A summary of the book of Acts

Whenever I conclude a sermon series there is a sense of sadness.  The text of Scripture that you study when you are preparing to preach becomes a kind of friend to you.  It becomes close and you begin to feel the main emphasis that the author is trying to get across.  For so long I have simply thought about Acts as a recounting of the early days and the formation of the church.  But I am no longer convinced that Acts is simply a recounting of history.  Acts has this as one of its main components, but I believe the reason that it was inspired and preserved for you and I today has to do with the lessons it teaches about how a church can and should grow. 

There are so many books written on church growth and experts in the field far beyond my skill or ability, but I note a few things from the book of Acts:

1. Church growth must be based upon two primary things - the preaching of the Word of God and the movement of the Spirit of God. 

There is a repeated expression in the early chapters "And the Lord added to their number . . . ".  Salvation is the work of God and God alone.  So often we try to make church growth about what we do, and this is a good thing so long as the things we are focusing on is the preaching of the word of God and the movement of the Spirit of God.  We will not properly grow a church by sacrificing truth for people in the pew.  We will not properly grow a church by seeking the most relevant method.  Being relevant is fine so long as it does not replace the preaching of the Word of God as the primary goal.

2.  Personal testimony seems to be critical in the proclamation of the gospel. 

Going through the book of Acts you realize just how often the ministers of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ speak their own testimony as they proclaim the gospel.  This testimony comes in the form of telling the story of Israel as well as individuals encounters with Christ.  But we cannot escape the fact that the gospel impacts our story and I think that we should remember this in our own attempts to share the gospel with a lost and dying world. 

3. People seem to preach wherever they go.

So often we make our ministries about missions and the idea of reaching people that are unreached.  Again, there is nothing fundamentally flawed about this, but Paul simply preaches wherever he is.  In the synagogue he preaches to Jews, in Athens he preaches to those he is talking to, in Jerusalem he preaches multiple times to anyone who will listen.  The issues seems to be not in the going, but in the making of disciples wherever we go.  This means none of us have the excuse that we do not need to make disciples.  Disciple-making is not the job of the Pastor and missionaries alone.  It is the responsibility of the church.  We need to preach wherever we are sent and as we go on the journey to our final destination of eternity, we proclaim the living Christ until He returns! 

I think that if we can focus on these three things, we may find that our church grows organically.  Maybe not by adding thousands overnight (though it could happen) but more likely by the faithful growth of one or two people at a time as we are faithful to preach the gospel!