Every Member Growing

Every Member Growing Ephesians 4:11-16 Introduction: When I was in seminary out in Fort Worth, TX, a few of my friends were quite anxious to preach so they accepted student pastorates in small Texas towns that needed a preacher on Sunday mornings. Some of them had to travel up to a hundred or more miles each Sunday morning. I remember one of my friends coming to class on Monday morning with a story from the previous day. He had arrived in this small West Texas town in time to stop at the diner in town to get a cup of coffee and go over his sermon notes one more time. As he sat down and opened his Bible, a cowboy asked him, “Say. You a preacher?” “I am,” said my friend. “I preach over at the Baptist Church. “Hey! I’m a member of that church,” the man declared with some enthusiasm. “Really?” my friend said. “I’ve been preaching there for a few months now, and I don’t remember seeing you there.” It was like a saloon scene from an old western movie. The guy stood up like he was going to draw his six-gun. Instead, he just picked up his cowboy hat to leave and said, “Look, preacher,” he said sternly. “I said I was a member. I didn’t say I was a fanatic.” There are at least four terms that most American Christians don’t want associated with their Christianity, and fanatic is one of them. The others are radical, fundamentalist, and extremist. And, even more so, no one wants a combination of those terms attached to them, like, for instance, radical fundamentalist. Now, most of us don’t mind being known as a committed Christian, or a faithful follower, or even as a devoted disciple, but don’t call us one of those other terms. This mindset has been the prevailing mindset at least in my lifetime. In fact, the American church culture of the last 75 years promoted a Christian lifestyle of morality and moderation, of respectability and responsibility, and of compromise and conformity. But think about what happened on September 11, 2001 when my children – and many of the Millennial generation – were in grade school. And if labels such as fanatic, radical, extremist, and fundamentalist, carried a negative connotation before, the profound impact of 9/11 made these terms more detestable than ever, especially when they are associated with religion – any religion, including Christianity. The Millennial generation grew up and came of age during a time when it appeared to them that the great problems of the world were the result of a clash of radicals and extremists over religion. And many have concluded that our problems would be solved if mankind would reject the claims of their particular archaic religions and embrace the advances of science, technology, and global economics to bring all people – all nations, all ethnic groups, and all races together as one. Or, since religion is so ingrained in so many people, at least promote a religion of toleration toward others and moderation in the exercise of one’s own faith. So does it surprise any of us that so many Millennials – young adults from the age of 18 to 29 – have shied away from, or shunned, the traditional church in America, or that the traditional church overall is shrinking in numbers and influence in our current culture? We’re not only surprised, but also perplexed. What we’re dealing with is: THE LAW OF DEGENERATION: Here’s what I mean: The call of God in Christ is a call to a radical life-change and a radical lifestyle, and the reality we face in the church today is that we are now reaping what we have sown as a generation. We have for so many years now, sown seeds of moderation so that now we are reaping a mostly unprepared, un-discipled, and, to a large extent, an unregenerate generation. This is the Law of Degeneration. When one generation sows moderation as normal, acceptable, respectable Christianity, it will reap a generation with less spiritual depth and commitment and occupying less spiritual territory in the culture than the generation before. Now, we’ve been talking about The Every Member Church – The Way It Ought To Be, and last week we talked about Every Member Coming, which was about every member coming to worship as a part of the family of God. This morning we’re focusing on Every Member Growing, which is about the imperative of growing spiritually and the church’s responsibility in developing disciples. This is what we mean by discipleship – the life-long process of becoming a mature follower of Jesus Christ. But consider how the Law of Degeneration works. It’s a lot like what I’ve seen happen at our hunting club over the last 30 years – basically the length of one generation. About 30 years ago, my dad, brother, and I carved out 9 food plots to plant for the wildlife. But what has happened is that, over the years, nature takes its course, and the surrounding forest has encroached on our original food plots, and we’ve lost ground – literally lost ground. Why? Because we have not been diligent in keeping nature in check, and little-by-little, inch-by-inch, we have lost ground. The same thing has happened in the church. Again, if one generation sows moderation, it will reap degeneration. For example, let’s look again at the imperative invitation to come and worship on the Lord’s Day. What happens when a family decides that corporate worship isn’t an imperative invitation after all, that it’s an option. And let’s say that for this family moderation is the norm, and they come to worship two Sundays a month rather than four Sundays. And if other things come up, and they worship one Sunday out four, that’s ok. At least they managed one Sunday, which is better than none, right? But what usually happens to the children of those families as they become adults, get married, and have children of their own? The Law of Degeneration suggests that worship is even less an option than it was when they were growing up. Worship becomes an afterthought. This is what we reap when we sow moderation. We lose precious ground to the enemy and precious souls to the world. If we aren’t gaining ground, we’re losing ground. Look at what Solomon writes: I walked by the field of a lazy person, the vineyard of one with no common sense. I saw that it was overgrown with nettles. It was covered with weeds, and its walls were broken down. (Proverbs 24:30-31 NLT) And if we aren’t training our members, and especially our children and youth, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, we are failing them as parents and as a church. Listen again to Solomon as he talks about a lifestyle of wisdom and instruction: My son, obey your father’s commands, and don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. Keep their words always in your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you walk, their counsel will lead you. When you sleep, they will protect you. When you wake up, they will advise you. For their command is a lamp and their instruction a light; their corrective discipline is the way to life. (Proverbs 6:20-23 NLT) So it’s a lifestyle of growth. Proverbs 15:32 says this: If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself; but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding. And this in Proverbs 24:5: The wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger. a So the Law of Degeneration is that if we aren’t gaining ground, we’re losing ground, and if we aren’t growing spiritually, we’re shrinking spiritually. But the Good News is that there is another law that gives us reason for hope. This law is greater than the Law of Degeneration. It has the power to reverse, repair, and restore the harm done by the Law of Degeneration. It is: THE LAW OF REGENERATION: The Law of Regeneration is the law of spiritual life by which those who are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins are made spiritually alive through the grace of God by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the gift of salvation, the new birth – the second birth – that Jesus and the Apostles proclaimed and wrote about. But the Law of Regeneration entails not only the beginning of life in Christ, being born of the Spirit, but also the ongoing work of the Spirit, which is developing, growing, and maturing in the faith, being transformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ in character and conduct. The Law of Regeneration also entails an environment for growth. You recall Jesus’ Parable of the Soils in which a farmer went out to sow seeds in his field. Some seed fell on the hard path and was eaten by the birds; some fell on rocky soil and wilted beneath the Sun’s heat; other seed fell in the thicket and was chocked out by the weeds; but some seed fell in the good soil, germinated, grew, and produced a great harvest. It takes a good environment to grow Christians that mature in their faith and produce much fruit to the glory of God. At first, the church at Corinth wasn’t a good environment for spiritual growth, and Paul wrote and told them that they were acting like babies in Christ. They were arguing. They were divided into factions. Listen to what he tells them in his letter. READ I CORINTHIANS 3:1-9a. Paul is saying, “We’re working hard to cultivate a good environment so you can grow in Christ. So, listen. To get a baby Christian to grow spiritually takes a lot of work by a lot of people. First, it takes a lot of work by a lot of people to create good soil so spiritual babies can grow to childhood, and spiritual children can grow into spiritual young adults, and spiritual young adults can grow into spiritually mature Christ followers who are producing spiritual fruit. That takes a lot of people and a lot of hard work. And Paul says that this is why he works so hard. READ COLOSSIANS 1:28-29. And this is why the church is so important in spiritual growth. God gives certain spiritual abilities to different people to train us up and teach us, and model for us what being a Christ follower really looks like. And this is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 4. READ EPHESIANS 4:11-16. But the second part of spiritual growth is what we as an individual choose to do with the gift of our new life in Christ and how we understand what it means to be a Christ follower. RESPONSE: So, let me ask you? What do you understand about discipleship? What does following Christ mean to you? Is it being saved and becoming a good church member – a good, moral, clean-living, law-abiding, church-going Christian who does all things in moderation? Are do you understand discipleship in biblical terms? Do you understand that to follow Christ is to follow him to the cross? Do you understand discipleship as defined by Jesus himself when he said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” This is what Jesus said in Mark 8 right after he told his disciples that he was going to suffer and die in Jerusalem. It’s no wonder that many in the crowd stopped following him. When you understand what Jesus is saying here, you realize that there’s nothing moderate, polite, or gentile in the life he was offering people. This was a call to a radical life – a life of self-denial – denial of self-will, self-gratification, and selfcenteredness. This was a call to the crucifixion of self. In Luke 9, he calls it a “daily” cross – daily putting to death the old nature with its passions and desires. If we choose to follow Jesus, this is the life we choose. It’s an extreme life, a radical life. It makes us very uncomfortable when he says in Matthew 10:27, “If you love your father and mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine.” The Lord has not called us to an easy Christianity. Easy Christianity isn’t the way of Christ. The way of Christ is the way of the cross – a radical departure from the easy Christianity of today in which so few are prepared to pay the price of becoming a fully formed follower of the Lord Jesus. So what is the Lord saying o you this morning, and how will you respond?