Growing Together Into Christ

Well, good morning everyone. It's been an exciting Sunday. Got to have our Sunday school kickoff here before our church service and it's always an encouragement to me to just see how many people we have involved um in different ministries within our church. That goes for Wednesdays where we have almost an overwhelming number of children uh here each Wednesday and then uh this Sunday morning as we start off our uh Sunday school. Um for those who don't know me, my name is Matt Kwanbeck. I get to serve here as the pastor of family ministry. And actually, I just started here at the church back in February. And um part of the reason for um my position within the church is that the church realized that we were gaining a lot of young families and had a lot of children. And we really want to steward what God has been bringing to our church well and be intentional with how we're discipling our kids, discipling our parents, but then discipling each one here as well. And so this morning I um title our message growing together into Christ. And being that it's kickoff Sunday, I get a little bit of an opportunity to cast some vision for what it looks like for our church to especially come alongside families, but also for what it looks like for each one of us to be growing together uh into Jesus. And so this text that we're going to look at um primarily this morning, this will kind of be our home base. And then we'll also look at some other passages, but um it'll be Ephesians 4:es 11-16. And uh one thing that this passage makes really clear is the centrality of Jesus to our spiritual growth. A lot of things can pass for spirituality within our world, and sometimes we can kind of get distracted by those things. This passage brings us right back to the center of our faith and that's Jesus Christ. But it also emphasizes how critical Christ's body that is his church, you and I, how critical his body is to our spiritual growth as well. And so go ahead and look with me at Ephesians 4:es 11-6.

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 and deceitful schemes. 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. Lord God, we thank you for your design for the church. Lord God, that we are not meant to go it alone, um in our own personal lives, in our family life, but Lord, that you have given us one another to both grow up into Christ, and as we grow to also serve one another and help one another grow in our walk with you. And so Lord, this morning, would you help us be more comfortable with being both dependent on you, but also interdependent on one another. And Lord, we pray that you would help us as a church to steward the families that you have brought to us well, that we would serve our families well and our families would serve our church well. And so Lord, open our hearts to hear from your word this morning. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. So you'll notice that this text is definitely not specifically about family ministry. And so it's going to be a little bit of a different style of message this morning as we kind of try to frame out where we want to go for family ministry. But at and so it won't be quite as verse by verse as we often do as we preach here at the free church. But at the same time, we'll see that this is a passage that really is about more broadly how God builds his church. We'll see that God has designed his church to grow disciples and disciples to grow the church. In other words, we grow together as disciples and we grow disciples together. And that could be my main point in a few weeks as we start our church matters series and circle back to this passage and looking at it more broadly within the church this morning looking a bit more specifically at family ministry. But the fact remains we grow together as disciples that includes our young disciples and we grow disciples together. You see, the way that we seek to form children as disciples of Christ is not so different from how each one of us to continues to grow in maturity in our walk with walk with the Lord and within this church family. And so today, we're focusing especially on family ministry, but we cannot talk about family ministry disconnected from the broader ministry of the church. And so I trust that this sermon will not only be beneficial for the families here this morning, but for everyone here this morning.

Again, we're reminded in this passage of the centrality of Christ to our spiritual growth. But but we also see that God has designed his people not to be independent, just just Jesus and me, not to be just dependent. We're dependent on God, but we're not dependent on the church merely as consumers. Sometimes we can be guilty of that where we come to church, we receive what the church has to give us. We ask, "What can the church do for me?" And we forget that rather than just being dependent, we are interdependent. That means I depend on you and you depend on me for all of us than to grow together into Christ. And we see this right away in chap verse 11 and 12. It describes how God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers for a purpose to equip the saints, that's all of you here, for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. We build up the body of Christ together. We are interdependent.

Now, as it pertains to parents, first I need to say parents, we cannot raise your kids for you. that we cannot prepare them for the Christian life for you.

As the church desired to create this family pastor position, one of the things that they realized was that we absolutely we want to offer good programs for our children, but we also want to do a better job of equipping parents to raise their children for Jesus in the day-to-day. You see, parents are the primary spiritual influence for their kids. There's an everydayness to raising our kids for Jesus that the church cannot fulfill. Parents, you're the ones there day in and day out teaching what the Christian life looks like in different life situations. That we see this in Deuteronomy 6:es 4-9. It it says here, "O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.

You see parents, you are the primary spiritual influence on your kids. You're there in the dayto-day. It it's a little bit like it's tough to understand why math matters when you're sitting in the classroom. But then when you start to try to build something or construct something or or maybe you start to learn computer programming, suddenly you realize that math matters in my day-to-day life, in the day-to-day life of a family. That's where kids start to understand why their faith in Christ matters. Not just on Sunday mornings, not just on Wednesday nights, but in the different situations they face each day. So while you are the primary spiritual influence at the same time you should not and you cannot parent alone. You see God's design for his people is that we would be interdependent. And that applies to parents and to our families. And so your church family wants to come alongside you and support you as you raise your kids for Christ. Part of how we do that is through programs, through offering things like Sunday school and Aana and youth group where we have structured instruction in the word of God. Other ways we do that is through equipping you as parents. Perhaps as you hear that message that you're the primary influence on your kids, you could be thinking, you know, I'm not sure I want that job. That's a big job. I'm not sure if I'm mature in my fa enough in my faith for that job. But we can feel inadequate pretty fast. And so we want to increasingly equip you as parents to raise your kids for Jesus. That that could be in the future guidance for what does it look like to not just teach the gospel in your home, but to have a go a gospel culture within your home. What does it look like to just have a family devotions each evening or each morning? How do we navigate this issue or that issue within our culture as parents

in the future? I want to provide guidance for parents on what does it look like to disciple my children towards baptism and towards participation in communion. And so this kind of equipping for parents is a growth area that we want to continue to build in the future. Another way that the church supports families is through small groups. There is a value to doing life together within a small group where families can be raising their kids together for Jesus or where some of you who have already raised your kids get to be in small group with parents who are in the thick of it right now. and to be a support to them. Give bits of wisdom to them. And then this shouldn't just be one direction but two directions where we are serving and caring for our families but then our families get to serve and care for others within the church. One kind of neat example of that is even just this last week where we have some of our young families who serve a meal to our quilting ladies on a regular basis. We there's with interdependence comes an intergener intergenerationality. I think that would be a word. God's church is intergenerational. It's not just one age, but we have all ages within the church. And we benefit from having all ages within the church. Another way we can support our families is through mentorship. other godly influences both on our kids and on our parents who are raising kids. In other words, no one is out of the game when it comes to family ministry. There's all kinds of different ways that we can invest in families. And so, as we come alongside parents, we want to be all the more intentional with how we do that. And so I just want to lay out today a little bit of how we're thinking about the programs that we offer, the the instruction that we're giving to our children and then also to our parent parents at various stages of our children's lives. In other words, it's an outline to our approach to forming young disciples, but it also applies to just more broadly as a church, how we form disciples. And so I'm going to be using the illustration of a growing tree. And so we're kind of having throughout scripture, we see growth as a theme. The Christian life is not something stagnant. It's not something that stands still, but we're to be growing into Christ. And there's different ways it depicts that. One is the body of Christ. That's and the body of Christ growing. That's what we see in Ephesians. Another illustration that it uses is a tree and a tree growing and bearing fruit. And and so we're going to be looking at both of those metaphors today. Sorry, they're kind of mixing together. If that gets confusing, you can tell me after the service, Pastor Matt, that just didn't work. But hopefully hopefully you can track with us. So, as we think about how do we want to raise our kids for Jesus, we're calling our family ministry grow family ministry and then looking at different stages of growth in Christ for our children. Hey, as another way we're wanting to support parents, I do just want to mention, you may have noticed another table out back. We have our connect counter for those who are new to the church and want more information about the church. Now, we have a grow counter, which is where you can get all the information about the different the different resources and programs that we offer for our families. And so, that'll be where um parents check in their kids for Sunday school and also where you can get schedules for different um family ministry things that we have going on. on. So, just want to make you aware of that. There's also even sermon note printouts for kids at different ages to help them listen well to sermons. But as we think about different stages in our kids' growth, when we think of our elementary kids, really, what kid doesn't want to grow bigger, right? They're especially in elementary, they're excited about when they'll be big someday. Maybe in middle school and high school and definitely when you become an adult, that fades off. You're like, I'm not sure I want to be big anymore. But at that age, they're eager to grow big. And so, as we think of what do we want our children to grow big in, we want to be intentional about that. Um, look at verse 13 again back in Ephes in Ephesians. It says, "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. We want our kids to grow in the knowledge of the son of God. Some of that is simply Bible knowledge, the overarching story of the Bible, but we want that knowledge about Jesus to then grow into knowing Jesus. And hopefully that's happening within those elementary years. And again, this is the same growth that you and I are going through as adults. We're growing to know Christ and growing to know him more. And so, first of all, we want our kids as they grow bigger to understand that they are made by and for a big God. So, as the pastor of family ministry, I figure I should be um really aware of all the newest music. And Courtney would tell you I'm terrible at that. [laughter] But there's one song that has stuck out to me recently, partially because it's really catchy, but also because it kind of gives us a window into how our culture views spirituality. That's a song by Benson Boon. And so he was on American Idol a few years ago, but recently, a couple years ago, he released a song, Beautiful Things, which was on the top of the international charts. But basically the song is about he's met this girl that he really likes and he's really afraid of losing her. And to his credit, he recognizes that good things come from God. But he says, you know what God gives, he can also take away. And so the chorus almost sounds desperate as he sings it. He says, "Please stay. I want you. I need you, oh God." But no, he's not saying he needs God. He's saying he needs this girl. But oh God, don't take these beautiful things that I've got. And then at the end of the song, he says, I need these beautiful things that I've got. I think that's a window into kind of our current landscape within our culture because we kind of think of our world as being anti-God. But I think more so now our world is not so anti- the concept of God. A lot of people have some kind of general spiritual belief. They they don't have a problem with the concept of God. But here's what they have a problem with. Our world wants a God who will be kind of a supporting cast member to their story instead of their lives being wrapped up in the bigger story of God's grace and God's glory. Do you see what what difference that makes? You see, when God is a supporting cast member to my story, then when he lets me down, then I just kind of discard God. But if I understand that my life is about God and his story, then my life is centered on God and it is my role to serve him and to glorify him. And that's something we want to teach our kids from the very beginning that their life is about God. They are made by and for a big God. A God who is powerful. A God who is sovereign. A God who is holy. a God who demands to be served and glorified.

And then as they understand those things, as they see a big God and holy God, they realize that they are small and they are sinful. And so we want our kids to begin to understand in those elementary years that they're also saved by a big gospel. We want them to understand God's salvation story throughout the entire Bible. Hey, that's one of the things our new Sunday school curriculum does well. It goes through each part of scripture and shows how it points to Jesus. Jesus spoke of it in these term terms. John 5:39-4. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. Jesus there was speaking to Pharisees who looked at scripture and pulled out all the moral instructions about how to be a better person, God's law, and then they added their own laws to it. And they thought that by their own effort, they could save themselves. And Jesus says, "Yes, the scriptures tell the way of salvation, but that's because the scriptures tell about me." That's what Jesus says. And so as we teach those treasured Bible stories from the Old Testament about about Daniel or about David or about Moses, certainly we can learn from their example in different ways. But we're not teaching our kids just to be better people, to be a bit more like David, to be a bit more like Daniel. We're teaching them that they need a savior just like David did. They need a savior like Daniel did. And that all of those stories, all of those stories about Bible heroes point to the ultimate hero who is Jesus. So they're saved by a big gospel. They're also part of a big family. That starts with their nuclear family. Again, instruction in the faith starts at home. But then they're part of a church family. They have a lot of brothers and sisters in Christ who who will love them and help raise them to know Jesus. Beyond our church family, they are also part of a worldwide church. God is not just at work in their lives. He's not just at work in their commun in this community. Jesus is at work across the world. And we want our kids to see that from a young age. And even beyond the worldwide family of believers, they're also part of a historical family of believers. People through for the last 2,000 years and even before Christ who are looking ahead to Christ were brothers and sisters in Christ. They're part of a historical church family.

And it as you look at our culture, it seems that as more and more things seem unsettled that our young people are hungry for something stable, something historical, something rooted. But we see that even with there seems to be an appeal to the Catholic Church and some of those historic traditions. And so as even though we'd have some concerns with Cathol Catholicism, we need to recognize we are part of a historic movement of Christians and we want to make sure our kids know there's a rootedness. There is a steadiness. There is a security. There's a stability in the Christian faith. So they're part of a big family. They're also part of a big mission. God has made our children special and unique. But that specialness, that uniqueness is not ultimately for their glory, but it is for the glory of our big God and to serve other people with the ways that he has gifted them. You see, God desires to use our kids within his big salvation plan and to grow his big family. And we want them to catch a glimpse of that at a young age. So moving on from elementary to middle school,

Psalm 1:es 1-3 is one passage that uses that metaphor of a growing tree for our spiritual walk. It it says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Isn't that the kind of men and women that we want our children to become? And so as they enter middle school, as they've gotten a big picture overview of the Bible in elementary and learned about a big God who has saved them with a big gospel, then we want them to grow more rooted in their faith in middle school to put some of those pieces together. What does it mean that Jesus justified them? What is the Trinity? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You see, [laughter] I I think the reality is for a lot of us as parents, there's a way in which we're afraid, aren't we? We're afraid of losing our children. We fear that they will rebel against us and against God. Uh we see over and over stories online of people who have deconstructed their faith and we don't want that for our children. And so how do we raise our kids for Jesus in a culture that has grown more hostile and not necessarily just to the concept of God but but more hostile to God as revealed in his word. How do we raise our kids in a culture like that? Let's go back to Ephesians. And I think it gives us some insight. Ephesians 4, look at verse 14. It says, "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 and def in deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love." It paints this picture of being tossed back and forth by different doctrines, by different teachings.

That is a threat to each one of us in this world. And so we need to be rooted in what is true. And as we equip our children, we need to help them be rooted in what is true. And so it gives us insight in how we into how we equip our kids to face a world like that. First of all, in verse 14, we're told that we fight lies with truth. How is it that we're not tossed about by winds of doctrines and different teachings? How do we identify what is false? By knowing what is true. And so part of this is teaching our kids apologetics. Why we believe what we believe. Teaching them why belief in God isn't crazy but is actually rational. There's value to teaching apologetics like that. But at the same time, I think our culture has become less anti-spiritual. Our culture is becoming more intrigued by spiritual things. But instead of Christianity, it's a kind of pick and choose religion where you mix and match bits of spirituality from different places and you create your own self-made private spirituality. And that is a lie that's being told to our kids. You believe what you want to believe. You do what works for you. And so to help against that lie, we need to teach them the truth. Instructing them in doctrine about who God is, about what Christ has done for them,

teaching them important truths that sometimes have big words like double imputation. That just means that we get to trade our sin. Give Jesus our sin and he gives us his righteousness. That's a really good trade that we need to understand as Christians and that we should be teaching our kids as they start to understand scripture better. And as they understand that, they'll understand the security of the gospel that God's approval of me does not depend on my performance, but depends on Jesus' perfection for me. And as they understand more who they are in Christ, as they understand their identity, that helps them fight the lies of what our culture tells them they should find their identity in. Our culture says they find their identity in their value or their identity in what they accomplish or in what people think of them or in what they look like or in how many likes they get on social media.

but instead in Christ we say your identity and your value and your purpose is secure

because it's rooted outside of yourself in Jesus. So we fight lies with truth but then it says rather speaking the truth in love. So we fight lies with truth but then we speak truth in love. And I think this is another really important aspect of how we equip our kids to face our culture because it has to do with what is our posture towards our culture going to be. Too often in the church, it's been us against the world. But as we look at scripture, really as disciples of Christ, it is supposed to be us for the world, seeking the benefit of those around us, desiring that they would know Jesus. And so we speak truth, yes, but we speak it in love. That means that we do not isolate ourselves from the world. It means that we don't instigate and just always be looking to win an argument. But it instead it means that as disciples of Jesus we can be both confident in who we are in Christ and compassionate on those who don't know Jesus knowing that they are simply following the lies of our world and that they need the hope that is found in Christ. We want our children to be confident in the gospel and to have compassion that flows from the gospel.

You see, I've noticed that there's a theme among those who deconstruct their faith. This isn't all of them, but but it seems like for many of them, they grew up in Christian environments where hard questions were not welcomed. Instead, there were certain questions that were not off that were off limits or they asked hard questions and were given oversimplistic answers.

We need to be ready to speak the truth and love even to our children. But that means listening to their hard questions.

Another theme among those who deconstruct seems to be that they did not experience truth and love. Instead, they experienced a lot of judgment within the church or they observed the church judging others in ways that were not winsome in ways that did not draw others to the gospel.

that they perhaps experienced the truth spoken but in a way that did not reflect the truth of Christ's love for sinners.

They experienced behavior within the church that was not loving and so they experienced church hurt. You see, sometimes in our fear, sometimes in our passion for what is true, we accomplish the opposite of what we want to. And so, may we speak the truth in love to our young disciples. And may we speak the truth in love to one another and to the world around us.

Now, finally, to high school. And don't worry, this one will be pretty quick. it as we've seen them rooted within the gospel, then we want to see our students also grow fruitful. Look at verse 15. Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way with 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. But we see there the example of how faith in Christ overflows into service to one another and we build each other up in Christ.

You see, as the different members of Christ's body serve his body, it grows. That's individually. You grow in your faith as we serve one another. As you serve and as you're served, that's together as a church. We grow together into Christ as we serve one another. I I think that's also numerical growth. As we grow together in Christ, then the Lord uses us to draw others to faith in him and add some of those to our congregation. And so, we want our students to learn that the Christian life involves serving the body of Christ and serving the world with their gifts. After all, the nature of faith is that it will bear fruit in their lives. Jesus puts it this way in John 15 starting with verse four. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. A Christian is going to bear fruit. It it doesn't specify how much fruit or what size of fruit or how ripe the fruit, but a Christian will bear fruit. A Christian without fruit isn't a thing. But we're told here, how is it that we bear fruit? You see, we're not after just behavior modification. We're not just after our kids doing more and better things. We're after inside out change. You see, we grow in fruit by abiding in Christ. As branches are nourished by Christ, we bear fruit. Real fruit comes from inside out. And so we want to teach our students not simply to be good, but we want to teach them how to abide in Christ. That involves teaching them things like spiritual disciplines, regular Bible reading, prayer, but also church involvement because we're interdependent.

Our kids have opportunities like that already where many of our teens serve in media and music. This fall, we've given our high school students opportunities to serve as assistants to Sunday school teachers if they would like to do that. Again, church life is about growing together. And so as we conclude, if if we are to really boil down what it looks like to grow as disciples together for young and old, what we want to see is that each one of us would grow bigger in Jesus, that we would grow rooted in Jesus, and that we would grow fruitful in Jesus. And so may we continue to grow up into Christ who is the head, serving with our gifts in order for the whole body to grow, building itself up in love for God's glory, for our good and for the good of those in our community and around the world. Amen.