Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20050227.htm

THE BIBLICAL GROWTH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH
Part IV: Growing By True "Body Life" And Evangelism
(Matthew 16:18 with Acts 1:8; 2:40-47)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

A nationally known "seeker friendly" church growth expert has recently promoted the use of different "venues" involving different styles of worship to attract lots of people to the Church.

His goal is to offer traditional worship services with the old fashioned hymns for regular church goers, but then to offer contemporary rhythm and blues or even rock music to attract lost people to other KINDS of services in the same Church.

This leader allegedly finds Biblical support in his belief from Acts 5:42 NIV: there we read the Early Church continued daily in the temple courts with their worship of God. Thus, this leader suggests there were different meetings with different "venues" of worship in different courts of the temple to appeal to different groups of believers, allegedly giving credence to having a traditional worship at one time in one location and a contemporary service in another place at a different time, cf. Dave Hunt, The Berean Call, January 2005, p. 5.

In reality, there is no Biblical SUPPORT for this view. (a) First of all, Acts 5:42 in the Greek New Testament does not even have the word "courts" in it [ U. B. S. Greek N. T., 1966 ed., p. 437]. (b) Second, Acts 2:46 KJV claims the Early Church Christians met in the temple "with one accord", and the Greek Testament uses the word, homothumadon there to describe this "one accord" [Ibid., p. 425], a word that also appears in Acts 15:25 to describe "'the entire Church convened together'" [Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, p. 448] as it possesses "inner unanimity" [cf. Theol. Dict. of the N. T., vol. V, p. 186]. The great differences believers have today over just the music of a traditional worship service versus a contemporary service in NO WAY represents the way the Early Church met as ONE GROUP with INNER UNANIMITY!

Yet, there IS to be TRUE "BODY LIFE" in the Church, for the Early Christians of Acts 2:44-47 "had all things common" and "parted them to all men as every man had need" and unitedly rejoiced and praised God in the temple every day!

HOW then is TRUE "body life" to occur, and WHAT part should we EACH play to that end as GOD sees it?



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "As MANY pastors and churches today give concern to building good relationships in the church and attracting outsiders for Christ, and as we know many efforts to that end are artificial, HOW is TRUE 'body life' and evangelism to occur, and WHY? From GOD'S view, what would be MY part in it all?!"
  1. Church growth is something JESUS said HE WOULD ACHIEVE in Matthew 16:18; it WILL OCCUR, we best ADJUST to it!
  2. Well, in TRUE church growth ministries, godly 'BODY LIFE' rises SPONTANEOUSLY through the HOLY SPIRIT'S work as a RESULT of the FILLING of the SPIRIT and ADHERENCE to the MINISTRY of GOD'S WORD and TRUE WORSHIP that STIRS UP INDIVIDUALS to USE their SPIRITUAL ENABLING to EDIFY ONE ANOTHER (as follows):
    1. Jesus revealed the building of His Church would occur through His disciples by the indwelling Spirit's power, Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8.
    2. A CHARACTERISTIC that marked the Early Church was its spontaneous involvement in "body life" that spilled over into outreach that occurred DAILY as follows:
      1. As we have learned by our past messages in this series, the Early Church of Acts 2 was right with GOD: its members were dependent on the indwelling Holy Spirit Who controlled each one's attitudes and behaviors, Acts 2:4a.
      2. That in turn led them to give themselves faithfully as a group to the ministry of Bible exposition by the Apostles, Acts 2:42a.
      3. When THAT happened, camaraderie and heartfelt worship of God came into existence as God's blessing, Acts 2:42b-43a.
    3. Well, this camaraderie of "fellowship" and heartfelt worship led to the APOSTLES being MOTIVATED to USE their God-given, supernatural "gifts" of Apostleship to the FULL so that many supernatural miracles were performed by them, Acts 2:43b.
    4. As the APOSTLES were thus used of God, the other believers were motivated to used THEIR "gifts" producing great "Body life":
      1. The believers consequently loved to meet together to view God's great working in the Apostles, Acts 2:44a.
      2. That led to their seeing the material needs of one another and of their willingness to be used of God to meet those needs as God gave each believer the spiritual or material ability to do so, 2:44b.
      3. People even began to sell large estates of properties they personally did not need to give to the needs of others in very fulfilling works of service to one another, Acts 2:45.
      4. This all led to daily outpourings of worship expressions in the public temple that caught the attention of outsiders, Acts 2:46-47.
      5. These outsiders were impressed by this tangible evidence of love in the "body" of the Early Church that expressed itself in joyful, united acts and worship to God, Acts 2:46-47a, 47b. This impression fulfilled Christ's admonition in John 13:35 that all men would know His disciples by their love to one another!
      6. Consequently, the unsaved community LIKED what they saw in the Christians and were open to their Gospel of salvation from sin and hell by faith in Christ, Acts 2:47c.
      7. In the END, God added "to the church daily such as should be saved," Acts 2:47d.
Application: For TRUE and EFFECTIVE "body life" and evangelism, may we ABANDON external efforts as a MEANS to these ends and FOCUS on our HEART relationships to GOD. May we believe in Christ as Savior, confess post-salvation sins to God (1 John 1:9) and rely on the Holy Spirit for right attitude and behavior control (Gal. 5:16). In this condition, if we give ourselves to Scripture exposition, worship, the use of our spiritual gifts, joy and outreach will follow as God's blessing!

Lesson: Fulfilling, true "BODY LIFE" and EVANGELISM in the Local Church are SPONTANEOUS BYPRODUCTS of a CORRECT SERIES of SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS as follows: (1) these occur as GOD'S BLESSING when (2) people BEGIN WITH faith in Christ as Savior from sin and (3) RELIANCE on the indwelling Holy Spirit for attitude and behavior control. (4) This in turn will lead to FAITHFUL EXPOSURE to BIBLE EXPOSITION in the Body that (5) in TURN is blessed by "fellowship" camaraderie and heartfelt worship of God as a GROUP. (6) God then MOTIVATES the Church LEADERS to USE their supernatural gifts for great IMPACT in the Body, and (7) THAT in TURN motivates the REST of the Body to use THEIR spiritual and material gifts for the blessing of SERVING the needs of one another. (8) As a result, the Church exhibits great love and joy that attracts the attention of OUTSIDERS (9) that in turn leads to THEIR SALVATION!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 God revealed last Sunday that we have lots of "Body life" going on in our Church due to our involvement with Him and His Word:

(1) Several adults met in a classroom off of Fellowship Hall to plan on edifying our youth ministry. Nearly half of those meeting had not before been involved in planning such youth ministry efforts!

Mike Terwilliger tried to apologive for holding me up from locking the Church due to his leading the meeting that lasted a while, but I wouldn't let him! I explained I was so glad adults were meeting to plan for our youth I could have waited as long as as they needed!

(2) I was happy to learn Jennifer Rindflesh and my wife, Nadine have volunteered to team-direct our Daytime V.B.S. this year! They asked if they could find Board approval for the July 11-15 week to host the ministry! They have the materials and are ready to go!

(3) I was glad for the dates they asked, for Marshall and Lauri Klimasewiski had asked the Board if they could host the Church Picnic this year at their lakefront property, and the Board had granted them August 6th to make room for the previous penciled in July 25-29 V.B.S. dates. Laurie had preferred an earlier date, so moving the V.B.S. up to July 11-15 will give her the room she needs!

(4) My wife also met with some ladies to plan games they volunteered to organize for last night's churchwide Servant's Dinner.

(5) Louis Leigh told me he'd like to ask the Board's permission to pay a one time fee of $89 to put our Church web site on his brother's company server instead of paying $600 a year with our current server. It will make no difference to our web users as our web address will be the same and we will have much more room for memory storage with the new server, anyway. I told Louis the Board would surely approve!

(6) In a conversation I had with Liz Apruzzese, we expressed awareness of the spiritual needs of mothers with young children. Their responsibilities often cut them out of adequate exposure to Bible exposition, so I encouraged her to consider hosting a ministry for them.

(7) A visitor who had come to our Church last Sunday shared her appreciation for the ministry of the Word here, and claimed she wanted to return today for more spiritual "meat and potatoes."



As we busy ourselves with GOD and HIS WORD, "BODY LIFE" and OUTREACH WILL ARISE -- COUNT on it!