For the last one thousand, seven hundred years, Christians across the world have recited the Nicene Creed in their worship. Part of the Nicene Creed says, "We believe in one holy, catholic, apostolic church." What does that really mean? We know what "one" means, that it refers to the oneness of the Christian community, that we’re united in by a common faith, no matter who we are, what language we speak, where we live. We know what "holy" means, that the Church belongs to God, it’s set apart to him. And the word "catholic" simply means "universal," that this church is the universal Christian community across the world that transcends different denominations and traditions.
But what about that word "apostolic"; what does it mean? Someone in my family this week told me they thought it had something to do with apples. Well, apostolic isn’t a word we use very much these days, but what we think about first when we hear the word is the apostles. Out of all Jesus’ followers, Jesus choose twelve and named them apostles. The word Jesus chose "apostle" suggests these twelve people had special and unique authority, that they spoke and acted with Jesus’ own authority. So they were more than pastors, more than evangelists and leaders; they were official representatives of Jesus himself.
But the title "apostle" wasn’t handed down past that first generation that Jesus personally chose, so there’s debate among churches as to how a church today can still be considered "apostolic." The Roman catholic church claims that the authority of the apostles was handed down through the pope, so Roman Catholic pope is a living apostle of Jesus Christ, with the same authority the apostles Peter and Paul had. The Eastern Orthodox church suggests the authority of the apostles was handed down to the bishops in the church, so the leadership of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the source of apostolic authority. Some charismatic churches believe that God directly calls certain individuals to be living apostles of Jesus. For instance, Peter Wagner, who used to teach at Fuller Seminary, believes himself to be a living apostle of Jesus. According to Wagner, these living apostles have unique authority to speak and act in Jesus’ name, and they receive direct revelation from God about what God wants to say to the Christian community.
Well the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago, this question about what makes a church apostolic was a big debate. The Protestant Reformers Martin Luther, John Wycliffe, and John Huss noticed that after the original apostles all died, the way the second generation of Christians sorted through which Christian books were considered scripture and which books weren’t scripture was by looking at whether the book was apostolic or not. Every book they could determine was written by an apostle, endorsed by an apostle, or associated with an original apostle of Jesus was viewed as scripture, thus to be included in the Bible. Every book that wasn’t written by, endorsed by, or associated with an apostle was rejected as scripture. The Reformers concluded from this observation the authority of Jesus’ apostles wasn’t passed on to people but it was written down in the writings of the apostles. According to the Reformers, apostolic authority was handed down from generation to generation as the Bible was handed down from generation to generation. And a given group of Christians is living under apostolic authority if its living under the authority of the Bible. This was one of the key beliefs of the Protestant Reformation that separated it from the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Now I agree with the Protestant Reformers on this issue, and our church is essentially a Reformation church on this issue. But there’s another dimension to being apostolic that’s often overlooked. Churches debate apostolic authority and where it lies, whether in the pope, in the bishops, in a self-appointed apostle or in the Bible. But there’s also a more practical dimension of being apostolic, certain ministry characteristics that make a congregation apostolic in its focus that we tend to ignore. It’s possible for a church to live under apostolic authority because it accepts the authority of the Bible but for that same congregation to not be apostolic in this practical sense. That’s what I want to talk about today.
We’ve been in a series through the New Testament book of Romans called Good News For Our Times. The apostle Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome while he’s staying in the Greek city of Corinth. Paul’s never been to Rome, so he’s writing to prepare for a visit, as we’ll see in a few minutes.
Today we’re going to see five characteristics of an apostolic ministry. We’re going to ask whether our congregation is truly apostolic in this practical sense.
1. Trusting People (Romans 15:14)
Let me just give you the first characteristic: An apostolic ministry trusts ordinary people to minister to each other.
Look at v. 14. Paul expresses his conviction that the church in Rome is filled with healthy, mature Christians. His phrase "full of goodness" doesn’t mean perfect, but it reflects Paul’s belief that their motives were right and their hearts were in the right place. The phrase "complete in knowledge" doesn’t mean they’re "know it alls," but it means they’re mature in their understanding of the Christian faith. Finally, because their hearts are in the right place and they’re mature in their faith, Paul’s confident that the Roman Christians are competent to instruct each other.
Now how does Paul know this? He’s never visited the church in Rome before. Although Paul knows some of the people there, he’s not intimately acquainted with the congregation. I believe Paul has learned to trust people to minister to each other. I think Paul assumes a Christian’s spiritual maturity until he sees good reasons to question it. Even though Paul is an apostle, he’s very careful here that the Roman Christians don’t develop a sense of dependency on Paul. Paul’s saying, "I’m coming for a visit, but you really don’t need me there because you’re already a healthy church."
We have a lot to learn about trusting people to minister to each other in the church today. It’s almost like pastors and church leaders today have watched too many episodes of the X-Files, because the rule seems to be, "Trust nobody." When I took a course in church growth in seminary I learned that the number one reason why churches in America are unable to grow beyond about 100 people is because the pastor can’t trust other people to minister.
I had a defining moment in this area of trusting people to minister here at LBF a few years ago. One Sunday morning I saw a person working in children’s ministry who I didn’t know. Now don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t someone who just wandered into the church off the street. I knew this ministry volunteer had been screened and trained by Pastor Edna, one of our pastors of Family Ministry, but I simply didn’t know this person personally. I couldn’t tell you the person’s name or how long this person and her family had been attending the church. It felt strange. Then God spoke to my heart that day, and said, "Tim, if you need to personally know every person who serves in ministry, this church can’t grow any bigger than you are. Is this going to be a Tim sized church or a God sized church?" That day I made a decision to trust people, not a naïve trust without accountability, but a commitment to those around me unless I have reasons not to. I made a commitment to trust our other pastors to do what God has called them to do, to trust people who go through the process to serve in ministry even if I don’t know them personally.
An apostolic ministry is willing to trust people to minister.
2. Outreach As Worship (Romans 15:15-17)
Now let me give you the second characteristic: An apostolic ministry sees reaching non-Christians as an act of worship.
Look at vv. 15-16. Here Paul clarifies why if he thinks the church in Rome is relatively healthy, he’s spoken boldly on some issues. In a sense Paul says, "I can’t help it because I’m an apostle. I can’t help but talk like this, so don’t take it personally." But he knows he’s just reminding the Roman Christians of what they already know. If you underline in your Bible, underline the words "minister," "priestly duty" and "offering" in v. 16. These are all technical words in Greek that are used to describe the Jewish priests who offered animal sacrifices in the Jewish temple. The Jewish priest was called a "minister" who had a "priestly duty" to the sacrifices as an "offering" before God.
Paul uses these technical terms drawn from temple worship in Judaism to describe his own apostolic ministry. Instead of being a temple priest, Paul is a minister of Jesus, and instead of being in the Jerusalem temple, Paul serves on the frontiers of the Roman empire. And instead of having a priestly duty to bring animal sacrifices as an offering, Paul’s priestly duty is to share the good news about Jesus with people. So the offering Paul presents to God is the fruit of his efforts to reach non-Jewish people with the good news of Christ.
Paul refused to divide outreach and worship. For Paul, and for apostolic ministries, worship and outreach belong together. You see, our worship isn’t just singing songs of praise, listening to sermons, giving our tithe to God and celebrating communion and baptism, but its also sharing the good news with seekers. This is why our worship services are seeker sensitive, as we sing songs of praise to God, celebrate communion and receive new believers in baptism, teach and preach through the Bible and pray, but we also try make our worship services a safe place for seekers to investigate the Christian faith.
We believe worship and outreach belong together, and apostolic churches keep these two things together.
3. Reaching Unreached People (Romans 15:17-22)
Let me give you the third characteristic: An apostolic ministry seeks God’s power to reach people other ministries have failed to reach.
Look at vv. 17-22. Paul demonstrates incredible confidence in his calling here, but he’s quick to point out that it’s a confidence that comes from Christ and not from Paul himself. Here we find Paul’s sense of calling was to share the good news of Christ in places where there’s no church. It’s this calling that’s hindered Paul from visiting the church in Rome up to this point, so they shouldn’t take his lack of a previous visit personally or read anything in to it.
Paul pictures the region from the city of Jerusalem to the city of Illyricum as being like a big circle. Now Jerusalem is in modern day Israel, and Illyricum is in what used to be Yugoslavia, modern day Croatia, Bosnia, and Albania. Within this circle Paul has planted about a dozen Christian churches in key cities. Paul’s strategy seems to be to plant a church in a key city, and then to empower that church’s leaders to fan out into the smaller towns and villages. So Paul’s not saying that there are no longer any non-Christians in this circle, but he feels like he’s laid the foundation for the churches he’s started to proclaim God’s good news in this entire area.
Paul comments here about the power that makes his ministry of starting new churches where there are none. This power is a reflection of what Jesus is accomplishing in Paul life; it’s not just a natural ability. It’s a ministry of proclaiming the good news and following it up with incredible things, signs and wonders.
Paul’s saying that his apostolic ministry is focused on seeking God’s power to reach people other ministries have failed to reach. We see the same sense of calling in missionaries who go to people groups who have never heard about Jesus Christ. There are still thousands of people groups in the world who have never heard about Jesus.
But we also see apostolic ministry in a local church when a church decides to focus its efforts on reaching unchurched people other churches have been unable to reach. There are thousands of people in our community traditional churches have been unable to reach. This is what we mean by unchurched people.
You see, it’s pretty easy for a church to reach Christians for Christ. Most of the church growth we see here in Southern California is just that, as local churches swap members like you’d mix playing cards from several different decks of cards. So although one church might grow bigger than another church, the growth hasn’t been kingdom growth, because the bigger church has simply reached more Christians for Christ, probably luring them away from a few smaller churches. And here in Southern California, you can grow a big church that way, simply by luring people away from other congregations with better music, a stronger youth ministry, more inspiring preaching, or whatever.
An apostolic church doesn’t want any part of that. An apostolic church wants to reach people who don’t yet know Christ. An apostolic ministry gets excited about seeing people come to know Christ and become part of the life of the congregation. An apostolic ministry would just assume people who are already Christians stay at the church they already go to.
We want our congregation to be an apostolic ministry. Our mission statement says we believe God has called us to reach unchurched people from the Inland Valley and beyond with Christ’s love and to help them grow into fully devoted followers of Christ. We have no desire to reach those who are on the church circuit, going from congregation to congregation in hope of finding something better than what they had in their last congregation. May God help us continue to grow into an apostolic congregation, a congregation that isn’t content to just get bigger, but that’s passionate about seeking God’s power to reach people other churches have failed to reach.
4. Asking For Help (Romans 15:23-29)
Let me give you the fourth characteristic: An apostolic ministry asks for help from mature Christians to impact other people.
Look at vv. 23-29. Here we learn about the apostle Paul’s travel plans. He ultimately wants to go as a missionary to Spain, and it’s in preparation for that trip that Paul will come to Rome. In v. 24 we find one of Paul’s main reasons for writing his letter to the church in Rome. Paul’s hoping that the church in Rome will "assist" Paul in his mission to Spain. Now the word "assist" here is a technical term for financial support. Paul is counting on the Roman Christians foot the bill for his outreach to Spain.
Here we learn that Romans is at least partially a fund raising letter from a missionary seeking to pave the way for a visit where he asks for financial support for his mission. What Paul’s done in Romans is outline his message, his understanding of the gospel, so the Roman Christians can be in a position of deciding whether or not it’s a message they can financially get behind. He also wants prayer support, and perhaps even some members from the church to join his ministry team to Spain.
But before Paul can visit Rome he has some unfinished business to attend to. You see, Paul is right in the middle of a fund raising project of collecting an cash offering from the churches he’s started to give to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Now perhaps "fund raising project" isn’t the best term for it, because we think of fund raising as bingo nights, little league candy bars, and red thermometers. But whatever you call it, Paul has been raising money from the churches he’s started for a specific ministry goal. You see, a few years earlier a terrible famine hit the Jewish people living in Jerusalem. This famine resulted in economic disaster for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, because their faith in Jesus as the Messiah cut off from help from the rest of the Jewish community. Paul saw this economic recession as an opportunity for him as an apostle to build a build unity between the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and the non-Jewish Christians in the churches he’s started. Paul believes that the non-Jewish Christians have a spiritual duty to help out their Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s possible Paul was thinking of several prophecies from the Old Testament that predicted a time when non-Jewish nations would bring their wealth to Jerusalem. Perhaps Paul views his fundraising project as a fulfillment of those prophecies. But Paul also knows that if the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem accept this offering, it will communicate acceptance of the non-Jewish Christians as equal members of the Christian community. So Paul has been raising this money for some time, and now he’s in Corinth picking up the last contribution before he goes to Jerusalem to deliver the offering.
His plan is to travel from Corinth to Jerusalem, drop off the offering, and then sail to Rome. But he reminds the church in Rome that his ultimate goal is Spain, to find a support base in Rome to take the good news of Christ to ancient Spain.
In a sense, Paul is raising money on two fronts here. On the one hand he’s completing his project to collect money for the poverty stricken Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and getting ready to drop that offering off. He asked for donations to that from the churches in Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Galatia. You can read all about that project in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. Paul doesn’t ask the Romans to give toward that because he’s finishing that project and he’s only asking for contributions from churches Paul himself started. But Paul’s also looking ahead, to his planned mission to Spain, and trying to lay the foundation for financial support for that.
Apostolic ministries ask for help from mature Christians. Reaching people for Christ takes resources; it takes money, it takes effort, it takes people, and it takes time. I know of one church that’s particularly effective in reaching unchurched people. That congregation did a study of how much money it was taking them to reach people with the good news of Christ, and they found that it took at least $1000 to reach one unchurched person for Christ. Like I said, it’s much easier to reach Christians for Christ than those who don’t yet know Christ, and a lot less expensive.
Now where should the money come from to reach people? Paul would say it should come from healthy, mature Christians. Paul didn’t always get that support, and sometimes he had to work a second job to fulfill his apostolic ministry, but he believed in an ideal situation mature Christians would fund his apostolic work of reaching unreached people. Far too often in the church today our financial support is focused on ministries that are designed to meet our own needs. In the typical church, the Christians give money with the understanding that the money will be used to provide them with quality. There’s nothing wrong with wanting quality ministry in our lives, but when we our giving is motivated by getting quality ministry, we’re really not giving in the biblical sense of the word. What we’re really doing is paying a fee for a service. As followers of Jesus, we need to broaden our vision for giving, that God calls us to tithe from our income to impact the lives of other people, not just to pay fees for religious goods and services for our own families. Our giving is an investment in the lives of other people.
When one of our lay elders and I lead our Meet LBF seminar for people investigating church membership, inevitably there are people there coming from other churches. Our goal for people who are already Christians in that seminar is to invite them to join us in our mission of reaching unchurched people and helping them grow. We politely tell people who are already Christians that if they aren’t ready to support our mission with their prayers, their time, their finances, and so forth that this probably isn’t the church for them.
An apostolic ministry isn’t afraid to ask for help from mature Christians.
5. Taking Risks (Romans 15:30-33)
Let me give you the last characteristic: An apostolic ministry takes risks that can only succeed if God intervenes.
Look at vv. 30-33. Paul ends the chapter by inviting the Christians in Rome to struggle with him in his apostolic calling. Specifically he invites them to pray for him. He wants prayer for safety as he goes into the city of Jerusalem carrying the cash offering he’s collected. Paul knows that there’s a trap waiting for him in Jerusalem, that some of the people there hate him they want to see him dead. We know from Acts that lots of Paul’s friends tried to talk Paul out of going into Jerusalem because it was so dangerous, but Paul was absolutely convinced part of his calling was to deliver the offering in person. Paul was risking his life by delivering this offering in person, and we know from Acts that he was arrested in the city and imprisoned for quite some time. In fact, Paul would finally arrive in Rome in chains because he took this risk.
Paul also asks for prayer for how the offering he’s is be received by the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Paul knows that if they reject the offering it will destroy the fragile unity he’d built between the Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians. So he asks for concerted prayer for the offering to be received as a symbol of the non-Jewish Christian’s full membership in the Christian community. Paul knows that this offering itself is an incredible risk because the unity of the church itself is at stake in the success of his project.
Paul’s mission is sure to fail unless God is in it. That’s because apostolic ministries are risk taking ministries. An apostolic ministry is not a "play it safe" kind of ministry that simply does what it’s always done.
Conclusion
Is our church an apostolic congregation? Are we trusting people to do ministry, seeing our outreach as worship, seeking God’s power to reach people others have failed to reach, asking for help from mature Christians, and taking risks that can only succeed if God intervenes? I think the answer is, "yes and no." I think there are clearly some areas where we’re doing well, but I think there’s much more we can do.
I think we are a risk taking church, but I think we have room to grow in this area. The risks we’ve taken in the last ten years pale in comparison to the risks our congregation took back in the mid and late 1970s when we bought this property. I think one of the biggest risks our church has taken in the last decade was hiring me right out of seminary, with no pastoral experience. We’re taking a risk by adding a Saturday night service in the fall, we took a risk last month by adopting an annual budget that was 12% more than what we saw come in to the church last year. If you read the letter I sent out to members a few weeks ago, you know we’re taking some risks in purchasing some more property around what we already have here. We’re in escrow on one of those properties right now and close to making a formal offer on another piece of property. These are the kinds of risks that will keep us an apostolic church.
Let me close by sharing just how privileged I feel to be part of a church that wants to be apostolic. I meet with other pastor friends, and the struggles they face aren’t apostolic struggles. Now don’t get me wrong, we face our fair share of struggles, but their mostly the good kind of struggles, the struggles that come from being an apostolic congregation. That’s the kind of church God’s called me to be part of.
