A Vision for God-Centered Growth - Acts 9:31

Today we’re looking closer at the third part of the GS vision statement. As I’ve said each week, our mission is why we exist; our vision is how we fulfill our mission. You can find our vision statement on the inside cover of the WG in the second paragraph. We are a multi-generational congregation worshipping according to Scripture in a contemporary style, gathering as one body on Sunday mornings and in small groups throughout Florence during the week, and introducing more people to the life-giving community of the local church.

The first part of the vision deals with how we worship, the second part with how we gather together, and this final part with how we grow, how we expand in number, how we multiply: by “introducing more people to the life-giving community of the local church.” This is related to what Jesus says in Matthew 28 about making disciples. 

The Scriptures teach that a congregation worshipping according to God’s Word and “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” will be a life-giving place. In Psalm 119 of the OT, the psalmist says to God, “I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life.” In John 6 in the NT, Jesus says he is the bread of life that came down from heaven to give life to the world; then later Jesus says that the Spirit of God gives life. 

In a God-centered congregation, Jesus rules by His Word and Spirit, and there the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit give life continually to and through His people. So our vision is that here more people would be introduced to life in God and that would remain here to do what disciples of Jesus must do: follow Him, learn from Him, and observe all that He has commanded and established for His church. God-centered growth is His will for the local church, but that kind of growth does not happen in every church building and within every congregation.

All people are prone to man-centeredness, and so vain methods for growth abound. Church growth is often pursued in ways that glorify man or appeal to our worldly appetites. Hope is placed in the ability to impress people or entertain them. Faith is placed in the pastor or the band or the programs or the buildings or the brand.

But while the outward characteristics of the church do matter, we must remember that Jesus came to enable His church to pursue God-centered growth, the kind of growth that only God can give. This is the kind of growth that the apostle Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 3 as he describes his role in planting a church in which another man came along after him to minister, a man named Apollos. Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

Our vision must be for the growth that God gives. We must be committed to it. But how does that kind of growth come to us? Acts 9:31 speaks to this. You can find an outline on page 6 in the WG that summarizes two points made in this verse about the growth that God gives. Growth from God comes 1. as He produces sincere reverence in us, and 2. as He bestows genuine encouragement on us. Sincere reverence for God and genuine encouragement from Him are life-giving, and as we pursue those things, God will give growth as He sees fit. So let’s look at this verse.

Now, first, some background on Acts 9:31. The book of Acts documents the actions of God and the “acts” or “works” of the apostles in the development of the early NT church. Acts describes the expansion of the church. Chapter 8 looks closely at a man named Saul. He was a zealous prosecutor of Christians. But ch. 9 describes his conversion to Christianity. He was born again, he believed in Jesus Christ and came to be called by the Greek form of his name, which was Paul. 

So, the persecution led by Saul now called the apostle Paul came to an end, and you see the beginning of 9:31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.” At the beginning of the book of Acts,  before Jesus returns to heaven, he appears to his disciples in Jerusalem, and he says: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The church was to grow larger and larger. “Judea, Galilee, and Samaria” mentioned here tells us the church was growing. Disciples were being made; the gospel was spreading to “the end of the earth.”

Church growth is not bad; bad church growth is bad. It is biblical to desire church growth. But we need discernment from God; we need the wisdom He gives as we move forward.

Now, this idea of the church “being built up” is important. It’s related to building a structure. But the language indicates that the church’s role in this building up was passive. God was performing the action upon them; He was the one doing the building. This agrees with what we saw last week in Ephesians 2. When God, not man, builds the church, the congregation grows not only in number, but in faith, hope, and love, in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in all the features of the true church.

Where God builds, there is real repentance, genuine faith, biblical worship and community. There was life in the early church, because the Spirit of the living God filled the congregations. They were not acquiring land or constructing buildings; they were “God’s building.” 

Notice the next part of this verse: And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” The church increased. And this is our primary direction from the Lord today as we consider our vision for the growth of Good Shepherd. How did the early church multiply? First of all, “walking in the fear of the Lord.”

Many of you have heard me say that when I was a young boy, my father required that I learn how to operate heavy equipment: a dump truck, tractors, a backhoe. I remember him putting me in the driver’s seat and saying, with great seriousness, something to this effect: “Son, this machine can kill you. You could lose your life on it today. So be careful and pay attention.” But he didn’t take me away from it or shelter me. He taught me what to do, and then he left me to operate the machine. He meant to instill in me great reverence for the machine, great respect for its power and the danger it held if I was careless. He meant to instill in me great fear; not the kind of fear that paralyzes, but rather, the kind that sets you free to experience the wonder of what those big machines can do.

The word “fear” in verse 31 refers to deep reverence and respect for the one true God. As the early church multiplied in number, they were not afraid of God’s power and wrath in a way that drove them from Him, but rather, in a way that drove them to Him.

They recognized that Jesus Christ has absorbed God’s wrath for sin in Himself on His cross. And by God’s great power, Jesus defeated sin and death. The early church stood in awe of God. They wondered at His mercy and grace. And so they walked in “the fear of the Lord.” That phrase is used throughout the OT, so the OT meaning applies here. Psalm 111 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” Proverbs 1, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” Proverbs 8, “The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil.” Proverbs 14, “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life.” Isaiah 33, “The fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.” 

And Psalm 19, “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever.” Interesting wording. The context of Psalm 19 is praise and respect for the law of God. We should have great reverence for God's truth and His moral code. Why? Because it is woven into the fabric of the universe God created, and it cannot, in the end, be bypassed or avoided. We must encounter the holy God and His righteous law face-to-face. There is no hope for unclean sinners with no fear of God before their eyes. But by His grace God makes sinners clean and instills godly fear in His people. Growth from God comes as He produces sincere reverence in us.

From the start here at GS, we have been sensitive to the needs and desires of newcomers. When you start out in church planting, you try to put yourself in the shoes of a visitor. How do they perceive what’s going on here? And we must always be doing that. 

But at the same time, we must ask, “How does God perceive what’s going on here?” You know, God is looking to? What will He see? Does He see that we depend on Him? What does God see when He looks at your life? Does He find devotion to Him? When God looks at this church, He must see a congregation pursuing the sincere reverence that only He can give. Without it, we will not see the increase that only He can give.

Now notice there rest of verse 31: The early church multiplied as they walked not only “in the fear of the Lord,” but also, as they walked “in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” The triune God was their greatest fear, but also, their greatest comfort. In John 16, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as our helper, our advocate, our counselor. Certainly, part of what the Holy Spirit provides to God’s people is comfort. In Him, those first-century believers found eternal consolation, real support in their distress, true relief in their struggles.

E.M. Bounds wrote a great deal on the topic of prayer. And in one of his works, he offers a good illustration of the comfort that God provides His people. He relays a story told by well-known author Robert Louis Stevenson (who wrote Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Stevenson told a story about a ship caught in a terrible storm. The passengers were ordered to take shelter below deck and to stay there. But one man defied the order and went above deck to see the pilot of the ship. The storm was awful, but when the pilot saw the man, he smiled. Then the man went below again and said to his fellow passengers, “I have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All is well.” 

E.M. Bounds then writes, “That is how we feel when through the gateway of prayer, we find our way into the Father’s presence. We see His face, and we know that all is well, since His hand is on the helm of events, and ‘even the winds and the waves obey Him.’” 

We find our greatest comfort in God by the power of His Spirit. We are comforted by His steadfast love and faithfulness, by His grace and truth. We are comforted by His forgiveness and by the knowledge of His power and goodness. The writer of the NT book of Hebrews uses this word which is translated in Acts as “comfort,” but in Hebrews, scholars normally translate it as “encouragement.” Hebrews 6 says that believers, “have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” God’s people must walk in encouragement of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is a sure and steadfast anchor for our souls. In His person and saving work, there is lasting comfort as we endure the hardships of life. 

Growth from God comes as He bestows genuine encouragement on us. The encouragement and reverence that comes from God is what we must be primarily concerned with here in this congregation. We must pursue those things as a community. And we will see, in fact, what we have seen here, is that as we do this, we spur each other on in reverence and encouragement, which is God’s plan.

Where do you look for comfort? Sometime we are drawn to sinful things, but often, it is things that are otherwise good which we look to. But you see, the greatest and most effective comfort comes from God, and is found, in fact, in God Himself. Do you seek His comfort even as you navigate the challenges of your life? Do you seek the comfort of the Holy Spirit individually, but also, in the congregation? 

This is one reason God calls us to gather on the Lord’s Day and also to gather at other times. We proclaim aloud what we believe so that we may hear others proclaiming along with us. We sing aloud so that we may hear others singing with us. We pray together and receive the Word together, we sit and eat together, and talk about our lives together. All these things that we do, we do them together. And God, in His timing and according to His plans, will bring the growth that only He can give.

As we go to the table this morning, we must admit that sincere reverence and genuine encouragement are things that we cannot produce in ourselves. God must produce these things. And so it is clear that for a congregation to grow in number, for the population of the church to multiply, God must do a great work in us. For us to introduce more people to the life-giving community of the local church, God must pour out life upon us. He must fill us with life in Jesus, because in Him is life.

Have you come to Jesus? Do you look to Him in repentance and faith each day? As you so, God will produce sincere reverence and bestow genuine encouragement. And as He does this, each Lord’s Day and in our midst throughout our days and weeks, more people will be introduced to our life-giving Jesus through us, and this church will grow with the growth that comes from God.

Let’s bow in prayer.