Dr. Sinclair B.

Ferguson – A Christian

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well our Bible passage this afternoon is from the Acts of the Apostles play story of the bed early
church in the first three decades or so of the expansion of the Christian faith and where are reading
Acts chapter 11 and 2 verses 19 through certain you'll find this on the program on page 3 or though
it's not marked as page 38 Slayer know those who were scattered because of the persecution that
arose over Stephen travelled as far as phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no
one except Jews but there were some of them man of Cyprus and Serena who won coming to
Antioch spoke to the hellenists you you you probably
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never taught at school but when Julius Caesar sent it to brew tea when he was assassinated he
almost certainly would not have said it to brew tea because so the common language in the Roman
Empire was Greek and not Latin and so when I reference here is made to Helen us it means non-
jews essentially those who spoke the Greek language and they're common speech with one another
so here is something very unusual happens because the gospel by and large until now has been
taken by a usual become Christians to other Jews in the hope that they would see Jesus as the
Messiah but now when these people come to Antioch they speak to gentiles preaching the Lord
Jesus and the
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hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turn to the Lord the report of this
came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch at they do this
because clearly that they might seem to some of them to be a rather irregular and they want to check
up on exactly what is happening here and gentiles been taught about the Lord Jesus came and saw
the grace of God he was glad and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the lord with steadfast
Papas but he was a good man full of the holy spirit and of faith and a great many people were added
to the lord Barnabas went to tarsus to look for sore and when it found him he brought him to
Antioch for a whole year they met with the chair
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and taught a great many people and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians those days
prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch one of them named Abbas stood up and for told by
the spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world and this took place in the days of
Claudius the Roman Emperor Claudius the disciples determined everyone 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 series today it will last I think for 10 weeks and females what is a Christian and
we've tried to bring out that on the bullet
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by the way in which the word is his emphasized will not so much thinking in these weeks about
answering the question what is a Christian the way it often is answered work Christmas somebody
who does lace and a Christian is somebody who does that would only asking the question what
really is a Christian if you said what is a Scotsman I suppose people might answer that question by
saying that Scotsman is somebody who wears a kilt or a Scotsman is somebody who speaks with a
strange accent are all kinds of things but none of these would be an accurate definition of put a
Scotsman really hurts if I want to see what is an American and a Sunday what is so will Americans
are people who speak English with a strange accent that to some of us might be true but it would
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that wouldn't define the essence of what it means to be an American so how does the Bible teach us
what it means to actually be a Christian and the Bible has a whole series of different pictures that
uses to help us see from many different perspectives what it actually means to be a Christian the
very essence of being a Christian things which are true of everybody every single person who is a
Christian and we trust this passage today because as you would notice in it it was in the city of
Antioch that people who followed the Lord Jesus were first called Christians it looks as though
Christian is not a name that Chris
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shorts for Christian it looks as though Christian is a name that was chosen by pagans and we are
told here in verse 26 if you look at it but after Barnabas and Saul that is Paul had been teaching this
little church for about a year it was in the city of Antioch but the disciples who seem to regard
themselves by the name of followers of the way the Lord Jesus was the way the truth and the life
and I thought of themselves as followers of the way but in Antioch people started calling them
Christians I wonder what was in their minds we could a little clue about this in the fact that there are
only two other occasions in the New Testament where Christians are called Christians
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so you're not hear something to drop into the next step RT your outdoor dinner you're at where there
are people from other churches of people who don't come to Wednesdays at first sight so many
times in the New Testament Christians called Christians because the answer is hardly over the two
other occasions are very interesting the second occasion is towards the end of the acts of the
Apostles when a gritter King agrippa says to Paul as Paul is speaking the gospel to him he said he
says say he says to you think it's this easy
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to persuade me to be a Christian
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and sometimes the folks you are bold enough to sit at these seats may just get a little spray from the
podium from those of us who speak here I'm sure there was a lot of spray funny said that me a
Christian know that was the flavour that the word Christian had in the mouth of people in there in
the first century it was it was a word used in the Minds of those who despise the Christian church
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cause them to suffer as Peter says the mean them as Paul experienced or in the city of Antioch
which was the third city of the Roman Empire After Roman Alexandria and known among among
the classical Roman authors who did right in Latin who was known as a place that was a fool of
immorality was a famous saying of one of the great Roman satirist juvenal whom you have
probably read if you did High School Watton who said that they they are on Tees river pollution into
the river Tiber so that is it where from Turkey where Antioch was the the pollution and the MOT of
the city was known in faraway Rob and even seem to have a nymph
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Romans who went perhaps in that along the great trade routes in and did trade in the city of Antioch
so it was not a friendly description and that I think we can assume that are there was only one thing
these people in Antioch new about Christians and that is but some are another ago they had no
understanding what this man summer another they work Christ's ones which is what the word
Christian really means they were people who suffer another were obsessed with Jesus Christ
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I wonder if people in Colombia would realise that it would would give us that kind of name and
your church and in our church View from different trackers that these are people who seem to have
an obsession about Jesus Christ I ask that question because of two things I was thinking about
earlier today but few years ago we were driving through England and we stopped off in one of these
absolutely beautiful English towns I was it's lovely Cathedral are we went into the Cathedral light I
looked around and I thought if I want a man from Mars asking myself what is the function of this
building because of my way down in Myspace machine I had seen people coming to that building
on a Sunday morning and I was intrigued to know what was it
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brought these people together I would run the whole building there wasn't a single scrap of
information that told me anything about Jesus anything about being a Christmas stuff that told me
about how old the building was about to who the stonemason wise but how they needed money to
keep the place up single about what it would mean to be a Christian even closer to home and it 10
years ago 10 years ago the week after 9:11 we decided in the church I saw that we would we would
have a beard how about we usually had a midweek service but on this occasion that we would have
a another service to which people who are as you were worse than bye bye what it happened in the
United States that they would come
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the people that come what we didn't know was that the city had arranged a similar service in the
City Square we're just about 100 yards away from where our church once I wasn't able to go to that
service and in some ways I was relieved I hadn't gone because the city had brought together an
email from one of them asks a rabbi from one of the synagogues and a minister I should underline
he was a Presbyterian minister it wasn't a methodist it wasn't a congregationalist it wasn't a Baptist
he was a Presbyterian he was my kind of minister
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but somebody and I'll congregation had been wondering through the square and stopped and
listened to the service and this is what they said they said you know when the rabbi took part it was
so clear he was a Jewish Rabbi when the imam took part it was so clear he was a Muslim cleric
when the minister took part you wouldn't have known what he was he wouldn't have known what he
was
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so I actually my question about our church and our churches and ourselves. What would people
think a Christian what would my life care about what a Christian is no that's the reason it's
important for us to try and study the New Testament to see what does the New Testament actually
teaches a Christian is under your notice on the back of the bulletin today there's a whole list of
descriptions but the New Testament actually uses to describe what it means to be a Christian the
fascinating thing is that the materials out of which those titles are crafted are almost all of Sound
actually really all found
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in the story of this little Christian Community that was growing and growing in the city of Antioch
where they were first called Christians and I want us it would just take us to minutes for each of
them I want us to look at 5 of the leading characteristics of these people that call for the descriptor
Christian and that belong to the very essence of what it means for you and for me to be Christians
and the five of these first of all they clearly trusted in Jesus as their Savior and Lord Lucan what's
said and Verse 20 please man of Cyprus and sirena came to Antioch spoke to the hell on a
screeching the Lord Jesus now that's the briefest New Testament some
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of who Jesus is and what it means to be a Christian he is Jesus who has come to die on the cross rise
again from the dead in order to be our Savior you will call his name Jesus because he will save his
people from their sins and you will also call him courier or not because when you come to him to be
your Savior you also come to him to Bow before him and acknowledge him as the lord of
everything in your life and that's the first thing that is the quintessence this sinequanone the without
which it is not possible actually to be a Christian
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we can try to do Christian things but we can't be Christians actually people would be amazed at the
number of American things I tried to do
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but no matter how many American things I tried to do
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none of the makes me an American I'd in the same way many people I think tighter do Christian
things as more by doing Christian things we could become crystal
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but to look who writes the Acts of the Apostles is just giving us this little reminder that the absolute
Foundation of being a Christian is my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ the reception of him as my
Savior and the yielding to him as my lord so that he becomes everything to me
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and in everything in my life he is the central Focus and longing the second thing that looks says is
that they not only trusted in Jesus as saviour but the experience the hand of the lord in the lives the
hand of the Lord is a Bible expression for the power of God and it refers almost always for the
presence of the spirit of the lord and it's it's interesting actually the way in which here and right at
the beginning of the acts of the Apostles look describes what's involved in becoming a Christian he
says these people were added to the lord they were added to the Lorna upset just noticed by the
farm of love and
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they were told they repented and believed so that really was a response that they made to the gospel
but there was this other dimension as though someone else took them and added them to the lord
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we became conscious that turn there was another hand work there was another voice speaking in the
heart at number that actually from my very earliest Christian days I felt as though I acted as I was
being pursued by somebody I couldn't see and no matter where I turned it was on stop whatever you
told you you seem to bump into the pursuer
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and that was their experience and of course the interesting thing is not look doesn't say here or
anywhere else when somebody becomes a Christian that happens in exactly this way the only thing
that's common to everyone becoming a Christian is that we come to trust in the lord Jesus and turn
away from our sins he actually says that but the ways in which the Lord brings us to that are as
varied as we are individuals with some of us it's a dramatic experience with others it's a very quiet
experienced a few chapters later on look will make very clear that that is the case here is a man who
needs an earthquake to bring them to faith in Christ and here is a woman Lydia the seller of purple
and she hears the word of Jesus and the Lord opens her heart
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but there is a trust in Christ as Savior and lord and there is a sense that that hand of the holy spirit
has brought us to faith in him and then the fun thing Luke mentions is that true Christians began to
grow in the knowledge of the lord something very remarkable happens here we've told that many
people were added to the lord and then looked out of again more people were added to the lord and
put it band of us think about this when he came down
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he said these people are so hungry to know the lord and to grow my god I need help and so he
hotfoot set off to tarsus and he brings back so because Solace become a gifted teacher of the gospel
of Jesus Christ in together for a year they they they teach these young Christians and if the if the
rest of the acts the apostles anthem God by they did that very intensively because they were hungry
that's what it means that actually that's really a good test of where my spiritual life is can I wasn't
one of them isn't one of the lovely things about watching young babies when they are your
grandchildren
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and they hunger for the mother's Milk and to be fair one of our youngest grandchildren has just got
to the stage where she seems to recognise mealtime and surround about 10 and about supper time
she actually goes and gets our daughters apron and brings it to her as Lotus a bit me I'm hungry fit
me so appetite is a sign of life you go to the doctor I don't you and he and he has very basic
questions you might have a pain somewhere a bit of soap how's your appetite
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and you may not have noticed
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and you've lost your appetite I'd say that's a sign of sickness so to have an appetite this was the third
thing the fourth thing was this the whole lives were transformed in order to serve the Lord know it's
absolutely marvelous what to look tells us here because when when when Barnabas comes down to
Antioch look says in verse 23 he came and he saw something I wish our churches were like
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people came and they saw something
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do we use that expression you know about about we are we are we are attracted to somebody and
someone says what was it that attracted you to that person I'm not quite sure I just saw something in
them I saw something in them or just something about them
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and that was for that happened here in these very early Christians the grace of God has come up on
them now Grace isn't visible but when Grace comes up on the people of Maillard it becomes
immediately visible in a transformed life and you see that later on in the care that they begin to have
I mean after all that there's a bunch of gentile dogs and they hear that Jewish Christians are
suffering in Jerusalem the salmon and Jerusalem the Nile has say has what did and destroy the crops
and there's also famine in Judea and I'm going to do something to help our brothers and sisters
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the lives of being so marvelously transformed by the grace of God you know you know we all about
dream catchers part of my dreams with a stranger coming into the church to which you and I belong
of the churches to which you and I belong with people to say to somebody you just need to go on
my knees people and nobody needs to explain anything to you you can see it there
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and that's why the fifth thing but that mentions they trusted and Christ as Savior and Lord I
experienced the hand of the Lord that began to hunger for the knowledge of the lord they were
transformed into living lives for the lord and saw there was an infectious nurse about their faith in
the lord and do we see that verse 21 the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who
believed turned to the lord and again in verse 26 he brought soul to Antioch and day for a whole
year they met with the church and taught a great many people
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no we sometimes wonder why are churches are not growing and there may be many different levels
of answer to that question but one of the levels of answer maybe because when will not really like
this because when gods people are like this there's an infectious about it or the mixed people think,
stand with us office
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I see something in him or her I don't see it myself and I just can't make it out what it really is
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until they begin to discover but this is what it is it's that we've become
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Christians
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Lord we want to be Christians and our hearts and we thank you that you bring us to faith in your
son our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of your holy spirit but you bring us some where we are
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and by nature where in many different places some of those who have known the Gospel of our
lives and I've done Christian things and we want to be Christians in our hearts on others others who
may know almost nothing about the gospel but we've seen the gospel and someone else's life not
sure why but we long for something that we know they have found
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and we thank you that your word tells us but that something is the person of our Lord Jesus Christ
and so we pray that we think about what it means to be a Christian in these days especially as we
thought about this passage that we may leave today trusting and Christ being really sure we are
Christian in the world having a sense that before your grace will be honest and that we may be able
to encourage others to find that same Grace in our saviour Jesus Christ we thank you again for our
time together we pray for your blessing on each others especially those of us with Carrie particular
burdens and anxieties today strengthen and Bless us we pray in Jesus name amen