Leaving an Unimaginable Legacy (Start 5 · Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-4) · Let Down Your Nets

0:00 Well, if you have a Bible, and I hope you or somebody around you does that you can look on with, let me invite you to open with me to Acts chapter 11. Feel free to use table of contents if you need to to find Acts 11. And as you're turning, I want to welcome all of our church family across Metro DC and MoCo and Loudoun in Arlington at PW, you as well as others online who are physically unable to be with us today, and especially if you're visiting with us in any of these places, whether you're a follower of Jesus or not, we want you to know you are always, always welcome here. My name is David Platt. I'm one of the pastors here, and we're going to do something a little different today. So Mike, Kelsey, our lead pastor, and I are going to do a little tag team as we consider together our vision to start five new congregations across the DMV over the next five years, which will involve, so today is going to involve a lot of different people who are actually in this room at Tyson's.

1:03 I want as best as possible to help you in other locations feel like you are in the room because that's part of the beauty of our church family scattered across the city. We really are together in this whole picture. But before we look forward, I want to look back in history, like a long way back, to be exact, 1,619 years to 407 AD. A 60-year-old man had spent his entire life proclaiming God's Word at great cost, and in the process, had literally revolutionized preaching for all of Christian history. So he was a pioneer in what we today call expositional preaching. So going verse by verse, book by book, through the Bible, interpreting it plainly according to its grammatical historical context, and then applying it to people's lives. And he was not afraid to say what God said. He was archbishop, or became archbishop of the church at Constantinople, which was the most prestigious church position in the Eastern Roman Empire, which meant he spoke before everyone, including emperors, and he boldly confronted idolatry, immorality, corruption, oppression. He was calling the church constantly to give to the poor, to care for those in need. That gained him prominence, particularly among common people, while creating enemies among the rich and powerful in both politics and the church, which were closely intertwined. Eventually, the emperor had enough and ordered him to be exiled. The people protested with such force that authorities brought him back to great rejoicing in the city, but he kept preaching what he always had until one day soldiers invaded their worship gatherings and eventually took him back into exile.

3:03 He was 57, his health was already fading, and he was forced to march long, arduous miles through harsh climates to a remote location. But they couldn't quiet him. Once he was placed in exile, he started writing letters to Christians throughout the Roman Empire. And when authorities realized his influence was only increasing, they decided to exile him to even more isolation near the Black Sea, as far away as he could be. Again, they forced him to walk the entire way, exposed to the heat of the sun in the day and cold in the night. It came to a point where he physically could not take a step, no matter how much soldiers prodded him. So they stopped with him, and those who witnessed his final moments recorded his last remarks in Greek. Doxa to Theopanto Anakin.

3:58 In English, it means glory to God in all things. And with those words on September 14th, 407, he died. And in the years and centuries to come, literally all the way to today, his sermons, his Bible commentaries, other writings would travel far and wide, be translated with a formative influence that shapes even how we preach here in this church today. About 150 years after his death, the church gave this preacher a name that he's been known by for centuries since. That name is Chrysostom. It literally means golden-mouthed in Greek because of how he proclaimed the treasure of God's word so clearly and courageously, even when doing so led to his death.

4:57 But that's not the name he was known by when he was living. At that time, he was simply known as John of Antioch. Antioch. That's interesting. Because we know about Antioch from our Bibles. We actually looked at it about six months ago when we first began talking about starting five congregations across the DMV over the coming years. Look again with me, this time a little more closely, at Acts 11, verse 19.

5:56 So Acts 11 records the first time, watch this, that this group of unknown, unnamed Christians, like we don't know any of their names, just some Christians from Cyprus and Cyrene, when they came to Antioch, for the first time we see recorded, shared the gospel with Hellenists. That's a reference here to Greek-speaking Gentiles, non-Jewish people.

7:19 these people's lives were so clearly identified with Jesus the Christ the Messiah the promised one that they were literally labeled in Christ so for those of you who are visiting or maybe exploring Christianity there's a lot of confusion in our culture about what a Christian is it's not just someone who goes to church or had a Christian upbringing or who even says they're a Christian. A Christian is someone who believes, like really believes in their heart that there is one God who created the whole world and all of us in it for relationship with him. And then believes that we have all sinned against God. We've all turned from him and his ways to ourselves and our own ways, and believes that our sin separates us from God and deserves eternal judgment before God, that every single person deserves eternal judgment for sin before a holy God, but then also believes that this God loves us so much, you'll see it on posters at NFL games today, John 3, 16, that he sent his only son, Jesus, God in the flesh, to come to us. And Jesus lived the life none of us could live, a life of no sin. And then even though he had no sin for which to die, he chose to die on a cross to pay the price for sinners. He died in the place of sinners. He took the judgment sinners deserve upon himself. And then the good news keeps getting better because three days later he rose from the grave in victory over sin and death so that anyone who turns from their sin and trusts in Jesus as Savior and Lord will be forgiven of all your sin and restored to relationship with God forever. That's what it means to be a Christian, to believe Jesus is Savior and

9:25 Lord and to have your identity. So this is not just church on the side, something to do on Sundays. Jesus is your life, and you're a part of a community for whom Jesus is the center. He's what unites you. He's the one who leads you, guides you, directs everything you do, including, so keep reading. So in those days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to this church at Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up foretold by the Holy Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. So this prophet, Agabus, says a great famine is coming. So what did this community in Christ do? The disciples determined everyone 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. So they knew this famine would have a multiplied effect on the Christians in Jerusalem where they were being persecuted, so they pulled together their resources to send relief to the church in poverty.

10:25 And then the story of church at Antioch continues. Turn over to Acts chapter 13, verse 1. Another passage we've read multiple times as a church family. They were in the church at Antioch. Prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. What a unique picture of multi-ethnic leadership in the church, a very unique community, then, and a forerunner of what we are literally experiencing today, here in the political capital of our country, amidst the divisive polarization in our culture, to have a group of people from over 100 different countries with leaders from a variety of different backgrounds, including people who used to be totally opposed to Christ, now together in the church, united around Jesus. And while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them, specifically work to go out from the church at Antioch and start new churches.

11:32 So then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. Thus began the spread of the gospel. throughout the known world in ways that would go all over the world. John Piper said, this moment in Acts 13 resulted in a missions movement that would make Christianity the dominant religion of the Roman Empire within two and a half centuries and would yield over a billion adherents of the Christian religion today with a Christian witness all over the world. And 13 out of the 29 books of the New Testament were the result of the ministry that was launched in this moment. And he goes on to note, it was a moment of worship and prayer and fasting, which, side note, is why we're gathering together tonight, Lord willing, here in this room at Tyson's, want to invite our church family from all over the city to be able to come physically into one place together to pray and to worship. Why? Well, for many reasons. One, because our God is worthy of worship, and two, because we got all kinds of things going on in our lives and our families that we can pray with each other and for each other for, and we're in the middle of talking about a vision of reaching ones for Jesus and starting five new congregations and discipling 10,000 people and impacting 20 million around the world with the gospel, and we would be fools to think we can do any of that apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.

12:55 So we're going to get on our faces, and we're going to pray for God to do in and through us, to the same Holy Spirit, the same God who is doing this on that day, we're going to gather before him, Lord willing tonight, five to seven, to seek him and ask him to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine. So back to why I started with that story about Chrysostom, the archbishop of Constantinople. Why was he called John of Antioch when he was alive? And the answer is because that's where he was born in 347 A.D.

13:37 Antioch is the place where his mom led him to faith in Christ. To become, like others at Antioch, a Christian. It's the church that baptized him when he was about 20 years old. And those unnamed Christians who shared the gospel for the first time with Greek-speaking Gentiles planting the church at Antioch never could have imagined how three centuries later a golden-mouthed Greek speaker would revolutionize Christian preaching for all of church history. So what if the fruit of a church is not measured just by what happens in a day or a decade or even a generation? What if God's design for a church is to bear fruit for generations far beyond what the people who start that church can imagine?

14:45 And as I ask that question, I want to invite us, church family, to imagine what might happen, not just over the next five years of starting five new congregations in the DMV, what might happen centuries from now, unless or until Jesus returns, that will resound to his glory in ways far beyond what we can imagine today.

15:22 So here's what Mike and I wanna do. As we look forward, Lord willing, to starting five new congregations, many of you know we are celebrating this year 65 years since our founding, since a small group of five families, unknown to most, decided to start the McLean Bible Church that you and I know today. So we want to take just a few minutes to reflect on a couple of pictures of the fruit of that decision to start a church 65 years ago in ways that span generations. So let me tag and turn it over to Mike. Will you thank God for his grace and our...