19 Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.
20 And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.
21 And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.
22 Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.
23 Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.
24 For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord.
25 Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul:
26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
Introduction
Have you learned through the years that what you don’t know can hurt you? I heard some time ago about a Mexican bandit named Jose Rodriguez, who lived down close to the border. He made regular trips across the Rio Grande to a little Texas town and he would rob the banks and then he would go back across the river. He became such a nuisance that finally they alerted the Texas Rangers and a man was assigned to try to find and to arrest Jose Rodriguez and recover all of the money. The Ranger made his way down toward the Rio Grande and got on the trail of Jose. When he caught up with him he was entering a little border town right across the Rio Grande in Mexico. As the Ranger crossed the river and went into that little town, he saw Jose going in the cantina. And so the Texas Ranger went into the cantina, slipped behind Jose, pulled out his trusted .44, cocked it, and put it right at the base of the head of that bandit. Then he said to him, “Jose, I know who you are. And I have come to reclaim the money. If you don’t give me every cent, I’m going to blow your head off right here.” There was just one problem: Jose Rodriguez did not understand one word of English. And the Ranger could not speak one word of Spanish.
Fortunately there was a man standing at the bar and he understood both languages. He stepped up and said to this Texas Ranger, “Would you like for me to interpret for you?” The Ranger said, “I would. You tell Jose Rodriguez exactly what I’ve said.” So the man relayed the message. “Jose, this is a Texas Ranger. He knows who you are. And he has come to reclaim the money and if you don’t give it to him he is going to shoot you right here.”
Well, Jose Rodriguez began to tremble. He said to the man, “I am too young to die. You tell that Ranger not to shoot. I robbed those banks but I have saved every bit of the money and not spent one cent of it. If he will go to the well outside the city and travel 40 paces north of that well he will find all of the money hidden under a rock. Just tell him not to shoot.”
The interpreter turned to the Ranger and he said to him, “Jose Rodriguez is a brave man. He is not afraid to die.” If only Jose Rodriguez had known English or the Ranger had known Spanish.
You know I’ve discovered that there are a lot of people who don’t know what they need to know, especially about the Christian life. I talk with people every week about their relationship with the Lord and somewhere in the conversation I usually ask this question, “Are you a Christian?” And they say to me, “Well, I think so or I hope so.” Sometimes they say, “Well, I believe in God.” Or they ask me, “What is a Christian?” And this indicates to me that there are an awful lot of people who really do not know what a Christian is.
If somebody asked you that question—“What is a Christian?”—what would you say? What would your answer be?
The scriptures give us a hint in Acts 11. It is the story of the beginning, growth, and great ministry of the church in Antioch. Shortly after Christianity began to spread throughout the known world, a group of men came to Antioch and preached the Lord Jesus there. Many people believed their message that Jesus Christ is the Son of God—the Messiah, the anointed one of God, and Savior of the world. They responded by receiving Jesus Christ as their Savior, by confessing him as Lord, and by beginning to serve him.
In fact the work grew so rapidly in Antioch that the church at Jerusalem sent Barnabas, one of their strongest leaders, to supervise the work and minister to those people. Barnabas enlisted the apostle Paul, who up until that time had been unknown in Christian work, to help in the great ministry there. God blessed them and the church at Antioch became the center of a worldwide mission movement.
As Luke is telling us that story in the 11th chapter of the book of Acts he adds almost as a postscript, “And the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Just that one statement.
The city of Antioch was the capital of Syria. It was the third-largest city in the Roman Empire with about a half-million people. It was a great commercial center where the empire and Asia met together. It was a place where the Greek and Syrian cultures blended one with the other.
It was also a great cosmopolitan city where the Jews and the Gentiles, the Greeks, and the subjects of the Persian Empire rubbed shoulders. And in such a large city teeming with commercial cosmopolitanism, religion didn’t matter very much. There was such a blending of religious beliefs and ideas that it was hard to distinguish one religion, one group, one sect from another. Even then, the people in this city largely did not care about the distinctions.
For some reason in that great city for the first time in all of history the disciples were called Christians. That word Christian is a hybrid word made up of the Greek word christos and the Latin suffix ian. Now the Greek word christos is the same as the Hebrew word for “Messiah” or “anointed one.” It is not a name. It is a title. It describes the Promised One of the Old Testament. The One who has the anointing of God upon him. The One who had come to be the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And they added to that title christos the suffix ian, which means “a patron of” or “a follower of.” The word describes those people who were followers of Jesus Christ.
They worshipped him, they confessed him, they taught about him, they followed him, they served him, and they preached his word everywhere. And because the lives of these disciples in Antioch were so built around that person Jesus Christ, in this pagan city for the first time these people were called Christians.
It may have started as a term of derision. But whatever the reason, however it came into being, it was a necessary term because they needed to distinguish these believers, these followers of Jesus, from all the other religious groups around. When they listened to them, when they watched them, they saw that these people were different from others.
They were not the same as the Jews. They were not the same as the Persians. They were different from all Greek cults. Observers came to recognize that difference in practice and in faith and acknowledged it by giving them a different name. And so they called them Christians, followers of Christ, believers in the Lord Jesus.
The Christians did not call themselves by that name. They had many names that they used among themselves. Sometimes these early Christians were called “disciples.” Sometimes they were called “believers.” Sometimes they were called “brothers.” Sometimes they were called “saints.” They called themselves “the believers” because of their faith. They called themselves “disciples” because of their knowledge. They called themselves “brothers” because of their love for one another. They called themselves “saints” because of their holiness.
Those were names they picked for themselves. But the name “Christian” was given to them by an outside group. It did not come from within. Nor did it come from the Jews. The Jews, if they had called these disciples Christians, would have been acknowledging that Jesus was the Messiah. And they certainly were not going to do that.
The name came rather from these Persian pagans on the outside watching them, listening to them. They saw how their lives centered on the person of Jesus Christ to the extent that they concluded, “We ought to call them the followers of Christ, Christ-men and Christ-women.” And thus the name Christian was born.
You might think that the name Christian is scattered throughout the New Testament. But apart from this reference, it is mentioned only two other times in all the New Testament. In the book of Acts, chapter 26, Paul is witnessing to King Agrippa. And as Paul shares his own personal testimony about his conversion, Agrippa says to him, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Almost, but not quite. Then Peter uses it once in chapter 4 of the first book of Peter. He says, “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.” Only twice apart from this statement is the word Christian found in the New Testament.
But it tells us much about who we are and what we are: followers of Jesus Christ. So if you ask me to give you a one-sentence definition of what it means to be a Christian, my answer is, “It means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.” In that statement—a follower of Jesus Christ—are tremendous implications. When you understand all that is involved in that statement, then you know what it means to be a Christian.
To be a follower of Christ in the biblical sense means first of all that you have confessed Jesus as Lord. Then it means that you are trusting Jesus as Savior. And third, it means that you are serving Jesus as Master. It takes all three of those statements to adequately explain what it means to follow Jesus. I have confessed him as my Lord, I am trusting him as my Savior, I am serving him as my Master—that’s what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
1. I have confessed Jesus as Lord.
That word Lord is synonymous with the word God. And when I confess Jesus Christ is Lord, I am confessing that Jesus Christ is my God. The basic confession of the New Testament and the initial confession of those early followers of Jesus was this: Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is God. I hope you will write it in your mind so that you will never forget it: “The essence of Christianity is that Jesus Christ is God.” Not that he was sent from God, or that he was a part of God, or that he was a representative of God, but that Jesus Christ was and is God.
You remember the angel who came to announce his birth. And the angel said, “You are to call his name Immanuel.” This name is interpreted as “God with us.” You say, “Well, preacher, I thought that God was the who created the heavens and the earth. 1 thought that God is the one who sustains life daily. I thought that God was invisible.”
And you are right. God did create the heavens and the earth. God does sustain life. God is invisible. But the great message of the New Testament is that the God who created and the God who sustained and the God who is invisible has stepped out of time of space and into the present world in the form and likeness of Jesus Christ. God has become man.
Jesus Christ is God, spelling himself out in words that we can understand. Jesus Christ is God with skin on him. He is God who left heaven and came to this earth to walk among men so that we might know him and have fellowship with him and through him have life everlasting. And until you understand and are willing to acknowledge Jesus Christ as God, you are not a Christian.
Now I do not understand how God could come to this earth as man. But there are many things I do not understand. I do not understand the mystery of life. I do not understand the birth process and how all of that happens, but I know that it does. Just this past week our cat had kittens. I just don’t understand that. By the way, would you like to have a kitten? I told the 8:30 crowd that we have two to give away. You can get one today when you leave if you hurry.
I don’t understand how that mother cat could carry those kittens. I don’t understand how instinctively, without anybody teaching her, she knows how to care for them, to nurse them, and to protect them. I don’t understand the birth process and the mystery of life. It is something beyond me. But though I do not understand it I know that it is a reality. In just the same way I do not know how God could come to this earth as man. I don’t understand how God could put skin on and how he could be one of us. But I know that happened. To be a Christian means that I believe and accept that and I confess Jesus Christ is Lord.
The word confess means “to agree with.” It is more than just saying words with your lips. It is being convinced in your heart and making a commitment of your life to Jesus. It is being so aware that Jesus Christ is God that I not only say it with my lips, I believe it in my heart. I commit my whole being to the fact that Jesus Christ is God himself. That is what it means to follow him.
2. I trust Jesus as Savior.
Those early Christians preached and proclaimed that in this God-man Jesus was salvation. And in fact they came declaring that there is no other name given unto heaven whereby men must be saved except the name of Jesus.
I mentioned earlier that when the angel came he said that you are to call him Immanuel, which is interpreted, “God with us.” On another occasion the angel said he would be called “Jesus” for he shall save his people from their sins. That word Jesus is the same as the Old Testament word Joshua, which means “Jehovah is salvation.” The angel was saying to call his name Jesus for he is going to be God’s way of salvation from the world.
In the name of Jesus and in no other name is there salvation. We believe that Confucius was a great teacher. We believe that Buddha was a good man. We believe that Mohammad was an effective leader. But Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior. Men are not saved by keeping the teachings of Confucius. Men are not saved by duplicating the good life of Buddha. Men are not saved by following the leadership of Mohammad. But men are saved when they accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as the Savior of the world, and they trust him for life everlasting. That’s the only way.
Unless you are willing to confess him as Lord and trust him as Savior you are not his follower. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes to the father but by me.” Jesus didn’t say, “I am a way.” He said, “I am the way.” Jesus didn’t say, “I am the best way.” Jesus said, “I am the only way.” Jesus didn’t say, “I am a convenient way.” Jesus said, “I am the essential way and you come to God through me or you do not come at all.”
E. Stanley Jones, that great Methodist missionary who spent his life in India, said one day he had planned a trip to the jungle. It was his first, so he hired a guide. The guide had a machete and as they came to the edge of the jungle Jones asked the guide, “Well, where is the trail? Where is the path?” And the guide said, “Sir, I am the trail. Follow me, and I will get you through to your destination.”
Jesus comes to us to say, “I am the trail. I am the path. I am the way. I haven’t come simply to tell you where you can find the way. I haven’t come to lead you up to the way and say ‘go on from here.’ I am the way and if you will trust me, if you will believe in me, if you will follow me, I will get you to God and to life everlasting.” That’s what it means to be a Christian: That I confess Jesus as Lord. I trust Jesus as Savior.
3. I serve Jesus as master.
You see, it is never enough just to believe something with your mind or even to say it with your lips. It must be so real and so dynamic in your life that it leads you to serve him, to follow him, to obey him in every way.
James asked that probing question, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder” (James 2:19, NIV). But he goes on to say that faith without works is useless. Unless your faith in Jesus as God and as Savior is so real that it changes your life, and you begin to follow him and to obey him and to serve him and to do his will and to try to preach his word and share the good news, your faith will not save you. It is just lip service. It’s just intellectual belief. It must be of such a nature that it leads you to practice daily serving him, walking after him. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. I confess him as Lord. I trust him as Savior. I serve him as Master.
In the days of the potato famine in Ireland, many Irishmen left the country and came to America seeking a new way of life. And among those thousands of people who came as immigrants to our country there was a young man who couldn’t afford passage on the ship, so he hid himself aboard and became a stowaway. Halfway across the Atlantic their ship hit an iceberg and was going down. By the time when he realized what was happening, all of the other passengers were on the lifeboats. The captain of the ship was about ready to step off of the ship and take the last seat in the last lifeboat when he saw this little lad. In the highest tradition of the seas he stepped back on board and allowed this stowaway to take his place in the lifeboat. As the lifeboat was pushed out from the sinking ship and he saw the image of the captain for the last time in the fog, he heard the captain say to him, “Son, never forget what’s been done for you.”
He came to America and was successful in business. People often asked him, “What motivates you? What keeps you going?” He said, “When I am down and depressed and am not feeling very good about myself, I see again a vision of the captain standing there in the fog and saying to me, ‘Son, never forget what has been done for you.’ And I get up and I get going again so that I might be worthy of the price paid for me.”
What keeps us going? What keeps me knocking on doors after 25 or so years in the ministry? What sends me to Brazil? What motivates people to teach in Sunday school? It is the fact that we can’t forget what was done for us there on the cross. And we want to be worthy of the price that Jesus paid. We do it not to earn our way to heaven. The way has been paid already. We do it not to merit God’s love. He loves us no matter who we are. We serve because we want to be worthy of the price that was paid. If you don’t follow Jesus in that way, you are not really a follower at all.
If you and a group of your friends were picked up and dropped in Beijing, is there anything about your life, your witness, your speech, your conviction, your commitment that would lead anybody to think up a new name for you? And would your life be so centered in Jesus Christ that they might say, “These new people among us, why they are Christians. They are followers of the Christ.”? And say, “Listen to them talk, listen to them sing. Look at the way these people live. They are Christ-men and -women. There is no other name for them.”
The question is, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you?” Those who have heard you talk, those who have listened to you sing, those who have watched you…is anybody here who could step forward and say, “Yes, he is guilty. He is a Christian. I know him. I’ve walked with him. I have heard him.”?
Maybe you need to give your life and heart to Jesus as his follower today. Maybe you need to be a part of his family that meets and worships here so that in a real vital way your life and influence and testimony could count for him.