- Matt 13:24-25, 28
- Intro: do you want 1000 more people by this time next year? Need to root out the enemies of your church
- Everything in the kingdom is expected to grow (comparison to farming: planting and growing. If we are planted, we are expected to grow)
- We don’t think that church growth is possible for us.
- Enemies of the growing church
- Lack of faith
- We think that church growth is possible, but not for us. For Bill Hybels, but not us
- Ex. Young preacher asked Spurgeon why people didn’t come forward very often when he spoke, but they did when Spurgeon spoke. Spurgeon asked if he expected people to come forward every time he spoke. “No, not every time.” “Well, there’s your problem. They aren’t coming because you aren’t expecting them to come.”
- Lack of knowledge
- Isaiah: People perish because of the lack of knowledge.
- A man went back into his burning house to save his 7 yr old daughter and was killed by a falling beam, because he did not know that she had already escaped and was at a neighbor’s house.
- Failure to realize that God is no respector of persons
- God does not love Billy Graham or Bill Hybels more than
you; He doesn’t want them to be any more effective than you.
- There are laws of how the church grows; we need to
figure them out. When we apply them, they work, whether we are
black, white, small town, large town.
- Growth is always the goal of a NT church
- Just like the man who went to his fig tree expecting figs was justifiably upset when there were no figs, Jesus has a reasonable expectation to find the church making converts, because that’s what the purpose of the church is
- Can’t have a church that is not growing and have a healthy
church, just like if a baby is the same size at 18 as at 2, it’s hard
to claim that the baby is healthy.
- An unsure pastor
- The speed of the leader is the speed of the team
- You are in control, and you need to act like it.
- Too many pastors don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. Sometimes people’s feelings are supposed to get hurt—if you are
sinning, you will feel hurt when someone tells you.
- Failure to build upon small victories
- Small victories enable you to win larger victories.
- David knew he could kill Goliath because God had already enabled him to kill a lion and a bear.
- Failure to preach the announcements
- Whatever you want the “masses” to do, you have to preach it. You cannot just give an announcement.
- Ex. When went to preach to the prostitutes, preached
a sermon on how you don’t know who you will be saving. Saving
Rahab the prostitute meant saving Jesus, because she was his
ancestor. They were not saving just Rahab; they were saving
Boaz and David and Jesus.
- Lack of corporate fasting and prayer
- Some things happen only by prayer and fasting, probably so that when they happen, we can rejoice corporately
- Getting started
- Go with the going crowd. If there are people who are ready to go where you are going, go with them and don’t wait for everyone else
- Motive
- David wanted Goliath’s head so that everyone would know that there is a God in Israel.