What is a Christian?

The speaker is studying Acts chapter 11 and exploring the meaning of being a Christian. They discuss the early church's expansion to Antioch, a city known for immorality and commerce. Some early church converts were hesitant to preach to Gentiles, but others were open to it. Barnabas is sent to Antioch to encourage the believers there. He witnesses the grace of God and encourages them to remain true to the Lord. Barnabas is described as a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and many people are brought to the Lord through his ministry. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit and remaining focused on the purpose of following Christ. We're going to continue our study in Acts chapter 11 tonight, and it's the first time the word Christian is mentioned. So I thought it'd be good to take a more in-depth look at what it means to be a Christian. You know, you hear the word, and a lot of people just assume that it's a follower of Christ. But we're going to look at the history of it. We're going to look at the implications, what it means for us today. But before we do that, let's go ahead and go to God in prayer. Dear God, we thank you so much for your word tonight. We just pray that you would just help us to stay out of the way of what you want to accomplish. Let us hear what you want us to hear through the Holy Spirit and forgive us for our sins. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So Acts 11 verse 19, let's start there. The early church is expanding their territory. This is a brand new group of people where, you know, if you're in Jerusalem, you've probably heard about Jesus rising from the dead. There was 500 witnesses. Word would have spread fast. On a miracle, something that big. They would have known about the earthquake that occurred when Jesus died. They might have saw some of their loved ones that rose from the grave when Jesus was dead. So there was a significant amount of people in Jerusalem that would have had some sort of knowledge of who Christ is. But now we expand to Antioch as their new home base. I mean, we still have Jerusalem as a home base. Now they're setting up and expanding to Antioch. And these people are kind of like the people of Chicago or Las Vegas, or sorry if you're from Chicago. I don't know anybody from Chicago, so I'm probably safe. But we know that this was a really big commerce area, a lot of money involved. Anytime you have that, usually people are far away from God, far away from morality. That's the kind of city, the city of Antioch was. So they were going right into the heart of where they needed to hear about Christ. So Acts 11, 19 says, so then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus in Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews alone. Now during this time, it doesn't say super clearly, but there were some early church converts that were going out, and they didn't like the idea of going to Gentiles. They thought that you should not, as a Jew, associate with Gentiles or be with them because of their, well, thousands of years of laws that they've been following. It's hard to, you know, Jesus came and totally wrecked their religion, basically. He completely wiped the Jewish faith off the map and no longer existed. Kind of like I think when Christ comes again and reveals Himself, the whole world will know who He is. It's gonna wreck a lot of religions, won't it? Like when He comes and reveals who He actually is. But in verse 20, we go on, "'But there were some of them, "'men of Cyprus and Cyrene, "'who came to Antioch "'and began speaking to the Greeks also. "'So there was some okay with it, "'preaching the Lord Jesus. "'And the hand of the Lord was with them, "'and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.'" So you think Jesus Christ set up His church. He is the foundation of the church. We looked at that last week. He is the rock, not Peter. Peter was just like a little stone, basically. According to that word, Peter means a little stone. And He says, upon this rock, big stone, or pile of rocks, a big mass of rocks. That's who Jesus is, and He's the foundation. So you think that God's gonna have a part in guiding them step by step? He definitely is. And so the hand of the Lord was definitely on them, guiding them step by step. And He still can do that in churches today, but haven't churches gotten away from allowing the hand of God to guide them step by step in their doctrine, in their walk. They go try to appease the world. They become more evangelical than edifying the church like we're supposed to, build up the believers first so that we can be strong and go out into that culture and fight for Christ. So they believed, and then they turned, which is a good thing. Hopefully, after you put your trust in Christ, your life does change. He wants you to change. He wants you to change your direction. And Barnabas saw the change of direction here in Antioch. He says, the news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. So Barnabas hadn't been up there. He's probably like, oh no, I gotta go to that place. But he's sending up reinforcements. And now we remember that Barnabas means son of encouragement. He was introduced prior. But apparently, the main church in Jerusalem thought that Antioch needed a little bit of encouraging. And we all need encouraging from time to time. There's no unlimited amount of fuel that we have to continue ministry at 100% pace all the time. So you're fueled up by some encouragement. You know, that goes a long ways. Verse 23 goes on, then, when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord. So there's a couple things there. He used his main gift. God gave him this gift of encouragement. And even though he was probably shocked at the change in the city, he just stuck to it with resolute heart. He remained true, which encouraged them to remain true, which is a very hard thing to do all the time. What does resolute mean? We're supposed to be resolute. He's encouraging Antioch to be resolute. Well, resolute means having a fixed purpose determined, hence, bold, firm, steady, constant, and pursuing a purpose. And unfortunately, many times our purpose we get off track on. We need to be laser focused, like Paul says, on the prize. But there's so many distractions that distract us from that one purpose. And later on, we're gonna see, we're Americans, right? We might be Republicans or Democrats or whatever, but we are first Christians. And that is above all. And our founders knew that that was above all. 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This Christian nationalism, as long seen as a fringe viewpoint, Christian nationalism now has a foothold in American politics, particularly the Republican Party. So see, they're starting to really call us out as bad guys. The reality is, it goes on, is that a lot of these folks, especially the adherents, are very militant Really? in the belief that God has given them a mandate to rule over the nation. He said, and so for them, I think that compromise is a sign of weakness, and the GOP needs to understand what they're dealing with. According to the survey, adherents of the Christian nationalism say they will go to great lengths to impose their vision of the country. Jones, with PR whatever that is, said they found adherents are far more likely to agree with the statement true patriots might have to resort to violence to save our country. Well, I kind of don't want that at all. You don't want violence. That's definitely the last resort. But if they take away our religious freedom, do we just let them? I mean, at what point do we have to push back? So the big question is, before parties were developed, were we followers? Did we belong to the party of Christ? Were we Christians? Well, David Barton here kind of answers that for us. Let's go ahead and watch this. Space bar. There it goes. For over three centuries, America was officially described as a Christian nation. There are over 300 court cases, both state and federal judiciaries, saying America is a Christian nation. We have presidents, we have governors, we have state and federal legislatures. Everybody said it for three centuries. It's in all of our textbooks. But suddenly, in the last two decades, if someone has the audacity to say that America is a Christian nation, that's probably subjecting you to more tax in current America than any other claim you can make. We collect articles on where people have the audacity to say America has Christian roots or foundations. They get called the American Taliban. They get called Islamic fundamentalists, but on the Christian side. They go through all these pejoratives. And the ones I enjoy a lot are the ones where they say, well, these are the same folks that Hitler used to move his regime forward. This is the same philosophy that Stalin used. This is fascism, and it's worse. They like to make those terms, and what I love to point to is, well, let's take folks like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Time after time after time, he called America a Christian nation in official addresses. Then he's followed by President Harry Truman, who also used the same term time after time, America is a Christian nation. And then we have Dwight D. Eisenhower, who also said America is a Christian nation. Now, those are three guys that specifically individually fought against Hitler, against Stalin, and against fascism. So how can they be students of Hitler and students of Stalin? We're the guys who brought them to their knees, and yet they say we're a Christian nation. So what's happened is America has really lost its concept of its own roots. We have a group out on the radical left who has so demonized that term, made it so radioactive, that we're scared to say today what our history books taught for 300 years. And along with that, we've come into some really wrong conceptions, because the left has said, oh, if you're a Christian nation, then you're those guys that do the Inquisition. You're the guys that do the Crusades. You're in the coercion. You're in the forcing people to become Christians. You're one of theocracy. That's what you're after. You're all theocrats. So they go through all these charges about what happens if someone says a Christian nation. It shows how little they know about history. So our founders knew that it was important to be a Christian first, before we were Americans. So we look at John Adams and John Hancock here, founding fathers, obviously. But they wrote this in 1775. They said, we recognize no sovereign but God and no king but Jesus. So, they were two of our founders. And then the next one, Patrick Henry, he says, it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians. Not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom to worship here. And I like that he pointed that out because the reason that we're here right now in this free country, making a good church, is because we were founded on Christianity. And the reason those people can come here and trash us and call us names and stuff is because God gave us this nation. Isn't that crazy? God gives you the freedom and then they just turn it against God himself. And my favorite guy, Noah Webster. You've got to go back to the 1828 Webster Dictionary because they've modified God out of the dictionary. Webster would be really ticked off about that because he essentially included scripture verses in his original dictionary because he says this, Education is useless without the Bible. The Bible was America's basic textbooks in all fields. God's word contained in the Bible has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct. He's kind of considered the founding father of the schools of our nation. And amazing words there. So this continued. You have this reader, this eclectic reader it was called, or the McGuffey reader. And it was in schools until 1960, around 1960. Now in the 60s God was pretty much taken out of schools. It was for grade levels one through six. It was a widely used textbook in almost every American school from their documentation. And throughout it are scripture verses. The little kids, when they're learning the alphabet they have the letter A for Adam and Eve. And every letter is a biblical reference. And then one of the most important things in this McGuffey reader that was taught until 1960, isn't that pretty recent? You would think this was ages ago. But it says, let God have these are just some important things that says, things to remember is the title of this section of the McGuffey reader. But it says, let God have the thanks of your heart for his kindness and his care and pray for his protection during the wakeful hours of the day. This is in a public school. Remember that God made all creatures to be happy and will do nothing that may prevent their being so without good reason for it. Do not become peevish and pout. I don't know if I know what that means. Because you do not get a part of everything, be satisfied with what is given you. Do always as your parents bid you. Obey them with a ready mind and with a pleasant face. So they're very focused on teaching the kids basic morality and basic ways to live as a good person, a good Christian person. Never do anything that you would be afraid or ashamed that your parents should know. Remember if no one else sees you, God does. From whom you cannot hide even your most secret thought. At night before you go to sleep, think whether you have done anything that was wrong during the day and pray to God to forgive you. If anyone has done you wrong, forgive him in your heart. Trust in the Lord and he will guide you in the way of good men. The path of the just is the shining light that shineth more and more into the perfect day. And then finally, there are several others, but I just put a few in here. We must do all the good we can to all men for this is well pleasing in the sight of God. He delights to see his children walk in love and do good to one another. Imagine how the kids would turn out if we were teaching basically Sunday school. Noah Webster said all categories, math, science, history, God should be involved in every category. But then that separation of church and state lie came on, but I think if we could come up with a way to take it back to the court now, I think that would be overturned. We never thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned, but I think that separation of church and state thing could be overturned by presenting evidence like this. And then continuing, Harvard College has been in the news quite a bit lately. There's kind of a woke college leader that went before Congress and said some racist things, but it was founded in 1636, even before we became a nation. And Harvard's mission statement was this. Everyone shall consider as the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. That was their core mission statement. Can you believe that? They quoted John 1713. The Harvard motto from 1650 emphasized how Christian it was. It says, In Christi Gloriam, for the glory of Christ. Is that college functioning as for the glory of Christ today? I don't know about that. And almost all Ivy League institutions had similar beginnings. They were conservative. They were Christian. Connecticut Congregationalist, a church organization, started Yale. Pro-awakening New Jersey Presbyterian, a church organization, started Princeton. Devout Rhode Island Baptist started Brown, and mission-minded New Hampshire Evangelicals Dartmouth. So all these were founded by pastors and churches, and now we've gotten so far away from it. These things share common commitments to the authority of the word of God and point to the fact that we are first Christian, not American. The problem isn't non-believers necessarily. We welcome them in, and it's weak Christians allowing ground to be given. Imagine all those things. It should still be being taught in our schools today, but it's not. And now we're paying the price for it. But Joshua 1.9, one of my favorite verses, says this, Be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous. When things seem impossible, you know these guys during Joshua's time, they had to build walls around their city because they were under the threat of attack from the enemy constantly. You never know if you're going to get a good night's sleep without somebody breaking through the wall, somebody seeking to kill you. Now we live peacefully in our houses, and we might have a blink system or an alert system or something. But Joshua 1.9 says, Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. So like the early church, they had to be terrified to go into the Antioch, a godless city full of wrongdoing, full of people that probably would like to kill them. But God says, Have I not commanded you? He says it's a command. It's not something we should really think about. He says as a military general type of idea, you do this. But he also gives us some comfort. He doesn't say just, hey, you go do this, and that's it. He says, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And that's the best part. Yeah, he commands us to go in the line of fire, but the God of the universe, the most powerful being in existence is right there over our shoulder no matter where we go. If we belong to the party of Christ, if we're Christian first, we should act like it. If we're a Christian nation, we should act like it. And when the enemy comes in and tries to steal some ground, we should know and not tremble or be dismayed. We should know that the Lord our God is with us wherever we go. Well, we're going to finish about five minutes early tonight, so you're welcome. Let's go ahead and close in prayer. Dear God, thank you so much for your word and how it applies to our life and that we can have that foundation. And we know where we come from. We know we are founded on you. I just pray that we would live that way and just help us to be bold when we're approached with things that will tear that down. Lord, I pray that you'll be with us throughout the rest of this week. In Jesus' name, amen.