Pauls Church Growth Seminar

In the last 20 years or so in our country we have seen the development of what's called a church growth movement. Lots of books, conferences, seminars, whole development programs on how to grow a church. Now that's not all bad, there's a lot of good with that and the good is where that focuses on the health of a church, where it focuses on outreach programs, how to better reach out to a community or to the lost, how to organize ministry more effectively. There are lots of good things we can learn from that particular movement, but there are also some things that sometimes get a little out of balance and that's when church growth movements focus solely on how to build new buildings, bigger buildings, how to get more people, more numbers and that kind of thing. That's not the healthiest of church growth. Now I do believe that God wants the church to grow. Jesus said to Peter, you are a rock and then he talked about the rock of teaching of the deity of Christ and he said on this rock, I will build my church. Jesus is all about building churches and building his church, the body of Christ. We have seen in Ephesians chapter 2 that this body, this church is built on the foundation of Christ, the chief cornerstone and in him, verse 21, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. So church growth is about a church rising, growing, being built up, but what is meant by church growth? What do we mean by that? Do we just mean more people? Do we mean bigger buildings? What is meant by church growth? Well this morning I want to take you to a church growth seminar. We're going to go to Paul's church growth seminar, found in Ephesians chapter 4. We've been working our way through the book of Ephesians on Sunday morning and today we find ourselves in that section of chapter 4 which talks about how the church grows, how God grows his body, the church. We begin in verse 7 with what Paul talks about by way of church growth, his model, God's model of church growth begins with the process of church growth. Paul is going to show us how church's growth, God's way, what the process is, what is intended by God by way of church growth. And I want us to see that first of all God gives gifted people. That's the first step in God's model of church growth. God gives gifted people. Now you say who are those gifted people? Well you're one of them. If you know Christ is your Savior, if you are a part of this body you are a part of God's plan, gifting this church to grow as he would have it to. Notice how Paul says this in verse 7. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. Now what does it mean when he says grace has been given? Aren't we all given God's grace when we are saved? Aren't we all saved by God's grace? Yes, we are all recipients of God's grace in that way. But that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about giftedness, spiritual gifts, God-given abilities to serve God in some way in his body, in his church. Paul says much the same thing and even designates it as spiritual gifts in Romans chapter 12 and verse 6. Look at this verse where he says, we have different gifts according to the grace given us. You see God graces us, gives us his grace to enable us to serve him in some way. He gives us some one or more spiritual gifts, abilities to be used in serving him in the body. And he gives us just the right amount of grace. He apportions it out as we find here in verse 7. That's the amount of grace we need to accomplish what God wants us to do in serving him with our spiritual gift. So when he says he gifts us, he gives us his grace, that's what he's talking about. And everybody sitting here this morning who is a believer in Jesus Christ has some ability that God has given you to serve him. You say, well, I can't sing, I can't teach a class, I can't stand up in front of people. Well there are lots of different kinds of spiritual gifts. And without going into a study of all the spiritual gifts this morning, which is not the thrust of Ephesians 4, let me just say that one of the greatest discoveries you will ever embark on in your life is to understand and know what God has gifted you to do, where you fit what your place is in the body of Christ. So he's given all of us a gift and he reinforces this by quoting from the Old Testament and using an Old Testament word picture imagery to kind of bring this to our minds that God has gifted us all in verse 8. He says this is why it says, when he ascended on high he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. He's quoting from Psalm 68 there, a Psalm that talks about a great triumphant God who is one battle over his enemies and he is leading his troops in a triumphal procession and he is receiving gifts and giving gifts of the spoils of battle. That's just an Old Testament illustration that Paul uses to describe the giving of spiritual gifts, he says in verse 9. What does he ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. So he's talking about Christ, he's using this Old Testament passage to illustrate the fact that Christ, after his death, he came to this earth, he died, after his death he ascended back into heaven, victorious. There was a great triumphant parade down the streets of heaven with the angels giving him the gift of praise and now Jesus turns around and gives the gift, gifts, not spoils of battle but the gifts of the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts to believers in Christ to do what he wants them to do. So all of us who are saved have some kind of spiritual gift with which we can serve the Lord. Now he picks out four specific giftedness or gifted people in verse 11 and describes them. And these are the people that he's going to talk about as he talks about the building of the church. Verse 11 he says it was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers. These are the specially gifted people that God has given to the church to begin the church, to lay the foundation of the church, to spread the church and to begin building up the church. He focuses on these gifted, these are not the only gifted people. It's not that these people are more important than anybody else in the body of Christ. It's just that as he's going to describe how the church grows, this is where he's going to start with these gifted people, first of all apostles. Now none of you are apostles, I'm not an apostle, there are no TV preachers who are apostles either. Regardless of what some of them may say. There are no apostles today. An apostle is a person who had to see Jesus Christ and be directly commissioned by him into his ministry. In fact when the apostles were choosing a new and to take Judas' place, their criteria was that he must have walked with us since the days of John the Baptist. He must have seen Jesus, been commissioned by Jesus specifically directly personally into this ministry. So apostles were the guys who laid the foundation of the early church. Back in chapter 2 and verse 20, we read this, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. They were even given special miraculous powers to be able to do things that would authenticate their ministry and their message in enabling them to begin the church in the book of Acts. Technically speaking, there are no apostles today. They were first century people, given a special task in laying the foundation of the church. Same with prophets, the second group of people are prophets. And if you study the word prophets in the Bible, both old and new testament, you'll find that a prophet is a person who receives a direct revelation from God, a message that God wants his people to hear because the Bible has not yet been completed. God would communicate these messages directly to these specially chosen men and women and they would give that message to God's people. Again, these were basically first century kind of guys, that's where that gift ended, I believe, because they were also the people who were responsible for laying the foundation of the church, according to chapter 2, verse 20. Sometimes the Bible uses the word in a kind of a looser fashion of anyone who gives out the message of God's word. In that sense, there are prophets still today. But I believe that the old and new testament gift of a prophet has ceased because that was a special gift before God's word was finished of God revealing his message for his people through that person and then they would give it out. So apostles and prophets have the job of laying the foundation in the first century of the church. They did that in the book of Acts. Then there are people who come along and build on that foundation and spread the church to new areas. They're the third group of people called evangelists. Now, when we think of an evangelist today, we think of a guy who travels around from place to place and preaches the same sermons everywhere and never has to study. It's great. It's just the same sermons, everywhere he goes. No, I'm teasing a little bit. But we think of a guy who just goes from place to place and preaches. The New Testament term is tied to the word for evangelism, which means to give the good news. In New Testament terminology, an evangelist is a person who preaches the gospel to lost people so that they can be one to Christ and New Churches can be established. The closest thing we have to that today really is a missionary. The New Testament gift of evangelism is really carried out through missionaries who take the gospel to places where it's not known and preach the gospel to lost audiences when people to Christ and establish churches, build churches and spread the gospel to other parts of the world. Now, lest you think I'm down on full-time evangelists, I'm not. I think they have a very important place in the body of Christ. Paul even told Timothy as a pastor to do the work of an evangelist. You may not be a missionary taking the gospel to new regions of the world and planting churches, but you still need to preach the gospel to lost people and take the gospel to lost people. Where you are. So evangelists and evangelism is still a very important ministry. But then when an evangelist preaches the gospel, people get saved, the church is established, then comes along the next person, the pastor, teacher. You notice I put those two words together. If you look at verse 11, you'll see that each of those other groups of people have the word sum in front of them, sum to be apostles, sum to be prophets, sum to be evangelists, and sum to be pastors and teachers. Pastors and teachers are the same person. Sum refers to both. It's the same person who has two functions. He is a pastor teacher. He is a pastor or shepherd in the sense that he leads and cares for the flock. He is a teacher that's part of his responsibility to teach the Word of God. So he feeds the flock too. He shepherds the flock. He feeds the flock. He's a pastor teacher. Now those are the people that he's introducing to us here that are responsible to begin this work of church growth. Everybody has a gift that needs to be included in this process and we'll come back to that in a few moments. But God has chosen apostles and prophets to lay the foundation of the church, evangelists to spread the church to new areas, pastors and teachers to hang with one place, and teach people the Word of God. That's God's plan for church growth. Now that's the first step in the process. God has given gifted people. Secondly, the second step in the process is they prepare God's people for ministry. They prepare God's people for ministry, verse 12. Notice these people is just talked about in verse 11 are to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. Now there's an unfortunate misunderstanding about what this verse teaches because of a placing of a comma in the King James translation. And I love the King James. I grew up on it, cut my spiritual teeth on it, memorized all the verses I've memorized in the King James. But in this particular verse it was an unfortunate insertion of a comma to where it reads that these people, pastor teachers, for instance, in verse 11 are to do three things. They are to perfect the saints, to do the work of ministry, and to edify the church, or build up the church. And that's an unfortunate reading. There is no comma here. The idea is not that the job of the pastor is to do all three things. You see, what has arisen from that unfortunate misunderstanding of verse 12 is a model of ministry that goes something like this. Teachers are to perfect the saints, equip, train the saints. The pastors are to do the work of the ministry, and the pastors are to build up the church. And nothing could be further from what Paul's trying to say. What Paul is saying is that the pastor teacher building on the work of the evangelist and back earlier to the Apostles and Prophets, the pastor teacher is to build up the saints, perfect the saints, to do the work of ministry. It's the saints who are doing the work of ministry. I'm one of the saints, so I do my share of ministry. And those of us who are in vocational ministry have opportunity to do more time wise, obviously. But everybody in the church is to be in ministry. You are a minister if you're saved. You have no choice. You say, no, no, I'm a physician. I'm a teacher. I'm a businessman. No, you're a minister. In God's eyes, if you're saved, you're a minister. I'm a pastor. You're a minister. And in God's way of building the church, the pastors are to equip, to prepare, to train those who are believers in the church to do the work of ministry. And the result of that is that the body of Christ is built up. But this key step is so often misunderstood. You see, no pastor or pastoral staff can do everything that a church requires by what we have ministry. No group of pastors can meet the needs of every person in a church. It's just impossible. Just do the math. We have 900 people who are members of this church, somewhere around 900. Some of them, we don't see very often. That's why the tenants doesn't show it. But their members, they're tied with us in some way. Some of them obviously are sick, shut ends and so forth. But it is impossible for five people to even know all of the needs that exist in people's lives or to reach and meet all of those needs. That's why a biblical philosophy of ministry is that all of us are involved. You know, quite often, folks will come up to us and say, here's someone you need to visit. Well, that's fine. We do a lot of visiting and that's part of a responsibility of a pastor. But if you ever thought that God might want you to visit that person, folks will come up and say, here's someone you need to witness to. And that's great. Love to witness to people as part of our joy and ministry. But did you ever think God may want you to witness to that person? Because you may have a better enroad to witness to them and share Christ with them than we would have. They see us coming and they think, oh no, they sick the preacher on me. And they kind of freak out. But if you as a friend and a coworker speak to them, it may be a different thing. You may have more success than we would have. So in a biblical philosophy of ministry, it is our primary responsibility to train and equip the saints to do the work of ministry. Let me take just a moment to explain our structure of our pastoral staff and why this is so important to us. You see, it is very important that particularly the senior pastor, the one whose main responsibility it is to feed the flock is able to spend the time to do that. Now if you know anything about church ministry and especially a ministry like this, there are all kinds of ministries and things going on in programs and so forth. And it would be very easy for me to get drawn into all of those and miss what is the core of my calling. And that is to prepare meals for you. That is to feed the flock. John MacArthur says it this way and as a great way of expressing this in his commentary on Ephesians, he says, the study and teaching of God's word takes time. The evangelist or pastor teacher therefore cannot fulfill his God-given responsibility if he is encumbered with the planning and administration of a multitude of programs, no matter how worthy and helpful they are. Again, like the apostles in Jerusalem, he cannot serve tables and be faithful to prayer and the ministry of the word, Acts chapter 6, verses 2 and 4. The surest road to a church's spiritual stagnation to the pastor's burnout or to both is for the pastor to become so engulfed in activities and programs that he has little time, too little time for prayer and the word. In a biblical philosophy of ministry, the one who is responsible for giving out the word had better take some time getting that prepared and digging into the word to make sure that it is given. I tell you, there are lots of churches that the pastors are so strung out with so many programs and activities and meetings and responsibilities all week long. They are struggling on Saturdays to try to come up with something to preach on Sunday. And you know where a lot of them are getting stuff is off the internet. For pulling other people's sermons down saying, man that looks pretty good. I think I could do that. There's a lot of that happening. I know a high profile pastor in the city of Charlotte who was fired from his church for plagiarism because he was doing that very thing. Pulling down sermons off the internet preaching them verbatim. You see, it is very, very difficult to spend the time if you're always being pulled 40 different directions. That's why I am so thankful that you have seen the vision of a staff of pastors and also of lay ministers, people like you who are serving and leading ministries. But I am thankful that we have a Jim Knopf singer who is Mr. Organization and Mr. Logical Analytical Figure Stuff out. I appreciate that so much because he does a lot of the building administration. When somebody says, I want to schedule room so and so for this event, I don't have to worry with that. He does all of that. It does a much better job than I would anyway. He takes care of the financial oversight of the church. He does the music as you well know and you wouldn't want me doing that. That would be a mess if I try to do that. So I'm thankful for men who are gifted like that to do those kinds of things in our senior ministry. I'm thankful for Jim Simmons because there are scores and scores of people every week who have needs, counseling needs, visitation needs, hospital needs, shut in needs. And if I were doing all of that, that's all I would get done. And so I'm so thankful that Jim really is my extension as the visitation pastor and counseling pastor to take care of those needs and he does a better job of it than I would do. So thankful for Kevin Shirey that he pours his life and ministry into these students. You saw a little bit of that this morning. In a couple of weeks, we're going to have a youth service on Sunday morning. You're going to get a real glimpse of what goes on as Kevin in title, so what really goes on in the basement. What really is happening with teen ministries and children's ministries and if you're like the deacons, when we heard this at our leadership retreat, we were just blown away by it. We said the whole church has to hear this. His vision for student and children's ministries. I'm so glad we have a man like that who is doing that kind of ministry because if I were trying to do that, that takes a lot of effort and a lot of work. I'm so thankful we've got someone like. So thankful for Judd who helps out with the visitation. Who takes Wednesday nights so that I can teach CLI and doing other ministries like college ministry and there are other things in the works for him to do later on. I'm thankful for men who help like that. You know why? Because if I don't give my time to the preparing of meals and food for the saints, then the church withers and suffers. That's my main responsibility. Don't get me wrong. I don't just sit in the office all day, just surround myself with books. I'm out of this ivory tower. At least half of my day is spent in administrative stuff and visiting people and counseling people and overseeing the whole church ministry and the staff and working with them on things they need to do. But the first five or six hours of my day has to be spent in this book and study and prayer and the ministry of the word and prayer. It's what the Bible says I'm supposed to be doing. You see? Because it's my job to prepare you for works of service. And if I don't spend the time to do that, the whole church suffers. So I am grateful that you have seen the wisdom and the need of these other men to do ministries that now the church is well served because of their ministries. But it takes all of us doing what God has gifted us and called us to do. That is God's process. Gifted people given to the church, they in turn prepare God's people for ministry and notice the result of that in the third step in church growth or process is verse 12. So that the body of Christ may be built up. The result is the body is built up. You see, growth occurs when we are all functioning in the way that God has gifted us and graced us to function in. When we're all doing what we do best, then growth occurs. And it's not just numbers. It's other kinds of growth. This we'll see in a few moments. When we talk about the purposes of growth, what really God's looking for when he talks about church growth. But we all have to be doing what God's gifted us to do. And when we do that, you and me and the other pastors, then this body will be built up. It will be strong and healthy. I remember reading a story about Ludwig von Beethoven, the great composer back in the 1800s. Beethoven was by the end of his life and career was death, totally death. In fact, he wrote his ninth symphony after he was completely death. He directed the orchestra and could not hear a note. Amazing story. His life is an amazing life. But anyway, one time he had a friend whose son had died. And Beethoven went over to the house. And by that time he was almost completely death and conversation was very awkward for him. And so he didn't say a word. He walked in, he put his arms around his friend, and then he walked over to the piano in the living room and started playing. And he poured out all of his emotion and feeling, sympathy, his grief, his love for his friend on that keyboard and just flowing from his heart, not something he had ever written before, just flowing from his heart, music. And then he got up after a half hour, walked back to his friend, put his arms around him and with tears walked out, never said a word. He was doing what he did best. And later that friend would say no other friend that came and ministered to me, ministered to me on his deep level as Beethoven did. You see, when the church is working right and everybody is doing what we're supposed to be doing, we're doing what we are gifted and graced to do, as God says here, then the church is healthy and strong and it's in the process of growing right when we do what we can do. And you may not be able to do what somebody else does, but you can do what you can do, what God has gifted and graced you to do. That's the process of church growth. Now let's look at the purposes of church growth in verses 13 to 15. In Paul's church growth model, these are the five purposes that we're to be shooting for. Five purposes of church growth. This is what we're aiming for. This is God's goals for us. The first one is unity. You see it there in verse 13? Until. Okay? He's talking about people who are pouring into God's people and the body's being built up until. Ah, this is what we're supposed to be shooting for. This is what we're growing toward until we all reach unity in the faith. All reach unity in the faith. Now we've talked a lot about unity in the last two or three weeks because that's what Paul talks about in Ephesians a lot. But just to remind you briefly that unity is oneness. It is commonness of goal and purpose. It is being of one heart and one mind when it comes to where we're headed as a church and what we're seeking to do, what our purposes are, what we're trying to accomplish. It is an emphasis on what we have in common and we saw last week that there are seven doctrinal themes that form the basis of our unity. Unity is not based on all the kinds of things that churches get upset and people get upset with each other about. That's not the basis for unity. The basis for unity is on those doctrines and that's why he says here again it's unity in the faith and those basic core doctrinal beliefs that we saw last week. The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, we're all in one body. Those kinds of things. One hope of heaven, one way of salvation, those basic doctrinal truths. That's where unity is found. But unity is sharing with one another and loving one another, helping one another as we move toward that goal of pleasing Christ and honoring Him. Oneness, fellowship, really sharing our lives together. A few years ago in the Special Olympics out in Seattle. One either mentally or physically challenged young people stood at the starting line of the hundred yard dash. And when the gun went off they all took off, not with a dash but with a resolve to get to the finish line and win the race. All that is except one young man. That one young man stumbled coming out of the start and tumbled down to the asphalt and rolled over a couple times and began to cry. So the others who were a few steps ahead of him heard him cry out and they all stopped. All eight of the others stopped immediately. And they turned around and looked to see what had happened. They saw this young man lying on the asphalt track crying. So all eight of them, without saying anything to each other, all eight of them instinctively turned around and walked back to where he was. One girl who had down syndrome planted a kiss on his cheek and said there that'll make it better. And the others helped him get up and then they locked arms and nine of them locking arms walked together toward the finish line and all finished at the same time. The crowd that was watching this erupted in applause and according to the story I read lasted for ten minutes as they witnessed that the race was not about me, not about my agenda. It was not about me being first. It's not about me getting my way. It's about us helping each other to the finish line. And that's what the body of Christ is. It's not about you or me or anybody's agenda. It's about oneness of purpose and goal and focus in glorifying Christ, reaching people for him and edifying them, building them up. It's all about that and helping each other. And when someone falls, cries out. We stop and we reach down and pick them up and help them along with us. It's unity and that's one of the purposes of church growth. A church needs to grow in fellowship, grow warmer together in fellowship in unity. Secondly, we are to grow, verse 13 says, in knowledge of Christ. You see it there? Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. How do you grow in your knowledge of the Son of God? Don't you come to know Christ when you get saved? You know Christ, isn't that what the Bible says? Yes, but this is not salvation knowledge. This is a deeper experiential knowledge of coming to know more about him and more of him. This is a deep and growing understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what He is like and what He means for you and what He's done for you. It's getting closer in relationship with Him. It's developing the kind of closeness and drawing near to Him that is a lifelong process of getting to know Him better so that you begin to read His thoughts. You begin to understand because you know how Jesus reacted in the gospels how He would react to a certain situation and you begin to live that out. That's growing in your knowledge of Christ. It's not just, I know more about Him, but you know Him. You know Him. You know who He is. What He's like, you know, what He would do? You're becoming more like Him. That happens as a result of what the Bible calls worship. The laying down in submission of our lives to Him, recognizing who He is, giving Him reverence and awe and honor for who He is and getting to know Him better. We are to grow in our knowledge of Christ. Thirdly, we are to grow in spiritual maturity. Look at it in verse 13. See the third one there at the end of the verse? And here's another way where to grow or purpose and become mature. Where to become mature, spiritual maturity. Now thankfully Paul defines spiritual maturity for us here. You see it in the last part of the verse? He says this is what it is, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So what is that talking about? Attaining to the whole measure of the wholeness of Christ. How do I do that? Well the full measure, the taining to the full measure, the idea here of the Greek word is the word balance, balance. And the fullness of Christ is the completion of His character, all that He is in His character. So what He's talking about here is growing in your balanced character of Christ, that you are beginning to learn and live out the same kind of character qualities that are found in the balanced character of the fullness of the character of Christ. And He says it in another way in verse 15. He says instead speaking the truth in love, we will in all things. Here it is, grow up into Him who is the head, that is Christ, grow up into Him. You see Christ is the model, Christ is the standard and it's almost as though we've got the model out here for us. And here we are, this little Christian growing and growing and we're growing into the model we're growing to fit the form to be like Jesus Christ. You see that's what we're growing up into, a Christian, a Christ follower, a little one who is like Christ. So spiritual maturity is becoming like Christ. And you know what? Spiritual maturity does not happen overnight. It's a lifelong process of growing in your understanding of Jesus and growing to be more like Him. And for two or three years you're working on this whole thing of patience and dealing with people. And then for the next three or four years you're working on the concept of joy and really focusing on that and then you realize, oh, patience is starting to slip a little bit again. It's a lifelong process of becoming more like Jesus. Now for those of you who are college students, you are right now entering the time of the semester when a very special and important activity in college life occurs. It's called cramming. Now there's several important features to cramming. The first important feature is procrastination. You wouldn't be in this situation. You wouldn't procrastinate it. You put off that paper to the last week or this exam you haven't studied for, oh man, the last night comes. And so what you do is you, you know, stoke up the coffee pot and you tie yourself to the desk and you just, I want to get this thing done. I'm going to type this paper or I'm going to study for this exam. And that can work in college because if you cram enough stuff in there and get to the exam room before it all leaks out your ears, you can usually get it done okay. Have you ever noticed though that there is no such thing as cramming in the agricultural world? Farmers don't cram. They can't cram. It's not like they can come to August and say, well, I guess it's about time. I'm kind of on the 8th of all here but I've got to get this stuff planted. So I better work really hard. Get this crop planted and this water as much as I can and then in a month we'll harvest it. Now, that doesn't work that way in farming. You know, I think that's why Jesus used so many agricultural metaphors when he talked about growth and the Christian life because you don't cram spiritual maturity. You can't get ready for it in a week. Spiritual maturity is a lifelong process of growing to be more like Jesus Christ but that's a very important kind of growth in the church is growth in spiritual maturity. The fourth kind of growth that Paul talks about is growth in doctrinal stability. Doctrinal stability. In other words, knowing what we believe. And by the way, growing to be more like Christ is in the Bible called discipleship. That's how we refer to it today. Discipleship but this is the other side of discipleship. Doctrinal stability. Now notice how Paul talks about being doctrinally stable. Knowing what you believe, he kind of comes in from the back door in verse 14. He talks about instability. Look at it in verse 14. He says then, you know, if we're growing like God wants us to, then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there. And here's what he's talking about by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. So he says, let's look at the negative of this and we'll be able to better understand what the positive is. What does it mean to be doctrinally stable? Well let's look at what it means to be doctrinally unstable. It means to be like a little child. The word for infant here is just a little child is not able to make up his mind yet. Not able to really make choices. You know what it's like when you take small children to a bascon robins or some other ice cream place where there's gazillion number of flavors and you say, what would you like? Takes a half hour to decide because first they want this, then they want that, then they want that. And once they finally decide and get it out in the car with their brother, look over with their brother and he's got that and they change their mind again. So they start fighting in the car. You know they're unstable. Instability as a child is normal. That's to be expected. They haven't matured yet. Instability as a Christian when it comes to what you believe. There's no excuse for that. No excuse for that. As long as you are growing in your understanding of the word of God. But you know every new fad that comes along, every new preacher that comes along, every new book that gets published, there are some Christians who because they don't have very deep roots, don't really understand what they believe. They're just all caught up in this new thing and this new guy, you know, and all of these new ideas that's being like a little child that can't decide on ice cream flavors. And it's also like someone being tossed back and forth by the way, every new wave of teaching that comes, you kind of ride that for a while or shifting around with the blowing wind. Paul is using negative illustrations of instability to give us the opposite of what we should be and that is so doctrinally stable that when that new idea comes floating down the stream or wind of doctrine blows our way, we're not shaken by it. We understand what the Bible teaches. We know what we believe and we're not shaken by it. That's why as a church, we are committed. To this side of discipleship which is growing more in our understanding of the Bible. That's why we have a chapel lay institute on a Wednesday night so that if you have opportunity you want to do that, you can study a little deeper. That's why we are serious about Bible fellowships where you study and understand the word of God and other Bible teaching opportunities. That's why we're serious in our youth ministry and children's ministry, as you'll hear in a couple of weeks we're serious about Bible teaching and discipleship because that's part of the growth process, a very important part of the growth process, growing doctrinally. Growth has to be balanced. Discipleship has to be balanced between developing the character of Christ and developing doctrinal stability, understanding what you believe. That's why Peter says in 2 Peter 3, verse 18, but grow two ways in the Bible. In the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, growing in grace in this passage is growing in character quality, is growing in knowledge, is growing in your understanding of what the word of God teaches about Jesus. So both are important. Character growth, growth and understanding of the word of God, both are important. But then if you will notice the fifth purpose of church growth, fifth thing were to be growing toward. And that is loving testimony in verse 15. Instead, instead of being wishy, washy, unstable Christians, instead, verse 15, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the head that is Christ, speaking the truth in love. That means that we give out the truth, both in evangelism, seeking to win people to Christ and in teaching believers to build them up in their faith. We give out the truth, but we do it in love. We're supposed to do it in love. There's, it's not a harsh, abrasive kind of giving out of the truth or living of the truth that we're to be about. We're to live and to give out the truth of God with the compassion of Jesus Christ with a real heart, concern and burden for other people. It's with love that we're to give out the truth. Not being harsh, not being judgmental, but with love that we give out the truth of God. We don't hedge on the truth, but we do it with love. Doug Nichols, some of you will know that name Doug Nichols is the director of Action International, a mission that we have a couple of missionaries with, David and Donald Jenkins. And if I'm not mistaken, John Robinson's granddaughter is married to one of Doug Nichols' sons, I believe. That's correct. But Doug Nichols, who's been a great missionary through the years, in 1967 was working with Operation Mobilization in India, a young man, and he contracted tuberculosis. And he was put in a TB clinic there in India, along with mostly national folks. And he would try to give out tracks. He hadn't been there long enough to learn the language. He didn't really know how to speak their language. He was trying to give out booklets and tracks to people and everyone politely refused them. No nurses would take them, no doctors would take them, no other patients would take them. And he tells the story about how in this ward that he was in every night, he would wake up in the middle of the night, coughing usually, about 2 o'clock in the morning. He'd have a coughing spell and it would wake him up. And the first time that happened, he noticed across the room, there was an older gentleman who was very frail and advanced stages of TB. And he would get himself up on the edge of his bed and it looked like he was trying to do something and he couldn't do it and he couldn't muster up the strength to get up. And so he would eventually fall back on his bed and just in exasperation, Christ softly through the night. Well, after that happened the first night, the next morning, Doug Nichol said, we knew exactly what he was trying to do. You could tell by the stench. He was trying to get to the restroom. And nobody would help him. And the poor man was not strong enough to get up out of his bed. He said that I watched as nurses came in and roughly handled him to clean up the mess. One nurse even slapped him. Patients were yelling things at him and Doug said, I watched as all that ended and he kind of curled up in a fetal position, just cried on his bed. Nightfall came again, sure enough. Again, Doug Nichol woke up around 2 o'clock in the morning, coughing. And he looked across the room and there that guy was again. Set up on the edge of his bed, trying, trying so hard to get up and he just couldn't do it. He fell back on his bed. Doug said, you know, I'm not much a one for bad smells and all of that, but he said, I just, my heart went out to him. So I went over and I tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up at me, his eyes grew wide with alarm. He thought he was going to get hit. He said, I slipped my arm under him, smiled at him to let him know I wanted to help him. I slipped my arm under him and I picked him up. He was so old and feeble from the TB that he was very frail. He said, I picked him up and I carried him to this little restroom they had in that ward and it was awful, just a little hole in the floor. And he said, I held him under his arms while he took care of himself and then helped him clean up and took him back to his bed. And when I laid him back in his bed, he said the man broke out in a huge smile and he reached up and planted a kiss on my cheek and said something that I couldn't understand. And then Doug went on back to bed. The next morning, a nurse walked in holding a cup of warm tea for Doug, gave it to him and motioned that she wanted one of those tracks. And so he gave her a track. Pretty soon other nurses were coming by. Doctors were coming by. Other patients were coming over. Evidently the word had gotten out. Other people had witnessed what had happened in the middle of the night. And Doug said a few days later an evangelist, an Indian evangelist came in and looked him up and said, you're Doug Nichols? Yeah. And he said, hey, I want you to know there are people around here who have gotten saved because of the literature you brought in. And Doug said, you know, I couldn't even speak their language and I couldn't break down the cultural barriers. All I did was take a guy to the bathroom. All I did was show the love of Christ and it opened incredible doors. You see, speaking the truth, if not coupled with acts of demonstration of Christ love, we'll really not go very far. You know, like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, we're just making noise if we don't back up what we say with the love of Christ. And so a church grows, a church grows as it grows in its ability to speak the truth, to take the gospel to people, yes, but to do it in loving ways, to do it in ways that reach out and help people get to the restroom, if that's what they need. That's speaking the truth in love. And that's one of the goals toward which we move as we grow. Listen, church growth is not just about buildings and numbers. In fact, it's very little about that. Church growth is about growing warmer in fellowship as we have unity one with another. It's about growing in our knowledge of Christ as we become closer to Him, and identify better with Him. It's being spiritually mature as we grow up into Him and develop His character. It's about doctrinal stability, knowing and understanding what we believe from this book. And it's about a loving testimony to people who are in need. That's what growth is all about. That's what growth is all about. And my friend, I love to see people saved and I love to see the church growing. I'd love to see new buildings and all of that, but all of that can go. All that can go if that's all it is. If there's no more substance than that. Church growth really needs to be about God's growth, the kind of growth we're developing, discipleship and worship and fellowship and those kinds of things. Evangelism, those are the purposes. Quickly, let's look at the power for church growth in verse 16, just two things that make it possible. The first one, Jesus Himself, notice, verse 16, from Him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. The first element of power in this growth, person of power is the church grows from the head. Just as the brain is the control center of all the functions of our body, Jesus Christ is the control center of the growth of His body. So it comes from the head, but this growth comes through the members. You notice how He talks about all of us being strategically placed in the body and carrying out our function in the body, from whom He says, from Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, notice as each part does its work. So we're all parts of this body. And just like all the parts of the human body are necessary in the body functioning properly, all the parts of the spiritual body, the church are necessary to it functioning properly. And some of you are like major organs of the human body, because you do major ministries that are the kind of the face of this church. But some of you are ligaments and tendons. You hold everything together by your organizational skills. Somebody else may be in the limelight, but you put things together and you organize stuff and you put an activity together or a ministry together and organize what needs to be done to pull it off. You're the ligaments, you're the tendons. Some of you are muscles that lend your hands to doing things that need to be done in order for the body to function properly. Some of you are like the nervous system. That with your words and example of exhortation, you keep the rest of us into action and keep us going. Some of you are like the life flowing oxygen in our blood. Because you give life through your encouragement to those who are doing the ministry and the parts of the body doing other things. You're an encourager. Some of you are like skin that protects us from all the bombardment of things that would destroy us because you give us a covering of prayer. You see, you're like a part of the body. You are a part of the body and you're like a part of the physical body. As everyone does its part, as everyone does what it's to do, then the body grows and we become one church, one purpose, doing what Christ wants us to do. I think maybe we've shown this clip before. We're going to show it again. I think we've got a clip right back there about from a movie called Drumline. Devon is a young man who's been given a scholarship to Atlanta A&T University and it's well known for its famous marching band. And he's kind of gotten there, cocky, arrogant, plays the drum. Nothing you can't show him. And he's going to be the prima donna of this band before long. He just knows. Well, the very first morning he gets a little taste of what training is like to be in Dr. Lee's band. It's not about anyone individual. Let's see what happens on that first morning of band training camp. We got it. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning to music. Good morning and welcome to Atlanta A&T University marching band training. The next two weeks will be your introduction and possibly induction into a great marching band legacy. If you're here, it's because you believe in musicianship. If you're here, it's because you believe in cold train, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, and the elements known as Earth Wind and Fire. If you are here, it is because you have a fervent, unequivocal belief and teamwork. And if you wish to remain here, you better start believing in being on time. You. Who is your roommate? Uh, Devin, Miles. Sorry. Ah, it's front. Sup, Dr. Lee? It's all good, Mr. Miles. Glad to have you here. Thank you, sir. Why was he late? I guess he always slept. Well, why didn't you wake him? I'm not his mother, sir. I asked Mr. Miles why his roommate was late. He says he guesses he overslept. I asked why didn't you wake him? And he says he is not his mother. Section leaders, what is our concept? One band. One sound. One band. One sound. When one of us is late, we are all late. When one of us looks or sounds bad, we all look and sound bad. So what's the concept? One band. One sound. Now I want 10 laps from all those who are not their roommates mama. Don't whine. And why are you jogging around the field at the road? Okay, I want 10 laps around the auditorium from... No, no, no, I won't do that. Promise you. But the idea translates, doesn't it? One church. One goal. One purpose. Together. We help each other toward and across the finish line. Someday we're going to see Jesus. One who finished well. Will we finish well? Let's pray together. Father. Thank you for the way you've described how you want the church to grow. And I pray that you would help us to grow. Help us to grow in the ways and toward the goals that you have set out for us. And may we do that together. One church. One purpose. One goal. And Jesus' name we pray. Amen.