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Hi everyone, my name's Kessia. I'm a first year student at Moore College. It's a privilege to read the Bible together, so please read with me. Acts chapter 11 verse 19. Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed

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traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyrus, and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, meant from Cyrus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.

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The Lord's hand was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. News of this reached the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.

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He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and toured great numbers

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of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabas, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine

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would spread over the entire Roman world. This happened during the reign of Claudius. The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea.

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This they did sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul. Well, again it is a privilege to be here and to come to the A to learn with you as we open up God's Word and reflect on that and I'm looking forward to a day of fellowship. Let me just ask God's blessing again.

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Father, as we come to your Word, I pray that you would engage our hearts. Our desire this day, Lord, is not to become smarter sinners, but saints who are transformed for your glory. So I pray that you would now take your Word and through your Spirit, you would point

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us to the sufficiency and the glory of your Son, the Lord Jesus. Amen. Well, the growth of Christianity has often come in very difficult and trying circumstances. Many years ago I had the joy of preaching and teaching at a particular conference with

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the Billy Graham Association and during this time I met a guy named Werner Berkland and Werner came from a very different background to my own Werner, was quite tall. He was German in origin and he had grown up on the mission field and was explaining, growing up on the mission field, just how challenging it had been for particularly his parents.

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From 1925 to the early 1950s, his parents had ministered for these 25 years in the backwards of mainland China. Werner explained the difficulty of moving there as German missionaries. They had to learn a new language.

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Being German and eventually Werner went on to be six foot five. They quite stood out in their local community as the family sort of walked around. But explain the challenges of his parents' ministry and the discouragement that a lack of growth provided.

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He said that his parents learnt the language, they went there and they saw a culture that was very difficult and over the course of their 25 or so years of ministry, they saw less than five people trust in Jesus. Difficult ministry isn't worth it.

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What if you don't see any fruit? Did you give your life to something for 25 years to see it yield that much? The ministry of Werner Berkler in his family as he grew up was very difficult and in some ways that's a little bit how it can feel like nowadays in our denomination or my denomination

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at least Anglican circle is currently there is quite a bit of talk saying it seems that in some contexts the church is on the decline and it can be difficult I want to acknowledge that today. At the same time God is doing really good things all around us that often we're unaware of.

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But it's challenging how does the church grow how does the kingdom of God grow in our Western Sydney that is secular that is pluralistic when it comes to religion that is even antagonistic to the gospel message that we preach how does God's kingdom grow how does God's kingdom grow well to answer that question we turn our attention to the passage that was read

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for us in Acts chapter 11 and we're going to see in this passage this is one of those passages that if you're reading the book of Acts is often great passages you go to Acts 2 Acts 4 you get the conversion of Paul a bit later on in Acts 9 you have some really great passages but this is one of those little portions that's easy just to read over

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and to sort of skip over yet in this passage I think we're going to get some instructive reflections on what growth looks like and what is behind actually legitimate gospel growth. And as we go through this passage I'm not going to suggest that this is a descriptive passage telling us here's six things you need to do to have the gospel grow but rather

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I want to make three observations general observations from this passage that we can observe how God goes about growing things so if you got your Bibles turn with me there and we come to Acts chapter 11 and as I said we're a portion of the way through the book and remember Jesus after he'd been raised back to life he met with his disciples in Jerusalem the spirit

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came upon them and he gave them this injunction or this this command he said you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth. Now at one level we know that this has taken place because we've got people from Tasmania here today okay the uttermost part of the earth the gospel has gone out but when we come

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to Acts 11 for eight this is about eight years after Jesus has been raised back to life and by and large the people of God have stayed put they've not gone out they've remained in Jerusalem but in Acts chapter 7 we see that Stephen gets killed he is persecuted and it's almost as if God's divine sovereign he's saying you're not leaving Jerusalem something

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is going to happen here I'm going to honor one of my saints and call him home but that's going to provide the impetus for you to go out and it's because of persecution that we find ourselves in Acts 11 is finally God is pushing his people to take the gospel out and that's where we find ourselves in Acts chapter 11 look with me again at verses

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19 and 20 now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed travel as far as Phoenicia Cyprus and Antioch spreading the word only among Jews some of them however men from Cyrus Cyprus rather in Cyrene went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus here we have several

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regions mentioned we've got Phoenicia we've also got Cyprus and we've got Antioch out of all of these cities or these regions Antioch is the most strategic and significant it's probably the third largest city at that time in the empire behind Roman Alexandria in Egypt we've got this city of Antioch now Antioch was known for being a cosmopolitan city probably

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five to six hundred or so thousand people living there it was a morally lax city it was one of those things where anything goes what happens in Antioch stays in Antioch was kind of maybe a bit of a mentality it had fairly free sort of morals it was pluralistic in regards to religion you could go there and worship whatever God you wanted there was

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cultic prostitution debauchery was commonplace and yet here God is going to use his people to bring about new life in Christ now if I'm writing the playbook here I'm saying Antioch look church planting you know do it I'm all about it we love being involved in that here in Sydney and it's entirely right but this is a sort of part of town where you're probably not looking

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for growth it's a hard place it's a secular place it's an immoral place it's religiously pluralistic and so you going into clearing Jesus as Lord is the only way probably not the best place to start and maybe for this reason we find that some people go and they say we're going to go to the synagogue at least we know we're safe there and so they go to synagogue and they share the message that Jesus

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is Messiah Yeshua Hamashiyah the Jesus is the one that you are to follow and it's all pretty safe still but then I love this verse 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 I love the fact that these are unnamed individuals these are unnamed this he doesn't say Silas went he doesn't say

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Timothy when he doesn't say Yitzhak went he doesn't say Ruben and his family went it just said some people some of them began to speak to Greeks also and this reminds me of the first observation I make in this text and that is gospel grows through God's people the gospel grows through God's people ordinary people everyday people unnamed people there is no ministry these guys don't do

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the ministry with the hope that maybe one day we'll be on Instagram and have a TikTok account and we'll be known as XY ministry now one level is nothing wrong with setting up and establishing ministries but what impresses me here is that these unnamed heroes they go to this difficult town why because they want to see Jesus glorified they want to make Jesus known John Scott

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calls these people daring spirits friend some of God's greatest ambassadors are those who are unnamed throughout church history the Werner Berkland's of the world those who go away are tucked away doing it maybe even if they don't see fruit you see it is the Christian doctor in Nepal who goes and says I'm going to share the love of God in a leprosy hospital

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because I want to show the love of God holistically for this person and introduce him to the God who cares it's the mechanic in Western Sydney who says you know what my buddy here my boss the other apprentices need to know about the Lord Jesus I'm going to get alongside them I don't know two ways to live I don't know the right theology to say but I do know that Jesus saved me and I'm

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going to share my testimony with them it's the mum who says you know what I'm in this crazy season of life I don't feel like I can do much but I know there's a small mums group at school I'm going to get alongside other young mums do life together with the hope that I can love them and reflect the love of Jesus so that I might introduce them friends these are the people who God

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changes the world it's not necessarily the professional clergy it's not that they're great apostles it's some men some women who say I'm going to go to an antioxidant and I'm going to share Jesus God uses ordinary people but he also the people he uses there they're also encouraging people look at verse 22 news of this reached the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to antioxidant

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and when he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the law with all their hearts he was a good man full of the holy spirit and faith and a great number of people were brought to the Lord now I love this guy Barnabas you've already heard of this guy before it's not actually his name this is a nickname because we read

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actually a bit earlier in the book of acts that his name we discover that his name was actually Joseph and he was a Levite but he becomes known as the encouraging guy son of encouraging what a great name right nickname oh man that guy over there whoo he is a son of encouragement well that's what this guy Barnabas is he goes out there ends the the early Christians were growing

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but again it's probably pretty tough they might not have seen immediate fruit but Barnabas he is what God is doing it says I want to be part of this work so he gets along with the different capacity a different hat and he said I want to be part of what God is doing as well keep going guys keep sharing Jesus you don't see any fruit that's all right God is with you

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you're discouraged because your church is not growing that's okay the Lord is with you talk about the Lord Jesus that's what God loves and here we get this guy Barnabas who comes and encourage her and can I say to you today the fact that you're here you've all you know I'm not sure what the pluralist all Barnabas is Barnabai okay you were here today as Barnabai to encourage each other

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and encourage me let's keep doing this let's keep reaching out to different folks they might not be there yet they might not be across the line they might not have clarity on the gospel but can I encourage you the Lord is at work in Antioch the Lord is at work in Sydney the Lord is at work in Auburn the Lord is at work in Tune Gabby the Lord is at work in Penraith in Crane Book in Camden

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friends God is at work and part of your role might be you might not even be from some of these suburbs but even to encourage others and just to say hey God is with you I know you're you're evolved in a church plant I might not be able to make it to your church plant but can I encourage you you might even say you know what I even financially want to partner with you or I know that

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you're you've got a ministry amongst university students and you've got the focus group and it's really difficult and challenging and and it's really hard I know there's great opportunities can I pray for you can I become a partner can you tell me about your ministry friends there we need Barnabas type people in the Lord's work I'm so glad that some people have the courage to say look

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this is tough yards we're going to play our head but I'm so thankful that there's Barnabas type people in our lives who come alongside say keep going and today we are saying to each other let's keep going we might not yet see the fruit but the Lord uses ordinary people he uses encouraging people we also see he uses all sorts of people look at verse 29 the disciples as each one was able

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decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea small acts of kindness that move the gospel forward so as I said this is these are people who come to our church the Sunday after Sunday and say you know what I'm going to serve on the morning tea roster and that's going to cost me a bit a bit of hassle it's going to cost a bit of time I might have

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to skip out on part of the service but I'm going to do it because I want this place to be a friendly place so that the visitor the outsider can feel welcome can be seen can feel known so that we might build a relationship where they might get to know the true God it's ordinary obedient people who say you know what I'm going to just work hard in my office space I'm going to to to live out what I

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believe so that people will look at my life not for me to gain glory but that it might be a way where they get to experience God's grace it's reaching out to the refugee to say hey can I help you I know that you're struggling to get some of the paperwork done can I sit with you can I go with you to an office is there some way that we can get alongside you as a family and support you

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it's the people that I see regularly and the go to our churches who say you know what there's a lot of people who come here English is not their first language we want to sit down and help these folks not just with an end goal of getting them to know Jesus but we want to do it simply to show what the love of God is like in relationships it's not the it's not the pastors it's not the staff

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it's not the experts in this context it's not the apostle Paul it's disciples as each one was able putting their hand up saying I want to be involved in the Lord's work friends I want to tell you that it is tough ground at Antioch but God is at work and he does it through ordinary every day obedient people we read in verse 26 the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch the term

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Christian is actually a really strange term don't you have thought of this but it's actually from the word Christ which is from a Hebrew word mishiaque Messiah so you've got this idea of anointed which is a Hebrew idea but it's in Greek script because it's Christ and then you got the yarn at the end which is Latin so you've got this made up word and it really has the idea of

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being a little Christ being part of the Christ party and often when we come to a passage like the three times that she used most people think that Christians actually didn't come up with this term that was actually a term of derision a term of making fun oh you little Christ you little Jesus people but what a badge of honor where are they first known as Christians in this tough

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city of Antioch a testimony of people that we will maybe meet one day in glory who go down in the pages of scripture just as unknown people some of them went friends the gospel grows through God's people ordinary people encouraging people obedient people but secondly we observe in this passage that the gospel grows through God's power the gospel goes through God's power look

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a verse 21 again it says the Lord's hand was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord verse 23 when he Barnabas arrived and saw what the grace of God had done and then a bit later on in verse 27 after offering the prophet the prophecy we read it was made through the spirit this is God's work gospel ministry is not your work nor my work in the sense

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of changing hearts I can't change anybody's heart I remember deal moody the great evangelist in Chicago he was out there walking the streets of Chicago and a drunk man came up mr. moody mr. moody deal moody said do I know you and goes mr. moody I'm one of your disciples and moody say clearly you're one of mine you're not one of the Lord Jesus disciples we want to trust we can't

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change anybody if anybody follows us for following us they're following the wrong thing we point people to God and it is God who takes somebody from death to life from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son he does that through ordinary people but at the end of the day it is not our genius it's not the slickness of our program it's not the effectiveness of our preaching

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it is a spiritual work as God takes the embedded truth of his word planted in somebody's heart and through his spirit does a marvelous thing of producing life don't remember in mark four it talks about the the soils the farmer goes out and he scatters seed and one of the the gospel additions it says something along these lines the seed grows and the farmer does not know how

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it's not because of the genius of the farmer friends it's not your genius that is going to win somebody in western Sydney for Christ it is through obedience but it is through God doing his work through you that by the way is why God gets all the the praise sometimes even when we do see growth the temptation can be oh man we're doing a pretty good thing right well let us remain humble it's

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the Lord doing a good thing and he might in his grace choose to use us but here we see it's the Lord's hand it is the Lord's power it is the spirit who is doing the changing the transformation and taking these hard people from Antioch and bringing about new disciples the gospel grows through God's people but the gospel grows through God's power it is God who is at work as we proclaim his

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son the Lord Jesus then thirdly we see the gospel grows through God's word verse 20 again we get the sum of them came and they told them the good news of the Lord Jesus and we read a little letter on they spoke to the Greeks okay there's speech involved here and they go and they tell there's an element that the basis of what we proclaim is not a message that we come up with

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it is truth so when we come to even the scriptures my job is somebody working as a pastor but our job whether we're a pastor or not whether we're a Bible study leader whether we're a disciple our job is to open up scriptures to point people to the God of glory so that they might know Him God's revealed Himself in the Word our job is not to make the Bible relevant the Bible is relevant

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Spurgeon said that the word of God is like a line in a cage your job is just to open the gate of the cage friends this is what these people did they didn't come up with a message they didn't say hey let's study Antioch we'll get a list of the demographics we'll work out a pretty slick program and maybe we could do like a seven week program and then somewhere down the line we can convince

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people to do x y z and nothing wrong with programs we have all sorts of strategy in our church rightfully so we want to be thinking and praying about how we might effectively reach all of that is true but at the end of the day if the word of God is not central you are building your house in vain and it's not just about making smarter sinners it's about introducing people to a relationship

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with God this is what they did they told them they spoke you'll know that their work they spoke the good news of the Lord Jesus Jesus was the central message it wasn't here's six ways to improve Antioch four ways to be a better person it was all about the Lord Jesus the fact that the centrality of the word was relevant to them we see in verse 25 and 26 then Barnabas went to

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Tassas to look for Saul and when he found him he brought into Antioch so for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people Barnabas sees growth in the church he sees people responding he devotes himself to teaching truth but he said I actually need some help a Paul what are you doing so he goes down he actually looks for Paul and so Paul comes up and Paul

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and Barnabas devote a whole year to investing in the lives of people pointing them to the Lord Jesus opening up the scriptures to them and this your notice also just as a side note and Ben asked about this before this part of that holistic discipleship the apostle Paul when he writes to the Thessalonians he said not only do we share the gospel but we shared our very lives the discipleship

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takes time it's a process of learning and it's best done in close proximity and that's what we have here Paul spends a year Barnabas spends a year opening God's word that's how God's people get confidence to grow that's how the gospel itself grows as God's word over a period of time is taught in the context of loving relationships so friends how does the gospel advance how does the

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gospel grow the gospel grows through God's people it grows through God's power and it grows through God's word being presented what do we do with this let me give you two suggestions or reflections for your own application first is this God I want to remind you you already know this God is in the business of changing lives God is in the business of changing lives there are people in your

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circle your spirit influence at this point may not know the Lord Jesus but I want you to know that God can change that person the fact that the apostle Paul is there teaching for a year this is the unlikely God this is not the guy you should expect but this is think God is in the business of changing people you know one of my good friends is a Bible college that I've been

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involved with over many years called the Himalayan Graduate School of theology it's in Kathmandu and I go there and my friend Vijay who pastors the local church and runs this this Bible college I catch up with pastor Vijay and every time I'm there I say Vijay I stayed his house in Vijay will say oh yeah sorry about the noise he said our background we were idle worshipers he said we

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were very well to do idle worshipers and outside of the house not far from where they live is actually an altar that his family established and so there's bells always ringing there's always people offering food to the idols there and as I talk to Vijay and he tells me your story I'm thinking how are you leading a church how do God move you from that all the way over here that you are now

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training 60 80 100 pastors who are going out and having gospel impacts and he reminds me Malcolm God changes people the next church planter could be a person in your English as a second language group who's got no clarity whatsoever doesn't even know who Jesus is the person in your Sunday school class or your kids church who is a young disciple recently moved here raised in a different

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mindset a different world view a different religious background God through the loving teaching of a 15 year old Sunday school teacher can use his word through that person to change a little life friends God changes people he still does he's doing it all over Sydney let it's not be discouraged by saying it's hard hard yards it was hard yards in Antioch fruit is not always

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straight away but we know that Antioch actually becomes the sending church believe it or not the commissions Paul and Barnabas and Ordansom or rather lays hands on them sends them out now for you writing a story you're thinking you're going to do that from Jerusalem right you're going to do that for somewhere else not Antioch friends God is in the business of changing people

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and he wants to use you to do it but secondly this passage reminds us that God uses ordinary people for his extraordinary ministry God uses ordinary people for his extraordinary ministry God is using you God wants to use you if you are willing to go he's not looking for a possible pause though he uses a possible pause he's not looking for a great Silas or a great John Mark he uses those people

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but he uses some people who are just willing to be unnamed just say look I'm just willing to go and to tell of the glory of Christ that's you that's me that are people in our Bible study group who know and love the Lord Jesus our job is to equip maybe it stands alongside me a barn of us and encourage but God has called all of us to be part of his work some of it will be on a

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sound disk some of it might be up front but much of ministry is there helping out with the refugees providing lunch on a Wednesday it's through volunteering to be part of a local community group where you can be salt and light to different folks around you but I am convinced this passage reminds me that God uses stay at home months he uses obedient mechanics he uses people who are retired

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who are willing to say you know what I'm not just going to sit around but I'm actually going to get down on my knees and I'm going to pray for the Lord's work in our local community or our local church friends God uses ordinary people and God wants to use you I know as you come here today the fact that you're here would indicate that you are probably the sort of people who are doing things

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and I want to acknowledge that but I want to put on my little barn of his hat today and say keep going keep serving God is using you are you willing to go and to speak I mentioned Verna Berkler at the start Verna his parents actually passed away many many years ago and his parents died and after they died Verna went to North America and he got involved and he ended up actually

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in Christian ministry work for the Billy Graham Association as Verna was doing that there was a as I said there was a particular conference that I was involved with and we were sharing a platform and I spoke with Verna and he went on to tell a bit more about his story you see a bit later on much later on when he was in his 60s Verna got an invitation out of the blue from the

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province where he had grown up saying Verna we know of your parents and we want to invite you for a gospel opportunity to come back and to share Jesus Verna was humbled he flew over there and he caught one fly and he catch another flight and had to catch a train he gets off a train and a local policeman comes up to him I guess I hadn't seen too many six foot five Germans recently

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why you hear and they said let's come and have a chat about that at the local police station so he took Verna and he went down to the police station why you hear he said look I've got an invitation and Verna said I was actually born here and he pulled out his little identification card from when he was a boy they looked at it we are so sorry Dr. Berkler welcome home

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they let they they they roll east him and Verna said he went to preach at the church and he turned up on Sunday and as he got went through the doors of the church there were 2,000 people and Verna looked at it and he's like wow he was so moved and obviously the one the sister passed it oh Dr. Berkler don't be discouraged this is the first of five services

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Verna got up and he said he preached all five services tears in his eyes remembering the hard work of his parents less than five he got down and as he was making his way out the door one of the young Chinese pastors come and talk to him on the shirt it's a Dr. Berkler look around this is the fruit of your parents ministry God is at work in Antioch God is at work in Sydney

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God is at work all over this world though we might not always see the results but what is this passage remind us? Acts 11 reminds us that God grows his kingdom through ordinary people like the Berkland so you probably never heard of because that's God's way using ordinary everyday people but it's God's gospel growing through the power of him it is his hand that brings new life

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but it is gospel growing as we present through the word the glories of Christ so with my Barnabas hat on can I encourage you keep proclaiming Jesus the soil might seem tough the results might not even come in your lifetime but it is God who actually produces results your job is to faithfully lovingly and holistically present the love of Jesus Christ in your words in your actions

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and in the way that you make Jesus known so may we all be committed to that amen amen let me pray Father we thank you for this reminder this morning that you are at work we thank you that you are a God who speaks for your word that you speak through ordinary everyday people who are willing to make Jesus known help us here in Sydney when we so and don't always reap to continue help us to

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continue to talk much about the glory of the Lord Jesus and His work for us help us to have confidence in this gospel message of truth look for my friends here I just pray as they serve you and all the capacities that you give them in all the relationships that you do that you give them sensitivity to where people are at that you will give them boldness to make Jesus known and Lord we

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pray for fruit not for our reputation not for the glory of a church or an organization or a diocese but Lord that we would proclaim Christ that people would find life in him because we know that if you can change people in Antioch you can change people in our sphere as well so we confidently ask these things in Jesus name amen