Bethlehem's Antioch Moment

Acts 13:1-3
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen 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 title of this message is "Bethlehem's Antioch Moment." It is a break in our journey through the Gospel of John. And the reason for the break is that sometimes Antioch moments in the history of a church need addressing.

Needing Direction for the Next Step

I get the term Antioch moment from Acts 13:1–3 where the leaders of the church in Antioch have gathered to fast and pray and worship—evidently in the hope that God would speak and give clear guidance to the church in Antioch. The church in Antioch was at a point in their history when they needed a word from God about the next crucial step. I doubt that they realized what the Holy Spirit would say, and how monumental that step would be.
But we will come back to that in a moment when we focus on the text. But first let me explain what I mean by Bethlehem's Antioch moment.

This Moment for Bethlehem

Bethlehem will be 140 years old this summer. She started as an ethnic church plant out of First Baptist Church on the other side of downtown, and became the First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis in 1871. Ulysses Grant was President of the United States. The Civil War had been over for five years. Minnesota was a thirteen-year-old state.
There were 23 charter members, and they gathered in a circle and took hands on June 24, 1871, for their first prayer gathering as a church. Imagine how many Antioch moments a 140-year-old church has faced.
  • The Antioch moment when the church burned down in 1875. Would the infant church survive?
  • The Antioch moment of the 1890s when we had to decide whether to be a church for the nations, or only the neighborhoods. The die was cast for a hundred years: We sent out Ola and Minnie Hanson as missionaries to Burma.
  • The Antioch moment in the 1930s when we had to decide whether to keep speaking Swedish only—for the immigrants—or to make the painful transition to speak English.
  • The Antioch moment of the 1960s when that idyllic neighborhood downtown was shattered by the construction of two massive freeways intersecting less than a hundred feet from the sanctuary. Do we stay or do we go to the suburbs?
  • The Antioch moment of the late 1980s with three morning services and one evening service for five years. Should we build a new sanctuary or not? We did. It's twenty years old this summer.
  • The Antioch moment of 1990. Shall we be governed by elders or remain a church with only paid pastors and deacons? And a new constitution came into being.
  • The Antioch moment of 2000. Will we remain a doctrinally loose and broad church or will the congregation vote to require her elders to embrace an Elder Affirmation of Faith with Reformed, biblical convictions? I thank God that you did.
  • The Antioch moment of 2004. Will we build a huge new sanctuary downtown or will we plant churches and multiply campuses—that is, will we embrace the Treasuring Christ Together vision of multiple campuses, church planting, and caring for the poorest of the poor through the Global Diaconate?
And we did. So that today there are three campuses, one downtown, one eight miles north in Mounds View, and one 16 miles south in Burnsville. And we have planted ten churches—five of them in the Twin Cities, and one in Charlotte, Raleigh, Memphis, San Diego, and Little Rock.

Our Antioch Moment

And now we are at another Antioch moment. And this moment is defined by three very interrelated questions:
  1. How long can and should John Piper be the lead pastor for preaching and vision, and how should that succession come about?
  2. Should Treasuring Christ Together, with its vision of multiplying campuses, planting churches, and the Global Diaconate be replaced with a vision of three separate churches, revised but still one church on multiple campuses, or be given renewed energy and focus as it is?
  3. How shall we proceed with the fund raising—paying off our debt of about $7 million and building a South Campus?
The Elders believe that these three questions are intricately interwoven. The answer to each affects the answers to the others. This is our 2011 Antioch moment—the intersection of succession, structure, and funding.

The Original Antioch Moment

To set the stage for our own Antioch moment, and the way forward through it, let's turn to the text and the original Antioch moment in Acts 13:1–3.
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen 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.

Seven Relevant Observations

I have seven observations, all of them relevant to our Antioch moment.
1. God was about to act to change the world forever.
Notice the words at the end of verse 2: The Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." The Holy Spirit had called them already. That did not happen in the prayer meeting. He had this planned a long time ago. And now it was time. And what he planned was one of the greatest missionary breakthroughs in the history of the world. Saul and Barnabas would launch the Christian movement into Asia Minor and then Paul would carry it on into Europe.
It is not an exaggeration to say that we are worshiping today in the Twin Cities because of this prayer meeting in Antioch where God spoke to the leaders of this local church. God had called Saul and Barnabas, and he intended them to be sent on a mission that would change the world.
You've heard the proverb: "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the war was lost.
For want of a war, the kingdom was lost." This is why God governs the smallest details of life. There are no maverick molecules.
And the positive side is true as well. Because of a prayer meeting, the Spirit speaks. Because the Spirit speaks, apostles are sent. Because apostles are sent, churches are planted. Because churches are planted, missionaries are sent. Because missionaries are sent, the world is reached.
So as that church approached her Antioch moment, God was about to act to change the world.
2. God revealed his purpose to leaders.
Verse 1: "Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers." God doesn't always do it this way. But the Bible and history shows that he usually does. God has made all his people priests with direct access to him through Christ. Your elders are not your special mediators with God. Jesus is.
But the Bible does not call them leaders for nothing (Hebrews 13:7, 17, 24). They are servants of the people, as Jesus made very plain (Luke 22:26–27). But they serve by leading. And they are not to lead in their own wisdom, but by the wisdom and the word of God. So God regularly reveals his purpose for the church to leaders, especially leaders who humbly listen to their people as well as to the Lord.
3. God spoke to the leaders in Antioch when they were worshiping the Lord and fasting.
Verse 2: "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said. . . "
They were not watching television. They were not studying the stock market. They were not sleeping. They were focusing together on Jesus as the leaders of the church. And their fasting means that they were doing it with intensity and great seriousness. This was not a casual prayer meeting. It was focused and earnest. My guess is that they were intentionally seeking God's guidance. What next, Jesus? What more do you have for us here at Antioch?
4. The leadership changes that God commanded were very difficult.
He said in verse 2: "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."
Of these five leaders, Barnabas and Saul were the most prominent. Acts 11 tells us that when the church began to grow in Antioch, the church in Jerusalem "sent Barnabas to Antioch" (Acts 11:22), who had proved himself to be such a gifted encourager (Acts 4:36). And it says that "when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord" (Acts 23–24).
So Barnabas was overseeing tremendous growth in Antioch, so much so that he knew he needed help. And he decided that he wanted the very best teacher and discipler he knew. Acts 11:25–26: "So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people."
F. F. Bruce says in his commentary: "The two men who were to be released for what we should nowadays call missionary service overseas were the two most eminent and gifted leaders in the church" (Acts, NICNT, page 261). This was not easy for the church. But it was good. And it was incredibly fruitful.
5. The leadership changes were not mainly leavings or losings, but rather commissionings and redeployings.
Saul and Barnabas stayed connected to the church in Antioch. And they brought back reports of their mission. They were still part of the church. For example, after that first missionary journey, it says in Acts 14:26–27,
They sailed to [back] Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.
So in the mind of Paul and Barnabas and the church in Antioch, what had happened was not mainly a leaving or a loss. It was mainly a commissioning and a redeployment of two leaders who would remain in connection with the church.
Similarly, the way the elders and I see the issue of succession is not when does John leave, but when and how is he commissioned and redeployed as part of Bethlehem. I have said for many years that I would like to die at Bethlehem. Noël and I have no other home to go to. You are our family. Bethlehem College and Seminary is here. Desiring God is here. The homebase of any wider ministry is here. The question is not one of leaving; the question is one of deployment, timing, process, and adjustment of roles. That is one crucial part of Bethlehem's Antioch moment.
6. The transition at Antioch was not about survival but about expansion.
Acts 13:3–4: "Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus."
And the Gentile mission spread through Asia Minor, then to Greece, then to Italy. And on through the world till today there are 2.1 billion people who identify themselves under the banner of Christian. The mindset of God at this Antioch moment was not how can this church survive without Saul and Barnabas, but how can the world be reached with the message of the crucified and risen king of the universe? God gives himself to the church that gives itself to his mission.
I don't think it honors the Lord when a church drifts into a survival mode. Bethlehem's Antioch moment is not created by the question how will we survive? but how will we meet this moment—and every Antioch moment—with the mindset of expansion? There is absolutely no question that God commands that we continue to make disciples. You have been hearing this for weeks. We are to win people to faith in Christ and baptize them, plant churches that exalt Christ, and grow churches with people who observe everything Christ commanded (Matthew 28:19–20).
Bethlehem's Antioch moment is not about survival. It's about another 140 years of growth and faithfulness. Which brings us to the final observation.
7. God was faithful to the church of Antioch as they went through this transition.
They were there with support when Paul and Barnabas returned. The church of Antioch endured for centuries, and was the mother of great leaders like Ignatius and Chrysostom.

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Sign In | Cart (Empty) | Contact | Support DG Desiring God International Home Resource Library Blog Store Events About Us Home / Resource Library / Sermons / Praying in the Closet and in the Spirit Praying in the Closet and in the Spirit January 03, 2010 | by John Piper | Scripture: Matthew 6:1-15 | Topic: Prayer Subscribe to... Watch: Full Length Listen: Full Length Excerpt Download Click To Play This is the first Sunday of our annual, year-beginning, Prayer Week. The very fact that we have such a thing as a Prayer Week raises the question I want to deal with today. But the question is much bigger than Prayer Week. The question is the relationship between discipline and freedom and spontaneity in prayer. Discipline By “discipline,” I mean planning to do certain things in regard to prayer, like… have a Prayer Week, or pray for before meals, or pray before an elders meeting, or kneel and pray in your wedding right after your vows, or at the beginning of a sermon, or early in the morning before breakfast going down in the basement nook with the space heater running, or with your spouse, just before you go to bed at night, or over the lunch hour in your cubicle, or on Tuesday and Friday mornings at church, or three times a day on your knees like Daniel (Daniel 6:10), or seven times a day like the psalmist (Psalm 119:164), or in the watches of the night (Psalm 119:148), or during and after your read your Bible in the morning. I call these “disciplines” of prayer because they don’t just pop out of you. You think about them, and decide they are a good thing to do, and then you intentionally do them. There is a certain measure of intentionality. Some people are very intentional, and we call them “disciplined.” And others are somewhat intentional. And others are not very intentional at all. And there are hundreds of gradations in between. We are all different. Freedom Alongside this, we think of “spontaneity.” Sometimes we use the word “freedom” to distinguish the difference from discipline. But I don’t want to put freedom alongside discipline because that would imply that there can’t be freedom in discipline. Which is not true. You can plan to pray in your wedding, and work out all the details down to how you will help her with her wedding dress, and hold each others’ hands, and yet, in that moment, feel an overwhelming, joyful, unfettered freedom of spirit—which means, you are doing just what you want to be doing and you are loving doing it. That’s what I mean by “freedom”—doing a good thing and loving doing it as you do it. The same is true for everyone of those disciplined acts I mentioned. In those acts of discipline, there can be wonderful freedom and joy. But it is also true that, because something is planned and we do it with some intentionality, we might also wind up doing it whether we enjoy it or not. You might be so light-headed when you kneel to pray at your wedding that you would just like for his moment to be over, and the sooner the better. This is not what we usually call “freedom.” You are not enjoying this moment, and can hardly compute what the pastor is saying. Or you might plan to pray with your roommates each night, and then have the joy go right out of the act because of tensions in the room. Or you might continue the tradition of praying before meals, and drift so far from God that the prayers become empty words, and they are done more like a machine than lover. Which would not be freedom. So I don’t put freedom alongside discipline as distinct from it. It can be wonderfully and powerfully present in any act of discipline. That’s what we long for. Spontaneity But alongside disciplined praying, like the ones I mentioned, I do put spontaneity. This is different from discipline. “Spontaneous” means that you didn’t plan it, but it rises up in your heart, and you do it without any specific earlier plan or intentionality. Something in the situation, or from the Holy Spirit, awakens the desire to pray. There is intention, but it happens in the moment spontaneously. You might… whisper a thank-you to God after a close call on the highway, or ask God for help in the middle of an exam, or confess to God your sin after saying something hurtful to a friend, or pray out in church during one of our congregational prayer times, or praise God for a beautiful sunset, or silently ask him for wisdom in the middle of a difficult phone conversation, or ask for strength when you are ready to drop and have another task to do, or pray for a missionary when you open his email and realize he needs help right now, or stop several times during an elder meeting to thank God and seek his guidance on some difficult matter facing the church. None of this is specifically planned. It is spontaneous. We tend to feel most free in our spontaneous praying, and often not as free in our disciplined, planned praying. A Swing of the Pendulum? So my question is: What does the Bible say about discipline and spontaneity and freedom in prayer? I was drawn to this topic this year because my sense is that, at least in the part of the evangelical church that I watch most closely, I think there is a swing of the pendulum from discipline to spontaneity in the name of gospel freedom. In other words, there is a concern to be gospel-driven, not discipline-driven. And this is often put in terms of legalism versus freedom. Or law versus grace. Overall, I think this way of thinking is a very good sign. If we don’t live on the gospel—that is, on the work of Christ for us on the cross—all our praying will indeed become a bondage and a stench in God’s nose. A Legalism of Resisting Discipline? On the other hand, it is possible to be a half-biblical person, and get real excited about the freedom and spontaneity of the gospel, and lose touch with the place that God has assigned to discipline, or intentionality. Our experience with God may be so shallow that the only way we have of conceiving of discipline is in terms of legalism—as though any intentionality that drives you to do a thing when you don’t feel like it can only be a work of the law, or an act of merit, or a way of earning salvation, or a strategy to get God on your side. And indeed, any act of discipline, no matter how good, may be just that. But what some fail to realize is that steadfast opposition to discipline may reflect a heart of legalism also. It is possible to turn any act or any resistance to an act into a legal performance that fails the gospel test. Which means that whether you are a person who leans toward discipline or a person who leans toward spontaneity, you are just as liable to trust in your own righteousness—your righteousness of discipline, or your righteousness of spontaneity—rather than Christ’s righteousness. The Heart of the Gospel The heart of the gospel is that Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). That is shorthand for saying that the only way to be right with God is on the basis of who Christ is and what Christ has done, not who you are and what you have done. Or another way to say the gospel is this: God’s being 100% for you is based on Christ alone, which we receive and enjoy by faith alone. You can’t get God any more on your side than he is on the basis of Christ alone received by faith alone. The biblical basis is 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” He takes our sin. We become his righteousness. And that happens not by our doing a few righteous works—like disciplined praying or like the anti-discipline of spontaneous prayer. It happens by faith in Christ alone. As Paul says in Philippians 3:9, I want to be “found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” The Dangers of Discipline and Spontaneity So when it comes to prayer and our standing with God, discipline counts for nothing, and resistance to discipline counts for nothing, but only faith working through love (Galatians 5:6). And that faith may be expressed in love through acts of discipline, or through warning against legalistic discipline. And that faith may be compromised by turning disciplined prayer into performance to get God on your side, or by turning the warning against legalist discipline into a performance to get God on your side. The opposite of legalism is not spontaneity. And the opposite of faith is not discipline. Spontaneity may be legalistic. And discipline may be an act of faith. Praying Both in the Closet and in the Spirit So let’s let the Bible teach us about the discipline of prayer and the spontaneity and freedom of prayer. I titled this message “Praying in the Closet and in the Spirit.” And the point of the title is to say that both are good and needed. The text from Matthew 6 refers to prayer in our closet, or our inner room. The texts that refer to praying “in the Spirit” are Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 1:20. Ephesians 6:18: “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.” Jude 1:20: “But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” Spontaneity in the Spirit What does it mean to pray “in the Spirit”? There is a good clue in 1 Corinthians 12:3, where Paul says, “No one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” It seems clear to me that speaking “in the Spirit” means speaking under the guidance of the Spirit, or energized and helped by the Spirit. That’s why no one can say “Jesus be accursed” when speaking “in the Spirit.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord” (and mean it) unless he is speaking “in the Spirit.” So I take it that praying “in the Spirit” means praying under the guidance and with the help and energy of the Spirit. The Spirit is shaping our prayers and helping us pray. This is the way we pray when we are living on the gospel. This is the prayer-counterpart to faith in the gospel. When we are trusting God to love us and accept us and help us for Christ’s sake alone, the Holy Spirit is at work. He moves in and through that faith. How the Gospel Leads to Spontaneous Prayer The key verse is Galatians 3:5: “Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” The answer is that God supplies the Spirit by hearing with faith. That is, the Spirit moves in our lives and helps us pray and do everything else God calls us to do, not by being coerced by works, but because we are trusting God on the basis of Christ alone for this help. We don’t work our way into the Spirit. We trust God that, because of Christ—because of the blood and righteousness of Christ—the Spirit comes to help us and guide us. This is how the gospel relates to our praying in the Spirit. We don’t deserve this help from the Spirit. How do we get it? By works or by faith? Galatians 3:5 says by faith. We look to God, not as our enemy or as a frustrated father who can never be pleased, but as our Father who is 100% for us because of Christ alone. Therefore, we trust him, that because of Christ (his death and righteousness), he will give us the Spirit—and everything else we need. That is how we pray “in the Spirit.” That is what it means to be gospel-sustained. That is gospel-praying. Discipline in the Closet Now, what about praying in your closet—in your inner room? Jesus says in Matthew 6:5–6, When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus says in verse 6: “Go to your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” Now, to go to your room and shut the door requires some movement. You have to be intentional about it. To leave people and find a private place, where you won’t be heard by others, takes some effort. Jesus says this is good. Do this. This simple command stands for a hundred ways you may plan to pray or be disciplined. This is just one: Be sure to make part of your praying the private prayer where it is just you and God. Take whatever steps necessary to secure this kind of praying in your life. And if this kind of intentionality can be a fruit of the gospel, so can the other kinds that the Bible talks about. How the Gospel Leads Us to Disciplined Prayer And my point is that this intentionality—this discipline of private prayer where no one else can hear you—is indeed a fruit of the gospel. It is a fruit of faith in God’s love for us on the basis of Christ alone. You can see this in three simple ways. 1) Obeying Our Savior Gospel-based faith trusts Christ, so that if he tells us that something is good for us, we believe him and do it. We have no reason to doubt his word. He died for us to prove that he and his Father are 100% for us. So if he says go to your room and pray to the Father, we trust him—not to make him be on our side, but because he is on our side. 2) Desiring to Receive More Gospel-based faith has tasted and seen that the Lord is good and is always eager to receive as much of Christ as we can. So when he bids us go to the closet to be rewarded by our Father, we go with great expectation that he has a gift for us—more of himself. In the gospel, we have seen that not only is Christ the basis of all we need, he is the sum of all we need. Because of what we have seen in the work of Christ, we have fallen out of love with the praise of men, and now crave the surpassing value of Christ. We come to the closet to have all that God is for us in Christ. He is our reward. That’s what faith does because of the gospel. It seeks more of Christ, more of God in private prayer. It’s not what man can give that satisfies us, but the reward of God himself. That’s blood-bought, gospel faith. 3) Knowing All Our Needs Are Met Finally, because of the gospel—because Christ died for us—we know that everything we need has been purchased for us. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). “All the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). In other words, every answer to prayer that would be good for us, Christ purchased by his blood. We did not and cannot purchase them. So when we go to our closet, we are not going to make a purchase. We are not going to negotiate. We are going because God has ordained that what Christ obtained for us, we receive by asking. Intentionality Rooted in the Gospel If you were starving, and the food of life were in a locked container, and Christ died to open the container, you would not be a legalist if you walked five miles and stood all day stood in line to receive your food with tears of expectancy and gratitude. Knowing that he had absolutely secured your food at the cost of his life would make you confident and humble and grateful, but it would not make you say, “I don’t need to stand in line. I don’t believe in such discipline.” “I’ll just wait till it spontaneously falls into my mouth.” No. There is simple discipline. Simple intentionality rooted in the gospel. Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7). “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:5–6). For More of Jesus For the sake of your own soul. For the sake of your family. For the sake of his church. For the sake of your vocation. For the sake of the nations. Plan this in 2010. Be intentional about this. Because Christ died for you, and through prayer God will give you what you need—mainly more of himself. © Desiring God Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org Related Resources Ambushing Satan with Song (Sermons) Cry of Distress and Voice of Thanks (Sermons) Draw Near to the Throne of Grace with Confidence (Sermons) In the Pits with a King (Sermons) Open My Eyes That I May See (Sermons) English Email Print Related Topics: The Bible Devotional Life Fasting See list of Related Resources Highlights Essential Resources Recently Added Most Popular Resource Categories Sermons By Date By Topic By Series By Scripture By Author By Occasion By Language Conference Messages Articles Online Books Poems Biographies Seminars Interviews Study Guides Browsing Tools Language Index Topic Index Scripture Index Author Index Date Index Help Us Make it Free $ RSS Blog New Sermons Facebook Desiring God John Piper Twitter @desiringgod @johnpiper Podcasts New Sermons (audio) New Sermons (video) Email Blog (1x daily) Blog (weekly digest) Ministry News & Updates New Sermons © 2011 Desiring God | Website Support

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