Multiply
About this series:
The title of our teaching series throughout 2023 is The Kingdom Of God. The essential goal is to help people understand the Bible’s teaching on the kingdom of God and raise confidence in God’s plans for his kingdom’s expansion / multiplication.
Teaching about The Kingdom Of God is a great way to address life as a church community - this is how life together under God’s reign should look like. And to address our lives in the world - demonstrating to those in our sphere of influence the reality of God and what life looks like when God is your king.
The six topics we will cover in Kingdom People are characteristics we believe to be foundational to life as a follower of Jesus. They are therefore qualities of people living in the kingdom of God - people who trust God, grow in Christlikeness, relate to others in godly ways, give freely because they have freely received, share their lives and faith with others, and seek the multiplication of God’s kingdom wherever they go.
About this talk:
Scripture: Acts 6:1-7
Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah: “Of the increase (or abundance) of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7). The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast (Matthew 13:31-33) anticipate the kingdom of God growing slowly until it is the largest plant in the garden / until it has worked all through the batch of dough. Jesus said that his disciples would be “witnesses…to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), that before he returns, “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Matthew 24:14). The early church, therefore, building on the teaching of Jesus, clearly expected the kingdom of God to expand throughout the whole world; hence, they set out on a mission of kingdom expansion/multiplication.
Acts 6:1-7 should be seen within that storyline. It recounts a community issue - “the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food” (v 1) - that required an administrative solution. However, the issue is set in the context of an increasing kingdom: “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing” (v 1) and “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly” (v 7). Because the good news is going forth and the kingdom of God is growing, multiplication was an inevitable result (bringing some challenges) - multiplication of disciples and multiplication of service to those disciples.
Multiplication is seen throughout the book of Acts. For example:
Multiplication of disciples (2:37-41,47; 5:14; and elsewhere)
Multiplication of community life (2:42-46; 4:32-37)
Multiplication of praise to God (4:1-22)
Multiplication of power (4:23-31)
Multiplication of healing (5:15-16)
Multiplication of persecution (from 5:17 onwards)
Multiplication of churches (from 10:1 onwards)
While multiplication (apart from multiplication of persecution!) is the result of God’s sovereign activity, it is equally clear that his people can help to facilitate or restrict that multiplication. People make decisions to follow Jesus, to bless one another in community life, to pray for the sick, to plant churches. With an expectation that God’s kingdom will grow, the question then becomes: What can we do to help provide the best ‘soil’ in which that growth can take place and how can we prepare for further growth.
Some possible ways of working this out could be: witness to friends is a means of multiplying disciples, raising assistants / interns is a means of multiplying leaders, continuing to pray for the sick is a means of multiplying healing, spending time with God and stepping out in obedience is a means of increasing his power working in us, etc.
Perhaps the overriding mentality, build on a theological conviction of kingdom growth, is to be thinking: what is the next step for me to take to see what God might do to expand his kingdom? Thinking like that could transform our expectation and what we see God do!
Can you help people to grasp that a multiplication mindset is a natural way of thinking about the kingdom of God?
What are some of the obstacles to a multiplication mindset?
How can someone try to discern the next multiplication step for them?
Audio only
