part 5 of 13

They were active in witnessing

Acts 2:47

'Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.'

The early church would not have grown, nor will today's church grow, without it being active in witnessing. This is an integral part of any church that wants to experience true growth Many churches today are experiencing growth when it comes to numbers; but they are stagnant, and even regressing, when it comes to their spiritual growth. I would daresay that more than three-fourths of those found within "Christian" churches have never accepted Christ as their personal Saviour. We can enlarge our churches without witnessing but we can not increase the Body of Christ without telling others of Jesus.

1. They took the Great Commission seriously.

The last command Christ gave to the Church was to carry out the Great Commission. He intended for the Church to be active in witnessing - telling others of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Throughout the Book of Acts we can see numerous accounts of the early Church sharing the Gospel with lost sinners. This shows that they took the Great Commission very seriously. They knew that is was the responsibility of each and every Christian to witness to others. It also, more than likely, thrilled their spirits to tell others of what Christ had done on Calvary.

It is very evident that today's Christians are not active in witnessing. The large majority of those who claim to be Christian will never once witness to a lost soul about Christ. Most of these can not witness about Christ because they do not even know Him themselves. I have come across many Christians in many different churches who believe that the Great Commission is only meant for preachers and not the average Christian. We need to get back to taking the Great Commission seriously. We need to realize that every soul we meet is either headed to Heaven or Hell.

2. They planted and watered.

I Corinthians 3:6

'I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.'

The early church was busy with going about spreading the Gospel. They were not only telling their neighbors about Christ, but we can also see where they were busy sending out missionaries to other places in order to spread the Gospel. God had told them to tell the world what had happened and that is exactly what they set out to do. Some planted the seed of God while others came by and watered those seeds which had already been planted.

There is still a need for Christians to be out there planting and watering the seeds of the Gospel. As long as there are lost people somewhere in this world then we have a responsibility to be sharing the Gospel with others. Sometimes we may go out and be the ones to plant the seed in someone's heart. Other times we may be watering a seed which someone else has already planted. We need to realize that not everyone we witness to will accept the Lord as their Saviour. We may only be preparing the seed for someone else to come along and lead that person to Christ.

3. God gave the increase.

While the early Church was busy planting and watering the Gospel, they were not the ones responsible for the increase. It was not their responsibility to get people saved. All they were to do was get the Gospel out there and then God would work in the people's hearts through the Holy Spirit. God gave the increase to the early Church and it will be God that gives the increase to today's church.

Sadly, a large number of churches today are leaving God out of the picture. Instead of focusing on the Gospel they are leaning on man's wisdom in order to see large numbers in their church. They will do all they can to entertain the people, but they never teach the the full counsel of the Word of God. This is why any of today's modern churches are fill with shallow, and many times unregenerate, members. Then you have those who take God out of the equation by not allowing the Holy Spirit to work in the lost person's heart. They do all they can to get the person to say a prayer without the person ever feeling a twinge of conviction. They want them to say that prayer so they can run them through the baptistry and mark them down as another number (no matter that they have baptised the same person twenty times in a year).

We need to do our job of spreading the Gospel and then we need to let God take care of adding to the church instead of us trying to do it for Him.

In Christ,

PreacherE