"People with a Purpose: Part 6. Summary"

Sermon: Proper 4 year A

The Rev. Matt Kennedy

The Church of the Good Shepherd

This morning’s sermon will be the final sermon in the series on the five tasks of the church and I want to start with a parable Jesus told in Mark chapter 4:26-28. “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.”

I don’t know a thing about farming or gardening but I do know that several things are necessary for a seed to grow. You need a good seed, good soil, the right kind of sunlight, and the right amount of water. If you have all those things, if all the conditions are right, then the seed grows. In fact, the farmer doesn’t grow anything. He just plants seeds and then makes sure that the environment is right for those seeds to grow. And if the environment is right it grows, as Jesus says, all by itself. The power of growth, the life, is in the seed.

Well, this parable illustrates and sums up what we’ve been saying throughout the last two months. You build the right type environment and plant the seed of the gospel, and the lost will come. There will be a harvest. Believers, like the farmer in the parable can’t grow the church, that’s not our job, we don‘t have the power to do that. Instead, we plant the seed, the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, in our friends and neighbors and then we cultivate the right environment in the church for that seed to grow. But God, and God alone, grows the church.

The five tasks that you see there on your study sheet, the five tasks we have been studying for the last two months are like instructions in a farmers almanac for cultivating a church. If a church proclaims the gospel to the lost; studies, applies, and follows the teachings of the apostles, the Bible, acts in love toward one another like brothers and sisters, and worships the Lord every Sunday in Spirit and in truth as living sacrifices, then an environment is cultivated in which growth, and I’m not just numerical growth, is automatic.

The church in Acts chapter 2 gave us a picture of what it looks like to plant the seed and cultivate it faithfully with the five tasks. Acts 2 also gives us a picture of what a church can and should expect if it takes this model seriously. It gives us a picture of the harvest Jesus talks about in his parable. Open your bibles again to Acts 2, beginning in verse 43 and listen as I read, “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Four things happened when the first church began fulfilling its God given purpose. Now, these four blessings that God gives faithful churches can be used as a measuring stick. Do we see the same things happening here, that happened there?

First The Holy Spirit began to move and to act in their midst. v.43, “Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.” God did powerful and supernatural things in the first church to show the world that his favor rested there. When a church is faithfully planting and cultivating the seed of the gospel, God, even today, pours out his Spirit so that when people come they look around and say, “wow, something’s really going on here” People come on Sunday morning and know and feel for a fact that the Holy Spirit is there. They see lives being changed. They see old wounds, emotional, spiritual, and physical, healed. They see rivals become brothers and sisters; hatreds being put aside; they see people who the world forgot and left behind begin to find a purpose and a meaning to life; they see people who’ve never before been able to do anything for anyone besides themselves start to give all that up and serve others for the sake of Jesus Christ. People see miraculous signs and wonders, spiritual and physical that demonstrate the presence of the Holy Spirit. Is that happening here?

Second this outpouring of the Holy Spirit opened the believers eyes so that they saw the purpose behind God’s material blessings. “All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods; they gave to anyone as he had need.” Have you ever asked yourself why God gave you your car or your home or the money you have in the bank? In churches where the seed has been planted and is being cultivated faithfully, people begin to recognize that their time, their skill, and their money and possessions are all gifts from God that have been given for the purpose of building up the kingdom of God.

Did you know that?

Often when people give of themselves to their church they have the attitude that what they have is theirs and they’re graciously giving it to God out of the beneficence of their generous hearts. And they expect to be recognized and praised and to have their names put on special little plaques. And some people even expect, and this is really fun, to be able to tell the leadership what to do based on how much money they give. And if they get what they want pretty soon, the church simply runs on money and people without it have absolutely no say in what goes on.

You don‘t buy power in a church. And in churches where the seed has been planted and cultivated rightly, people see that all of their stuff, is really God’s stuff that he has given to us so that we can help build his kingdom. When people realize this, when someone truly knows in their heart that whatever he or she gives to the church or to a brother or sister in need is simply giving back to Jesus what he first gave, then a sense of joy and eagerness in giving pervades the church. People begin to want to give. They don’t even have to be asked. People begin to “share all things in common” and give freely, no strings or interest, to whoever has need. Is that happening here?

Third, when the seed is planted and cultivated properly, people begin to love being around each other and love to praise God together. “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” People enjoy fellowship. They enjoy church on Sunday morning. They enjoy spending time with one another during the week and as the seed grows needless divisions are set aside. Now, when someone is teaching false doctrine or spreading unbiblical teaching in the church or living in an openly notorious way, then the bible teaches that there must be some form of church discipline (Matt 18:15-19). The leadership asks the offending person or persons to repent and if they don’t after a long process they’re asked to leave.This kind of division is sometimes unfortunately necessary in order to maintain the right environment for the seed to grow. It’s called pruning.

But usually divisions in churches are not of that sort, but of a much more petty kind; people whispering behind other people’s back, gossip, slander, little cliques form up based on who‘s in and who‘s out. When this happens, personal power and influence come to be more important than the gospel; anger and hatred strife characterize and define the church. But in churches where the seed is planted and cultivated faithfully, love is the defining characteristic. Petty differences are forgotten; slights and offenses are easily forgiven. People love one another and seek to put the needs of others ahead of themselves. Is that happening here?

Finally, they grew. The last verse of Acts 2 says, “God added to their number daily those who were being saved.” The seed is powerful. If the ground is cultivated faithfully it grows. If you want to know why churches grow it is this. God leads people to churches where he knows they will hear the gospel and be trained in the truth. That’s why churches that teach false doctrine or have no concern for teaching people the bible or that are full of back biting, selfish, power-hungry people are dying. And notice something else, the growth of this first church was not the sort of growth Episcopal churches generally have. The people God adds to faithful churches are lost people looking for salvation not disaffected church hoppers trying to find a church that suites their tastes. The church that fulfills God’s purpose grows through the salvation of lost souls. Is that happening here?

If a church is devoted to the five 5 tasks modeled by the church in Acts, then the Spirit will do miraculous things, lives will be changed, believers will give abundantly, their love for one another and for God will overflow, and lost people will find Jesus Christ.

Now I’ll ask you, how do you think we’re doing here at Good Shepherd? I’ve definitely seen signs that the seed is being cultivated faithfully here, especially over the last few months. The signs of health are all around us. But, I also know and I’m sure you do too, that we still have some work to do. There are always some weeds in the garden. Some of those weeds are in our own hearts, yours and mine. I don’t always sense the love in my own heart or have the abundant generosity that characterized the church in Acts. But if we, as individuals and as a church are devoted to the fivefold mission God has given us these weeds will die and the seed will grow. God in Acts 2 has given us a model and a vision. It us up to each of us with God’s help to make that vision reality here and now.

Amen