The Ekklesia of God

Rev. Mark C. Alvis, Union Congregational Church — Epiphany I, January 7, 2007

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They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.

From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed there a long time with the disciples (Acts 14:21-28 NIV).

The Greek word for church is ekklesia. It is found 112 times in the New Testament and almost always refers to local congregations of believers in various cities. However, hundreds of years before the New Testament was written, the Greeks used this word to speak of political assemblies or gatherings. As early as the fifth century B.C. an ekklesia was an official gathering of the citizens of a Greek city-state, called together to make political and judicial decisions (Expository Dictionary of Bible Words). Isn’t it interesting that this was the word chosen by Christ (Matthew 16:18) and the New Testament writers to refer to a Christian congregation?

Why was this particular word selected? I believe it was because the Lord Jesus Christ came to usher in God’s kingdom upon the earth with a depth and vitality the world had never experienced before. N. T. Wright, a New Testament scholar in England says it this way:

The great emphasis in the New Testament is that the gospel is not how to escape the world; the gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. And that his death and resurrection transform the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work . . . bringing people to the point where they come to know God in Christ for themselves . . . [and then these people begin] working for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Just as earthly kingdoms have rulers, laws and citizens, so God’s kingdom has a King, laws and citizens who share in its benefits and responsibilities. Christians are unique people in that we have a dual citizenship on this earth. We are citizens of Christ’s kingdom and we are citizens of whatever country God has sovereignly placed us. Our highest allegiance of course, is to Christ and the Law of God. Our church gatherings should serve to remind us of this reality on a regular basis.

God’s kingdom is bigger and broader than the church. All of God’s true church is within His kingdom, but we cannot fit all of God’s kingdom within the church. The two words are not synonymous. Nevertheless, the church is God’s primary means for extending His kingdom. My main point of the morning is this: If Jesus Christ is our King, then we must be committed to His ekklesia — the local church. The Bible refers to the church as God’s Temple, the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. It is hard to imagine any more endearing terms than those. In Acts 14:21-28, we cannot help but marvel at the importance of the local church in the minds of Paul and Barnabas. Let’s read this passage together:

They [Paul and Barnabas] preached the good news in that city [Derbe] and won large numbers of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch [in Pisidia], strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church [ekklesia] and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.

From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch [in Syria], where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed a long time with the disciples [Paul and Barnabas were both pastors in that church].

Last week we read how Paul and Barnabas had shared the gospel in the cities of Iconium and Lystra. Many people became followers of Christ as a result of their teaching. However, those who rejected the message tried to kill the apostles. In Lystra, Paul was actually stoned by the people of the city and left for dead. Miraculously he got back on his feet and went with Barnabas to the city of Derbe, which was about 70 miles east of Lystra. The Lord blessed their labors again in Derbe and many people came to Christ. This completed the circuit of cities evangelized by Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey.

When we consider the fact that these men were ordered to leave or had to flee almost every city they preached in, we would think that from Derbe they would have taken the shortest route possible back home to Antioch of Syria. If you look on a map you discover that from Derbe Paul and Barnabas could have traveled southeast by land and been home in a week. Instead, these two apostles backtracked and revisited every city in which they had ministered the gospel. That was like walking into the lion’s den. It put their lives in grave danger for two reasons: (1) It exposed them to people from these cities who had already tried to kill them. (2) It took them back over the most dangerous roads in Asia Minor, roads that were thick with robbers.

Why did they do this? Verse 22 explains that they did it in order to strengthen and encourage the new believers in the faith. How did they strengthen them? First, by reminding these new believers that they were the key to extending God’s kingdom on the earth. Was it going to be an easy task? In verse 22, Paul and Barnabas warned the new believers, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Why were Paul and Barnabas telling these believers that they had to endure many hardships before they could enter into the kingdom? Was the kingdom of God a future event for the people of Paul’s day? Yes and no. Is the kingdom of God a future event for us? Yes and no. God’s kingdom in its full and perfect state is a future event. The Apostle Paul states in I Corinthians 15:50, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” The kingdom of God that Paul is referring to in that passage is the Eternal State, the ultimate perfection of God’s plans that Christ will one day usher in. No one in a flesh and blood body will enter into the Eternal State — only people in glorified bodies.

However, as we read in Colossians 1:13, there is also a present form of God’s kingdom that all believers have entered into: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” The Apostle John echoes this truth in Revelation 1:5-6, when he states what Christ has done for us: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom.” God’s plan is for His kingdom to be manifested on the earth in a greater and greater way as this age continues. This is Christ’s point in His parable of the mustard seed: “The kingdom of heaven is [present tense] like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree.”

The growth of God’s kingdom upon the earth will not come without great cost to His followers. This is what Paul and Barnabas were teaching in Acts 14:22. If Paul and Barnabas were speaking here this morning, they would be telling us to be prepared to suffer hardships in order to see God’s kingdom advance. Because Jesus is our highest King we are to take His commands and laws with us into our work places and into our neighborhoods. We are to be like the woman in Christ’s parable who put a little leaven in a mass of dough and the whole mass was leavened. There is no area of life that is to be outside God’s control. As the saying goes, “If Jesus is not Lord of all, then He is not Lord at all.”

The breaking out of God’s kingdom upon the earth came at great price for the Lord Jesus Christ and will require great hardships on our part as well. And so the first thing Paul and Barnabas did to strengthen the new believers was to honestly tell them that it is through hardship and suffering that God’s kingdom advances.

The second way the apostles encouraged and strengthened the new believers was by appointing elders and establishing churches in each of the cities. When I was in seminary we were assigned the task of writing the definition of a local church. My definition was as follows: “A local church is a group of baptized believers who have entered into covenant in order to meet together on a regular basis, under biblical leadership, for the purpose of worship, the study of God’s Word, fellowship, and observance of the ordinances — so that believers may be better equipped to carry out the Great Commission.”

I was almost booed out of the class. This explanation was viewed as legalistic and overly complicated. The definition that carried the day was, “A local church exists whenever two or three Christians gather together.” I think tremendous things can happen when two or three Christians gather together — but being a church is not one of them. What a casual, unbiblical view of the church!

Paul and Barnabas did not believe their mission was complete until churches — ekklesias — were formed and strengthened with biblical leadership. And they literally risked their lives to do that. Too bad they did not understand that a local church exists whenever two or three Christians get together for coffee and donuts! The average Christian in the United States does not think of the local church as very important. I realize that many local churches have worked hard to earn that contempt. Nevertheless, if we are not doing anything to make the local church stronger, then we are part of the problem.

God places incredibly high value upon local churches. Listen to some of standards God sets for leaders in the church:

If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer [elder], he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, a one woman man, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach . . . gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well . . . and must not be a recent convert (I Timothy 3:1-6).

If these churches were made up of new believers, where did Paul and Barnabas find elders who were not recent converts? We are not told how long Paul and Barnabas stayed at each city before being driven out. It doesn’t seem they stayed long at Lystra, but Acts 14:3 tells us that the apostles stayed a considerable time at Iconium. We don’t how long considerable is, but apparently it was long enough for some believers to mature in Christ.

Are you growing in Christ? It will take conscious, concerted effort on your part to do so. Hebrews 5:13-14 states, “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant [spiritually speaking], is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”

The church today cannot afford to have people stuck in spiritual babyhood for years and years. To grow up in Christ requires some meat in our diets and the exercise of obedience.

Only after Paul and Barnabas established churches were they willing to return home to Antioch of Syria. And when they did, verse 27 tells us they gathered the ekklesia together and celebrated the birth of other churches, which in turn would help to extend God’s kingdom upon the earth. Keith Ritchel will soon be traveling to India. There is no place on earth today where the church is growing any faster than in India. Let’s pray.

Sermon text ©2007 Mark C. Alvis
Bible text © as applicable