Acts 9:31
If you are able, please remain
standing and turn in the book of Acts to chapter nine. We just
have one verse. So I figure you can stand for
it. Just one verse, Acts, chapter nine, verse 31. While you’re
making your way there, I’ll just give a brief explanation. In
Acts, there are several occasions where a block of narrative tells
about the expansion of the gospel of Jesus Christ into a new region. And before we start a new region,
there’s a summary statement. So this is a start of a new region,
932 or whatever’s next. So this is one of those summary
statements like Acts 2.42, the believers devoted themselves
to the apostles teaching, breaking the bread, prayer, word of God
multiplied among them, that kind of thing. So there’s several
of these. So today we look at Acts 9.31. And before I read
it, let me ask God’s help. Lord, your word is a light to
our feet. It is a shining light to our
paths. And so dispel the darkness of
Satan’s ways, the world’s ways and even the ways of our own
heart and the remaining sin in it. Let your word be true so
that we can indeed say your kingdom come and your will be done in
each of our lives. Hear us and help us now we pray
in Jesus name, amen. So Acts chapter nine, verse 31
says this. So the church throughout all
Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built
up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of
the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Amen, you may be seated. What type of church would you
like to be a part of? Back in the day, you didn’t have
a choice. You had on the town square, a Methodist church, a
Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, and probably an Episcopal
church. And maybe if you were up north
or in some regions, maybe a Roman Catholic church. Now today, boy,
you’ve got the smorgasbord. You can have a loud church, right? earplugs at the door. You can
have quiet church, subdued church. Uh, you can have big church,
lots of people. Uh, you can have small church,
few people. Uh, you can have a church that
has every imaginable amenity, you know, climbing walls and
coffee bars and, uh, go-kart tracks and whatever else. Um,
I’m, I’m, I’m not kidding on that. Uh, there’s a church in
Atlanta that has an indoor swimming park. Um, I applied for that
job but didn’t get it. If you can come up with it, it’s
out there. What kind of church would you
like to be a part of? I’ll take the one in today’s
passage. I’ll take the church of Acts chapter 9, 31. Why, you
ask? Well, easy, it’s in the Bible,
right? But I’ll tell you why. It’s a
church of quantity, and a church of quality. Those are two words
we can well recognize as Americans. We love quantity. More is better,
right? Especially when it comes to ice
cream, especially when it comes to toppings, especially when
it comes to pizza, especially when it comes to the things we
love that feed our bellies more. Quantity is better. But we also
like quality. We like things that will last.
We like to invest once, maintain something and hope it will last.
Well, this church in Acts chapter 9, 31 is a representative of
the present church in the book of Acts insofar as Jesus has
let his gospel spread and his Holy Spirit’s influence work
in the lives of people. It’s a church of quantity. and
quality. In this passage, we’re going
to see a snapshot of the early church. The risen Christ from
the throne of glory, uh, has a stat been establishing his
church in Jerusalem, uh, in Judea and Samaria. And it’s about to
go into Tarsus where Paul left us in the last verse. And he’s
going to be gone for 10 years back home to that region. It’s
going to spread around the Mediterranean Sea. And then before we know
it, by the end of Acts, it’s going to make its way all the
way to Rome and possibly Spain. The known world at that time
would hear of Jesus. And so the risen Christ from
the throne of glory is establishing his church, his witness. And
we’ve seen this work regionally, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, but
we’ve also seen it through the life of Peter. through the life
of Stephen, through the life of Philip. And now, uh, we’ve
just ended a section where, uh, Saul, now Paul is beginning his
ministry. Now, some of the things we’ve
seen take place, the word of God has been preached or proclaimed
people who have been dead and sin have been convinced and converted
and given new life through Jesus Christ. They’ve been baptized. They’ve, uh, come into the fellowship
of the church. They are part of the body of
Christ. They are obedient to the faith. They are praying people. They
are being discipled. They are breaking bread together.
They are holding things in common. None has need among the people
of God. There are elders overseeing the
spiritual work of the church. There are deacons meeting physical
needs of mercy. And the church is expanding into
the world now. But before we get into that expansion
in the weeks to come, we’ve gotta look at this little snapshot
of the churches in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. And one thing
I want us to think about as we go through these characteristics
of that church, it uses the word church singular. All right, very often when we
come to the Bible, we approach it in a couple ways. One is we
think everything is about me. The Bible very often is Southern.
Do y’all know that? When you see the word you, particularly
in the Pauline epistles, it’s a y’all, okay? It’s a corporate
command. Y’all worship, y’all listen,
y’all grow, y’all study the Bible. The Bible is very Southern, right?
That’s good for us. Commands in the Bible are generally
corporate, not individual. There are some individual commands,
but God is generally speaking to the church as a whole. The
other thing that we’ve got to get through our minds is, oh,
well, we’re First ARP Church, Saddle Club Road, Burlington.
We’re it. No, he speaks here of the church throughout. He doesn’t say the churches throughout.
Not Bill’s church or Bob’s church or, you know, y’all know my little
joke. Everybody has to write a book
and put their picture on it. And so what do we say? Do you
listen to so-and-so in his church? Right? That’s not the way God
works. It’s all Jesus church. He bought it with his blood.
I didn’t. The other guy didn’t. The other pastor down the road
didn’t. It’s all Jesus church and it’s one body. Now the body
of Christ may meet in different locations. and with different
convictions, but we’re all under Jesus Christ. And so the church
throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, which was a pretty broad
area, this would be five or six or seven of our North Carolina
counties, the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria
had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of
the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Don’t you want
to be a part of that church? You want to be a part of the
church that God is blessing. So I want us to think just briefly
about each of these characteristics. First, peace. The churches throughout
had peace. It wasn’t that they had had a
fight over an air conditioning unit or what color, you know,
to the carpet, red for the blood of Jesus or green because Aunt
Maud loved green. Y’all know how it goes in church. It’s not peace. Now this is the
people of God as they gathered together corporately for worship,
fellowship, discipleship, and all the things churches do. They
had peace because they came into the house of God out of hostility. Every Sunday when I say to you
after announcements, take a moment to pause and pray and ask for
God’s help and blessing as you worship. You’ve had a busy week,
you’ve lived in a noisy world, and you’ve not stopped and thought
for a moment. It’s true, isn’t it? TV’s blaring,
iPhones blaring, everything’s just at us. We don’t stop and
think. So it’s good to be in God’s house
and God’s sanctuary and to have peace from all the weight of
the curses that have fallen on this world due to sin. That’s
why we say our home is our castle. right? You come home and you
know, for me, I put the key in the door and go in and it’s peaceful.
Some of you push the button and roll in the garage and you get
in your house that way. But however you get in your house
through the doggie door or whatever, um, you, you get in and say, I’m
home. You know, the fridge has your drinks in it. The cabinet
has your toys in it. Your stuffed animals are on your
bed. Your couch fits your body just right. And you say, I’m
home, the door’s locked, peace and quiet, joy. It’s that way
when we come into church, isn’t it? Some of you kind of got your
pew, right? You got your seat cushion there,
your blanket, because the air is blaring. You got your Bible,
your hymnal, and in good Presbyterian fashion, nobody better sit in
your seat. We’re pretty nice here, I think. But there’s peace. You’re not going to find the
peace of God given to us by the Holy Spirit anywhere else. You’re not going to find it at
the Lions Club, the Elks Club, the Golf Club, the women’s group,
the men’s group. the restaurant, the wherever
you might seek it elsewhere, you won’t find peace except in
God’s house, among God’s people and with God’s presence. That’s
one of the reasons we believe part of the worship service is
the, well, the first thing I really do, I give you God’s salutation
is greeting grace to you and peace from God, our father, that
should let you know that should cue you up. I’m in the right
place. Nowhere else does God enter that
room and have a minister of the gospel say peace to you. It doesn’t happen anywhere else
except in God’s house with God’s people. And so the church throughout
Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, they had peace. But there’s a
second description here that I think is wonderful. They were
being edified or being built up. One of the things that we
see throughout the book of Acts is the power of the word of God.
The word of God is read and preached and explained and proclaimed.
The gospel is given out. And people are convinced of their
sin and misery and converted unto Jesus Christ. And then after
that, they are comforted and built up by the word. And you
understand, I think, you’ve heard me go on about this long enough
to know, you can’t save people without preaching. And you can’t
build people up without preaching. And so one of the most important
things in the life of the church is the public reading and proclamation
of God’s word. Maybe some of you go to the hospital
from time to time and get an infusion. Maybe you get an iron
infusion or immunotherapy infusion. And if you skip those, you’re
not going to be healthy. Now, I know I’m going to hit
all of you here. We’re supposed to eat three meals a day, right? And
some of us kinda eat four or five, midnight snack. You know,
you gotta make sure the ice cream’s still there about 10.30 p.m.
So you get a spoon out, right? Striking a chord, you get a spoon
out, get a spoonful, make sure it’s still there and it still
tastes good. People see the evidence the next morning, the spoon’s
in the sink and it still has a little chocolate on it. Because you didn’t wanna
run the sink to make the noise. Am I confessing my sins or am
I telling what y’all did? But we don’t skip meals. Right? Oh, but we’ll skip church and
we’ll skip the public assembling of God’s people and the public
proclamation of God’s word that’s meant to convince and convert
sinners and comfort and build up saints. Why is that? Oh, our
infusion. We’ll go get that. Oh, mealtime.
No. I mean, we, we, we, we’re early birds, right? I mean, we,
we, we, we got the fork and knife and hand napkin and lap. We’re
rearing to go. Uh, But the church was edified. The only way the
church is edified is through the word. It’s through the ministry
of the word and the power of the Holy Spirit that the church
is built up where it is. It is strengthened. It is made
strong and mature. I want you to think of an image
that we’re given in the scriptures. You as Christians are called
living stones and as living stones in Jesus Christ, you are being
built up into God’s holy temple. Remember what Jesus said? And
it confounded the church authorities. or the Jewish authorities, I’m
gonna tear this temple down and I’m gonna rebuild it in three
days. He was speaking of his own body, I’ll die and rise again.
But then the temple was torn down not too many years later.
It was never rebuilt, why? Was it because nobody got around
to it? No, it’s because God didn’t need
the temple in Jerusalem any longer for he is building up his church
through living stones like you and you are laid on the cornerstone,
the chief stone, even Jesus Christ. And so one of the ways you get
built up in the church is you come to the proclamation of the
word and you get cut and you get shaped and you are hewn and
formed in fashion to be a fitting stone in the building, which
is God’s church. And so the church throughout
Judea, Galilee and Samaria, they had peace. but they were being
edified or built up or strengthened by God through the proclamation
of his word. So maybe you sit in church sometimes
and you think, oh, too much scripture, probably not enough because we’re
messed up people, aren’t we? And we need to be not conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of our minds.
Well, there’s another description of the church here. It says they
were walking in the fear of the Lord. This walking word doesn’t
mean they took a walk. They didn’t walk around Jericho
and it fell down. They didn’t walk through Jerusalem. And it’s
a word that means they lived. So what’s your walk like? And there’s two descriptions
of their walk here. They walked in the fear of the Lord and then
the comfort of the Holy Spirit. So what characterized the lives
of the Christians who made up the church in Jerusalem, Judea,
Galilee, and Samaria? What characterized these people?
Well, they had peace. They were being edified, built
up, but they also lived a life for the God. They walked in the
fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And this
is where I think we need to think about our personal life, but
also how our personal life contributes to the life of the church. Do
we fear God? Now, fearing God has several
connotations. We respect him. He is God, we
are creature. We worship him. Remember the
Sabbath day, keep it holy. We hate our sin because he hates
sin. We live out of the joy of forgiveness
because he has granted us that forgiveness that we might serve
him in fear and holiness all our days. We’re not worldly when
we fear God. In fact, John Brown, one of the
great theologians of the church said that if God smiles at it,
you should smile at it. But if the world smiles at it,
you should frown at it. We love what God loves and we
hate what God hates. What else does it mean to fear
God? We commune with him. We read his word. We pray. We
commune with his saints in the church of God. We seek God in
every part of our lives. That’s what it means to fear
God. And so the church had peace.
The church was being built up, but a characteristic of them
is they walked in the fear of the Lord. but they also had the
comfort of the Holy Spirit. And this word reminds us, this
phrase reminds us of what Jesus prayed for and taught his disciples
in the upper room. He said, I’m gonna go away. It’s
necessary for me to go to heaven, but I’m gonna send the comforter.
or sometimes we call him the paraclete, the alongside one. And this passage shows you that
Jesus’ prayer was answered. His church, under turmoil in
the early days, they had persecution, they were scattered, but it says
they had peace. They were being built up. They
had peace. They were walking in the fear
of the Lord, but it says, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit,
Jesus’ prayer, his high priestly prayer is answered right here.
You catch that? And so if Jesus is praying for
this church or the church, we ought not lose heart that he
will send his spirit. He will send preachers. He will
send everything the church needs to have comfort. and peace in
this world. And the final thing this passage
tells us in the snapshot of the church, it says that it multiplied. So we’ve spoken of quality. Now
we speak of quantity. Don’t we all want to be part
of a church that grows? Don’t we all want to be a part
of something bigger than ourselves? That’s why March Madness. Basketball
seasons, I mean, we want our team to win, don’t we? That’s
why the Super Bowl, the NFL playoffs is so huge. That’s why the Olympics,
we watch the Olympics. We watch whatever it is we get
involved with. We want to be part of something
bigger and we want whatever that is we’re a part of to win. And
how much more so the church? Do we not want Jesus’ name to
be made famous in one another’s lives, but to the ends of the
earth? Don’t we want other people to
come and enjoy what we have? And so this snapshot of a growing
church ought to encourage us that as God grants us peace,
as each of us walk in fear, as the word of God builds us up
in our most holy faith, the natural response to that ought to be
growth. You see that? The natural response
to who we are and what we do in Christ in this place or in
places like it ought to be growth. Mentioned earlier the question,
what type of church do you want to be a part of? I hope not a
worldly church. I hope not a church that’s concerned
about nickels and noses simply for the sake of nickels and noses.
I hope you want to be a part of Jesus’ church, where he is
forming and fashioning in each of you living stones. And he
lays each of those fashioned stones, fashioned by the word
and by the master, on the chief cornerstone, Jesus. And as the
edifice rises up to the heavens, those in the world who are seeking
Jesus and desire to call on his name, the spirit is at work in
them. They’ll jump right in. And they’ll
be a part of you. That’s the kind of church that
we ought to desire to be a part of. Let’s pray now for God’s
help. Lord, multiply your church in this world. because you have
edified the saints and brought peace, you’ve given them the
fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. May that
be true of your church and even this local body. We do ask and
pray for your blessings now in the name of Christ, amen.