Four steps to apostasy, John 18:12-18, 25-27

As I have previously pointed out, John isn’t presenting a blow by blow account of the arrest and trial of Christ.  By the time he is writing this epistle, the other three gospels have already presented all of the chronological events in detail.  Instead, what John is doing is specifically highlighting certain events in order to illustrate particular principles which he is attempting to teach.  And as we have seen from our previous studies, John is very focused on presenting the gospel as the truth of God.  He quotes Jesus reaffirming this principle again and again in statements such as “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  And “I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me.”  And another, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  Finally one more, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”

In fact, 83 times in his writings John writes about either truth or what is true.  I firmly believe that for the apostle John, truth was the preeminent theme of the gospel.  So what I think he is doing here in addition to presenting the events leading up to Christ’s crucifixion is he is including a sub plot, which is contrasting the truth with the dangers of apostasy.  The truth of Christ is contrasted with the apostasy of Peter.  And Peter is representative of the church.  Remember, Jesus had said in Matt. 16:18 “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”  So the apostles, and especially Peter, are emblematic of the church because they are the foundation of the church.  And in this passage we are looking at today, John is highlighting the dangers of the church slipping into apostasy.

Apostasy means the abandonment or renunciation of belief, particularly religious belief.  So to become apostate is to abandon or renounce your faith, or the principles of truth which undergird your faith.  In 2 Thess. 2:3, Paul speaking of the second coming of Christ says, “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first.”  The Bible teaches that in the last days there will be a great falling away from the truth. False prophets and false teaching will fill the church to the extent that Jesus said if it were possible even the very elect would be misled.  

And we know from church history that has in fact already happened. When Jesus speaks for the last time to the church in Revelation 2 and 3, which was also written by John by the way, He speaks to the seven churches in Asia, which were symbolic of the church universal, and in practically each of His messages to the churches, He emphasizes their need to stay true to His word, and warns them to repent of their apostasy, lest He remove their lamp stand from the Earth.

Now last week we looked at the first part of this passage set in the Garden of Gethsemane where the mob came to arrest Jesus along with the Pharisees and the Roman cohort.  And particularly we focused on the response of the disciples as an example of how the church often responds to a hostile world.  We talked about the natural response of the human psyche to fear or intimidation known as the  fight or flight syndrome which was exemplified by the disciples fleeing, and Peter swinging his sword and cutting off the ear of the High Priest’s slave. And if you will remember, my application contrasted the church’s natural response to the world as opposed to what should be the true response of the church as identified by Acts 2, in the first church of Jerusalem immediately following Pentecost.

In a similar fashion, I want to show a subsequent application to the church through the events recorded in this passage that may not at first be apparent from a superficial study of the chronology of events.  But if you will bear with me, I hope to show you how the denial of Peter and the trial of Christ mirror the choice confronting the church today, namely, remaining steadfast in the truth, and on the other hand, denying the truth, or becoming apostate.

So what we see from the passage is that really what  was on trial was the Truth. That becomes apparent in Jesus’s response to both Annas and Pilate later on in the chapter.  It was all about the truth that Jesus taught and represented.  Jesus was the Truth personified.  That is what the Pharisees and Sanhedrin hated.  They weren’t interested in the truth, they were interested in the law.  The law was their religion.  They had learned to manipulate the law.  They could take advantage of the law. They could enrich themselves through the law, administered through ceremonial religion.  But Jesus focused on the truth.  The truth trumps the law because the law comes from the truth.  However, as I said, they were not interested in the Truth, they were interested in law, which was administered through their religious ceremonies.  

And sadly, we see today in the church that there is an emphasis on religion as they define it, but there is very little emphasis on the truth. Truth is relative today in our culture, and the church in it’s efforts to be relevant to the culture has become a mirror of the culture, rather than a reflection of Jesus Christ who is the Truth.

So John’s record at this point doesn’t focus so much on the illegality of the trial or on the  hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but he seems to deliberately juxtapose Peter’s denial with Christ’s affirmation of Truth.  Twice John shows another side of what was going on, that which was happening in the courtyard below with Peter.  And I am proposing that his intention is to show the counterpoint to the truth of the gospel, which is apostasy, and how easy it is and possible it is for the church to fall into it.  

So without further introduction, let’s look at four steps to apostasy as illustrated in this text.  And I will give you each step in advance; First, the steps to apostasy begins with acting in your own wisdom, which leads to # 2, distance from God, which produces #3, a desire for acceptance from the world, and #4, results in blasphemy and denial.   That’s the four steps to apostasy.  

Let’s consider how this is illustrated in the text.  The first point, acting in your own wisdom we pretty much covered last week.  When confronted with the hostility of the mob, Peter did what he thought was right according to his own wisdom, according to his own strength.   When he should have followed the Lord’s example and looked to him as to how to respond to the attack of the mob, instead he acted in his own strength, according to his own wisdom, and it resulted in disaster.  He pulled his sword and whacked off the High Priest’s servant’s ear.  That was a bad move.  It could have been even worse had not Jesus healed the man’s ear.  Because as we see later, Malchus’s kinsman was sitting at the fire later in Annas’s courtyard, and he recognized Peter and called him out in front of the soldiers.  

We see this same attitude played out today in the church all the time, though perhaps in a little less dramatic fashion.  More and more we see the church relying on philosophy, psychiatry, science, survey’s,  and business practices in order to achieve their goals. The average sermon today is an impotent mixture of psychology, positive thinking  and sentimentality, with a few jokes and a poem thrown in for good measure.  Rather than looking at how the Bible says we should approach things like sin and righteousness, we follow what science or business or common sense tells us to do.  But we need to remember that God has given us a blueprint for the church, and when we deviate from it to follow our own wisdom, we do so at our own peril.  

I want to point out another contrast inherent in this scene.  Peter decides to fight with his sword against the forces of darkness that are arrayed before him.  And though he manages to wound one out of possibly hundreds of armed soldiers, it was not a very effective strategy.  And as I said earlier, if Jesus hadn’t stopped it and healed the servant, it would have probably ended badly for Peter.  But then notice the contrast of the truth.  In vs. 4, it says, “So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and *said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He *said to them, “I am He.” And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground.”  

Here is the irony of the contrast.  Peter takes his sword and wounds one man, and potentially sets up a disastrous situation.  Jesus uses the sword of His mouth, the very word of God, and the entire Roman cohort are knocked flat on the ground.  I believe that John shows us this contrast to illustrate that even the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men.  We must not underestimate the word of God.  It is powerful even to the destruction of fortresses. 2Cor. 10:3 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”  The  efforts of our flesh in our wisdom and strength fail to make a difference for the kingdom.  Whereas God’s word is living, and powerful and sharper than a two edged sword.  Because it is the truth of God.

Well, as we see in Peter’s case, acting in your own wisdom leads to the second step towards apostasy, which is distancing yourself from God.  It’s really amazing that Christ demonstrates His divine power even in this hour of darkness, in both knocking the mob on the ground and healing the man’s ear, and yet the mob is unmoved.  They are resolute in their hatred and determination to put Jesus to death.  Their hearts are hardened. 

But what’s even more amazing is that the disciples, also seeing these things, and having seen so many other miracles that Jesus had done over three years,  are unmoved as well.  Their response is to run away.  You would think that they would have recognized that the safest place for them to be was with Jesus. 

I have said that from this pulpit many times and I will say it again this morning.  There is no safe place outside of the will of God.  And there is no safer place than to be in the will of God.  Yet how quickly we forget that.  The disciples thought that it would be safer somewhere else.  So they ran.  Peter, I will give him some credit, doesn’t run.  Instead he follows from afar, according to Matthew 26:58.  And so when Jesus is in the house of the High Priest, Peter is hanging around outside in the dark, outside the courtyard door.  

Over the last few months or so, I have had a number of people tell me that they felt as if they were far from God.  They didn’t feel close to God anymore.  They feel like God didn’t care, or He didn’t love them anymore.  They felt distant.  And I will tell you what I tell them every time.  When you feel distant from God it’s usually because you have moved away from God, not vice versa.

It’s like the old couple that had been married for 30 some years, back in the day when pickup trucks had bench seats, not like the bucket seats we have today.  And the couple were driving down a country road, and the wife looked over at the husband who was driving and said sort of reproachfully, “Remember when we used to take a drive when we were dating, and how you used to put your arm around me, and hug me close?  Don’t you ever miss that kind of closeness?”  And the husband looked over at her on the passenger side of the car and said, “Well, I didn’t move, you did.” 

God doesn’t move to distance Himself from us.  Even when we are in rebellion against Him, He pursues us. The Lord is like the husband of Hosea, who watches and provides for his love from afar, waiting for her to return to Him, and never stops loving her.  James gives us the prescription for a healthy relationship with God in James 4:8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”  

Distance from God usually happens as a result of a lack of dependence upon God.  You stop reading His word.  You start skipping your devotions.  You hardly pray.  Start missing church services.  It’s usually characterized by a desire to keep a comfortable distance from God, while all the while claiming to be in fellowship with Him.  You want to be free to make your own decisions, and then that leads to neglecting the word of God so that you can operate independently without a guilty conscience.  

Thirdly, distancing yourself from God leads to a desire for acceptance by the world.  We see this illustrated in Peter’s example.  There is an unnamed disciple in the text, who John says was known by the High Priest’s family.  Most commentators believe that this is John himself.  And so John realizes that Peter is outside the door, and  he speaks to the girl watching the door so that Peter can come inside.  I’m not sure that Peter really wanted to come inside.  But nevertheless, he more or less had to come in when John came to the door.  

But where he ends up is not back beside Christ as you might think.  He hasn’t felt enough remorse over his earlier actions so that now he just wants to be next to Christ again.  No, instead he sidles over to the fire where the enemies of Christ are hanging out getting warm.  So it’s apparent where his sentiments are at this point.  There are two sides in this mock trial.  There is Jesus standing all alone, and there is everyone else.  Peter gains entrance to the house, but he chooses to stand with the enemy.  He wants to keep his distance from Christ.

We see that in Christianity all the time.  There is a crisis in one’s life, and so they feel remorse that they were caught up in some crime, or put in jail, or totaled the car, or messed up their marriage somehow, but rather than come all the way to Christ, the natural tendency is to come only so far.  To hang on to their autonomy, to hang on to their sin.  The choice Peter should have made was to come all the way to Christ, even to the death if necessary, which was what he had boasted earlier that he would do.

So of course in our text we see that the enemy recognizes Peter as having been with Christ. And they start to call him out.  First the slave girl says, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” And He said, “I am not.”  He denies being a disciple.  He doesn’t deny knowing Christ at this point, just denies being a disciple.  

I don’t think that Peter was afraid of this slave girl.  I think Peter suddenly is getting a clearer understanding of what Jesus has been saying all along about what it really means to be a disciple, to  suffer for Him.  I think it was easier being a disciple when they had this miraculous power to call down fire from heaven or cast out demons.  But now this hour belonged to the power of darkness.  And in this hour he begins to remember  how Jesus had just told them they would be persecuted and killed for following Him.  It suddenly is no longer theoretical, but an immediate possibility.  And maybe he realizes at this point that this being an outcast from society, being persecuted, being publicly ostracized was going to be part of what it means to be a Christian.  And at that moment, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to commit to that.  

So he chose friendship with the world, which Paul tells us is enmity with God.  He found himself at odds with Psalm 1:1 which says, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!”  

Acting in your own wisdom results in distancing yourself from God, which leads to a desire for acceptance from the world.  And we see that all the time in the church today among Christians.  Who at some point, come to realize that following Christ completely and being stedfast to the truth of God puts them in opposition to the world. It’s makes us social outcasts, fools for Christ. So  to appease the world we want to soften our stance on things that the Bible speaks clearly about.  We start to accept the dictates of the culture, because if we spoke out about adultery or homosexuality or evolution or a host of other subjects then we would become ostracized  by our families, outcasts in our communities.  We could lose our job.  We might get “unfriended” on face book. We might get ridiculed at school.  

And before we know it, we have moved from walking according to the counsel of the wicked to standing in the path of sinners, and before we are done we end up sitting down with the scoffers.  We find ourselves like Lot, who moved from living in the country near  the city of Sodom to living next to it, then finally moving downtown.  On the road to apostasy you get comfortable with the world, and uncomfortable with discipleship.  So you move further and further towards apostasy.  When you start to accommodate the world’s views in one area, it leads to another area, and soon its like yeast in a lump of dough- it corrupts completely.

That takes us to the final point, which is a desire to be accepted by the world leads to blasphemy and denial of the truth.  Peter is getting warm by the fire.  Notice that John repeats that twice in vs 18 and 25.  That accommodation of Christ’s enemies leads to Peter denying the Lord three times.  You will remember that Jesus prophesied that before the night was over Peter would deny Him three times.  Peter had denied such a possibility vigorously.  Once again you see this disregard of God’s word.  We think we can disregard God’s word with impunity.  But we cannot.  If the word of God convicts you, then you need to repent and ask God to forgive you.  Because when you disregard the conviction of the Spirit of God through the word of God your heart becomes hardened, and you give the devil an opportunity to destroy you.

In his later years, Peter illustrated that he come to appreciate the schemes of the devil and how his strategy is to destroy you.  Peter writes in 1Peter 5:8, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  But at this point in our story, Peter had not learned that lesson yet. He thought he was good, he was strong, he could handle things himself.  But in fact, Jesus had warned Peter earlier that Satan had demanded permission to sift him like wheat.

Peter didn’t believe that he was weak, however.  He was confident that he could stand up to the devil’s temptations.  Peter exhibited overconfidence in himself, and a lack of confidence in God.  It would have been good for him to know  1Cor. 10:12 which says, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”  

Well, as we see here, one denial of the truth leads to another lie, which leads to yet another lie. That’s the way sin is.  A little leaven soon leavens the whole lump.  And so we see Peter get deeper and deeper into sin, until he ends up not only denying Christ, but blaspheming and cursing in order to prove himself not a friend of Christ.  It’s really just incredible to watch the fall of Peter.

John 18:25 “Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, “You are not also one of His disciples, are you?” He denied it, and said, “I am not.” One of the slaves of the high priest, being a relative of the one whose ear Peter cut off, *said, “Did I not see you in the garden with Him?” Peter then denied it again.  (Matthew 26 tells us that Peter denied it with an oath, and then when asked again he resorted to cursing,)  and immediately a rooster crowed.

Most of us when confronted with the possibility that we would deny Christ would protest as Peter did that we would die before denying Him.  But that is in theory.  In actuality, it doesn’t often go the way we think it might.  Satan gets us to deny Him first by denying the Lord’s power in favor of our own.  We do it our way, kind of like Frank Sinatra bragged about.  We deny the authority of the word of God and want to exercise our own will according to the wisdom of the world.  That leads to further distance from God, as we think we are doing fine, and don’t really need to depend daily upon God.  Skipping devotions or prayer time or church time becomes more commonplace as everything else starts to take precedence over the things of God. And that distance from God leads to a desire to find acceptance from the world, from our friends, maybe even our family.  Maybe that is even our original motivation.  We like the approval of men, so we seek out ways of pleasing the world, rather than pleasing God.  And then finally, that leads to out right denial of Christ.  

Oh, we may not be cursing God, or uttering blasphemies directed towards Christ directly, but in many ways I’m afraid we deny the truth of the word, we deny Christ’s Lordship over us, we deny Him control over our lives, and we don’t trust Him to take care of us.  And if we don’t turn and repent of such things, it can lead us into outright apostasy.  We end up denying the truth of God.  We deny the truth of God’s word.  We fail to stand up for Christ when He is attacked by the world.  

I think the lesson to be learned from this story is that if apostasy can happen to Peter it can happen to the best of us.  Because, contrary to the way many commentators and pastors portray Peter, I believe Peter was the best of us.  I believe he was passionate about following the Lord.  He loved the Lord.  He was faithful to the Lord.  He was an intimate friend of the Lord.  And yet, he fell from faith in denying Christ three times on the night of His crucifixion.  It is a tragedy that is possible for all of us.  And many of us have already done as bad if not worse at some point in our lives.  I know I have.  

But like Peter, I am a child of God.  Thank God my disobedience and denial of my Lord does not negate the fact that I am His child.  God is a God of restoration.  He came to seek and to save sinners.  And just as Christ made a point to meet with Peter specifically after His resurrection and reconcile Peter to Himself, so He will do with you and with me if we are truly His people and we are willing to repent.  If you don’t repent, Satan will use your rebellion to try to destroy you.  But if you turn back to God, He will heal you and restore you.

In Peter’s case, not only did Christ reconcile with Peter, but He still used Peter to be the foundation of the church.  Peter’s past mistakes did not disqualify him, but once he was reconciled to Christ he was used as the chief apostle of His church.  God has a plan to use us, even when we have been broken and beaten up by the devil and by our failures.  The key is we learn to trust God, let Him have control of our life, and we don’t trust in our own strength or wisdom, but trust in the word of God.  

I don’t know your situation, but if you have recognized in yourself some aspect of Peter’s denial  this morning, then I urge you to repent and be reconciled to God. Don’t continue down the road to apostasy.  Come back to the Lord and let Him have full control of your life. 

Fight or flight, John 18:1-11

My message today is titled, “Fight or Flight.” And I hope that the reason for that title would be evident from the content of the verses we just read.  We know from this text and the other gospels that all the disciples fled as a result of this incident, and also we see Simon Peter trying to put up a fight by taking out his sword and cutting of the ear of the high priest’s servant. That’s the basis for calling it, Fight or Flight.  

The medical professionals tell us that fight or flight is associated with a physiological reaction which occurs in humans or animals in response to a perceived harmful attack, or a threat to survival. It is an automatic, instinctive response that activates our nervous and muscular systems in order to help us survive.  It is natural.  It is instinctive.  It is normal.  But in the realm of the spiritual that which is natural and physical is not necessarily the kind of reaction that is in alignment with God’s purposes.

And we find that natural vs spiritual response illustrated in this text.  The disciple’s reaction to the mob coming to arrest Jesus would have been pretty typical.  It was a natural reaction.  Some fled, and some attempted to fight.  That is the way the body is engineered.  We are told in Mark 14 that even as the disciples fled, one  young man, probably Mark himself, was caught and he slipped out of his clothes and ran away naked.  And of course, we know what Peter did.  He drew a sword to defend Christ.  He was going to fight the spiritual battle in his own strength, with his skill and bravado.

I think that the church is often guilty of similar responses as we try to find our way in a hostile world.  We tend to try to use human ingenuity to accomplish spiritual goals.  But when we do so we fail to understand Ephesians 6 which says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places.  

Jesus made the same principle clear in this chapter, in vs 36. Jesus answered to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”  So if, as Jesus indicates, the kingdom of God is spiritual, not physical, and our enemies are spiritual and not physical, then it stands to reason that the church’s strategies must be spiritual and not physical.

So Jesus and the disciples climb the Mount of Olives in the dark of night to engage in a spiritual battle, the battle between the will of God and the will of man. It was in the Garden of Eden that man first encountered  spiritual warfare with the enemy of his soul. There the battle with Satan was lost by man, there he forfeited his right to rule over the earth and gave it over to Satan by yielding his obedience to Satan's will. Now Jesus as the second Adam enters another garden to do battle with Satan. The issue again is God's will versus the will of Satan.

But the disciples react in the flesh instead of according to the Spirit.  So Christ rebukes Peter in vs.11 saying, “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”  The Lord Jesus had known ahead of time how all this was going to come about.  He knew that Judas had planned to betray Him there.  And yet He did not try to avoid arrest  by fleeing from the soldiers or by planning a defense.  Instead, we are told that Jesus went boldly out to meet the mob.  I’m sure it would have been possible for Jesus to have easily eluded them in the dark in the olive grove.  But that wasn’t the Father’s will.  And Jesus had prayed in the prayer recorded in Luke 22 that He was concerned that the Father’s will be done, and not His own.

John’s record of this event in the Garden of Gethsemane is selective.  He doesn’t make an attempt to mention a lot of what the other gospel writer’s have already written about. Out of all the events that transpired in the garden, John emphasizes the fact that Jesus initiates His own capture. John doesn’t mention the night spent in prayer, or the sweat drops of blood that Christ spilled as He prayed.  He doesn’t mention the disciples falling asleep.  He doesn’t mention Judas’s kiss of betrayal.  And what we can deduce from that is that what John does record is to illustrate certain facts that he felt served his greater purpose. John wasn’t writing a biography, he was writing a gospel.  As he said in chapter 20 vs.30, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”  So John emphasizes that Jesus went boldly forth to offer Himself as a sacrifice by doing the will of the Father.

That sacrificial love is illustrated in vs.8, in which Jesus says in effect, “Take Me, and let these go.”  That is the same sacrificial love that takes Jesus to the cross for us all. In bearing our judgment for sin, He said in a sense the same thing to the Father's justice.  “Take Me, and let these people go.”

So what John has recorded for us is selected to teach us certain truths.  Now there are many applications that one could get from this passage.  But there is one particular application that I would like to make, which may seem like a stretch perhaps, but which I think is appropriate. Rather than doing my normal exegesis of each verse, I want to use this text to make an application that I feel God has laid on my heart this morning; and that is the purpose of the church.  I see in this situation an illustration of how the church is to respond in a hostile culture.  

Now I think this application is  justified because these 11 disciples represent the church. It took only 10 Jewish men to constitute a synagogue, or a local assembly. So these 11 men were Christ’s church.  We know from other scriptures, particularly Ephesians 2:20, that the apostles are the foundation of the church.  And at this point there is very little else but the foundation.  Christ has spent the last three years building the foundation, teaching the disciples the doctrines of the kingdom of God.  

You will remember that Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:18, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”  So the disciples were the foundation stones upon which Christ would build His  church, and Christ is the cornerstone.  But the main point I want to emphasize is they are the church at that point.  Eleven guys, and they have all sorts of shortcomings, and they are facing all sorts of challenges, and their response is often completely wrong and yet Christ has chosen them to be the foundation of His church.  

So the Lord will use this situation and others like it to teach them so that when Jesus is no longer with them in person, they will know how to lead the church in order that the church will not only survive, but thrive.  The disciples will learn from even their failures how to continue Christ’s ministry.

But on this particular night, it must have seemed to the disciples that the gates of hell were prevailing against the church. And so while Peter attempts to fight, and the other disciples flee into the darkness, Jesus stands firm knowing that He is acting according to the Father’s will. 

However, notice that Jesus's promise to the church that the gates of hell will not prevail against it, is conditional.  His promise is conditional upon the fact that it has to be His church, and He has to be the builder of it.  If He is, then there is the promise that hell will not prevail against it.  But if it is not His church, and He is not the builder of it, then there is no such promise.

As a pastor, I am routinely asked from time to time about our plans for this church.  What are our goals?  What is our long term plan?  Where are we going with this thing?  I guess those are valid concerns.  But I can’t help but feel that they are often prompted by unbiblical expectations.  And that is because the Christian community today has a picture in their mind of what they think church should be, what the church should look like.  That vision may have been influenced by many factors, such as what seems to be working elsewhere, what church was like when they grew up, or what they’ve been told the church has to do to reach our modern culture.  

And I can tell you that from a pastor’s perspective that answering this question isn’t easy for me either.  There are many, many books out there which purport to tell you how to build a church.  Or what a successful church should look like.  Rick Warren wrote a very popular book many years ago now which had a tremendous impact on the modern evangelical church, called “The Purpose Driven Church.”  There are some things in that book that sound good.  But there are also some things that I feel are misdirected. Namely, that there is a formula, a tried and true business style model for how to build a successful church.

Whether Rick Warren intended to imply it or not, the average church pastor who uses that book as a template does so hoping that it will result in building a large church.  Because Rick Warren has a huge church and he used that formula.  And because large numbers are what practically everyone thinks is emblematic of a successful church.  How many people you have, how many Sunday morning services you conduct, what kind of programs you have and how big your building is indicates how successful you are.  

But for the most part I have disregarded such handbooks for church growth. Instead, several years ago, I began a study in the book of Acts on Sunday mornings because I wanted to address some of these fundamental questions concerning the church.  And what better source is there to determine how God builds His church than to study the first church in Jerusalem from the book of Acts.  However, that was a long time ago, and some of you weren’t here at that time to benefit from that study.  

So I want to go back to Acts chapter 2 in order to refresh our memory.  If we are going to have a church which is Christ’s church, and which is built by God, which will stand against the gates of hell, then I can think of no better example than the church in chapter 2 of Acts which was birthed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.  And first of all we note that 3000 people were saved as a result of Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost. But don’t focus on the numbers and miss the important part. The key is  that if you’re going to have a church that is built by God, and protected by God, then it must start with a saved congregation.  The church is the congregation of the saints.  Saints aren’t dead people, they are saved people.

And church buildings that are filled with unsaved people aren’t actually Christ’s church. The people may be the social pillars of the community, they may have all the trappings of the church, they may look like what we think churches are supposed to look like, but if they are not made up of born again saints then they do not constitute the church according to God. That eliminates a whole lot of so called churches right there. Nice people practicing religion in pretty buildings does not constitute a church.  The first church in Jerusalem did not even have a building. But the church is made up of sinners who have received and believed the truth of Jesus Christ are granted righteousness, resulting in salvation. In Acts 2:47 it says, “And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” So a saved congregation is the first prerequisite.  

And then again in Acts chapter 2 we find in one verse the purpose of the church, as designed by God, and given to us.  Acts 2:42 gives the divine blueprint they followed: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Those are the four essential elements that make up the actual function and life of the church.  

To be saved is to become a disciple of Christ, to follow Christ.  That’s what Jesus’s mandate was to the apostles as recorded in Matthew 28:19. Go into all the world and make disciples. And a disciple is a learner, a student.  So then the first order of the church is to teach Christ’s doctrine. To teach Christians how to live as Christ would have us live according to what Christ had taught them. This was the primary responsibility of the apostles.  

And in Ephesians we read that as the church goes forward, Christ gave to the church first apostles and prophets, then evangelists, and then pastor’s/teachers.  So if we are going to pattern ourselves according to God’s blueprint for the church, then the church must continually devote themselves to the teaching of the word of God.  And we do that not just so that we might have an intellectual knowledge of the Bible, but so that we might know the truth of God, that we might know how to live as Christ taught, and that we might be obedient to that truth.  That is sanctification, being conformed to the truth of God.

A godly church then is made up of saved people who apply themselves to the teaching of the word, and then are obedient to the word, so that they might be witnesses to the world.  The purpose of teaching is that we might be conformed to the image of Christ.  That we might become in practice like Christ, that we might have the mind of Christ.  We have become righteous by justification through Christ, now we must be sanctified in practice like Christ.  We must be obedient to what we are taught. It is to no advantage whatsoever if we meet to have a worship service, but there is no evidence of the transforming power of God in our lives.  If the church is filled with people living in adultery, if it’s filled with people who are living in sin, who are still enslaved to sin, then what kind of witness is that to the world?  It’s a self aggrandizing exercise in hypocritical religion.  The purpose of the church is to make disciples that look like Christ and act like Christ as they live like Christ.

We conform to the image of Christ because He was conformed to the image of the Father.  He was obedient to the Father’s will.  Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”  That’s what Jesus was referring to in His rebuke of Peter.  He had prayed in the Garden in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”  He was apprehensive in His flesh not at the prospects of death, but at the prospects of taking the sin of the world upon Himself.  But when the mob came, Jesus was obedient to the Father’s will saying to Peter; “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”

Listen, we can learn from this example that God’s purposes are not always apparent to men because they are counterintuitive to the common sense of the natural man.  God’s purposes do not always lead to our immediate exaltation.  His purposes sometimes takes us through thorny ways before we meet the joyful end. As the hymn writer says, 

“Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;  Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

Leave to thy God to order and provide;  In every change He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend  Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.”

So the first priority of the church is continually devoting yourselves to the apostles teaching.  That’s the word of God.  Because the word of God has power to transform lives.  Programs don’t have that power.  A lot of so called Christian music doesn’t have that power. Activities and outreaches don’t have that power.  But the word of God has transformative power as Heb 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Now I don’t want to neglect the other three essentials of the church; fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer.  But the teaching of the word is a priority, and then fellowship comes from the unity we have in the truth.  Our church name is the Beach Fellowship.  Fellowship means communion, with God first and then with one another in the truth of God.  We talked about that last week; Christ prayed for unity.  And we discovered that unity is found in the truth.  Not in organizations, but in truth and never at the expense of truth.  When we have fellowship in the truth, then we are able to build up one another, love one another, help one another as we grow in our faith.

And then the breaking of bread could be referring to the Lord’s Supper.  But in all likelihood it was just simply the daily taking of meals together.  Vs.46 says they were breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.” Eating and sharing together is a basic form of fellowship.  That’s why we eat breakfast together when we meet at the men’s prayer breakfast or other events as a church.  We believe it promotes fellowship.  In sharing a meal together, we get to know one another, so that we might be able to meet one another’s spiritual needs. 

And of course prayer is the last vitally important component.  I spoke about prayer at the beginning of chapter 17.  And for three weeks we studied Christ’s prayer as a template for our own.  As I said then, if we are a praying church, then all the other disciplines of the church would be elevated.  But even in prayer, it must be in truth.  Prayer must be grounded in Biblical truth, or it is not effective prayer.  And as James 5:16 tells us, the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. The key is that we are righteous, and then God hears our prayers.

When you have those four vital aspects of the church in effect, then you will see the result noted in Acts 2:43 which says, “everyone had a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.” Though we may no longer see the same kind of miracles and wonders of the apostolic age, God’s power still remains on display in the church. What could be more miraculous than giving life to people who are dead in sin? He heals people of their hurts, puts broken homes back together, and brings people out of the bondage of sin to Christ. In short, He transforms lives. When the church follows God’s design, He will do marvelous and powerful things in individual lives before a watching world.

But it has to start with a saved congregation who submit to the teaching of the word of God and then are obedient to the will of God in their daily lives.  Even though many times in the Jerusalem church to obey God meant that they would experience suffering.  We too suffer some times if we are going to be obedient to God.  We may suffer the loss of a job which does not honor God.  Or we suffer the loss of friendships that are of the world or that are ungodly associations.  There are lots of ways that we might suffer, but through thorny ways, God leads us to a joyful end.

The church that is willing to suffer with Christ is a church that experiences a sense of awe or reverence for the Lord.  That’s what is meant by they felt a sense of awe.  It doesn’t mean they were oohing and ahhing over the drama of the  miracles.  It means that they felt a holy reverence for the Lord.  They had a reverence for the holiness of God.  And if you read further in Acts, you will see the Lord’s response against Ananias and Sapphira who did not revere the Lord as holy.  So God struck them dead in the middle of the church service because God wanted to teach us that He demands reverence.

And then there is one more point that I would like to make from the example given to us in Acts.  It says in Acts 2:47  that “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”  If you want a formula for success in the church there it is.  You start with God saving men and women, and then the church being transformed and sanctified by the teaching of the word of God, add fellowship and prayer and then you add to that the reverence for the holiness of the Lord, and you end up with God adding to the church day by day those that were being saved. That’s God’s church growth plan.  

It has nothing to do with building projects.  It has nothing to do with appointing committees or Sunday School directors.  It has everything to do with being saved according to the truth, then  taught the truth of the word and then being obedient to it and living it out in the community.

I don’t think I need to belabor this point any longer this morning.  I’m sure most of you are here today because you want to follow Christ’s teaching.  You want to be transformed, to be set free, and to be a witness to the world of the saving power of Christ.  But neither do I want you to be discouraged or distracted by what the world might tell you is important.  The disciples acted on their instincts, they acted in their own strength, and they acted out of an emotional, natural response.  And they found themselves at odds with the purposes of God.  After the resurrection, Jesus will spend the next 40 days to open their minds so that they would understand the scriptures so that they would be ready to take charge of His church when He left to go back to His Father.

But we have an advantage that they didn’t have. We have the advantage of learning from their mistakes.  We have the advantage of the complete scriptures right in our hands.  So the teaching of the word is the first priority of this church.  Because it is everything we need for life and happiness.   As 2Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”  

Let’s not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the scriptures tell us, and let us continually devote ourselves to the teaching of the word of God through pastors/teachers “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  That is how the church is supposed to look.  That is the plan of God for the church.  That we all grow to mature men and women, being conformed  to the full measure of the image of Christ.