Healthy Church - Strong Church | Purposeful Disciple - Making (November 10th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, I don't know about you, but I am ready to get my Bible open, and so I would invite uh you to do the same right now as uh as we do that.

Turn your Bibles to uh Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Now, uh right out of the gate here, we're gonna be looking at a few different places in the scriptures here this morning, which is a little bit different than how I would normally uh preach here.

Normally we just kind of stay in in one passage and kind of mind down on that and kind of work through it verse by verse and and word for word, even and work through all of that.

Today uh is a little bit different.

We're gonna be jumping around to a few uh different passages.

And by the way, if you don't have a Bible with you or or you prefer not to have to flip around or what have you, this stuff that these passages are gonna be on the screen as we go along here.

Um, but today uh we are beginning a brand new series called Healthy Church, Strong Church.

Okay, this will center on the kind of local church that we aspire to be.

All right, so this is really going to be kind of like this overarching, all right, uh kind of view of the core values that we are committed to as Redemption Church.

Now, I want to kind of start off here by making it really clear to you because you know you might kind of be wondering in your mind, you're like, man, new church name, and there's you know, new new signage out there, and it's a new website and this like connection, like everything's kind of different, right?

You might be kind of tempted, you know, to wonder and think, like, man, are is like kind of the foundation and the and the guts and the DNA of our church, is that all changing as well?

Right?

Not a bad question to ask.

Well, I would say here that the the answer to that question is a resounding no.

Okay, I have really kind of like to think about this as you know, same church, new name.

All right, so this series here is essentially a kind of a reframing of the things that we have always been about.

Right?

It's an opportunity for us to to kind of look at what God has called us to uh as redemption, right?

To to really lay out and and make it very clear to everybody what our culture is, right?

What's the culture that we're trying to build here?

What is the the DNA that we want to see this church be all about?

And and what does the Bible have to say about these things?

Right?

What does the Bible have to say about a healthy church and a strong church?

And so we want to we want to outline that for you starting this morning, and then really the you know, the thrust for us really becomes for each one of us here to kind of rally around that, right?

All right, that this is this is the church that we want to see God build, this is the the work that we want to see him do in my heart, in our hearts.

So let's like let's go, right?

Like let's let's get after this together.

Okay, so whereas you know in the past, you've heard us talk, we've done different teaching series, and you know, we talk about this in step one and two and all of that, but you've heard you've heard us, you know, using some of the language of you know, four pillars, right?

Four pillars and and three W's, worship, walk, work.

Well, where we've been using that kind of language, we're kind of making a change here and gonna be starting to use the language of our six distinctives.

All right, and there's actually like a like a display banner out there that that kind of outlines that for you, and I'm sure some of you are looking at that uh here this morning.

And so these six distinctives here are going to make up uh the content of our series.

Now we're gonna be taking a break here in just a few short weeks.

It blows my mind to think about this.

A Christmas is coming.

Right?

So we're gonna have a Christmas series, kind of in the middle of this.

We're gonna talk about a number of these things, do Christmas, and then in the new year, we're gonna finish off this series, but you see it all there on the screen.

These are our six distinctives.

And just so you know, you don't need to fear, uh, our old four pillars are built uh right into this, okay?

And so you see the first one there, top left, is fervent prayer.

Right?

When you look at the New Testament and you see what the scriptures are about, the church was a church that prayed, right?

We prayed with fervency, we prayed, you know, hard, we prayed in faith, and so fervent prayer is gonna be actually what we're gonna look at next week.

You see there, uh bold preaching, right?

Bold preaching.

I've said this a number of times, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what my opinion is as a person, as a man, even as a pastor, right?

And it doesn't really matter what any of our opinions are.

What matters is this book, right?

It matters what God has given us in his word, it matters what he says and what he thinks.

And so what we want to do is we want to open up the Bible, as we're gonna be doing here this morning.

We just want to look at that.

What does he have for us?

We want to proclaim that.

That's where the power is in a church, right?

To preach and preach it boldly.

Passionate worship.

You see that there.

It was so encouraging to hear you uh sing hard this morning.

And so passionate worship is something that we're about.

If Christ is as amazing as his word says he is, if salvation is as awesome as we uh know it is, then we should be giving glory to him.

We should be worshiping him, we should be praising him uh with passion, right?

And this is something that we do, of course, corporately here as the church, but we should also be just individually doing this and cultivating a lifestyle of worship where we honor and glorify him.

All right, you see, purposeful disciple making there.

So that uh is a little bit of a new frame up there.

And actually, what we're gonna be talking about here this morning, and so we'll have more of that to come here.

Uh, the uh the fifth one there is courageous evangelism.

Remember, that was one of our pillars as well.

And so as we grow, as we get a you know, a passion in our souls for Jesus Christ, and as we you know give honor to him, we should, you know, have have this burden and this longing and this desire to make him known to others, right?

To share our faith, to invite you know, invite people, our neighbors, our friends, our family, to church, right?

Have them come because we want them to hear the good news that we have heard, and we have their eyes opened as our eyes have been opened.

And so courageous evangelism is one of our distinctives.

It's about being, it's about being bold in that.

It's not about shrinking back and being and being fearful uh in any way in those things.

And then you see the final one there, which is strategic church planting.

And you see all of these things in the New Testament, okay?

And so really what we're doing here is we're adopting uh this new language, the you know, the language of the six distinctives, uh from uh the Great Commission Collective.

So that is the the GCC is the network of churches uh that we belong to.

We belong to uh for two years now, and uh, we're excited to be a part of, and a number of churches in Ontario and across Canada and across the world that are a part of this, and it's really a church planting movement.

They exist to strengthen churches and then help churches plant more churches, and so I'm thrilled about all of that.

We're gonna hear a sermon on just you know church planting and what that is all about from the scriptures and look at the New Testament and how did they do that, and you know, and how are we involved in doing that?

And so that's where we get some of this language from.

Uh, but of course, most importantly, it's the New Testament that we get all this from.

Right?

The New Testament shows us that these you know six things are the major components of any you know healthy and strong church.

All right, so the kind of church, of course, that God blesses.

Now, I don't know about you, but I mean that's the kind of church that I want to be involved in.

I want to be a church uh where I'm part of a church where God is on the move, where God is at work, where we're where people are getting saved, where lives are being transformed.

We've heard a couple of testimonies of that already uh here this morning.

And I want to be a part of that.

That's what's drawn me to this uh work, and and and so I'm thankful to be a part of all of this.

And so the first distinctive that we're gonna be looking at here today is purposeful disciple making.

Now you might be thinking, well, like why start there?

Well, we could have started at at really any of them, but we want to begin here by casting just like the overall vision of or for discipleship uh in our church, right?

That's what we want to do, right?

So this, you know, this is what our mission statement uh says we are all about.

We can actually get the mission statement up there right now, and so just so you know, this hasn't changed uh at all.

The mission is still the same, right?

You see it, that we we exist to you know glorify God through the fulfillment, okay?

The fulfillment of the great commission, which we're gonna see the passage there in just a moment, in the spirit of the great commandment.

Now, the spirit of the great commandment that comes to us from Matthew chapter 22, where it tells us to love God and uh and love neighbor, love people, right?

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

So if we exist to glorify God, that's our overarching purpose.

That's what it's about.

It's not about us, right?

It's not about the you know, us getting the fame, it's not about us strutting around like we're all that.

It's about you know pointing the glory back to God.

That's who deserves it.

He is the one, he is the only one who can handle glory.

And so if that is our purpose and that's what we're about, then listen, we better, you know, put our hands to the plow, so to speak, and we better get after this, right?

We better get to it, and we better glorify him and see all of these things, you know, happen.

I see disciples being made.

And so, really, the question here for us is you know, are we doing this?

Right?

That's an important question for us to kind of wrap our heads around.

Are we are we each doing this?

This isn't just about uh, you know, a pastor or a staff or elders or leaders or whatever doing this and making disciples, it's about every single person, you know, doing our part.

So are we?

Are you?

Am I?

Right?

Are we doing this in our own lives?

Right?

It starts with us being disciples, right?

Are we, you know, are we discipling ourselves, so to speak?

Are we submitting ourselves to God's word?

Are we submitting ourselves, humbling ourselves before Him and asking Him and seeking Him to change our hearts and move and transform?

Are we doing this in our families?

Husbands?

Are we discipling our wives?

Are we leading them in love and gentleness?

Are we discipling our children, moms and dads?

Are we are we leading them to the cross?

Are we are we showing them their need for a savior?

Are we encouraging them in all these things?

Are we pointing them to the scriptures?

Are we making all of these things a priority?

And then of course, hey, are we doing this as a church?

Are we doing this here?

Are we doing this together?

Are we doing this in a mutual sense?

So listen, we're gonna unpack some of these things here this morning.

We're gonna get into it.

I just want to pray first, and so why don't you join me as we bow our hearts?

Lord, we come before you and and recognize that this is a big time and season in life of our church, God.

Father, it's an important kind of reset here as we look at what our culture is and what our DNA is.

And so, Father, as we do that and as we open up your word and we look at what it means to be about making disciples and being purposeful about that, God, I pray that you'd have mercy on our church, Lord.

We know that we are not perfect.

Lord, we know that we all have weaknesses.

Or we know that we're all in the middle of our own sanctification and growth.

And I pray that we would we would be a church that loves each other and be patient with each other and all of that.

I pray that, Lord, you would continue to work and move and pour out your spirit and give us grace, Lord, and and help us to grow, mature, and become a church that just grows deeper in love with Christ and just has more of an impact in this area and beyond.

And so, God, would you have again mercy on us?

Help us, oh God, we pray, Lord.

We can't do this on our own.

Apart from you, we can do nothing.

And we recognize that.

And when we admit that, Lord, that is when we're in the right place for you to move and you to work.

And so, God, we pray that you would do just that in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

So if you uh are a note taker here and you've got uh some some notes there with you, this will be on the screen.

But here's the first thing here today: three things uh in your notes.

We are committed to glorifying God through purposeful, okay?

Purposeful disciple making.

All right, I like that word purposeful.

I think what it does there is it it conveys kind of this dogged determination, right?

Like we're we're determined to do this.

There, you know, it conveys this resolve, right?

Like I'm resolute in this, I'm I'm going after this, I'm enthusiastic about it.

Right?

It's not just like this serious thing, and you know, I'm kind of miserable as I go about this, and I guess I have to, and I'm going, no, we're enthusiastic, but we're joyful.

There's this you know holy ambition in the church to see discipleship happen.

Right?

I love that word, purposeful.

I think it also conveys intentionality.

Intentionality.

We want to be intentional about how we disciple, about what discipleship is about in our church.

And I would just say that across the board, you know, across North America in general, I think we have really lost this as a ch as churches.

I think we've lost the intentionality of this.

I think sometimes we think that, well, you know, if I, as long as I kind of show up, it's all just gonna, it's just gonna happen organically.

And we don't really need to have a plan, and we don't really need to think it through.

And sometimes we even think, oh, the spirit will just do it all for me.

No, we need to be intentional about this.

We kind of have to have a framework here, and and listen, that framework better be biblical, and then we've got to be purposeful.

We have to, again, we have to go after this in a strong and determined uh way.

Right?

So we're committed to this, committed, and here's the first thing as it's the clear mission that we've been given.

Right?

It's the clear mission, and I think we see this in Matthew 28, verses 19 and uh and 20, and this is probably not you know a passage that you've never read before.

Matthew 28:19

If you've been coming to our church before, we've talked about this, and this is really where you know we get the great commission from.

And so understand that this is Jesus' final words uh to his disciples.

His final words.

So he has he has lived his his earthly ministry, he has he has already died on the cross, he's he was in the ground for three days, he he rose victoriously from the grave, came back to life, defeated sin, defeated death.

He he'd appeared to just hundreds of people, he'd appeared to his disciples, he'd explained to them, he's like, hey, listen, the Old Testament prophesied about all these things.

The Old Testament, all of it actually points to me and what I would come and do.

And so he's told them about all of these things, and and as he is getting ready to ascend and go be with his father, these are his final words.

And so, as you can imagine, if they're Jesus' final words in his earthly ministry, they're probably, I don't know, important, right?

And so they are, and so here's what he says he says in verse 19, go therefore and make disciples, right?

Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

He says, teaching them.

So discipleship, a big part of discipleship is all is teaching as well, teaching the scriptures, teaching them to observe, he says, all that I have commanded you.

And I love this.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Don't you just love how Jesus ended that?

He's not like, hey guys, here are your marching orders, here's this rather significant task of going out and making disciples all over the planet.

Have fun, figure it out.

No, he's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be with you, right?

I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna strengthen you, I'm gonna give you my Holy Spirit that is coming, and he is going to be your power, he is going to be your strength, he's going to be your wisdom in all this.

He is going to, through you, make all of this happen.

I love that.

I love that.

We're not we're not on our own.

We're not just, you know, kind of trying to figure this out by ourselves.

No, we have God's power, God's spirit with us.

Jesus Himself is with us to the very end.

To the very end.

He doesn't leave us, he doesn't forsake us.

Now, first off, I think as we're thinking about disciple or you know, or you know, and discipleship, I think we have to really just ask the foundational question here.

Uh, what is that?

Right?

Like what is a disciple?

What is discipleship?

Okay, well, really simply put, a disciple uh is a follower.

Okay, a disciple is uh is a follower.

So so a disciple of Jesus is is someone who follows him, right, who follows his commands, follows his ways.

And so, more specifically, it's a person who has who has humbled themselves, right?

Who has who has admitted their their pride, who has admitted that their sin is against a holy God, and that presents a very significant problem when it comes to being in a relationship with him.

And so a disciple is one who's so who's humbled themselves and and and repented of their sin, has have turned from their sin and trusted in Christ's saving work on the cross on their behalf.

Right?

He is He is their Savior now, He provides forgiveness, He is their He is their Lord.

Now, another word for Lord is master.

So when we submit our lives to Christ, when we get saved, He is now our our Lord, Savior, He's our master.

And so we follow Him.

Right?

We look to Him, we submit our lives to Him.

Now, discipleship is the process of becoming more like Christ in both our hearts and like our attitudes and our in our motivations, all of that.

And then, of course, all of that leads to holy action, leads to right behavior, leads to obeying Christ.

Okay, so according to verse 18 here, okay, disciples of Christ are tasked with the mission to do what?

To make more disciples, right?

To make even more of them.

He says, Go therefore and do this work, right?

Complete this task.

Now you might be thinking, all right, man, like I you know, I kind of I kind of see the plan a little bit, at least from a kind of a 30,000-foot level here, it's it's it's make disciples, okay?

But but can you kind of like, can you kind of zoom in on that a little bit?

Can you kind of unpack that?

Can you you know give me some bite-sized chunks here that I can grab hold of and and kind of digest a little bit?

So glad you asked.

Okay, because here's a phrase that I've heard recently, and I don't even know who came up with it.

I'm not claiming it as at all, I'm not smart enough.

Uh, but here's what some of our churches have been using, and I love that.

You see it on the screen.

This is, you know, I think this really nails you know what the process of discipleship looks like, really.

And this and this is really what we're all about here.

Okay, so this is simple, but it's clear, it gets after it.

Remember this, memorize it.

It's lost people saved, saved people matured, matured people multiplied, all to the glory of God.

Right?

So let's kind of unpack that a bit.

Lost people saved.

That's what the discipleship starts with.

It starts with salvation, right?

And then so here as a church, we're committed to proclaiming the gospel, right?

The the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ went to the cross, he he died for your sins, right?

He offers you forgiveness if you would humble yourselves, if you would admit your sin, if you would confess that to God, if you would trust that what Jesus did was uh was substitutionary, right?

Meaning that that it should have been you that died.

It should have been you that suffered God's holy anger, God's holy wrath.

But yet but Jesus was like, no, like I love them so much, I want to step in for them.

I want to take their punishment, even though he was innocent, even though he was blameless.

Right?

The gospel tells us that this is what Jesus did.

And that he rose again, he defeated death, he was the perfect sacrifice on our behalf.

God the Father accepted that, and if we would trust in Jesus Christ, we would be saved.

Right?

We would be saved, we would be united in a relationship with the God of creation, right?

This is what we are committed to as a church.

We're committed to seeing lost people saved.

That's that's a crucial, that's like the foundational element of discipleship.

And the gospel is the foundation of what discipleship looks like, you know, from the beginning right through to the end of your life.

We constantly, constantly go back to the gospel.

And so when those lost people get saved, they then the process becomes well, how how do we mature now?

Right?

Like how do we how do we grow?

How do we get to the point where we are stronger in Christ?

Where we love him more passionately, you know, with the sins that we struggle with, where we're seeing you know the Lord's strength in those areas.

Where we're you know, we're experiencing you know spiritual gifts and God is empowering us to serve other people and and and we love him, and that humility is being is being you know pressed deeper into our hearts and into our souls.

But how do we grow in a matured way?

Well, it's a big that's a big part of this.

We're gonna talk more about maturity in a minute.

But then from saved people matured, it then becomes that those mature people are multiplied, right?

And this is a huge part too, right?

It's not just about you know growing mature so that I can feel pretty good about my maturity.

Right?

That's not it.

Now I want to like multiply the work that's been done in me by Christ.

I wanna I wanna press that and work in other, see that work in other people's lives.

Right?

And so maybe you have already sensed in your life, in your walk with Christ, okay, that that God has now given you a desire.

Man, I want to pick up a hammer and start swinging it, metaphorically.

I want to get to work.

I want to serve in the church, and I want to serve according to my gifts.

And for some of you, that's gonna be, you know, maybe maybe just kind of the way you're wired, and depending on your gifts, you want to serve in a background role.

It's awesome.

Some of you, you know, maybe have a teaching gift, or or or you're you're you know you kind of have leadership potential and all of that.

And so the Lord is kind of spurring you and motivating you to use your gifts and serve in the church and see the work that Christ has done in your life be done in the lives of other people.

And the more mature we get, the more we multiply that maturity and the more the Holy Spirit does it through our actions, through our work, through our commitment to Him, the healthier and the stronger our church becomes.

And then, of course, I love that last part.

All of this, all of it, is done to the glory of God.

Right?

Again, it's not about us.

Right?

I know that there's, you know, talk about redemption church, and I know that there's a new paint job everywhere and new signage and all of that.

At the end of the day, it's not about any of that stuff.

That stuff can burn up, that stuff can rip, that stuff can break.

It's about God's glory.

The focus, the spotlight, that's not on us, that's not on me.

I don't want any of that.

Right?

It's about Jesus Christ.

The glory goes to Him.

We're doing all of this because He saved us.

And so, of course we want to live for Him.

Of course we want to carry out His commands.

We want to do it.

And so, again, the question that each of us really needs to ask here is, you know, Am I committed to this?

Right?

You have to individually.

I can't make you get there.

You have to ask yourself, Am I committed, Am I committed?

Do I want to see this happen?

I mean, the mission is is clear.

Right?

Jesus didn't shy away from that.

It's not nebulous or anything.

So again, am I actually doing it?

And then more specifically, am I committed to all of this?

Am I committed to this whole thing?

You know, so again, you kind of look at it again.

Am I committed to seeing lost people saved?

Right?

Or am I am I too fearful when it comes to evangelism?

Am I committed to sharing my faith?

Am I committed to inviting people to church?

I saw online just this week uh a noted atheist, right?

An atheist is someone who doesn't believe there's a God at all.

Right?

But this this atheist he was saying, hey, listen, I have zero respect for people who do not proselytize.

I have zero respect for people who don't evangelize.

He's like, if you Christians truly believe that heaven and hell exists, right?

And this is where all people are going, to one or the other.

He's like, how much hatred do you have to have in your heart to not tell me that?

Right?

All because you think, like, wow, it might be a little socially awkward.

I mean, that that is like a devastating word.

Like devastating.

Are we are we committed to this?

Are we committed to seeing lost people saved?

Are we committed to seeing saved people matured?

Right?

Sometimes some of us we kind of get saved and we think, well, you know, my foot's in the door now.

I know, I know kind of where I'm headed, I know that I'm headed towards towards heaven, and so now I'm just gonna kind of mail it in, right?

Mail it in Friday.

That's kind of how I live my life.

And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get to work and I don't really care, and I'm gonna kind of just coast.

Are you committed to your maturity?

Right?

Some of us are very committed to other people's maturity.

That person needs to be better, that person's lame, right?

And so we want to see it happen in them, but not in our own lives.

Are you committed to seeing you know matured people multiplied?

Do we want to see, you know, leadership growing in our church?

Do we want to see maturity spreading out all the way across?

Right?

Are you committed to maybe parts of this?

Are you committed to this being for the glory of God?

Or do you find this like, no, I want this for me?

Do you sense that that is that's kind of the motive and the attitude of your heart?

Why am I not in a position of leadership?

Why do I not get to serve in this way?

Or why am I, right?

It's not about you, it's not about us at all.

Are you committed to the glory of God?

This and we got a mission to accomplish here.

Christ promises to be with you and I always to the very end of the age.

He's like, hey guys, I'm with you.

I'm with you.

Let's let's go.

Here's the second thing.

We're committed to glorifying God through purposeful disciple making so that we can all grow spiritually mature.

And we've talked a bit about the maturity piece already, but here it is in Ephesians uh chapter four.

We see that unpacked a little bit for us.

Man, there's just so much, so much here I would love to get into it, but we're gonna move through it somewhat quickly.

Uh, verses 11 to 16, it's on the screen, it says, and he, that's referring to Jesus, gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers.

Okay, so just think like the leaders of the church, he gave them, okay, to equip the saints, to equip the other Christians for the work of ministry.

Right?

So he gave pastors and leaders and all of that.

He gave them to equip the saints, to train them, to disciple them, to do the work of further discipleship.

Right?

So it's not about you know one person or two people in the church or you know, a small number of people in the church doing all the work of the church.

It's about all of us doing the work.

Okay, keep going.

For the building up of the body of Christ.

What's the body of Christ?

Well, that's the church.

Right?

Christ's plan is here like to see us built up, right?

To see us grow, to see us be mature.

And then he says there to until we all attain the unity.

Okay, I love that idea of unity together.

We're gonna get into that more later, right?

The unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to, here it is, mature, right?

Mature manhood, okay, or womanhood, right?

Maturity is the key, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, which is a rich sentence, which is basically saying it's about Christ's likeness in all of us.

That we would resemble Jesus more, right?

The sinful desires, the sinful actions, all of that that we had.

As we mature, as we grow, that stuff should start to be weeded out of us as the Holy Spirit grows us and transforms us.

We should become more like Jesus.

We should resemble Jesus more the more that we grow.

Not less like him, more like him.

Keep going.

It says, so that we may no longer be children.

Now that's that that's children spiritually speaking.

He's not looking down on kids at all.

He's talking spiritually, right?

Spiritual infants, spiritual immaturity, 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.

Have you seen that in your life?

Have you seen that in the lives of other people?

People that get kind of excited, yeah, I'm gonna come to church and you know, I uh and I'm gonna make a profession of faith, maybe even.

But then over time, what ends up happening because they're not being discipled, or because they're not truly saved, maybe they start to kind of wander away.

And they hear some kind of teaching that that's out there.

It's not even biblical, but they start to follow it and start to go after that, and the world's values grips them and takes them.

Right?

Spiritual maturity is so crucial in the life of a church that we would stand firm for Jesus.

Okay, it keeps going, keep going.

Here it says, rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow, right?

Grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, that's the church, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part, okay, so that's each person you're in the church, when each person, each part is working properly, okay, which suggests to us that it's very possible to be in the church and not working properly, okay, when each part, each person is working properly, makes the body, that's the church as a whole, grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Okay, so you can see here that that just a massive part of uh of the function and and and all of the effort that we put forth here and and and and the purpose of the church, you know, is simply to grow.

Right?

We're to grow, that we would grow spiritually, that we would grow mature.

That's what the building up of the body of Christ is about.

Again, we would all grow to resemble Jesus Himself.

Because to be spiritually mature is what a healthy and strong church looks like.

Now, when you think about spiritual maturity, okay, how do you picture that?

Okay, like what comes to mind?

Like what is what does a what is a spiritually mature person, you know, uh, look like in your head?

Right?

Like how how do you imagine that?

Right?

Maybe for you it's you know it's someone who has knowledge, right?

Someone who has knowledge.

I know that sometimes when we you know become Christians and we feel like that this is all so new to us, and sometimes we're so kind of intimidated or impressed by people that just seem to know the Bible.

Right?

People that have memorized scriptures, they know where to point, they know where to go, and so you know we look at that and say, well, somebody who you know who's a mature believer has knowledge.

And I would say that's absolutely correct.

Right?

Maturity, part of maturity is growing in knowledge and growing in understanding of the word of God because we're humbling ourselves and we're reading it because we know we need it.

We need to, we know we need to kind of think the way God thinks and live the way God lives and love the way God loves.

But let's be honest here, some of the most knowledgeable people in the scriptures, not mature.

Okay, not mature.

I I think about the you know the religious leaders uh in the New Testament, right?

You think about the you know the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes.

I mean, those guys had like peak knowledge.

They knew the Bible inside and know.

They had it, they had it memorized.

I mean, they were adding to it because they didn't think it had enough rules, right?

And so they were, you know, they were full of knowledge.

The problem was that they they walked around like they were all that.

And they and they and they and they were harsh towards people.

They had all the knowledge in the world, but they weren't exactly kind.

I mean, they did something else that wasn't really great.

It was like, oh yeah, right, they killed Christ.

Right?

Like how like I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure like spiritually mature people wouldn't do that.

Right?

So at the end of the day, we have to be careful to not just pigeonhole knowledge as everything when it comes to spiritual maturity.

It's a part of it, totally.

But are we are we growing in love?

Do we care for people?

Are we being, you know, are are the hard corners of our heart softening?

Are we judgmental?

Are we hard on each other?

Right?

So knowledge is part of it.

Okay, but maybe for you when you picture a spiritually mature person, you think about somebody who's gifted.

Right?

When I think about spiritual maturity, it's that gifted person who's just so amazing at whatever they do, right?

They're so talented.

And absolutely, as you grow in maturity, right, God is gonna give you spiritual gifts.

He gives everybody spiritual gifts that we're used to to you know to serve the church and to glorify God.

But of course, we also know that a lot of people who are supremely talented and have a lot of gifts are, you know, again, they're not mature.

Right?

And we have to remember, remember that that character always trumps competency.

Right?

Just because someone's really good at something doesn't mean that they're necessarily mature.

Perhaps for you, when you think about spiritual maturity, you picture somebody who is who is older, right?

And for you, it's kind of a if it's it's an age thing and they're a little bit further down the line in you know, in experience and in life, and you know, maybe it's more gray hair or less hair or no hair, right?

And that's that's kind of what you think.

And it's an age thing, and certainly, you know, the longer we're Christians and the more we're abiding in him and and holding fast to him, he's transforming us, the more mature we should be towards the end of our lives.

Right?

But I think it's also true that that some of the most bitter people are sometimes older people, right?

Even people who claim to be Christians, but they're just miserable.

Because they haven't allowed the trials, maybe, and the difficulties, and the pain and the hurt, and just the difficulty that life is, they haven't worked through that properly and it's created a root of bitterness in them.

I'm not trying to oversimplify that by any means.

But just but just age, I mean, that that's that's part of that can be part of maturity, certainly.

But it doesn't mean that young people can't be growing in maturity as well.

And so, again, like what is spiritual maturity then?

Again, if if growing in knowledge and using your spiritual gifts and growing wise as you grow older are definitely aspects.

But some other themes that I think pop out all throughout the New Testament is something like humility.

Right, I've referenced that a few times, but humility is a huge part of spiritual maturity.

I think about Philippians chapter 2, right?

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

The example of Christ, Christ's humility, how he humbled himself.

This is God of creation.

He humbled himself to the point of death, dying for people that just have done nothing but sin against God.

But he humbled himself because he loved us so much and he presents the perfect model for us.

And as we grow in Christ, not just about you know growing smarter or wiser or more gifted or all of those things.

It's about growing in humility.

I also think when it comes to spiritual maturity, I think things like fruits of the spirit.

We should be seeing those in our lives as we grow in maturity.

I think Galatians 5 spells that out for us in verses 22, 23.

Right, as we're growing in maturity, it should be about things like love, right?

Joy.

Is your joy growing?

Peace, patience, kindness, kindness, right?

Goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

As we grow mature in these things, we'll see more of the fruit of the spirit.

This is not up to you to produce in your life.

It's the fruit of who?

The Spirit, right?

The Spirit does the work in you, He transforms your hearts.

I think another good picture of just, you know, kind of a what's what spiritual maturity can look like in the scriptures is, you know, where we find the elder qualifications.

Right?

You see those in passages like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1.

Titus 1 · chapter mention

And I think sometimes what we see is we we look at those qualifications and we're like, oh, that's just for the select couple of men that are gonna lead the church.

Well, if you really think about it, that's really just kind of a picture of maturity that we should all be kind of working towards, right?

Whether or not we would ever become like an official elder in that kind of a capacity.

Right?

I love uh what Mark Dever says.

Mark Dever is a pastor of a church uh in DC, okay, and he has a ministry called Nine Marks, and and I know that I've shared with this with uh with some of the men uh in our church, and forgive me, I may have said this to you before, but I think it bears and it's worth repeating.

He said, he said, listen, men in the church, he's like, if you are not, and he's just kind of throwing out an arbitrary kind of you know timeline here, but he says, if you are not in five years elder qualified by coming from the first time you step into our church, five years from then, he's like, What are you doing?

Like, what are you doing?

He says, You're you're wasting your time.

Right?

Let's get to this, let's be purposeful.

Let's let's let's disciple.

Now, certainly that's on that's on the leadership too, to be to be training men and teaching women that we would all be equipped, that we would all be mature.

I know there's some a lot of exciting discussions happening right now in our leadership about how we're gonna do that.

We're gonna share some of that with you as we go here this morning.

Okay, but these are big things.

Look, if we want to be a healthy church and a strong church, we've got to be committed to purposeful disciple making.

Purposeful, growing spiritually mature.

Right?

As it says there in Ephesians 4, built up in love.

That's what the church is to look like.

Built up in love for the Lord, built up in love for each other, which I think really gets at this final thing here.

We're committed to glorifying God through purposeful disciple making, being united together in intentional community.

United together, community, intentional about that.

Okay, take a look at Acts chapter two here.

This is one of my favorite passages ever.

I love this, and it just gives us a kind of a window here into what the very, very early church looked like.

Okay, so the the book of Acts is where we see the church being built.

This is like chapter two, right?

This is right near the beginning, and this is what their community looked like.

Okay, it says this.

It says, and they devoted themselves.

Okay, this is the disciples there, right?

They devoted themselves.

So you see that it's purposeful.

Right?

There was devotion, there was intentionality there.

They devoted themselves to what?

Well, to the apostles' teaching.

What with what the with the leaders, with the with the disciples taught the church, which of course, you know, uh is now you know makes up our New Testament.

Right?

Some of what these guys wrote became what we now have in the New Testament canon, right?

So they devoted themselves to this, right?

To the apostles' teaching, to the scriptures.

It says, and to the and the fellowship.

Right?

Fellowship is a word maybe we've heard you know a lot, but it's it's that word koinia.

Have you heard that before?

Right?

It denotes like a like a rich spiritual community, right?

A rich spiritual community.

We were we were growing together in depth.

Okay, it says that they they could they devoted themselves to this, to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, it says, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, there's communion, there's meals, there's there's prayer that we see there.

Right?

It says, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

So as they were committing to these things, they were they were in awe of God.

Right?

It says, and all who believed were together.

Together.

You see that unity there?

This this togetherness within their community?

It says that they had all things in common.

What was that about?

Well, it says it says they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

They were like, I'm not holding on to my thing.

I'm not trying to build up, you know, my wealth, my kingdom, my stuff.

They're like, man, if other people have need, I I want to get it.

There's a generosity being built there.

The Lord was doing this.

And it says, and day by day attending the temple together, so there's a like this corporate kind of worship that's happening, right?

They were gathering together to uh in a corporate sense and look, breaking bread in their homes.

Right?

It says that they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

So they had like a small group ministry going right out of the gate here, right?

Praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

All right, so one of the things that I believe is you know crystal clear in these verses is that this you know purposeful disciple making is to be an intentional, okay, unified effort accomplished within community.

Okay, within us.

Okay, so so meaning like you know, North America has it all backwards, right?

It's all about like rugged individualism.

Right?

You don't need people, you can do it yourself.

Right?

You don't need to be involved as anybody, you don't need to open up, you don't need to be transparent, just just accomplish it yourself.

Right?

And so oftentimes what happens in churches is you get like kind of these rogue agents, so to speak.

Right?

You get individuals who you know who don't want to be part of the community, and you know, I have a different personality, and I'm more introverted, maybe, and you know, I just kind of want to do this, I kind of want to do this myself, and I'm kind of a more of a lone ranger and all of that.

I don't see that in the Bible.

I don't, it's not there.

We're doing this in community, and so again, okay, if we're looking to glorify God here as redemption church, right?

You can kind of think, you know, large scale here, wide angle, right?

We want to fulfill the, again, the mission that God has given us to go out and make disciples, and we want to grow in spiritual maturity.

Then if that's what we want to do, then we've got to ask, what's the plan?

Right?

What's the plan?

We've looked at it a little bit here, we've looked at it at certain angles.

But another way of asking this, we're gonna have this on the screen.

What does a quality of discipleship look like in our church?

Right?

What does that what does that look like?

I think that's a great question.

Okay, and you see them right there, and this is some language here that you are gonna hear more about in the coming days.

This is gonna become common language.

You know, I'm I'm I'm planning a you know a future sermon, probably sermon series on this at some point to again just kind of remind us of you know who we are, what we're committed to, and what we're going after.

And so here's what a quality disciple looks like at our uh at our church it's abiding in Christ, it's connecting in the church, and it's reaching the community.

Right?

I love that.

I think that's that's pretty clear, and that's and that's relatively simply laid out, I think.

Right?

And the thing that I love about this too is that is that our six distinctives are built right into these three things.

Okay, so you think about abiding in Christ.

What does that mean?

It means clinging to Him.

Right, well, how do we do that?

How do we abide in Christ?

How do we hold fast to Him?

How do we make sure that we are close to him?

Well, it's through bold preaching.

We need to come and hear God's word.

We need to hear a message that God would have for us, one that's hopefully clear, one that's from the scriptures.

Bold preaching is a big way that we kind of rally around once a week, at least together and hear from God's word.

It's through fervent prayer.

If you're gonna abide in Christ and be close to him, we've got to be praying.

Because prayer is humility.

Prayer is admitting that we don't have this figured out.

Lord, we need you, right?

We need help.

Right?

We see in abiding in Christ, we see passionate worship.

Right?

These are things that we're trying to do even in this service alone here this morning.

But again, we see this in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We see this in the passage that we just read.

The connecting in church piece.

Right?

That's where we see purposeful disciple making happening, right?

Where it's intentional and it's it's in community.

Right?

We do that within the context of our small groups.

We do that in the in the context of serving in the church and all the different ways that we use our gifts.

Again, we see this happening right in Acts 2, 42 to 47.

And one of the things I just want to kind of give you a quick snapshot of here as that we're kind of excited about going into uh the next couple of months is a way that we want to you know grow in our you know connecting in the church and discipling you and and us doing that together as a church is is what we're gonna be doing uh in our small group curriculum in January.

All right, each of you, if you were in a small group, you're gonna get uh one of these books right here.

All right, it's a 12-week study.

So normally what we do in our small groups is we have what we call pulpit curriculum, right?

So Mike preaches a sermon, a bunch of questions are prepared that are kind of working towards application, how do I apply this to my life?

Okay, we're gonna put pa press pause on that, and for 12 weeks, everyone is going to go through this.

We're really thrilled about it because really what it does is it works through the one another's.

Right?

How can we actually disciple each other?

What does that look like according to the scripture?

How can we love one another?

Right?

How can we welcome one another, bear one another's burdens, encourage one another, instruct one another, confess to one another, forgive one another, pray for one another, comfort one another, stir up one another.

Each week we're gonna look at one of these and really just ask how do we how do we do this as a small group?

How can our small group be more intentional and better at this and grow in this?

And how can we be unified in this mission?

Something that's happening in just a few weeks is the small group leaders are gonna get together with Jeremy and get some training on this.

And the leaders are gonna learn, like, here's what we're going for.

We're gonna reframe this slightly, and we're gonna go after how do we get after the hearts of our people?

And how can we do this together?

And I like when you put these two things together, it gets all of us rowing in the same direction.

Right?

No longer is it just the small group leaders who kind of you know have a sense of where we're going, but everyone else is kind of like, what is this about?

No, we all get it.

We're all going after it.

We're going after it, we're unified, we're together.

Right?

I love that.

And then this third one, of course, is reaching the community.

Right?

And that's where we see the distinctives of just courageous evangelism.

Courageous evangelism is not about just building up some kingdom here.

I've said that a few times, I think, already this morning.

It's not just about this and looking flashy and having some kind of slick thing, it's about going out into the world.

That's what Jesus was like, he says, go.

All right, go, get out there, go do this.

All nations.

How can we do that in a local sense?

How can we reach this area more effectively for Christ?

How can we, you know, do that globally?

And are there are there churches that we can partner with?

Can we see you know churches planted around the world?

We're gonna hear about strategic church planting and and look at these things.

I'm thrilled about it.

And again, we see this all here in this passage in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Right?

We see that.

The Lord is building his church, and again, all of this, as we talk about these three things here, all of this is to ensure a quality of discipleship here at redemption.

And let me just say something here as we close this time together.

And listen, I say this, and I'm not trying to kill the mood or anything like that.

All right, I'm really not, but I just want to say this.

This is not easy.

It's not.

It is not a simple thing.

It's not, it's not easy to do.

It requires blood, sweat, and tears, essentially.

Right?

It does.

It's hard even when it's done well.

And I think my fear would be that we kind of cast this vision of kind of what we would like to go after, what we, and then we think it's kind of all easy now because it's been framed a certain way.

No, it's not.

We've all got a flesh, we've all got sin nature.

We all we all fight our we all fight that, and the Spirit of God is changing us.

We're all in the middle of our own sanctification.

It can be very uncomfortable to grow in Christ and to grow in maturity, it can be painful even.

You know, and I've heard well-meaning Christians criticize, you know, other Christians and other churches and just kind of say, like, you know, we need to get back to like being in Acts 2 church.

Right?

And they look at this passage that we're looking at and they're like, man, that was sweet.

You see how they're like sharing food together?

Why don't we go out to Swish Tow Lane anymore?

Right?

No one even wants to do that.

Right?

And why don't we just like open up the Bible?

Why do we have to talk at such a surfacey level?

Right?

Why can't why can't we do this?

Let's be in let's be an Acts 2 church.

But do you understand, if you're thinking that, trust me, I would love to have that too.

But do you understand that the context of the Acts 2 church was like mega persecution?

Right?

They were being dragged to prison, they were getting beaten, some of them were getting killed, right?

And their their freedoms were being stripped away, and because of that, God built this.

Because that's all they had.

Right?

All they had was God, all they had was each other.

And so if we don't go for this, we got we got nothing else.

And that's the problem with living in the country that we live in, is we've got so many other things, we're so distracted by it.

Our priorities are so you know taken by all these other things, good things, but they become the enemy of the best thing, which is this.

And so, are we committed to this?

Are we gonna go after it?

Are we gonna just recognize this is this is hard, this is brutal.

I'm gonna learn through failure.

Trust me, I've learned through so much failure.

I'm still learning through failure.

You will, I will, that's the way it works.

Mission to make disciples that we're committed to here as a church, it's tough.

It's hard, but listen, it's worth it.

Some of you might be wondering here, yeah, I'm not so sure, man.

This has been painful, and I think some of us know like the church can just be so messy.

Right?

Churches can be just these just painful places, and Christians can just be so brutal to each other.

But listen, the other thing we have to remember is that there's nothing like the church when the church is clicking.

Like the world cannot offer this.

Getting a membership at Cardinal, I love golf.

That's never gonna offer you what Christ can, what the what the church can, as we're all working together, as we're all unified in this, as Christ is working, when the church is healthy and strong.

Right?

That's what we're praying for.

God be glorified in all of this as we engage in this noble, in this, in this lofty task by his grace and in and through his spirit.

Again, what?

For the glory of his name.

Not for ours, but for his.