The Church's Gospel Witness

Acts chapter 2 and we'll be reading verses 41 through 47. Acts chapter 2 beginning in verse 41. So then those who had received his word were baptized and that day there were added about 3 ,000 souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the Apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the Apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need.

Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. Praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Let us seek the Lord's blessing in our study and go to him in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father again we approach your throne of grace with humility and great reverence thankful for this day that you have made thankful for the Lord's Day and the assembly of the Saints together to seek your face to worship you in spirit and in truth.

We pray now that you would prepare our minds and hearts to receive your word to hear from you to think deeply upon your truths and wisdom to us. We pray that your spirit would empower the preaching of your word that the spirit would rest upon the preacher even now to speak your words of truth and life to the church here.

We ask your blessing upon this time in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my message this morning or this afternoon is the church's gospel witness and the verses that I want for us to consider are the last two of what we read just a moment ago verses 46 and 47.

The Church as a Corporate Witness to the Gospel

And the subject I want for us to consider this afternoon has to do generally with the subject of evangelism but I want to speak specifically about the culture if I may use that term of evangelism within each and every local church.

Oftentimes when we think of evangelism we think in terms of an individual duty as Christians to bear witness to the truth of the gospel. We think of an individual activity and there's nothing wrong with that at all evangelism is after all a personal responsibility in coming upon every believer yet it is not exclusively an individual activity.

For example when Jesus told his disciples to follow him he told them he would make them fishers of men. In this fishing illustration or analogy that Jesus used he was not picturing a lonesome fisherman with his feet hanging off of a dock casting a line into the water.

Instead he pictured a team of fishermen working together in casting and hauling fishing nets out of thrashing seawaters. We think of the work of Peter and Andrew and James and John in their vocation as fishermen.

We're reminded even when the Lord Jesus sent out disciples two by two to preach that people should repent. Evangelism from the New Testament perspective is a corporate activity a community activity of the church.

Fast forward now to the end of Jesus's earthly ministry before his ascension and we find him giving the Great Commission to the Apostles in the context of the New Testament Church. They were divinely called to make disciples of the nations to baptize them and to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded which included the command to make disciples of all nations.

This work and calling to evangelism that is a part of the life and ministry of every local church. Fast forward now to the early church in Acts and see the Apostles proclaiming the resurrection in Jerusalem.

What is the backdrop of their evangelistic outreach? The church living together and sharing everything in common as we just read praising God and having favor with the people. Verse 47 the church, the ecclesia, the gathered assembly served as a witness to the gospel itself.

Their life as a community of believers became a living testimony of the power of the gospel in those early days of the church and we are told that it caused many in Jerusalem to view these early Christians with favor.

That is they gained the goodwill and favor of the common people around them and it seemed to lead and attract those people. Ultimately we are told leading to more conversions and to the Lord adding day by day those who were being saved.

Fast forward now to the time when the saints in Jerusalem were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria and places elsewhere due to persecution. Their gospel focused preaching and living was now spread abroad.

Do you remember what Peter wrote to the Saints in his first epistle? Perhaps with the times of the early church that we read about here in Acts in mind. He describes them as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.

Now listen, called to proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light and to live godly lives among the Gentiles that they see your good works and glorify God.

Throughout the Bible, throughout the history of the church, God has used the witness of the church to reach the lost. Local churches like yours, like mine, exist to worship God and to bear witness to the truth of the good news of Jesus Christ, the salvation that comes through him by faith in his finished work.

God has given to the church evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip believers in what? The work of the ministry, a ministry that includes no doubt the work of evangelism. But oftentimes, and this is the heart of what I want to get after today in the time we have remaining, oftentimes we limit in our own thinking or think of evangelism only in terms of what we say or share and not how we live.

As a church, we bear witness to the truth of the gospel by both lip and life, by both walk and word. It is that second aspect, often a forgotten aspect, that I want to speak to in the time we have remaining to encourage each one of you individually and corporately as believers a part of this local church.

The church in the first three centuries did not grow through overt outreach programs. Are outreach programs in no good and should we not engage in them? Not at all. But it was not the normal means, the primary means, in which the church reached the lost in that time.

It was through its composed and steadfast witness to the gospel in their day-to-day lives. By living out the gospel realities as a distinct community, the church displayed to the world the gospel's transformative power.

Their faithfulness to Christ, their devotion to the faith, and their commitment to one another attracted non-Christians one by one and even family by family. The name Francis Schaeffer may be familiar to some of you here.

He was a Presbyterian pastor and theologian of the 20th century and he wrote about the priority of community life in the church. In his book, The Church Before the Watching World, he wrote these words,.

One cannot explain the explosive power of the early church apart from the fact that they practiced two things simultaneously, the orthodoxy of doctrine and orthodoxy of community in the midst of the church, the local church, the gathered assembly, a community which the world would see.

He goes on to write,. By the grace of God, therefore, the church must be known simultaneously for its purity of doctrine and the reality of its community. Our churches have so often been preaching points, preaching outposts, he says, with very little emphasis on community, but the exhibition of the love of God in practice is beautiful and must be there.

Listen to what he says here in this closing part of this quote, I am convinced that in the 20th century people all over the world will not listen if we have the right doctrine, the right polity, but are not exhibiting community.

We are told here in this passage that we are looking at that those who were continually being saved were those who observed the daily conduct of the believers there in Jerusalem. Listen to what one commentator writes of this picture of those days of that early church in Jerusalem.

So unified, joyful, and spirit-filled were they that their very existence was a powerful testimony to the truth of the gospel. True evangelism flows from the life of a healthy church. The life of a healthy church.

This means our life together can further and empower evangelism. The life of the church itself is the evangelistic outreach. We don't need to see evangelistic outreach or programs as abstract or outside of the life and ministry of the local church.

It is the life of the church itself. So the question remains, how does that happen practically? How can we cultivate the pattern or culture found in the churches in the New Testament, this culture of evangelism?

How can we put the gospel on display in our community, in a community of believers, before the communities in which we live? The first I submit to you is Christian love. Christian love in the church is a powerful witness to the world.

Christian Love as a Witness Before the Watching World

Before God gave his disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ gave his disciples a great commission to proclaim the gospel and make disciples, he gave them the great commandment to love one another. A part of the call to bear witness to the truth of the gospel is the call to vividly display the life-transforming power of the gospel to the world through the life of the church.

What sets us apart as Christians in the eyes of the world, more than sound doctrine, more than reverent worship, is, according to Jesus Christ, the head of the church, our love to one another. You know the words of Jesus in John 13 35, well I trust?

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if, if what? If you love one another as I have loved you. The pattern that Jesus set forth in loving his disciples is the same pattern that we live out in the local church, that love of God that has been shed abroad in our hearts, that love of God that we have received in salvation, is that love, that agape love that pours out from our lives into the lives of one another in the local church.

Our love is also shown in good deeds toward outsiders. In Matthew chapter 5 verse 16, Jesus says, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

We just read a few moments ago of the words of Peter from his epistle echoing this same thought. Our good deeds are done before a watching world. The good deeds that you exhibit and demonstrate in this assembly, when you may have those from without that enter into your assembly and watch the love of God poured out from your life into the lives of one another.

And if what they see is Christian love in action toward one another and even to the world around them, even to the enemies of the church, it will result in them seeing Christ through us and glorifying our Heavenly Father.

The name Tertullian is another name that may be familiar to some of you. He was an early church father and theologian who lived during the second and third century. He was from Carthage in North Africa, a prominent city in the Roman Empire.

As the second century of Christianity began to unfold, the faith had spread throughout the Christian Empire. Christianity was spreading rapidly, particularly to some of its great cities including Rome and Carthage in North Africa.

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, Christians became the objects of great suspicion by their neighbors and government officials because their lifestyle was radically different from that of the Roman culture and religion.

For example, the Roman Emperor Julian had an interesting complaint about the early Christians. He wrote, the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well. Everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.

Tertullian wrote in his response to this, it is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving-kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. Aristides, an unbeliever, was sent by the Emperor Hadrian to spy out those people called Christians.

His words to the Emperor have now echoed throughout the centuries. Behold how they love one another. As rumors began to circulate throughout the Roman Empire about the beliefs and practices of Christians, Tertullian wrote a brief explanation as a defense of Christian practices and a critique of the unjust accusations that had been made against them.

In his work called The Apology, he wrote at one point from the perspective of the opponents of Christianity and here is a sample of what he wrote. It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us.

See how they love one another, they say. Now in parentheses, for they themselves, that is the pagan culture around them in the Roman Empire, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred. How they are ready even to die for one another, speaking about the local churches and the Christian community.

They say, for they themselves will sooner put to death. It makes you wonder, and if a spy was sent into this assembly, into our churches, what would be the report back to the government official about that local assembly?

Will it be, would that spy reported back to the Emperor, behold how they love one another? Will they see that balance of both truth and conviction and then compassion and love shown to one another? The second practical way that this can be evidenced in our churches is Christian unity.

Christian Unity as a Witness to the World

Christian unity, as well as Christian love, is a powerful witness to the world. Again, before God gave his, Christ gave his disciples the Great Commission, there was the Great Commandment. And even before the Great Commission, there was also the Lord Jesus's prayer for their unity.

A part of the call to bear witness to the truth of the gospel is the call to vividly display the life-transforming power of Christ to the world. Like love, Christian unity, witnessed in the life of the church, sends a powerful nonverbal message to non-Christians.

Turn with me, if you will, to John chapter 17. John chapter 17, again another familiar passage, Jesus's high priestly prayer as he prepares in just a mere matter of moments to go to the cross, to give his life as a sacrifice for many.

He is with his disciples in the upper room, and Jesus said the world would believe our message when they see our unity to the church that's gathered there in Jerusalem. Here, the context again is Jesus praying for his disciples and Christians, I know, in all generations, in all ages, including ours, that unity would exist among them.

Follow along with me in John 17, verses 20 through 23. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, those disciples, that early church there gathered before him, but for those also who believe in me through their word.

Who's that? That's us, you and I, today. Verse 21, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you have loved me.

You and I live in a world that is broken because of sin, a world divided, a world full of war, constant conflict, division, division from the top all the way down to the bottom, division within politics, division within our society, division within the family unit itself.

The supernatural unity of a church, of a church family, bears witness to the truth and power of the gospel. It's one thing for someone to be influenced by your individual testimony, but it's another thing altogether for them to behold the testimony of an entire group of people with diverse personalities, from all walks of life, all cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, personalities, temperaments, living together in unity under and for the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see the picture here? Do you see the weight of the duty and privilege that we have as believers, a part of local churches, to be a witness to the gospel, not only in what comes forth from the pulpit and forth from our mouths, but also what comes forth powerfully from our lives.

One implication of this is that we should always be careful to protect and preserve unity in our church. It is the thief, the Lord Jesus Christ says in his teaching on the Good Shepherd, that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

It is the work of the enemy to infiltrate churches, to divide them, sometimes over the most minuscule thing. Churches have been divided because of the color of the carpet, because of architectural plans.

The smallest thing to divide Christians is proving to the world around us, saying, look, they thought they had it figured out, but they can't even get along with one another. There are no doubt times when matters of doctrine, holiness of the life, personal offenses, and so on, will require us to openly and faithfully rebuke one another, correct one another.

Yet when we do so, we must heed the words of Proverbs 27, verse 6. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. When times like these arise within a church, and they will arise because we are still dealing with the principle of remaining corruption, indwelling sin within our lives, we must strive to maintain unity in the church.

We must strive to speak the truth to one another in humility and love, bearing in mind that breaking unity has effects on the church's witness. In similar fashion to what Tertullian wrote, Francis Schaeffer again called love and unity the final apologetic, the final defense of the Christian faith.

Love and unity. That we present to the world, he wrote. Listen again to what he wrote. He offered this challenge to the evangelical church. Our love will not be perfect, but it must be substantial enough for the world to be able to observe, or it does not fit into the structure or the verses in John 13 and John 17.

And if the world does not observe this among true Christians, what? Love and unity. The world has a right to make two awful judgments which these verses indicate. Number one, that we are not Christians.

And number two, that Christ was not sent by the Father. End quote. When there is a lack of unity and love in our life together as local churches, the world around us has a just cause to be suspicious of our sincerity.

How we treat one another in this church, your church, and my church, directly impacts our gospel witness in this community. We know how easily it gets out when there is a rift sometimes even in this community of believers.

Maybe there's a rift with a fellow brother or sister in Christ, and oftentimes we are so bothered by it that when we're at the workplace or among our family or friends or neighbors that it creeps out.

And we talk about what is happening in that division or that disunity within the church, thereby bearing shame to the name of Christ. Each of us must present ourselves for regular spiritual checkups. What does our life together communicate to the world around us?

What does your life together as a church demonstrate to the world around you? How we answer that will reveal how well we understand and heed Christ's call for us as a church to reflect him in our life together.

It's easy for us as local churches to be innovative, to add to the pattern that we have in the New Testament of what a local church should be. Those verses that we read there in Acts chapter 2, we can summarize by the simplicity of believers living for Christ, under his authority, and then living for one another.

That is at the very heart and core of every local church. We live here and exist to glorify God in Jesus Christ, to submit to his authority and his will for our lives. And his will for our life is to love one another, to be in unity with other believers, because it sends a message to the world, he says.

The watching world, the unbelieving world around us, they may hear what you have to say about Christianity, about the gospel, evangelistically, apologetically, but the minute that your life shows a contradiction or an inconsistency, you have now devalued that message that you proclaim.

Most people will read our lives ever before they read the Bible. The watching world in our society, before they ever step foot in our assemblies, are watching us if we're living lives of Christian lives, where they know that we are bearing the name of Christ.

We are to remember that these verses come to us in such practical fashion as local churches, as local assemblies. So may we take a deep look within our own lives and our responsibility as members of this local church and local churches, and to see if we are heeding and faithfully walking in obedience to Christ's commands in a practical fashion in our church.

And may we always look to him and abide in him for strength from his word that we would glorify him in the time that he has ordained for us to live out our Christian lives. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your word.

The Church's Life Together as a Living Apologetic

We're thankful for the practicality of it, here reading the words of the description of that church there in Jerusalem in that first century, to see the great joy in which they lived, the joy of the Lord which was their strength and evident in their life together as an assembly, and what impact they had upon the world around them.

Lord, it is our desire to share in that, that our churches, our local churches, would display the glories of the gospel, not only in the truth and conviction of your word, but also in the compassion and testimony of our lives.

Help us to walk in humility. Help us to walk in obedience to your command. I pray your blessing upon this church here as you continue to sanctify the believers here and sanctify this church, which is your bride.

I pray that they, as well as many other churches, would manifest the work of love and unity in our midst, that the world may be drawn to you and saved through the gospel message. This is our desire and we ask your blessing upon it.

Through Christ we pray, amen.