Acts 18:23
You may be seated. And turn in
your copy of God’s word to Acts chapter 18. Today, just one verse,
verse 23. We wanna talk about strengthening
the church, strengthening the disciples. As you’re making your
way there, I guess we took a break last week from Acts, but we considered
Paul’s view of the resurrection from Corinthians where When we
last left off, Paul was leaving Corinth and headed back to Jerusalem
to keep a vow. On his way back to Jerusalem,
he stopped at Ephesus and promised to return. Now we pick up where
Paul begins his third missionary journey. He left Corinth, went
by Ephesus, sailed to Jerusalem, kept his vow, and then he spent
about nine months or so, eight months or so, summer to the following
spring at Antioch, his sending church there in Syria. And now he’s going to walk a
1500 mile path back to Ephesus, but on the way, stop and strengthen
the churches. So before we read verse 23, let’s
do pray. Lord, as we approach your scripture,
help us to think of it as it is. It is your word. It is for
us. It is powerful. It is effective.
It, can reach into the depths of our lives. It can show us
what we are and what we need and how to get there. So let
it do its work. The painful, good, gracious gospel,
refining, sanctifying work we ask now in the name of Christ
our Savior, amen. God’s word, Acts chapter 18,
verse 23. After spending some time there,
he departed. and went from one place to the
next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all
the disciples. Amen. The word of the living
God. If you were to ask today in today’s culture, particularly
even in today’s church culture, what makes for a strong church? What is a strong church? We would
probably hear the typical answers. It’s nickels, it’s noses, it’s
numbers, it’s programs for all ages. It’s something for everybody
or everybody goes there. Or we might even hear a strong
church is built around a strong personality. And I think as we
dive into our passage today, we think of Ezra chapter seven.
We think of Paul’s ministry among the churches. But in particular,
we think of the sending church that just now sent Paul on his
third missionary journey. We can look to no other place
than Antioch. of Syria for a strong church. In fact, Antioch of Syria, not
to be confused with the other Antioch over on the mainland
where Paul would go and preach a little bit later, Antioch of
Pisidia. But when we think of Antioch of Syria, you will find
many churches in America today that say, we call ourselves by
that name, Antioch. We want to be a faithful New
Testament church. And as we think about what made
Antioch of Syria a good, strong church, we might say to ourselves,
there’s good reason behind all that. There’s good reason to
think through and imitate what they did. The church at Antioch
that now sends Paul on his third missionary journey was a church
born out of persecution. Maybe some of you will remember
back in the earlier chapters of Acts where the gospel had
gone out into Jerusalem. It had gone from Jerusalem into
Judea and Samaria. And God’s promise, God’s commission
was that it would go to the ends of the earth. Well, how did God
get his people, his church out onto the mission field? Well,
he brought persecution. And persecution scattered new
Christians. It scattered people of faith
into all parts of the world and a good number of them landed
in Syria at Antioch. And so this church was born out
of persecution and Acts chapter 11 tells us the hand of the Lord
was upon them. A great number believed. A great
number came to faith and were added to the number of God’s
people. They trusted the Lord and they
became followers of Jesus Christ. They turned to the Lord from
idols. Well, you remember back in Acts chapter 11, word reached
back to Jerusalem. There’s a big church in Antioch.
It’s a couple hundred miles away, but we better go check it out.
So they sent Barnabas, good old Barnabas, Paul’s faithful companion
now in ministry. Barnabas, the son of encouragement
went. And he saw the grace of almighty
God, that it was evident God had met with those people. And
he went to Tarsus and got Paul, brought Paul back from Tarsus
a little ways away. And they spent a year at Ephesus,
exhorting and strengthening that church. Now this church, Strong
and mighty is Paul’s sending church to the mission field.
But when Jerusalem finds itself in hardship for famine, they
send relief. A strong church, we might say,
values truth. A strong church values the gospel. It values worship. It values
relationships. It values unity. It values evangelism. It values missions. And that’s
the case with the church at Antioch. In fact, the Bible tells us it
is the first place in the world where people were called Christians. And so Paul, after spending some
time in Jerusalem at the end of his second missionary journey,
keeping that vow he made to God for his blessings on his last
journey and future blessings for the next, he spends a summer
and a spring in Antioch. And as we Come to verse 23 today,
it’s time to roll out on missionary journey three. His bags are packed. His sending church is ready to send
him off. You can imagine the picture,
the final Sunday there, the final Lord’s day there. It says, after
spending some time there, he departed. Their father in the
faith, their teacher in the way. You can imagine there were tears.
You can imagine there were prayers. You can imagine, as we were told
back in chapter 11, that those apostles who were able to prophesy
and to speak words of God to him gave him all the strength,
all the energy, all the encouragement he needed to go from place to
place on his way to Ephesus and to encourage and strengthen the
saints. They understand the opposition.
They understand the excitement. They understand the difficulty.
They understand the triumphs. They understand the good and
the bad and the ugly that he will encounter. And so this strong
church sends him to preach, to encourage in every city. In fact,
in one place, Paul says, in every city, I met opposition. In every city, I met affliction
as I pursued the call of God. But I do not account my life
as anything. And so we want to think through
what makes for a strong church. Paul is going to go back through
the churches of Galatia, the churches of Phrygia, and he’s
going to to strengthen them. How do you strengthen a church?
Well, I’ve got six things that I find in the book of Acts. I’m
sure you could find a dozen, two dozen, but I want to zero
in on six of them. What makes a church strong? Evangelism. Evangelism is important and we’re
living, aren’t we, in the South on the tail end of everyone’s
a Christian. We can look around us now and
we can think back and say, no, everyone wasn’t a Christian.
Maybe a lot of people went to church or did nice things and things
weren’t open on Sunday, but we’re way past all that, aren’t we?
And to be good evangelists, to be a strong church with evangelism
on the forefront of our minds, we need to understand where we
live. Who are the people around us?
They’re born in sin. They’re born with Adam’s nature. They’re born to rail against
God, to rebel against God. A few weeks ago, I was in a local
shop. I was with one of my children,
and the person said to us, telling a church story, so-and-so, if
there’s anybody in the world, deserve to go to heaven. They’ve
never done anything bad. And of course my theological
bells and dings and red lights and all that were going on. And
I kind of gave a look without being noticed to my child that
was in there. And I thought to myself, that
is the gospel that we hear all the time. Salvation by works. Salvation by not being so bad. Salvation by the good outweighing
the bad. Salvation by being a likable
person. Salvation by, well, whatever
medals and accolades we got. And so if we want to be a strong
church, strong in evangelism, we need to have a dose of reality
about the world around us. There are people all around us
walking in darkness. And there are people all around
us walking in darkness that think they are walking in the light.
You know, one of my jobs as a minister, and particularly during the hour
of worship, is to assure people who are in Christ that they are
in Christ. But it’s also to assure people
who are not in Christ that they are not in Christ. How cruel
is it to not to tell the truth to people? How full of hatred
for someone’s eternal state to say, oh, you’re such a good person. God will let you in heaven. No,
we need to be gospel people, believing in sin, believing in
salvation, preaching honestly. And so my job is to assure people
in Christ that they are and comfort them, but to discomfort those
who are not in Christ so that perhaps they might be led to
Christ. Or you may say it another way. My job is to, as I read
and teach and preach the word, it’s to help convince and convert
sinners. to salvation, or to comfort and
build up saints in their most holy faith. It never hurts, brothers
and sisters, for us to keep the gospel at the forefront of our
ministry. And you may say in your mind,
well, I’m saved, I don’t need the gospel, I know it. No, the
scripture seems to teach us that it’s the gospel that takes us
all the way to heaven. We look at the gospel and we
look at it holistically through the scriptures. God’s saving
plan began in eternity past when he said his affection upon you.
Your salvation began in eternity past when God, the father, God,
the son, and God, the Holy Spirit said to one another, what will
bring us the most glory? And it was that God would redeem
a people for himself out of the world of sin and shame and darkness
through the blood and sacrifice of his own son, the Lord Jesus.
And the spirit would unite these people to them and they would
forever have a people for themselves and glory. We think of the words
of the new covenant in Jeremiah, the words of the covenant all
through the scripture, I will be their God and they will be
my people. Well, what does it take for a
God and an alienated people to come together? It took the death
of his son. It took the life of a sinless
savior. It took a death and a crucifixion. It took a resurrection. And now
it takes the work of the spirit, the preaching of the church to
continue to unite people to Jesus. who are lost and dead in their
sins and trespasses. And it’s the gospel, isn’t it?
That gets us all the way home. We remember the gospel day by
day. As we struggle with sin, as we struggle with Satan, as
we struggle with the world, the gospel is evident to us every
day in life. And so a strong church, a strengthened
church is an evangelizing church. but it’s also a teaching church.
And you can’t help but think of the great commission here,
can you? Christ tells his disciples, all authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Go, Paul is going, isn’t he? Lots of footsteps, his little
Fitbit would be going nuts, wouldn’t it? All the steps he’s taken
for the gospel. Go into all the world and as you go, make disciples. How do you make disciples? You
teach. Disciple making, teaching, go hand in hand. I know that
some of you in the church are exercisers. Some of you in the
church are bodybuilders. I think we have a couple of men
that do that sort of thing. You work out. You get strong. Some of you maybe go to physical
therapy to get your legs or your core strength or your arm or
something or another back working again. We work out to get strong
so that we can function. And that’s exactly what ministry
we have in mind here with Paul. He went from church to church,
strengthening them in the gospel. If you’re not strong in the gospel,
you don’t make good evangelist. And bad evangelists don’t save
anyone, do they? You got the wrong gospel. So
he comes to teach, to give them a strengthening. And can’t you
imagine as Paul was walking from city to city, now most missionaries,
they would have said, okay, it’s time to go. Let’s get online.
Let’s look at air travel. I’m just going to go straight
to Ephesus. I’m going to buy as direct a flight to Ephesus
as possible. And so their travel may have been passing from this
airport to that airport, but Paul is going to walk. on the
Roman roads, city by city, town by town, and he’s gonna pass
through places where he’s already been, and he’s gonna stop and
minister to them. He’s gonna stop and stay with
them. He’s gonna stop and receive their hospitality, but can’t
you imagine he didn’t miss an opportunity? And we can’t have
every scenario of Paul in our Bibles. As the gospel writer
said about Jesus, it would fill volumes that we couldn’t even
hold. And so we understand that Paul, as he made his journeys,
he made the most of every opportunity. But one of the key things we
are told here, and it pops up in other places and acts as a
key theme, he went from city to city, town to town, place
to place, strengthening the churches. And you can imagine as he walked
into their villages, walked into their gates, he sat in their
house churches. And you know how it is when you’ve
been away and you get in the house and everybody has something to
tell you. You got to hear from the dog and the cat and the children
and your spouse and everybody’s just clamoring to tell you something.
Can you imagine the same thing in the church? Hey, Paul, Paul,
Paul, we’ve got this problem. Hey, Paul, you need to meet so-and-sos.
They’re wonderful people that have just become Christians and
they’re now in the church. We’ve got a few baptisms. Would
you like to do them as our father in the faith or, or, well, these,
Troublemakers have come and they’re teaching a false gospel. We need
you to clarify the gospel for us again. That’s going to happen
when he goes to the church at Galatia, as we well know. And so strengthening the church,
yes, in the gospel for evangelism, but also in the truth and the
faith and the doctrine in the content of the Bible and the
content of the gospel. And don’t you know that Paul,
when he went to these churches, in such a diverse Roman culture. He probably had to teach them
a little bit about comparative religions. He probably had to
teach them about the clash of worldviews and what they now
have to leave behind as Christians. and only put their faith and
their hope and their trust in as Christians in this world that
was full of this, that, and the other. You know, he didn’t want
them to be syncretist and mix a little Greek, a little Roman,
a little this and a little that. He wanted them only to focus
on Jesus Christ. And so a strong church is one
that is strong in evangelism. It’s strong in teaching. But
it’s strong also in its practices. The third thing we ought to think
about is worship. A strong church is strong in
evangelism, it’s strong in teaching, it’s strong in worship. We don’t
get the details, but you pick it up as you pick through acts.
As Paul went from place to place, he worshiped with the people. We know from the Corinthian church,
he had to straighten out their Lord’s Supper practices. In other
places, he talked about how men and women should pray. In other
contexts, other letters, we find out he had to tweak this or fix
that or condemn this. And so as Paul went around strengthening
the churches, don’t you know he tidied up worship? What should we sing? How should
we sing? On and on, what should we do
in worship? How is God to be revered? How
should the people behave in the household of faith? And so on. And so a strong church is strong
in evangelism, strong in teaching. It’s strong in worship. It’s
strong in the sacraments. When you go and make disciples,
you baptize. When you have church week by
week. Somewhere along the way, you
have the Lord’s Supper. Some people weekly, some people
monthly, some people quarterly, some folks yearly. It’s up to
the local elders. God has left us the wisdom to
handle those things. But a strong church is strong
in the sacraments. And it’s not just that we do
them. It’s not just that we bring someone up to baptism. We prepare
them for baptism. We prepare parents who present
their children. And we prepare converts. This
is the meaning. This is the value. This is the
spiritual reality behind this visible sign. And this is what
it means to walk in the Lord, to nurture in the Lord, to fear
the Lord, to serve the Lord. And so a strong church is strong
in the sacraments. It’s also strong in discipline.
We remember Martin Luther and others after the Protestant Reformation
came up with the three marks of the church, and you could
come up with others, but the preaching of the word, the right
administration of the sacraments, and then church discipline. Those
were the three marks that the reformers thought were very important,
and we ought to take heed from that historical moment in history
where they were saying goodbye to all the trappings of the Roman
Catholic Church. And they were saying the Bible
gives us these simple things, these basic things around here.
We call it the meat and potatoes, right? These are the simple things. And so a church ought to have
good order. It ought to have good discipline.
Discipline is first teaching. Can’t you see connecting it back
to teaching you, you teach what is right. And then when you correct
what is wrong, I think of Paul’s words to Timothy, second Timothy
three, 16 and 17, all scripture. is breathed out by God, and it
is useful, it’s useful in the life of the church, it’s useful
in the life of the saints for teaching and rebuking and for
correcting and for training in righteousness so that the man
of God, so that the Christian is fully equipped, fully furnished
to do the will of God. Discipline is first teaching
what is positive, but then it’s correcting what is, not going
well. And can’t you imagine as Paul
visited some of these churches to strengthen them in their evangelism
and teaching and worship and sacraments, he also had to do
some lessons in discipline. Well, we know that to be true,
don’t we? We’ve read first and second Corinthians. We’ve read
Galatians. We read all the passages of scripture
where Paul says, I commend, I commend, I commend, I love. So-and-so
is wonderful. But then There’s Hymenaeus and
Alexander the coppersmith who did him great harm. I’ve handed
them over to Satan. Then there’s the list and other
places. So-and-so Demas is in love with
this present world and has deserted me. Luke alone has stood by me. Good church order, good church
discipline maintains unity. It maintains order, but especially
it maintains witness. You know, I think the church,
today has fallen on hard times in the area of church discipline,
because this is what goes through our head. Well, we don’t want
to upset the so-and-sos. They give a lot. They make the
coffee. They sweep the building. People
love them. The fallout will be too much.
But you know what’s at stake in discipline? And I love this
about our standards in the Associate Reform Presbyterian Church. The
ultimate goal of discipline, we always say, is to restore
a brother. No, it’s the glory of God. And we would not want
to stain the witness of the glory of God on the face of the earth
by being a group of out of order Christians. And so to neglect. Keeping the church house tidy,
and I don’t mean the cobwebs and the carpets, I mean the unity
of the believers to neglect. is to put before the world a
poor witness of Jesus and the order that is in heaven. One
of the greatest things I’ve heard, and I always remember this, a
church is an outpost of heaven. Or maybe we should say, because
we’re still sinners, a church ought to be an outpost of heaven.
There ought to be a visible manifestation here of the invisible to us realities
of heaven. And so if a non-Christian or
even a Christian walks into a church and it’s out of order, it’s out
of accord, there’s no unity, there’s this and there’s that,
it’s got all the Corinthian problems, what will people say? Well, they’re
just a bunch of hypocrites. I’ll stay home and watch cable
news all day. I’ll go to the beach. And so we wonder why in
America the church is emptied. Well, maybe discipline is one
of those things. So how do you strengthen a church?
Well, you strengthen a church, a strong church has evangelism
and teaching. It has worship and sacraments. It has discipline. The last thing
I want to mention is leaders. You strengthen a church by giving
it strong leaders. I think through several years
back when we preached through the sermons on Titus. Titus was
written Paul to Titus, a young pastor, and he begins the letter
by saying to Titus, the reason why I left you on Crete was to
put things in order. And the first order of business
was appoint elders. And then he goes on to list what
those elders ought to be and what those elders ought to do. I had a teacher in seminary,
I think I told you this about a year ago and it bears repeating.
It’s one of those great quotes, you know, you write down all
your notes in class because it’s on the test. And you don’t want
to flunk your test, but you write down all the side things they
said, because you don’t want to flunk when you get into the pastorate.
Nobody cares if you made A’s or B’s in your theology. Well,
I think they do. But this stuff really matters.
And his quote was this. Nothing has killed the church
more than persecution than rotten leaders. Nothing has killed the
church more than persecution than rotten leaders ahead of
persecution in his mind. And I think he’s right. It’s
important for a church to be strengthened by having good,
strong leaders, leaders who know the gospel, leaders who can evangelize,
leaders who know our doctrine, our Bible, leaders who know the
context. of church history and who know
the context of people’s lives. And so a strong church has order
through good leaders. A church has good order when
those leaders hold fast to the word of truth. I think of Paul
when he eventually does get to Ephesus and he spends a good
bit of time there, but he has to take leave. And you read of
this in Acts chapter 20. Paul has a very long, in fact,
Luke takes almost a whole chapter on this goodbye. He has a very
long chat with them. And he says to them, I’ve not
failed to preach to you the whole counsel of God, not failed to
strengthen you, you might say, but I’m leaving you knowing that
there are wolves in sheep’s clothing who will come among you. And
he begs them, he prays for them, don’t let this come to pass. And so to have leaders who will
stand at the sheep gate, to have leaders who will stand with the
staff in the hand, leaders who will protect the congregation
is a wonderful thing. You know, what did Jesus say? What have the apostles said?
What’s true through church history? And I know it’s true through
your church experience. People come to the church for
all kinds of reasons. People come to the church for
all kinds of reasons. I know our elders have seen it a number
of times, and we want there to be one reason. You love Jesus,
and you continue to need Jesus. That’s two reasons, wasn’t it?
You love Jesus because he saved you, and you need Jesus to continue
the work he began. When people come to the church,
and I’m quoting things I’ve heard here, We’ll show you how to straighten
this place out. We’ll show you how to run it,
and we’ll get it more reformed, or we’ll get you growing again. We have heard it all. And that’s
why we’re so quick to say, what you see is what you get. We’re
gonna worship, we’re gonna grow, we’re gonna disciple you, and
we’re gonna do the basics. And so how do you strengthen
a church? Well, these things, by God’s
grace, may help. These are six things the apostle
Paul no doubt did in his life and his ministry. In these apostolic
times where Paul is ministering, the church was new. It was being
established. And as he would visit back, you
know, after a year or two, maybe he had to correct a few things.
But today, today, getting a strong church is a hard thing. Most
churches we come to are established. They have bad habits. They have
bad theology, bad practices. And sometimes even rotten leaders,
yes, that can be the case. Next door to one of our church
members, there’s a house that’s not been lived in in a while
and been keeping an eye on this thing. And finally somebody bought
it, they’re gonna fix it. And walked around the house the
other day and everything’s a mess. And they’ve had to dig around
the house. They’ve had to bust out the foundation and they’ve
had to jack up the house. And really before they do anything,
especially hang sheet rock or set tile, they need to get this
house level and they need to drop it back down on a firm foundation.
And if they do that, that will be a fine house, a show place. It will be a wonderful home for
someone to live in. And it’s often the way with the
church. A church that has a lot of years
of history, a church that has a lot of years accumulating things
that ought not to have been done or decided on or put into practice. It needs to be jacked up. And
it needs to have the scripture placed under it as its foundation. And so then all the fixes and
repairs above the scriptures above that foundation will be
lasting. And so the scripture is our foundation
for evangelism, not what’s popular. The scripture is our foundation
for teaching the truth, not the latest fads or the latest guru
or the seven step thing that’s out on The New York Times bestseller.
The scripture is our foundation, makes our worship more pure,
our sacraments more meaningful. The scripture is our foundation,
gives us right discipline and order, but it also guides us
by God’s Holy Spirit to the right leaders. And so what is a strong
church? Well, I’ll tell you this, it’s
something you’d want to be a part of. And we thank God for his
work here and pray that he might give us grace to continue. Let’s do pray together. Lord,
how weak and sinful we are, how prone to wander and to try this
and to try that, and how quick it is that we lose faith in the
gospel. We lose faith in the scriptures
and in the doctrines of the truth. We lose faith in your simple
worship, your glorious sacraments. We lose faith in church order. We lose faith even in godly leadership. Lord, help us, help us to repent
of these things. Help us to seek first your kingdom
and to do the basics, to do the basics well. Lord, get us out
of the way of your work. Help us to stand firm on the
truth and may it affect everything, the way we do it, the reason
we do it, but how we do it. Lord, bless us and keep us faithful
to your scripture. We pray this in the name of Christ,
our savior. Amen. We want to.