acts 11 when anonymous men from Cyprus and Cyrene began preaching the gospel to Gentiles in Antioch, fundamentally changing the trajectory of Christianity
• The critical role of Barnabas as an encourager who validated and blessed the new work God was doing, helping the church navigate change and growth
• The church at Antioch was characterized by diversity (Jews and Gentiles, people from different backgrounds worshiping together), generosity (sending aid to Jerusalem during famine), and missional focus (launching Paul and Barnabas as missionaries)
• The principle that “God doesn’t call the qualified; God qualifies the called” – it’s about our availability, not our ability
• Everything we have belongs to God; we must loosen our grip on our possessions and be generous
• 2 Chronicles 16:9 – God’s eyes range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him
• First Baptist Arlington has a history of saying “yes” to God’s leading since 1871, and God is calling them into a new era requiring faith, change, and availability

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Scripture Reference:

• Acts 11:19-30 (primary focus)
• Acts 10 (context – Cornelius and Peter)
• Acts 13:1-3 (the sending of Paul and Barnabas)
• 2 Chronicles 16:9
• Various references to Old and New Testament call narratives (Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Rahab, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Matthew, Zacchaeus, Peter, James, John, Andrew)

Stories:

• The historical account of the church at Antioch being established and becoming the first truly diverse church with both Jews and Gentiles worshiping together
• The background of Antioch as a cosmopolitan, immoral city of 600,000 people known as “the sewage of the Orontes”
• Barnabas (whose name means “son of encouragement”) being sent from Jerusalem to investigate the new work and blessing it instead of shutting it down
• Barnabas searching for Saul (Paul) for a year to bring him to Antioch, where they discipled the church together
• The believers in Antioch being first called “Christians” because they were always talking about Christ, acting like Christ, and praying to Christ
• The church at Antioch sending financial aid to Jerusalem during a predicted famine, demonstrating their generosity
• The humorous illustration of the man at the airport who thought someone was stealing his donuts when the person was actually sharing their own donuts – demonstrating how we mistakenly think things are ours when everything belongs to God
• Brief history of First Baptist Arlington from 1871, starting with 17 Baptists at Johnson Station, including their first missions offering in 1885 and various expansions and ministries through the years
• The pastor’s mention of preaching at the Texas Baptist convention that evening, with his wife Cindy having preached at the Virginia Baptist convention the previous week

Sermon Transcript

Good morning, church. How are y’all this morning? It’s so good to see you.

We’re glad you’re here. We’ve had a great time in worship already this morning at 830. And, looking forward to, continuing that with you today when other services over today, me and there’s a whole group of us, actually, we’re all drive in Abilene and, our annual meeting of Texas Baptist is going to be in Abilene starting tonight.

And I am preaching the first sermon tonight, the convention sermon tonight. There will be several other preachers, but I’m the leadoff hitter. And that’s good, because for your lead off hitter, all you gotta do is get on base. You don’t hit, hit, home run. You can just. But you can walk. You can get hit by pitch. Just get on base.

All you gotta do last week, Cindy, preach the convention sermon at the annual meeting of Virginia Baptists. And, so, yeah, so this morning, there was a, a man who’s on his way to Texas Baptist meeting, but he was at the Virginia Baptist meeting. He was in our 830 worship service. And he came up to after afterwards. And he said, well, I came to church this morning.

Just see if you’re as good a preacher as your wife is. And, I said and he said, well, so, so I went and worked on my sermon in between services to try to beef it up a little bit for y’all anyway. But I’m looking forward to that time tonight. Beginning our fellowship with Texas Baptist.

I’m grateful to be a Texas Baptist, as I’ll tell them tonight, I grew up in Alabama Baptist and, but I’ve been with y’all so long, I’ve lost my accent from Alabama and, anyway. But nevertheless. Well, today we’re going to continue our conversation, during engagement month for we are learning more about what it means to be engaged in the ministry of the gospel.

So today, I want us to look at a very familiar passage of Scripture, acts 11. If you have your copy of the New Testament and you can just, follow along with me, we’re going to make our way through this text. I’ve entitled it The Engaged Church. It’s about the church at Antioch. And so acts 11, we’re going to begin in verse 19.

But before we do that, if you were to flip back, a page to acts ten, we’re at a crucial point in the history of Christianity. When you come to acts 11, the gospel has been proclaimed by the early church. Jesus has been resurrected from the dead, ascended to the father. The Spirit of God has been given. And all the believers at this point are Jews, and they are accepting Jesus as their Messiah.

And the movement is starting to spread. There’s persecution that breaks out in Jerusalem in acts chapter eight, after Stephen is stoned. And so these Jewish Christians spread out across the ancient world. Now they are Jewish in their ethnicity, in their religious heritage, but the ones that spread out were Hellenistic in their language. In other words, they spoke Greek, and there were Jews living all over the ancient world.

In those days it was called the diaspora. And most of them who lived outside of Israel were Greek speakers as well. And so these Jewish Christians are now taking the gospel to the world, but they’re only taking it to the their fellow Jews, who mostly are Greek speakers. And then we come to acts ten, And God gives a vision to a Gentile, a soldier named Cornelius.

And Cornelius was told to send for Simon Peter so that he could hear about what God was doing. And Cornelius lived in the town of Caesarea. So he sent messengers to Peter. And Peter makes his way to Cornelius home. And Peter sees that this Gentile family is ready to hear the gospel. Now the gospel has been being proclaimed to Jews already as well to the Samaritans.

And they are. They have the Jewish bloodline in their veins. So they’re not really Gentiles, and the gospel has already made it to them. But for the first time, Peter shares the gospel with a Gentile family, and Cornelius and his family are converted. Well, the word is spread back to the Mother church in Jerusalem, and they ask Simon Peter, come to come and explain himself, because no one has actually shared the gospel with a Gentile family.

Are y’all still with me? So Simon Peter tells them what happened. He says, look, I was there. I saw my own eyes. The Spirit of God fell on these Gentiles and they accepted Christ because who was the question these Jewish believers in Jerusalem thought, if you were a Gentile and you want to become a Christian, you’ve got to become a Jew first.

You’ve got to proselyte into the Jewish faith, and then that’ll prepare you to actually become a Christian. Peter said this, this Gentile family, they didn’t they didn’t do that. They just went straight to being Christians out of paganism. Even though Cornelius was a God fearing. So the people in the church had to decide what to do about that.

So if you if you got your Bibles open, you look at verse 18 before we get to our text in chapter 11, it says this when they, the church in Jerusalem, heard this, they had no further objections. They praise God. And here’s what they said. So then, even to the Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

So we got one Gentile family. Now you come to verse 19 and everything is about to change. All of history hinges on what’s about to happen in a place called Antioch. Let’s just look at it. It says in the text says this now those who had been scattered, there’s that word in Greek, the New Testament in Greek, remember diaspora.

That’s the word. It typically was used to describe Jews who lived outside of Israel, now supplied Christians as well. They were scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed. And they traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among the Jews, Greek speaking Jews they were called Hellenists. Verse 20. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks, also telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.

Now I just want us to stop right here. I don’t even know how to explain to all of us today just how monumental this is. Antioch is this huge Gentile city in Syria, and at this point in history, in the first century, you had three massive urban population centers in the Roman Empire Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. Antioch had somewhere around 600,000 people who lived there.

When the events that we’re going to read about took place, and it was known for a number of things, it was on the Aransas River, about 15 miles or so from it. And outside of Antioch was a huge temple to Daphne and Apollo, and it was known for its immorality. The city was, in fact, there were even warnings that were given to people who went to Antioch because there was a fear that you would be corrupted here.

Here’s what they used to say about Antioch. They would say the sewage of the to. So, in other words, the river outside of India. They said the sewage of the Arantes has made its way to our town. When people from Antioch would visit Rome, sometimes the Romans would say the sewage of the Iran Arantes has now arrived in the Tiber River.

And so this is a thoroughgoing, secular, immoral city. There were about 30,000 Jews that lived there. And so these Jewish Christians came to Antioch and shared the gospel with those Jews. But then guess what happened? Look at what it says in verse 20. Just some men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch, and they began to tell the gospel to the Gentiles.

Now this is an incredible breakthrough. And when you look at it with me, when you translate from Greek to English, sometimes translators have to make decisions. So look at what it says. It says they were telling them now in Greek what it says is they were preaching. There are two words, at least for preaching in Greek. One of them is Caruso.

It means to proclaim truth. The other one is you. And so, which means preach the gospel. Tell the news about Jesus. That’s the word this used here. So they come to Antioch and they see this massive gathering of Gentiles and this group of men decide, let’s just preach the gospel to them to now, the reason we know there was preaching to the Gentiles is look at what it says.

They were preaching the good news about what does it say? Preaching the good news about the Lord, not about the Christ. See, Christ is a Greek word that means Messiah. It connects to the Jewish faith. They didn’t preach necessarily the message about Jesus paid the Messiah because these Gentiles didn’t have a messiah. They didn’t know anything about the Messiah.

So these men proclaim Jesus as Lord. They were proclaiming a powerful message to these Gentiles. And so here’s what’s happening, y’all. Everything is now change. And you remember what Jesus told the disciples. He said, I want you to stay in Jerusalem until you receive the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, we’re good juju, half Jew, and the ends of the earth Gentiles.

We get to acts 11. We’ve already had the gospel proclaimed in Jerusalem. We’ve already had the gospel proclaimed in Judea. We’ve already had the gospel proclaimed in Samaria. Now we come to verse 19, and it’s one thing to share the gospel with one Gentile family. Now the gospel is being proclaimed to all Gentiles. Any Gentiles here this morning, any of y’all, non-Jewish.

Aren’t you glad these men decided the gospel was for us too? Aren’t you glad we don’t know who they are? They’re just some men. I hope when we get to heaven, they have little name tags. I shared the gospel with the Gentiles so you can walk up to him. Hey, man. Dude, thank you so much. I’m so glad you thought I was worthy to hear this gospel because this gospel, it’s good news to the Jew and to the Gentile.

That’s what the New Testament teaches. And so the these Gentiles hear the message. I want you to look at verse 21. The Lord’s hand was with them. In other words, God was leading this and blessing this. Well, we shouldn’t be surprised by that, because his glory is going to be proclaimed to the whole earth. So what the Bible says, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

In other words, a massive revival takes place and Gentiles start turning to Jesus. So in this church, you’ve got Jews who have been converted to Christ, and you’ve now got Gentiles who’ve been converted to Christ, and they’re in the same church. Now I want you to watch what happens. Look at verse 22. I love how it’s worded in Greek.

In Greek it says, tidings reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem. Here’s how the NIV puts it. News of this reach the church in Jerusalem. Well, what is the church in Jerusalem? Well, the church in Jerusalem is the mother church. It’s the church that saw itself as the doctrinal center of the movement, if you will. The leaders of the church in Jerusalem are the apostles.

The pastor of the church in Jerusalem is the half brother of Jesus. Are y’all with me? This is a strategic church, the one in Jerusalem, and they are comprised of all Jews. And now they’ve heard the news that some men are not apostles, just some men have gone to Antioch and they’re telling Gentiles about Jesus and the Gentiles are converting in mass.

They hear about it. And so here’s don’t you know what they do? Verse 22, they decided we need to send somebody to go check it out. Praise God they sent Barnabas. They all remember Barnabas, you know, in Aramaic, the word in Hebrew to the word bar just means son. And so, for example, you remember the story when Jesus was on trial and pilot brought this criminal out and stood him next to Jesus and said, who would y’all like, Jesus or Barabbas?

Barabbas, main son of the father, bar ABBA in Aramaic. So basically what Paul had said was, would y’all like the son of a father or the son of the father? You can’t make this stuff up, y’all. This is just what happened. The Jews had no idea this was the son of the father. Come on y’all. And they said, give us Barabbas.

Well, here’s Barnabas, what is bar Nablus? Well, the Aramaic word Nablus means to exhort, to, to encourage, to, to bless, if you will. It was a nickname. His name meant son of exhortation or son of encouragement or son of blessing. We’ve already met him in acts chapter four. He’s a Levite. He’s from Cyprus. It’s his home, which is an island off the coast of the Mediterranean.

Out in the Mediterranean. Well, look back at verse 20. Who established the church there in Antioch? Some men from Cyprus. So they said to themselves, well, let’s send Barnabas. He’s from Cyprus. He’s a Levite, which means he’s from the priestly class. And we’ll let him see what’s going on, because we are the theological center of this movement. And so what is about to happen, y’all?

The mother church is sending a theologian to check out this new movement in Antioch. Verse 23. When he arrived, he said, nope, we’re not doing this right here. This is two new. You can’t have all these people going to church with us. Is that what happened? It turns out the church at Jerusalem sent the right guy to Antioch.

They sent Barnabas. Look at verse 23 when he arrived and he saw what the grace of God had done, what had the grace of God done? It had brought Jews and Gentiles into the same church. It had crossed this massive chasm, this religious barrier and this ethnic barrier and this barrier of prejudice and he, the Spirit of God, has erased all of that and drawn all these people into the very same church.

And when Barnabas saw the grace of God, notice what he did. He was glad, and he did what came natural to him. He encouraged them. That’s who he was, and he encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. And then notice what it says. Verse 24, you ever thought about what they’re going to say about you at your funeral?

I’ve thought a lot about I’ve been in a lot of funerals. There are times I’m sitting on this platform when I’m hearing a kid talk about their dad, and I’m sitting there thinking, I’m going to take notes. Man, I know I got a little improvement here before my time comes. Listen to friends talk about a colleague. What do you want them to say about you?

Well, look at verse 24. How about this? He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit in faith. Is that good enough? I’ll take that. Barnabas. He was a good man. He was full of the Holy Spirit. He was full of faith. And guess what? When he got there, he blew wind in the sails of what they were doing.

This is a man has come down from Jerusalem, from the mother church, of all places. He’s been living with the apostles, and now he comes in and he blesses all of this and the church explodes. I’m just going to tell y’all every church needs his full complement of people like Barnabas, because Barnabas saw what God was doing, and even though it was brand new, he said, let’s keep doing it.

You see, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know how the people of God are. I know how we are. And when something new starts to happen and things are changing, the people of God always get up and give a standing ovation and say, we love to change. This is awesome. Even if we don’t know what it is, we just love it.

No. You see, because we like what we know, even if what we know is insufficient and we know it’s insufficient, at least we know it and we can live with it. And we’re nervous about doing anything different. That’s just how we’re wired. Guess what you need. You need Barnabas to step in and say, hey, come on, y’all, look at this, right?

This God’s hands in this right here. Let’s keep going in this direction. This is what God is up to. Every church needs people like Barnabas to shepherd churches into new seasons, into times of change. These Jewish Christians, it’s not over. Even though we’ve heard back in verse 18, at least for a while, they said, okay, this is good.

Well, that was just one family. Now guess what? The Jews know they are in the overwhelming minority in the ancient world and what this is going to be now, once this happens in Antioch, this is going to start happening everywhere, because it turns out that the gospel is good news to both Jew and Gentile. Hallelujah. And they know they are going to be taken over.

This movement is going to become a Gentile movement. And that’s exactly what happened. But people like Barnabas, full of the spirit and full of faith, help bridge the gap and help the church move forward. And guess what happened? People in droves became followers of Jesus. Then I want you to know sometimes in verse 25, Barnabas is there watching all this, and he thinks to himself, I’m gonna need some help.

This is huge. This is of God. So I want you to know that’s what he does. Verse 25 Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. Now who is Saul going to become? The Apostle Paul? Barnabas has not seen Saul in ten years. When we come to this text, Saul was a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, and he was persecuting the church.

And on his way to Damascus, another town in Syria, he was gloriously converted to Christ. He then became a leader, made his way to Jerusalem. But he was too overbearing for the Jerusalem church. They couldn’t take it, so he had to leave. Barnabas helped him, shepherding him. Saul left. Barnabas hadn’t seen him in ten years, but he’s sitting there at this church and he says, you know what?

I think this church needs? Saul. But here’s what else I believe he thought Saul needs this church.

Saul has a calling on his life. This is the church for Saul. I’m going to go get him. In fact, the Greek text says as he went looking, seeking, hunting because he had no idea where Saul was, so he went after him. Well, look at verse 26. When he found him, he brought him to Antioch, and for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church, and they discipled them.

They taught great numbers of people. And then guess what happened to the people in this church? The people in Antioch noticed them, and here’s what they said about them. He said. They said, you know, these people that are in this movement, whatever it is, they’re always talking about Christ. They’re always acting like Christ. They’re always praying to Christ.

You know what they are? They’re a bunch of I mean, they’re just a bunch of Christians. That’s what they are. That was their nickname for these people. And we’ve carried that moniker ever since. Would the God we live into it? Would the God that we live into it? Here’s this cosmopolitan city. People from all over the world lived in Antioch diversity, racially religious diversity.

And Saul and Barnabas take this church and lead it. And it explodes in that town. And God honors this church. It’s amazing to me. And the people in the church are named by the people of Antioch. Christ like, wow. Well, look at verse 27. Story continues. During this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Prophets played a huge role in the early church.

One of them, named Agaba, stood up and through the spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. This we can tell this happened about 1846 or so, while Claudius was in power. Verse 29, the disciples, the members of Antioch, as each one was able, decided to provide help for their brothers and their sisters living in Judea, in Jerusalem.

So they did this, sending their gift to the elders about Barnabas and Saul. So they knew the mother church was going to be in trouble because of the famine, and they heard about what was going on. And they said, we need to do something, because here’s what has happened to the people in this church. They got saved. They’ve been shepherded into community, they’ve been shaped as disciples, and now they’ve been sent as missionaries through Antioch and now through their gifts all the way to Jerusalem.

In other words, there’s a spirit of generosity in these people. They just gave generously. You say, here’s what happens to you when you get saved. And the Spirit of God takes up residence in your life and you start being shaped into a disciple, you will notice. You start to lose your grip on all of your stuff and you realize that it all belongs to God.

And when God asks for it, you give it generously. It’s amazing how it happens.

Y’all probably heard that story about the guy that was at the airport, and he he was, he got him a cup of coffee, he got a small little bag of donuts, and he went to sit down to wait on his flight. And when he sat down, there’s a little table.

There’s a guy sitting kind of adjacent to him, and he’s putting all of his stuff down here in a minute. He got his coffee, and he saw that little bag of donuts sitting unopened, sitting on the table, and he reached up, grab it, opened it, got him a donut out and ate it just kind of set back the guy that was sitting adjacent to him kind of looked at him and nodded while he looked at him, reached his hand in that bag, and he took a donut out.

Eat it. The first guy was like, what? Got a bunch of donut stealers now in the airport? He’ll even know this guy. And so it kind of looks at the guy and he reaches over there and he gets his donut, and he pulls a sack a little bit closer to him, eats it. The other guy just sits there and finally he looks and reaches way over, puts his hand in and gets a donut out.

It’s now there’s only one donut left. So the second guy kind of smiles and and he reaches in, he pulls a donut out and he breaks in half, puts it back in there, moves it back over to that guy, eats and leaves, and this guy sitting there going, what? What kind of people are in the airport nowadays here?

In a minute, there’s a gate change. He says, man, I gotta go change gate. So it looks he gets his coffee, gets his bag, and he looks down and his bag of donuts is sitting on the floor, still unopened.

So this whole time he thought this guy was stealing, but this guy was actually sharing.

Here’s my point. God owns all the donuts.

It’s all his. There is not one thing. There is nothing you have right now that God did not provide for you. Not one thing. There is nothing, not one thing you have right now that you can grab, like some of our young grandkids do, and say mine. Not a single thing. It’s all God’s.

I can still hear my preacher.

When I was a little boy growing up, my priest used to say, the God owns a cattle on a thousand hills. So the Bible says, I never had a cow. I was a I was a city boy. Every time I saw a cow, do I go up? God owns that cow and God owns that one and he owns that one.

That’s what my preacher says. He owns it all, y’all. And so loosen your grip a little bit, because when God calls upon us to be generous, I want to be like the people of Antioch, giving, sharing, responding to what my church needs, what the kingdom of God needs. Because the work of the church is so important. Let me tell you what.

What can God do with a church like this church at Antioch? What do you think? Here’s what I’m going to tell you. Change the whole world. You may think, well, I’m just a member of this one little old church.

God can take that one little church, change the whole world. Look at acts 13. Are y’all still with me? Y’all still in the. We hadn’t gotten to the sermon yet. We’re just reading the text. We’re going to get there. Just be patient. We’re getting there. They send their money. So, Barnabas and Saul come back to Antioch, chapter 13, verse one.

Now in the church at Antioch, they were prophets and teachers. Barnabas, he is the Levite from Cyprus. Remember Simeon called in this year. You know what the word this year means in Latin?

Y’all know black. He’s a black man from Africa. Lucius of Cyrene, another African in I love this who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch. That’s a polite way to say it. Do you know that verb brought up with you know what it means? Shared the same witness. That’s what the word means. Had the same nanny who did grow up with Herod the tetrarch.

Who’s Herod the tetrarch? Well, that’s Herod Antipas, that’s King Herod the Great son. So you got a guy in the church that grew up in King Herod the Great family so much that he shared a witness with Herod son. And you got Saul a Pharisee. A benja might. There’s a diverse group of people. Look at verse two while they’re worshiping the Lord and fasting.

The Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I’ve called them. Y’all, it ain’t ever going to be the same. Now. They ain’t ever going to be the same now. So after they fasten prayed, they placed their hands on them and they sent them off. In the missionary movement of the church was launched from one church and it made its way across the whole world.

Hallelujah, I love that. I love this worldwide mission. And it all happened because one church made itself available to the Lord. So now quickly, let me preach the sermon. Okay? Let me remind you last week, last week. Don’t worry, I won’t take long. Last week we did salvation history, creation. The world fell apart. We had we had to skip over the story of Israel because we didn’t have time.

Incarnation, God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. The Ascension Jesus returns to heaven. Pentecost. The Spirit of God has given the church is born. Let me remind you what I said last week about the church. The church. This is the new global community of God’s people. The church is the new temple of God. God is present with his people as members of the church.

We have been commissioned to the task of making disciples of all nations, filling the earth with his glory. That’s the church. Now, what is the church involved in right now? It’s called the Great Plan of Redemption. God is going to accomplish his mission through the great plan of redemption in this world. His purposes will be accomplished and his plan includes the church.

Now, let me tell you the principle that’s at work in Antioch that can be at work in Arlington and can be at work in your life. It’s this when God’s ability intersects with our availability, great things happen. You see, it’s God’s ability. It’s just our availability. If someone has said, it’s not that God calls the qualified God qualifies the called.

Antioch became an engaged church because it was available. So let me just put it all up on the screen for everything that I just said. Let me put it in one screen. There it all is. There’s the church at Antioch. Okay. It’s, focused on the gospel of Jesus. They grew the gladness of God was there. They were relational.

The grace of God, the Lord’s hand. They acknowledge the diversity in their communities represented in their church. Newcomers could find their way into the church. They’re responsive to teaching. They’re making disciples. Generous, diverse, sensitive. The Spirit of God, adventuresome that. You know what I call that right there? Flourishing.

Flourishing. And you know what? I want to go to that church. I want to go to that church right there. Turns out I joined that church in August of 2001. This one? This one. That’s right. That’s church. I go to. We’re not perfect, but this is what we long to be, this church, because God takes this kind of church and he changes the world.

Now, what’s the secret? Well, there’s power in order for us to experience the miraculous power of God, we have to answer the call he places on us in the church at Antioch answered God’s call. That’s what the church did. That’s how it works. Make yourself available to him. You can do it in your own life. And I want us to do it as a church.

God told Abraham, leave everything you know. Come follow me. I’ll show you where to go. Once you leave, I’ll show you. God told Moses, I want you to go deliver my people. Moses said, what do I have? What can I do? God said, take that staff in your hand. Throw it on the ground. I’ll show you what you can do.

God called Gideon. He was. When and when the chaff in a winepress where no wind was blowing. I showed you how scared he was of the enemy. And God said, Gideon, you mighty warrior, I’m going to use you. God told Rahab, I need you. Would you hide my men for a little while? I’ll come back, rescue you. She did.

God told Joshua, I want you to lead my people in the Promised Land. God took David out of the sheep pen and put him in a palace. God told Isaiah, I want to send you. God told Matthew, get up from that table and come follow me. Zacchaeus, I’m coming to your house today. Jesus said, Peter, James, John, Andrew, leave those nets.

I’ll make you fishers of men. Make yourself available. Let me show you this verse. You may. Maybe you’re familiar with this verse, but I love this is found it of all places is found in Second Chronicles chapter 16, not Second Corinthians. I’m talking about second Chronicles. Listen to this verse in verse nine of chapter 16. For the eyes of the Lord reigns throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

The eyes of the Lord reigns throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. Make yourself available to him, and you will not believe what God can do. Now let me say this about us and I’ll be done. I want us to be that church I do. Here’s what I’d say about first member soldier potential, potential.

I’ve been rereading our history book, Higher Ground, you know, since since 1871, First Baptist Arlington has been seeking to answer the call of God, making ourselves available, seeking his guidance, remaining faithful to the Jesus way, responding in faith to his call. All of that fosters seasons of potential in the life of our church. You know, February of 1871, Elder John Burnett arrived at Johnson Station, just three miles south.

Here he found 17 Baptists, and he organized the first church in this entire community. Originally our name was Johnson Station Baptist Church. They only met one Sunday a month. It turns out some of us would be really good church members.

Did I say that out loud? I didn’t I didn’t mean to. But, you know, eventually they moved north three miles because this town got established, called Arlington, and we changed our name because we took on the name of the community where the oldest church in this community, our first record of our missions give. This is Missions Month.

Engagement month 1885. We had 151 members still meeting once a month, but according to our records we gave, we took up a mission offering. We gave $20 to foreign missions, $80 to home missions, and $5 to the new Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas. The leaders of the church, four brothers named Collins. There was a street that intersected their property.

They decided to just name it the Collins Street. You may have driven it here recently. Church kept growing. We had to move because the building that we built was right here, where the Etta Bookstore is on a I mean, on a South Street. It burned. So we bought property up on Abraham just up here. And we built on that corner, bought some land around and bought a house.

In 1940, we partnered with Texas Baptist and we supported miss Dixie Morgan. And she started the Baptist Student Union at the College. So we hired a woman in ministry in 1940. Come on, y’all, that’s, that’s church you go to. How many times this church say yes to Doctor East? I mean, establishment churches all over this town. For 25 years, he was our pastor.

How many times did the church say yes to doctor Wade? Let’s do this. Yes. Okay. Let’s start a new mission that nobody even understands what it is. Okay. If that’s the. That’s what God’s leading us to do. How many times have you said yes to me and Cindy and the leaders of this church through the years, last 24 years, many times.

And here’s what I would tell you. I just sense in my spirit that God’s leading us into a new era right now. I started sitting at about a year and a half ago, maybe a little longer. And so behind the scenes, we’ve been getting ready, praying through what that means. What is God saying to us? We feel like he’s put some threads and he’s beginning to weave them and forming a new tapestry.

And I believe we’re headed into a new era, and it’s going to require something of us, some change, some willingness to step out on faith. We’re going to need a smattering of Barnabas all along and everywhere to encourage us. We want to blow in, in the sails where the Spirit of God is doing, because I want to be the church that’s available that says to the Lord, whatever you ask, our answer is yes, yes.

In fact, before you even ask it, yes. And then let’s just see what God can do with our availability. May it be so. Let’s pray together. Lord, we love you. We thank you. We thank you that you’re at work in this world, and that you love this world, and that you’ve allowed us to be a part of your work.

And so, father, as we try to find our way in it, we just ask that you would find us to be obedient, willing, and available to whatever you call us to do. I thank you for the history, the heritage of this place, and how you’ve used us in so many ways. When I pray, you’ll continue to find us useful, both personally and together as a church in Jesus name, Amen.