What Does it Take to Build a Church?

Introduction

Illustration

On New Year’s day, 2014, the Alabama Crimson Tide and Nick Saban are preparing to take on the Oklahoma Sooners and Bob Stoops in the Allstate SugarBowl. This game is coming off of the heels of the Kick Six loss to Auburn University, and Alabama is looking to come in and get a big win to finish their season right.

On New Year’s day, the day before the game, Nick Saban is being interviewed, and I want you to hear what he says about his team as he prepares for tomorrow’s game.

Alabama was favored to beat the Auburn Tigers by 10 points, and now they are favored to beat the Sooners by 18 points…and so the interviewer starts with this question:

“Historically, big underdogs in Bowl games actually have a decent record in terms of pulling the upset. Why do you think that is?”

Saban responds, “I think the important thing about a Bowl game is all about mindset…how your team resets their mindset is really important to how a team’s going to prepare, focus, and play in a game.”

The interviewer asks another question, “That said, where is your team mentally right now with all the hurdles and with all the things you’re facing now? Do you get a good sense here before the game that they are mentally ready?”

Now, I want you to listen to what Saban says because it’s very true,

“One of our players said it best: Our victory is what defeated us. When you win, sometimes you start to lose focus on the things that are important to being successful.” Then he says, “when you have a disappointment, you’re a little more ready to respond to get back to doing the things that need to be done.”

Here’s his reasoning…

The interviewer asks about the Auburn game and the hard loss, and here’s Saban’s response,

“We got away from some of the things that have been important to us being a successful program. We want to get back to those things and to be successful, and everybody’s got to buy in.”

But even though Saban understood what was necessary to come out with a win against Oklahoma and Bob Stoops, the Crimson Tide lost to the 18 point underdog 45-31.

Application

We are at a pivotal moment in our church. I am gaining some tenure here…the church is getting to know me. We, as a church, are refining our expectations and our convictions on what it means to be in good standing with Jesus Christ.

We are seeing all kinds of growth and we are being challenged with growing pains, and it is all blessed and wonderful, and I am looking forward to seeing all that God is going to accomplish through a little country church, 1/4 mile down a county road.

It won’t be long until this little church becomes a spectacle that other people will want to observe, because God is accomplishing things here that man can’t reason through. We are seeing lives changed, we are seeing exponential growth, and we are seeing a love and a fellowship that can only come through the blessing of the Holy Spirit.

But, in every season of tremendous growth, there is also the danger of tremendous disappointment.

If we want to be to be the church that God is calling us to be, then we cannot make our definition of success the numbers that we see…but we must keep in mind that Godly success is obedience to His will.

You see, the world says the bigger it is, the better it must be. The carnal man thinks, the more intelligent I am, the more capable I am. And the unspiritual church says, the more people and the bigger budgets we have, the more successful we are.

We, as a church, cannot fall into that trap.

What we need to understand is that we are not to receive the credit for what God is doing. We also need to understand that a church can be 14 miles wide, but it won’t do any good if its people are only an inch deep.

So, yes, we all want to see that numerical and financial growth happen in our churches, but if we experience the numerical and financial growth, but we don’t emphasize the spiritual growth…we won’t have a sturdy foundation.

Coach Saban was absolutely right in principle, eventually our lack of spiritual discipline will catch up to us if we aren’t careful.

The only thing that numerical and financial growth is going to reveal about our church is our flaws. We would be wise to take account of those things now, while we are in our infancy, and then, as the Lord blesses our church, we won’t be drowning under our lack of Christian maturity, but we will be thriving through our maturity in Jesus Christ and our love for one another.

This morning, I want to give you some overarching principles on What it Takes to Build a Church.

I. A Unified Purpose

Everybody has got to buy-in.

Paul Goes to Corinth

We spent two weeks in chapter 17, and we saw how Paul witnessed to the people there in Athens. Through his faithful living and ministering in Athens, he was afforded the opportunity to preach at the Areopagus. And what he did was he preached according to creation. He made the claim that God existed, and that He is the uncreated creator of Heaven and earth, and that He is a personal God Who loved the world enough to die on a cross.

Then, he called those there in that giant arena to repentance, asking them to trust in Jesus Christ as their savior.

But the Bible says that some mocked him, and that others considered him, and that just a few followed him.

And now what we find in the beginning of Acts 18, is that Paul is moving on to the city of Corinth.

Acts 18:1 NKJV

After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth.

The city of Corinth was massive. There were 200,000 people living there and it was filled with all kinds of sin. Every sin you could think of was dominating this city…and the Apostle Paul is there alone and he is about to start working to build a church.

It was a new city, and it was a young city that sat in the southern region of Greece, strategically located on the narrow strip of land that connected the peninsula to the mainland.

It was the center of political power, commerce, and sexual immorality…it was a corrupt city.

But, this city had a large synagogue, and that’s where the Apostle Paul would begin his ministry, attempting to bring these Jews to salvation in Christ and begin a church there, which he eventually did.

God Sends Paul Some Help

Now, very plainly, ministry is not something that can be a one man show. It takes faithful and loving minstry partners to make that happen…and so God sends some help to Paul

Acts 18:2–4 NKJV

And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them. So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for by occupation they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks.

When you get to the book of Romans, know this…that Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome, and so the church there are Rome was left to be led by Gentiles. When the Jews were allowed to come back, they started having all sorts of problems in the church, because they forgot principle #1, we must have a unified purpose.

But even in the pain of life, God’s sovereignty is on full display…because Aquilla and Priscilla, though they were booted from their homes, are about to be instrumental in the establishment of the Corinthian church and in allowing Paul to continue to his ministry.

What they provided for Paul was two people who were Godly, capable, and trustworthy…things that you can’t replace in life…those two had it.

Now, we see the rest of Paul’s crew catch up

Acts 18:5 NKJV

When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

If you don’t know what’s going on you’ll be very confused about this verse. It wasn’t just that Paul’s friends came, but it was that they came with a missions offering to free Paul from the labor of tent making.

Look back in v. 3, Paul wasn’t a lazy servant, he did what was necessary to live and to provide for himself so he could continue in the ministry.

In v. 4 we see that Paul was restricted to teaching in the synagogues on Saturday because he was busy working during the week.

Now, in v. 5, Silas and Timothy, no doubt and encouragement, were even more of an encouragement when they came with a missions offering from Macedonia.

Then, the Bible says in v. 5, “Paul was compelled by the Spirit.” In some of your Bibles it’s going to say, “occupied with the word.” and from there, he testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

Both translations are fine, and the purpose for it being in there was to show us that missions giving frees up our brothers and sisters to win lost souls for Jesus Christ.

Why A Unified Purpose is Important

Here’s why having a unified purpose in important to a church

If everyone is pulling different directions, and everyone is doing what they think is right, then no one is going to grow spiritually.

We, as a church, must have a unified purpose, and it must be a purpose to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ by encouraging one another supporting one another.

We may be able to accomplish some things on our own, but we can accomplish far more together.

That’s why we consider service here in our local church as a necessity and not as a suggestion, because we can accomplish more together.

That’s why God wants you to be faithful with your tithing because we can accomplish more together.

That’s why Sunday School is vital to heart beat of the church because that’s where we grow and learn together.

That’s why I am in favor of being a Souther Baptist. We work in cooperation with other church’s in Lawrence County because we are Kingdom builders not Providence builders.

That’s why we support the cooperative program because we want to be united with our brothers and sisters all over the nation for the common purpose of sharing the gospel.

That’s why we are going to begin supporting independent missionaries, for the purpose of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

A spiritually mature church will always have a unified purpose.

II. Some Kind of Opposition

Imagine getting ready to play a football game, but instead of going out there on Saturday you take the field on Thursday night when the other team is home asleep and you run your plays and execute your strategy, and you play until the buzzer sounds. You send a message to the other team and you say, “Don’t worry about coming out Saturday. We played tonight and we beat you 80-0.

Now that wouldn’t be logical…because in order for the to be real victory, there has to be some form of opposition. In your life or in this church, you will not know how successful we are until we experience opposition.

Oh, it’s easy to be happy when things are going good. It’s easy to serve when you get everything you want…It’s easy to win if the other team isn't’ on the field. It gets much harder when the opposition comes.

Acts 18:6–8 NKJV

But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” And he departed from there and entered the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue. Then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized.

In v. 6, Paul is not saying that he’s giving up on the Jewish people, because he does continue to minister to them…what he is doing is he is giving them a declaration that they have rejected the truth, and that they are to blame for their own judgement.

He presented Jesus Christ to them, and they rejected Him, they are the ones to blame.

So many ask this question, “Why does God send people to Hell?” Well, God doesn’t send people to Hell, people choose to accept the consequences of sin because they reject Jesus Christ. And that’s what Paul is saying, “your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean.”

Well, now things are really shaping up…because Paul handled the opposition well, and he didn’t quit or give up and God is opening all kinds of doors.

In Thessalonica and in Berea, the Jews successfully made Paul run for his life…but not this time. This time Paul was determined to see it through.

and because of his resilience, the hand of God was on him, and he finds a man named Justus. Justus lives next door to the synagogue and now Paul is there preaching, and teaching, and sharing, and he is about to have a breakthrough in his ministry.

The breakthrough is there in v.8, the ruler of the synagogue believes in Jesus Christ, and then all kinds of people start getting saved.

Hey, dad, all it takes is you stepping up spiritually to turn your entire family to the Lord.

Opposition is and Opportunity for Victory

One of these days, we as a church family are going to find out what we’re made of.

And we are going to find out what we’re made of when disaster strikes. It could be a moral failure, it could be an unexpected death, it could be financial, a natural disaster, or unfiltered and unholy conversations of gossip and slander in our church.

How we respond to that opposition is going to show us how spiritually mature we are.

If we respond poorly and we panic, or we start blaming one another, then it will be true that we were never the church we thought we were.

But, if we bind together in love and we seek the face of God through the crisis, then we will have an assurance that we are the kind of church that God needs us to be.

Paul could have left again, he could have said, I’ve had it with you Jews! But what he did instead was move in next door. He was ready to turn the opposition he was facing into an opportunity to advance the Church of Jesus Christ.

So, through the success and the prospering, we need a unified purpose, we need to experience some kind of opposition…but most importantly, we’re going to need the Lord’s encouragement.

III. The Lord’s Encouragement

Acts 18:9–11 NKJV

Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.” And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

In our lives, we all get to the place where Jesus is going to have to embolden us to keep going.

I would love to stand up here and tell you that being a Christian is all cupcakes and rainbows, but the Bible says that we are in a war against the forces of darkness.

But there is nothing that can stop the work of God from being accomplished other than disobedient people.

Isn’t that a strange truth? That you have the ability to prevent the God of the universe from working in your life?

We do it all the time…

What we do is we spend all of our time thinking about ourselves and no time thinking about the Lord.

We become selfish, and we try to hold on to some of the good things that we’re doing because it makes us feel like we are being selfless.

But just doing something that is good doesn’t make you good.

Matthew 7:21–23 NKJV

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Jesus is preaching the sermon on the mount and He is saying to a pious and stuck-up people, “I don’t care what good things you’ve think you’ve done…I am the Way.”

Any one who tries to perform goodness or display righteousness without going through Jesus is a fraud.

This is Jesus warning those of you in this room that have never trusted in Jesus to save you. He is talking to the man or woman in here that thinks they’re good enough to go to Heaven.

The choir member, the deacon, the teacher, the whoever…going by any other way than Jesus makes you a fraud.

In the same way, some of you Christians are what the Bible calls “babes in Christ.” That means you are spiritually immature.

You believe that you are doing God a service when you do what you’re supposed to do. You’re living in the flesh…you think God is there to serve you…you think the church exists to serve you…you think that life is all about you…and you can know if that’s true by examining your priorities.

When you think of your life…are Godliness and the things of God your priority? If the answer is no, then you’re spiritually immature.

The Bible says, don’t worry about the things of this life, what you will wear, what you will eat, what you will drink…but instead.

Matthew 6:33 NKJV

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Now think about Paul’s life…he is in the fire…he is in deep water, and he is discouraged…but the Lord comes to Paul and says, “Do not be afraid, but speak, do not be silent, for I am with you.”

Now what if Paul said, “forget it, Lord. I’m out of here! Your way is too hard and I’m giving up.”

What he’d be doing is limiting the work that God can do in his life. God cannot use a person that will not believe in His word and actively live by it.

It’s a wondrous thing that we can prevent God from accomplishing His will by disobedience.

So, when the Lord gives you encouragement, when, by His word He speaks, when through His people He speaks, you’d be wise to take that encouragement and press on.

And, from time to time, a church needs that encouragement. They need to be refreshed and they need to be revived. We need a sure Word from God that will allow us to keep moving forward when things start to look dangerous…when things start to look impossible.

But getting a word from God is only half the battle…getting encouragement from the Lord will only do good if the church receives that word, believes that word, and that obeys that word…otherwise it’s powerless.

So, to build a church we need to have a Unified Purpose; we need to have Some Kind of Opposition; we need to have Encouragement from the Lord; finally, we need Obedience to His Will

IV. Obedience to His Will

God worked in a mighty way because Paul listened to God’s instruction.

But Paul has now gone from Corinth is Ephesus, and when he goes to leave Ephesus, they asked Him to stay and this was his reply:

Acts 18:20–21 NKJV

When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus.

Paul says, “I will return, God willing.”

For Paul, knowing and doing the will of God was not just something he sang about in church. It wasn’t something he put on a bumper sticker. It was a lifestyle.

In 1939, the fashion designer and entrepreneur Ralph Lauren was born in New York. In 1967, he started a tie company under the name Polo…and when his clothing line was debuted, it has since been famously known as Polo Ralph Lauren.

In 2014, when he was asked about his success in marketing his clothing line, this is what he said.

“It has never been about fashion. I don’t sell clothes, what I sell is lifestyle.”

You see, when the Bible says “do not be conformed to the patterns of this world”, it’s saying do not chase the lifestyles that the world chases.

Here’s my question to you this morning

Who are you trying to be?

Because knowing and doing the will of God has to be more than just an idea to you…it has to be more than just a Sunday morning thing…it has to be more than just something you sing or something you wear on a t-shirt, it has got to become a lifestyle.

How do you make that your lifestyle? How can we make that the focus of our church?

It’s called Faith.

Here’s how you can remember Faith.

Forsaking

All

I

Trust

Him

Conclusion

Challenge:

Are you ready to forsake the lifestyle that you’ve been chasing, forsake the lifestyle that you’ve been living…are you ready to forsake those things and embrace the lifestyle of Jesus Christ?

He says in His word, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This world and the lifestyles that it sells all end in death, they all in end judgement before God…but the Bible says that the life that Jesus gives will bring us into rest…will you have faith in Him today?