Growing God's Church
When God Builds a Church
Acts 2:41-47
We've been exploring "Growing God's Church God's Way for God's Glory". We started with "God's Plan for Church Growth" which reminds us that only God can provide legitimate church growth.
As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Paul plants and Apollos waters, and that is a reminder that we have the privilege of cooperating with God in the process of church growth, and he often uses this layered, cooperative strategy, but ultimately, God gives the increase.
That means if there is God-honoring growth, it must be God-initiated growth. It is the kind of growth that is not just numerical, but it results in full-grown, mature, responsible followers of Christ.
And remember, a strategic part of that process on our part is having the mentality and attitude of a servant. Real church growth can only happen when we are willing to forfeit our rights and expectations and ambitions and seek for God to get the glory for whatever happens.
Now, last week, we took a whirlwind tour through the book of Acts and looked at a historical survey of the growth the early church experienced, and what contributed to it.
Today, I want to zoom in on one of those references in particular and see what it says to today's church that is seeking to grow.
We've seen God's plan for church growth, and we've looked at the kind of church that God uses in that growth process, but what happens when God builds a church within the walls of that church? That is a forgotten component of church growth. Somehow we've come to believe that church growth can just happen.
But I will remind you, only healthy things grow. And the same is true with church growth. For God-honoring church growth to take place, both at a personal level in your life and mind, and a corporate level in the body of Christ, there are some conditions that must be provided to accommodate that growth.
Now remember, the goal is to glorify God. In order for that to happen, we have to recognize what God wants to do with the church. The only time the church can ever really be what God wants it to be is when it comes to understand the fundamental purpose it exists.
So let's look once again, by way of introduction, at our theme verse in
Matthew 16:18
Now, here you have Jesus making this great statement about church growth. He not only tells us it must be built by Him, but it will also be protected by Him. Jesus assures His earliest followers that He will build His church and Satan and his legions who are storming out of the gates of hell to attack it will not be successful. They will not overpower it.
Now, as I said, that is a great statement, primarily because it is a guarantee. This is an absolute, 100 percent guarantee. I will build My church and Satan will not destroy it. However, there is one condition hidden in that statement and the condition is the church must be built by Jesus.
Understand, the only way the church will ever have the guarantee that Satan will not overpower it is when Christ builds it His way. That's the point.
God established the only guaranteed church growth plan when Jesus said, "I will build My church." So when the church is built according to this plan, then the gates of hell will not stop it.
That means should we depart from His plan or offer a substitute plan, then we forfeit the guarantee. And there are churches throughout history and all over the America and the world that no longer exist because they did not allow Jesus to build His church His way and the guarantee was forfeited. Satan moved in and they went out of existence.
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means the blueprint for genuine, God-honoring church growth never changes. And the good news is there is no need to change it. It doesn't need changing or updating or modification. So what is the
blueprint? What does the church look like that Christ builds and protects from Satan ic influence and destruction?
We find an example in Acts 2. Notice what we read in
verses 41-47
Now here we meet the first church in history. In its infancy, we see it at its purest. We are looking through the window of the nursery at this brand-new, first in history church, only hours after its birth.
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it is interesting to consider that they didn't know anything about church. There was no precedent, no church history. They didn't have a book on the church written by a well-known pastor. They didn't have a denominational office to provide counsel. They didn't have any seminars or conferences or conventions or experts to go to. They didn't even have a New Testament. They had nothing.
But this was the church that Jesus built His way. Uncluttered, uncompromised, and still today, over 2,000 years later, still serving as the model for the church.
It is a perfect example of God's plan in action. Peter has planted the gospel through am unchanging message of salvation in Christ alone. The Holy Spirit has been at work calling people to repentance. Thousands of people have responded, and all of a sudden, the church is alive and well and functioning.
It was God's church built by Jesus. So what did they do? There were several things they did as a church, and let me remind you, they are the vital functions of the church. Everything else that history has added and all the other stuff we do is just clutter. But there were some basics, so let's take a look at
1. An Example from History
The very first thing I notice is when God builds a church, at the top of the list is
1. Instruction In God's Word
verse 42
Notice, they continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine. They were a church that taught the word of God. Now I know the Word of God was not yet written and they didn't have a Bible in terms of a New Testament. But the apostles' doctrine was no less the Word of God. It just wasn't completed yet.
In 1 Corinthians 14:37 Paul says, "If any man claims to be spiritual let him acknowledge that the things that I say are the commandments of God." Peter talked about false teachers who twist the teachings of Paul, just as they do the other Scriptures.
Jude says remember the things that were spoken by the apostles. Why? Because God gave his word through the apostles verbally then and now, for us, the apostles' word is written down in the books of the New Testament.
And may we never forget that the church will never be able to claim the guarantee of Matthew 16:18 if it doesn't teach the word of God.
W. L. House once wrote, “The Bible is no ordinary book. And no Sunday School class session is an ordinary period of time. When the teacher reads the Bible, God speaks. When one takes this library of 66 books into a classroom and teaches it, he or she is dealing with the most unusual Book in the world, the most unusual Message in the world, and is spending the most important Time in the world.”
There is an amazing power in the words of the Book we teach from in Sunday School each week. As Jesus said, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
Therefore, I make this commitment to you that as long as I have the privilege of serving as your pastor, we will be committed to teaching and preaching the Word of God.
I will demonstrate it myself and I will demand it of those who serve as teachers. May God have mercy on the man or woman who wastes precious time on Sunday morning talking about football and politics when we have gathered for instruction in righteousness from the Eternal Word of God.
When God builds a church, He uses instruction and training in His precious Word. This church continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. There was teaching and there was learning.
I notice also from this passage that when God builds a church, He uses
2. Fellowship with God's People
verse 42
Now "fellowship" is an interesting word. In most Baptist churches fellowship always involves food. You bring some Dr. Pepper and somebody else brings some Doritos and we have a fellowship. If we're really serious, it might involve brisket and mashed potatoes.
But real fellowship is so much more than that. And it's kind of sad that we send out an invitation for people to bring some sandwiches and chips for a fellowship when all around us are the masses of hurting humanity.
They've lost their jobs, their homes and families are in shambles, they are grieving over the loss of a loved one. They are desperately seeking someone to give them answers for the hurts of life, to pray with them and love on them, and our answer is to give them some Fritos!
Slip a bookmark in Acts 2, and follow me over to 1 John for a moment. Notice
verses 1-3
What this verse tells us about real fellowship is that it requires that we proclaim the gospel! John is saying, "We've found the Messiah and we want you to know Him so we can have real fellowship, not only with each other, but with God and His Son!"
It's kind of interesting that down through the years people have resisted church growth because it threatens "the fellowship". After all, "we're getting too big to fellowship".
Listen: Real fellowship can never be hurt by growth. Our selfishness will hurt it! Our resistance will hurt it. Our unwillingness to accept others will hurt it, but numerical growth will never harm real fellowship.
In fact, the growth is the real essence of the fellowship. And by the way, if you are not involved in sharing the gospel and bringing more people in, you're out of fellowship anyway!
Fellowship is simply sharing our lives and our gospel and our testimony with others. That means fellowship can happen anywhere. It only takes two people to have fellowship. The outside number is irrelevant. It's whether you're committed to loving and sharing your life with others.
God's design is for His people to fellowship. This young beautiful church had fellowship. And if you want to underscore the spiritual significance of that fellowship, notice the next phrase in
Acts 2:42
They were "breaking bread". That is a reference to the Lord's table. I will confess to you we've not been as diligent as we should be in observing the Lord's Supper, but the focal point of their fellowship involved a time when they remembered the death, burial and resurrection of their Lord. Their fellowship was dependent upon their faith and their faith was dependent upon a resurrected, victorious Savior.
When God builds a church, He saturates them with His Word, He gathers His people in fellowship and celebration of the resurrection of Christ, and, notice, when God builds a church, he listens for the
3. Prayer of God's Family
Now it is important to note that the praying here is not individual prayer; it is corporate.
He's talking about the prayer of the family. We are to be committed to corporate prayer. Notice, they continued steadfastly in prayer. I must confess to you that one of the greatest disappointments of my ministry is that I've never been able to develop people who are fervently committed to prayer.
We've tried all kinds of approaches, and I like what we do now with small groups. But to say it has been successful in engaging the church in faithful, diligent prayer would be a lie.
I am so thankful for the few who come every week. But it is a great disappointment that we have more people standing in the hallways or sitting in the auditorium than we do in the prayer rooms, including staff and deacons and Sunday School teachers.
If it weren't so serious, I'd laugh about the number of people that will call or send in a prayer request, but never bother to come pray. And the irony is most, if not all of us have been the beneficiary of answered prayer. We say we believe in prayer. We've seen God answer prayer. And yet, we still don't pray!
Not this church! They were a praying church! And if we expect to be the kind of church that God builds, there must be a fresh commitment to prayer. Why is that so vital to church growth?
It is because prayer is the recognition of a total dependence upon God. And remember, only God can give the increase! Jesus builds the church. If He doesn't do it, it doesn't get done!
God built this church because they were committed to teaching God's Word, fellowshipping as God's people, praying as God's Family, and then, there was
4. Ministry as God's Servants
verses 44-45
There was such a unity and oneness in their faith that it expressed itself in their care. They genuinely loved one another, to the point that if anyone had a need, the rest of them came to the rescue. They were actually giving up their own stuff because they wanted to provide for their brothers and sisters in the faith.
And lest you think that sounds like Communism, it's not. In fact, it is far from it. It's not they all threw everything in a pot under compulsion and then divided it out equally.
Instead, they responded with love to the needs as they presented themselves. They were simply giving and selling things in order to get money to give to somebody when somebody had a need. There was a sharing and a love that was obvious to the world.
And it was done in this spirit of unity and oneness that led them to love others as they loved themselves. No wonder they were happy and praising God! God was at work in and through them as they loved and served each other in this amazing community called a church!
And what happened as a result?
verse 47b
The church grew. Why did it grow? It was a direct result of teaching God's Word, the fellowship of God's people, the prayer of God's family and the ministry of His servants. That's what God uses when He builds a church.
Now, let's move out of church history and bring it up to the here and now and consider
2. An Application for Today
How could a church today make a commitment to teach God's Word, fellowship as God's people, pray as God's Family and minister as God's servants? What kind of organization would be needed to accomplish those tasks, and better yet, is there something already in place we could employ?
How about the worship service? That would help with some of the tasks. After all, you just heard me talk about my commitment to teach and preach the Word of God as your pastor. So you'll certainly learn about the Bible and how to apply it in the worship service.
But the worship service really doesn't accommodate itself to fellowship. Outside of a few minutes spent shaking hands and giving a casual greeting to a few people, there is no time to share with one another.
Normally the only public prayer that is offered is by only a couple of people who speak from the platform.
And we really don't take any time to organize to minister to the family or the community. So the worship service, as important as it is, doesn't help us be what God uses when He builds a church.
Maybe we could just depend on the music program. We could just sing about Jesus. After all, any song worth singing finds its roots in Scripture, and very often, music is a great tool to aid in memorizing and remembering Scripture. So maybe we could just sing and remind people of the importance of loving others and how important is the Bible, but that still wouldn't be what we find here in Acts 2.
Maybe we could just organize into ministry teams and do outreach and projects. That might be effective, but I'm guessing most would burn out very quickly, and very likely lose sight of the spiritual significance of what was being done.
How about the Sunday School? Let's think about that. We need a place to learn and be instructed in God's Word, fellowship together as God's people, pray together as God's family and minister as God's servants.
I would suggest the best tool available to accomplish all those tasks is already in place. In fact, God has been using Sunday School for a long, long time when He wants to build a church.
The idea for a "Sunday School" actually dates all the way back to 1780 when a man named Robert Raikes began a school for the poor and uneducated children in England.
His plan was to these children into education classes on Sundays, the children’s only day off. The other six day so of the week they were working in factories. And very often, they were loud and out-of-control on Sundays as they played in the streets.
So Raikes organized a Sunday School, providing them with clean clothes, learning materials and instruction in reading, writing, hygiene and good citizenship.
The churches hoped that this effort would serve the dual purpose of bettering the future of society and curbing the rampant delinquency. The children met from 10-12 every Sunday morning for lessons, broke for lunch, attended a worship service, then returned for classes until 5:30 in the evening.
And even though the lessons were general education lessons, they used the Bible as a textbook. And an amazing thing happened. These lessons based on the truths of Scripture, brought about an unbelievable transformation in the hearts of the children.
By the early 1800’s, the goals of the Sunday schools were changing. Young, newly converted Presbyterians saw the Sunday School as an opportunity to teach the gospel and doctrine to children; in fact, many Sunday School leaders began to lobby for free public schools for the needy, so that they could concentrate on religious instruction.
The regeneration and conversion of children now became the goal. As this focus grew, Sunday school students were often encouraged to memorize large portions of the Bible, earning prizes and incentives for doing so.
In America, the first national Sunday School effort began in 1824 with the stated purpose being to organize, evangelize and civilize.
The focus was intentionally evangelical, and so within the next 100 years the Sunday School had become the primary outreach arm of the church.
The Sunday School organization expanded to include all ages as Sunday School became a way for unbelievers to be introduced to, and then assimilated into, the life of the church. By the late 1800’s, Sunday School was looked to as the main hope for church growth, a view that continued until the mid-twentieth century.
Unfortunately, Sunday School attendance has seen a slow decline over the last 50 or so years. And that is unfortunate because studies indicate that where Sunday Schools are thriving and growing, church membership increases.
In fact, I have tracked it for years and discovered that as Sunday School enrollment increases, Sunday School attendance increases, offerings increase and baptisms increase.
I'm not like the little boy who asked his dad, "Did you go to Sunday School when you were a boy?" "I sure did, son," he replied, " I went all the time." Without batting an eye, his son responded, "Well, then, I guess it won't do me any good either."
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think it does a lot of good because all those things we've talked about as characteristics of the kind of church God uses are found there. Just the opportunity to study the Bible together makes it worthwhile.
One Sunday School teacher asked his class of children, "What did we learn from the story of Jonah and the whale?" A little girl said, "We learned that people make whales sick at their stomachs."
The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot 's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, 'My Mommy looked back once while she was driving,' he announced triumphantly, 'and she turned into a telephone pole!'
A Sunday school teacher asked, 'Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark ? ''No,' replied Johnny. 'How could he, with just two worms.'
Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School. 'Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt . When he got to the Red Sea , he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.'
'Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?' his Mother asked.
'Well, no, Mom. But, if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!'
A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible - Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters a month to learn the chapter.
Little Rick was excited about the task - but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line.
On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Ricky was so nervous.. When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know.
And that's why we have Sunday School! We gather week by week because the most important thing anybody could ever know is Jesus! That's why we try to organize and arrange the classes. The most logical way to do that is by age. But I'm open to suggestions. I've thought about doing it by weight. We'll just install doors with scales that flash your weight up on a screen and send you down the hall to the appropriate classroom!
We don't adjust class structure to make people mad and be offensive. We do it because we want to be structured in the best possible way to reach and minister to people.
But we do it primarily because we understand the impact Sunday School makes on lives. I recently read the story of a man named Phillip. He had a friend who was a pilot and owned a little four-seat Beech Musketeer airplane, and one balmy May night, this neighbor, whose name was Bob, asked Phillip and his wife, Bobbie if they'd like to take a midnight spin over the lake near their home.
Within minutes they had left the runway, climbing into the crystal clear sky. Below, the moonlight casts shadows over their sleep town.
Phillip saw his parents' house where the his children were sleeping over. They could see the law office he shared with his father. And over there was the church where Bobbie and the kids attended. Phillip didn't go. After all, Sunday was his day to catch up on his sleep. Nobody ever seemed to miss him at church anyway. His Sunday school class seldom called on him. So why go?
"Look there!" Bob suddenly shouted as a cloud dropped out of nowhere, a large patch of fog that was suddenly obscuring the moon. Bob nosed the plane downward to stay beneath it. "Better go back," he decided. No telling how far the fog extended.
Bob began a slow 180-degree turn, descending all the while to keep below the rapidly falling ceiling. Phillip could see the runway lights ahead of them. And that's the last he remembers.
The nose wheel of the Musketeer hit a power line, flipping the plane over. In the split second before it hit the ground upside down, Bob's reflexes were quick enough to switch off the electrical system, which prevented them from being cremated on the spot. Bobbie was thrown from the plane, paralyzed, but alive. Bob was badly injured and Phillip was suspended head downward in his seat belt, with over 100 bone fractures.
Help finally about an hour and a half later when the electrical company received calls about the loss of electricity and came to investigate. When the sheriff arrived, he was unable to recognize Phillip because his face was so swollen.
In the hospital, Phillip says his mind was on something other than his injuries. He describes it as, "Something growing, alive--and impossibly huge. A presence unimaginably vast was somehow with me in that tiny space. More than with me. It was containing me, enfolding me, cradling me. I was being held as a baby is held. A baby who has only just opened its eyes to behold the Father who has carried it all along.
Hours passed. Doctors came and went. Tubes and lines were removed and inserted, and all the while, Phillip said, "I was wrapped in that bright cocoon I could only call Love."
He became convinced that He was being cradled by God. He said, "God was the only name I could give to the glory that radiated in the cubicle. But I hadn't given God so much as a thought in 30 years. Why should God love me?"
Then he a phrase came to mind from 1 John 4:10. "It is not that we loved God, I John 4:10 corrected me, but that He loved us...." "Who hath saved us", he recalled also, from 2 Timothy 1:9, "not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace..."
Wait a minute. Where were these verses coming from? I hadn't opened a Bible in years, and I certainly had never memorized and Scripture. . .
And then Phillip remembered. As he lay there in the hospital, his mind flashed back to when he was five years old, in Sunday School, He saw a little circle of small red chairs, a cluster of children and old Mrs. Wolf.
She had a Bible laying open on her lap as she drilled those boys and girls in that circle of little red chairs on Bible verses.
The painful days in the ICU dragged on. But above the rattle of instrument carts, Phillip could hear Mrs. Wolf's voice saying things like, "Fear not. . ." and "for God so loved the world. . ." and "Is there anything too hard for Me?"
It was Sunday School that provided the help Phillip needed in his life at that very moment. Today, Phillip says, when his children ask, "Do we have to go to Sunday School?", he always answers, ""Yes."
Then he tells them, "It wasn't in law school that I learned the things in life that really matter. It was in a circle of little red chairs."
Is Sunday School really worth having? More than you'll ever know! Not just because of the big stuff like the church's responsibilities, but because it brings you into the family of God and gives you a place to serve and learn and share with others.
And when the time comes and your life is turned upside down, it will be the things that you learned in Sunday School that will carry you through.
If your weekly schedule doesn’t include the Sunday School hour, I would encourage you to add it! Make a commitment right now to be here next Sunday.
If you join this church, you need to know you're joining the Sunday School also! If God leads you to do so, walk this aisle today and join our church but don’t stop there.
Commit to walk out that door and up the stairs or down the hallway and into a classroom!
And then, if you are here and are not a Christian, I would urge you to invite Jesus into your heart and life-repent of your sin and ask Him to be your Savior and let Him show you how to live, both now and for eternity!
Let's pray.
