Let's pray. Oh, Lord, we thank you for this day that you've given to us, this opportunity to heed your call to come and worship, to enjoy the means of grace. And Lord, as we as we come now to the reading and preaching of your word, we ask that your your name would be magnified, that Christ would be elevated, that your that your servant would lessen, that you would teach us that the Spirit would work mightily, that you'd be glorified in all things. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 13, We'll be looking at verses 1 through 3 together this morning. As you turn in there, I'll remind you that Acts is written to confer, to show us, to allow us to see the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is building His church. And we see here that we're brought back now to Antioch, and we'll move into, for the rest of Acts, the explosion of the New Covenant Church into the Gentile world throughout the globe as it is. Let's hear now God's Word, Acts 13, verses 1 through 3. Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manian, a member of the court of Herod, the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off." The grass withers. flower fades, but the word of our Lord stands forever and ever. You know, mission creep can be a great problem. Not only battles, but entire wars can be lost because of mission creep. Countries can have great issues in their civil sphere. Companies themselves in the marketplace can bankrupt themselves over mission creep. And sadly, we even see individual local churches and sometimes even denominations at large that allow mission creep to bring them to an end eventually. And mission creep, I mean, that could be a scary thing. It's usually not noticed because it's very incremental. And it's when an organization, a person, a group, whatever it may be, they start out with a defined mission and then they change the mission. Now, generally it's kind of like a frog in a pot. The water's turned up and the frog is boiled, doesn't realize what happens. And as this mission has shifted and changed over time, all of a sudden everyone realizes we started out with a mission over here and now we're over here and everything has changed. Now, over the last 2,000 years, you can look throughout church history, even as you go beyond New Covenant church history, you look into Old Covenant church history and you see there are seasons, sadly, where God's people have great mission creep, where the church gets off mission. But thankfully, even when we see this, these seasons, God has always kept at least the remnant, if not the majority of His church on mission, moving forward for His glory and obedience to Him. And we think about mission creep and we read these these three verses here, the beginning of chapter 13. And I want to make sure we don't make a mistake and think, okay, well now we're starting to talk about like, this is ivory tower, academic theological things, you know, give me the bread and butter. But that is what we're looking at. This is the bread and butter. This is the heart of Christ's church. This is the heart of all of God's churches, His church. and that is the mission, the purpose, what He's given. So as we look at this passage this morning, what I want us to see as we work our way through it is that the mission of Christ's church, like all churches, is to gather, grow, and go. We're going to look at three things. First, the church gathers to worship our Lord. Second, the church grows as disciples of Jesus. And third, the church goes in witness by the Spirit, or maybe just to keep it in our mind, gather, grow, go. So the first thing we're looking at, gather. Now the church and Antioch, their purpose, like all the churches, is to glorify God, and particularly to glorify God in the gathering of corporate worship. as the saints there in Antioch come together to worship God, to meet with Him in covenant renewal, to be even as we were this morning, called into His very presence by God and then to enjoy communion with Him and to worship as He has commanded. And we look at verse 2 and we see the context here, the passage, and I think it's clear that this is happening in the midst of corporate worship, the gathering of the saints or the elders who were there. They are in Antioch. They are worshiping. They have been fasting, praying, and the Spirit speaks to them, which we will get to in a minute. Alright, so what is the chief end of man? What is the purpose of people, humanity, individuals, wants to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That is why the mission of Christchurch is to glorify and enjoy God as we gather, grow and go. See the connection where we are rooted historically, two thousand years into the early first century apostolic church and what it that church was doing even here in Antioch. But we see this importance to glorify and enjoy God. See, God gathers together local churches. He gathers together His church. The Spirit works to redeem and bring in those whom He saves into the church for one primary purpose. Now, He doesn't gather together the church so that the church can exert political influence or power, whether that's on the right or the left, that's not the purpose of the church. Now, Christians, being salt and light, will be involved in politics, but that's not the job of the church. God doesn't call redeemed sinners together into the local church that they might then be as it were, an ATM to the community or to be simply a food kitchen or to be a mission in the sense of caring for all the needs of everyone that's around them. That's not the primary purpose that happens as Christians are salt and light living out their lives. Those opportunities are there, but that's not the primary purpose of the gathering. The local church is not also a gathering of people that there might be a social club we might simply have friends, that we might have others to be and do things with. Now, that's a wonderful byproduct that happens as God gathers us together and knits us together in the local body of Christ as we fellowship and grow together in relationship. But that's not the primary purpose. We're gathered to worship the Lord. We're gathered to worship Him as He makes us disciples of Christ, equipping us that we might be salt and light. And then, as we'll see in a moment, continuing that wonderful cycle. Now think about it. To kind of drive home our purpose. One, we have in the Gospels that God the Father says that He is seeking those to worship Him. He's gathering together those who will worship Him. But also, We think about all the things, the mission of the church, which we'll see in a minute when we talk about growing and going these areas, making disciples of Christ. There will be a day, won't there, when we will no longer share the gospel? There will be a day when there will no longer be those in need in the church or outside that we will go and help and take care of? There will be an end to these things when Christ returns. But there's one thing the church does that will never end, that is consistent and will last for all eternity, and that's worship, the purpose. We even see pictures of it in Revelation, of the church gathered together in the very presence of our great triune God, worshiping Him and enjoying fellowship with Him. Now, I do want to take a quick note and remind us that, you know, Christians, dear saints, you do worship God 24-7. I mean, with your attitudes, with your thoughts, your actions, the things you do, there is an aspect that our very life is worship to God. We see that in the But there is a distinction, there is a separation, there is a specialness to the covenant gathering of God's people together, and then God comes and meets with us. It's different than anything we can do on our own, different than anything we can do even gathering together in our families. It is a wonderful thing, a gift that God gives to us where the means of grace go forth. So we see that here in Antioch, this church is gathered together, and they're gathered together with their prophets and teachers. And there's a list here we see in verse 1 we read of Barnabas and Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manonene, a member of the court of Herod the Tetrarch. And that's not Herod that we learned about last time we were together, who was recently in Acts, died under God's judgment, but this would be his father, Herod, that put John the Baptizer to death and was there when Christ was convicted. And then Saul. That's an interesting group that's gathered together. I think we should note this, not just move beyond this name. Sometimes we do that, we read names in the Scriptures and we kind of stumble through their pronunciation and then we move on. particularly when we get to lists, where there's a lot of names, kind of move our way through, but there's a lot of important things happening just here that we see. So not only we remember that we're in Antioch, so this is the establishment of a Gentile Christian church, but it's not that it's just Gentile. We've got to be reminded that God isn't creating a new church in essence, but He is grafting in, remember, grafting in the Gentiles so that now the church has been opened up and you have Jew and Gentile together. There is no wall separating. You remember we saw in Acts the important lesson that Peter was taught by God and then he shared and that was that the Gentiles were no longer unclean. So they've come together and we have this mix. We have a Jewish man We have a black African. We have a North African Mediterranean man. We have someone who was in the aristocracy, who lived literally as a close friend of the Herod. And then we have a theologian in Saul. Quite a diverse group here. We don't have multiple different churches being broken down in Antioch based upon differences of folks, but instead we have everyone together. worshiping God, serving Him. That's a wonderful thing. We don't have what we shouldn't have. Sadly, we do come across, though, we move around a little bit and you come across churches that are, it's one thing to have churches, I think, that are different in their understanding of the Scripture. They have a different understanding of the covenant. And I can see a different understanding there, a different understanding of who the sign of the covenant might go upon. But sadly, even in our own land, we have churches that are broken down where one might say, well, this is more of a white-collar, high-end, in the sense of thinking church, and this is more of a blue-collar, simple church. This church is this ethnicity. This church is this ethnicity. This church is where folks of this age go and that age go. I remember meeting someone years ago where it was a relatively large church and the church decided that the best thing they could do was to take this large church and they split it up and they actually worked out purchasing buildings and this and that so that the young folks could worship together and then the people who had children, middle age, could worship and then the older folks, the seasoned, could have their own church. They thought it was wonderful as they told me about this and I thought, that is one of the saddest things I've ever heard. To miss the diversity that God brings into a local church of ages and educations and financial worths and ethnicities is a sad thing. So what does it look like at Christ Church? Well, you know the most important thing we do is worship God. The most important thing we do is worship God. He's the Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of all things. He deserves glory and praise. It's the number one thing. And then we'll get to the mission after that, and being a disciple we'll get to in just a moment, and growing in His grace, and then seeking to be used by the Spirit and bringing in others to worship Him. But worshiping together is the most important thing we do. And that sounds really strange and weird. the average person's ear. As we are engaging folks, I have had several conversations where, as I have explained the purpose, priorities and mission of the church to people, along with the gospel, as you explained to them, their great need of Christ, the Redeemer and Savior for their sins, their repentance and forgiveness, And then you talk about the importance of worship and the local body of Christ and how God has intended for us all to be together, that we might then, as we're going to see in a moment, that God might work through elders to equip the saints. It is kind of like the emoji where the top of the head blows off. I've had a few conversations like that. What? Y'all do what? You think worshiping is the most important thing y'all do? And generally it falls back to, well, I thought the most important thing you would do is take care of people who, you know, financially are in great need. Well, yeah, that's something that happens. But the greatest thing we do is worship. And as we mentioned earlier, it's the only thing we're going to do for all eternity. And then, as we have talked about often and will continue to talk about, we desire to gather by the work of the Spirit anyone and everyone in this area whom the Lord saves out of repentance and faith in Christ, gather them together regardless of whatever the differences are. Ethnicities, education, financial status, whatever it is, we want age, young, old, families, individuals, singles, we desire to see them come together. We might worship our great God together as a local body of Jesus Christ. The church gathers to worship our Lord and the church grows as disciples of Jesus. The church in Antioch, like all churches by God's grace, is a gift of elders to make disciples of Jesus. And we see that in Ephesians chapter 4, particularly verses 11 through 16, where Jesus says this. He says, I give to my church gifts. And he's explaining these gifts One of the big things there is elders. He says, I'm giving elders as a gift to the saints that they might be used to equip them. So that's the job of elders is to equip the saints, to disciple them in Christ likeness, to lead them in worship, to serve them as they serve Christ, building up the body as the saints are equipped. to do ministry to one another, building up the body in love. We have the reality that no one is too sinful to be saved. We are thankful that God never leaves His adopted children as He finds them, and that He works through sanctification to grow His people in Christlikeness. So as the Spirit gathers those He saves, the The local church grows in particular ways. So as the Spirit gathers in, local churches grow in numbers, but it's not just in numbers. Local churches grow in sanctification, in God's grace, so that we have a double growth that's happening. So God is adding so that numbers grow, but those people who are added are growing in godliness through the means of grace. through sanctification, these things that are happening. Now these should be continual. That's what we pray for, that God would do that not only here at Christ Church, but in all His churches, that He would continually be gathering together all those whom He's appointed unto salvation, growing His church in number and then growing the saints in Christ's likeness. That that would be a continual thing, that we might see, by God's grace, growth and then not only growth in numbers, growth in godliness, but also that we would see growth in churches. Just as Christ's church is being newly established, there would be more churches that would be established. so that we might see all of our neighbors by God's grace, enjoying His means of grace, worshiping Him, growing in Christ's likeness. So what does this look like as we think about Christ's church? Well, there's an interesting ongoing cycle. One that we're going to as the Lord continues to bring us in time, providentially we're going We're going to see a cycle that's just going to continue until Christ returns is our prayer here, but it's going to continue in the church no matter what until Christ returns. As I say over and over again, our mission is to glorify and enjoy God as we gather, grow and go. Well, it's the three G's that just keep going. That's a beautiful thing. See, as we gather, So we're gathering in folks by the work of the Spirit as we're reaching out to them. They're coming in, gathering for worship, that we might grow. In that gathering, we're growing, not just in numbers, but growing primarily in discipleship, in Christ-likeness, in godliness. And then as we grow, we then go. We're going, share the gospel, the love of Christ, salt and light everywhere we go. But what is it that as we're sharing the gospel is happening? we're being used by the Spirit to gather and we're right back around. And this continues, gather, grow, go, gather, grow, go, gather, grow, go as the Spirit works. Lord willing, that's what we're going to see for years and years and years and years. And that's what we see around God's church overall as well. And we grow through these means of grace that are applied by By the Spirit we grow as we minister to one another with the gifts that we've been given. We grow through the labors of the elders." Now we might have a question, how does one evaluate, how do we figure out in the church and even here at Christ Church, how do we figure out if this growth is happening? How would we be able to say we are fulfilling the mission here? Well, it might be one easy part, the gathering one. there's more people here, then we're accomplishing that aspect. We would trust the Lord in that. So over time, as God grows us in numbers, then the gathering aspect is happening. You know, folks come to worship. They're coming to the gathering. Okay, that's good. Then how do we see growth happening in Christlikeness? What are some of the meters that we look at? How are folks involved in going and sharing the gospel, being involved in service? But particularly as we think about implementing their this Christ-likeness, this growth. We go to John chapter 13, verse 35, and one of the things that Christ told us, a clear barometer, a standard that we would know how we are growing as His people, it says this, by this all people will know that you are my disciples. So here's a big, massive indication that you're a disciple of Christ. if you have love for one another. So if the folks here at Christ Church are growing in love for each other, that is a clear indicator that we are all growing in Christ's likeness as His disciples. Then we can look at the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5. We back up just a little bit though and we can start with the the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit, the works of the flesh. So as these works of the flesh, by God's grace, are rooted out and removed, and then by God's grace as that is put off, we see the fruit of the Spirit put on and vivified, brought to life in your life, in the life of the church, we see growth as disciples. So starting in verse 19, now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. We see the church gathers to worship our Lord, the church grows as disciples of Jesus, and the church goes in witness by the Spirit. So the church in Antioch, don't miss this, the church in Antioch is the first church ever to send out missionaries. Ever. Now there was a great desire to obtain proselytes and have folks become believers and adherents in the old covenant, but it was different. Now we see the church, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the church confirmation, sending out men specifically to go and preach the gospel and plant churches. Antioch is the first church to ever send out missionaries for the purpose of the growth of the kingdom. So in Acts, we see this new covenant door has been opened to the Gentiles, and now the mission of the church is happening. Explicitly, as the Spirit is calling these men, and the church is sending them, commissioning them to do this very work as as they are going. So Paul and Barnabas are relieved of the work they've been doing in Antioch. So they've been in Antioch and they've been laboring. They've been there to encourage and to teach. And now the church is saying, you are no longer going to labor here in Antioch, but you are going to go and labor. You're going to go out as missionaries, the mission of the church, and you're going to proclaim Christ and His gospel and help to establish new churches throughout There's a lot going on here. You see that the Spirit is the one who speaks in the midst of worship to them, telling them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for this work. And then we see that after fasting and after prayer they're laying hands on them as they send them off. So there's a lot of things happening here that are touching on different things that we understand. We could start just with calling. So there is calling as we understand it in the Scriptures. When someone is called to a work, when particularly a man is called to the eldership, there's an internal call, but there's an external call. The Lord uses the church to verify that. We see that here. The Lord is…there's an external call happening here where the church is confirming this as the Spirit is working. Now we know that the laying on of hands takes place in ordination, but this isn't ordination because we know that Paul, Saul, is already ordained to the work of apostleship, but we're seeing a laying on of hands and ascending out, a commissioning of these two men in this specific task, a mission, as they're being sent to proclaim and preach the gospel and plant churches that are happening here. There's a lot being said about missions. The primary focus of missionary activity, the primary focus of missions is proclaiming the gospel and planting churches. Now, there is a lot of secondary things that come along with it to help. Like if we go and send off an ordained man to preach and proclaim the gospel on another part of the world, it would be very wise to send a team, not just one person. all the way to the extent of working down to, there are some teams that go and even have deacons that go with them so that they can do the diaconal work that's needed. Teams, so there's mature Titus 2 ladies that are there to reach the ladies in those areas. There's a lot going on. There's secondary levels of support, but the primary thing we do, the primary thing we support is the preaching of the gospel and planting of churches. That's number one. That's what we see. That was the first priority in the Scriptures and has maintained and stayed the priority in God's church. And of course we see the importance of evangelism here, that God has this call that He's given to make disciples amongst all the nations. So there's also a truth, a reality we see here that we keep in mind that When it comes to particularly missions, preaching the gospel, taking the gospel to the lost, every Christian participates in one of two ways. Every Christian, God is either calling them to do it or God is calling them to support that work. But we're all involved in it. It's the mission of the church, making disciples not only here but around the world, and we by God's grace get the privilege of participating in it. Global missions alongside local church community missions. We pray and desire to see not only folks on the other side of the world to be brought to Christ and churches to be planted, but we want to see that right here all around us. And we can do both at the same time. Now we're growing into that, being a new church ourselves. being established and planted. We are excited about those things. So what does this mean as we think of that? What does this mean, look like, for Christ's church? Well, globally, right now what we're doing, we're not in a place because other churches are actually supporting us as we're a church plant and getting started, but we, in our weekly gathered prayer meeting, we pray for one particular missionary each And we spend the whole month praying for that missionary and their labors in the country that they're in. And then the next month we go to another. But I don't think we're far away. It may seem like it sometimes, but we're not far from the point. Not only will we be praying for these works, but soon we're going to have the opportunity as a church to not only pray for them, but to financially support them. And then to go, we'll have opportunities to go and help the labors. send teams, be able to do that far away, be able to do that within our own country. And then probably the first thing we're going to be able to do is to do it in Knoxville, in a much more local situation as we continue to do that. We had this opportunity before is that we will be supporting Reformed and Presbyterian missionaries. We look forward to that. Now, not only are you salt and light every day, Praise God we have that and we're doing that right now. But we as a church plant also were. Continuing to look for and are praying about it and enjoying opportunities to. To reach out into the community, we might do these. Labors locally, not just. Pray for and seek to support things at distance, but for us to be able to do on a regular basis here. In Northwest Knox. And of course, one thing that maybe as the early beginning church plan, it's hard to think about this, but we're praying and making connections and doing things so that we will be involved in planting churches sooner rather than later. That even as we're growing, that there will be opportunities then to begin to be involved in other works of reform Presbyterian churches in the Knoxville area. There's a great need. East Tennessee, there's a great need. We look forward to how the Lord is opening those opportunities to us. And as I said, it seems so far away, but yet it's not. And we can pray now and the Lord will begin to use us sooner rather than later. Well, we've looked at these three verses as we've begun Acts 13. There's much here to look at this simple little pericope. As we look at the church gathering to worship our Lord and the church growing as disciples of Jesus and the church going and witnessed by the Spirit, we're reminded the mission of Christ's church, like all churches, is to gather, grow, and go. So may He use us to do that for His glory and the benefit of His church. Let's pray. Oh, Lord, we thank You again for feeding us with Your Word. We thank you for your goodness and your grace. We thank you for Christ, our King, our Savior. And Lord, we pray that in the midst of this reading and preaching of your word, we pray that it's been clear the Spirit has worked, and we ask and desire that Christ would be lifted up, glorified. In his name we pray. Amen.