 It is good to be with you this morning. I wanna extend a special welcome to our family in Portage. It's good to be with you as well. I am excited about today. I have been fired up. I've rewritten this sermon 37 times, maybe 38. I don't know, somewhere in there, but I have the incredible honor today to teach the next installment in our Wind and Fire series. And I have titled today something very masculine, very, very masculine. All the men in the house are gonna get excited about this. Just right off the bat, you're gonna see it and you're gonna get fired up like gladiator. It's called Disciples and Dandelions. Come on, you see? Yeah, you are excited. If you brought your Bibles today, hold it up. Hold up your Bible. Let me see the Bible, because this has encouraged me. Portage, hold it up there too. I love it. I love it. I love seeing you bringing your Bibles to church. Acts 11 is where I will be teaching out of today. Starting in verse 19, it says this. Now, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, traveled as far as Penicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except the Jews. But there were some of them, remember that, some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, and you know, I just got to let me pause there. I did not intend on pausing there, but I'm a Bible teacher and I have to stop, because right now in America, we have a major epidemic. We have a major epidemic, and its infection is in the church. I'm not talking about the season that we've gone through, but we're still kind of in, but the tension we don't know how to deal with yet, and all of, like, should we say something? Should we not? Should we talk about this? I don't know. It's the awkward thing in the room, right? Oftentimes. But this says something that I want to point out. It says men of Cyprus, men of Cyrene. Now, I'm not wanting to point this out at the exclusion of anyone, especially women, but I'm wanting to point something out here. We are about to see a major event take place in the book of Acts, a major event that has its effects and recourse on our lives here today. And I believe, I strongly believe that a major reason for the event that we are about to read about, that we are about to see, that we are about to begin praying for, I believe a major catalyst to this event is because there were men of Cyprus and men of Cyrene who stood up in a culture that didn't want men to stand up, and they preached the word of God. And I believe that God is calling us to do that, men. And so men, I'm calling you to stand up. We've been sitting for too long. We've been hiding in man caves for too long. I hate man caves. If you have one, I'm sorry, I don't like it. I don't like it because you're not called to have your own room separated from your family so you can do what you want when you want to play video games all day. There's a reason why we laugh at the movies where we see a grown man arguing with a 12 year old because it's ludicrous. And some of us are doing that. I believe God is calling us out today, out of the man cave and back to the forefront of our family where we lead well, where we lead strong, where we actually do what Pastor John said, train up our children in the way that they should go when they're 18, go! Like, go! So mom and dad can get their beach house, you know? Their lake house on goal or any, I don't know, just go! Lord, send you! I'm joking, you know, but I believe that, I believe that God is calling men of Richland, men of Portage, men of Kalamazoo, men of Plainwell, Otsego, Battle Creek, Grand Rapids. I believe that God is calling men to stand up. So he says, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, on who coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them in a great number who believed, turned to the Lord. The reports of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he being Barnabas came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. Now I love this because Barnabas was intimidated by what was happening there and not happening where he was in Jerusalem. He wasn't in competition with these people. He celebrated with these people. He didn't know them. They hadn't been in class with him. They didn't go to the Barnabas School of Ministry. He was excited. It said he was glad. He was excited so he celebrated. And so it says, and when he came, he saw the grace of God and he was glad and exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. Verse 24, for he being Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Now, I wanna make a special note here. It says he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. Listen, you don't get the Holy Spirit because you are good. Please hear this. You don't receive the Holy Spirit because you are a good person. The Holy Spirit is given to you and he begins to make you good. Goodness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in the life of someone who follows Jesus. Okay? Galatians 5 verse 22, you should check that out later on. I don't have time. And a great many of people were added to the Lord so Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch for a whole year. They met with the church and taught a great many people. What was happening there? They began discipling. And Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians and in these days, the prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of them named Agibus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So 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. As a whole, Acts 11 is devoted to a major foundational event of the early church. This is true both ecclesiastically, meaning as it pertains to the church and misceologically as it pertains to the mission of the church. And it starts off, we didn't read it, but it starts off with verses one through 18, okay? With the apostle Peter reporting to the church at Jerusalem what happened in the previous chapter, Acts chapter 10. And that event that the apostle Peter is reporting on and about is an event that actually inaugurated the early church's mission to the rest of the world, to the Gentile world. Immediately following this, we come to verses 19 through 30 and it says, and basically what happens I should say is we are brought to ground zero of the mission that Peter started unfolding and it's unfolding in a city in a place called Antioch. And the way by which we get to Antioch and the way by which this incredible global mission begins to unfold in this place called Antioch is completely providential. It says because of the persecution that arose over the death of Stephen, I'm sorry, yeah, Stephen, disciples of Jesus fled great distances for their lives. And similar to how the seeds of a dandelion are scattered by the wind, disciples of Jesus were scattered by the persecution in their land. Some as far as Cyprus and Cyprus was about 250 miles away and it included a boat ride. Some as far as Phoenicia. Phoenicia was about 190 miles away. I dug in deep and because I'm a Bible nerd and I like to read on this stuff and go deep into it and I like to look at maps and stuff like that. And so I started looking at these distances and then I dug deep into commentaries and most scholars actually conclude and they're almost in full agreement that it took Uber over eight months to get everyone to Phoenicia, okay? And to the island of Cyprus. Uber was built just by this one event. But seriously, really think about this because we read these texts and we are so distant from them and we are so removed from them that we actually don't realize everything that happened and we don't realize all the energy that it took and all of the pain that probably and had to take place when these kinds of things happened. Think about this. Think about how far they fled. Think about how long it took. Think about how arduous it was for these people physically, spiritually, emotionally. Think about the fear, the worry, the uncertainty that these people carried as they scattered as they fled for their lives. And yet, it was in these conditions, it was in these conditions, it was this place and those people and these circumstances that God used to launch this mission. And Antioch was the perfect setting for it. The perfect setting for the early church to begin its mission to the Gentile world. You see, Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire. There were roughly 500 to 800,000 people in the city of Antioch. It was third only to the great city of Rome and to the great city of Alexandria. Antioch was a significant port city along the Orantees River and it had a strong trading and strong commerce market, okay? It had fertile lands. The lands were known to grow great, great product and great groceries, okay? Antioch was influential, it was influenced and it was advanced for its day. And then there's another biblical reality woven into the fabric of Antioch that is nothing less than providential and it is this fact. Antioch had a large established Jewish community present. You see, verse 19, part B said, they spoke the word of the Lord to no one except the Jews. This is how it started. And as I studied this week and as I prepared this week and as I tried to step back from the text and build a panoramic image, if you will, of what was taking place in Antioch, the Holy Spirit kept bringing to the forefront of my mind this one particular verse from Romans. Romans chapter one, one verse 16, the apostle Paul says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is what is the gospel is, for it is the power of God for salvation, for some, no, for everyone. Remember this word, everyone. For everyone, for everyone, for everyone who believes. But this is why I said it's providential because it says to the Jew first, but also to the Gentile. What a wonderful word the apostle Paul used there. Everyone, everyone, everyone. If you look up everyone in every language, it means everyone. It's amazing how that works. Everyone, there's no translation needed. Everyone, everyone. What a wonderful word the apostle Paul used there because what we find happening in Antioch is the gospel is going out to and it is reaching everyone. Jews and Gentiles. It is reaching everyone. But also what a wonderful word for us today. For those of us who feel or think or maybe have been told that there's something about us that actually rules us out that it's for everyone but us. It's for everyone but me. Wrong family, wrong background, wrong history, wrong side of the tracks, wrong education, wrong language, wrong culture, wrong decisions, wrong job, wrong neighborhood, wrong place, wrong skill set, wrong time, wrong insert, the wrong that you have been told or you have felt or you have thought here. But then, but then, like our brothers and sisters in Antioch, we hear the gospel, the good news that says everyone who believes, everyone who believes. I wanna go back to our text and I wanna zoom in quickly on three particular verses, verses 19 through 21. Just to read it one more time to bring it back to our attention it says, now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Venetia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews. Now here's where I really wanna hone in. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. Now this passage it takes us actually back into Acts, to a few, to Acts chapter eight, Acts chapter eight verse one. It brings us back to this because this is what it's speaking about. Acts chapter eight verse one says, and there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Now get this, accept the apostles. So let's do a quick recap. Let's put framework around all this real quick. Acts 1120 said, some of them. Acts eight verse one said, accept the apostles. Accept the apostles. I want that to stick out in your mind today and I want you to leave realizing what took place at Antioch today. You see, because I find this interesting. I find it interesting that this great thing takes place. And the apostles aren't even there. The trained professionals aren't even there. They're not even there. What we see happening in Antioch, let me be just a little bit more specific. The revival that took place in Antioch. The church that was started built in Antioch. This was not Peter and John being sent to Antioch to preach the gospel. This was not Philip and James being sent to Antioch to preach the gospel. This was not powerful technical preachers and prolifically trained pastors. Being sent to Antioch to preach the gospel. This was not them. Our text teaches us that this was unnamed men and women of God Christians with no church planning experience. And no cemetery degree. I mean, seminary degree. I say that every time. Seminary degree, I'm sorry. No seminary degree. They had no stage. They had no mic. They had no smoke. They had no place to meet. They had no programs. I mean, they didn't even have an actual plan in place. All they had was Jesus. So they preached Jesus to everyone. To everyone. But why everyone? Why? Because everyone who believes. Everyone who believes. I don't know if you know this, but this goes against every Western church strategy and growth model today. This goes against it all. I mean, if you want to grow a church, or if you want to plant a church today, get a good communicator, some good musicians, a good place to gather, and set some good programs in place, and you're pretty much good to go. You're pretty much good to go. And it doesn't hurt if you get some of those tall inflatable tube guys just sit out front in the parking lot and do this whole thing and you put the name along the sides. It looks like he's wearing merch or something like that. Yet, I don't know. We just read it. None of those things were present at Antioch. None of them were. Understand, church, none of these are bad. None of these are bad. In fact, with the right heart and the right intention, they are all in fact good. They are great. They're awesome. But beloved, I don't want us to miss this this morning. Instead of professionals, places, and programs at Antioch, what we find are some people. Some people. It was just some people, verse 20. Some people who fled for their lives and ended up in a place called Antioch. And these some people were so in love with the person of Jesus. They were so consumed with Jesus. Jesus wasn't actually, he was actually enough for them. They were so in love with Jesus, they would start one of the greatest revivals in churches in the history of Christendom. They were in love with Jesus. Are you getting this, Portage, please help me. Like, we're quiet over here in Richland. Please help me, Portage. Like, Portage, come on, help me. I don't know if you're getting this because I'm talking about ordinary nine to five men and women, disciples of Jesus. Christians, preaching the gospel to everyone. Preaching the gospel to everyone in verse 21 says the hand of the Lord was with them all and a great number of them turned to the Lord because of it. Ordinary nine to five men and women of God who just so much loved Jesus that they wanted to tell everybody they met about Jesus. In other words, the church at Antioch was a church where disciples were making disciples. Disciples were making disciples. You see, they were like dandelions. Dandelions and the fact that wherever they were blown to they planted their seed in the soil and their seed was the gospel of Jesus for it is the power of God for salvation, for everyone who believes it is. Now, this is where Acts 11 confronts the majority of the Western church today. And I don't know if you heard me about two months ago preach, but I mentioned that I have a little bit of a confrontational spirit in me. Like, I confront and you can just make, actually, when you might wanna just look at the person next to you and say he's gonna do it. He's gonna do it. Lord, help me. This may come as a shock to you, but sorry that I'm not sorry. It's not Pastor Lee's job to love your neighbor. It's your job. Please hear me. It's not Pastor Lee's job to reach your neighbor. It's your job. It's Pastor Lee's job like every pastor's job to help you, to counsel you, to train you, to equip you, to encourage you, to pray for you. But make no mistake, as a disciple of Jesus, as a Christian, verse 26, and in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. As a Christian, it's your job. God didn't put Pastor Lee on your street. He put you on your street. God didn't put Pastor Lee in your place of work. He put you in your place of work. He put you in your place of work. So as a Christian, it's your job. And just so you don't think fake news, excuse of today, let me just, let's just turn in our Bibles real quickly to the book of Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four, starting in verse 11, says this, and he being God, being the Lord, he gave. So when it says he gave, what comes next are the gifts that he gave. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, also means pastors, and teachers. So he gave them, what did he give them for, Pastor Kerr? I'm about to tell you. To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all, until the pastoral staff. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, until we all, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood. That in the Greek means a full grown bearded man. Bless me, oh Lord, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children. I don't know about you, but I turn on social media and all I see is children today. Grown up children, going to stores, and I hear people arguing over stuff, acting like three year olds having tantrums on the floor because mom didn't get them a gumball this time. Tantrums, children, but here scripture says, he is calling us out of that and into maturity so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. Can you feel the winds of doctrine in our culture today? Can you feel them? Can you sense them? Can you see all of the doctrines blowing about that are carrying our brothers and sisters away and things that have nothing to do with the gospel? Voting according to things that have nothing to do with the gospel? Carried about by every wind and doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up. I hear the spirit of God saying, Radiant, it's time to grow up. It's time to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. How does that get equipped? It's equipped when each part is working properly. I don't know about you. Last night I slept on this shoulder wrong and this arm was numb. It wasn't working properly for like the first half an hour. Like I was like, I looked like one of those wavy guys in the shower. I was like, come alive, you know. I feel like we have a lot of parts in the church that aren't working correctly. It makes up the body, it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Now that we've seen my confrontation, if you will, in scripture, let me just poke a little bit more. I want to be fun, if I didn't. It's not the pastor's job to pray for the city, the church, the nation, and the world for you. Hear that? It's not a pastor's job to pray for you. It's your job. Listen, we will always pray for the city, the church, the nation, and the world here at Radiant. Likewise, we will always pray for you and your situation and your needs and what you're going through and even your cat. Pastor John loves to pray for cats. Bring to him all your cats. Look at you, Jay-Z. Speaking for every single pastor here, and I didn't ask, I'm just doing it, we truly consider it an honor to pray for you and with you. We love it. It's my favorite thing to do. I love to get to pray with you. I love to get to pray for you. We love doing it and we take it seriously, but understand it's not because we are pastors. It's not because it is our gift. It's not because it is our calling, but because we are Christians and it's our responsibility as Christians to pray as Christ prayed. It's for all of us. It's for every single one of us to do. We are to pray just like Christ prayed. The word Christian, I don't know if you know this, when you break the word down, the I-A-N. What that means is it means belonging to the party of, belonging to the party of what preceded the I-A-N, so belonging to the party of Christ. That's what Christian means. I belong to the party of Christ. I am one of his people, okay? And so it is our responsibility as Christians to pray. And this is why we have the Radio City Center. This is why we have a prayer room where we gather Monday through Friday, 8 a.m., noon and 6.30. But listen, make no mistake, this is not a time and a place for pastors to pray. This is a time for us to pray. It's a time and it's a place for us to gather, to cry out to God for a move in this area just like he moved in Antioch. I love what Dick Eastman said. He said, in no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer. There is no greater thing. This is the biggest part. And so I love that you pray at home, but something happens when we gather together in an upper room and we cry out to God. We sing and worship. We fall on our faces and we sow in tears so that we may reap in joy. Something happens. Something happens. And so I want to poke all of you and say, get to the prayer room. Men, get to the prayer room, start leading there. I would love you men to join me Mondays at 8 a.m., every Monday at 8 a.m., join me. Join me, join me, join me. Understand, beloved, like we see happening in Acts 11 with the church at Antioch, radiant church exists to make radiant disciples of Jesus. But please note that we do not exist so Pastor Lee can make or will make radiant disciples of Jesus, but so radiant church, meaning the people of radiant will make radiant disciples of Jesus. That doesn't exclude Pastor Lee from making radiant disciples. That includes all the pastors and all the staff, but it also doesn't exclude you. The point is this, it's not Pastor Lee's job to make your neighbor, your coworker, your boss, your classmate, your friend, your family or your cat a radiant disciple of Jesus, it's your job. It's your job. Beloved, like a dandelion, fills fields with more dandelions, so disciples of Jesus are to fill the earth with more disciples, which should not surprise us, because remember what Jesus' last words were before he ascended in Matthew 28, verse 19. Go, go, go, get on the move, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. He didn't say, hey pastors, go make disciples of all the nations. He said, no, no, no, go, my disciples, go, go and make disciples of all the nations. But Pastor Garrett, it's great. I like it, I hear ya, but you don't know my neighbor. You don't know my boss, you don't know my coworker, you don't know my uncle Darrell. If you knew my uncle Darrell, they're a mess. And angry, and I'm just gonna be real, they're evil. But Pastor Garrett, you don't know, you don't know my place of work, you don't know my city, you don't know my neighborhood. It's dark, it's difficult, it's evil. You know, that may be true. I may not know all of those facets and all those details and all those inner workings of everything that you have going on in your life. I get that, so I'll give you that one. You can have that one on me, have a participation trophy for the day, okay? Those may be true, but can I tell you something? If not too bad, I'm going to anyways. Antioch was no garden of Eden. Antioch was no garden of Eden. Antioch was a place that was known for literally its dark, luxurious immorality. It was a place that would discuss most of us today without vile it was. And yet, this was the place. And those were the people that God chose to use, the some of them, the some of them to do this incredible work that we marvel at and we named churches after today. So I say to you that this is the place. And these are the people, and these are the circumstances. Let me say it again, this is the place and those are the people and these are the circumstances which I believe God is going to do another incredible work in and with just like he did at Antioch, right here in this place and at this time. But here's the caveat, here's the thing. You, you, you, you have to do it just like some of them did it because the hour that we are in right now is the perfect setting for it. There's this little TikTok thing going around. It's on Instagram too, and it's this voiceover that people put over the workout that they're doing, 75 hard and all these kind of things. It's great, but the voiceover says this. It says, it says, you can never get upset about the results you didn't get by the work that you didn't do. Church, we can't get upset about the results that we're not getting by the work that we're not doing. He said, go into all the world and preach. He said, proclaim the good news. And in the Gospel Mark, the word is proclaim the good news. Proclaim the good news. Proclaim it. Beloved God wants to use everyone. God, I'm sorry, God wants everyone to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But understand, he is not looking for professionals to help make that happen. He is looking for some of them. He's looking for some of them. He's looking for unnamed, unnoticed, unfollowed on Instagram. Men and women, he's looking for disciples, Christians, to help make it happen. And I believe that when some of them step up here, like some of them stepped up there, what happened in Antioch, it will happen in Richland. It will happen in Portage. It'll happen in Plain and Walat Sego. It'll happen in Battle Creek. It'll happen in Grand Rapids. It will happen in your city. And maybe I didn't name. I live in Augusta. It'll happen in Augusta. It'll happen in your neighborhood. It'll happen with your neighbors. It'll happen in your place of work. It will happen in your family. It will happen in your school. It will happen on your campus. Because again, this is the place. And those are the people. And these are the circumstances that God is saying to each and every one of us every single day, go, go, go. So my question for you today is, deep down inside of your heart, are you or are you not ashamed of the gospel? Are you or are you not? Are you scared of the backlash that someone might say to you? Are you scared of someone filming you and putting it up on the internet? Are you ashamed of the gospel? I'm not. I stand with Paul. Because I believe, I don't just think, I believe, I know that it is the power of God for salvation, for everyone who believes. I believe more now than ever that everything that we are going through, everything we are facing, all of the pressure that we are experiencing daily and all of the noise and all of the traffic that's coming into our heads and our minds and consumes us and is pushing us back. I believe that we sit in a perfect environment just like Antioch was a perfect environment. I believe that God is looking to his church saying, will you be some of them? In the midst of all of that, in the midst of all that turmoil and confusion and chaos, will you be some of them? Some of them. Will you stand with me? Really hope and pray that you hear and you see even me as I point my finger that you see it all not as an accusation, but an invitation. I'm not accusing, condemning, but I am drawing a line in the sand saying it's time for us to get back to what we are called to do to begin with. I don't want anyone to feel condemned today, but I want everyone to feel challenged today. And I want everyone to feel convicted today because as I wrote and as I prayed and as I studied, you can ask my wife even 20 minutes before we preached, before I preached, I was in the back going, I hope no one gets like too pushed by this. Like instead of encouraged, the enemy breeze lies onto it. Like, I don't want that. What I want is all of us to stand up and be who we're called to be and do what we're called to do. We are called to make disciples. We are called all of us in this room. If you are in Christ, you are called to make disciples of Christ. You are called and we want to help you. And so if you don't know what that looks like, you don't even know where to start. Let us help you. There's a lot of us around. Let us know. We have a lot of awesome things in place to help you grow and help you walk in the fullness of your calling right where you're at right now. And so let us know, come and talk to us. I want to invite our prayer team and ministry team up to the front and as they begin to come up, if you don't even know the Lord, you just are, you feel far from the Lord that you feel this tug on your heart. You feel the Holy Spirit saying, hey, and you're one of them. I just, I don't want to, what I want to do is I want to actually to ask you to do me a favor and I want you just to, if you're feeling led by the Lord to say, I surrender my life and I feel the Holy Spirit, this nudge in my heart, this pulling, this gripping of my mind, I feel something happening inside of me. I want you to do something and I just want you, when I just miss in two minutes to come to the front and talk to one of our prayer partners right here, let us pray with you. It will be the greatest decision you've ever made in your life. Also, if you're in this room today and you're saying like, hey, Pastor Garrett, I want to step up, but I need prayer, I need some courage, I'm pretty beat up, I'm pretty defeated, I'm running on empty, let us pray with you. If you have sickness in your body, if you're sick, if you're discouraged, if you just need an adrenaline shot of hope, let us pray with you. Seriously, let us pray with you. Prayer changes everything, changes everything. Let me pray, Jesus, we love you, we thank you for your word today. Lord, I pray that all of us would take this mandate seriously and we would go into all the world, that we would go into all the world where you have us into our city, into the grocery store, into our place of work, that we would take a stand in our families and we would make disciples of all the world, preaching the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that we, that our lives, as we look back on them, that we would see a field full of disciples, a field full, Lord. We would see family members and we would see coworkers and we would see people that we just met in the store and we would see just tons and tons of people, Lord, for you are worthy of it, Lord, you are deserving of it. So, Jesus, I pray for strength and courage in this room that as we leave here today, that we know that we are not leaving, but we are going. We are being sent as messengers, as carriers, as witnesses of your gospel, of your good news. For it is the power of salvation for everyone who believes. Lord, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but your word stands forever. We rest in that today in Jesus' name, amen.