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The Mission | Rock Point Church x Mission Essex | Full Service · Rewind

Rock Point Church

Pastor Simon Medcroft · Feb 16, 2026 · 72 min watch · 3 min read

The Mission | Rock Point Church x Mission Essex | Full Service

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In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Acts 11:19-21
Acts 11:19
Acts 11:21
Acts 1:8
Acts 11:22-24
Acts 11:24

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

The mission of the church is to reach the lost with the gospel, build believers through God's Word, and send out money and people for the sake of eternity.

Drawing from Acts 11 and 13 and the example of the church at Antioch, Pastor Simon Medcroft argues that every local church — regardless of size or location — is called to three non-negotiable priorities: reaching out to unbelievers with the gospel through ordinary, everyday Christians; building up the congregation spiritually through consistent, faithful Bible teaching; and sending on both financial resources and gifted people to plant churches and meet needs elsewhere. These priorities, rooted in God's timeless purposes, are what it means for the church to function as a lifeboat rather than a cruise liner.

Key points

1
1The church's mission, as seen in the Antioch church, is to reach, build, and send.
2
2Ordinary, everyday believers — not just professional ministers — are called to reach out and speak about Jesus, even at personal cost.
3
3The hand of the Lord is with every Christian who seeks to reach out and point people to Jesus, regardless of visible results.
4
4The church builds up its people through faithful Bible teaching, which is God's ordained method of spiritual growth and transformation.
5
5Grasping the grace of God — His generosity in sending His Son to die for us — is what frees the church to be sacrificially generous with money toward those in need.
6
6The church is called to send its best people outward to start new churches, trusting that God's expansive purposes will not leave the sending church harmed.
7
7God's consistent voice throughout Acts is a sending voice — calling His people to go, and the church is to see itself as a sending organization, not a grasping one.

Application

Pastor Simon's call is straightforward and personal: every believer — not just pastors or polished communicators — is part of the church's mission. That means plucking up the courage to speak about Jesus to the people already in your life, even when it feels awkward or costly. It means showing up regularly to sit under God's Word and letting the Spirit use it to make you more visibly like Jesus, so that your neighbors could actually describe you as a follower of Christ. And it means holding your money and your community loosely enough to give both away — to people you may never meet, to church plants in spiritually famished places — trusting that God's ways, though costly, can always be trusted. The church is a lifeboat, not a cruise liner, and there are still people in the water.

Take it into your week

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“I'm gonna read from verses 19 to 21. We read, meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen's death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch Of Syria”
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From the transcript
“Let's go back to the very beginning of Antioch church's life, Chapter 11 verse 19. I'm gonna read from verses 19 to 21”
From the transcript
“The word translated power in verse 21 literally means hand. So we're being told that the hand of the lord was with the Christians in Antioch as they spoke about Jesus”
From the transcript
“back at the beginning of Acts in chapter one verse eight, we're taught that the spread of the gospel is integral to God's agenda for the church”
From the transcript
“we're gonna carry on in Acts 11. Let me read verses 22 to 24. Verse 22, when the church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch”
From the transcript
“as they grew in the faith, so they evangelized more, and we're told yet more people came to Christ, verse 24”
From the transcript
“we're told that in the next few verses. Let me read on verses twenty five and twenty six. Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul”
From the transcript
“in chapter 11 verses 27 to 30, we see the church sending on money. What they see, they they dig deep in their pockets and they send a financial gift to Christian brothers and sisters who they hear are in need”
From the transcript
“we can see that a little further on in Acts chapter 13 verses one to three. In between chapter 11 and chapter 13, Saul and Barnabas, they've they've taken this gift of money to Jerusalem personally”
From the transcript
“back in Acts chapter five verse 20, God says to the apostles, go. Stand in the temple courts and tell people about Jesus”
From the transcript
“And then in chapter eight verse 26, he told Philip to go south to the road, the desert road. That's where he met the Ethiopian”
From the transcript
“And in 09/15, he told Ananias, go. This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name to the Gentiles”
From the transcript
“In chapter ten twenty, when talking to Simon Peter, he says, get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with the three men, for I have sent them”
From the transcript
“And now here in chapter 13, God is setting apart Barnabas and Saul in order to go and start new churches elsewhere”

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There is something quietly remarkable about the people who first brought the gospel to Antioch. They were not apostles or trained clergy. They were ordinary believers scattered by persecution — people who had lost their homes, their communities, their sense of safety — and yet, as they traveled, they spoke about Jesus. Pastor Simon made much of this, and rightly so. The church's reach into the world has never depended primarily on professionals. It has always moved through ordinary people who simply could not stop talking about what they had seen and heard. What strikes you when you read that 'the hand of the Lord was with them'? It was not with a strategy. It was not with a platform. It was with them — people willing to open their mouths at personal cost. The result was that 'a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord.' Not because the messengers were polished, but because God was at work through their willingness. This is still how the church reaches the world — through you, in your neighborhood, with your coworkers, among your family. You do not need a title or a sermon series. You need courage and a story. The hand of the Lord is still with those who go.

For reflection

Who in your everyday life has not yet heard the good news about Jesus, and what is one small, honest step you could take toward that person this week?

Pray

Pray for courage to speak about Jesus to someone already in your life, and for openness in that person's heart.

When the church in Jerusalem heard what was happening in Antioch, they sent Barnabas. And what did Barnabas do when he arrived and saw the evidence of God's grace at work? He was glad. He encouraged the believers to remain faithful. He did not arrive with suspicion or with a corrections list — he arrived with an open heart and left people strengthened. Pastor Simon pointed out that Barnabas was 'a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith.' That description is worth sitting with. Barnabas did not build the church through brilliance or force of personality. He built it by being genuinely full of God — and that fullness spilled out into the lives of others. The result was that 'many people were brought to the Lord.' This is what faithful, Spirit-led encouragement does. It is not cheerleading. It is something more substantive — someone who sees God at work and helps others see it too, who urges people not to drift, not to settle, but to keep holding on to the Lord with their whole hearts. You may not be a pastor, but every one of us can be a Barnabas to someone. The church is built one encouraging, truth-telling relationship at a time.

For reflection

Is there someone in your church community who needs a Barnabas right now — someone to come alongside them and remind them of God's grace in their situation?

Pray

Pray for the Holy Spirit to show you one person you could genuinely encourage this week, and for the right words when that moment comes.

Barnabas recognized that the church in Antioch needed something he could not provide alone — consistent, deep, faithful teaching of God's Word. So he went looking for Saul and brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, the two of them met with the church and taught great numbers of people. Out of that year of steady, faithful instruction, something remarkable happened: the disciples were first called Christians. Their identity became visible enough to name. Pastor Simon made a point that deserves careful attention: the church builds its people through consistent Bible teaching. Not spectacle. Not novelty. Not inspiration alone. It is the steady, faithful handling of God's Word, over time, that shapes a person into someone their neighbors could actually identify as a follower of Christ. This is an invitation to show up — not just when it is convenient, not just for the highlights, but with regularity and expectation. Coming under the Word week after week is how the Spirit does the slow, unglamorous, transforming work of making you more visibly like Jesus. The goal is not that you can quote more scripture. The goal is that your life begins to carry the unmistakable quality of someone who belongs to Him.

For reflection

What does your current rhythm of sitting under God's Word look like, and is there anything getting in the way of greater consistency?

Pray

Pray for a renewed hunger for God's Word and for the Spirit to use what you hear and read to make you more visibly like Jesus.

A prophet named Agabus traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch and announced that a severe famine was coming across the Roman world. The disciples in Antioch did not wait to see whether it would affect them personally. They did not calculate what they could spare after their own needs were covered. Each of them gave what they could, and they sent the relief to believers in Judea — people many of them had never met. Pastor Simon drew a direct line from this moment to the grace of God. The church's generosity was not a fundraising response to a crisis. It was a grace response. People who had been met with God's extraordinary generosity in Jesus — His Son sent, His life given, nothing held back — found themselves, almost naturally, holding their own resources more loosely. This is the pattern that still holds. Financial generosity in the church is not primarily a discipline to be managed; it is a fruit of truly grasping what God has already done. When the grace of Jesus becomes real to us — not just doctrinally correct but personally felt — it changes our relationship with money and with the needs of people we will never sit across from. The famine is still real in many places. The grace that moves us to respond is the same.

For reflection

How does your understanding of God's generosity toward you in Jesus shape the way you think about your own money and resources?

Pray

Pray for a deeper grasp of God's grace — not so that you give more, but so that His generosity becomes real enough to you that generosity flows naturally from it.

The church at Antioch had real leaders — prophets and teachers, gifted people the community depended on. And yet, when the Holy Spirit spoke, the instruction was to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work God was calling them to. These were not spare parts. These were two of the best people they had. And the church sent them. Pastor Simon was honest about what this costs. Sending your best people away is not comfortable. It is a sacrifice. But the church at Antioch did it because they understood something fundamental: the church is not a destination. It is a sending organization. The life of the church moves outward — into new places, new communities, new church plants in spiritually hungry regions — or it begins to turn inward and grow self-focused. The image Pastor Simon used stays with you: a lifeboat does not exist for the comfort of those already inside it. It exists to reach the people still in the water. Sending, then, is not the exceptional calling of exceptional churches. It is simply what a church that understands its purpose does — it gives its best, trusts God, and goes looking for those who haven't been reached yet.

For reflection

Have you ever thought of yourself as someone the church might 'send' — even in a small way, into your own neighborhood or city? What would that look like?

Pray

Pray for the church you belong to — that it would hold its gifted people and resources with an open hand, and trust God's purposes in sending.

Before any of the events in Acts 11 or 13, Jesus gave His disciples a promise and a shape for their mission. 'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere — in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.' This is not a ladder to climb rung by rung. It is a simultaneous, expansive calling — local and global at once. The church at Antioch lived this out without apparently needing to choose between near and far. They reached people in their own city and sent workers to places they had never seen. They gave to the poor in Judea and planted churches across the Mediterranean world. The Spirit who came upon them was not a Spirit of caution or self-preservation. He was a sending Spirit — and He is the same Spirit at work in the church today. This is what it looks like to function as a lifeboat rather than a cruise liner. You care for those inside, yes — but your eye is always on those outside. The power Jesus promised is not for the church's own comfort. It is for witness. Locally, and to the very ends of the earth.

For reflection

What does it look like, practically, for you to be a witness 'in Jerusalem' — meaning right where you already are — this week?

Pray

Pray for a fresh awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence in your everyday life, and for eyes to see the witness opportunities already around you.

Related passageActs 11:19-Acts 13:3

Looking back across this week, three things stand out from the church at Antioch — not as a to-do list, but as a portrait of what it looks like when a community of ordinary people takes God's purposes seriously. They reached. Scattered and under pressure, they spoke about Jesus anyway. The hand of the Lord was with them, and people turned to Him. They built. Barnabas came and loved what he found. He brought Saul. Together they spent a year teaching, and a community began to look unmistakably like Jesus. They sent. When famine hit, they gave generously to people they had never met. When the Spirit spoke, they sent their best people outward to plant the gospel in new soil. None of this required a large church or a famous pastor. It required ordinary people who understood that God's grace changes everything — how you speak, how you grow, how you hold your money and your community. The lifeboat image is not meant to produce guilt. It is meant to restore vision. If you have been found by Jesus, you are already part of the mission. The only question is what it looks like for you to reach, build, and send in the season and place you are actually in.

For reflection

Of the three priorities — reaching, building, and sending — which one feels most alive in your life right now, and which one might God be inviting you to lean into more?

Pray

Pray for a clear and honest sense of where God is calling you to step forward — in courage, in faithfulness, or in generosity — and for the grace to take that step.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

The church at Antioch was an unlikely group in an unlikely place — and yet it turned the ancient world upside down. This message asks what made them who they were, and whether those same things might mark us.

Discussion questions

1
In Acts 11:19-21, the people who first spread the gospel in Antioch are described not as apostles or trained preachers but as ordinary believers scattered by persecution. What does that tell us about who God uses to reach people with the gospel?
2
Acts 11:21 says 'the hand of the Lord was with them.' Pastor Simon pointed to that phrase as a promise for anyone who steps out to point people toward Jesus. What difference might it make to carry that assurance into ordinary conversations about faith?
3
When Barnabas arrives in Antioch in Acts 11:22-26, one of the first things he does is find a Bible teacher and commit to consistent, faithful teaching. Why do you think the sermon connects that kind of steady teaching — rather than big events or programs — with real spiritual growth?
4
Acts 11:27-30 shows the Antioch church sending financial help to people they had never met, in a city they may never have visited. Pastor Simon tied their generosity to their grasp of what God had already given them in Jesus. How does understanding God's generosity shape the way a church thinks about its resources?
5
In Acts 13:1-3, the Holy Spirit asks the Antioch church to set apart Barnabas and Saul — two of their very best leaders — and send them out. Pastor Simon described this as a 'sending voice' running all through Acts. What would it look like for a church to hold its best people and resources with open hands rather than closed ones?
6
Pastor Simon used the image of a lifeboat versus a cruise liner to describe two very different ways a church can see itself. Using what the sermon drew from Antioch's example — reaching, building, sending — how might those three priorities together keep a church oriented as a lifeboat?

Pray together

Courage to reach, faithfulness to grow, and open hands to give and send

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Go deeper

Where these passages are preached

Acts 11 Acts 1 Acts 13 Acts 5

Explore related topics

Evangelism for Every Believer Gospel Outreach Sacrificial Giving Sending Movement Spiritual Growth Through Scripture The Church's Mission

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