Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Church Growth

Series: What Are We Doing Here?
Sermon: Church Growth - Ephesians 4:1-16 (2.16.25)

A week or so ago I was reading an article in Christianity Today on a topic that brushes up against what I preached about on Sunday: the difference between Americans who broadly and nominally consider themselves to be “Christians” and those who are actively engaging in their own journey to spiritual maturity (through the church) and participating in the discipleship of others (through the church!).

Here’s the opening paragraph:

The widening divide between casual Christianity and committed discipleship presents both our greatest challenge and our most important opportunity. While our congregations successfully attract attendees, we often struggle to cultivate mature followers capable of navigating our complex world with biblical wisdom. This gulf between mere attendance and active discipleship threatens not only our present witness but also our ability to offer hope to a world desperately seeking truth.

Over and over again throughout the New Testament and especially in Paul’s letter, we see the same basic formula for faith:

First, believe the right things.

Truth matters, and in this case the truth is that Jesus is the Son of God, he lived a sinless life, he died a sacrificial, atoning death for the forgiveness of the sins of believers, he was resurrected, he ascended back to his rightful place on the throne of heaven, and he’s coming back to redeem all of creation and bring about the culmination of the Kingdom of God.

Second, believing the right things should lead to living the right way.

In addition to his role as sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus also came teaching. His moral instruction is always aimed at helping believers become more like the perfect image of God they were created to be. Sincere faith should always lead to sincere faithfulness. In other words, our beliefs should inform and influence our thoughts, behaviors, relationships, work ethic, sin avoidance, and worship - and always in the direction of Christlikeness.  

This is one way to define what Paul calls spiritual “maturity” in Ephesians 4:13 and 15.

If there’s a consistent theme throughout this whole “What are we doing here?” Ephesians sermon series, it’s this:

God does not invite us into just thinking the right things about him (though that is a very important start), he invites us into a divine, eternal relationship in which by the blood of Jesus he saves us and the power of the Spirit he forms us to know him better and become more like him, forever, through the family of the church which is made up of his adopted children in the faith and is the reflection of heaven on earth until Christ returns and institutes the new heaven and the new earth.
 
Coming to saving faith in the grace of God is the starting line. Keeping saving faith - which I wrote on a few months back - is the race, and it’s a race that requires ongoing spiritual maturation alongside brothers and sisters running the same race.  

More from that Christianity Today article:

As societal shifts accelerate, long-standing staples of spiritual formation, like church and community-supported Christian education, have diminished in influence. Research shows that many believers are disinterested or feel too busy to engage in spiritual practices that once shaped their faith. This reality can be disheartening for Christian leaders who pour their hearts into creating spaces for growth, only to see them underutilized, or even ignored.

Many churches have moved away from programs like Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, midweek services, or dedicated Bible studies. Prayer often becomes a seasonal effort rather than a consistent conversation with our Father. A recent Barna study revealed that 62 percent of Christians who are uninterested in disciple making say it would be too much of a time commitment. If we, as believers, lack the commitment to invest in our faith, what future awaits it? What kind of witness will we become to a watching world?

An eternity in glory with God is the finish line.

In his second letter to Timothy, and shortly before his death, Paul writes:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2nd Timothy 4:7-8)

The return of Jesus is only good news for those who have kept the faith. For those who have not, it will be the worst day in all of history.

What’s the next step you need to take toward spiritual maturity? What can you do for God that will help contribute to your own formation and the formation of those in your church family? Are you answering God’s call to transform right belief into right living, and are you allowing the Spirit of Christ to transform your whole self in the process?

These are questions that will be answered one way or the other. Today, or on that glorious, fearful day when the trumpet blasts and the clouds part.

TO KNOW HIM AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!

- Pastor Brady