Sermon Central
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Too Good To Be True
Contributed by Paul Decker on Jul 31, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: The church is a place of change.
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
S: Miracles
C: God brings change
Pr: THE CHURCH IS A PLACE OF CHANGE.
Type: Narrative, Inductive
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Be a place of change.
• Be a place where lives are made better.
• Live up to our potential instead of settling.
Version: ESV
RMBC 10 July 05 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Change
An Amish boy and his father were visiting a city and were in a new mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again. The boy asked his father, “What is this father?”
The father (never having seen an elevator) responded, “Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don’t know what it is.”
While the boy and his father were watching wide-eyed, an old lady in a wheelchair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them and into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched small circles of light with numbers above the wall light up. They continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls opened up again and a beautiful 24-year-old woman stepped out.
The father said to his son, “Go get your mother.”
Are you looking for a miracle?
The early church saw them.
They saw the lives of people changed.
They experienced healings.
They lived in the midst of miracles.
They experienced the change only the Holy Spirit can make in the lives of people.
TRANSITION:
We returned to the Book of Acts last week.
We have not been studying here for a while.
1. In the book of Acts, we observe a growing church.
And as we consider these first few chapters, and into our passage today, we see that the church has a primary goal.
It is to reproduce.
It is to be fruitful.
It is to see that those that do not have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ come to have one.
We often call this “evangelism.”
Evangelism is a great word.
In fact, it finds its way into English straight from the Greek.
It simply means “to proclaim good news.”
And when it comes to trusting and believing in Jesus, it is good news.
In fact, there is no better news than God’s grace extended to us through Jesus.
Through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, our eternal destiny is absolutely guaranteed.
It does not get any better than that.
In the command of the Great Commission, we are told to make disciples.
I like speaking of making disciples because it is more wholistic in its outlook.
It is the idea of taking a person, no matter where they are in their understanding of God, and taking them further in that understanding.
This, of course, includes evangelism, because the point of knowing that you are in a relationship with God is the key point – it is the point that a heavenly and blessed eternity is owned.
The church has many important duties that are priorities – worship, spiritual growth, care, fellowship, ministry – but there is only one priority that we can do better here on earth than we can in heaven.
His kingdom can grow on earth.
More people can come to know Him on earth.
We can reproduce more fruit – the fruit of people – here on earth.
That can’t be done better in heaven.
It is to be done now!
I firmly believe that it is in the very nature of the church to grow.
God has designed it that way.
2. God gives the church all it needs to grow.
We are not missing anything here at Randall in order to grow.
We have all we need, but we do need to evaluate and redirect resources that we have been given.
Many of you are aware that we entered into the initial stages of an approach to church growth called Natural Church Development.
A few weeks ago, just before VBS, our new area director for CBMNE, Randy Keeley showed us the results of the surveys that 30 of our ministry leaders took.
NCD is a tool to help church leaders assess and revitalize their church.
What is so fascinating with this approach is that it relies on statistical data that shows what are the common principles that growing churches are doing.
It is not a model for us to follow, rather an emphasis on principles from God’s Word.
In the succeeding months, we will be preparing a report that will identify what we found out from our seminar and the improvements we need to make in order to better fulfill our purpose.
