Sermon leftovers: Who/What grows the church?
This week we spent a few minutes in worship considering who or what grows the church. Growth is a topic that has followed me in every place I've preached. Growth can be measured in all sorts of ways, and if you are a Christian in the United States then you are surrounded and bombarded daily with data. Growth in the Christian life and growth among the community of believers is often measured by all sorts of ways. Churches measure growth based on finances, Sunday worship attendance, VBS participants, missionaries supported, baptisms, membership rolls, property expansions, weddings, Bible's given away, and in many more ways that I'm sure I'm missing in this list.
What I'm not going to do here is expound on the tyranny of numerical evaluation in ministry (I already did that a bit in March). What I am going to do with these sermon leftovers is walk us through a few passages of scripture that give us some foundations for understanding who or what grows God's church.
God: The Great Cause
The Bible begins with a declaration that has an impact on every aspect of reality as we know it. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God is proclaimed from page 1 as the great originator, the great cause of the universe. When we discuss growth we must also discuss what gives life in the first place, and that is of course none other than the Holy, Mighty, Powerful, Creative God almighty. God is the first maker, the prime source, the agent in making from out of nothing, all things which have been made. God is sovereign over his creation, he reigns and rules as the Great Creator.
One (albeit somewhat silly) way of thinking about God as the maker is by remembering the following line of questioning: "(Question) Why does it matter that God is the maker? (Answer) Because God is the cause. It matter's because without God there is no matter.". This truth is fundamental from the very foundations of scripture. However, this truth does not end at Genesis 2 to never be revisited. We see that God was not only the great cause of life, but also that God is the great cause of every new spiritual creation.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we're told:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (ESV)
In Ephesians 4:22-24 we're told:
To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (ESV)
In Romans 6:3-4 we're told:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (ESV)
For those who have life in Christ it is because God has caused a new life to be raised and the old life to be condemned. God is the one who gives new spiritual life to believers. He is the great cause of something, from nothing. In ourselves we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) but through the work of God in the gracious gift of Faith in Jesus Christ we who believe are made alive. The testimony of the New Testament Church was a testimony of God's creative power through making something new. The Apostle John wrote in 1 John 4:19 "We love because he first loved us.". The witness of the New Testament Apostles was a witness of God as the great cause.
Yesterday during the sermon I gave an illustration on the Sun as it relates to God's sovereignty. We may not always see the sun, and yet it is always there. We may not always understand or see how God is the great cause of growth and new life, yet God is always large and in charge of his growing his people. When dark clouds block out the sun, it is not the sun that has disappeared from existence, rather it is only a passing moment in which we cannot fully appreciate and take in the radiance of the sun. God is always sovereign, even when we are in the deepest throes of despair. God is always reigning and always at work growing his people. We can take comfort in the reality that for those of us who have been made new creation in Christ Jesus always and forever have the Great Creator working to grow and build up his people.
Church Growth Expert: Paul
If there was anyone who could claim he knew a thing or two about churches that grow, it was the Apostle Paul. When Paul was first called by the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9), there was not a single "church" as we would call it outside of Jerusalem. The church that was gathered together as a community of faith had a period of growth, and unity which was accompanied by intense suffering. The life of the first church in Jerusalem is recounted in some detail from Acts 1-8. After becoming a follower of Jesus (Acts 9), Paul was personally instrumental in the planting somewhere between 10 to 20 churches as recorded in the New Testament. The list of churches planted becomes much longer when considering the partners in ministry Paul worked alongside who would then also go on to plant churches. The Apostle Paul was a pioneer, a missionary, a diligent laborer for the gospel, and a willing sufferer of hardships for the sake of the opportunity to declare Jesus' resurrection. More could be said of the honorable and noble ministry of Paul regarding church planting, but I hope this paragraph suffices to show Paul's credibility as an expert witness regarding planting and growing faithful, Jesus proclaiming, New Testament churches.
Paul was integral to the planting and growth of the church in Corinth. The same church in Corinth received multiple correspondences from the Apostles, and two of them were Inspired by God and are translated to English in our Bibles in 1 & 2 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians one of the problems of that particular growing church was divisions and factions over favorite teachers, teachings, and topics. The people in the church at Corinth had their favorite hobbyhorses, their pet peeves, and their prized preachers. This caused great disputes to break out among the brothers and sisters. To this growing church embroiled in conflict Paul wrote through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11 My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:10-13)
Paul appealed to Christ's cross as the point of unity. It was Christ who was crucified for the Corinthians. This ought to have been the foundation of their faith, God at work, in their midst, on their behalf through the gracious gift of faith in the accomplished work of Jesus by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Later in his letter Paul continues to address this topic of division over teachers, topics, and teachings.
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:5-9)
The Corinthian church was missing a fundamental reality in their disputes, quarrels, and dissentions. All the various true teachers and teachings they had received were due to God's work among them. The Corinthians were dividing the teachers, topics, and teachings, but the teachers, topics, and teachings were united as an agent of God at work among the people. The fundamental reality was that God is the causative agent at work to change the spiritual condition of a person from "dead in transgressions and sins" (As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins Ephesians 2:1) to "alive in Christ" (I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20). The believers problem in Corinth wasn't that they were following the wrong teacher, they had a failure in their faith regarding who was at work in their midst. The work of the teachers in the midst of the Corinthian church was the work of God!
We learn in the example of this real church at Corinth that Paul's Inspired understanding of growth was that it was a gift from God. God was causative in the establishment and growth of the church. In other words, the church owed it's very existence and expansion to the work of God. God is the one who was owed the thanks, the glory, and the honor for their new life in Christ and growth in faith!
In sum, it is God who gives growth. He is the Great Cause of growth. God is the Great Cause of growth, and yet he delights to include his people in his work of growth!
"Me, Myself, and I"
We just saw how extensively the Apostle Paul taught on God's role in causing growth among his people. Yet Paul also was adamant that he also had a role to play in the growth of the church in Corinth. On the one hand, God was the cause of the growth (1 Corinthians 3:5-9), on the other hand it was Paul who was there in Corinth declaring the mysteries of the revealed and resurrected Christ Jesus!
1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
The same Apostle Paul who declared that God is the great cause of growth also recognized how God included people in the work of growing the church. Paul makes it clear through his use of personal pronouns that he was personally involved in the work of the Corinthian church. Could God have used another means or method to bring the Corinthians to saving faith in Christ? Sure! God is large and in charge! Yet what did God do? He used Paul! God delights to include his people in his work of growing the church.
It’s mowing season, and so as I’ve been mowing our yard at our delightful home. I’ve been inviting my 6 year old son Ezra to join me in mowing. Do not misunderstand, Ezra isn’t mowing the lawn. I’m the one doing most of the pushing, I’m the one charging the battery for the mower overnight, I’m the one who knows how to start and stop the mower. Yet, despite my own “sovereignty” in this matter, I invite and delight in my son participating in the work! Sometimes it’s more difficult to accomplish the mowing of the lawn when inviting my son to participate, and yet I delight in his company, in his presence, in his efforts in helping to cut the grass. The same is true with the Lord! He calls us, invites us, and expects us to do his work in the world. He delights as we seek to please him by responding to his call to grow the church!
God will grow his church, and sometimes does so miraculously. When my son doesn’t help mow the grass, it still gets cut. And yet, we are called to participate, we are called to share the good news of Christ Jesus life, death, and resurrection. Pastors are called to preach his life, his death, and his resurrection to the people of God. The people of God are then called to take that news from their midst into all the places they go will go. Your co-workers aren’t in need of a “more evangelism minded Christian to get hired at work”. Your co-workers are in need of invitation into the life they were originally designed for, a life of worship fulfilled through relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ. Your family, your spouse, your children, your parents, your grandparents, they are not in need of a “bolder” or more “outspoken” Christian to be born or marry into the family. Your family needs you to seek out times and conversations where the Lord is leading you to speak, to invite, and to proclaim who Jesus is and why he matters.
God is sovereign in growing his church. God is large and in charge. We are invited into the work of our heavenly father which he has laid out and planned for us to do (For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10). We have the privilege of being invited by our Gracious, Almighty, Powerful, Wonderous God to partake in his work of growing the church. The results are not in our hands, the results are in God's hands. The work is ours to do and delight in.
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