But Some of Them
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
August 2, 2020
Scripture Reading
Acts 11:19-30
19 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, 24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. 25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.
27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
Our sermon series in the book of Acts is called “Without Hindrance.” The title comes from the last word in the last verse in the last chapter in the book, which is without hindrance. It’s a statement that all the obstacles stacked against the expansion of God’s love to more and more people are no match for God and his church.
But that’s not to say the obstacles are not significant. They are. Many hindrances would seek to undermine growth. It’s like our lives too. You could probably list four or five things holding you back from knowing God in a deeper way. A few months ago, I described the church of Jesus Christ growing in surprising and unlikely ways, and said it was like a tree that finds a way to grow in a gutter. The environment doesn’t seem even to make growth possible, but it happens. The Lord brings growth and joy. This passage this morning helps you know that as you draw near to God and follow him and share about him with others, his blessings and strength flow lavishly to you, to us. We can have joy and growth even when the odds seemed stacked against it.
This morning we pick up the middle of Acts 11. This passage is Luke’s way of doubling back to pick up a theme that began several chapters before, when a faithful man named Stephen was killed for his preaching.
When we looked at the story of Stephen’s death, I said Stephen’s Christian life was brief but bright. Stephen’s life is like a flare gun over the sky of the book of Acts. When Stephen’s light goes out, the fire of missions roars across the pages of Acts. That was the theme that surfaced several chapters ago. For example, we read in Acts 8:4, “Now those who were scattered [because of the persecution] went about preaching the word.”
Persecution leads to scattering, which leads to preaching. What followed 8:4 were stories about Philip, stories about Paul, and stories about Peter. Now, with 11:19 Luke returns to that same theme of persecution leading to scattering leading to preaching. Look again at how the passage opens.
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word . . . (Acts 11:19)
The persecution in the wake of Stephen’s execution created scores of religious refugees, men and women and children who had the love of God burning in their hearts but no longer a place in the world to call home. They are uprooted. How will they grow? Following Jesus didn’t make their lives better. It seems, in some ways, it made it worse. But as they traveled, they loved Jesus so much that as they scattered, they told others about his love and grace and forgiveness. Their persecution produced preaching.
Front and center in this passage in Acts 11 is a man named Barnabas. This is not the first time he’s shown up nor the last time he’ll show up. He’s a humble, godly, loyal Christian. You want friends like Barnabas. If you have one friend like him, you are rich. Look at how Luke describes him.
When [Barnabas] came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. (Acts 11:23–24)
Barnabas is a good man, Luke says. But you don’t just have to take Luke’s word for it. Luke puts Barnabas’s character and actions on display. When the church in Jerusalem hears the report about some new converts who need help, Barnabas says, “Here am I; send me! I’ll go to encourage them.” Back in Acts 4 we learn that his name even means “Son of Encouragement.” Where Barnabas goes, encouragement goes. And such is the case in Acts 11. When Barnabas goes, he encourages them to keep at it, “to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose” (v. 23).
And note what it says in v. 23: “When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad.” Think about that. This was a church of a bunch of Gentile Christians—which I’ll say more about later—and they’ve been Christians like 5 minutes. They come from pagan, secular backgrounds. When they gathered, you better believe they were a messed up, stumbling-through-life sort of church. Oh, they loved Jesus, but that they had rough edges. Antioch has 500,000 people at the time. It’s the third-largest city in the Roman Empire, behind only the cities Rome and Alexandria. Barnabas is right in the heart of a Las Vegas or an Amsterdam helping people follow Jesus. And he’s happy about it because this chance group of new Christians is not a result of “chance” at all. The hand of the Lord caused them to grow in inhospitable soil. Barnabas sees the Lord’s hand and his grace, and he’s happy.
I’ll just pause a minute and ask: Can we do that? What do you see when you come here to church? What do you come to church to see? The grace of God? Can you marvel at how unlikely it is that all of us Gentiles are gathered here in Harrisburg to worship Jesus some 2,000 years after his earthly life? Is that amazing to you? Can forget that we have to meet outside and forget about the heat or rain and forget about the masks and all the rest, and just marvel that we are even here at all? I don’t think we’re a very impressive church by many standards. But if Barnabas could see us, he’d be so glad because his eyes were trained to see the ways God is working.
And Luke keeps going on and on about him. When Barnabas has all these new converts around him clamoring for his attention, he could have soaked it up and reveled in being “the guy”—the guy people need, the guy who has the answers, the guy who leads leaders. But instead, he thinks, “I know; I’ll go find Paul. He’ll love to teach these new believers.” So he finds Paul, and together they do evangelism and discipleship. For a whole year, they share of the goodness of Jesus, and they disciple believers so that these new converts look more and more like Christ. In fact, their ministry is so saturated with Christ that outsiders begin to call them Christians, apparently for the first time.
And Barnabas does so well training Christians that when they learn there is a famine coming, they leap at the chance to help. It’s not when times are easy that Christ shines brightest, but when life is hard, when you are planted in soil inhospitable to growth. This, right now, is a time for our church to shine. Look what Barnabas’s disciples do when life is hard.
So the disciples determined, every one 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. (Acts 11:29–30)
Money—for good and for ill—is a big deal in Acts. In Acts 1, we read of Judas betraying Jesus, which was done for money; in Acts 5, Ananias and with his wife Sapphira are enslaved to greed; in Acts 8, Simon the magician tries buy the power of the Holy Spirit; in Acts 16, Paul and Silas are jailed when their preaching disrupts the business of a certain city; and the same thing happens in Ephesus when a certain silversmith loses his income because no one will buy his statues. Money is a powerful idol. Our question should not be is money tempting me but in what ways is money tempting me.
But here, under Barnabas’s leadership, faith in Jesus broke the chains of greed. These new believers are free to love and serve others. They are a fruitful tree growing in a gutter. And into whose hands would you put all of that collected cash? They give it to Barnabas. Back in Acts 4, he had used his wealth to serve the church, and now he’s the kind of man you trust with money because he’ll see the collection gets to where it needs to go.
Oh church, would that we had more Barnabas among us. Is there a job that needs to be done? Send a Barnabas. Is there some new Christians with crazy lives because they’ve been Christians like 5 minutes? Send a Barnabas. Do we need someone trustworthy to oversee money? Send a Barnabas.
Luke wants us to love Barnabas and long to be like him. That’s certainly one of Luke’s points with this passage. I actually think that’s a subpoint, though. Here’s the real question: Why does Luke want us to see Barnabas as a such a loving, sacrificial, wonderful Christian? Why make this such a big deal of him? Is it because Luke wants to see more Barnabases in the church? Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But there is another reason. Look with me again at how the passage opens.
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. (Acts 11:19–22)
Stephen is executed, and Christians scatter, preaching about Jesus wherever they go. Yet when some of them scatter, they preach to only Jews. And when some of them scatter, they preach to the Hellenists. Hellenists is a word for those of Greek culture, and by the way it’s set in contrast to Jews, the verse means that some went about preaching to non-Jewish people. Two groups, some who preach selectively and some who preach promiscuously.
Luke makes a big deal of Barnabas because he wants us to see that the blessing of God are upon the latter group, those who preach promiscuously. Look again at v. 21:
And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord (Acts 11:21).
The hand of the Lord is an Old Testament phrase denoting the Lord’s power and blessing (e.g., Exodus 9:3; Isaiah 66:14). The hand of the Lord’s blessing “was with them,” Luke writes. Which “them”? The them who shared the gospel where it was hardest. The them who shared where natural affinity was least. The them who trusted that the Lord wanted his blessings to flow far and wide, promiscuously to every tribe, every tongue, and every nation.
So what does that have to do with Barnabas? Look again at v. 22:
The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. (Acts 11:22)
The report of this—the report that Gentiles were hearing the gospel and turning to the Lord. The established church doesn’t know what to do with this report of Gentile conversions. Good thing? Bad thing? Which is it? So they send Barnabas to inspect. Luke wants us to know it’s a really good thing that they are hearing the Word. If fact, if you’ve been here over the last few weeks, you might be thinking, “Again? This passage has the same theme as all your other sermons throughout July!” To that I say, “Yep, apparently it does.” Apparently, the need to love outsiders was difficult to get into the heads and hearts of the church. Apparently it still is.
I don’t want to give the exact specifics, but I’ll tell you that in July I found myself in a room where there were many people who were a lot like me and a few people who were not. To be candid, what I perceived to be differences between us annoyed me. They knew I was an evangelical pastor and, I assume, that fact annoyed equally annoyed them.
If anyone should be tired of these same sermon themes, it should be me! Yet listening to David preach last week and thinking about the way I ignored these people, I felt the sting of conviction and shame. I could have said hello to them, asking a few questions. Maybe we would have only talked about how hot it has been in Pennsylvania the last few weeks. Maybe that by itself would have exploded some of their stereotypes about pastors and, more importantly, their misconceptions about Jesus. But maybe we could have talked about more than just the hot weather. I don’t know how the conversation would have gone because I didn’t even try. I just talked to those who were mostly like me and believed most like me because it was easier.
The truth that it’s hard to love people different than us was difficult for the church in Jerusalem. And it still is for us. There are outward hindrances to the spread of the gospel, and there are internal. But that’s why, I believe, Luke presents Barnabas the way he does, and not only Barnabas, but the church. This church in Antioch is an unlikely tree growing in a gutter. The established church treats her growth with suspicion. They have to inspect the tree. And then what happens? Consider the beauty of the irony of God’s grace. This tree grows so strong and becomes so fruitful that the fruit of that tree feeds the church in Jerusalem when they have a famine. Not only should we share with outsiders, but we might need God to use them to bless us someday when we struggle (cf. the shift of the center of gravity of Christianity to the “Global South” and her missionaries to the West).
This passage is another reminder that the blessings of God can flow even when life is hard. Notice the passage is riddled with hindrances. Religious persecution created refuges, and they fled their homes. Then the internal struggle of loving people who don’t look like us. Then comes a famine. And yet in the midst of this, God’s church grows. It was true then. And it can, by God’s grace, be true now.
