Let the Church Be the Church
Acts 2: 36 – 47
A newspaper reporter was doing a story on growing churches, and in preparation for that story he interviewed a number of preachers. I want to share the questions asked of these preachers and then give you my answers to them. One of the questions he asked was, “Why is your church a growing church?”. Now the proper answer to that question is that God makes it grow. Paul said, “I have planted, Apollos has watered, but God gave the increase.”. Any blessing that a church has, the credit for that ought to go to the Lord.
Another question that was asked was, “Why don't other churches grow? Don’t they believe in God?”. Well sometimes churches don’t grow because they’re in a difficult area. Jesus said that some seed will fall on hard ground. And there’s a lot of difference between trying to grow a church in a suburban area and in the inner city or trying to build a church in a growing area and in an area where new people are not moving in. Other churches don’t grow because they have so liberalized the Bible that they have grossly minimized its power. Some have become so legalistic that they have smothered love in the church. Others have bickered among themselves so much that they have quenched the Holy Spirit’s power and they don’t grow.
Another question was, “Does church growth always mean that God is blessing?”. And the answer to that is, “no”. God wants His church to grow and He commissioned us to evangelize, and if the church is doing its job it should grow, but numerical growth in itself is not evidence that God is blessing. A circus can get a crowd. And some of the cults have grown rapidly. So, the church shouldn’t be concerned primarily with statistics. Numerical growth is not the #1 goal. The church should be concerned primarily with faithfulness to God’s Word. And as you’re faithful God will bless you in a number of ways.
With that in mind, I’d like for us today to look back at the very first church in Acts 2. It’s important to remember that the goal is to be faithful to God’s Word and try to restore the church of the 1st century in its principles. A river is purest at its source, so let’s look at the ingredients that were present in the first church in Jerusalem and continue to try to make those the ingredients of the church here at Seaford.
First, the church was a place where:
#1: Lost People Were Saved:
Look at Acts 2:47, “The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”. Now Jesus had taught His disciples that people were lost outside of Christ and they were in need of salvation. By lost He meant they were separated from God and they couldn’t find God and they were bound for a Godless eternity. Jesus said, “I have come to seek and to save that which was lost.”. Now, some people instinctively know that they’re lost. We’ve all heard people says, “Boy, I’ve got to find myself. I’ve got to find out who I am. I’ve got to get my head together.”. Usually what that means is they’re going to leave all their responsibilities behind and get in the car and they’re going to leave family and travel to California or Florida, or some other place and find themselves. I’ve always wondered why it is that nobody expects to find themselves close to home. And they never come back saying, “Oh, I found myself I was just outside of town, wandering around. Boy am I glad.”. But some people instinctively know that they’re lost.
Most people are too proud to admit that. They’ll say, “I’m not lost. I know what I want in life and I’m going for it.”. We say, “Well what about when you die?”. They say, “Well I don’t think that God is going to condemn me to hell because I haven’t been perfect. I’ve been pretty good.”.
Even some Christian people react against the idea that some are saved, and some are lost because it sounds so dogmatic, so inflexible and rigid. They’ll say, “Surely the Lord won’t condemn people just because they didn’t believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.”. But may I remind you that Jesus Christ, Himself, was uniquely qualified to speak on that subject because He died and rose from the dead; and He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”. “He that believes in me and is baptized will be saved, but whoever doesn’t believe will be condemned.”. He said, “Broad is the way and broad is the gate that leads to destruction and many people go that way, but narrow is the way and narrow is the gate that leads to life and only a few find it.”. I think a reason we have a hard time categorizing people as saved or lost is that we don’t understand that the whole world is in defiance of God.
Let’s say that the President of the United States said, “The political situation in Russia is so bad that no United States citizen should enter that county. And if you go, you’re no longer under the protection and the safety of our government.”. But let’s say that I defied that order and I went over to Russia and I was arrested and put in jail and I was sentenced to die because I was a United States spy. I could sit in the cell and I could say, “There’s no way the
President is going to condemn me. He can’t execute me.”. I’m failing to understand that I’m no longer under his protection. I’m no longer in his jurisdiction. I’ve defied his order.
You see God said in the beginning, “If you sin you’ll die. You’ll be separated from me.”. And every one of us has chosen to sin, and we’re a part of this world, and Satan is the prince of this world. We’re no longer, spiritually speaking, under God’s jurisdiction.
But let’s say in that cell the President of the United States still had compassion on me and he sent Seal Team 6 in, and the seal team burst open the outer walls of the cell with explosives and the point man said, “Hurry, follow me, I’ll lead you to safety.”. And I responded, “No, I kinda like it here. A lot of excitement around here, more than is at home. I think I’ll stay. There’s no way the President will execute me.”. And if he said, “I’m the only way. Follow me.”. If I did not follow, the President of the United States wouldn’t be responsible for my death. He wouldn’t be the one executing me. I have disobeyed the command. I have refused the offer of salvation. And I have condemned myself.
Now that’s what the Bible is teaching about this world. We all know what John 3:16 says. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”. Do you know what the next verse says? It says, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already.”. The world is lost. Christ has come as the only Savior.
Now when Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost he made that very clear to the people in Jerusalem. He said in Acts 2:22, “Jesus of Nazareth was proved to be God’s Son by the miracles that He performed. But you with the help of the wicked Romans have executed Him.”. And now he says in verse 36, “Now let all Israel be assured of this: God has made the Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”. You’ve killed Him, God has raised Him from the dead, and one day He’s going to be your judge. No wonder the people said, “What are we going to do? We’re lost.”. Peter said, “You're supposed to do 2 things to be saved.”. Now they already believed or else they wouldn’t have asked the question.
He replied, “Repent . . .”. Now to repent means simply turn. You’ve been walking away from God; turn to God. You’ve been rebelling against Christ; turn to Christ. You’ve been living for self; you submit your will to God. You surrender. And once you’ve repented, he said, “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”. Sometimes, by the way, I’ll meet people who will say, “This was Holy Spirit baptism.”. Well, when Peter said be baptized they knew what he was talking about because John the Baptist had already introduced that ordinance in the Jordan River. And Holy Spirit baptism was that which was performed on the apostles involuntarily at the beginning of this chapter. This was something they were commanded to do. And verse 40 says, “With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves form this corrupt generation.’. And those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.”. Baptism wasn’t something they tacked on weeks later when it was convenient. It was important enough that they repented and were baptized into Christ that very day. And if we’re going to be faithful to God’s Word when people say, “What do I do to become a Christian?”, we say, “Repent, surrender your life to Jesus Christ and be baptized into Him.”.
Herschel Ford told of a group that was taking a tour of the Westminster Abby, the famous cathedral in London. The proud guide was talking about the expensive decorations and the ornate architecture and the seats where famous people had sat. He finished his tour and he said, “Now are there any questions?”. One elderly but plainly dressed woman raised her hand and said, “Yes, has anyone been saved here lately?”. And the guide said, “Excuse me?”. She said, “Has anyone been saved here lately?”. And he couldn’t quite answer that question.
Folks with all of the blessings that God has showered upon this congregation, and with all of the plans that we make for the future of this congregation, and all of the statistics, and all of our fellowship is for nothing if we can’t say that some people are coming to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and as their Savior.
The church was also a place where:
#2: Saved People Were Edified:
The church was more than a maternity ward where people were born into the family; it was a nutrition center where they grew. Look with me at verse 42. And it says that they devoted themselves to 4 things. Here are the 4 ways that we Christian people ought to grow.
First, the apostle’s teaching:
In verse 46 we find that they met every day in the temple courts. What did they do when they met? Well the apostles taught them, and they grew. Jesus said, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”. This Bible is meat and milk for our spirits, and the church needs to be a place where you come to Sunday School and church and you learn more about the Bible. That’s how we grow.
When I began my first preaching ministry 20 years ago at the Zion's Chapel Church of Christ, I decided that most of my preaching would be through a book of the Bible. I felt that by doing that my preaching would deepen and the people’s knowledge would increase. I decided that I wouldn’t be preaching on my pet themes, I would just try to make the Bible as clear as I could make it to people; regardless of what it was talking about. Now, I’ll be honest with you. It’s harder to preach that way, and the first few sermons weren’t very good. Now, I don’t always do that. I do preach topical messages, but most of my preaching is what is known as expository preaching; where you take a passage of scripture and you allow that passage to speak for itself. Instead of wrapping a verse around a theme, you allow the context of the passage to bring the theme out.
Well after about 2 sermons using this method, a friend of mine came up to me and said, “Chris if you keep preaching like that you’re going to empty the church. That’s just not going to work.”. He’s a former mend of mine. But I decided to stick with it and allow God to sharpen me as I stuck to my commitment. And since that time, I’ve discovered that something special happens when this book is taught and preached. I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me or come up to Teresa and said, “Hey, do you have our house bugged? Have my kids been talking to you? How did you know what’s been going on in our life?”. Well, nobody knows, and I don’t have very many houses bugged. But there’s a verse in Hebrews 4 that says, “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”. And when this book is fed to people, something happens. It's alive and we grow.
There are 3 ways we can grow this church.
First, we can grow through gimmicks. I heard about a preacher in West Virginia who announced to his congregation, “If we have don’t have 600 people in attendance next Sunday I’ll jump out of an airplane for the first time.”. They didn’t, and he did, and he got hurt. Let me say right up front, don’t expect that to happen here.
Or we can secondly grow through programming. We bring in the celebrity preachers, you know the elite names in our brother-hood, or we bring in the big singing groups week to week and we can get a crowd. But the problem is that we have to keep blowing up the balloon. We’ve got to have bigger and bigger celebrities.
Or thirdly, we can grow the way I think the Lord would have us grow, and that’s by simply sowing the seed of the Word of God. In Mark 4:26 Jesus said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he doesn’t know how. All by itself the soil produces grain —first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”. All we’ve got to do is sow the seed of the Word of God. Make the Bible as practical and realistic in people’s lives as it can be, and it takes root and it grows. We grow by the apostle’s teaching.
Secondly, the early Christians grew in fellowship.
They developed some deep inner personal relationships. They weren’t just people who were an audience and came to hear the apostles preach. They met in each other’s homes. Look at verse 46, “They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”. If you never open up your home and you never have 2 or 3 people over just to have a meal or something, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to grow in Christian fellowship.
I preached on a Sunday night years ago at a church in Virginia. It was a building that sat about 500 people, and there were about 150 there that night and they were scattered all through the building; some in the front, some in the middle, some all the way in the back, some along the sides. And by their very physical positioning they communicated they really didn’t enjoy being together very much. And I told them they reminded me of strangers on an elevator. You know you get in an elevator and there are 6 people there and everybody gets as far away from each other as they can. Two people leave, and the four people who are left go to their separate corners. Two more leave and the two people who are still on the elevator disperse. If you want to really surprise somebody and you’re on an elevator and there are 4 of you and 2 leave, move closer to that person and see what happens.
The church ought to be a place where we have deep relationships. That’s why there are so many small groups in various churches. You have Sunday School classes, various ladies’ aide groups, Bible study groups, choir, youth group; because if you don’t know anybody you need to develop a small circle of friends in the Christian life so that you can grow, but that circle should be ever expanding. The danger is to become clickish, but that’s not the purpose of the small group. The purpose of the small group is to acclimate people to the church setting and then broaden your circle of involvement.
The early Christians also grew through the breaking of bread, verse 42 says.
Now I want you to see that they worshipped together in a big group. Sometimes people have the mistaken idea that the early church only met in homes, but look at verse 46 where it says, “they met together in the temple courts.”. The temple was big. Saturday was the big day in the temple. Sunday, the Lord’s day, they had plenty of space. And later it says, “the number of disciples increased 5,000 men,” in Acts 4:4. And then in Acts 5:12 it says, “All the believers used to meet together in Solomon 's Colonnade.”. That would be inspiring, wouldn’t it to have well over 5,000 people worshipping Christ together.
Some people will say, “Oh I think a church can get too big. Once you get to 500 or 1,000 people that’s too big. The church should divide and start smaller congregations.”. But may I remind you that the early church had 3,000 — 5,000 and they met together as well as in smaller groups. And when they met together they had the Lord's Supper. They broke bread. Acts 20:7 seems to indicate they had communion every week. Jesus said in John 6, “If you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have life in you. For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.”. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11 that the Corinthians who were abusing the Lord’s Supper were growing weak and sick and some of them had fallen asleep. And if Christian people only observe the Lord’s Supper once a year, or once every 6 months, they’re missing out on an opportunity to grow.
Folks, if we love the Lord, once a week is not too often to be around His table and grow by doing so.
They also grew by being devoted to prayer.
They prayed. Can I share with you the most profound statement you will ever hear? As a matter of fact, what I’m about to tell you is so meaningful that you ought to write it down on the inside cover of your Bible. Here it is: EVERYTHING WORKS BETTER PLUGGED IN. Isn’t that deep? Everything works better plugged in. If we try to build this church on our own power and not plug in to the power of God, we’re not going to be successful. The real secret is prayer. The old timers used to say, “You don’t work a revival up, you pray it down.”.
And all this Pentecost experience was preceded by a 10-day long prayer meeting in an upper room. And then verse 43 says, “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done among them.”. They prayed and then they experienced God’s power. And one of the reasons churches don’t grow through prayer is that they don’t try anything that requires God’s power. We’ve got our budgets and they’re carefully lined out, and we’ve got our programs and we follow them, and we’ve got our schedules, and everything is very businesslike, but there’s never a step of faith, so we don’t have to pray.
As your preacher, I urge everyone in this congregation to pray every day that God would be the controlling force in this church. As a church family we need to fast and pray that God would bring to fruition the vision that was cast when this church was first established. I believe that as we do this God will honor our prayers and we will be blessed. But if we try to accomplish any of the goals we might have on our own power and for our own glory, they will fail, and we will have failed God.
It’s kind of like the little boy who was asked if he prayed before he went to bed at night, and he said, “Yep.”. They said, “Do you pray when you get up in the morning?”. He said, “Nope.”. They said, “Well how come?”. He said, “I’m not scared during the day time.”.
And if you don’t have a challenge then you’re not going to pray. Folks we have a tremendous challenge before us. God has presented us with an opportunity to do big things for Him, but if we don’t include Him in everything that we do, and if we don’t rally together and move as one body to glorify Him through our efforts, then those efforts will be in vain and it will all come to nothing.
On March 3rd, 1944 one of the worst train disasters ever in the history of mankind took place. Over 500 people were killed in that tragedy. The train didn’t run off the track, it didn’t hit another train, the disaster wasn’t caused by a mudslide, the bridge didn’t give out. It was a rain-soaked night near Salerno, Italy. The train, which was being pulled by 2 locomotives, was going up a rather steep incline inside the Armi tunnel; it was later discovered that low-grade coal is what caused the train to stop. They did what was necessary to get the train started but it wouldn’t start and unfortunately it stopped inside the tunnel. Poisonous gas, carbon monoxide set in and 517 people on the train died, many of them were found in much the same position as you are right now. They were just sitting peacefully in their seats.
Upon further investigation as to why the train wouldn’t start moving they discovered that the engineer in the front locomotive had his throttle wide open in the forward position, but the engineer in the 2nd locomotive had his throttle wide open in the reverse position. 517 people died because 2 men couldn’t make up their minds the direction they wanted to go. Folks, we have to work together and move together to accomplish God’s purpose for this church.
So, the Christians ought to be people of prayer, people who are growing in the faith.
Quickly, one other characteristic of the New Testament church was:
#3: It was A Place Where People Who Were Edified Ministered To Others:
Healthy people don’t just eat; they exercise. And healthy Christians don’t just come and feed on the Word, fellowship, break bread, and pray; they serve others. Jesus said, “I didn’t just come to be ministered to; I came to minister to others.”. So, the early church ministered to the poor among them. Look at verse 45, “They sold their possessions and their goods, and they gave to anyone as he had need.”. There were a lot of poor people in Jerusalem because they had a famine, and the Romans were oppressing them. And the Christians were very sensitive to those in their number who were financially in need. We need to be also.
If there are those in the church who are financially in need we need to try and respond to that. But there are other needs, aren’t there, other than physical?
There are people with emotional problems, and they need counseling.
There are people who have family members in prison, and they hurt, and they need support.
There are people who have gone through divorce, and they hurt, and they need other people to encourage them and lift them up. They need to be ministered to.
There are people who struggle with chemical dependency, and they need love and support. They need an alternative to the desires that war against their soul.
And there are all types of ministries that the church ought to extend to the needy and the hurting, and we don’t have to be a congregation of 500 people before we can minister in these ways.
Jesus said in Matthew 25 that in the last day He’s going to say to those on His right hand, “’Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’. And the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see you in that condition?’ and He will say, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.’”.
So, you see, there’s kind of a circle that takes place. In the church lost people are saved, and the saved people grow, and as they grow they minister, and as they minister they evangelize, and the church should be an expanding circle; if we’re to be the church of Jesus Christ.
In closing I want to share with you an article that talks about the difference between an alive church and a dead church. I think this is so apropos for our circumstance, and I’d like to share it.
Live churches have lots of noisy youth ----- dead churches are fairly quiet.
Live churches always have parking problems dead churches don’t.
Live churches are filled with folk with Bible in hand ----- dead churches aren’t.
Live churches are constantly improving and planning for the future dead churches worship their past.
Live churches are intense and serious about praise ----- dead churches aren’t.
Live churches grow so fast you forget people’s names ----- in dead churches everybody knows everybody’s name for years.
Live churches move out on faith ----- dead churches operate totally by sight.
Live churches support missions very heavily ----- dead churches keep it all at home.
Live churches focus on people ----- dead churches focus on programs.
Live churches dream great dreams for God ----- dead churches relive nightmares.
Live churches have the fresh wind of love blowing ----- dead churches are stale with bickering.
Live churches don’t have “can’t” in their dictionary ----- dead churches have nothing else but.
Live churches evangelize ----- dead churches fossilize.
May God help the Seaford Christian Church to be an alive church because we serve an alive Savior.
