Requisites of a Trouble-Free Increase

And if you’re one that has, you
could describe yourself as having the disease of S-caddo, I have
it all figured out here. You can get with me this week. In times past, I’ve obviously
preached this passage before. When I first introduced it, I
entitled it A New Day in the Church. And for the church here
in the book of Acts, it is a new day and things are new and fresh. The church had just been established
and the church is growing and flourishing and it’s exciting
and things are happening. It’s an unprecedented day in
the church. And in the book of Acts, and
by the way, that’s one of the areas that I’m contemplating
turning to when we finish the gospel of Luke. So we’ll see
how long I drag my feet. But Acts, as you know, is essentially
Luke volume two. And here in the book of Acts,
Luke, in his typical way, keeps everything very organized. One
of the features of the book of Acts is what I would call progress
reports that are woven through this gospel. If you would, I
want to take you just on a brief tour of these progress reports
of the church, this church that is in its new day. At the outset,
if you would turn to chapter two of the book of Acts. I told you there were progress
reports and you’ll have a lengthy narrative and you’ll have lots
of stuff going on. And then Luke just inserts this
almost as if he were giving a report to the board of directors, this
report on the state of the church, Acts 2.41. where Luke inserts, so then those
who had received his word were baptized and there were added
that day about 3000 souls. Flip down just a few verses to
247. Where we see that they were praising
God and having favor with all the people and the Lord was adding
to their number day by day those who were being saved. If you
would turn to chapter 4 and verse 4, where the next progress report
we read of the church. But many of those who had heard
these things, heard the message rather, believed and the number
of the men came to be about 5000. Acts chapter 6, verse 7. In Acts chapter 6, We read that
the word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples
continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a great many
of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. Great
progress report. Acts chapter 12 and verse 24. But the word of the Lord continued
to grow and to be multiplied. Acts 16 5 So the churches were being strengthened
in the faith and were increasing in numbers daily. And then finally,
Acts 19. That’s a beautiful sound. Acts chapter 19. So the word
of the Lord in verse 20, Acts 19, 20. So the word of the Lord
was growing mightily and prevailing. And so when we turn to Acts chapter
9, if you would, what you have is just one of many of these
progress reports that Luke inserts into the narrative that we know
as the book of Acts. And if you would, let’s just
read Acts 9, encompassing verse 31, So the church throughout
all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up,
and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the
Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. Now, you have my diagram
in the bulletin, you have places for notes there, and you know
that my habit is the very first thing that needs to be done is
to diagram the text and figure out what is the simple sentence
of the text. What is the basic message of
the sentence or the paragraph or the passage? And the bottom
line here is that the church enjoyed peace. And it continued
to increase. That is the simple thought. What
I want to turn to basically this morning, what I want to give
you is some church growth strategy. Now, before you throw me out,
let me just remind you that this is God’s method for church growth. This is God’s design for the
growth, for the increase of the church. And it’s funny, as you
read through the book of Acts, you saw there were added three
thousand souls to the first one, adding to their number day by
day. The number of those came to be about five thousand. The
church was growing numerically. And in our day and age, it’s
almost a dirty word to talk about or to pray about the church growing. I found myself even uneasy in
this dear crowd that knows me, praying that God might grow our
church numerically. God isn’t afraid of the church
growing numerically. He’s concerned with the means
that we use, that we employ in growing the church. But he’s
not afraid of a big church. That ought to be the desire of
each one of us, that more and more people would come to know
Christ and that in coming to know Christ, they would desire
to fellowship with us being like minded. In fact, I know of a
dear friend who pastors a church and had done the same thing,
continued to do the same thing year after year. And then suddenly,
all of a sudden, the church began to grow. And wouldn’t you know
it, in his church, there were those that criticized him because
the church began to grow. Maybe he had done something different.
Philosophies had changed and practices had changed. Nothing
had changed. Nothing had changed. Church growth
isn’t bad. It’s become a dirty word in our
day and age because of the methods that people use to merely increase
the numbers of those in their church. You know what I mean
by church. I’ll take just the briefest of
minutes to describe it. The church is a compound word. out of and places to be called
out. The called out ones. That is
the church. We are called out from the word
and world and we’re called together. Now, even at the outset of this
passage, it is a fascinating thing. If you’re there in Acts
chapter nine, it’s a good place to park for a second, but flip
to Acts chapter one. Now, this is the famous Acts
chapter one, eight exercise that I was given my very, I think
it was my first seminary class. Professor said, turn to Acts
chapter one, verse eight. Turn to Acts chapter one, verse
eight. And he asked us what we saw there, and we began to throw
out some things and he said, good, that’s good. Park it there.
Save it. He said, go home. Come back next
week with 25 observations of Acts 1-8. And I’m telling you,
the first couple, I wish I could save this list. Maybe I’ll find
it. The first couple were absolutely profound people. And then the further I got into
the list, you know, I’m doing things like, well, the sentence
starts with but. And then I’m counting the thus.
And then, you know, that’s how the list went from there. It
just kind of went downhill. And you’re observing things and
you’re observing past tense and you’re observing all these things. And so I go into class and here’s
my feeble list. And there were some that didn’t
even come up with 25. Mine at least had 25 observations
of Acts 1.8. I felt good, you know, at least
when I left the class. I had 25. And upon turning them
in, The professor said, great, good job, thanks for that. Come
back next week with 25 more. So people, I know Acts 1.8. So don’t try and pull anything
over on me. Acts 1.8. Watch this. You will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be
my witnesses. And that’s an interesting point.
You see, here’s the danger of knowing 50 things about Acts
1.8 is I could preach this passage blindfolded. The interesting
thing is here when he says you shall be my witnesses, he doesn’t
say whether you’re going to be a good witness or a bad witness.
The world is watching you. They’re going to watch you and
you are going to be a witness. If you have named the name of
Christ, the whole world is watching you and they’re watching every
step and you are a witness. You are going to be my witnesses,
both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria, even to
the remotest part of the earth. Well, we got that down, right?
Well, one of the observations is if you look at that text,
those cities that are mentioned are concentric. You start in
Jerusalem where the church began, and it goes out from there in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria, and then even to
the remotest part of the earth. Back to Acts chapter 9. In Acts
chapter 9, you have some of those same cities mentioned. So the
church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria And now you
have a region that is gone. The church has burst its borders
and is beginning to fulfill exactly what Christ said it would. That
even to the remotest part of the earth, this church is going
to spread and to grow. Now, I don’t think that Luke
is suggesting here that that was the absolute extent of the
church at that time. We know the gospel just took
off. And The great servant Paul in
chapters to come would take the gospel far and wide and see success
in nearly every place. And so that is the church and
the church is to grow and the church is to flourish. We don’t
need to feel guilty if we hear of a church in a certain place
growing and flourishing and numerically and in other ways. Let’s go back
to the passage. I said, I suggested that there
was a simple sentence there. The church enjoyed peace and
it continued to increase. That’s the bottom line. First
of all, let’s look. The church enjoyed peace. The
church enjoyed peace. There’s a lot of different meanings
to the word peace in there. It doesn’t necessarily mean that
they were going to have an easy time because we know they didn’t.
It isn’t necessarily talking about individual peace. Peace
with God. This is a peace that went beyond
those things. It couldn’t have been freedom
from persecution. If you would, let’s go on another
brief tour. We’re going to do a number of these today. Go to
Acts chapter 5. We know that it wasn’t peace
in the sense of an unassailed freedom from persecution. We
know that they didn’t just have an easy time. Acts 5, verse 17,
the high priest rose up along with all his associates, that
is, the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with jealousy
and they laid hands on the apostles and they put them in a public
jail. What kind of peace is that? The
end of that same chapter in verse 40. They took his advice, and
after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered
them to speak no more in the name of Jesus.” Well, whatever
peace they’re enjoying must encompass this kind of treatment. Being
jailed and being beaten. Acts 6 In Acts chapter six, we read,
but some men from what was called the synagogue of the freed men,
including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians and some from Cilicia
and Asia rose up and argued with Stephen. So there’s no social
peace. It hasn’t happened to me a lot, but on two occasions
during the midst of my message, I have. Do you remember that
one time in Illinois when I’m preaching, I’m preaching along
and all of a sudden this guy starts contending with me from
out there. I mean, I was flustered. I didn’t
know what to do. That’s exactly what’s happening to Stephen.
I mean, this is Stephen’s floor. It’s his right to speak. And
yet they were unable to cope with the wisdom of the spirit
from which he was speaking. Then they secretly induced men
to say, we’ve heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses
and against God. So you know what? Whatever this
peace is that they’re enjoying can’t be a freedom from slander.
You can’t mean this blissful existence where almost nobody
knows that you exist. Verse 12, And they stirred up
the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon
him and dragged him away and brought him before the council.
And they put forward false witnesses who said, This man speaks against
this holy place and the law. For we’ve heard him say that
Jesus, the Nazarene, will destroy this place after the customs
which Moses handed down to us. Well, that’s not peace. Not in
the sense that we might think it. And then in chapter seven,
verse 54. We read about the enemies of
Christ. When they heard this, they were
cut to the quick. They began gnashing their teeth
at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently
into heaven, saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God. And he said, Behold, I see the
heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand
of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and covered their
ears and they rushed upon him with one impulse. And when they
had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him. And the
witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named
Saul.” Well, that’s not peace. That’s murder. Why didn’t Luke
in writing this little progress report say, and the church enjoyed
murder, They enjoyed being persecuted. They enjoyed hardship and difficulty. Peace must mean something far
more. Acts chapter 8. In Acts chapter 8, records of Saul, that he was
in hearty agreement with putting him, that is, Stephen, to death.
And on that day, a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem,
and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. You see, God had his providential
hand in this. Just like us, unless we’re scattered,
unless we’re sent out, we’re never going to take the gospel
willingly. And some devout men buried Stephen and made loud
lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church,
entering house after house, dragging off men and women, and he would
put them in prison.” In Acts 9, we find Paul still breathing
threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. And you
know what? This thing is bookended. This whole persecution of the
church is bookended all around Acts 9. Look at Acts 12. This is after Luke’s progress
report. So up to Luke’s progress report,
they’re not enjoying the kind of peace that you and I might
think. And even after Luke’s progress report, this can hardly
be a description of peace in a merely physical sense. Verse
one. Now, about that time, Herod the
king laid hands on some who belonged to the church. Why? In order
to mistreat them. And he had James, the brother
of John, put to death with a sword. And when he saw that it pleased
the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also, ultimately putting
him in prison. Jesus had told them, you will
have difficulty. The world hated me and it will
hate you. And Christians, if there’s anything
that should cause us concern is when all men speak well of
us. When everybody thinks that we’re just great people. Nice. What kind of peace was this that
they enjoyed? It was a settled peace in the midst of uncertainty
and persecution. What kind of peace marked the
early church? It’s not only peace with one
another and peace with God, but note that it says they were enjoying
this peace. This wasn’t a peace that they
produced. And sure as the church, any church
tries to get a hold of this commodity and manipulate it toward their
own end and try to create it and or if not create it, massage
it to their own liking, they will destroy the peace. It is a product of the Holy Spirit. As Paul lays out in Ephesians
4, he says, I, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk
in a manner worthy of the calling with which you’ve been called,
with all humility and gentleness, showing forbearance to one another
in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the bond of peace.
It’s not something we create. It’s not something we can whip
up of our own emotional desires. The best we can do is preserve
it by God’s grace, praying on our knees. So the church enjoyed
peace and it continued to increase. It multiplied. In other words,
the early church was thriving, not just surviving. It was true
church growth. As I said, that was a typical
theme for the progress report in the book of Acts, a report
that included the state of the church, the size of the church,
Interesting thing is not that the early church was either at
peace or that it was growing because many churches do one
or the other. There are many churches that
are peacefully dead. They’re all happy with one another
and they’re going nowhere. And there are many churches that
are growing like crazy. And there is nothing but strife
and dissension within them. The amazing thing in the book
of Acts was that it was both. The church was doing both. It
was enjoying peace and it was growing. Growth, as I’ve suggested, often
causes disunity because of the methods that are employed. Some
churches are growing, but they’re constantly bickering and warring
with each other. The trend is to grow a mega church
by proportions and then split. That’s the pattern. It’s not
that they designed to split. They grow, they come apart at
the seams and they split. And now we’ve got another one
down the street. The other extreme is to develop
this false sense of peace and some kind of man-made unity in
our midst. Lower the doctrines to the lowest
common denominator and just kind of blissfully go through life. Other churches, as I suggest,
are at peace with one another, but they are dead and they are
lifeless. We walked into one church and
it seemed like this church every week they got the same sermon.
Because I went there on two different occasions, the same deal, and
it was a mantra. It was like this mantra and everybody
agreed and there was no dissension, no disagreement, no discussion
with the reverend. So why did the early church enjoy
this peaceful growth? And I don’t want to, I’m not
suggesting to give you a formula. But I will suggest that if these
elements are missing, no church will enjoy God’s blessing of
what I would call a trouble free increase. I want to give you this morning
in our time remaining three basic needs. Three basic requisites,
if you will, for a trouble-free increase, healthy church growth.
First of all, and you’ll be happy to know these aren’t alliterated
this morning. Divine edification. Divine edification. The church
enjoyed peace being built up. In other words, the church by
nature is constantly under a state of being under construction. The church is constantly being
built up. The church is constantly being
edified by God himself. Literally, the word here refers
to the building of a house. And often in scripture, there
is this image of even in the use of this word,
this this building up, this encouragement, this strengthening that comes
from it. Years ago, when I first started in ministry and we still
kind of have a flavor of this in our in our distinctives brochure,
I suggested that basically the church’s purpose was to glorify,
edify, testify. glorify God, edify the saints
and testify to the lost. This is what we’re considering
here is the edify portion of it. But this building up is often
misunderstood. In fact, a lot of people, they
want to treat it almost like this self-esteem movement that
was so big in the 80s and fell off a little bit in the 90s.
But it isn’t self-esteem. It’s not making each other feel
good about themselves regardless of their condition. It’s not
about self-esteem, but it’s knowledge of God and His ways. That is
true biblical edification. And it’s God that does it. We
can participate in that process in edifying one another, speaking
things that edify, teaching things that edify, singing things that
edify, living lives that edify others. That should be our goal. Listen to just a few of the verses
that point us in the direction of a lifestyle that edifies in
the church. First Thessalonians five says
that this edification process is a mutual thing. When it says
that we are to build up one another, it’s not just me. And thankfully,
I have those around me and many more than I’ve ever seen in the
church who know that I’m just a guy, I’m just human and I need
the edification from God’s word as well. Not only is edification mutual,
it’s discriminating. It’s a dirty word in our society,
but 1 Corinthians 10, 23 says all things are lawful, but not
all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not
all things edify. And what he calls the church
to do is be willing, if necessary, to set aside those so-called
Christian freedoms for the cause of building up their brethren
in the faith. Not only is it mutual and discriminating,
it is selfless. This edification of others takes
the eyes off of self, puts the eyes onto the church and says,
look, his growth is more important. Romans 15, to let us please our
neighbor for his good to his edification. What if the church
took on that attitude? Everybody in the church had everybody
else in focus as their best interest. That’s the edification that God
speaks of. It’s produced by God’s Word. Acts 20, 32, when Paul called
the Ephesian elders to himself, he said, I commend you to God.
I mean, what better place can Paul send us? I commend you to
God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up. That’s the only place. And once
you are in the process of being built up, how amazing is this? That is exactly what produces
peace. Harmony within the church. Romans
14, 19, pursue the things which make for peace and the building
up of one another. That as you’re pursuing that
peace, as you’re yearning for peace, you are in the process
of building that house. The church was literally in the
midst of being built up and it wasn’t anything that they were
necessarily doing. It was something that God, by
his grace and in his power alone, was accomplishing. Luke acknowledges
that God was growing the church just as he did in all those previous
progress reports, the Lord was adding to their numbers. God
causes the growth, God always causes the growth. God causes
the growth of an individual through the process of edification. And
he does the same thing in the church as the word is fed to
them. Not only did the church enjoy
peace and continue to increase by being edified, but secondly,
the second basic need, not only divine edification, but divine
reverence. OK, so part of it isn’t alliterated. Divine reverence. It says that
the church was going on in the fear of the Lord. That phrase
is used over 300 times in the Old Testament and only two times
in the New Testament. Some people would say, so do
we set aside the fear of the Lord? Not at all, because we
brought with us the Old Testament and the concept is clearly maintained
in the Old Testament, the fear or the reverence of the Lord.
The only other passage where it’s used One positive, one negative. Romans, pardon me, 2 Corinthians
5, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. In other words,
having this love for God and a reverence for him and a reverence
for his kingdom, we persuade men, we take the gospel to the
lost and dying world. Romans 3, 18. Negatively, there
is no fear of God before their eyes, akin to what Dan just read
a little bit ago about the Gentile world and and their hatred of
God. But this fear of God, what does
it mean? What is he talking about? Should we all it was the early
church just cowering in the corner of fear, afraid to to do anything,
afraid to offend God in however they lived or did or what? What is this fear? Is it a cowering
dread of God, as the Puritans asked? This reverence is a holy self-suspicion, as
one Puritan put it. The fear here recommended, he
said, is a holy self-suspicion and a fear of offending God The
more a Christian believes and loves and rejoices in the love
of God, the more unwillingly sure he is to displease Him.
And if in danger of displeasing Him, the more he is of it. Fear, said another. is a passion
implanted in our nature to deter us from what is hurtful. It is
that early warning system that says, look, I love God. And if
I love God, what I’m doing in this moment is wrong and sinful.
And I cannot go on. I will not go on. It is an element of the conscience.
It is an element of the conscience that keeps the love of God at
the forefront and says, look, I cannot go here. Another pastor from another day said
it this way, a seemingly incongruous couple, fear and joy, fear and
hope, fear and comfort. But indeed, these two are so
far from being inconsistent that they can hardly be separated.
The more a man fears to offend God, the greater his care is
to please Him. The greater his hope and comfort
will be. The more we fear, the less reason
we have to fear. If we fear God, we need fear
anything else. There is many a one who might
have been in a much more comfortable state of mind than he is if he
had minded his comfort less and his duty more.” Wow! We live in a day, as Dan suggested,
where the fear of God is gone from the great part of society. But in this early church, they
had a healthy fear of God. They knew and reverenced God.
They respected Him and loved Him. And look at the way it says
it. Going on refers to conduct. It refers to a way of life, not
just an occasional thing. It doesn’t say they pulled themselves
together on Sunday and reverenced God. Going on in the fear of
the Lord is a reverent, worshipful living. In all aspects of life,
their work, their home, their church. You see, the problem
is, people, I’ve said this before, we tend to dichotomize all of
life into these little compartments. We have the sacred part and we
have the secular part. We have the holy things. That’s
Bible study and life group and church and reading my Bible. Those are the sacred things.
And then we have the secular things. We get up and go to work.
We live however we want. We get up and we teach school
or we get up and we go to school or we get up and we do anything
just mundane. A.W. Tozer, some 70 years ago, said
this. Every act of a Christian’s life
is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord’s
Supper. Now, if that doesn’t That doesn’t
just make you sit back. Nothing will. Can you imagine
that every act of your life is truly as sacred as that? Those
holy things? To say this is not to bring all
acts down to one dead level. It’s rather to lift every act
up to a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that your whole
life is a living testimony to God and a living opportunity
to glorify God at every moment? It’s what the early church believed.
Tozer went on and said, it’s not what a man does that determines
whether his work is sacred or secular. It’s why he does it.
The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God
in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. Everything
that he does is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For
such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole
world will be a sanctuary. The Puritans laid hold of that.
The Puritans taught that life was a calling and that you could
glorify God if you were the town garbage man, you could glorify
God just as well in that position. As you could if you were the
very right reverend of the local church. It was that reverential fear
that drove them, that motivated them. They guided their every
step. Regarding the fear of God, one
last observation. where one said, although fear
in and of itself cannot produce truly good or spiritual right
action, yet it performs a vital function in keeping the soul
awake. Fear rings the alarm bell, rouses
the conscience and blows the trumpet of warning. It creates
a pause, an opportunity for all better and nobler things to make
themselves heard. It stops us in our tracks. And
it stopped the early church in their tracks. They could have
responded in kind to any of these persecutions and ill treatment. But they didn’t. They trusted
God and they loved Him. And they reverenced Him and they
served Him. And as a result, they enjoyed peace and growth. It’s the third observation here. The third basic need for healthy
church growth is not only divine edification and reverence, but
thirdly, divine encouragement. Scripture records here that they
were going on in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And we’ve
already noted, I mean, the church almost at no other point in the
history of the church needed comfort. They needed encouragement
at this outset. and note God’s willingness to
provide it. God didn’t want the church to
flounder. He certainly didn’t want it to fail. He had told
them that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. God was
committed to this. God was in it. Jesus had promised His church,
His apostles, that He would ask the Father and that He would
give them a helper So that he may be with you forever.
In John 14, the spirit of truth. The word comfort in our passage
is an interesting one, it’s taken from the same Greek words that
Christ used of that comforter. The word is paraclete or and
again, it’s another compound word para. To come alongside. Kaleo, to call. The one that
calls alongside. Paul uses it in the book of Thessalonians. He uses it as a father calling
alongside his own son. That’s the kind of comforter
that the Holy Spirit was. One that called alongside and
encouraged and consoled the early church. There’s ways that you can enjoy
comfort in life. It’s a false comfort. Avoid God.
Avoid His word. Avoid God’s people. And you’re
going to live a pretty comfortable life. Your conscience will be
pretty, you know, without those elements, without the Word of
God informing your conscience, without the people of God praying
for you, walking with you, holding you accountable, without a relationship
with God, your conscience is going to be relatively comfortable. But the early church enjoyed
this constant and divine source of encouragement and continuance.
How else would the early church have decided or prayed to persevere
in these things? Unless by divine assistance. I love the way Paul closes the
second Thessalonians. Now, may the Lord Jesus Christ
himself and God, our Father, who has loved us and given us
eternal comfort and good hope by grace, bless us. If our church is to grow, if
our church is to remain this peaceable fellowship that it
is, then it’s only going to be by God. It’s only going to be
by God giving us that edification, continuing to teach us, continuing
to build into us, continuing to mold in us that
healthy fear and reverence of God, Continuing to encourage
us by his own spirit, it’s only God. Let’s turn to him, thank him
for what we do have and pray for more merciful God. From time to time, even I have
suggested that I planted this church or that we have planted
this church. We often speak of it as our church,
And father, we know that it’s your church. You’ve done it all
just as you’ve done since the early church in those early days
in those progress reports where you you were the one. Lord God,
we don’t deserve. The continuing grace from your
hand, but we plead for it. We know that without you building
the house, we labor in vain. And so, Father, we do pray that
You would give us Your encouragement and grace, that You would instill
in Your people a healthy fear and reverence of God. Father,
that You would build the house for Your own glory, in Christ’s
name, Amen.