I want the church to grow, but . . . those people?

I say I want the church to grow—but often what I mean is only with people like me. 

Jesus said His kingdom would start small and grow beyond expectation, yet when growth brings people who unsettle me, I face the the difference between what I want and what God wants. 

The real question is: Do I want the church to grow, or just to grow my way?

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Transcript

I want the church to grow, but. . . those people?

I say I want the church to grow—but often what I mean is only with people like me. Jesus said His kingdom would start small and grow beyond expectation, yet when growth brings people who unsettle me, I face the the difference between what I want and what God wants. The real question is: Do I want the church to grow, or just to grow my way?

In this episode, let's talk about people who are of a different race and culture.

To get the beginning of this series, I want the church to grow, but I don’t want any more people, listen to Episode 68.

There’s often a difference between where I am and where I ought to be.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food (Hebrews 5:12).

I called this the oughta gap. There's a difference between what I do and what I ought to do.

I want the church to grow because Jesus taught that it would. He taught the parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God (Luke 8:11).

The good ground produces thirty, sixty, or a hundred times as much as was planted.

He talked about the mustard seed, the title of this podcast and about leaven.

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matthew 13:31, 32).

Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened” (Matthew 13:33).

A small lump of dough left on the hearth overnight with yeast causes about ½ bushel of flour to rise.

I wanna want what Jesus desires. Jesus said the kingdom would start small and grow. I want the church to grow; however, I may not want people of a different race, people who don't look, talk, and act like me, my family, and my friends.

Peter was reluctant to go to the Gentiles. Acts 10

When he’d baptized the Gentiles, he was called into question. The Message writes Acts 11:2:

What do you think you’re doing rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?

The issue was not fear, as it was in the case of Saul.

Cornelius was a devout man, one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, prayed to God always, and had a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews.

But he was a Gentile.

Peter said that he’d learned God’s will in this matter.

You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. (Acts 10:28).

In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him (Acts 10:34, 35).

People today may be reluctant or even rebellious to accept God’s will in this matter.

In one town where I preached during the days of bus ministry, we knocked on every door in town three times and brought whoever’d get on our buses. One man replied to two of his friends who said they were missing going hunting with him,  “You are spending more time with those ……. than you are with me.”

Was this someone who didn’t want the church to grow?

Absolutely not. He wanted the church to grow. He wanted to build a bigger building, on more land, quicker than the elders decided.

He wanted and worked for the church to grow. He gave liberally for that purpose. He just didn’t like the kind of people who were coming at the time.

Churches in changing neighborhoods may not want the kind of people who are moving in.

I heard these comments.

• “Bus kids don’t pay the bills.”
• “We need more quality people in this church.”

And we may not want the rich for the same reason–we may be uncomfortable with people who are different from us.

And many mistakenly think that religion is to make them comfortable.

Jesus didn’t teach that idea.

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it” (Luke 9:23, 24).

In his biography, Handyman of the Lord, is recounted Wm. Holmes Border’s parable of a deprived black man who’d been reduced to begging for food. Ringing the front doorbell at a southern mansion, the black man informed the occupant, “I’m hungry.” 

The answer was, “Go around to the back door.” The white man brought food and said, “First, we will bless the food. Now repeat after me, ‘Our Father…’”

The black man said, “Your Father…”

The white man said, “No, repeat after me, ‘Our Father…’”

The black man said, “Your Father…”

The white man said, “Why do you insist on saying, ‘Your Father,’ when I keep telling you to say, ‘Our Father?’”

The black beggar answered, “Well, boss, if I say ‘Our Father,’ that would make you and me brothers, and I’m afraid the Lord wouldn’t like it, you makin’ your brother come to the back porch to get a piece of bread.”

The question, then, isn’t what do I want but what does God want?

Jesus wants all who are burdened with sin.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28).

The Holy Spirit and the church should want all who want to be saved.

And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”  And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come.  Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17).

I want the church to grow, but do I want any more people?

1. How many?
2. What kind?
3. Do I want more people in the church if God’ll check with me before He lets’em in?