Growing the Congregation

Introduction

In the earth, the one that breathes life into all living things. Father, we’re so grateful for this opportunity that we have this morning to come together as brothers and sisters to worship and praise you in song and prayer and to listen to your word.

We pray that we you will be found pleasing in your sight. And Father, we’re just so grateful for all the blessings we have in our lives, for we are truly blessed to be your children. Father, we ask that you be with those of our number that may be dealing with sickness or illness. That you would lay your healing hand upon them and let them return to us quickly. Father, we pray for those that are dealing with the lost members that are ill and not long from for this earth. We pray that you’d be with them. Comfort them as only you can. Father, most of all, we thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, who gave his life on that cross, who carried our sins to that cross and brought to us the hope that we have that if we will walk the road and the path that you’ve given us, that in the end we will have a home with thee in eternity.

Be with us now, Father. Watch over us and care for us. In your Son’s holy name we pray. Amen.

Great to be with you all this morning to praise our Lord and our God in song. Begin with thing number 86 for the beauty of the earth. Let’s all stand as we sing the song this morning. Thank you, God, for the beauty of the relationship is left with the church and kingdom the skies of friends of my church of love.

The scripture reading today will be in Acts the eighth chapter, verses thirty-four through thirty-eight. Acts eight, thirty-four through thirty-eight. And it reads. So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of some other man. Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? Then Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So they so he commanded the chariot to stand still, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.

As we sing this song, I’d invite you all to sing it as if we’re singing it before God himself. In the first and second verse, in a gentle admission of his power and acknowledgement of who he is, and then building in the third verse, acknowledging his holiness. And finally, let us all proclaim it loudly together in the fourth verse. Holy songs.

Let’s pray. Lord God Almighty, you have blessed us and shown us your love in so many great ways, Lord. We ask that you continue to do so that you can continue to watch over us, Lord. We are so thankful for this time and place that we can come together to worship you, to sing praises to you. Lord, we’re thankful for this family we have to gather in your name and to help support one another.

That you be with those that are struggling, whether it’s physically, emotionally, struggling in sin, Lord, we ask that you watch over them and strengthen them.

Lord, we ask that our worship to you this morning is not only edifying to each and every member here, but also more importantly, pleasing to you, Lord. Lord, we are so thankful that you gave us your son to die a horrible death on the cross for us for our sins, so that one day we may have the hope of spending an eternity with you in heaven, Lord. This is in your son Jesus’ holy name. I pray. Amen.

The Apostle Paul set up primarily Gentile churches throughout Macedonia, Cai, and Galatia. Paul requested from these churches to gather money to send to fellow Jewish brethren at Jerusalem who are in the midst of a famine. This accomplished two things. It provided for the immediate need, but more importantly, it built a bond between these brethren. Can only imagine how humbling it would have been for a Gentile or excuse me, a Jewish Christian to accept an offering from a Gentile Christian at this time. Breaking down past animosities and finding a commonality that would be only through Christ. As members of this local work here today, we have the same responsibility to monetarily support the needs that arise. Let us pray. Thank you, Lord, for all you provide. You sustain us daily and know every need we have.

I pray the money we have set aside today to further this local work was done so with the right heart and may provide sufficiently for the needs that arise.

Amen.

In our last two songs, we proclaimed God’s glory, his beauty, and his greatness. Yet, as we’ve discussed in our first James or our first John class, God’s glory and perfection also reminds us of our inadequacy away from Him. So now in our next two songs, we will sing and acknowledge our emptiness and vainness without God and our need for Him. First, we’ll sing I need thee every hour, and then we’ll sing that great is thy faithfulness, acknowledging that He abides with us forever. I need thee every hour.

Now let’s sing for our song after the sermon would be how firm foundation. Now that I’ll stand and see great with thy face.

It’s a blessing to be with you all this morning. I’ve had a great week over the past week. I’ve got to spend some time with the Cy Fair congregation. And some of you actually were there and visited with me. Sharay and the boys and Wyatt win the award for coming the most. And so I appreciate them being there. My family had to come. We made them at some points, but I was glad that they came there as well, and Katie was able to be there with me. It was a little different doing a meeting in town. I don’t know that I’ve ever done that before. That was a first-time type thing, but it was great. I met some of your family. some of our members have family at Sci Fair, and I got to spend time getting to know the brethren over there and working together in the Lord, and that was just a real joy to be a part of that.

They’re only 30, 35 minutes away from us, our brethren in the Lord that we can get to know, and we can work together in this general area for the cause of the kingdom, and that’s such a great thing. and I know that they were felt blessed to have me there with them and get to know us and this congregation, and we talked some about that. And so I think this was just a good thing overall that we got to do this and got to know some of the brethren at Cyfair. Some of them I knew from other places, so that was fun as well. I knew them from being at Kleinwood or from other places we had been before. And so I think this just reminded me of something I talked about a couple Sundays ago now that the Lord’s work is not something that involves competition.

We are part of the body of Christ, and we are all working for the same goals. We are working to spread the gospel of Jesus to all who will listen. And that’s what we are about doing in this place as well. And so if you’re visiting with us this morning, we’re so glad that you’re here. And we hope that you’re seeing that we are focused on glorifying God, worshiping him, and building each other up and in the cause of Christ. And we’re going to talk some about that as well this morning. I appreciate Caleb preaching last week. He did a great job. And actually, some of the things that he said, I want to sort of feed into part of what we’re going to talk about this morning about sacrifice.

And so we’ll get there in a little bit. But I want to start in Acts chapter 19. This is sort of the end of this section, the general section that we’re working on here. It’s a long section, Acts 13 through 19. And I hope that our members have had time to kind of read through this a little bit over the last few weeks, and we’ll continue to do so as we are slowly moving through the book of Acts, looking at different themes. We’ve already talked about the idea of growing the church kind of on a global sort of basis. Maybe what we would most think of when we think about Paul and Barnabas and Silas and the kind of work they did, you know, where they’re taking these trips and they’re going place to place.

It’s not just about one local group. They do, we’re going to talk this morning about they do spend time, significant time sometimes in local groups, but also they were going a lot of other places. And so we talked about even we as individuals, though we’re not Paul or Barnabas or Silas, how we can be a part of that and work in the kingdom. This morning I want to spend a more time talking about growing local congregations, growing this group that we’re a part of and what that looks like and what that involves. I want to focus in chapter 19. I’m just going to begin in verse 1 because I want to capture some of what’s going on here. It says, and it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, he had just left Ephesus, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.

There he found some disciples. And he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, No, we have not heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said, Into what then were you baptized? They said, into John’s baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all. And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all of the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Paul and his traveling companions were certainly interested in converting people. That’s a lot of what they were doing. They were going place to place, they were speaking the message of Jesus, preaching the gospel, and working on converting whoever would listen. And he had some customs that I’m sure we’ll come back to as we work through this. He would go to the synagogue, and any who would listen, he would talk to them, and then he would talk to the Gentiles who were willing to listen to him.

And that’s how he would establish these congregations. But one of the reasons I wanted to read Acts 19, it mentions in passing a couple important things for what we want to do this morning. The first of those is that he goes to Ephesus and he finds disciples already there. Now they had some limited knowledge, and he has to work with that, but that’s part of the point. He’s going to these places not only just to convert new people, but a lot of what he’s doing with Barnabas or with Silas is going back and they’re encouraging and strengthening, trying to deepen the faith of the people who are in these congregations that already exist. What we see in Acts 19, and what I’ve highlighted on the screen so you can see this, is the length of time.

Part of this is he’s he’s there for three months in the synagogue. And parts of what he’s doing certainly is working to convert new people, but also this length of time and the amount of time he’s spending here involves also the disciples. He’s taking those who are already believers, those who are already followers, and here some have rejected. He takes them somewhere else and says, We’re gonna work on getting grounded. They’re gonna spend significant time in learning the scriptures, learning about God, learning about Jesus Christ, and he’s there reasoning daily with them, and it continues for two years. Sometimes we think of the travels of Paul, you know, he’s kind of bouncing from place to place, and he certainly does that. You know, if you read through the book of Acts, sometimes it’s really quick, and he’s just going from city to city to city, and it’s very quick, but sometimes he’s there for a lengthy period of time.

There’s a number of times in the text when Jesus is actually mentioned, and his trip probably takes longer than we would imagine. Because sometimes he’s spending a lengthy period of time working on grounding the people in their faith where they are. Also, in his journeys, he’s not just going to new places all the time. I mean, he’s establishing these churches, but in the three journeys, he’s continuing to come back to the congregations he’s already established, some of them at least, to help ground them more and more. So the conversions and teaching the gospel to people is extremely important. And he is doing a lot of that. But what is also important is that he is strengthening and encouraging and helping these brethren who exist in these places, as he says, to continue in the faith, even through difficulty and tribulation.

A congregation that grows in number, but not in strength, is like a house of cards. It just takes one little bad movement and the whole thing falls in. Paul, Barnabas, his companions, they understand this. So it’s not just about expanding, it’s not just about growing numbers and getting lots of people. It’s also about deepening understanding. It’s about strengthening people so that when tribulation comes or difficulties are there, they’ll understand the right ways to act, the right kind of behavior to have, the right sort of beliefs that will encourage them to go in the right directions. All of this is very important for what Paul and his companions are doing as they travel all throughout the world. Brian already mentioned the various places that they traveled, going all the way over into Greece, you know, Macedonia and Achaia.

I mean, they’re all over the world. It’s amazing to see where they go and how much good work they do, and part of that work is in building up these local churches, the various places where they have established them. So I want to talk for a few minutes this morning about what it looks like to grow a local congregation. The sort of things that have to be present. Local congregations grow when people, first of all, are committed. And that’s a foundational aspect of what we’re going to talk about. It’s not that just a congregation itself exists and it grows in and of itself.

1. People Who Want to Grow in Knowledge

And that is the basic point of pretty much everything that we’re going to talk about. But the first element of this is we have to be kind to the kind of people who want to grow in knowledge. Unwillingness to grow in knowledge presents all kinds of problems. And in fact, we see that happening even within this section of text, all the way back in Acts chapter 13. Paul begins this journey. He and Barnabas, they’re going to various places and they begin preaching. And so they’re in Antioch. And they’re preaching the word and they’re telling the history of God’s plan, how all of this came about, and what was God doing through history and reminding them all of this. And then he gets to verse 27 in our Bibles.

A very alarming text. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him, he’s speaking of Jesus here, nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.

And as I was listening to it yesterday, this verse hit me. I mean, the whole problem with what happens in the story of Jesus and their unwillingness to receive him and ultimately to condemn him and kill him is because they don’t know the scriptures. Man, this is what Paul says. It’s their lack of knowledge. And he kind of throws a little dig at them here in the middle of this, right? He’s like the reason these people in Jerusalem and their rulers, the reason they condemn him, or they don’t even recognize who he is because they don’t understand the prophets. And they read them every Sabbath. You hear the point he’s making. Reading the Bible and understanding the message are not the same thing. Just because we read it a lot doesn’t mean we’ve put the work in to actually understand.

These people had read every Sabbath, many of them their entire lives. Many of them are devout Jews practicing Judaism. They know the law, some of them, forward and backward, but it hadn’t really enlightened them on what God was actually doing.

But yet when the Messiah shows up on the scene, they completely miss it. Because even though they’re reading the scriptures week in and week out, they don’t really understand. It takes some work to understand. It takes diligence, a willingness, and eagerness to want to learn. Try to dig in and see what’s there and understand what’s been written. For them, it was the Old Testament, what we would call the Old Testament. Having a knowledge of the prophets and the things that they were talking about and the messages they were giving. And apparently, even though they’ve spent lots of time reading these documents, they didn’t really understand them. And so when Jesus showed up, they rejected him and they killed him, which in fact, ironically, fulfilled the very things they didn’t actually understand.

Knowledge is extremely important. And probably the most famous text, the one you knew I would talk about, is the brethren in Berea and the way they react to Paul’s teaching, particularly in contrast to the Jews in Thessalonica. And there’s a whole lot that could be said about this section and how people interact with the teaching of truth and all of that. And we’ll do some of that. I can’t possibly capture it all, but I just want to get the broad picture here. The Jews in Thessalonica, they don’t want to hear what Paul has to say. They reject him. They essentially want to kick him out. They don’t want to listen. There’s some who believe initially. But some of the Jews, they get the people riled up, they get a rabble, a mob of people, and they create an uproar.

They even attack somebody’s house. They’re not interested in listening. And they’re they’re so vile in their unwillingness to listen that they actually track Paul down in Berea and they cause problems there too. That’s the kind of people they are. Well, when he first goes to Berea, we’re told in the text the Jews there are more noble than those who are at Thessalonica because they receive the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. So Paul comes in, there’s so many great points here. Paul comes in and he’s preaching to them, and they don’t say, Okay, we hear you, Paul. You said you’re an apostle. We’re just gonna do whatever you say. They don’t react that way. But what they do is they want to get into scripture, the things that Paul is doing.

Notice when he comes somewhere, his custom is to reason with them, to explain, to prove. He doesn’t just accept people to just accept whatever he says. He doesn’t come in and say, I’m a messenger from the Lord, you should just do whatever I say. No, the expectation is that he needs to reason. He needs to use logic and he needs to look at scripture, he needs to explain himself and prove the points he’s making and be able to back up what he’s saying with actual word of God. And that’s what Paul does. And on the other side of that, the response of these people is they take what Paul’s saying and they’re examining the scriptures. Not only are they examining it, but they’re doing it frequently.

They’re doing it every day here. And when they’ve done that, then they receive it eagerly. The logical conclusions that are reached. When Paul explains and he proves himself, and they go look and they dig in and they examine, they say, you know what, Paul, you’re right. Then they eagerly receive what they have been told. And for many of these people, it was quite different than what they had believed their whole life. Acts chapter 15, which we’ll deal with a little bit later, is a whole issue about this. Some were saying, hey, you can’t be a Christian and you can’t follow the gospel unless you’ve been circumcised. You have to be a Jew first. I mean, they believe this their whole life. But think of something that you’ve believed your entire life, and then somebody comes in and says, It’s not like that anymore.

How would you feel about that? That’s these people from the party of the circumcision. They follow the law. They’ve believed this is important their entire life, and so they’re even going out to Antioch and to other places and saying, to be to follow Christ, you have to be circumcised. Right? Which is creates a huge problem. You can understand why they would feel this way, though. I mean, they’ve this has been their practice since before they were alive. The Jewish people have been doing this. And now suddenly it’s all changed. I mean, Paul has to have some pretty good proof. He needs to explain himself really well so they can understand why this change is taking place. But to their credit, the Jews in Berea and the others who are there with them, they are willing and eager to look to Scripture, to look to the Word of God, to examine it carefully, and then to accept what’s there.

What hinders growth, on the other hand, is what we see embedded in these texts. There’s so much of this, I can only give you a few examples. But the hindering of growth, even within a local congregation, right? This is where it gets a little tricky in the book of Acts, because you have the Jews who are sort of they’re insiders. and Paul is trying to connect with them as insiders, like they’ve been following Yahweh for a long time. Some of them are rejecting them. They should know, they shouldn’t understand, but some of them are not willing to listen. Some of them are.

They’re grinding their teeth and they’re running at him and they ultimately stone him. They kill them because they so much don’t want to hear what he has to say. But before they do that, they plug their ears, they won’t even listen. This is what hinders growth in knowledge. Or in chapter 14, we’re told as Paul’s trying to do his work that some of the Jews there, the unbelieving Jews, they’re stirring up the Gentiles and they’re poisoning their minds against them. Telling them not to listen. Don’t listen to the things Paul’s telling you. Rather than encouraging eagerness to find truth, it tells us they actually are causing division. One of the puzzling things about this passage in Acts 14 is it tells us, they’re speaking boldly for the Lord, but they’re also doing signs and wonders.

I mean, they’re doing amazing things. This happens a few different times within the Acts account. You know, they’re healing people, they’re doing all kinds of remarkable feats. And yet it says the city was still divided. Can you imagine you’re seeing somebody who’s paralyzed and someone comes and says, hey, you’ve seen this guy paralyzed, and you’ve known he’s been that way, and someone says, Hey, rise up and walk, you’re healed. And they’re like, eh, I don’t know. I don’t know. But that’s what poisoning the mind does. They collected a mob, they stirred up the people and they poisoned the minds of people in the city, and so Paul and his companions, what they do is they just continue on. They just keep going to the places where people will live.

I wonder how much more could have been done in some of those places without the hindrance to the growth there. Without the problems that some of these people, not only in their own community, but then they traveled sometimes to other communities and caused problems there too. Poisoning people’s minds and stirring them up against Paul and against Barnabas. Paul calls Elamus, the magician, the son of the devil, an enemy of all righteousness, full of deceit and villainy for opposing kingdom work. And that’s exactly what it is when people oppose the good work that happens in the kingdom. The stand in the way of truth being taught. Stand in the way of growth happening within a local congregation. Growing churches do not fear searching truth. They are eager for it.

2. Knowledge Helps Nothing If There's No Action

It’s not dangerous. It’s not a waste of time. It’s what noble people do. And this is what we see with these Jews in Berea, which is why they have stood as an example of this for centuries and centuries. Another element that we see within this section of text, it’s not just the knowledge. I mean, knowledge is important. But all the knowledge in the world, all the understanding of the world helps nothing if there’s no action. James says faith without works is dead. I mean, if I study scripture and I learn it, and there’s people who do this, I mean, particularly from an academic standpoint, there are people within academia who knows this book so well, and they study it all the time, and then they just don’t live it.

How much has that helped them? Now, they may help us. Maybe they write books or they write things that help us understand some things, and that’s nice. But if they’re not living what they’re reading and studying and understanding, it is not helped them at all. The early saints were taught not just to learn, but to also take action, even from the very beginning in Acts 2 42. They’re devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers. These are actions, these are things that they’re doing together. You know the story early in the book of Acts. They’re taking care of each other and they’re involved in each other’s lives. And even in this section, when we begin this process of the journeys here, the very first thing that we see, this church in Antioch, which is like a power church.

I mean, they’re doing all kinds of great things. They’re sending Paul and Barnabas out and they keep coming back. It’s like their home base. They keep returning there. Here’s how it starts. It says, while they were worshiping, this is our introduction to them, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. Our introduction to the church in Antioch is a church that is deep in worship. It is a church that is practicing spiritual disciplines. They’re fasting, they’re praying. They seem to be doing quite a bit of this. This is the congregation that Paul and Barnabas keep returning to, and they stay here for quite some time when they make these returns and they tell them the things that they’ve been doing.

And this church is encouraging them and commending them in their work. They’re laying their hands on them. That’s really the idea. They’re commending them and sending them off to do the good things that they’re doing. This is the kind of church this is. I am interested here in the fact that they are doing fasting and praying. They’re a very disciplined group of people. In our day and age, I don’t know how many times I’ve had this conversation about fasting. And I’ve given the you know stock answer many times in my life. You know, we are never commanded to fast. We don’t have to fast. It’s a literary thing in Matthew 6 when it says, when you fast, it’s the thing they did. I can give all the answers.

It’s interesting though, like Jesus fasted. The disciples are fasting. Maybe there’s something to this. Part of discipleship is shaping myself after the character and the nature of Jesus Christ. And if there’s something we struggle with in our culture, there’s multiple aspects of this, but part of it is just the inability to have self-discipline, making things all about me and what I want and selfish desire. And part of what happens with something like fasting is essentially an admission that there’s something bigger than me, there’s something more important than the desires I feel. This is something the Jewish people were somewhat regular in as well. And it’s not something that we have to be commanded to do. We don’t, this is the idea of discipleship. That’s kind of my point.

It’s not that we have to have some commandment, thou shalt fast once a week. Right? This is only one aspect of this. But what am I doing as a believer in Jesus Christ? What am I doing that is producing fruit? That is transforming me in a way to become more like Jesus. What is helping me be more faithful, more loyal? These are the sorts of things that Paul and others are working with these congregations. When they go and they visit them, what they’re seeing are real life struggles that they’re dealing with. Chapter 14, Paul is working through these different cities, Antioch and Iconium and Lystra. And the people there, they’re not really receptive, right? Culture in general. In fact, they pull him out and they stone him and they think he’s dead.

And then he returns and he goes through all of these cities, it tells us, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them, this is verse 22, to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. So I’m not telling you need to have some fasting schedule or anything like that. But it is apparent to me that it keeps getting mentioned here in the text that part of what’s happening with these people, particularly in connection to Paul, teaching them, helping them be strengthened, continuing in the faith, are even things like fasting, spiritual disciplines that they are using to shape who they are and to transform themselves into the image of Christ, particularly in making really important decisions, like appointing leaders.

It’s taken so seriously that they are fasting and praying in the midst of this. And so strengthening and encouraging the saints is not just about Bible classes. Those are good. I mean, I just spent a whole point talking about knowledge and the importance of that, how we need to learn the Bible and we need to understand the Word of God. That’s really vital. But it’s also how that then transforms our life. How does that change me? How does it reshape my heart? What does it mean about the things I’m doing? I can sit and listen to sermons or Bible classes and then tomorrow go out and just do the same things I’ve always been doing. And what good has that done? The point is that it has some kind of practical meaning for who we are and what we’re doing in life.

And sometimes that’s borne out in things like fasting, as it’s mentioned here, or being deep in prayer, or the regularity of worship. Some of these things we’re more familiar with than others. Those are all really important aspects of growth, participating in these things. It’s not just knowing, it’s also the actions behind it. The elders are selected to help guide the flock in chapter 14. Because even believers lose focus and need help.

We need shepherding. And this is why Paul is going to these cities and he’s appointing these leaders, these shepherds to help in every congregation so that people have this kind of relational connection to the faith that they are building and they should be growing into. And so the foundational question here as we look at what’s happening in these texts with these numerous congregations and what Paul is doing with them are do my actions match my knowledge? Do I live the way I have learned a Christian should live? Am I disciplined? Am I even working on discipline in my life? What kind of plan do we have after conversion, right? I mean we get someone and we baptize them into Jesus Christ, then what? It seems like Paul has a plan.

He’s continuing to go back to strengthen and to build. Some of this may start with just me questioning myself. How is my knowledge what I know and how I’ve acted on it? How is that changing my life? What is the fruit of that? Do I have a heart that’s more pure and focused on the glory of God? Am I more joyful in life? Do I have a sense of purpose? Am I less concerned with myself and all the things I want? Are these the sorts of changes that I’m seeing? Have my relationships improved? Do I have better relationships with my family, my friends, or in my marriage? What kind of fruit is being born from this decision and the changes that are taking place in my life if I’m following Jesus?

3. Personal Investments in Local Congregations

Am I helping the people around me know Jesus? Or are they looking at me and saying, why would I live like him? These are the kinds of things that I can be asking myself to evaluate where I am in Jesus Christ, as Paul encourages the Corinthian brethren to do. As a congregation, are we building people up? Or are we just counting them? We love growth in numbers. That’s fun. You know, to have more people and new people, and that’s good. I think that’s a good thing. And of course we want that. But growing numbers is not all there is. It’s probably more vital that we’re growing in strength, that we’re growing in faith. Healthy members don’t just show up. They’re active. They’re involved. Which then goes into this last point, and that is we see people making personal investments in local congregations.

There’s growth in knowledge, and there’s growth and activity and action, but also growth and loyalty. What I see is I read through the book of Acts, and I see these various congregations, and even Paul, as he spends significant time in different places with some of his traveling companions, is that congregational growth is contingent upon and it’s directly proportional to the level of personal commitment the members have to the body. Paul makes all these trips, but even after he makes the trips, he then writes letters. Eight to ten years later, he visits Ephesus at the end of his second journey. And then he goes back and spends two and a half years there. But then eight to ten years later, he writes this letter. Here’s what he tells them.

Speaking of God or Jesus Christ, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Here’s what Paul’s saying. This church is not going to grow, you brethren in Ephesus, just because I come there and I work there. Not because Apollos or Barnabas, they show up for a few months and they work among you. Where the real growth is going to come is when the whole body is joined and held together by every joint. Every joint, and it is equipped. So we’re equipping everyone to do this work of ministry, and each part is working properly. That is the formula for growth. If we want to grow this body, if we want this congregation to grow, and I’m speaking here even more about strength and faith than I am even about numbers, it’s going to be because each person decides they are going to personally invest in what’s happening here.

Like, why would I do that if it doesn’t help me? Why would I spend time doing this if it doesn’t immediately help me in some way? If it doesn’t make me feel good, or it doesn’t bring some immediate reward. And as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, religion in many ways has become a product that people consume rather than a mission. They’ve joined. They need a certain worship style, or they want to seek out certain programs that are good for them and what they want. Rather than seeing that the mission is much bigger than my personal desires and wants. Certainly, we don’t need things at times, and what I see in the model in the New Testament is that as a congregation, we love each other and we care about each other and we want to help each other out.

And so the various things that we actually truly need are met. That takes place in Acts 2 and Acts 4. When people are making sacrifices, they’re personally investing in the body around them, even selling their possessions to make sure everybody’s needs are met. Paul and Barnabas and Silas, they spend significant time working to grow these various congregations with the people who are there. Did they get some big payoff or material reward? And sometimes they’re not even paid at all. They’re not doing this for the money. They weren’t doing it to get rich. Your elders here in this congregation, I assure you, they’re not doing this job to get wealthy. But it is the betterment of the congregation that they are seeking to serve. Something bigger than themselves.

God’s people seek the good of the congregation and the kingdom itself. We see this with Aquila and Priscilla. Such a great story. Kind of a puzzling one in some ways. Apollos, this eloquent man who’s speaking great things and refuting the Jews, but he’s kind of missing it on some really critical things. I think we might have a hard time with him in our culture. He’s preaching and he’s teaching, it says accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. And that text in chapter 19 we just read shows some of the fruit of that. Paul shows he finds disciples there, and they only know the baptism of John. They don’t know the baptism of Jesus. Probably Apollos’ work. So good things are happening, but it’s just not completely complete here.

And you likely know the story, Priscilla and Aquila, they hear him, they take him aside, they help him. And you just bear with my foolishness for just a minute. I was always reading this. I thought, I think it would be different today. Unfortunately, at least from what I have experienced and what I have seen. I think this is how this text would read if someone in the modern times were writing it. A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a false teacher, twisting the scriptures and being dangerously charismatic. He spoke and taught deceitful things concerning Jesus, not even teaching baptism in Jesus. He began to speak proudly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they wrote letters about him and sent them everywhere, warning every church about him.

And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers accused him of trying to get a following and wrote to the disciples there to be skeptical of him. Unfortunately, in modern times, rather than investing in people, sometimes our brethren decide to break them down. Rather than seeing the potential of the work that could be done. And like Aquila and Priscilla, pulling them aside and working with him, teaching them more accurately, seeing the benefit that could come from that, even if it has no immediate payoff for them. It’s easier just to cut someone down. Often to lift up yourself. This is not the sort of growth. This is not what promotes the sort of growth that we’re after. In fact, it’s just the opposite. We see not just Aquila and Priscilla, but Paul himself takes on a mentee.

Chapter 16. There’s this boy, Timothy. And I just wonder, you know, is it going to make Paul’s job easier to take Timothy along and take him places? Or is he working for a greater purpose? Now, Paul had sometimes he wasn’t completely patient. John Martin left him and he said, Barnabas, we’re not taking him again. So Paul had his limits. But he takes Timothy, and he’s going to spend time shaping Timothy. Look, if we want to grow this congregation with maturity and strength, if we want to encourage people, find someone to mentor. Find someone to help. Or maybe you’re on the other side of that, and you think, you know, I need some help. I want to find one of the wise people around me, and I want to learn.

And I’m going to do it for the glory of God and for the growth of this body and the growth of the kingdom in general. Investing in the congregation can involve mentoring. It can involve helping equip and encourage teaching and preaching and various things that need to be done in that way. It can involve correction, like Aquila and Priscilla, and how they did this with Apollos, helping him understand things a little bit more clearly. It involves caring for people. Now, some of these things, I just think we do so well here. So this is not some sort of condemnation, like you need to do better. I mean, some of this is just a reminder. We need reminders all the time. I mean, the early days of the church, they’re meeting every day and they’re eating in people’s homes, and they’re taking care of each other.

Conclusion

Who’s doing all that? It’s not the apostles. They’re not doing it all. It was everybody. They’re opening their homes, they’re having people come in, they’re feeding people. Other people are showing up at people’s homes to work together and to study together. They’re building relationships and they’re encouraging each other in the process of doing that. They’re showing eagerness to learn. They’re not withholding themselves from one another. But they realize they’re family. And if this is going to grow and the message of the gospel is going to spread, it’s going to start with them becoming one and working together in that process. I appreciate your listening this morning. Some of this is not easy. Growing in maturity and strength and encouragement takes a lot of work. And that’s what’s hard about it.

It takes that personal investment. It’s really easy to see the things that need to be done. We really should do this, and we should do that, you know, and I wish Ross would do that, and I wish Robbie would do. But then what about me? It’s really easy to see all the things we think other people should do. But what I hope that you see in scripture this morning, what we’re looking through, is that what Paul’s aiming for is that we are all equipped. And that we all are wanting to do the work of ministry. Building the kingdom in general, but also if we want everybody wants to be in a thriving congregation that’s growing, that makes us feel good, that teaches truth. All of those things are things that everybody actually wants.

But it comes down to what am I going to do about that? What am I offering? How am I investing in this? To produce that, not just for me, but for everyone, because we care about the whole body and what every joint supplies and how that’s going to produce growth in the body of Christ. This morning, if you know you need Jesus Christ, we want to help you with that. We want to encourage you to give your life to him. To make that investment that’s going to pay off, that’s going to bring you into eternity where you will live with the Father forever. We want that for you. We want to help you with that. If you’re not even sure what to do, you know you need it, but you don’t know, ask.

We’re glad. There’s plenty of people that can help with that. And if you’re someone who’s already in Jesus Christ and you feel that you just haven’t been investing the way you should, make that change now. You don’t have to come up here and talk about it. But you can go home and you can pray to the Father. You can talk to your spouse. You can talk to your friends and decide you’re going to start showing more commitment to the things going on here because you want to help not just yourself, but the entire body, and we want to grow as God’s people in this place. Can we help you this morning? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing?

One more can be saying until you have said you want to re shall fled when he wants to go so I will be made from less and I to be stress when through my shall I grace also be supply shall not be will be side and I go to read. After this song we’ll be partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Does everyone have the elements of the bread and the juice to partake of the Lord’s Supper? If not, if you raise your hand, these gentlemen in the back will bring that to you. When I surveyed the wondrous cross.

And then adding apart each sequential verse. So sopranos, then autos, and tenors, then basses. And if you don’t know what part to sing, just sing the whole song with me and focus on praising God.

Going to be reading briefly from the end of Luke chapter twenty-four, where Jesus is bringing everything together for his apostles and disciples on the plan that they couldn’t pick up on, and for the plan that God and Christ didn’t want the dark powers of this world to know before he was crucified. There in verse forty-four. Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. I found myself last weekend needing to kill some time in a Walmart. And as I find myself in these situations, I’m very bad to people watch. Not from some judgmental standpoint, but just objectively. And it won’t take you very long in any public place in this world to realize that we live in a lost and broken world from people watching. And as I was sitting on that little bench up by the water fountains, you know at the front at Walmart. And all these people are going back and forth. Just on the other side are all the Easter displays. And I can’t get it out of my mind. How God the Son came down and offered himself on the cross and gave his life, was resurrected on the third day, way too long to have been unconscious or asleep.

So that we don’t have to be lost and broken. And in the one time a year where the world might pause to think about the death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God, what do they get? Cartoon bunnies, pastel covered, candy eggs and baskets of fake grass, and those awful marshmallow peeps.

And I can’t be convinced that is not intentional. It must be. This is the representation of what you get of the resurrection of the Son of God. As God’s family, we don’t think about this miracle of sacrifice and forgiveness on just one day of the year. We think about it every day, but we come together here as God’s family on the first day of the week to focus on this memorial of Jesus body and his blood. And we proclaim our faith in the power of that sacrifice for the salvation of everyone who would come to him. Let’s give thanks for the bread.

How true and faithful you are, how unbreakable are your promises. We thank you this morning for this first day of the week for the sacrifice of our Savior and your Son Jesus Christ through the lineage of Abraham and David. You have kept your word, and through this sacrifice, all nations of the earth have been blessed. He inhabited that body, dear God, in human form, knowing its limits, its weakness, knowing betrayal, knowing abandonment, and knowing agony. We thank you, and as we take this bread, dear God, let us focus on a Savior that was offered for us in Jesus’ name. Amen.

For this cup, the cup that did not pass from him, dear God, but that he took. This cup that represents his blood.

Flowing down from his brow when the thorns were pressed onto his head, when he was struck, when his back was opened with whips, when he was nailed to the cross, and that blood ran down and dripped in the dust. Calvary. That blood, dear God, that seals the New Testament, that blood that is soul cleansing. We give you thanks. And we take of this in truly in his remembrance of the mighty deed he has done for us. In Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.

First, I want to invite everyone to be back tonight at 5 o’clock for Bible classes. next, we I get to announce our newest member here at Decker Prairie, a Mr. Hudson Lovett. He’s not here this morning, but he was born April 3rd at 408. He’s eight pounds and two ounces, or at least when he was born, and 19 and a half inches, if I got all the stats right. So pray for the Love It family as they’re they’re raising a new one. also, we do still have many members to be that we need to remember in our prayers in the bulletin board. The one update that I did have that’s not in the bulletin was Lucy’s older brother, Mike Edder, is not doing very well, and looks like he’s approaching the end of his life.

So Lucy’s asking for prayers for the family and for him in that as they go through that. Elders, deacons, any other announcements? All right, we’ll go ahead and be led in our song. It’s been great to be with you all this morning. as we close, I saw Stan and we see the first and last bird of nearer and still near.

You pray with me. Our Lord, our God, we pray that you will accept our worship this morning. We are thankful for this opportunity and privilege to worship you.

You be the honor, glory, and dominion forever. Pray all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.