Growing in Christ

1 · Reading the text

Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. Chapter 4, verse 11. We read this and then we'll pray. "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 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, 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."

"Rather…" — let me pause there just to point out this word. I don't know if I'll return to it. The word rather here means, in essence, you have two choices. Either you're going to be tossed to and fro by every wind and wave, or you can do the thing that comes after. "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 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."

3 · Not all growth is good

Well, this passage has a lot to say about growth. The word growth appears twice in this particular passage, and it appears elsewhere in the book of Ephesians as well. I would say when I was younger, hearing the word growth always kind of just immediately went to the positive. When I hear something's growing, I think, oh, good. That sounds good. But I feel like as I've gotten older, I hear the word growth more like the way a dermatologist hears the word growth. You know, maybe even sometimes the way an oncologist hears the word growth.

It's not, I still think it's probably mostly a positive word in my heart, but not nearly as positive as it used to be. I feel like a lot of us have seen things grow and then just shrivel. A lot of things grow in ways that weren't good, that maybe we thought they were good initially. And, you know, Jesus is so good. Like, this is a category he covers. I'm not sure we're always paying attention, but this is a category he covers in the Gospels all the time.

6 · The thesis

But I want to suggest that none of these things — none of these three things, numerical growth, relational growth, or theological growth — are in and of themselves good things. I want to suggest that none of those three, relational growth, theological growth, or numerical growth, are in and of themselves good things. I think something else is necessary, something essential is necessary to make growth good. And if we look back through the text, I would say that that thing necessary is Christ.

11 · The blind spot

But my job is not to preach to the people who aren't here. I'm thinking, okay, we know that. What don't we know? I wonder if we are as equally aware that neither relational growth or theological growth is good if it isn't in Christ. I would say that's most likely our particular blind spot.

I think we are rightly cautious, at least at the discernment level — not negative against it, but just thoughtful — about when someone says, "our church is really growing numerically," we immediately think, okay, I would want to hear more. But I would tell you that sometimes when we hear that this or that church is growing, we think, "but are they growing closer? are they growing in theology?" I would say that reveals our own blind spots, because the only question that ever really matters is, are they growing in Christ? Is this numerical growth in Christ? Is this relational growth in Christ? Is this doctrinal growth in Christ?