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.
