I'm going to ask you tonight to turn
to Acts chapter 13, and I'm just going
to read one verse here tonight.
We're going to part three of this series
on an Antioch church.
And what we said was, this is a
vision for LCC.
It's a vision for every Christian, every preacher,
and every church of every generation of every
nation everywhere.
So it's not just for us, but we
are presenting it as a vision because I
believe the church at Antioch has, or holds,
or embodies certain remarkable things that I believe
should be the mark of this church.
We saw in part one of this, what
we said was an evangelistic church.
The church at Antioch was an evangelistic church.
It was birthed in evangelism.
It moved forward in evangelism.
Everything it done.
And eventually it absolute blossomed, or maybe I
should use the word exploded in evangelism, which
we are yet to get to, but we
will along this way.
Then in part two, we looked at a
gifted church.
The church at Antioch was a gifted church.
It had diverse or different gifted ministry, not
just one gifted ministry, but different, diverse, unusual,
supernatural, gifted preachers that were given by God
for the edification of the body.
And so we come to part three, and
I know you're waiting to hear what is
the third mark of this Antioch church that
we find here.
I believe, and this is my message here
tonight, a culturally diverse church.
So it's an evangelistic church, a gifted church,
but third of all, a culturally diverse church.
And you'll see what I mean by that.
Reading from Acts chapter 13 in verse one.
Now there were in the church that was
at Antioch, savor every single word of this.
I'm only reading one verse.
Gonna preach from this one verse.
Now there was in the church that was
at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas
and Simeon, that was called Niger, and Lucius
of Cyrene, and Manian, which had been brought
up with Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul, five
in number.
Let's pray together.
Father, I thank you for your grace and
your mercy.
It's you that created language.
It's you that created generations.
It's you that created the nations.
It's you that created our DNA.
It's you that created our color.
And oh God, it's you, Lord God, that
distributed us out across the world.
Now Lord God, I pray, oh God, even
as we look and study, Lord God, and
consider this church at Antioch, that we would
see your plan and purpose for evangelizing the
nations, for reaching every culture, for reaching every
tongue.
Lord God, for reaching, Lord God, and evangelizing
every family, every people.
Lord God, we pray, oh God, that as
we consider this, that you would make us,
Lord God, to be joyfully and gladly diverse.
Lord God, utterly unique in the plan and
the purpose of God.
And Father, reveal your plan and purpose even,
Lord God, in making us a diverse church.
Lord God, a unique church, oh God.
Lord God, built by your own sovereign hand,
that we begin to see that there's a
plan and a purpose and a will, even
in that.
Father, I do pray, Lord God, that from
this church at Antioch, that you'd make us
to enjoy the blessing of the body of
Christ.
How you design her, how you make her.
Lord God, the very marks that define her.
Lord God, do speak to us, even tonight,
on the issues of culture and the body
of Christ.
In Jesus' mighty name, amen.
And so part three, a culturally diverse church.
And I'll explain what I mean by that.
But first, let me give you a background,
biblically and scripturally, to what we're gonna deal
with in Acts chapter 13, and verse one,
concerning a culturally diverse church.
If you go back to the beginning of
the Bible, Genesis chapter 10, you begin to
read the word nations for the first time
in the Bible.
That's not accidental.
Four times in Genesis 10, we read the
word nations for the very first time.
The word nations is mentioned for the first
time, and God wants us to take good
note of it.
We actually see in Genesis 10, the creation
or the beginning of nations.
And it wasn't man that done that.
It wasn't sin that done that.
It was actually God's hand.
What we have in Genesis 10 is the
table of nations, or the only authentic, accurate
record of the history of all nations in
the world.
We have the original origin of nations that
spring out of individual families.
But not only that, we have the origin
of language.
And if you study that chapter closely, you'll
even see the origin or the breaking off
of distinct families of nations of different color.
You actually have it all in Genesis 10.
And it wasn't man that done that.
It wasn't coincidence that brought that about.
It wasn't circumstance.
We see in Genesis 10, this was the
plan of God, the purpose of God.
This was the engineering of God.
If you remember what was happening before Genesis
10, you had Nimrod building the Tower of
Babel in Shinar.
He was a globalist.
He was a one-world government man.
He was a one-world religion man.
And you know what he was doing?
He was trying to combine all men, not
to allow them, as is spoken in Genesis
1, 2, and 3, that men ought to
multiply too.
Men and women ought to bring forth children
and be dispersed across the world, the nations.
You see, what Nimrod was trying to do
was unify all culture, all nationality, do away
with nationality, to unite all men with one
language, one color, one creed, one religion in
one place.
That's what Nimrod was doing.
But that was never God's plan.
God's plan is very, very diverse.
His plan is for nations scattered across the
world, unique families of nations with different languages,
and he dispersed them.
And so in Genesis 10, you see the
division into nations wasn't made by man, but
the division, the scattering of nations into families
with their own language was actually given of
God.
It was God who actually done it.
And if you study Genesis 10 carefully, you'll
see that families made up the original nations
and that each of those families was given
a unique tongue to divide them and separate
them because a tongue or a language makes
you very, very unique.
It gives you a common identity.
If you don't have the same language, you
cannot communicate together.
And so we even see in Genesis 10
that God had planned and ordained actual countries
for the nations.
A nation is not the same as a
country.
A country is land, a nation is people.
And so God separated the nations, and as
they were scattered, going out in different directions,
he had a country for each nation.
And so we see that originally the languages,
the separation of nations, and even the countries
where certain peoples lived were ordained of God.
Now we know since then that is messed
up with sin or with man's hand or
the devil working, but we know that this
was God's original plan.
Listen to what the Bible says in Deuteronomy
32, verse eight and nine.
When the Most High divided the nations, their
inheritance.
Do you see that it was God who
divided the nations, not man?
And he had an inheritance for them.
What was that?
A land, a country.
When he separated the sons of Adam, he
set the bonds of the people according to
the number of the children of Israel.
In Genesis 10, you have 70 families, 70
distinct languages, 70 original languages that God created.
Man didn't create them.
God created them.
We know over the centuries and millennia, languages
changed, diversified, but the original 70, God gave
unique tongues, the original languages of men.
And God set the bonds of the people
according to the number of the children of
Israel.
Then in Acts chapter 17, 26, it says,
and God hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on the
face of the earth and hath determined the
times before appointed and the bonds of their
habitation.
So we see again that God has set
boundaries of countries and of nations, that God
actually separated these peoples.
Then he gives the reason, verse 27, that
they should seek the Lord.
If happily, they might feel after him and
find him, though he be not far from
every one of us.
So that's just a little introduction.
I could go very far on that chapter
10 of Genesis, but it's just to remind
you, to stir you up to the backdrop
of this whole cultural issue, the biblical teaching
of the scriptures concerning God originating the nations,
originating language, originating color.
I want you to see that.
It wasn't man's hand.
God separated the nations and set their boundaries.
It wasn't accidental.
But let me bring you to my message
tonight.
A culturally diverse church, the church at Antioch
that we've read about in Acts chapter 13,
verse one, is a culturally diverse church.
It wasn't accidental.
Any more than God dividing the nations, giving
them different nations.
It was no accident that God in the
church at Antioch had different languages.
Listen to this, it's the reverse.
Different languages, different colors, and different cultures.
I want you to see that God works
in reverse under grace.
And in a individual church, he unified all
this back and they function perfectly with one
heart, one spirit.
We know we all have one blood, but
we don't always have one heart or one
spirit or one voice.
So it takes a work of God's grace.
I've got four points here for you tonight
from this verse.
Number one, and I'm taking off, just carrying
on from part two when we dealt with
the gifted church.
But now we're dealing with a culturally diverse
church.
My first point here, a culturally diverse church
in a culturally diverse city.
They're matched, they're connected.
Acts chapter 13, verse one says this.
Now there were in the church that was
at Antioch.
I want you to say that very carefully.
I want you to eat and feast and
mark out every single word in this verse.
Now there was in the church that was
at Antioch.
I want you to say the word church
and Antioch.
There's one church in one city, not many
churches in one city.
There is one church here that you find,
one unique church, and it is the church
in the city of Antioch.
The first time we read the word church
concerning Antioch is previously in chapter 11, verse
26.
And it says this, a whole year, they
Barnabas and Saul assembled themselves with the church.
It's the first time at Antioch we hear
the word church.
What does the word church mean?
What does church mean?
Don't get a false idea.
It's a building.
It's a church gathering.
What does the word church mean?
The word church means to be called out
and called together.
That's what the word actually means.
In other words, you have to be called
into this.
If you have not heard the voice of
Christ and be called out of darkness, out
of sin, out of the world, away from
your own life, if you have not heard
the call to follow Jesus Christ, you cannot
be a part of the church.
The church is called out, one's gathering together.
One's called out of the world, called out
of sin, called away from their own lives.
And they're called together to the person of
Jesus Christ.
That is what the word church actually means.
A church is a unique gathering of genuine
believers in a certain town, city, or village.
And what defines a church?
The word church is used in two ways
in the Bible.
The word church can be a general, global,
worldwide, or generational church.
The church, the body of Christ, the worldwide
church, the church.
That is one way.
But normally in the book of Acts and
elsewhere, we read the word church being used
uniquely of a gathering of Christians within a
town or a city.
It's not called churches.
It's called the church in Antioch.
And you find this all through the Bible.
If you begin to read the church in
Thessalonica, the church in Philippi, the church in
Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in
Pergamos, the church in Philadelphia, then it says
the church of the Laodiceans.
You know why?
Because they owned it.
The Laodiceans were the worst, the lukewarm, the
cold, and it's called the church of the
Laodiceans.
It was their church, a man-made church.
But almost always through the entire New Testament,
all the post letters, it is the church
in a certain place.
When it comes to a region like Munster,
which is our region, then it will be
churches, plural.
But when it comes to a particular town
or city, in the Bible, and I know
we've lost this, we have many churches in
towns, many churches in cities, but I'm talking
about the original.
I'm talking about the Bible here.
A church was defined by a city.
So you don't have the church of Munster,
the church of Ireland, the church of England.
You don't have that.
You have a church is localized within a
city.
You can reach it.
You can be there.
You are the church.
It is very marked in a unique way.
This is where we see for the very
first time a whole church gathering in Antioch
together, the same people gathering in the same
place at the same time to do the
same thing.
It says the church that was in Antioch,
a church, a singular church, one united church
gathering in a city.
And please note it was Antioch, the third
biggest city in the entire Roman Empire.
It was a city of about 300,000
people.
It was a massive city.
It was a mega city.
It was the capital of Syria.
It was called Antioch of the Orientus.
The river actually ran past it like the
Shannon runs through Limerick.
It was called the Jewel of the East.
Some even called it Theopolis, which means the
city of God or the divine city.
And it was one of the main trading
cities of the entire Roman Empire.
Rome was at the far end.
But you know how Antioch was situated was
all the trade had to come through this
city.
The Silk Road passed through this city.
It was the very hub.
It was the most vital trading city in
the entire Mediterranean.
Everything passed through this city.
Every culture, listen to this carefully.
Every cultural culture passed through this city.
Every language passed through this city.
And so it's understandable this city of Antioch,
this third city of the empire, this mega
city, this ginormous city.
And it reached its highest point in this
century when the church began to explode there.
It was at its highest population.
It was at its most victorious point, its
economic height.
It was at its splendor and majesty.
And right then God deposited his church right
in the center of it.
It was one of the most diverse cultural
cities in the entire empire, if not the
entire generation.
It was an utterly unique city made up
of Syrians, Jews, Greeks, Romans, and 100 other
nationalities.
Everybody from the empire was represented at Antioch.
There was every language, every form of culture,
every habit of man was all there.
Every sort of trade, job, work, every style
of dress, everything was submerged there.
And so we see in this city, it
represented the entire empire.
It represented many nations.
If you walked on the streets of Antioch,
you would hear different languages.
You'd just be taking a stroll.
And person after person, you'd hear conversations, different
countries, different tongues, different colors, different habits, different
dress.
It was absolutely everywhere.
Can I remind you that we are living
also in an hour that's utterly unique.
We are seeing a mixing of culture like
has been very rare for hundreds of years
or maybe several hundred years.
Here in Limerick, we live in a city
of 100,000 plus people easily, easily.
And about 80% of the people living
in Limerick are of yes, national white Irish
citizenship.
But there's at least 20% of the
city are utterly diverse and it's exploding.
It's getting more diverse by the actual year.
And I believe we're gonna see within a
few years, we're gonna see this dramatically change.
I believe this city is gonna explode.
And there's a personal conviction, not from the
Lord, not anything else.
I've thought this for a few years.
I think this city is gonna explode.
I think it's gonna explode in diversity.
I believe it's gonna explode in nationality.
I believe it's gonna explode in size.
At the minute, about 18,000 people live
here in this city from other cultures, other
nations, other tongues.
And 50% of the entire population come
from different ethnic backgrounds.
Do you know what that means?
One out of five people in the entire
Limerick area do not come from here and
it's exploding.
This is only a beginning.
If you came here 20 years ago, you
would rarely see someone of another color.
It is exploding.
If you walked down the streets, you wouldn't
see a Muslim wearing a headscarf.
You wouldn't see it.
10 years ago, you wouldn't see it.
Now you could drive out, you see it
everywhere.
This city is literally changing from the first
time I came here.
Overnight, you can see the change.
And some of the most popular peoples here
are the Polish, the Latvian, Lithuanian, Pakistan, China,
Nigeria, India, and we can go on.
And of course, we even have Ukrainians, about
1,500 Ukrainians here.
They're filling hotels or the city campus.
They've already been in here visiting on Sundays.
We had people sitting here on Sunday.
They now can understand the funny looks on
their face when I preach because they communicate.
We don't speak English.
I was so relieved because the faces they
made during my sermons were very unusual.
Now I can begin to rest and relax.
I don't need to worry about that.
Do you know what the most notable age
in our city is?
Those from 30 to 50 is the biggest
population of this city.
Not the young people, not the very old.
From 30 years old to 50 is the
main core of the population.
That's who we need to evangelize.
And you know what?
That's the hardest age to evangelize.
Not the young, not the old, but that
middle gap, and we want to evangelize them.
See, this church that was at Antioch, it
was a church in a city of Antioch.
Antioch was multicultural.
It was exploding.
It was utterly diverse.
It was a sinful city, a contemporary city.
Every contemporary idea, view, philosophy was promoted there.
I mean, it was pushed big time.
Everybody came into the city of Antioch to
sell the latest thing, the latest idea, the
latest dress code, the latest way of doing
things, the latest immoral act.
Everything got poured into Antioch.
But you know what?
God put a church there.
In the midst of all these languages, colors,
cultures, you know what God done?
God deposited a church right in the middle
of that.
This is my first point.
A culturally diverse church in a culturally diverse
city.
Do you know what I believe?
We as the church ought to represent the
city.
We ought to pray that we represent the
city.
Certainly, 80% of us should be national
Irish if we represent the city at the
minute.
And then we ought to be praying for
these different nationalities.
We need some Muslims born again here.
We need some Polish in here.
We're not doing too bad at the minute.
Remember, I quizzed you over the past two
days.
And so I think I've got this right.
And I'm going on the safe side, the
lower end.
Sitting here tonight, we've got those who speak
about 14 different languages, minimum, at a decent
level.
Forgive me if I pronounce two of them
wrong.
We have Lithuanian, German, Latvian, Russian, Czech, Slovak,
Papiamento, I should get a thumbs up for
that, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Malaya, Alam, Hindi,
and national Gaelic Irish.
Now that's minimum sitting in this room tonight.
These languages can be communicated in with others
should they come through the doors.
And we're only touching the base core of
it there as a beginning.
But do you know what, Antioch was a
culturally diverse church in a culturally diverse city.
I want to tell you, we live in
a very unique world and it's God's will
that we're a unique church.
I do not believe in splitting the church
up into having a Hebrew Jewish roots church,
a African church, a Chinese church.
I understand the reason that happens.
I understand that language, culture, styles of worship.
But do you know what, if I went
to Bombay, I'm going to look for an
Indian church.
If I go to some nation in Africa,
I'm looking for a national church.
I'm not looking for a group of Irish
people.
God help me, I will not be doing
that.
If I go to Australia, I'm not looking,
where's the Irish church?
I want to be with Irish.
I'm going to say, God help me, lead
me to a church that represents this city.
And it's no surprise then it should happen
the other way.
I want to be an authentic local church,
not split by culture, not split by language.
I want to be in a church that's
going to evangelize that city.
That's my first point.
A culturally diverse church and a culturally diverse
city.
Number two, a culturally diverse leadership.
A culturally diverse leadership is number two.
I want you to see here in Acts
chapter 13, verse one, five leaders of the
church in Antioch were very diverse.
I want you to note this very, very
carefully here tonight with me, it's very, very
important.
I want you to see this.
It says here, now there was in the
church that was at Antioch certain prophets and
teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called
Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Minion, which
had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch
and Saul, five leaders are mentioned.
What's my point?
A culturally diverse leadership.
These five men couldn't be more diverse.
You know why?
Because they're in a culturally diverse generation, city,
culture.
And so the leadership of the church was
even noted in that in a very remarkable
way.
Let's go through these five men and I
want to show you how diverse the leadership
of the church.
You see, people tell you certain cultures can't
get on, but I want to tell you
our church, our love, our fellowship, this church
ought to have different colors.
We can't make different colors come together or
different cultures come together or different languages.
But in the will of God, we want
that.
You know why?
To show this world we're unified.
This world separates, but we don't separate around
those things.
There ought to be no racism in the
body of Christ, but there can be.
There can be.
It'd be silly if we said there never
is because that can be a sin that
is in the church, but it ought not
to make a difference.
Let's look at these five.
First of all, the first of the five,
and I believe these are named in order
of importance.
Number one is Barnabas.
He's the first out of the five leaders,
and I believe the most significant at this
stage at this time.
You have Barnabas.
Who was Barnabas?
He was a Jew from Cyprus who had
lived in Jerusalem just before this.
He'd settled on the city of Jerusalem, but
he was born a Jew, raised a Jew.
His name was Jewish or Hebrew by background.
It had a Hebrew, Jewish, biblical background.
He was named as a child because he
was born into a Jewish family on the
island off the coast of the Mediterranean.
That's where he came from.
He came from the island of Cyprus, which
was a Gentile foreign nation, but here's a
Jew whose family lived there, and he's born
as a Jew, but he doesn't lose contact
with Jerusalem.
He is raised in the faith of his
fathers, very strongly Jewish.
In fact, the Bible says he was a
Levite or from the line, the priestly line
of Israel.
So he could have served as a priest
in Jerusalem if he had wanted to or
was able to.
He was also a man of some wealth
because he was able to sell land to
help the poor Christians in Jerusalem.
So you begin to get a picture of
the first leader in the church at Antioch.
When you look into his past, he'd come
from a Cypriot background.
He'd come from a Jewish background, a religious
background.
He had a strong Hebraic background.
The scriptures dominated him from a little child.
He was raised in them, but yet in
another culture with another language, with a national
language, but he never lost his Hebrew tongue.
He would have been taught that from a
child.
Now, very likely he was converted on the
day of Pentecost or in the revival that
came out of that.
And as we dealt with before last time
in part two of this series, he was
a man of a large heart.
He was a man of broad views.
He wasn't dogmatic.
He wasn't narrow, but he was a large
man.
He was a man of great warmth.
Remember with Saul, he went and looked for
Saul.
Remember how he brought Saul, the murder of
Christians.
Remember how he brought them to the apostles
at Jerusalem when no one else would touch
Saul.
He's a remarkable man.
So this Cypriot, this Jewish Cypriot who got
born again, met Christ, has such a warmth
and he's a prophet in ministry.
What beautiful ministry.
He did not return to Jerusalem once he
encountered what was happening at Antioch, but he
settled down there and he went and got
Saul and brought Saul there.
You begin to see something very, very unusual
in the leadership of this church.
He searched for a man called Saul.
Why?
Because Saul had a call to the nations.
Remember young Saul converted this Jewish radical Hebrew
Pharisee actually had a call to take the
gospel to all cultures, all languages, all nations.
And yet Saul is there amongst the Jewish
nation.
There he is.
And then he has to go back to
his own community of Tarsus.
But do you know what Barnabas knew?
There was an understanding.
The nations, all languages, all people.
Barnabas had a large heart.
He was a Cypriot living in Jerusalem, but
he had a dynamic view of the nations
and of all cultures.
That's the first leader, Barnabas.
The second one, look at your verse here.
Simeon that was called Niger.
Simeon or Simon is a Jewish Hebrew name.
So we see that Simon was obviously from
a Jewish Hebrew family background as well.
And notice what it says, Simeon that was
called Niger.
Simeon is the name he was given when
he was born.
Simeon is what he was called, but it
says he was called Niger.
In other words, he was nicknamed.
You know, we've seen this before.
You're given a nickname.
Barnabas was the nickname.
Barnabas wasn't his name, but it become his
name.
Barnabas, son of consolation, son of prophecy.
Well, here's another one, Simeon, but we nicknamed
him in the church, probably because there was
other Simeons in the church.
Here's Simeon, which Simeon do you mean?
Do you know that Simeon was the most
popular name in Israel in the first century
amongst Jews?
The most popular of any other name.
So they had to define certain Simeons and
we've had it in churches.
Which Mary do you mean exactly?
Which Jason do you mean?
Which Patrick do you mean?
You have to define it.
And it was the same in the church
here.
There were various men called Simeon, so they
nicknamed them.
Do you know how you give a nickname?
You don't call someone big nose if they
don't have a big nose.
You don't call them Niger if Niger doesn't
fit.
In other words, when you look at him,
you think Niger, of course.
You mean Simeon the Niger.
So they give him a nickname, Simeon that
was called Niger.
This word Niger is a Latin word, not
a Greek word, not a Jewish Hebrew word.
It's a Latin word.
It means black or dark.
It's talking about his complexion.
When you look at him, you go Niger,
that's what it is.
And so they nicknamed Simeon black in complexion
or Simeon the black, Simeon the dark.
There was nothing rude on this.
It wasn't being degrading them or being rude
and calling them the black.
It was a biblical, normal, healthy way in
a local church.
I think someone got worried about me using
the word black once and I said, well,
if it's okay, I'm not offensive.
I will use it.
But here is a leader.
Do you know what this shows?
He is from an African background.
Now I'm showing you the leadership in this
church.
You've got to understand that.
First Barnabas, who is a Cypriot, who was
a Jew converted after Pentecost.
This second man, Simeon, who had a Hebrew
name, but he's a black man.
He's an African, but it doesn't say African,
doesn't give his country.
So maybe it wasn't born in Africa.
He could be a black man born anywhere.
But what we do know is he was
black in complexion to such a degree that
he's not gonna get confused with anyone else
in the church.
That means there wasn't lots of black Simeons
in the church there at Antioch, but he
was.
So that's the second leader in the church.
Then the third one, Lucius of Cyrene.
Now the name Lucius is a Latin name,
a Romanized name, a cultural name, not a
Hebrew name.
It was a secular pagan name.
Lucius, it's not Luke.
Some people think this is Luke.
It's not Luke.
It's two different names.
This is Lucius of Cyrene.
Where was Cyrene?
Cyrene is in North Africa.
So we've got a second potential African here.
This one is African.
He's not black, but he's an African.
The North of Africa was not all black
at this particular stage.
So Cyrene is in North Africa.
And in fact, if you look on the
map, it's in Northeast Libya.
If you find the country of Libya, it's
in the Northeast part of it.
And today, if you go to Libya, there's
an area, the same area is called a
name almost similar to Cyrene.
This same area is still called Cyrene.
And that's where Lucius, the third leader, was
a Libyan.
He was from Cyrene.
He was from the North of Africa.
So you're beginning to see different countries, different
languages, different cultures, different influences on the leadership
of this local church.
It wasn't only a diverse church and a
diverse cultural city, but you begin to see
the leadership is actually diverse as well.
Now this area, Cyrene, began as a city,
the city of Cyrene.
It'd become an entire province under the Romans.
And it was also joined with the little
island of Crete, making it all Cyrene.
It was the center of philosophy.
And this man, Lucius, was probably one of
the founder members of the church in Antioch.
It says in chapter 1120 that people from
Cyrene initially evangelized in Antioch.
Certain believers from Cyrene who actually had moved
to Jerusalem and were chased through persecution to
Antioch, here they are.
There's a good chance he was one of
the original individuals, believers, evangelizing.
Now you see him raised up of God
to be a leader in the local church.
So you've got a Cypriot with a Jewish
background.
You've got a black man, potentially African, with
a Hebrew name.
You have this third man from Libya with
no Hebrew connection or Jewish background who was
a founder member.
Now you have fourthly, Mannion.
Now I want you to notice this.
This is where it gets really interesting.
Mannion.
And it says, which had been brought up
with Herod, the tetrach.
Do you know who Herod the tetrach is?
The word tetrach means a fourth or a
quarter.
Do you know who Herod's father was?
Herod the tetrach.
His father was Herod the Great.
This is the Herods, the family of Herods.
An entire family of kings that ruled over
Israel.
And when you begin looking at this man,
his father is Herod the Great, who slaughtered
the babies trying to kill the new king
that was gonna be born, that would arise
and rule over the people of Israel.
His father slaughtered the babies.
Do you know Herod the Great was a
wicked, vile man.
Look what it's saying.
One of the leaders of the church at
Antioch was raised with who?
Herod the tetrach, the son of Herod the
Great.
And this son ruled over a quarter of
Israel, of one fourth of the nation at
that particular time.
Do you know what that actually means?
This leader was initially raised in a palace.
And so you begin to see that they
weren't only diverse in color, diverse in language,
diverse in country, but they're also socially diverse.
The leadership came from every background imaginable.
You can't even comprehend this.
So they were socially diverse.
In fact, this man he was raised with,
this Herod, is also called Antipas, the son
of great.
Now the word to be brought up with
means to be a foster brother.
When you look at the word to be
brought up with Herod, this is what it
means.
Raised or suckled by the same nurse.
Reared together, fed at the same breast.
Or it could mean a court title.
That's what it normally means.
Means, in other words, Herod the tetrach and
Mannion got raised being suckled in the palace
by a wet nurse because the royal princess
didn't do this.
She wouldn't do this.
So you've got this church leader.
When you go right back to his childhood,
for some reason, how could this possibly be?
That this Jewish Hebrew man who's now a
born again man and what's more, called to
be a leader in the church.
Here he is being raised, suckled, growing up
with and becoming an intimate friend of Herod,
the son of Herod the Great.
You know what that means?
That this church leader was raised in around
Herod the Great who had killed all the
children in around Christ, trying to murder Jesus
Christ.
This was the most vile, wicked leader in
that generation.
And he had a lot of competition.
But here is this church leader, his social
background.
His family background is in that home.
Let me go a bit deeper here.
When you look at Tetrach who he's raised
with, Antipas, remember he's married to Herodias.
This Herod that he was suckled with, his
best friend, his intimate friend in the palace.
Do you know who his intimate friend became
later?
He was the Herod who enjoyed the preaching
of John the Baptist and had John the
Baptist beheaded.
He is also Herod the Tetrach is the
one who had Jesus Christ put to death.
He was raised with them.
Can you imagine here at this church, you've
got a church leader that was raised under
Herod the Great with Herod the Tetrach who
had John the Baptist and Jesus Christ put
to death.
You've got a diverse leadership in the church
at Antioch.
All unique testimonies, all unique countries, all unique
stories.
Almost sounds like here, but I don't think
we're quite as bad as this church, I
wanna tell you.
But you've got an utterly diverse church.
I was just looking at this earlier and
I looked up Antipas, when was he born?
About 20 BC.
When did he die?
39 AD.
Notice that word 39.
This is several years after that, that Herod
died.
And listen mate, that means Manian is about
in his 60s.
He's a church leader over the church at
Antioch in his 60s, which is a remarkable
thing.
Now how did this man who was a
Hebrew by background get raised in Herod's palace?
Because you know Herod the Great, he wasn't
of the royal line.
He shouldn't have been a king.
He shouldn't have been over Israel.
He was a half-breed.
He was a pagan.
He was religiously immoral.
He was spiritually and morally immoral.
And when Herod the Great come up through,
he shouldn't have been king.
How did a man like this end up
getting grown up in the palace?
Here's a possible thing.
I'm not saying this authoritatively and I don't
often do this, but I can't help but
tell this story.
I find it so fascinating.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, later in the first
century, wrote the history of Israel.
This is one story he told, very interesting
story.
He told about how Herod the Great, that
wicked king who should never have been king,
who wasn't of the royal line, as a
little child going to school, he wasn't a
Jew.
There was no chance in a million he
would become a king or a leader.
No chance.
But on his way to school, he met
a man called Manahem, which is very closely
related to Manian, this name that we're talking
about.
And this old man, Manian, was a prophet
of God, a very godly man.
And he saw the young boy on his
way to school and he patted him on
the back.
And he greeted him as king of the
Jews of Israel.
That's what he called him.
The little boy corrected him and said, no,
you must have made a mistake or you're
joking with me.
I'm not a king.
I'm just a normal boy.
I'm not gonna be a king.
I'm not even Hebrew by birth.
But the old man said, no, you're gonna
be the king.
God has shown me.
And listen to what he said.
This is something he said.
He says, love justice towards all men and
piety towards God and clemency towards thy citizens.
Yet do I know how thy whole conduct
will be that thou will not be such
a one.
It says later when he did become king,
he remembered the old prophet, the old man,
sent to him trying to give him rewards.
He refused them.
He then offered to raise his child in
his palace.
And it was said he did.
I'm not connecting this.
I'm just telling you a possibility that it
could have been this prophet's son that got
raised with Herod under the leadership of Herod
the Great.
It is a possibility, but I'm not forcing
it.
I don't often add something like that.
But let me just tell you about Manian.
Do you realize someone raised with Herod experienced
conversion.
He got born again, become a disciple of
Jesus.
Not only that, he had to flee in
persecution.
Someone raised in the palace, suffered persecution, had
to flee Jerusalem.
And when he got to Antioch and began
to preach the gospel and evangelize, God raised
him up.
He had a call to be either a
teacher in the church or a prophet in
the church.
And he'd become one of the five leaders
in this church.
Let me deal with the fifth one here.
I love this.
I just, when you see God's hand, how
God built the leadership of a church, it
was a culturally diverse church and a culturally
diverse city, but it had a culturally diverse
leadership.
The fifth and last one, Saul of Tarsus.
Tarsus is in the very southern part of
present day Turkey.
Notice he's the fifth name, Saul of Tarsus.
He was a Bible teacher.
Of course, you'd put the man who's 60
-odd before him, born in a palace.
He gets in ahead of him.
Saul of Tarsus was a younger man.
What was his background?
A Pharisee of the Pharisees, a persecutor of
the church from Tarsus.
And so you see with these five leaders,
there's three different continents mentioned amongst them.
There's different colors.
There's different language backgrounds.
There's different cultures that they are raised in
from the palace.
Can you imagine advertising?
Mannion's gonna be testifying on Sunday night from
palace to pulpit.
You know what Spurgeon said?
If God calls you to be a preacher,
don't stoop down to become the king of
England.
Do you realize this man got promoted to
the pulpit?
He got rescued from the palace.
He would have died and gone to hell
in that environment.
You know, Herod actually got thrown out of
his position eventually.
He got removed from his position, had a
fall on the Roman empire, the emperor sent
him to Gaul and he died in Gaul
within one year.
He died a tragic death, probably murdered.
But you know, this man lived his latter
days as a leader in the church, in
the body of Christ.
Do you know when you study the city
of Antioch, there's an interesting bit of information.
The city was ethnically, in an ethnic way,
was divided into five ethnic sectors, Antioch was.
It was divided into the Greek sector, the
Syrian sector, the Jewish sector, there's 40,000
Jews, the Latin sector and the African sector.
Is it accidental that we have five leaders
when there's five different cultural sectors in the
city?
It could be perchance, but I find it
very interesting.
The third point, the cultural crisis behind the
birth of the church.
So you have this culturally mixed church in
a culturally mixed city.
It has to be that way, it ought
to be that way.
You have this mixed leadership.
But third of all, can I remind you
of the cultural crisis?
See, you and I are living in a
cultural crisis, nation against nation.
That means ethnos against ethnos.
Never have we seen our world so divided
by color, by culture, by background, by religion,
by sex, by everything, everything.
They are pushing this in a global way.
You know why?
They're trying to take it all over.
It is divide and conquer, divide and conquer,
divide the people and then you unify them
under your globalist power.
You see, there was a problem and I
dealt with it before in the persecution of
leading to Antioch.
This church that's filled with diverse languages, diverse
leaders, socially different people, age different, everything different,
color different, all mixed together, living in unity,
a dynamic church evangelizing, filled with the spirit
that's gonna set the Gentile world on fire.
I mean, absolutely on fire.
This church is a dynamic church, a racially
mixed church, ethnos mixed church.
It's only one race, but there's many ethnos,
many families, many nations.
But let me remind you of the crisis,
the cultural background that was going on because
I believe their world was in a mixed
up, cultural, confused crisis at this hour.
If you go back to Acts chapter six,
let me take you to Jerusalem, back to
where all this begin.
In Acts chapter six and verse one, we
read something very interesting.
And in the days, in those days, when
the number of the disciples was multiplied.
So notice in Jerusalem, a revival is going
on.
It started on the day of Pentecost.
There were people there from many different nations,
all gathered on the day of Pentecost.
Many of them didn't go home, they stayed
there.
And there was poverty, there was a struggle
for jobs.
There was a struggle for food amongst the
Christians.
The numbers are multiplying.
That brings problems in the church.
Real problems.
Do you know what you had in the
day of Pentecost?
All these Jewish believers came into Jerusalem.
They then get born again, filled with the
Holy Spirit, become part of the church at
Jerusalem.
But you've got a problem.
You've got people from different backgrounds, different nations,
different cultures, all in Jerusalem.
They're in the one church, they believe the
same thing.
Culturally, they do have a connection, but they're
from many different languages and nations.
Look what happens here in Acts chapter six
and verse one.
As the disciples multiplied, there arose a murmuring
of the Grecians against the Hebrews.
Do you see that?
They're all from a Jewish background.
They're all born again.
They're in the same church.
But yet here comes a problem.
There is a murmuring, grumbling.
I know none of yous do that, but
it happened here with these ladies.
These widows, a murmuring, complaining, grumbling.
You've got a problem.
And it was between two cultural differences.
It was the group who were Grecians and
the group who are Hebrews.
In other words, the widows who were born
Hebrews in the land of Israel in Jerusalem.
Then there were the other Christians who had
been Jewish who had come from other nations,
from Cyrene or Cyprus or some other nation
that come in for Pentecost.
And so there's these two group of widows
and they begin to murmur and complain.
You've got a cultural crisis in the church,
two culturally different people with similar backgrounds.
And yet they say, we're Grecians, we unify.
We're Hebrews, we unify.
And they start murmuring.
They're getting more than us.
We're not getting cared for.
Us Grecians who have come in from other
nations, you're caring for the Hebrews.
Imagine the apostles being accused of this.
You care more about the local Hebrew widows
than you do about the other widows that
come from other nations who are here without
their husband now.
And you know what?
You give them more food than you give
us and you care more for them than
you do us.
And this murmuring broke out.
There was a real dispute, a real problem.
It was such a crisis, the apostles had
to act in unity immediately.
What did they do?
They went to the entire people and says,
you appoint for yourself seven men filled with
the Holy Ghost.
You choose them out.
And these seven men, we need to give
ourselves to the word of God and to
prayer.
You bunch of women are distracting us.
This cultural crisis, this problem in the church,
bickering over culture, divided by culture, accusing wrongly.
Do you know what?
It was actually distracting the apostles from preaching,
from prayer now.
You know what the answer was?
Choose seven men.
The first was Stephen.
You know what's special about Stephen?
He's a Greek speaker.
His name Stephen was a Gentile name.
It wasn't a Hebrew name.
It was brought in.
So he was one of these Grecian Hellenistic
Jews who had come into Jerusalem and he
was the first.
Isn't that wise to do?
I'm gonna choose Stephen, a man filled with
faith and the wisdom of God to begin
looking after this.
Do you realize these cultural issues niggle away
in the background of things?
It says about Stephen, notice this carefully, this
gets worse.
See the devil is trying to cause a
problem through culture.
He's trying to cause disunity in the local
church and he's using this issue and they
appoint seven men filled with the Holy Spirit
to solve this.
But one of them, Stephen, full of faith
and power, did great wonders and miracles among
the people.
Then there arose certain of the synagogue.
Notice this carefully.
Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which
is called the synagogue of the Libertines and
the Syrians and Alexandrians and of Cilicia.
That's where Paul came from, Tarsus.
Notice that.
And of Asia disputing with Stephen.
Do you see Stephen's a born again deacon
in the church who's handing out bread from
the ladies, but all of a sudden the
spirit of God's moving on him.
He's become a preacher.
He's doing miracles.
God's used them in a supernatural way.
And all of a sudden, as he's preaching,
filled with the Holy Spirit, believe me, someone
filled with the Holy Spirit can be contended
with and become, be at the center of
a crisis.
Don't think because someone stirs up trouble, there's
something wrong with them.
Maybe they're the most right person.
When everyone turns against them, you ought to
ask why?
This is a good man, a godly man
filled with the spirit.
But notice all these groups, the synagogue of
the Libertines.
This is an elitist group of Libertines.
You know what it means?
Citizens who have freedom.
They're not slaves.
This is people who are free born.
They've got their liberty.
This is a special synagogue raised up in
Jerusalem and said only Libertines are allowed to
go here.
And you know what all these Libertines are
from?
They're Syrian, Alexandria, that's Egypt.
Remember, Syrians, Libya.
Cilicia, that's Turkey.
Asia, that's the eastern part of Turkey.
All these areas.
And you've got all these men gathered in
this synagogue, unified, all from different cultures.
But now they're unified against one man, Stephen,
filled with the Holy Spirit.
They're saying, he's a Christian.
And we're Jews from different cultures.
You know who's in the midst of them?
Saul of Tarsus.
He is one of them.
He belongs to the synagogue.
There's a cultural crisis brewing here.
I mean, an explosion.
Real trouble.
And it's a cultural problem right in the
midst of Jerusalem.
You've got all these blow-ins from other
cultures, all in the same synagogue.
They are radicals.
And you have Saul of Tarsus in the
middle of them.
And now all it took was a Stephen,
filled with the Holy Spirit, to stand up
and preach.
And it becomes an explosion.
And you know the rest of the story.
You know what happened here.
There was religious bigotry.
There was biblical extremism.
There was anger leading to murder.
There was religious opposition to the real Holy
Ghost.
What did Stephen say to all of these
gathered, including Saul?
Why do you resist the Holy Ghost?
What a preacher.
What a man of God.
You're resisting the Holy Ghost.
They're angry.
They're saying, we know the scriptures.
We are right.
You know, culturally, you've got a problem here.
And they dragged Stephen out.
And they stoned him to death.
They killed him.
Remember what begins now, a persecution of the
church in Jerusalem.
I mean, a dramatic persecution.
The widest persecution.
All of these people out of the synagogue,
they explode, they kill Stephen.
Now they're going to every home.
These are blow-ins from other cultures who
are lighting a fire of persecution in the
city.
They've unified.
They're more radical than the Hebrews from Jerusalem.
Who do you think's behind that?
I believe the devil is behind these cultural
problems, stirring up strife.
You know, it says in chapter 11, verse
20, and some of them were men of
Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they come to
Antioch, speak unto the Grecians.
Remember, they're being persecuted.
Look what comes out of this cultural crisis.
Do you realize our world's a smelting pot
of cultural crisis at the minute?
Do you realize we've never been so close
to a third world war?
Do you realize that they're stirring up strife
of nations?
Do you realize they're conquering America through this
very issue?
Globalists who want power are destroying the nation,
dividing the nation, fueling the fires of civil
dispute, of riots.
Do you know they're doing it right across
the world at the minute?
Do you realize all of Europe is being
flooded by Muslims pouring in, immigration?
I'm glad all of you that have come
in in immigration, I'm glad you're here.
But I wanna tell you, someone is behind
this, stirring the pot.
They're trying to destroy Europe.
You can't conquer Europe unless you create a
cultural problem.
Do you realize our entire world, the globalists
are stirring up?
See, they wanna lose nationality.
They wanna lose identity.
I wanna tell you in the church, I
love different colors.
I love different languages.
I love different countries.
Don't be ashamed of your country.
I love diverse, different cultures.
You know, when I first moved to Southern
Ireland, I was very embarrassed about my Northern
Irish accent.
I'd even tell Candice, for years, you answer
the phone, you speak to the bin man.
I'm embarrassed of my Northern Irish accent.
Then we started the church here in Limerick,
and in one year, I forgot I had
an accent.
You know why, in the body of Christ
here in Ireland, I become so apart.
I just think I talk like you now.
I actually think I sound Limerick.
I speak Limerick fluently.
I should have put that on the list
today.
I'm a Limerick speaker, I'm sure of it.
It's taken time, but I now speak this.
And so you have the answer, what came
out of this crisis in this hour, out
of this burning division of cultures, this murderous
spirit, this wicked division over ethnos.
Do you know what gets birthed out of
this?
Is a unified church with different cultures, different
languages, different colors, unified to carry the gospel
to all nations.
This is remarkable.
This is dynamic.
I want you to see here that the
city of Antioch that was so culturally diverse,
it was known for its tolerance of everything,
of everything, anything, morally, sexually, politically, religiously.
Remember, it's the city that corrupted Rome.
Rome wasn't the worst city.
Antioch was the worst city.
Antioch corrupted the morals of the city of
Rome.
It was a mix of everything.
It was open to everything.
And you might say, look at this city.
It is 21st century, cutting edge, everything.
It moves with everything.
It's right on the cutting edge.
Remember, Limerick's been called the cultural city of
Ireland more than a few times.
It was the first cultural city in Ireland.
In other words, we're open to everything.
We want everything here.
We want the homosexuals here.
We want to promote the gay rights here.
We want to do it all here.
We want Limerick to be at the very
heart of this.
In Europe, we want it to be at
the very cutting edge of this.
You may say, oh, we the church need
to draw back.
Maybe we should move.
Maybe we should go elsewhere.
Maybe we're in the wrong position.
No, no, no, you don't understand.
We're right in the heart of this.
We're right in the right place at the
right time.
I want to show you things.
Do you realize that when you come to
the city center within hundreds of meters where
our building is, where we sit right here
tonight, do you realize within walking distance, we
have 10,000 homes, 10,000 people living
in this area of the 100,000 people
of Limerick, all within walking distance of us.
Do you realize 47%, almost half of them
are other nationalities, other nationalities.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Within walking distance of our door, we can
evangelize every people in Limerick.
All those different cultures, they make a focus
on the city center.
The city center does not look the same
as all of Limerick.
I want to tell you, you walk around
the city center, you walk over on that
street, all you get is foreign shops.
We're in the Turkey burger place.
I won't go and eat anywhere else in
the city center now.
Their price is better, their food is better,
the atmosphere is better.
I'll be going to the Turkish burger place
from now on.
They keep their prices cheap because they're accommodating
their own people.
But this Irish man is going to go
there.
And so you have, there's a cultural crisis
in this hour.
Islam is pouring into Ireland, different cultures.
And there's a purpose, there's a plan.
By the devil, there is.
There's a plan in the globalist mind to
break nationality, break sovereignty, break down identity.
They have a plan.
I'm going to tell you, God's going to
hijack it.
God's going to use this.
Right within walking distance of our door is
every country, every culture, every manner of person
you can imagine, saying to God, what a
place for us to be.
What a place to evangelize.
What a place to be praying.
What a place to reach out to the
brokenhearted.
We could evangelize everyone from our door.
It's an extraordinary thing.
But here, let me tell you, in the
midst of this cultural diverse hour, it did
not change their gospel.
It was dynamic and Antioch.
They did not accommodate the culture.
They didn't change the gospel and say, no,
we've got to change it for our culture
and this city and this kind of person.
Oh no, they preached repentance.
They preached faith.
They preached heaven and hell.
They preached Christ and Christ alone.
They had no toleration.
This church in a tolerant city had no
toleration for any other God.
Do you hear me?
They were an intolerant church in a absolute
tolerant city.
But do you know what?
It exploded.
It boomed.
They did not, it did not change the
church.
The culture did not mold the church.
The church was cultural.
It had different cultures, but it wasn't the
culture then making the church.
And please note this.
Every real church is unique.
Jerusalem was not like Ephesus.
Ephesus was not like Antioch.
Antioch was not like the church at Rome.
Do you see when you go to your
Bible, every church in every city is unique.
It has the same gospel, the same teaching,
the same Bible, the same leadership structure, but
you know what?
They're utterly unique.
Not two churches aren't the same.
This church doesn't need to be a production,
a copy of a church in America or
Australia or England or anywhere else.
We go back to scripture and we just,
it's like having a baby.
You mothers, you go, well, this baby coming
out is gonna have two arms, gonna have
two legs, gonna have two eyes, gonna have
hair.
You know, you have the basic structure, but
what mother knows what their child's gonna look
like?
You could even know it's gonna be a
boy or it's gonna be a girl.
You go, I've got an idea of certain
similarities.
It'll have that McNamara look.
It'll have that Walsh look.
It'll have that Tallulah look.
There's gonna be some unique features here, but
you're always gonna get surprised.
That's why parents, do you think it looks
like you or does it look like me?
Does it look like our great-grandfather?
Maybe it's gonna have mommy's teeth or mommy's
eyes.
Who knows?
And you're looking at the, you don't know,
it's a baby, it's a child, it's a
boy, it's a girl, but you don't know
what it's gonna be like.
It's the same with the church.
It is governed by the word of God,
but it is utterly unique.
We don't conform to church tradition or church
culture.
We are molded by the word of God.
What about national cultural sins?
You know, people in the church, they love
to argue about alcohol is a cultural issue.
Food is a cultural issue.
Women's place in the church is a cultural
issue.
It depended on the Corinthian culture.
Head covering was only for Corinth.
Leadership, structure, how it functions is culture.
Jesus done it that way because he's in
Israel, so he accommodated the culture.
I listened on ours talk the other day
on leadership and said, well, Jesus done that
because of the culture.
Really?
And the apostles did that because of the
culture.
Are you telling me that Jesus built his
leaders because of the culture in a certain
way?
Are you saying Jesus submitted to the culture,
really wanted to do something else, but he
had to do it that way for culture?
What a load of rubbish, absolute rubbish.
Well, they only wore head covering in Corinth
because the local culture, and we've studied the
culture.
Why not read your Bible for once?
Just read your Bible.
Oh, I could go a long way down
this.
Let me just give you this one point
in Titus chapter one, verse nine.
And I want you to see the Saul
of Tarsus who'd become Paul the apostle dealt
with cultural sins.
Oh, you need to submit to culture?
You shouldn't speak out against culture.
Well, I want to tell you they did.
Titus one, nine, holding fast the faithful word
as he had been taught, that he may
be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort
and to convince the gainsayers.
For there are many, and notice this, Paul
is writing to Titus, sorry, to Timothy, sorry,
to Titus.
Paul's writing to Titus on the island of
Crete, the island of Crete, okay?
A little island with its own culture and
language.
And Paul is writing a letter to Titus
on how he is to deal with the
local situation.
Let me continue.
Whose mouse must be stopped.
Who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they
ought not for filthy lucre's sake.
One of themselves, even a prophet of their
own, said, and this is a quote, the
Cretans are the population, the culture of the
Cretes are always liars, liars, evil beasts, slow
bellies.
Can you get a more diamond statement culturally?
This is Paul writing to Titus who's overseeing
the churches in Crete.
Titus is an apostle.
Paul is not an apostle.
And he's writing to this preacher, giving him
godly advice.
And he's quoting, you know all those problems
that you have there, those cultural sins entering
the church.
He said, let me quote one of their
own prophets, a cultural Cretan prophet, secular outside
the church.
He says, they're liars, evil beasts and slow
bellies.
Paul actually puts that on a letter saying
the Cretans are marked by this.
Then he says, this witness is true.
Do you see Paul is putting in print
in a letter these people who say, well,
they would stay away from being controversial in
their letters in the New Testament.
What sort of Bible are you reading?
This is Paul writing to Titus telling them,
this witness is true.
So what's he gonna do?
Wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be
sound in the faith, not giving heed to
Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn
from the truth.
Do you see this here tonight, that Paul
deals with social sins, cultural sins, national sins.
He even puts in print things that dominate
a certain culture.
You know, maybe this helps me, justifies me
a bit.
I have noted in the past some Irish
national traits and sins, which you don't get
in Northern Ireland.
You only get them in Southern Ireland.
They actually do not dominate the people in
Northern Ireland.
They're utterly unique to the South, to those
of a Catholic background, to an Irish culture.
They're not in the North.
It's an utterly different culture.
But I'll tell you what, you've heard me
also thousands of times.
If you've listened to me constantly, I pointed
out what's the national sin of the church
in Northern Ireland, foolish jesting, which destroys people
in the church.
You've heard me.
Saints of God, I'm not even gonna go
to fourth point or I'll keep you too
long.
But my fourth point, I'm not gonna preach
on a culturally diverse commission fulfilled.
We are gonna cover that in the weeks
ahead.
But I've just given you a culturally diverse
church, an evangelistic church, a gifted church in
ministry, not a culturally diverse church.
And I hope you see from this, do
you not see God's plan on this?
Do you not even know, look around you
in this room, consider the languages we've mentioned,
look at the colors around you, look at
the nations represented here, look at all of
these different things.
And as you see, God has a plan.
If you think it's an accident that the
people that are sitting here from different countries,
it's an accident that you're here, you're gravely
mistaken tonight.
But because I believe, and it was all
in point four, but I'm not gonna give
you point four.
The whole plan is to make us a
vessel.
Antioch with this mix of culture and language
and of social background was to make them
into a vessel that was gonna be an
instrument of the great commission, to fulfill the
great commission, to evangelize the nations, to reach
every tongue, every country, every culture.
And it all sprang out of this one
church.
Do you know what I believe in this
church?
The nationalities have to be here.
The different ethnos has to be here.
I believe God's got a plan.
Why?
Me, a northerner, and please remember, if any
of you are blue-ins here, I'm a
blue-in as well.
There's nothing more controversial than someone like me
preaching on Limerick High Street, a northern Irishman
with a northern accent, who's an ex-British
squaddie, preaching in a church on Limerick High
Street.
20 years ago, the building would have been
burnt down.
Isn't that right?
I'm telling you, this is controversial.
This is something culturally unusual.
But God called me to Limerick High Street.
Why Limerick?
I don't know.
Why of all the cities of Europe, Limerick?
I haven't got a clue.
But this man had to be here.
But let me tell you what, you had
to be here.
You had to be here, because God is
building a church, because out of this church,
he's got a unique plan and purpose for
the nations, for the nations.
Let's pray here together.
Just stand with me.
Let's pray.
Thank you, Lord.
Oh, thank you, Jesus.
We love you.
We bless you.
Lord God, thank you for this picture, this
vision of the church, that it is an
evangelistic church.
It is a gifted church and ministry.
It is a culturally diverse church.
And Lord God, all these languages that you
put here, oh Lord God, all of these
cultural traditions, all of these family backgrounds that
are in this room, all of the sins
from our past, all of those things that
dominated our life in this world, it's no
accident that we're sitting here, Lord God, with
the testimonies we have, with the backgrounds we've
been saved out of, with the sorts of
families that we have come from, you are
building a diverse church, Lord God, called out
of every language, every nation, every culture, my
God, and you're merging us to be one,
that we might walk in the love of
Christ.
Lord God, as one united family, loving each
other, encouraging one another, praying for each other,
blessing one another.
And Lord God, it is beautiful in our
sight.
Lord God, it is a picture of one
day that you're gonna save out of all
nations, all generations, all cultures.
You're gonna have one united people gathered at
your throne.
And Lord God, we love it.
We bless you.
We worship you tonight in Jesus' mighty name.
Amen.