Biblical Church 2019 (Growing)
Text: Acts 2:39-47
Today we’re finishing the series we started a few weeks back on being a Biblical Church. And I challenged you all to stick with me during this study (and I hope you have) because I wanted you to see how it all ties together, and how each element not only builds on the others, but how they are all intertwined, and interwoven. Each element upholds the other, and supports the other, and they’re all intricately connected… (kind of like an igloo – how they all support and rely on one another). Now if you remember, what we’ve seen so far is that a Biblical Church is #1 – a church that is made up of Biblical Christians… people who have been truly converted, and saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ. #2 – it’s a church that is devoting itself to learning God’s Word. #3 – it is a church that is also sharing God’s Word and making disciples. And, #4 – it’s a church that is worshiping God as directed by God’s Word. Today we’re going to look at how a Biblical Church, is a church that is growing in a Biblical way.
Not too long ago, I was reading an article on the Christianity Today website, and on the side of the webpage, there was an advertisement that said, “Come to such and such seminar, where you will be effectively trained in how to grow your church”… and it was only $349.00 to attend… not counting travel expenses and food and lodging… what a bargain right? On Tuesday, as I was preparing this sermon, I thought, “You know what? I’ll just do a little experiment.” So I went to Amazon and clicked the books link, and then typed in “Church Growth” … 30 thousand plus books! There are more than 30,000 books related to “Church Growth” on Amazon… so I looked at LifeWay… 3000 + books related to church growth on LifeWay. And then if you just do a Yahoo or Google search on “Church Growth”, you’ll find those books, and you’ll find companies saying things like, “You’ve got to have the latest technology”, “You’ve got to have the right kind of music, lighting, advertising, Sunday school curriculum, the right kind of preaching, the right kind of parking, the right kind of small groups, the right kind of website”.
And on and on it goes. And I was… I admit… a little overwhelmed… I mean; 30,000 books? Which one do you read? Which of the hundreds of seminary courses promising strategic church growth strategies do you take? Out of the thousands of advertising companies out there do you employ?
Now if you were to look at a map of the growth of the Church from the time of Jesus’ death to 310 AD (roughly the time Constantine the Great made Christianity the “official” religion of the Roman Empire), you’d see that the Church grew immensely during that time. Basically it spread from the city of Jerusalem, and in a little over 270 years, it covered the Roman Empire… in other words large portions of Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. By 500 AD it covered all of Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, parts of Russia, parts of India, parts of Central Africa, and had made inroads to China. All without books on Church growth, or demographic reports, or metrics reports, or the internet, or cell-phones, or FB, or podcasts, or cars. And if you want to talk about numbers… Well on the Day of Pentecost, we know that that the Church started with 120 believers, and in one day it jumped to over 3000 Christians. But it didn’t stop there… By the year 310 AD… we don’t know exactly how many Christians there were, but we do know that around 7 million had been martyred for their faith because we’ve found and dated their catacombs. It’s been estimated that by 500 AD there were more than 40 million Christians in the Roman Empire. So the Church grew from 120 people to over 40 million in 470 years without the help of modern technology or modern church growth strategies, while at the same time enduring some of the worst persecution ever perpetrated on a group of people in recorded history.
Now let me just take that to a modern context for you…
In 1950 it was estimated that in China there were between 1 and 4 million Christians. By 2010, the best estimates were that there were over 160 million Christians in China (60 years – 156 million+ Christians were added to the Church). Again all while being heavily persecuted.
A study by Georgetown says that by 2020 there will be around 260 million Christians in China (that's just the ones we know about)...
How did that happen? Well you don’t need to buy 30,000 books from Amazon to figure that out… just one… THE BIBLE. And in the Bible (Matthew 16:18), JESUS SAYS, “I will build My Church…” The only One who can grow a church is Jesus. It’s our job to find out in what way he wants to use us in order to do that. So what we’re going to do is go back to a text that we’ve already looked at in this series… Acts chapter 2:39-47 and see how God ties all of this together.
(READ TEXT)
Now notice how verse 39 starts out here. Peter is explaining salvation… He’s explaining how God has a plan to save the lost and add them to His Church. And he explains how this works…
He says, “For the promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God CALLS TO HIMSELF.” So the Church grows when the Lord calls someone to Himself. Paul says it this way in Romans 8:30, “And those whom He predestined He also CALLED, and those whom He called, He also justified, and those whom He justified, He also glorified.” And if you look back at our text, verse 41 says, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
How were 3000 souls added? By receiving the Word of God… what made them capable of receiving the Word of God? Why were they able to? Because they were among those whom the Lord has called to Himself. Remember the words of Jesus in John 6?
John 6:29 – it’s the work of God that you believe… John 6:37 – “All that the Father gives to Jesus will come to Jesus”… John 6:44 – “No one can come to Jesus unless the Father (that’s God the Father) draws him”… John 6:65 – “No one can come to Jesus unless it’s granted him by the Father.”
That is how Jesus is building His Church, and that is how the Church grows. Let me just take you through a whirlwind tour of the Book of Acts and show you…
Acts 2:47 – The Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.
Acts 4:4 – (READ); So we started with 120… then on Pentecost we went over 3000, now here’s another 5000 men… not counting women and children. And this is in the space of a few weeks’ time. In just a few weeks’ time, the Church has gone from 120 to probably over 10,000 people. Then we come to Acts 5:14 (READ)… multitudes… Luke has stopped counting numbers, it’s too many to keep up with. Acts 6:7 (READ)… now we’ve got priests getting saved. And we go through the Book of Acts, and it goes from Peter and John’s ministries to Paul’s and not only are multitudes being saved, we see churches being planted all throughout the Roman Empire… People from the Middle East, and Africa, and Europe are getting saved and planting churches, and Christ is building His Church. He started in Jerusalem, then Antioch, and He continued to build it in Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Sardis, Athens, and even in Rome… and as it goes forward; people get delivered from demonic oppression and possession, and from perversion, and from idolatry, and from greed and lust, and pride.
That’s the beginning of Christ growing His Church, and it’s amazing! It’s awesome! There’s no techniques given here… no methodologies. No 5 easy steps to be more attractional. God’s not interested in man-made philosophies on Church Growth… But He does give us some spiritual principles and some spiritual disciplines…
Well what are they?
Go back to our text and look at verse 41 (READ)… Peter was preaching the Word, and they received the Word… go with me over to 1 Peter 1:23 (READ)… How is a person born again? Through the living and abiding WORD OF GOD! How does faith come? Through hearing, and the hearing the produces faith comes through the Word of Christ.
A growing Church is a Church that is devoted to learning God’s Word, and sharing God’s Word. You say, “Wait a minute Pastor Ken… that’s mark 1 and mark 2 of a Biblical Church… that’s what you preached about like 3 & 4 weeks ago…” YUP! That’s exactly right.
And that’s not all… look again at verses 42 – 47 “And they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the Apostles. And all who believed were TOGETHER and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
Do you see it?
People, men and women, who have been truly born again and saved by the grace of God, have devoted themselves to learning God’s Word, and to sharing God’s Word, and to worshiping the Lord, as directed by God’s Word.
You know the Bible tells us that an unbeliever cannot rightly understand God’s Word… it’s seems foolish to them, it seems irrelevant. It takes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Who illuminates God’s Word and opens our minds to understand it correctly. And it’s a process of abiding in His Word, devoting ourselves to learning it and understanding, and studying to show ourselves approved RIGHTLY DIVIDING the Word of truth.
The Bible also tells us that an unbeliever cannot rightly worship God… they might think they are… they might say what they’re doing is worshiping God, but God’s Word says they can’t… Because they don’t know the truth, and we must worship in Spirit and in Truth… it says they worship in vain, and that their worship appeals to their sinful, worldly nature, and does not glorify God.
And that causes a dilemma for worldly minded people. Worldly minded people say that the Church has to be worldly in order to attract the worldly. So our worship has to be worldly… our sermons have to be worldly, our programs have to be worldly. But the Bible says the complete opposite of that. The Bible says that the Church is made up of those that the Lord has added… it’s made up of those who have been born again by the incorruptible Seed of God’s Word… and because they are truly born again, they devote themselves to learning God’s Word and Worshiping God as His Word commands… That’s not to say that an unbeliever can’t walk into a congregation. I assume that every time I preach that there might be someone who does not know the Lord… But the way the Bible says we reach the lost, is not by making this what we’re doing now, attractional to the worldly… it says we are to GO INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL! That’s why Jesus said “GO!” Sharing God’s Word. Sharing the Gospel! The Good News.
Church family; I can promise you, that if we did this, we would grow. We’d grow spiritually, we’d grow in numbers… maybe not by 3000 people in a day, but who knows? It’s up to God to bring about the increase.
Yes; there are other elements to being a Biblical Church… leadership, church discipline, ministries, a devotion to prayer, and missions, and giving, and other things, but they bridge out from these 5. And every single one of us here knows, our world is not the same as it was in 1960… or 1980… or even the year 2000. 2020 is just one month away… So church, as your pastor, over the next few weeks I’m going to be meeting with our deacons, our leaders, our Sunday school teachers, and we’re going to be assessing our church. We’re going to be looking at how Biblical we are… and how Biblical we’re willing to be. We’re going to seek the Lord and see what God would have us do, and be. And I’m going to ask all of you to be in prayer about this through the month of December. Pray that Christ will strengthen, and lead us and guide as, and continue to build His Church in Sharon Oklahoma.
Let’s Pray
CLOSING
