Growing God's Church
The Kind of Church that Grows
Selected Scriptures
 
One of the most intriguing verses in the New Testament is our theme verse for this current series we are calling "Growing God's Church God's Way for God's Glory". The verse is found in Matthew 16:18 where Jesus says, "I will build my church".
 
Those of us who are familiar with that verse will remember it is said as Jesus' reply to Peter. Peter has just made this great foundational statement regarding Jesus where he says of himself and the other disciples, "We believe you are the Christ, God's Messiah, the Son of God."
 
And Jesus affirms that declaration by telling Peter that information came from God. And he uses a little play on words in His response.
 
Matthew 16:18
 
Now some groups such as the Catholic church believe Jesus was saying He would build His church on Peter, as the first pope. But the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both, the foundation and the head of the church. So Christ is giving neither of those roles away, and especially not to someone like Peter!
 
Instead, Jesus is using a little play on words. The name "Peter" means "a little stone". And Jesus uses that word picture to say, "Peter, you're just a little stone, but you have just spoken this gigantic boulder-sized truth!"
Jesus, and Jesus alone is the chief cornerstone, and as Peter would explain in 1 Peter 2, he builds His church out of living stones like us.
 
As we saw last week, only God can grow the church. But wonder of wonders, He uses people who cooperate with Him in the various tasks of planting and watering to bring growth to His church.
 
Now, in a nutshell, that's God's plan for church growth. Just like Paul and Apollos who planted and watered in the first century church, and God gave the increase, we now take our place in church history to do the same thing. Genuine salvation, and therefore, genuine church growth can never take place because of human wisdom or work or effort.
 
Only God can grow the church, and wonder of wonders, God is still giving the increase. Every time a person is saved by professing their faith in the Christ, the Son of the Living God, another living stone is added to the church.
 
  1. that's the plan, and something of the theology behind the plan. But how does that happen? In practical ways, how does the church grow? Perhaps the best way to explore the answer to that question is to look at scriptural examples of church growth.
 
  1. I mentioned last week, for several years, we've been looking at examples of church growth in recent history. And oftentimes, that growth is build on human personality or manipulation.
 
But I want to bring us back to the fact that Jesus said, “I will build My church." Remember, God gives the increase.
  1. the only one who can grow a legitimate church is Jesus. That's why I don't worry about growing the church. I have no desire to build a church because I have no desire to compete with Jesus. He will build His church, and my interest is in cooperating with Him and helping to develop disciples and environment where He can do what He's promised to do.
 
So with that in mind, let's think about the kind of church that grows. And to explore that, I want you to take a quick walk with me through the book of Acts.
 
Now the book of Acts is the story of the church. On Wednesday evenings, we've been doing a verse-by-verse study of the book of Acts for the last 80 weeks or so, and we only have about 6 and 1/2 more chapters to go!
 
The book of Acts is 28 chapters long, and the history of the church begins in the second chapter where we find the original 120 founding members. And from there, it begins to grow. And what we have in the book of Acts is actually the very first account of the fulfillment of our Lord’s words when He said, “I will build My church.”
 
In fact, we come immediately out of the Gospels from those words into the book of Acts, and we find out exactly how the church is built.
 
And for all intents and purposes, this is purely a historical presentation. It is not so much theology, although it is certainly theologically true. This is not some kind of theory. This is not some kind of model for church growth.
This is the just the story of the church under the power of Christ through His Spirit. This is exactly how the Lord builds His church. Therefore, what we find here is extremely practical. Let's do a little survey of that history.
 
In chapter 2 and verse 39, I draw your attention to sort of a foundational point here.
 
verses 38-39
 
This is the Day of Pentecost. The gospel has been preached by Peter. The promise of the gospel is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
 
  1. notice, the promise is for everyone that the Lord will call. So this promise reaches forward into the centuries that will follow, and it includes Jews and Gentiles, everyone who will be saved.
 
Two verses later in
 
verse 41
 
There we have the very first additions that were joined to the original 120. The gospel is preached, God initiates a call to salvation, three thousand respond and are baptized and added to the church.
 
Then, in verse 47 of chapter 2, notice,
 
Acts 2:47
 
That is a work of God. He is giving the increase. Jesus is building His church day by day as people were being saved.
Chapter 4, verse 4
 
So the Lord started with 120, then added 3,000, then more day by day, by day, by day, and now here is an influx of 5,000 men, and it is not unreasonable to add women and children to that, and the estimates are we are in excess of at least 10,000 and probably more.
 
And, by the way, this is the last time in the book of Acts a number is given, which proves the early church was not a Baptist church, because, I promise you, it they had been Baptist, somebody would have been counting.
 
Actually, numbers are not provided as the growth continues because it is just astounding growth in a few weeks. The church is numbering in the tens of thousands in just a few weeks, and the Lord is building His church. It is growing so fast, the numbers fade away.
 
Move to
 
chapter 5, verse 14
 
So now we've stopped counting the individuals and the crowd is identified as multitudes, too many to count.
 
chapter 6, verse 7
 
And then we come to chapter 12, verse 24
 
Now we've stopped adding and started multiplying!
 
And then you come to chapter 16, and we’ve left Peter and John behind and we are into the ministry of Paul,
 
chapter 16, verse 5
 
Now we not only have believers, we have churches. There is now a church in Antioch. Then Paul went on a missionary journey from Antioch and begins planting churches all over the area and here we read they are being strengthened in the faith, and they are all increasing in number every day.
 
People, by the tens of thousands, are being saved in the land of Israel, as well as the Gentile world in direct fulfillment of Peter's words in chapter 2, verse 39.
 
Remember, "the promise is then extending to you, that is the Jews, and your children, and to Gentiles who are afar off”.
 
In the seventeenth chapter, Paul is preaching in Berea,
 
chapter r17, verse 12
 
chapter 19, verse 20
 
Paul is in the very midst of the devil's domain in Ephesus, a city filled with idol worship, and yet, “The word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed”.
 
And this growth continues right up to the last verse of the book of Acts where we find Paul
 
Acts 28:30-31
That’s the story of the growth of the church in Acts, and it is just explosive growth as the Lord builds His church, as the Father calls and saves people through faith in Christ and belief in the gospel.
 
So how does it happen? And can it still happen? I find it interesting that there are no techniques or methodologies given. There are no formulas for church growth or steps to follow.
 
However, woven through the fabric of the story are some spiritual realities upon which church growth depends, and I want to help you see those this morning.
 
The first one is
 
1. An Unchanging Message
 
The church is built through the unchanging message of salvation and that plain gospel message transcends all cultures, all languages, all nations, all societal norms, all tribal traditions, all education status, and all economic status. It transcends everything.
 
Now remember in biblical times there was not a global village like we have today. Unlike today, there were hard lines drawn between clans and tribes, and nations and language groups. They had their own traditions and customs, and those lines were not crossed.
 
But when it came to the gospel, none of that mattered. The apostles preached the same gospel, no matter who they were addressing.
In other words, the message was not accomodated to the culture, in fact, just the opposite took place. In order to be saved, the culture dictates had to be surrendered to the gospel.
 
If to the Jews it was a stumbling block, that didn’t change the message. They didn't remove the stumblingblock by altering the gospel so Jews would find it easier to respond.
 
It didn't matter if the Gentiles said it was foolishness, it was a stupid idea, it was ridiculous to say that Jesus was a god in human flesh who was killed by men, who rose from the dead and now wants you to be His lifelong slave.
 
It didn’t matter if the Romans thought it was a stupid thing, or if the Jews thought it was a stumbling block. It didn’t change the fact that the Lord said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel.”
 
Look again at
 
Acts 2:41
 
So who are these 3,000 that are saved?
 
Acts 2:8-11 tells us.
 
These are people who have come to Jerusalem from all over the known world because they have some connection to Judaism.
 
But when Peter stood up to preach, he didn't separate and categorize and alter the presentation. He just preached Jesus.
Where they came from was irrelevant. The gospel didn’t change; it couldn’t change; it doesn't need to change, whether you are talking to Jews familiar with the Old Testament, Gentile proselytes to Judaism who are somewhat familiar with the Old Testament, or whether you’re preaching in all those locations as the apostles later did. The message never changes!
 
Listen: the gospel crosses all lines. It speaks to any culture. It meets every need of the human heart regardless of the culture. We need to ignore the nuances of social order and the cultural sensitivity and age barriers. Those things have nothing to do with the Father calling people to Himself.
 
Listen: Our message is not bound to our zip code. The message of salvation can go to any person, every person, not only in your zip code, your town, your state, your country, but anywhere in the world.
 
The message of salvation can ignore contemporary trends, fads, pop culture icons. It is valid anywhere on the globe!
 
And that's what God uses to grow His church for His glory!
 
There’s a second characteristic that we see in the church that grows. Not only does it preach an unchanging message, but it has
 
2. A Saved Membership
 
Here’s a novel idea: the church is made up of believers. I know that's obvious, but I think it needs to be said that the church is the body of Christ.
The Church that the Lord builds is believers connected to Him. And I just want to underscore the point that the Lord is building His church by adding believers to Himself.
 
According to what we read in Acts 2, the church is made up, “of all those who believed.” All those who believed were added to the church. “All those with one mind,” – Acts 4 – “All those who are filled with the Holy Spirit, all those who are one heart, one soul.”
 
It’s an assembly of believers who are totally devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ. When the church meets, it is true worshipers gathered for spiritual purposes. And what are those purposes? We're going to look at that in detail next week, but listen to what we read in
 
Acts 2:42-47
 
They devoted themselves to worship, teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, fellowship and ministry.
 
There is an interesting illustration of this in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. Paul is writing to correct the Corinthians, because they have gotten carried away with speaking in tongues, and it is out of order and out of line. It was a true gift in the era of the apostles, but in Corinth it had been turned into some kind of madness. Listen to what Paul writes in
 
1 Corinthians 14:23 (to unbelievers)
 
Let's stop right there and think about that for a moment.
Paul is suggesting a situation where the church is gathered and there is the possibility that an unbeliever might show up. That means the church gathering is not designed for him, but he might show up.
 
Next verse,
 
1 Corinthians 14:24
 
I mention this just to point out that the church time is not primarily designed to reach lost people. When they come, they ought to hear the preaching of the truth that leads them to believe, but the church the Lord builds is an assembly of saved believers, totally devoted to Jesus Christ, who have to come to study and learn the Scriptures and worship Him.
 
That's why I've always shied away from primarily preaching evangelistic messages to the church. That does nothing to develop Christians and equip them to minister effectively. The church gathers to express its love to God, encourage one another and worship our Savior!
 
So how does the church grow? It grows through the proclamation of an unchanging message. It's marked by a saved membership, a people who are unique followers of Jesus Christ.
 
Third thing:
 
3. Absolute Devotion
 
Study the life or the early church and you will discover they could not be stopped or deterred in their mission, even when facing persecution.
There is an interesting contrast that appears as the church begins to grow. In its earliest days, the church was very popular. There was something about the new movement in town that was very attractive to people.
 
In Acts 2, we have thousands responding to the gospel and it is quite an environment. They're meeting at the temple to have church every day. They're spending time at each other's homes and sharing meals and resources.
 
They are marked by their gladness and singleness of heart. It is this incredible group of over 3,000 people enjoying this supernatural fellowship and intimacy and closeness unlike anything the world ahs ever seen.
 
And it just fascinates those who are watching! They are enjoying the favor of all the people. In fact, in chapter 3, we see that the world was in awe of them because of Peter and John healing a blind beggar.
Folks are just amazed at the power displayed by the apostles.
 
Chapter 5, verse 13, says that “the people held them in high esteem.” They were living at a level that life just didn’t offer the rest of the population. They admired their love. They admired their joy. They admired their grasp of truth and hope.
 
But at the same time, there was this growing hatred and animosity that very soon becomes extremely aggressive. And the one thing that sparked and enflamed that aggression was the preaching of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
Everyone likes us until you tell them, “Everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ is headed for eternal hell forever,” and then, everything changes. It's amazing how many people want what the church has as far as paying for their groceries and medicine or utilities.
 
They just don't want anything to do with the message because that message is very narrow and exclusive. In fact, it is confrontational and judgmental. It generates hostility and animosity.
 
And what we see in the early chapter of Acts on the one hand is respect, but on the other hand, they start killing the apostles. They kill James, and they kill Stephen, and the slaughter begins, and it spreads from there, primarily through a man named Saul.
 
But amazingly, that persecution and hatred becomes the fuel for amazing church growth as the persecuted church begins to spread out and take the gospel with them.
 
Notice what happens in
 
Acts 4:1-4
 
They're preaching Jesus, people are responding, and that leads to their arrest. The next day, Peter and John are brought before this gathering of rulers and elders and asked about the healing of the man the day before.
 
verses 8-12
 
 
Talk about boldness! But remember, we preach an unchanging message! They want to talk about what power healed the man, and Peter says, “Let's talka bout the fact that you crucified Christ, and He’s the only Savior.”
 
Well, that lit the flames.
 
verse 18
 
Oh, they shouldn't have done that!
 
verses 19-21
 
They would not be deterred! I don't know about you, but it's kind of embarrassing to me to compare my commitment and my determination to Christ and His cause with theirs.
 
We are so easily drawn away! It takes so little to distract us, and then we wonder why the church doesn't grow or why it struggles financially or can't find teachers for the Sunday School!
 
The early church grew because they were a fully devoted body of believers who preached an unchanging message, regardless of the circumstances.
 
And we could add to that, they were
 
4. A People of Purity
 
In the first four chapters of Acts, everything is running along pretty well, but when you get to chapter 5, the very first word of the first verse of the chapter is the word "but".
And there we are introduced to situation in the church involving a couple named Ananias and Sapphira.
 
The generosity of the early church is quite obvious. In fact, chapter 4 closes by telling us about a man named Barnabas who sells a piece of land and donates the money to the church to help the poor.
 
Chapter 5 opens with this couple doing the same thing. They too, sell a piece of land, and agree together to bring part of the money and give it to the church, but lie about how much they've given.
 
And they get caught in the lie, and both of them wind up being killed by the Holy Spirit because of the deception.
 
Now that appears to be a rather small thing. After all, the land they sold belonged to them. It was theirs to do with what they wanted. Chances are they probably gave a sizeable contribution from the sale. There was a lot of good for which they could be commended.
 
But the story serves to tell us that sin in the church is a big thing. It may not be to you, but it is to God!
And that is a reminder to us that the purity of the church must be protected at any cost. And notice what happened as a result of those deaths:
 
verse 11
 
So what was the fear? “God is in this place.” And are we honest? Are we truthful? What about our hearts?
After all, if you've got to come to church wondering if God's going to kill you, that is a solemn reminder of the seriousness of sin!
 
Listen: the integrity and testimony of the church is a serious thing. This isn’t a joke; this isn’t a comedy; this isn’t theater; this is reality. The Lord killed two people in front of the entire church to show how serious He was about purity.
 
And here's the point I want you to see:
 
verse 12
 
The Lord accomplished what He wanted. He stopped people from coming to church for the wrong reason. He stopped unbelievers coming to church for the wrong reason. The Lord desires the holiness of His church, and that demands a believing church, come together based on the gospel.
 
One final thing we see in chapter 6 that provides an insight into why the early church grew they way it did, and that is
 
5. A Sensitivity to Needs
 
verse 1
 
As the early church grew, the ministry needs must have been unbelievable. Apparently many of the Jews from the Greek world who had come to Jerusalem and were saved on the Day of Pentecost stayed in Jerusalem and were having to be cared for.
 
 
And as a result, some of their widows were not getting enough food because most of the food was going to the local Hebrew people rather than these Hellenistic Jews.
 
So that need comes up by way of a complaint from the Hellenists. Well, the Apostles get together to discuss what's happening and realize there is more than they can take care of, and besides that, even though it is a legitimate need, it does not take precedence over prayer and the preaching and teaching ministry of the church.
 
So the decision is made to give some of the men in the church the responsibility of serving these widows. And for the very first time, we see the church organizing to be more effective in performing its ministry tasks.
 
Now some people are resistant to organization. But I want you see what happened as a result of that.
 
verse 7
 
Isn't that amazing? What began as a gripe and. in fact, a threat to the health of the church was turned into a tool that God used to bring people to salvation!
 
It's very intriguing to me that the early church had no building, no paid staff, no programs, no choir, no parking lots, no buses, no contemporary worship, and most amazingly, no Internet web site. And yet they seemed to get along pretty well.
 
 
In fact, they experienced amazing, unprecedented church growth, and that growth often happened through persecution and challenges and in amazing ways.
 
They had none of the “stuff” we Americans consider so crucial—yet they reached people by the thousands. I’m not arguing that the “stuff” is bad, only that their “stuff” is better than our “stuff.” Ours is external—theirs touches the realm of the spirit.
 
So I ask, What made the early church so useful? Let me boil it down to three key words that reveal the “secret” of the early church: Unified … Magnified … Multiplied. The believers were unified, Christ was magnified, and the church was multiplied.
 
They grew because the preached an unchanging message, they had a saved membership with an absolute devotion, they were a people of purity who were sensitive to the needs around them.
 
That is the kind of church that grows and it will still work today. Together let's commit to be that kind of church.
 
Let's pray.