The Value of Growing Relationships

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Some of the closest relationships that I have ever had have been inside of the church. God has used these relationships in my life to really shape me into who I am. In fact, these friendships in church began before I ever came to faith in Jesus. I did not come to a saving faith until I was 21 even though I had grown up in church. But I can remember when I was 19-20 years old and going to church and bible studies and it was the friendships with these people that really drew me into Christ. Seeing how loving they were and how they were growing in their faith. I fully believe that God used that to draw me into him.

Maybe you have a similar experience. You have been in a church where it was a place that you had the closest friends. But I don’t live in some fantasy land either. You may have experienced the exact opposite. That the church is where you experienced hurt and disappointment. You can think back to times when people just couldn’t get along and were just downright mean to each other.

I want to encourage you that although it might have the name “church” on the sign, that it was not operating as the church should. John 13:35 “35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””

It is so important for us to have close and growing relationships within the church. Let’s just say someone starts coming here regularly. And after a year or so, they don’t feel like they know anyone really on a deeper level. Do we expect them to stay or should we be surprised if they leave? We must have intentional, growing, challenging relationships in our local congregations. Why? So that we can grow in our faith.

Main Point - To grow spiritually, we must have growing relationships in the church

This is so important. I know that all of us desire for this church to grow in numbers. But I truly believe that for that to happen, we must have this culture of closeness here. Not so that we shut out new people. But to model for new people that we truly love each other and are involved in each others life. And in turn, we can invite them into our family through the love that we have for one another.

As we are looking at our text today, let us keep this question on our minds. Do I have strong relationships here that challenge me to grow in my faith?

Within the text, I am going to split it up into 3 aspects of the relationships that we have and how we grow in them.

Growth Through Unified Relationships

As Paul begins this section of the letter to the Ephesians, he points out the relationship that they have with God.

Ephesians 4:1 ESV

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

Paul is in prison because of the relationship that he has with Christ. The same relationship that the church has with Christ. And he wants to make sure that their character is in line with that of a Christian. If you have come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, we all have the same calling. My calling to the Lord is no different than anyone else. We have all had the same call, the call out of darkness into the marvelous light of God, the call out of death and into new life in Christ. And this is the call that Paul is talking about. But along with this call comes a change. And he begins to point out things that we, as Christians, should emulate.

Ephesians 4:2–3 ESV

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

These are marks of a Christian. If you know the bible well, you will read this and think that this looks like a short list of what Paul calls the fruit of the spirit that is found in Galatians 5.

Galatians 5:22–23 ESV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

What he is saying to the church at Ephesus is not a one-off statement. This is to be applies to all Christians over all time. We need humility and gentleness. Understanding our own human condition and knowing that we could never do anything about it, and knowing that everyone is like this. That is humility and gentleness. And to show patience. This is very needed.

It would be very easy to get frustrated in the church, especially when you are investing time discipling someone, when they just aren’t developing at the rate that you think they should be. It would be easy to give up and want to move on. Or it would be easy to want to grab them, shake them, and tell them they need to get their act together. But we must understand that we are all on a walk in this process of sanctification, and we all walk at different speeds. So we must not give up on one another.

That is part of what it means to bear with one another in love. To love each other enough, that even when we have bumps in the road in our relationships with one another, that we work things out and love one another. Don’t give up on each other.

I know that we can think about churches and some churches just have reputations. They are known as the church that can’t get along. Maybe they have split 3-4 times over the silliest things. What does that do to increase God’s glory in our world. When people, who say that they are Christians, can’t get along. But then we can think of other churches who you never hear anything about them running preachers off or splitting the church over little things. They are making a difference in the community and reaching people for the Kingdom of God. This is what it looks like to be unified. And Paul paints a picture of being united in our beliefs as well.

Ephesians 4:4–6 ESV

4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Paul separates aspects of our faith to give example of our we are unified. We are part of one body, the same spiritual family. We are indwelled by the same spirit. We have the same Lord in Jesus Christ. We have experience the same baptism both through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and in the case of our local family, the same baptism through immersion. And we have the same father in God.

We have a unified faith. And through this unified faith, we build relationships with each other. We grow together. We need each other. When we see someone leave a church family and try to live a Christian life alone, it never works out. They will give into the desires of this world. They will fall into old, unhealthy habits. They will not grow in their faith but do the opposite and regress in their faith. There is something special about how being part of a church family helps us grow and be built up in our faith. Having the close relationships with others who believe the same things that we do.

Growth Through Diverse Relationships(7-12)

I think it would be wise of us to know that we should have friends who are different than we are. People who have had different experiences, different upbringings than us. It helps us to be able to recognize that we may have different opinions. But when I say diverse in this sense, I am not talking about past experience, but present giftings. Let’s see how Paul builds to that.

Ephesians 4:7–10 ESV

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” 9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Paul says that grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. This does not mean that some of us are loved more than others by Jesus. But that some people have different giftings than others. In pointing this out, Paul highlights the Holiness of Jesus. The fact that Jesus came to earth to live in human form and die on the cross for us. But also that he has now went back to Heaven and awaits his time to return. But in the meantime, he has given us gifts.

Did he have to give us gifts? No, but he did so that his glory may grow through us working on his behalf. And we all have different giftings which we will get into. Think of this like a baseball team. If you were putting together a baseball team and filled up the team with people who could only play first base, then the team would not be very good. You would need people to each play a different part. And that is what God has done in the church. He has given people different gifts within the church to serve in different roles. Paul does not list everything here, but he does list gifts that are found in the church.

Ephesians 4:11–12 ESV

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

I could preach on these verses for the entire sermon, so I don’t want to berate this too badly. He gives a short list of gifts here. I want to take them into 2 categories. First, he has apostles and prophets. 2 different gifts. In the NT, we have both of them active and they were vital in the foundation of the church. The Apostles, in a technical sense, are those that actively followed Jesus while he ministered here in bodily form. And the prophets were forth-tellers, people who declared the things that were to come. When we take them in the manner which the bible talks about these 2 gifts, we no longer have these active. You can make a certain case that a prophet is someone who proclaims the message of Christ if you wanted to stretch it, but these biblical giftings are no longer in use.

But then he lists evangelists. Now, don’t get confused, we are all commanded to evangelize. It is our duty to share with others the message of the gospel. But scripture makes this case that there are some that has a special gifting of being able to do this. I am sure that many of you have heard of the more famous evangelists of our time and maybe even went and heard them. Not everyone is going to stand up in front of a group of people and preach a message of repentance to large groups. This would be the gift of evangelism.

And then lastly, he lists shepherds and teachers. In the Greek, these two words are linked by a single definite article which means that they would be very closely related. Shepherds are pastors. Men who lead and oversee the church. When we go to 1 Timothy 3, we get a list of qualifications, one of which is to be able to teach. Some people may try to separate these two identifiers, but I see a connection between them too. All pastor should be able to teach. And in many ways, teachers pastor people.

I think that we could all agree, in our experience, that churches who get the roles of pastor and teacher right, are the churches that thrive. And it is through these giftings that relationships grow. The pastor and teacher are the ones who cultivate the right view of relationships with each other through the teaching and preaching of God’s word.

We are all different. We have been given different gifts from God. Don’t think someone is greater or less than you because they got a different gift than you. In fact, if we were only friends with people who had the exact same gifts as us, we would never grow. So let us be thankful for diverse gifts. And let us use these relationships to grow.

Growth Through Mature Relationships(13-16)

Some of us are more mature than others. That might be the most obvious statement that I have made today. I am not exactly talking about personalities either. But rather being spiritually mature. Just like with our personalities though, experiences can cause us to become more mature. When hard times hit, it will often cause us to lean in harder to Jesus with our faith because we know that we cannot do this on our own. It will drive us into a deeper prayer life to beg God for help. It will cause us to dig deeper into God’s word to see his promises that he has given us.

God will often use relationships with more mature believers to mature us as well. It is like this in most aspects of life. Think about your job. When you first started whatever job you were working, you did not know everything about that job. You needed someone to train you. If your trainer did not have more experience than you in whatever the job was, it would have been very hard for you to get better at it.

The same with the Christian life. We are to all be maturing. So we need relationships with believers who are more mature than we are. On the same hand, we need to be imparting what we are learning to others as well.

I left off the last part of the section before so that I could use that to show us this.

Ephesians 4:12 ESV

12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

God uses people with different gifts to build up the body of Christ. As we are growing, because of the relationships that we are building in the body, we are growing in ministry as well. The job of ministry cannot solely fall on the pastors and teachers. There should be ownership in the body of Christ for the ministry of the gospel. If it were up to me to grow the church and do all the ministry, that what you have gotten this morning is the extent of what our church will ever look like.

Surely we are not content with Immanuel Baptist looking like it is right now. I know that I am not the only one who wants to see us be able to extend the reach of the gospel in our community. I know that I can’t be the only one who wants to fill up the water in the baptismal real soon. I know that I can’t be the only one who wants to grow to a number that we can take groups of people and commission them to be sent out to other local churches to see them grow and increase their gospel impact in our community. Am I happy with our church? Absolutely. Am I content in the work of God? Absolutely. But I am not content with the kingdom reach that we have. Brothers and sisters, let us work for the kingdom as we grow in maturity.

Ephesians 4:13–14 ESV

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

When someone is less mature, they are more inclined to be deceived. And we live in a day where it seems like there are more and more avenues for deception. Being convinced that sin is not evil, that you don’t have to believe what the bible says, that you don’t need to grow in your faith, all of these are deceptions that the church is constantly dealing with. So how do we protect ourselves from this?

Maturity that comes from having unity of the faith and from knowledge of Jesus. This protects us from being tossed to and fro by the waves and the wind that deceives us.

This past week was what we call April fools day. I saw something that day that said if you read something on the internet, don’t believe it. Just like every other day of the year. As Christians, it is like we are living in a world that is celebrating April fools day every single day. We need to protect ourselves. We do this by becoming more and more spiritually mature. And this happens through having mature relationships in the church.

Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV

15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Truth in love. I pray that I am speaking truth in love today. This scripture is not an easy one. I know how much I love each and every one of you and I pray that you hear my love today in preaching the truth of God’s word.

Conclusion

To finish this up with this text today, I want to take these last 2 verses and point out again what Paul is showing us and then I want to give us something practical to leave with. This text is about growing in our faith but also doing so through the relationships that we have in the body of Christ.

Here in verses 15-16, he tells us to grow up(maturity), to be held together(unity), and to work properly(diversity). And when all of this happens, the body grows. It builds itself up in loved. Be mature, be unified, and be diverse.

How do we live this out practically? It begins by cultivating relationships within the body. We must be in each others life outside of these walls. I have tried to build friendships with most everyone here. One of the benefits of pastoring in a town I have lived in all my life is that I have connections with most everyone here. But I can only go so far. I cannot be the glue that holds the relationships together here. We must be doing this outside of the church gathering.

So I want each of us to reach out to someone here this week that we don’t normally talk to outside of the building. Grab their phone number before you leave. Ask them to lunch one day this week. When we go to eat our soup here in a few minutes, sit with someone you have never sat with before. Grow these relationships so that we can grow in maturity. And when we do this, we will be building the kingdom and impacting our community.