AP

Supporting, Extending, and Defending the Lord’s Church Until Jesus Comes

(Acts 11:27-30, Acts 13:1-3, Acts 15:1-3)

When I visit residents as an aged care chaplain, almost inevitably the family photo album is produced. Beloved snapshots of yesteryear appear, filled with men and women, boys and girls enjoying significant events in family life, wearing quaint clothes, sporting strange hairstyles and so on. Despite all the differences, those in the photographs are still recognisable as members of families like ours, doing things we do. I see Acts a bit like a Christian family album.

It contains snapshots from the life of the original Christian family, perfectly preserved for us through Divine Inspiration. Thus, they are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness to guide and promote the spiritual well-being of the Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) and indeed any part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope (Romans 15:4).

In line with this, we believe that Acts was also ‘written for our learning’. It records history that is theological in form and preserves theology that is expressed in history. Acts (we might translate the original as – theology in action) records what the first Christians did, so that we will know in principle what we are to do. In saying this, all that is done, is done to the glory of God through His Spirit, by the prevailing prayers of God’s people.

If we are to work fruitfully by grace, normally we must pray faithfully by grace. We must take up afresh the ancient Christian phrase, Ora et Labora, ‘Pray and Work’. Originally the Benedictines saw work as monastic manual labour in God’s garden, but I suggest our work is biblical gospel labour in God’s world. We need grace to pray, pray, pray and then we need grace to work, work, work.

In Acts timeless Christian teaching is given within the unrepeatable unfolding of covenant history. However, powerful reverberations of that original grace, all focussed on the Lord Jesus Christ and the truth about Him, will be given to us according to our distinctive place in biblical-redemptive history as we labour in anticipation of His return.

If the Lord wills, the fiftieth anniversary of the most significant event in Australian Presbyterian history will be reached in June 2027. We could have been marking the death of the PCA back in 1977, but in God’s mysterious will and kindness we will look back on it as the time of our spiritual rebirth. After a highly protracted and bitter process, finally in June 1977, the PCA divided into two sections. The uniting Presbyterians left us to join with the Methodist Church and elements of the Congregational Church to form the Uniting Church of Australia.

Yet, by the amazing grace of God from 23 June 1977, the day after Church Union was consummated, the PCA, through this General Assembly, which met on that day in this very place, continued on, and began to assert afresh within the PCA, its congregations and its ministries, the Bible as the Written Word of God and the Reformed Evangelical Christian Faith taught therein. Thus, we look back with great thankfulness to God to the events that have led us to enjoy these fifty years of spiritual renewal and reformation, even while we humbly recognise any on-going weakness, compromise and sin, as well as remembering that we face an unfinished task in so many, many ways. 

So, the Lord’s people need constant spiritual renewal in and through the Father’s Written Word given to us in Scripture, for the Bible alone perfectly brings us Jesus the Living Word by the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit who spoke in and through the Prophets and Apostles. If we, who are naturally dead in our sins and trespasses, are to see and enter the Kingdom of God, it can only be by the spiritual power of the Word and Spirit. No denomination, the PCA included, has any genuine spiritual future apart from such divine blessing.

Among the great enemies we face are spiritual self-reliance, spiritual pride, spiritual complacency, spiritual worldliness and spiritual forgetfulness. So let us press on to the higher calling of God in Christ Jesus, to what yet can be and what should be by God’s grace.

Tonight I invite you to do this by obediently and prayerfully turning to God’s Written Word and considering briefly the Church in Syrian Antioch.  For notwithstanding time and culture, it issues a spiritual call across the centuries, both as a pioneer and model for Christian churches in every day and generation of key aspects and practices of authentic, maturing, church life.

Therefore, in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, I call you, representative leaders of the PCA, to further advance the spiritual renewal we have enjoyed these almost fifty years, by prayerfully embracing what we read of the Church in Syrian Antioch and move forward through this Assembly and beyond it into a new season of supporting, extending and defending the Lord’s Church until He comes.

Note until He comes.

How much do we think about the Second Coming of the Son of Man? Is there any eschatological urgency in anything we do?

I learned some of my best theology in the church history class at PTC Melbourne back in 1988. It has stayed with me and shaped my ministry practice ever since. 

The Scots Confession, the original confession of the Reformed Church of Scotland in 1560, that great statement of Reformed Evangelical Christian faith, had on its original front cover:

And this glad tidings of the Kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world for a witness to all nations, and then the end shall come. (Matthew 24:14 in the John Knox translation)

That’s it. That’s how I want to hold and practise the Reformed Evangelical Christian faith of the PCA, with eschatological urgency.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. (Matt.28:18-20)

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Let us be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. (James 1:22)                

The great themes of Acts, of the Reformed Evangelical Christian faith itself, are given here:

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit – our eschatological motivator. 

The Great Commission – our eschatological mission.  

The Resurrected Jesus – our eschatological message.

These are the foundation of what unfolds in the Church in Syrian Antioch and dare I say it, any true Christian Church.

1. The Church in Syrian Antioch a Pioneer and Model                                             

Supporting the Lord’s Church

And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. (Acts 11:27-30)

Here we see the seamless way Acts records the extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit during the Apostolic Age alongside ordinary timeless practice of the Christian faith. The mother-daughter church connection between Jerusalem and Antioch is mentioned again but now in terms of prophets coming north to join the growing church. One of them, Agabus predicted a great famine, which stirred up the believers in Antioch to free, individual and generous practical action to help their southern brothers and sisters. The funds raised were sent to the elders leading the Jerusalem church for distribution among the people of God there.

Here is a hint about church order that should not be missed in Acts.

The bonds-of-Christ foundation of the interrelatedness of the Churches of Syrian Antioch and Jerusalem led to a very practical expression of Christian solidarity and benevolence as true faith in the God of love began to produce works of concrete Christian love.

Therefore as we have opportunity let us do good to all, especially to those of the household of faith. (Gal.6:10)

My little children, let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:17b)

The example of the Church in Syrian Antioch and of the teaching and practice of the Apostles is that Christian faith must have Christian works. Christian faith and Christian works, while separate, must never be separated.

One of the most telling criticisms of the fundamentalist-liberal controversy that ran from around the 1880s to the 1930s, was that in that highly polarised period, some downplayed works for the defence of faith whereas others abandoned faith for all sorts of social and political works. Of course, such a broadbrush statement might die the death of a thousand exceptions but there is something to it. Just as the sign of a maturing Christian is the concrete expression of clear Christian works of love and benevolence to fellow Christians (and indeed in common grace to all people) so it is also true in and between Christian churches.

We don’t need an Agabus to stand up here tonight to tell us what is happening in other parts of the Christian world, of God’s people in need and difficulty of all kinds, for there has never been an age when information has flowed more quickly and freely, or sometimes it must also be said, often more horrifically. It is very easy for us to learn of the myriads of ways we need to be supporting the Lord’s Church at an international level and across various human boundaries and differences that are transcended by our unity in Christ.

A more recent initiative of this General Assembly has been the establishment and development, in ways somewhat  complementary to the Australian Presbyterian World Mission Committee and the Relations with Other Churches Committee (both significant Committees in their own right), has been the Overseas Aid and Development Committee popularly known as PresAID.Each Christmas and Easter, PresAID brings before the PCA (and other interested Christians), projects that we might freely, individually and generously give to actively support like-minded Presbyterian and Reformed churches in the emerging world, giving priority to our nine Partner Mission Churches in Ethiopia, India, Japan, Myanmar, Malawi, Zambia, South Sudan, Timor Leste and Vanuatu. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good … (see Acts 10:29): Amen so may we by grace alone.

In the next three years, let’s give to PresAID projects even more than we have before. Thank you for the privilege I have as Moderator-General to be Patron of PresAID!

2. The Church in Syrian Antioch a Pioneer and Model                                              

Extending the Lord’s Church 

Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.  As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the word to which I have called them.” Then, having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them they sent them away. (Acts 13:1-3)

And thus was launched from the great Church of Syrian Antioch, the missionary movement that, through Paul’s three recorded missionary journeys, saw the extension of the Lord’s Church into Cyprus, Turkey and most significantly for we Europeans, into Philippi and then eventually and ultimately to all points to the west and to the north and to the south and to the east! The example of the diverse leadership of the Church in Syrian Antioch proclaims for all time that unity in Christ transcends all the differences that divide human beings in this world. This unity is a crucial factor itself in the extending of the Lord’s Church. It also caught up in its New Covenant fulfillment the holy joy of the unity of the Lord’s people expressed in Psalm 133 as a precursor of God’s greater blessings.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is

For brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious oil upon the head,

Running down on the beard,

The beard of Aaron,

Running down on the edge of his garments.

It is like the dew of Hermon,

Descending upon the mountains of Zion;

For there the Lord commanded the blessing—

Life forevermore.

Now, of course the extending of the Lord’s Church can occur through individual Christians as we saw in Luke’s first snapshot around the planting of the Church in Syrian Antioch. All that is required by grace is faith and faithfulness.

During the 1850s, an old shepherd in the Wimmera, whose name is now also unknown, seized the day and shared Jesus and the Resurrection with the local Wotjobaluk people. One young Aboriginal man was deeply impressed. Later, in January 1860 at the Ebenezer Mission, run by Moravian missionaries but heavily supported by Horsham Presbyterian Church, Nathanel Pepper (as the young man became known) cried out after a Bible study:

‘I have wept over my sins…how He went…into the garden, and prayed there, till the sweat came down like drops of blood – and that for me’.

Thus, God raised up from a traditional setting the first Aboriginal evangelist. Nathanael began almost immediately to preach powerfully to his own people in their own language. ‘Here was the beginnings of a Native Church’ Robert Kenny wrote in his fascinating book The Lamb Enters the Dreaming (2007). And it all started, humanly speaking, with a faithful old Christian shepherd, who when he heard what had happened to Nathaneal, turned up with a Bible! He believed in evangelism and discipleship!

Luke’s second snapshot indicates that extending the Lord’s church has a lot to do with having church leaders of a particular kind: 

Church leaders who are already personally committed to their local church;

Church leaders who are personally open to new spiritual insights while holding on to old spiritual certainties;

Church leaders who personally believe that there is spiritual power through Christian unity in diversity;

Church leaders who personally know the power of Jesus;

Church leaders who are personally committed to worshiping the Lord;

Church leaders who are personally open to the dynamic guidance of the Holy Spirit according to God’s Word;   

Church leaders who are personally open to missionary service;

Church leaders who will personally go into mission as the Spirit calls the Church;

Church leaders who are personally willing to be sent.

What of us? Could these things be said of us personally? As we face the massive unfinished task of extending the Lord’s church,                        in Jerusalem, Judean and Samaria and to the ends of the Earth, let us reflect together on these nine points of church and missionary leadership.

3. The Church in Syrian Antioch a Pioneer and Model                                           

Defending the Lord’s Church

And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissention and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question. (Acts 15:1-3)

In the Christian church, trial, trouble and difficulty are often, sadly, never very far away. Trouble is often close to hand because it arises from within the professing Church itself. This final snapshot brings to us a classic struggle over a key question:

What is a Christian? But let’s not be theoretical; let’s get personal. Who or what do you think a Christian is?

n the end it always boils down to just two views:

Is it that of the certain men from Judea? The false religious view is that salvation is mine because of Jesus plus something I am or I do. “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Yes, it’s Jesus, but it’s Jesus plus something as well.

But remember if you add anything to Jesus, you take everything from Jesus. Amongst non-religious people Jesus is often ignored completely in favour of complete self-salvation. It’s completely about me, who I am, what I do.

Or is it that of Paul and Barnabas?

The true Christian view is of course salvation can be mine because of what Jesus alone (sola) has done for me. I remember many years ago Rev. Dave Thurston came to visit us at Bicton Presbyterian Church, in Perth, where Sharon and I were serving at the time. I can still hear Dave asking the question in his Bible talk –What’s the difference between Religion and Christianity?

Do and Done.

Religion is about what I do to get saved.

Christianity is about what Jesus has done in his Life, Cross and Resurrection to save me.

Its chalk and cheese, its oil and water, its darkness and light between the two views. No wonder Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them in defending the Lord’s Church against well-meaning, pious, religious, heresy. If ever there was a Church that needs to guard against false teachings, great and small, in its life and doctrine, it’s us, the PCA, the PCNSW, the PCV, the PCQ, the PCT, the PCSA and the PCWA. 

Ninety years ago, the 20th GAA, meeting in this very place (and many outside of it), was bewitched by the woeful teaching of Dr Samuel Angus, Professor of Exegetical Theology of the New Testament and Historical Theology at the PCNSW Theological Hall. We need to be very careful. It can happen again. Remember Galatians! It’s not so long ago, you know, that a young minister at the 41st GAA, heard an old minister say in great frustration: ‘This church has never been the same since Dr Angus died!’ Angus talked endlessly about Jesus, but his Jesus never died on the Cross for our sins nor rose bodily for our justification.

Make sure you believe in personally and preach privately and publicly, the right Jesus, the Biblical Jesus. The material principle of the Reformation, the central core doctrine of the Reformation – Justification by faith alone in Christ alone through His imputed righteousness – must be defended and proclaimed at all costs. For all true Christianity rests on and arises from this as we Reformed Evangelical Christians say we believe

What do you believe personally that a true Christian is?                                                              

What do you proclaim privately and publicly a true Christian to be?

In conclusion

We now begin the 52nd the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.

In the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, I call you, representative leaders of the PCA, to further advance the spiritual renewal we have enjoyed these almost fifty years, by prayerfully embracing what we have read tonight of the Church in Syrian Antioch and moving forward through this Assembly and beyond it into a new season of supporting, extending and defending the Lord’s Church until He comes.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly about all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

– Stuart Bonnington

This is a shortened version of Stuart’s opening address as Moderator-General on Monday 7th September 2026