Sermon Tone Analysis

Does ‘Church’ Have a Future?

Since March 2020 many have asked the question: can ‘church’ survive?

In the first few weeks of the lockdown as churches explored on-line options attendance actually increased.

However, the novelty has worn off, the excitement of new technology has been diminished and attendance in many places is around 30% of what it was prior to the pandemic.

On-line attendance has dwindled as well.

Our church building was designed and built in the late 1980’s.

Some of our classrooms have held as many as 25 kids at a time.

Social distancing was nonexistent.

In today’s world most parents would not allow their children to be packed like sardined in our small 12x12 classrooms.

In addition to attendance declines, COVID-19 impacted our volunteers.

For legitimate health reasons many volunteers are no longer willing or able to serve.

Add to that this fact: the average age of senior pastors is 57 yrs of age.

The same study reports:

While a quarter of religious communities are at least half senior citizens, some congregations are more likely to be lacking youth.

Among mainline Protestants, 42% of churches are at least half 65 and older.

https://research.lifeway.com/2021/11/01/americas-pastors-and-churchgoers-are-getting-older/,

accessed on 4/26/22.

So the question: Does the ‘Church’ have a future?

needs to be asked.

Just as important: Does Community Baptist Church have a future?

Read Acts 11:19-26Acts 11:19–26 (HCSB)

How can the past help us learn about the future?

Jeff Iorg, Pres of Gateway Seminary suggests:

The story of the church at Antioch is an inspiring drama, a model of a transformational church in the first century for the church in the twenty-first century.

Antioch is an ancient model for the future church.

This church, composed of transformed people, transformed its community, the Mediterranean region, and the world as we know it.

Iorg, Jeff.

The Case for Antioch (p. 7).

B&H Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

The Church: God’s Purpose Revealed

Most of what we call the NT is a collection of letters and documents written to - churches!

A ‘church’ is not a building.

Neither is a ‘church’ the same as the Kingdom of God.

A ‘church’ is understood according to the NT in two ways.

There is a sense in which ‘church’ is universal.

In other words, ‘church’ can be used to describe gatherings of God’s people all across the globe, past, present and future.

In another sense, church as used in the NT most often identifies a group of believers in Jesus Christ gathering on a regular basis for teaching, fellowship, service to one another, and seeking to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus in the spirit of the Great Commandment (thanks to Jeff Iorg for that phrase!)

I would suggest that ‘church’ in a generic sense is

God’s ultimate purpose for the universe.

Creating humankind, redeeming believers, and sustaining them as His eternal companions is God’s ultimate purpose for all He has done or will do.

Iorg, Jeff.

The Case for Antioch (p.

183).

B&H Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

God’s People Revealing His Presence and Purpose

From before the foundation of the world (see Eph 1:4) God intended to display His perfections, His power, and His purposes.

The universe in which we live is a majestic display of immense power.

The planet on which we live is a preeminent display of God’s marvelous grace - just the right distance from a star that enables life as we know it to thrive.

However, the pinnacle of God’s glory is found as we look at human beings - created in His likeness, and in His image (Gen 1:26-28).

But sin.

When sin entered the world tragedy ensued.

No longer could the man and woman live in God’s Garden.

Their first children demonstrated the depth of sin as Cain killed his brother Abel.

Another son was born to Adam and Eve - named Seth.

In his line we find God beginning to fulfill the promise He made to the woman and the serpent in Gen. 3.

Listen to Genesis 4:25-26

We don’t have time to review how God insured that He always had a people, that God always preserved those through whom His presence and power were clearly seen.

Recently we celebrated Easter.

When Jesus died on the cross most of His followers simply gave up.

With Jesus’ death sin had won, the adversary was unbeatable.

Yet Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and is the promise of God’s power for all who believe.

God is not done.

Sin has not won.

God continues to make His presence, power, and purposes known through His people.

But persecution...

Look at Acts 11:19-

Acts 11:19–22 (HCSB)

Those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution that started because of Stephen made their way as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message to no one except Jews.

But there were some of them, Cypriot and Cyrenian men, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Hellenists, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus.

The Lord’s hand was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.

Then the report about them was heard by the church that was at Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to travel as far as Antioch.

The resurrection of Jesus and His subsequent ascension to the right hand of the Father changes everything.

For those who had been forced from Jerusalem for their conviction that Jesus is Lord, the resurrection of Jesus and His assignment to believers was an all-consuming assignment.

Because Jesus was alive these believers boldly and unashamedly proclaimed that God’s purpose - first revealed to Adam, Eve, confirmed to Noah, Abraham, Moses and those called by God - continued to express itself in and through their lives.

As they left Jerusalem - as Acts 9 reminds us - under threat of imprisonment and perhaps even death - they could not be silent.

Because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead they knew God could not be silenced.

From Acts 3 thru Acts 7 the ‘church’ in Jerusalem - believers who met together (in the Temple area as well as the homes of believers) consistently for the apostles teaching, for fellowship - sharing their lives - were able to gather freely.

Luke, the historian who wrote Acts records this observation in Acts 6:7

Stephen, one of the early leaders among believers created a stir when he was called before the Sanhedrin (see Acts 7).

He indicted the religious leaders with these rather harsh words:

The reaction was swift: Acts 7:58-59

As a result of this confrontation Jewish leaders, perhaps working hand in hand with Roman authorities, forced many who claimed to believe in Jesus to leave Jerusalem (see Acts 8:1).

This might have been interpreted as a defeat.

Believers being forced out of Jerusalem, being cut off from the nurture and safety of the gathering of believers.

A review of the history of God’s people reminds us that these kind of incidents don’t stop God!

In most cases the harder the enemy pushes back against believers, the more rapidly the purpose and plan of God spreads.

It’s not just true of OT era, but even in the 20th century.

Our SBC missionaries and those with other evangelical organizations all have personal accounts of intense suffering, of intense persecution.

Yet to a person these men and women - like those believers described in Acts 11: continued - in their grief, in their pain at being separated from loved ones, in their confusion about where to go next, what steps to take - to proclaim the “good news about the Lord Jesus.”

The ‘good news about the Lord Jesus’ is simple:

God is working to fulfill the promise that the whole universe will one day reflect His glory, His presence clearly and distinctly, that God’s power is able to defeat sin and death permanently, that His promises are stable, secure, and trustworthy because Jesus died for our sin, was raised that we might live in new life - resurrected life!

Those people recorded in Acts 11, the thousands and thousands of believers this very moment who are proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus will not let anything keep them from their assignment.

But the power of God’s Word...

Many of these believers Luke wrote about were Jewish in origin.

This means they were familiar with God’s Word - having heard God’s Word read week after week in local synagogues and having been taught by the apostles themselves.

Perhaps these words from Isaiah 55 were seared into their consciousness:

God’s promise is that His Word - His assurances, the expression of His will always bear fruit.

Here is one account of a recent encounter:

I once met a man in Southeast Asia.