What God Expects in God’s Church

Spiritual life seemed good in Jerusalem. But that all changed when the people’s past started meddling with the future of God’s true church. God wanted His church at Jerusalem to reach the world for Christ. “Scatter!” “No, God, we will gather!” Through persecution, God had His way and scattered His people abroad where they went everywhere preaching [His] Word (Acts 8:4). One place God’s Word was preached and made a difference was at a Gentile city named Antioch where, previously, only the Jews heard of the gospel. But now, at Antioch, Gentiles heard also and “a great number believed and turned to the Lord” (Acts 12:19-21). What is the “back story” behind this amazing work of God’s Holy Spirit through His obedient people? Their story began where every modern-day church’s story begins: in the Gospels when Christ announced the yet-future formation of His church. This happened when Jesus said, in Matthew 16:18, “I will build My church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” When Christ said those words, I wonder: did Christ have Antioch in mind when He gave that promise to His people? In addition, when Dr. Luke ended his description of history’s first church with “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47b), did that “good doctor” realize that, when the church at Jerusalem began to falter in their commitment to reaching their world for Christ, the Church at Antioch would take up the task? And then, I ask: In His last words, which were His marching orders for His followers, did the One Who died for all envision that God’s first “sending church” – the church that would release missionaries to go out from their location to reach all locations – would not be the “people’s choice” Jerusalem but “God’s choice” Antioch (Acts 1:8)? He is God which means He knew! The setting is a fellowship of converts whose lives had-not-yet been influenced by church customs, denominational dictates, or by “we’ve never-done-it-that way-before” traditions. Instead, they were a group of “fresh-faced, out-of-the-box” new believers who would launch out into the deep, expand beyond their limited and/or self-imposed missional horizons, and reach their world, and – by extension – our world for Christ. I say it that way because, if Antioch had had not shifted their focus to include the entire world and had instead listened to those, in Jerusalem, who objected to reaching non-Jews with God’s gospel of grace, how many Gentiles (like many of us) – today – would be saved? Prior to the congregation at Antioch sending missionaries into their Jerusalem (the equivalent of their city), their Samaria (the equivalent of their county), Judea (the equivalent of their country), and to the uttermost parts of the world (the continents beyond), what contributed to this church being the church that obeyed Christ’s Great Commission to send out soul-winners for Him (Acts 1:8)? How did the Church at Antioch catch Christ’s vision for global evangelism and become the first century’s premier “sending” church? Their journey to Jesus and beyond started with this lesson learned by Simon Peter: Since the gospel of for everyone, everyone needs Jesus.