No Longer Children

8/25/19 Ephesians 4:11-16

We are no longer to be children. There is a time to be a child and in fact act like one. But my guess is if you’re reading this, you should no longer be acting like a child, at least not in the spiritual sense.

Children just go with the flow – as the wind blows – by every wind of doctrine - tossed about uncontrollably on the sea… they act on instinct until they learn better. Maturity however, looks different. Very different.

We are to grow up in all aspects… that is in our Christian life. Make sure you’re taking the right steps and are in the right place to be growing into a mature follower of Christ.

And since we can’t do it all at once, we’ll have to do some growing every day. Each and every day there will be some growing to do. Have you grown up some today? I think it’s a pretty worthy and simple goal to continue to have: to grow up some, each and every day. Never stop growing up. The body of Christ depends on, “…the proper working of each individual part…” in order to grow. When we each do our assigned part, it causes growth in the body. So it could be said, that you’re not only hurting yourself when you’re not taking responsibility for growing, but you’re stunting the growth of the body of Christ as well. One way to tell if there is growing happening is how you answer this question: “In the church, are you a contributor or a consumer?”

You can see the problem for the body if you’re just a consumer right? It causes just the opposite of growth in the body… When we contribute, give and serve, the body grows and we grow individually. Do we really need more motivation?

When we come to church with a posture of sitting back and saying, “ok, impress me”, we’re likely to never grow – let alone grow up and mature. That is a child’s attitude. It’s childish. We might expect to see that kind of attitude in a high or middle school Sunday school class but not in a adult SS class – unless of course your growth is already really stunted.

You’re likely to get out of church only as much as you’re willing to put into it.

Come to the Lord today with this prayer: “Show me how I can contribute. What do I need to do today in order to grow up some?”