Scripture: Acts 6:1-7
Listen Link: http://www.firstcovenantcadillac.org/#!this-weeks-sermon/c20mw
As I begin my message about fruitful organizational structures it seems fitting to begin with a farming parable. That’s because the Bible does that. It uses farming illustrations to talk about fruitfulness in ministry. You know, the sower sowed the word, and some fell on good soil and it bore a crop, thirty, sixty, even a hundred fold. Also, “You reap what you sow.” This all leads to the conclusion that the fruit we are getting is exactly what we are planting, if we are planting anything. As organizational people say, “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting.”
So here is my parable. To get a good crop, the farmer works in partnership with God. God makes things grow. But the farmer has to plow the field, plant the seed, water and maybe even fertilize it. There is plenty of work for the farmer to do as he works within God’s will to produce a good crop. But God gives the increase. This is partnership.
It is the same for a church. We look around and see the lack of growth here. We wonder what is wrong and we know we need more young people, but they never seem to appear. That is like the farmer sitting at the window in his farm house, looking out over a barren field. He wonders why his field produces no crop and it doesn’t occur to him that he has not gone out and planted any seed! He knows he needs more young plants, but they never seem to appear. From this we can easily see what the reason is. That lazy farmer, sitting at the window, is not doing his part of the work that is required to produce a fruitful harvest.
What is required for the church is that we enter into the partnership with God to do the work that we need to do so that we can enjoy the increase he will give if and when we do our part. If we are not getting a new crop of Christians. If we are not making disciples, it is because we are not doing the part of the work that God asks of us, just like when the farmer is not doing the part of the work that makes for a good crop of wheat. If he doesn’t do his part, no wheat. If we don’t do our part, no new Christians.
Fruitful organizational structures produce fruit. Organizational refers to the fact that fruitful work is shared by all the members of the body. Evangelism is not just the pastor’s job. Teaching disciples is not just the pastor’s job. Caring about the needs of the people is not just the pastor’s job. The Bible teaches that every member has a role to play, a place in the structure of the church where they fit in and offer their gifts to do their part of the work that God makes fruitful.
This is where Acts 6:1-7 comes in. We see the new and growing church developing new structures to address real needs. We see the pastors encouraging the members of the body that this particular need, of fairly distributing the food, is something that other godly members of the body can and should take care of. They decided it was not the pastor’s job.
“So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
The twelve were not lording it over their brothers and sisters in order to avoid waiting on tables. They were simply pointing out the priority of maintaining their ministry of the word and encouraging other members to do the part of the work that they could do and take ownership of part of the whole ministry. The next verse says that everybody was pleased with this decision. That’s your proof that the twelve were being wise and not selfish. Think of it this way, how soon do you think you would have dinner after worship today if I were in charge of it?
This incident provides a picture of the church developing new organs of specialization as the body grew altogether. Remember the church at that time was only recently born. In many ways it was still embryonic. But as it grew the various organs or structures for healthy, fruitful living grew and differentiated more and more thus contributing to an overall healthfulness.
Now let’s look at an older body, sort of like this congregation. This body of believers certainly used to be blessed with fruitful organizational structures. It grew and was healthy for many years, as the much larger population in days gone by surely bears witness. But as a body ages, things wear out. Functions slow down. But in reality, in order for whole systems to break down like that, individual cells are dying off.
For example, when the doctor says the patient’s kidneys are shutting down, he really means the organ is losing a large number of active cells. In a healthy kidney, new kidney cells are regularly produced by older healthy kidney cells through that process we know from biology class, cell division. But when more cells die instead of divide eventually there are no longer enough new cells being produced to keep the kidney healthy. That’s when the Dr. announces that the kidneys are shutting down.
What I am getting at here is the basic truth that for any church to have fruitful organizational structures, each of the individual members who make up those structures also have to be healthy and fruitfully organized cell structures. So I need to move us to talking about fruitful organization structures at the cellular level. That’s where it all begins. Without each cell, or each member of the church doing what it alone can do, the entire organization or body will suffer and maybe even die.
So, what about fruitful organizational structures in your own soul? Are you a person bearing the fruit of the Spirit, filled with a godly peace that shines forth, able to be patient and gentle with sinners as you eagerly desire to lead them to Christ, or is there something in your own soul that means your peace is really only complacency, that your gentleness with sinners is really only timidity, or perhaps apathy? If so, instead of the fruit of the Spirit, your life is really barren and you don’t really witness for Christ and therefore don’t bear fruit.
And if this message pushes your buttons and makes you uncomfortable because it is challenging you to step up and let the Lord change you into a more fruitful evangelical person, how will you respond? Will you hear this call from God and consider the necessity of repentance? Or will you decide that this congregation's unfruitfulness has nothing to do with you? What if you decide that this ministry is dead or dying and so you leave us to go to another church? Will that decision really be so you can be doing the ministry God has called you to? Or will it really be so that you can sink into a new pew and be left alone, unchanged, unrepentant, clinging to a dead faith that doesn't lead others to Christ and saves you only by the skin of your teeth, if at all?
Or what if things change around here because your leaders are hearing and heeding the call of God and we move things around, do things differently, move the furniture? If that makes you uncomfortable, how do you decide whether our leadership is wrong, or your discomfort is wrong? The human tendency is to believe your own feelings and work to ease your discomfort. The human tendency is to fight against the changes in order to restore your comfort. But has God called his followers to comfort, or to take up a cross? One of the strangest reactions to discomfort that I have ever heard was, "If they change that, I'm leaving!" How strange to react to what feels like a big change in our life together, by threatening to make an even bigger change in your own life!
But I must say, if you are filled with the Spirit and have a very strong conviction that a change we make or discuss is not from God, and you know in your heart that the Word of God would advise us against it, then join us in leadership! You are responsible before God to be the prophet who helps us evaluate our decisions and leads us back to the right way. We would need to hear your voice showing us where it is written in Scripture that which will help us see that the thing we are considering is not of God. It would be a great disservice to God, as well as us, for you to simply abandon us and change churches. But it would be the human tendency to simply disappear, without warning, without even an exit interview, without explanation, because if you don't have to explain yourself, you can avoid the challenge of perhaps discovering that your feelings are your feelings and not God's guidance.
So now I am using some material from Bill Bright, of Campus Crusade for Christ1, adapted for our purposes in this message. For each person alive today, there is a throne, a control center -- the intersection of one's intellect, emotions, and will -- in every life. And on that throne, at the center of your heart, there sits a ruler, and it is either you yourself or else it is Jesus Christ.
Let me illustrate. The self-directed life. See image above.
This picture tells the truth about how life is disorganized and unfruitful when I put myself on the throne. I, by myself am just not capable of managing all the areas and facets and problems in life in any orderly fashion. God says, nobody is. You can fool yourself. But you are really doing it. You can see the labels of attitudes that get expressed when I am trying to run my own life. Some of them are impure thoughts, fear, worry, aimlessness, disobedience, lack or loss of prayer, no desire for Bible study etc. When self is on the throne Christ is left outside, standing at the door and knocking, knowing that it is better for you to let him in. But if Jesus is not on the throne of your heart, interests are directed by self, often resulting in frustration and discord.
Now let’s look at a fruitful organizational structure of a single member of the body of Christ. The Christ directed Life.
When Jesus is on the throne of your heart, it basically means you are not making any decisions without consulting him and without his approval. When your life is Christ centered, you have to be praying because it is your only way of talking with him and making sure that what you’re thinking and wanting lines up with what he is thinking and wanting. You are in God’s Word and the Spirit gives you understanding. Also the Spirit shows you opportunities to lead others to Christ and helps you have the right words to say. Depend upon him. Trust and Obey God and the structures of your inner life will be fruitfully organized by his divine will.
And when a congregation is populated by Christians who all have Jesus on the throne in their lives, look what happens!
This is actually a picture of the church, extremely simplified to show the fruitful organizational structure of the body of Christ. It shows two Christians. That would be a very small church. But we know what the bible says about wherever two or three are gathered. It shows those two Christians in relation to each other, in relation to God and in relation to the world.
In both Christians, or in all the members of the true church, Jesus is on the throne of each heart. The Christians are in fellowship. Centered around God’s Word and in prayer together, they encourage and strengthen each other to get fully involved in doing their part of the work that will produce a fruitful harvest from the world. They stay connected to God and to each other by prayer and Bible study. They stay connected to the world by loving the lost and witnessing to them. See how neatly it is organized. That would be so fruitful! And we can get that back people if each and every one of you will make sure that Jesus is on the throne of your heart!
So what do you say? Have you let Jesus rule? Or do you hear him knocking? Each one of us must see for himself or herself. Now if you’re dejected or jaded or think it’s too late or you’ve given up or your feeling guilty, I want you to know that God still loves you very, very much. You can’t fix anything. But that’s ok. What you can do is cry out to God. You can pray as simply as this, “God I want to live again. I want to live. Give me a life to live and I will live it for you.
I have described this congregation as old and dying, you know whether or not I am telling the truth. It should be obvious and it could be discouraging. But I believe in a God who can heal the sick. I believe in a God who can raise the dead. I believe that if we will together invest in these three simple things, prayer together, knowing the Bible and knowing God, individuals among us can be born again. The whole congregation can be born again to new ministry that blesses Cadillac and gives glory to God. Just give thanks to God for forgiveness and make a promise to the Lord that you will do whatever he asks of you to do your part to make this ministry fruitful.
As I begin my message about fruitful organizational structures it seems fitting to begin with a farming parable. That’s because the Bible does that. It uses farming illustrations to talk about fruitfulness in ministry. You know, the sower sowed the word, and some fell on good soil and it bore a crop, thirty, sixty, even a hundred fold. Also, “You reap what you sow.” This all leads to the conclusion that the fruit we are getting is exactly what we are planting, if we are planting anything. As organizational people say, “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting.”
So here is my parable. To get a good crop, the farmer works in partnership with God. God makes things grow. But the farmer has to plow the field, plant the seed, water and maybe even fertilize it. There is plenty of work for the farmer to do as he works within God’s will to produce a good crop. But God gives the increase. This is partnership.
It is the same for a church. We look around and see the lack of growth here. We wonder what is wrong and we know we need more young people, but they never seem to appear. That is like the farmer sitting at the window in his farm house, looking out over a barren field. He wonders why his field produces no crop and it doesn’t occur to him that he has not gone out and planted any seed! He knows he needs more young plants, but they never seem to appear. From this we can easily see what the reason is. That lazy farmer, sitting at the window, is not doing his part of the work that is required to produce a fruitful harvest.
What is required for the church is that we enter into the partnership with God to do the work that we need to do so that we can enjoy the increase he will give if and when we do our part. If we are not getting a new crop of Christians. If we are not making disciples, it is because we are not doing the part of the work that God asks of us, just like when the farmer is not doing the part of the work that makes for a good crop of wheat. If he doesn’t do his part, no wheat. If we don’t do our part, no new Christians.
Fruitful organizational structures produce fruit. Organizational refers to the fact that fruitful work is shared by all the members of the body. Evangelism is not just the pastor’s job. Teaching disciples is not just the pastor’s job. Caring about the needs of the people is not just the pastor’s job. The Bible teaches that every member has a role to play, a place in the structure of the church where they fit in and offer their gifts to do their part of the work that God makes fruitful.
This is where Acts 6:1-7 comes in. We see the new and growing church developing new structures to address real needs. We see the pastors encouraging the members of the body that this particular need, of fairly distributing the food, is something that other godly members of the body can and should take care of. They decided it was not the pastor’s job.
“So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
The twelve were not lording it over their brothers and sisters in order to avoid waiting on tables. They were simply pointing out the priority of maintaining their ministry of the word and encouraging other members to do the part of the work that they could do and take ownership of part of the whole ministry. The next verse says that everybody was pleased with this decision. That’s your proof that the twelve were being wise and not selfish. Think of it this way, how soon do you think you would have dinner after worship today if I were in charge of it?
This incident provides a picture of the church developing new organs of specialization as the body grew altogether. Remember the church at that time was only recently born. In many ways it was still embryonic. But as it grew the various organs or structures for healthy, fruitful living grew and differentiated more and more thus contributing to an overall healthfulness.
Now let’s look at an older body, sort of like this congregation. This body of believers certainly used to be blessed with fruitful organizational structures. It grew and was healthy for many years, as the much larger population in days gone by surely bears witness. But as a body ages, things wear out. Functions slow down. But in reality, in order for whole systems to break down like that, individual cells are dying off.
For example, when the doctor says the patient’s kidneys are shutting down, he really means the organ is losing a large number of active cells. In a healthy kidney, new kidney cells are regularly produced by older healthy kidney cells through that process we know from biology class, cell division. But when more cells die instead of divide eventually there are no longer enough new cells being produced to keep the kidney healthy. That’s when the Dr. announces that the kidneys are shutting down.
What I am getting at here is the basic truth that for any church to have fruitful organizational structures, each of the individual members who make up those structures also have to be healthy and fruitfully organized cell structures. So I need to move us to talking about fruitful organization structures at the cellular level. That’s where it all begins. Without each cell, or each member of the church doing what it alone can do, the entire organization or body will suffer and maybe even die.
So, what about fruitful organizational structures in your own soul? Are you a person bearing the fruit of the Spirit, filled with a godly peace that shines forth, able to be patient and gentle with sinners as you eagerly desire to lead them to Christ, or is there something in your own soul that means your peace is really only complacency, that your gentleness with sinners is really only timidity, or perhaps apathy? If so, instead of the fruit of the Spirit, your life is really barren and you don’t really witness for Christ and therefore don’t bear fruit.
And if this message pushes your buttons and makes you uncomfortable because it is challenging you to step up and let the Lord change you into a more fruitful evangelical person, how will you respond? Will you hear this call from God and consider the necessity of repentance? Or will you decide that this congregation's unfruitfulness has nothing to do with you? What if you decide that this ministry is dead or dying and so you leave us to go to another church? Will that decision really be so you can be doing the ministry God has called you to? Or will it really be so that you can sink into a new pew and be left alone, unchanged, unrepentant, clinging to a dead faith that doesn't lead others to Christ and saves you only by the skin of your teeth, if at all?
Or what if things change around here because your leaders are hearing and heeding the call of God and we move things around, do things differently, move the furniture? If that makes you uncomfortable, how do you decide whether our leadership is wrong, or your discomfort is wrong? The human tendency is to believe your own feelings and work to ease your discomfort. The human tendency is to fight against the changes in order to restore your comfort. But has God called his followers to comfort, or to take up a cross? One of the strangest reactions to discomfort that I have ever heard was, "If they change that, I'm leaving!" How strange to react to what feels like a big change in our life together, by threatening to make an even bigger change in your own life!
But I must say, if you are filled with the Spirit and have a very strong conviction that a change we make or discuss is not from God, and you know in your heart that the Word of God would advise us against it, then join us in leadership! You are responsible before God to be the prophet who helps us evaluate our decisions and leads us back to the right way. We would need to hear your voice showing us where it is written in Scripture that which will help us see that the thing we are considering is not of God. It would be a great disservice to God, as well as us, for you to simply abandon us and change churches. But it would be the human tendency to simply disappear, without warning, without even an exit interview, without explanation, because if you don't have to explain yourself, you can avoid the challenge of perhaps discovering that your feelings are your feelings and not God's guidance.
So now I am using some material from Bill Bright, of Campus Crusade for Christ1, adapted for our purposes in this message. For each person alive today, there is a throne, a control center -- the intersection of one's intellect, emotions, and will -- in every life. And on that throne, at the center of your heart, there sits a ruler, and it is either you yourself or else it is Jesus Christ.
Let me illustrate. The self-directed life. See image above.
This picture tells the truth about how life is disorganized and unfruitful when I put myself on the throne. I, by myself am just not capable of managing all the areas and facets and problems in life in any orderly fashion. God says, nobody is. You can fool yourself. But you are really doing it. You can see the labels of attitudes that get expressed when I am trying to run my own life. Some of them are impure thoughts, fear, worry, aimlessness, disobedience, lack or loss of prayer, no desire for Bible study etc. When self is on the throne Christ is left outside, standing at the door and knocking, knowing that it is better for you to let him in. But if Jesus is not on the throne of your heart, interests are directed by self, often resulting in frustration and discord.
Now let’s look at a fruitful organizational structure of a single member of the body of Christ. The Christ directed Life.
When Jesus is on the throne of your heart, it basically means you are not making any decisions without consulting him and without his approval. When your life is Christ centered, you have to be praying because it is your only way of talking with him and making sure that what you’re thinking and wanting lines up with what he is thinking and wanting. You are in God’s Word and the Spirit gives you understanding. Also the Spirit shows you opportunities to lead others to Christ and helps you have the right words to say. Depend upon him. Trust and Obey God and the structures of your inner life will be fruitfully organized by his divine will.
And when a congregation is populated by Christians who all have Jesus on the throne in their lives, look what happens!
This is actually a picture of the church, extremely simplified to show the fruitful organizational structure of the body of Christ. It shows two Christians. That would be a very small church. But we know what the bible says about wherever two or three are gathered. It shows those two Christians in relation to each other, in relation to God and in relation to the world.
In both Christians, or in all the members of the true church, Jesus is on the throne of each heart. The Christians are in fellowship. Centered around God’s Word and in prayer together, they encourage and strengthen each other to get fully involved in doing their part of the work that will produce a fruitful harvest from the world. They stay connected to God and to each other by prayer and Bible study. They stay connected to the world by loving the lost and witnessing to them. See how neatly it is organized. That would be so fruitful! And we can get that back people if each and every one of you will make sure that Jesus is on the throne of your heart!
So what do you say? Have you let Jesus rule? Or do you hear him knocking? Each one of us must see for himself or herself. Now if you’re dejected or jaded or think it’s too late or you’ve given up or your feeling guilty, I want you to know that God still loves you very, very much. You can’t fix anything. But that’s ok. What you can do is cry out to God. You can pray as simply as this, “God I want to live again. I want to live. Give me a life to live and I will live it for you.
I have described this congregation as old and dying, you know whether or not I am telling the truth. It should be obvious and it could be discouraging. But I believe in a God who can heal the sick. I believe in a God who can raise the dead. I believe that if we will together invest in these three simple things, prayer together, knowing the Bible and knowing God, individuals among us can be born again. The whole congregation can be born again to new ministry that blesses Cadillac and gives glory to God. Just give thanks to God for forgiveness and make a promise to the Lord that you will do whatever he asks of you to do your part to make this ministry fruitful.
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