Organic Christianity: Souls Being Added

I. Introduction

A. Overview of Series

1. Today we come to our second lesson in our series titled “Organic Christianity.” Our goal in this series is to examine the first century church and to see what Christianity looks like without manmade additives and changes, with the goal hopefully, to follow in their steps. Being “organic” – whether this is in reference to being Christians or a local church as God designed them to be, I believe, should be what we aim for if we have devoted ourselves to the Apostles doctrine. Our goal; our aim as Christians, is to be pleasing to God, and we know that the Christians in the book of Acts, as they followed the direction given to them by the Apostles of the Lord Jesus, were pleasing to God

B. For our final lesson in this series, I would like to focus on a phrase that we are given at the end of verse 47 of . “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (). This is an important passage to consider because it shows us that the early Christians did not just love and care about the souls of the Christians, but also those who were outside of the body of Christ. Those within the Kingdom of Jesus were evangelistic.

C. At first glance at this passage, it may seem like the Lord was doing all the work of bringing souls to Christ and adding them to the body of Christ… This is partly true. All that we see within the book of Acts is the Spirit’s work in bringing souls to Christ, but he used people to do this work! It began with the Apostles. Jesus left them to do the work of being witnesses to the Gospel message. And the Apostles entrusted this work to those who followed… including us. So let’s consider the work of evangelism that the early church did so we can be challenged to follow in their example and be pleasing to God as they were.

II. Body

A. What is Evangelism?

1. Let’s begin by defining exactly what we mean when we use the word “evangelism.”

a) The Greek word used in the New Testament is “Euaggelizesthai”, and it means to share good news or to bring good news. This word is used over fifty times in the New Testament, forty of those times coming after Pentecost in reference to what Jesus’ disciples did in fulfilling the Great Commission…

b) Some of the different ways in which the word is translated in the New Testament:

(1) “bring/brought good news”: 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!" ()

(2) “Preached the good news”: “But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.” ()

(3) Preaching (; ) “Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word” ()… “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain” () .

c) In all of the uses of the word which we look at in referring to evangelism, we see that evangelism is simply the act of obeying the great commission: Going and sharing the gospel to someone.

B. Examples of Evangelism in Acts

1. The Apostles: We see many examples in the New Testament of the Apostles fulfilling the Great Commission. In , we see the Apostles teach the Gospel to those who came to Jerusalem for Pentecost. In , we see Peter share the Gospel with Cornelius and his household. Then we have Paul’s missionary journeys in chs 13-28 of Acts… There is certainly no shortage of examples of the Apostles sharing the Gospel with the lost. But it did not end with them.

2. Deacons? In , we see some men chosen to be servants of the church in Jerusalem. I believe they were deacons. Not everyone agrees with this… Nonetheless, even though they were given the duty to care for the needy widows in , this did not mean that they were not obligated to teach the gospel to the lost when they had opportunity. In , we are told that Stephen, who was full of faith, was teaching the people with such wisdom and with such a spirit that none were able to stand up against him. He put his life on the line, and would end up losing it because he boldly spoke the gospel and spoke the truth to the council he was brought before.

3. Evangelists. In , we see an example of an evangelist, Philip, teaching the gospel. He first went to Samaria to preach the gospel to the multitudes (8:5-13). As he was performing miracles, large groups were collecting who he could preach to. Also, he was instructed by God to teach the Ethiopian eunuch. He used what the eunuch was reading () to teach the eunuch about Jesus, and it led to the eunuch obeying the gospel.

4. Christians. Obviously, all of the people we have considered already are Christians. But to show that it was more than those who were in “special positions” that taught the gospel, this is a point that needs to be made separately. In the book of Acts, it does seem that every Christian obeyed the great commission, even those who were not evangelists, deacons, or Apostles. We see this in the beginning of where we are told that all those who were scattered, as they travelled, taught the Gospel.

5. In all of these example, we see that the “organic church”- that individual Christians:

a) Cared about souls

b) Went “into the world”… they went where they people were

c) Gave the gospel to someone who was lost

6. They didn’t get other people to do the work they were commanded to do, no matter how uncomfortable it was!

C. “Evangelism” today: Would we fit in with the “organic church”?

1. Often, it is not the case that we would fit in… As individuals, we will talk to our lost friends about every interest that we have and every person or thing that we love except for Jesus…

2. Also, in the religious world, and even in faithful, conservative churches today, the work of evangelism is often entrusted to only a couple men in each congregation and also all of the evangelism is done within the walls of the church building

3. From what I have observed in my limited experience is that this is what a lot of the “evangelism” done within the body of Christ looks like…

a) Christians are encouraged to be a good example to people and to build relationships with them over a long period of time until they are able to be comfortable enough to invite the person to church. Then the person needs to come to church for a short amount of time so they can be amongst loving Christians and experience Biblical worship until the preacher is able to build a relationship with the lost person and/or set up a Bible study with them. The preacher then teaches the lost person.

b) In this scenario, all of the steps are things that are ok to do. We are commanded ass Christians to be lights to the world; and this would surely include being a good example to them… And building relationships with lost people can be a good thing as long as you are not influenced to sin. And inviting people to services so they can hear the word of God taught is good. I encourage it a few times per year when we have lessons designed for nonChristians…

c) Wat we need to be careful of is that we don’t allow all of these things that happen before the Gospel is taught replace our need to talk to our lost friends and neighbors ourselves. The only one who does evangelism in this timeline – the only one who shares the Gospel with the lost person - is the preacher… .

d) Often, we can be guilty of setting up a system like this where all of the work of evangelism is entrusted to one man or all of the evangelism is done within the walls of the church building… This timeline, in my judgment, is something that churches have adopted from denominational churches. This is not the pattern that we are given in scripture of how evangelism is done. The pattern that we see in scripture is that God’s people went out into the world, shared the Gospel with the lost, and brought new disciples that were made into the assemblies to be equipped and taught.

III. Closing

A. We all have the responsibility to talk to people about the Gospel. We all have work to do in growing to be like the organic church…

1. We all need to grow in our:

a) Love for God and neighbor.

(1) We often talk about things that we love in this life… We talk to our lost friends about food, sports, our work, our hobbies, and so many other things that we “love”, but then, when it comes to the Lord, the one who we would claim to love above all other people or things, we are silent… We don’t talk to those who are lost about what we claim is the most important thing to us! May this show that there are other things that we deem more important and other things that we love more than the Lord?

(2) A love for God is also seen in our love for others, saved and lost alike. We need to love our children and our families enough to tell them the good news. We need to love our coworkers and friends enough to tell them the good news.

(3) How can we say that we love someone and care for their soul if we are unwilling to tell them what they need to hear so that they could be saved? True, biblical love is shown in a concern for a person’s soul. This is the example that Jesus and the organic church gave us. Their love was shown in action. May our love be like theirs!

B. Prayer