Challenges for the Church
by: Donny Granberry
Acts 20:27-32 NIV
For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.
32 "Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
The days before us are going to be the greatest days for this church, should Jesus tarry.
We must rise to the occasion to which God has raised up Central, for there is no limit to what God can accomplish in and through us.
Not that this church, or that this pastor can receive any glory, but that Jesus Christ will be exalted.
He said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”
1. We must be people of the word of God.
We must be doctrinally sound.
Paul said in this passage, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”
This is not a spiritual cafateria, you do not pick and choose what you desire to believe and not believe.
Let us not be guilty of having a feel good, do good, gospel, but God has called us to be prophets and proclaimers of the whole counsel of God.
Let our doctrine be Bible-based, our preaching Bible-founded, and our discipleship based on the word of God.
*ILLUSTRATION*
On October 31, 1983, a Korean airliner departed on a flight from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, South Korea.
Unknown to the flight crew, the flight navigation system computer contained a degree-and-a-half routing error.
At the point of takeoff it was unnoticeable, but as the 747 flew over the Pacific, it increasingly strayed off course, eventually into Soviet air space.
Soviet radar spotted the plane and sent fighter jets to intercept it, and over mainland Russia, the 747 disappeared and all those on board lost their lives.
Church this can happen to our doctrine if we are not careful.
Our doctrine has proven over the years now to be divinely blessed by God.
God’s approval has rested upon us, and our doctrine is not negotiable.
My concern is not the attack from outside, but from within.
I there are Trojan horse’s in our ranks, and they must be taken care of.
Romans 16:17 KJV
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
We must be a people that stays in the word and is a defender of the Gospel.
2. We must be people given to fasting and prayer.
Acts 2:42 – The early church “Continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine…and in prayer.”
The battles of the church are not won in board rooms, gymnasiums, fellowship groups, or in social events, these have their place, but the battles are won in the prayer room.
The enemy’s strongholds are torn down when the church prays, “When they had prayed, the place was shaken.” (Acts 4:31)
God has blessed the church with resources and facilities and talent, but these are not substitutes for fasting and prayer.
We have a reputation as a people given to fasting and prayer, and we must not begin to think that it can be done any other way.
3. We must be a people of discipleship.
This fellowship owns and operates 17 colleges and Universities in the U.S. alone where men and women are trained in many professions along with ministry.
This alone will not disciple our people, they must be discipled through the church.
This is one reason we feel such a strong importance in our Christian Education.
We feel that it is important enough that we have a Pastoral Staff member who is assigned to Christian Education.
We are not seeking to train people to teach with intoxicating eloquence, but under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:4,5
My speech and preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.
We need leaders who can boldly profess, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”
4. We must people of evangelism.
The early church was evangelistic.
First, 3,000 were added, then 5,000 were added, and then multitudes.
I believe that we are in the season of harvest.
God has called the church to go outside the walls of this building and to compel them to come in so they can come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
Some may say, Pastor I have tried, and have not had much success.
The Bible says that if we sow bountifully, we will reap bountifully.
*ILLUSTRATION*
When my father walked into church that Easter Sunday morning and sat down, God told the pastor of that church, there is your revival.
The pastor and another gentleman from the church went over to our home the next week to visit my Dad and to invite him back.
5 weeks after that initial Easter Sunday morning visit, Dad received Christ as his Savior, and today, some 44 years later and 42 years in the ministry it is safe to say that thousands have been added into the kingdom from my father’s ministry.
Evangelism is still the key to how the church is built.
Some churches are trying to harvest, without planting.
It will not happen, that is a violation of God’s word.
They that sow in tear’s, shall reap in joy.
5. We must be a people who are spirit led, and spirit dependent.
Galatians 3:3
Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh.
We cannot move from what has been the success of the church and begin to rely of mans methods for success.
It will not happen.
It will not happen.
When Sampson got a hair cut, the bible says that he became just as other men.
We cannot become just as any other’s.
God’s ways may not always seem practical, but the will always work.
• Who would have thought that a stone would bring Goliath down?
• Who would have thought that as the children of Israel walked around Jericho, blew their horns, and shouted, that the walls would have come down.
• Who would have thought that you could feed 5,000 men, plus women and children with 5 loaves and 2 fish?
• Who would have thought that by shouting into the tomb of Lazarus, he would arise from the dead?
God will continue to do the miraculous within the church today, but He will do it in such a way that He receives the glory.
“IT’S NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER, BUT BY MY SPIRIT SAYS THE LORD.”
6. We must be a people of Pentecostal Passion.
That is what took Lillian Trasher to Egypt.
That is what took Mark Buntain to India.
That is what took Bernard Johnson to Brazil.
That is what has leads Missionaries to give their life for the cause of the cross.
Toady, on Sunday nights, there are more churches with their doors closed than open, don’t tell me you have a passion.
God desires to empower His church with a Pentecostal passion that will change this world.
We don’t need better preaching, we don’t need better eloquence, we need Pentecostal passion.
Call it Zeal, call it fervency, call it passion, call it what you will but let it fall on the church again.
God, touch us again with your spirit, let us burn within.
David said, “I shall be anointed again with fresh oil.”
My prayer is, God touch this church again with your spirit, with fresh oil, with Pentecostal passion.
