“Belonging to Jesus”
Acts 11:19-30
Associate Pastor Doug Forsberg
February 26, 2006
If “a rose by any other name is still a rose,” is it also true that a Christian by any other name is still a Christian?
I’m not trying to be confusing here. We are always tempted to serve two or more masters, and the name Christian roles off our tongues with such ease that I’m not sure we know what it means or that by claiming it as our own we are excluding all other masters. There is a whole subculture of all things Christian: Christian cookbooks, Christian exercise videos, Christian music, Christian art, Christian coffee mugs, Christian bumper stickers, Christian magazines, Christian books and even Christian T-shirts. All of these things can be purchased at your local Christian bookstore. Unfortunately, none of these things reveals what Christian means.
One author asks this probing question: “What would happen if even a quarter of the people who claim to be Christians actually lived like Jesus?”[1] Such a question begins to make sense when we consider the following: Christians in America are just as likely to divorce and or commit adultery as those who don’t follow Christ. Four in ten Christian pastors have viewed pornography on the internet. Christian teens are as likely to cheat on tests and papers in school as other teens. Christian men abuse their wives and kids as often as men who don’t follow Christ, and those claiming Jesus as Lord accumulate and hoard wealth in much the same way as unbelievers in our society. For all of our bluster about Jesus, statistically speaking, we aren’t that different than those around us.
That’s a sobering thought. A thought we might rather not have, but the text before us this morning calls us to a profound level of commitment to Jesus Christ, the kind of devotion embodied by those who first took on his name. When we call ourselves Christians, we are literally saying that we belong to Christ and none other; we are Christ-ones, yet we all struggle to live out our calling. To be a Christian is to be Christ-like. I wonder if your way of life, if my way of life, is worthy of such a beautiful name?
It can be intimidating to live in a city teeming with diverse cultures, languages and ideas. It is especially difficult to hold on to what you believe when you find yourself in a sophisticated cultural center known for its commerce and learning. Such places almost always attract the best and worse of human activity, and it seems so difficult to live out our faith in such places. Those believers given the name Christian faced this challenge with a strong resolve; they simply lived as Jesus had lived and so took on the name of Christ as their own.
The name Christian was first coined to describe the disciples in Antioch, the third leading city in the Roman Empire in the first century behind Rome and Alexandria. It was the political center of the eastern side of the empire and it became a melting pot of cultures: Roman, Greek, Arab, and Jewish. To live in Antioch was to learn to be tolerant of other kinds of people and their faith. Antioch was also a center of moral depravity where any corrupt appetite could be indulged. To be quite honest it doesn’t seem all that different from most American cities. In some ways it might seem like a strange place for the Church to begin its incredible growth, but in reality, it was the perfect place for the Good News to be proclaimed to every tribe and nation.
After Steven was martyred, believers fled Jerusalem to places like Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch where they shared with other Jews that Jesus had come and that he was the Messiah. Then some of these believers started to share the gospel with Greeks in Antioch. Over the past few weeks we’ve seen how God worked in Peter’s heart to help him see that the Gentiles could receive the Good News. God was working in other hearts too. As the believers shared the Lord Jesus with the Greeks, the Lord was with them and a great number of people believed in Christ.
This is really an incredible turn of events, for in that time Jews didn’t associate with Gentiles, yet the love of Christ compelled them to reach out to Gentiles and invite them into the Kingdom of God. In every time and place the Church has faced a question: will she turn inward and die or reach outward and live. If the focus of the Church is only inward it will not last long, but when the Church places its energies outward, in reaching out to the lost and calling sinners to repentance, she thrives.
As the believers in Antioch were faithfully preaching the Gospel, word that a new thing was happening got back to the mother church in Jerusalem. The leaders in Jerusalem got nervous, so they sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate. Barnabas had grown up as part of the priestly class of Jews and he was also from Cyprus, so he understood different cultures and how they interacted. He was the perfect man for the job in Antioch. We might expect him to get to Antioch and demand that all those who follow Christ must be Jewish first, but he doesn’t do that. Instead, upon seeing evidence of the grace of God, he encourages the believers, both Jewish and Greek, new and mature, to remain true to the Lord. How fascinating that Barnabas’ actions fit his name which means “Son of Encouragement.”
This encourager immediately joins the ministry in Antioch and an even greater number of people come to know Christ. Barnabas’ actions demonstrate that he is good, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. Could it be that Barnabas is becoming more and more like Christ? Barnabas was by no means a perfect man, but as his life was wrapped up in living as Jesus lived, he came to be more and more like Jesus.
The disciples in Antioch experienced the same transformation as Barnabas. We aren’t told very much about these believers, but we discover enough to know that those around them in the very cosmopolitan city of Antioch began to refer to them as Christ-ones or those belonging to Christ. What an honor to be known by neighbors, co-workers and friends as a Christian, not because we have the right coffee mug or bumper sticker but because our lives have become a reflection of His life.
How did the believers in Antioch come to be known as those who belong to Christ? Our text reveals to us two important ways in which these believers mirrored Christ to those around them in Antioch: through their worship and in their mission. These first church growth experts didn’t follow a complicated formula spelled out in some best selling book; they worshiped together and they served side by side in missions. In so doing they were transformed and became so like Christ that those outside the faith recognized them as Jesus’ own.
Soon after coming to Antioch and beginning ministry there Barnabas realized that he couldn’t do it alone; he needed help. He went and found Saul, who lived about 100 miles away in Tarsus. Together these two great missionaries taught and met with the church in Antioch for a whole year. Great numbers of people were involved in these meetings. For a whole year Barnabas and Saul instructed these new believers in the faith, helping them to know and understand the meaning of the Good News so that each believer would be able to apply that Good News to their life. Notice that those who belonged to Christ demonstrated their commitment to Jesus by their regular involvement in worship. Have you ever wondered why we call our gathering together on Sunday morning a service of worship? It is called a service because as we come together we are seeking to serve the Lord through listening and responding to his Word, through singing songs and hymns, and through our praying together. As we turn to the Lord in service, in worship, submitting to his Lordship over our lives, our faith in the Lord is deepened. As our faith in the Lord is deepened, we come to know in the deep places of our hearts that we belong to Christ. At the close of each of our services of worship, we are then sent out into the mission field as those who are mirroring the image of Christ.
The believers in Antioch who came to be called Christians were also sent out into the mission field, and when they went out to the mission field, they did two things. First, they invited others to know and follow Jesus Christ. The fellowship in Antioch didn’t grow just because it had dynamic leaders and teachers. It grew because the people went out and invited others to discover the joy they had found in Jesus. Those who belong to Jesus can invite others to him with sincerity and integrity because their lives have been transformed and reflect Christ.
The second thing the Christians in Antioch did when they left worship was to give generously of themselves in ministries of compassion. Commentators agree that the collection recorded in verse 29 of our text is probably the first act of charity in recorded history that involved one people group giving money to help another people group. It is no wonder that as the pagans of Antioch looked at this group of people they could only call them Christians. No other name would have been appropriate, for these believers belonged to Christ, they were Christ-ones, who sought to live as Jesus had.
The Lord used this small band of Christians in Antioch to change the world, for each one of Paul’s missionary journeys originated in Antioch and found support in that community. The gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire because these men and women who belonged to Christ sent out one of their own so that all would hear the Good News. So it was that people from every tribe and nation had an opportunity to belong to Christ and be known as a Christ-one.
Belonging to Christ has never been risk free. There has never been a time when it was easy to belong to Christ. Those who belong to him are identified as his own through their worship and through their mission. When those who do not know Christ see these people in action, they are compelled to say, “There is a Christian, one who belongs to Christ.”
Are you a Christian? Do you actually live like Jesus?
Today, we gather in worship wanting to be Christ-like but finding ourselves burdened with worries and sorrows: unfair expectations from parents, loneliness, guilt, wondering how to pay for our medications, illness, grief, pressures at home, pressures at school, pressures at work, bills, car payments and mortgages. What does Jesus have to do with all of these bits and pieces that make up our lives?
Jesus has everything to do with these bits and pieces of our lives. We cannot wall him off from the details of our lives because the details of our lives reveal who and whose we truly are. To be a Christian is to take on Christ, that is belong to him, trusting him to order our lives in such a way that all the bits and pieces that make up our lives are a reflection of the fact that we belong to him. Such a way of life is risky because we will find that our priorities have been rearranged, but if it is life that you are seeking, this is the only way you’ll find it, and when you are called by that beautiful name; Christian, you will know that it is not you that is being seen but Christ our Lord, who loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
May we belong to you Lord, may we belong to you.
[1] Ronald J. Sider, Doing Evangelism Jesus’ Way: How Christians Demonstrate the Good News, Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing House, 2003, 28.