Sunday, September 7, 2008: Buildup and Breakthrough

Buildup and Breakthrough
Acts 12: 1 – 25.

I. Introduction.

Today was the first Sunday of a new emphasis in some of our Sunday School departments. Our three youngest adult departments are going through the materials Just Walk Across the Room. This is the same study we did in small groups back in April. It focuses our attention on what it means to be evangelistic in each of our relationships.

Each Sunday in September, these Sunday School departments will learn about evangelism and how to share our faith with our friends and neighbors. Then, we will have our second Matthew Party on the first Saturday in October—October 4. We chose to hold the Matthew Party on Saturday, October 4 for two reasons. First, it falls at the very end of our evangelism emphasis. Second, October 4 is the open date for the Lufkin Football Panthers!

This is the second time we have held a Matthew Party in our church. Some of you might remember the first Matthew Party back in April. It is based on the story of Matthew the tax collector in the Bible. When Matthew met Jesus, he was so excited about grace and his new relationship with Jesus that he threw a party for all his friends. Matthew was a new Christian, so no one had ever explained to him that Christians don’t “hang out” with non-Christians. All he wanted to do was introduce Jesus to the people who most needed to meet Jesus.

And, that is what I want you to do. I want you to find someone in your life who needs to meet Jesus. I don’t want you to invite Methodists, Catholics or even Baptists who go to other churches. I want you to find someone who is unchurched. That can be someone who is not a follower of Christ. Or, it can be someone who does not go to any other church in Lufkin, Texas.

Even if your Sunday School department is not participating in Just Walk Across the Room, you can still bring someone to the Matthew Party. Identify someone in your life who is not a Christian or not a church member. (I think you should find three people like this, in case the first person you invite cannot attend on October 4.) Then, pray for those people every day for the next month. Then, I want you to do something hard. I want you to invite that person to come with you to the Matthew Party. But be honest with them. Let them know what you are inviting them to come to. Say something like this: “I have been praying for you and your family for the past four weeks. I want you to come with me to a free supper at my church. We will eat free chicken, give you some information about the things our church does, then my pastor will explain what we believe about Jesus.”

Every member of Lufkin’s First Baptist Church is encouraged to participate in this. BUT, this is NOT a church fellowship. This is an outreach and evangelistic event. I don’t want you to come unless you bring someone with you!

When we did this in April, we had 76 people at the Matthew Party. It lasted only one hour. We had eight families who were introduced to our church for the first time. We had five professions of faith and two new families joined our church.

Last Sunday, I preached a sermon that was not exactly a negative sermon, but it definitely wasn’t positive. I invited you to take an honest look at our church and to question what kind of future we have in front of us. The reality is that we will NOT have much of a future if we do not do a better job of reaching people who are under the age of 40. We have to find new ways of doing church, evangelism, outreach, ministry, etc. if we are going to be around in the next 20 years. This may sound negative, but it is not. We are in the same situation facing 9 out of every 9 churches in North America.

Today, I want to share some good news. I believe with all my heart, that we are just a few months away from achieving a breakthrough as a church. Something really good is “fixing” to happen at First Baptist Church. Can you feel it?

Read Acts 12: 1 – 25.

I started preaching from the book of Acts back in April. I planned that to coincide with the evangelism emphasis and the first Matthew Party. It is impossible for us to read the book of Acts and miss the God-given mandate to preach the Gospel to the non-Christian people of the world. I wanted to show you that evangelism is a very important part of our identity as a church. AND, I wanted to show you that evangelism is God’s plan for growing the church. Churches are NOT supposed to grow by stealing members from other churches. If you want our church to grow…If you want our church to be the church God has called us to be…Then, we must become an evangelistic church!

I have to admit that I have been a little surprised as I have read and studied the book of Acts. Of course, I have read Acts many times before, but I have never preached through the book of Acts. The thing that has surprised me is the way the early church experienced a long period of buildup before they ever experienced a breakthrough moment. This breakthrough moment comes in Acts 13, when Paul and Barnabas were commissioned as the first missionaries to the entire world. This is the beginning of the Christian faith as a worldwide movement. Once Paul and Barnabas left Antioch on their mission, Christianity broke free of the territorial boundaries of Jerusalem and the outlying areas. The Christian church was no longer made up of Jewish men and women who recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. Christian faith is for all who believe!

The story I just read is the end of the buildup. Breakthrough is right around the corner. So what was it that pushed the early church from buildup to breakthrough? Maybe if we can find the one thing that led to breakthrough, then we can do the same thing in our church. Maybe we can skip from where we are right now to our own breakthrough moment. Maybe we can stop waiting.

Acts 12: 24 is an important verse to help us interpret this passage of Scripture: “But the word of God continued to increase and spread.” I think we need to pay special attention to the word “But.” It tells us that the word of God continued to spread and the Christian church continued to grow IN SPITE OF all the things which had happened in the previous story.

We believe this is the story of Herod Antipas. His grandfather was the king over all Judea when Jesus was born. The grandfather Herod was such an evil and jealous king that he suspected his own son would eventually try to overpower him and take the kingdom away from him. So, he had his own son killed to eliminate the threat. This caused Herod Antipas’ mother to take him to the safety of Rome as a young boy. He received the very best Roman education possible and became friends with all the children of Roman nobility. When his friends came into power in the Roman Empire, they gave Herod Antipas his grandfather old position as the king of the Jewish people.

History tells us that the Jews did not trust Herod Antipas. So, his rule over the region of Judea was marked by numerous attempts to garner the trust and friendship of the Jews. And that is what I think this story is about. The Jews were angry about the new Christian movement. They didn’t like the message Peter and James were preaching about Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection. And they certainly didn’t like the way the Gospel had spread to the Gentiles. So, Herod garnered a lot of favor with the Jews by executing James and throwing Peter in prison.

I think Herod would like to have rushed Peter to immediate execution, but he could not. Peter was arrested during the Feast of Unleavened Bread—the week leading up to the Passover. Ironically, Herod wanted to kill Peter to please the Jews but could not, because executions were not allowed on the Passover. He had to place Peter in prison and wait until the Passover was finished.

On the night before Peter’s scheduled execution, an angel of the Lord rescued Peter from prison. Notice that Peter did not escape from prison. Peter was rescued from prison. The angel had to awaken Peter by striking him on the side. The angel had to lead Peter out of prison by taking him by the hand. Peter had nothing to do with this rescue. This was God’s work.

After Peter was rescued from prison, he had to go into hiding to avoid a second arrest and the intended execution. Yet, this threat didn’t last for long, because Herod died a horrific death. Once Herod had died, Peter no longer faced the threat of execution, and the church continued to grow despite the intense persecutions.

Perhaps this is the breakthrough moment the church had been waiting for. Perhaps the rest of the book of Acts will tell of a much more favorable relationship between the Christian faith and the established government. However, that is not the case. Herod is simply the first Roman official to oppose the spread of Christianity. We will read of additional opposition from the Roman Empire through the rest of the book of Acts.

Perhaps Peter’s miraculous release from prison is the breakthrough moment for the church. Perhaps Peter will become a central figure to the spread of the Gospel in the Roman Empire and eventually around the world. Again, that is not what happened in the rest of Acts. This is virtually the last time we see the original twelve Apostles’ playing a significant role in the spread of the Gospel. Beginning in Acts 13 and continuing through the rest of the New Testament, the central characters will change. Peter, James and John do not serve as the chief preachers and missionaries anymore. From now on, the fate of the Gospel lies in the hands of Paul and the men who accompanied him on his missionary journeys.

II. Breakthrough Moments for the Early Church.

I read and re-read Acts 12 searching for what might be the breakthrough moment for the early church. Was it the death of Herod? Was it Peter’s release from prison? None of these seem to be the key moment for the church. So, I re-read the chapters leading up to Acts 12, thinking that maybe it could have been something that happened earlier.

In Acts 9, we read the story of Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. He was traveling to Damascus to continue his persecution against the church. On the way, he was blinded by a bright light and heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him: “Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me?” Saul immediately gave his life to Jesus and eventually became an ambassador for the Gospel. But this could not be the breakthrough moment, because Saul disappears from the book of Acts for the next couple of chapters.

In Acts 10, Peter saw a vision from God to preach the Gospel to a Gentile soldier named Cornelius. This was a breakthrough moment for Peter, because up to this point in his life Peter thought the Gospel was only for the Jews. In fact, immediately after Cornelius’ conversion, Peter had to give an account to the rest of the Apostles at the Jerusalem church. This was not the breakthrough moment, because the rest of the Jerusalem church did not buy into Peter’s vision. And, we have reason to believe this was not a lasting change in Peter’s approach to evangelism.

In Acts 11, we read the story of how a new church was born in Antioch. This was not a Tradition Church like the one at Jerusalem. The Antioch Church was an Innovation Church. They did things that had never been done before. Their biggest innovation was to share the Gospel with Gentiles and not expect them to become Jews before committing their lives to Jesus. This doesn’t seem like the breakthrough moment for the early church, because Luke returned his narrative one last time to the events taking place in the Tradition Church at Jerusalem.

III. Achieving and Maintaining Momentum.

I tried to find a breakthrough moment for the early church, but I couldn’t. This led me to consider a different concept. I no longer believe there was one, single breakthrough event for the early church. Instead, I believe all their actions combined together to create a kind of momentum that was nearly impossible to stop.

Imagine a large wheel chiseled out of stone. Something like you would imagine a caveman inventing. Imagine that this stone wheel is bigger than we are, but we have the assignment of getting it rolling. We push and push and push, until finally it starts to move slowly. Once it is moving, it is a little easier to move. The more we push, the faster it rolls. Eventually we have worked together to achieve momentum. It is rolling so fast that none of us can stop it. But we keep pushing and keep the wheel rolling as long as we want it to roll.

It would be impossible for us to identify the one moment of breakthrough, when the wheel began moving or the moment when we have achieved momentum. There is no moment of breakthrough, because every small push and every collective effort worked together to get the wheel moving. That is what happened in the book of Acts. Every push, every innovation, every collective effort worked together to create a momentum that could not be stopped.

IV. Momentum = Culture Change.

While I cannot identify the exact moment the early church achieved momentum, I can put a name on the momentum they experienced. It was a “Culture Change.” In all the chapters leading up to Acts 12, the Jerusalem Church has been concerned with only one thing—themselves. They thought only Jews could be saved. They took care of their own needs. They made sure that everyone was taken care of. They had a wonderful fellowship. But after Acts 12, they were concerned about something entirely different—they wanted the world to know Jesus.

V. Conclusion.

Slowly but surely, this is the same kind of buildup and breakthrough we are experiencing at First Baptist Church. In the past few years, we have undergone several important innovations.

We have a new church staff: pastor, youth minister, missions / senior adults, music, and eventually a new children’s minister.

We have planted three new churches in Lufkin: Cross Timbers Cowboy Church, La Casa del Alfarero and New Beginnings Baptist Church.

We have two new world missions: Ethiopia (school, community center and new church) and Canada (church revitalization).

We have created a new worship format with a blend of ancient and modern worship music.

We have created a new Sunday School department for young adults between the ages of 20 and 30. It has grown more than any other department in the past year.

We have developed the Matthew Party as our own strategy for evangelism.

Breakthrough and Momentum are just around the corner for us…Because we are no longer a church focused on our own needs. We want the world to know Jesus!