How the Early Church Spread like Wildfire (September 4, 2022)
Sermon Outline for Sunday, September 4, 2022
Pastor Andy Lambert
PASSAGES: Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 20:28; Luke 19:10; Psalm 126:5; John 4:35; Isaiah 6:8; John 12:32; John 12:28-32
I have put several social media posts up lately to get some candid answers, some public and some messages. These posts have been concerning church, being the church, attending church … and so on. The responses have been – well alarming. Most have been what you would get from good ole church folks. The ones I want to focus on for just a moment are the others.
There have been some that are alarming to me, not because the person said them, but because the person had the experience and then said the response. The experience behind the post is what I want to look at. WHY? If we want the church to spread like wildfire, like the early church did, we need to get the SNOBBISHNESS out of the church world. What does this mean. Too many times, in the church community/world, many get into cliche and “me my four and no more” attitudes and don’t allow new people in and we can’t have that kind of attitude. How does this happen? We are familiar with those we are around and get into a rut.
Now with the church community, sometimes we look at new people and wonder about their lives and the QUOTE sin UNQUOTE that must be keeping them from God. We forget that we ALL have had and have sin in our lives. We ALL need the Cross of Calvary in our lives. We all need JESUS!!! No sin is greater than another. For some reason, this has been very, very heavy on my heart for the past few weeks. No sin is greater than another. Every person in this room or on live feed is facing something that we need God to help us with. We are no better than the next person, but so many times, especially in the church community, some look down on the “new” persons that enter into the building. We need to wrap our spiritual arms around them and love on them and help them to grow in God. It is NOT our place to condemn, it is our place to help each other grow in the grace and mercy of God. It is God’s job to weed out the bad apples and he has given the job to the Pastor of making sure that bad apples don’t hinder the growth of the church family.
Let’s look into scripture …
Matthew 13:24-30 ~ 24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
The man in this parable is Christ and His work is to sow righteous people in the world.
Matthew 20:28 “28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””
Luke 19:10 “10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.””
Psalm 126:5 “5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!”
Christ, the Son of God, owns the field, which is the world in which we live. If we want the Church to spread like Wildfire, we must pick up the job God has given to us and that is spreading the good news of Jesus and NOT trying to get rid of the tares in the process. OOPS, I gave the ending first!!
We need to look at the scripture we have read for a few lessons first.
• Christ owns the field, the world, and all that are in it. The world is His by right, because He created it (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2)
• Christ does sow in the world and He wants us to work actively. Christ and God are not far off in outer space, disinterested and inactive. He is vitally interested in the world, in our lives and He wants us to work hard in spreading the good news about Him.
• We must scatter seed (His Word) into the field. God has scattered the seed, the righteous all over the world. No single nation is a favorite of God. No single person is a favorite of God. God is not a respecter of persons.
• When the seed of God is planted into our lives, it must bear fruit. If it does not, it is dead.
• No one is righteous apart from Christ.
We must also realize that Satan is an enemy of God and the church, which we are a part of. The enemy sows tares; the tares are the ones from the devil that struggles against the truth. We must also realize that spiritual struggles are not against one another, but just that, spiritual. It is not against flesh and blood BUT against the tares that the devil places to disrupt the church work.
We must also realize that just because someone is new, someone doesn’t look like, smell like, act like the church, doesn’t mean they are the devil, it could just mean they are looking for something, just like we were when we got saved. We must allow the light of Christ to shine NO MATTER WHAT into the lives of each person that walks into those doors, each person that comes into our lives. Believe it or not, in this case, a person may be a tare and can be changed into wheat to be harvested.
John 4:35 ~ “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.”
But also …
Isaiah 6:8 ~ “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
God is not looking for a perfect person, God is looking for someone to help spread the seed. You want to know HOW the early church spread like wildfire? You want to know HOW the church can spread like wildfire again today? Quit trying to figure out what someone else failures and sin is, just keep spreading the good news of Jesus to the world we are in. Quit trying to condemn and spread the news of grace and mercy. NO, I didn’t say that we just blindly allow anyone to teach a Sunday School Class or join the Praise Team. The job of sorting falls to the owner of the field and to the one He places in charge of that field. That job falls in our case to the Pastor. All our job to do is to spread the good news of Christ and allow God and the Holy Spirit to handle the changing of lives.
John 12:32 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Why do you think Christ said this? Let’s look at a couple verses prior to find out.
John 12:28-32 “28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Christ is talking about His death on the Cross. But He first asks that God glorifies His name. A voice comes and says I have and will do it again. Jesus then tells those that the voice was for them and it is for us today. If we in all we do glorify the name of God and lift the name of Jesus up, all are drawn to THAT! Christ died on the Cross so that we would have life. This is the message that the early church spread and they spread like wildfire.
People often say, I wish we added to the church like they did. You know what they did? They PRAYED and SPREAD the good news of Jesus and left all other things, like life changes, to God and the Holy Spirit. NO they didn’t just accept and condone sin, but they allowed the Holy Spirit of God to CONVICT people of sin. I say we should do the same.
Yes the world needs to be judged, but not by us. AND for the record, calling sin sin it NOT judging, if done in the proper fashion. How do we do that? By pointing people to the Cross. Jesus said that once He is lifted up, on the cross, He will draw all men to Himself.
• Note why the cross of Christ attracts men. It was the cross …
• that delivered men from sin, death and hell
• that made it possible for men to live abundantly and eternally
• that gave to men the presence and power of God’s Spirit to guide and care for them day by day
• Note how the cross of Christ gives so much to man. Very simply stated, Jesus died for man on the cross. When a man believes that Jesus died for him, God takes that man’s belief and counts it as righteousness. God simply counts the man as perfect. The man is not righteous, nowhere close to perfect. The man, God and everyone else knows he is not perfect. But the man honors God’s Son by believing on Him; therefore, God honors the man.
• If a man honors Jesus by believing and following Jesus, God will take that man’s faith and …
• count his faith as righteousness
• deliver him from sin and death
• give him both abundant and eternal life
• place the Holy Spirit and His power within the man to help him live day by day
Want to know how the early church spread like wildfire? Just spread JESUS!!!
Pastor Andy Lambert ~ pastorandy@cvcog.church
Call/Text: 205.642.8744 ext 101