Unstoppable Working Of God's Grace

Yesterday we were clearly shown how, through ordinary, faithful servants of Jesus Christ, who had freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to His pleasure and disposal, brought the spirit and truth of the Epiphany to life in Antioch. We saw how Greeks, Gentiles, had the Good News of the Gospel brought to them by faithful, true and sincere servants of Jesus. We were made very much aware that all this was being done by disciples, people who had committed their lives and themselves to Jesus, in very extenuating circumstances. Indeed, our hearts were made warmed by the spreading of the Epiphany, through the ever present Holy Spirit.

Not only that, but Sovereign, Almighty God, showed Himself in keeping His covenant with these disciples, who had all died to self-ways and self-wills and were no longer their own, but His own. They were now His and He was now theirs. What was the result? We listen with beaming hearts and minds of exhilarating joy and unchained, buoyant hope, as we hear these words. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. Acts 11: 21. Can’t you see the Gentiles from the East, the wise men, who so believed the Good News brought to them that they left their places to find Jesus and give themselves and their gifts to Him, in worship and adoration?  

Returning to Barnabas, this is the place, the praising, glorifying, rejoicing atmosphere that greets him when he arrives in Antioch. He looks around and not one of the Twelve Apostles is present. Not Peter, not James, not John, and not even Matthias, the most recently chosen disciple, to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place, Acts 1: 25, was there in Antioch. Albeit, the great work of God was being mightily and successfully done by ordinary, unnamed, covenant-living and covenant-keeping disciples. Barnabas, this Spirit-filled disciple, sent to Antioch by the Church in Jerusalem, when he witnesses the grace of God in copiously lavish measure, before his own eyes, he is made glad. O how his heart must have leapt with joy beyond measure! O how his face must have been a picture of joy to behold!  We are rightly reminded in Proverbs 15: 13a, A glad heart makes a cheerful face. 

Barnabas witnesses God’s measureless grace in many ways. I have listed only three, to get us going.

Grace is witnessed in the Hand of God working mightily with His covenant-keeping and covenant-living disciples. Grace to the ordinary disciple is still our Lord’s covenanted way. If you and I, regardless of our present situations, whether we are in plenty or want, remain faithful to our renewed covenant, and be Jesus’ true, honest and sincere witnesses, in how we live and what we do, the grace of God will be magnified and glorified in us, in no small measure.

It must be so! 

Grace is openly evident in the Spirit of the Epiphany, as people who are not Jews, foreign people, Gentile people, receive the full message of the Gospel, with its power to save and change lives. It takes faith to deny all the old interpretations of law and know that all people, regardless of who they are, are to be given the Good News of Jesus. Deserving or undeserving, whether they look like us or not, our covenant promise demands this. Regardless of whom we have been put with or where we have been placed, we must faithfully, however we are called to so do, bring the Living Gospel to all. In this way, the Grace of God will turn many Gentiles to Jesus and hearts will be made glad.

It must be so! 

Barnabas, Spirit-filled and glad, simply, encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. This encouragement is for you and for me also, as we climb into the second week of the New Year, as God wills.

May the unprecedented and ineffable grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the indescribable and unconquerable Love of Father God and the unlimited, sweet, jealous fellowship of the Holy Spirit, always be ours in covenant relationship.  

  So Be It!