Acts Of The Apostles (9 Of 39)

The people learned to fear the Lord, and those who loved Him went on serving Him faithfully, filling all of Jerusalem with their doctrine.

Look at Acts 5:28, We read, “Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.”

The purging of the church of hypocrisy, was a wonderful thing for the church.

The purging is still needed, because those who do not truly love the Lord, continue to do the same things Ananias and his wife did.

Illus: A little boy asked his dad, "What is a hypocrite?” The dad thought for a few seconds, and said, "Son, a hypocrite is like the man who smiles when he gives his wife his paycheck! "

Illus: Someone said, "A hypocrite is someone who writes a book on atheism, and prays it will sell."

When God purged the early church, it was because of the problem of hypocrisy. But once he purged the church, they had another problem, they began to multiply. This was a good problem.

The church became too large for the twelve disciples to take care of, and it was brought to their attention that some of the widows were being neglected.

I. THE SADNESS

Look at Acts 6: 1, We read, “And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.”

When a church begins to grow, they will have GROWING PAINS.

One of the problems was that the Grecian widows felt like they were being neglected. Look at-

A. THE MULTIPLYING

“And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied... "

Notice, the Bible says, "And in those days... "

This speaks of a definite time. The thing that makes this time period stand out is, “...the number of the disciples was multiplied... "

But, as a church grows, so do the number of problems.

Many churches have the mistaken idea that they need to grow, and once they have grown, they will not have any more problems.

Illus: That is as ridiculous as it would be for a child to believe that once they grow up, they will never have any more problems.

Church growth can solve some problems, but it creates a whole new set of problems.

We have looked at THE MULTIPLYING, but let us look at-

B. THE MINISTRY

There have always been groups of people here and there, who will start churches for the wrong reasons. For example, some churches exist today because of a:

1. COMMUNITY REASON.

Every new community has to have a new church. We all agree that every new community should have a church. But what people should be asking is, "Why does God want every community to have a Church?”

God would have a church in every community, BECAUSE many of the people in that community are lost and need to be saved, and need the spiritual guidance of God's Word.

They also need to be ministered to physically, from time to time.

Look at James 1:27, we read, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

Starting a church just because every new community needs a church, is starting a church for the wrong reason.

Another reason some folks start a new church is because of the conflict in the old church. This is the-

2. CONFLICT REASON

In some churches, it seems that every new conflict starts a new church.

I know of churches that have split so many times, there is not much left to split any more.

HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY?

Every time a new conflict arose, several families split away, and begin having meetings in someone's living room. Soon these folks get mad with each other and that split splits.

Illus: A church in Newberry, South Carolina, had such a group. One rather large family became angry about something, and felt they had the numbers to have enough leverage to get things their way. When they found out they couldn’t, they pulled out and found a middle-aged preacher, and started a church in a house. They set out to prove to everyone that they could build a church. They all sacrificed and gave enough money to build a lovely church building on top of a hill.

After some time went by, the members of this group got mad at each other. Soon, there were only a handful of people attending that church. If you visit that church today, you will find two cars in the parking lot, because there are only two families left. Neither family will leave, because they are afraid the other family will sell the building and keep all the money.