Don't Give Up on Christ; Grow Up

The tenth sunday after pentecost

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called ; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 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. (NIV)

It doesn’t matter if the athlete is male or female.  It doesn’t matter what sport it is.  It doesn’t matter which country the athlete represents.  It doesn’t even matter what color the medal is.  It’s safe to say that any athlete of these Olympic games who’s had the distinct privilege of having a medal placed around his neck is not a quitter.  Such athletes didn’t quit when the training and the practice got tough.  They didn’t give up when challenges or obstacles surfaced that appeared to threaten their goals. 

Sometimes that’s the difference between those that finish with a medal and those that don’t.  Certainly natural ability has a lot to do with it, but when considering athletes who compete at the same level with very comparable abilities, often times the difference is that those determined not to give up when training and preparing are the ones who end up on the podium.

The devil wants you to give up.  It’s no secret.  He wants you to give up on Christ and rely on something – anything – else as you go through life.  And he has an alarming success rate.  He has his tricks of the trade to lead us to give up on Christ.  Pain and suffering.  Loss.  Doubt.  Materialism.  Apathy.  Indifference.  The devil isn’t picky – he doesn’t care if it’s the believer who falls away completely and gives up on Christ or the casual Christian who routinely neglects God’s Word and worship for so long that his actions essentially show that he too has given up on Christ.  Either case is a success for him.  This morning though, and in the next three weeks that follow, we’re going to put up a fight against the devil and his attempts to get us to give up on Christ.  Armed with the weapon of his Word, we’ll seek to take Satan seriously and equip ourselves to defend against him.

How do we respond to the devil?  We don’t give up on Christ.  We grow up.  That’s what Paul encouraged the Ephesians to do as he wrote this letter from prison.  He spent the first half of this letter reassuring the Ephesians that even though they used to be dead in their sin, they had been made alive in Christ by grace, and not by works.  Now that they were brought to faith in Christ and made alive in him, Paul wanted to encourage them to continue on the joy-filled ride of Christianity by growing in that faith which Christ had gifted to them.

And, just as we were made alive in Christ, Christ is also the one who gives us all that we need to grow up in him. More than anything else, there is something that is absolutely essential to growing up in Christ.  In fact, growth cannot and will not occur without it.  The very same thing that made us alive in Christ is what keeps us growing in Christ: grace.  Paul reminds us – each and every believer – that we have just that.  “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it” (v.7). 

Everyone here this morning is different.  We’re different ages, we have different features, different names, different abilities, and so on.  But everyone here this morning has something in common: each of us has received the grace of Jesus Christ.  We’ve received it to different degrees as far as our spiritual gifts are concerned, but as far as eternal life is concerned, we’ve all received God’s gift salvation by grace through faith.  No one’s on the bubble.  Nobody’s status is “pending.”  No one still has work left to do before his salvation is a sure thing.  Your room in heaven has already been booked.  All of the “one’s” Paul wrote about are yours – one body, Spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, God – and all are yours by grace.  And Paul wants that gift of grace to continue working in you as you grow up.

A bride and groom receive gifts from guests on their special day.  They didn’t do anything to deserve the gifts.  They didn’t buy them or earn them.  They just got married and they received gifts.  Those gifts are like God’s grace, freely given.  The couple enjoys opening the gifts together and they appreciate what they’ve freely been given.  But inevitably – and most of us can relate to this – there are at least a few gifts received on a wedding day that get put on the shelf, or in the closet, or in the garage, never to be used.  That’s not what God had in mind for his grace when he gave it to you.  Yes, he wanted to bring you into his family of believers by grace, but he wanted that grace to continue blessing you as it enables you to grow up.  Don’t stick God’s grace in the back of a closet somewhere and assume that it’s done all it needs to do because it brought you to faith.  God gave it to you and continues to give it to you so that you grow through it.

If you want proof that God wants you to grow up in his grace, then consider this: he not only gives you grace to grow up, but he also gives you the gifts to grow up. Yes, each Christian has been given unique and special spiritual gifts to benefit the body of Christ, which Paul speaks about in the twelfth chapters of 1 Corinthians and Romans.  But here Paul is speaking about different kinds of gifts.  Here he is speaking about the gifts God gives to his church to see that his grace continues to equip and train the saints as they grow up.  He gives us the gifts Paul lists in verse 11.  “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service” (v.11,12).

What does Paul mean when he says that Christ gave such individuals to his church “to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up?”  That’s another way of saying that Christ gives these gifts to the church to help us grow up.  Christ is so invested in his church – in all believers – that he gives it the gifts of pastors and teachers to make sure that his grace continues to be put to work and that God’s people continue to grow up.

But like any gift, it is only effective if a person makes use of it.  We have teachers in our elementary school who have received some of the best possible training for teaching children about Jesus.  The training they’ve received is the envy of many other church bodies.  They are very well qualified to educate children in the most important area of life, that of Jesus and his love for them.  But how valuable are these gifts, our teachers, when they aren’t used?  Our Sunday school teachers work hard to prepare Christ-centered Bible lessons each week, but how valuable are these gifts, our Sunday school teachers, when they aren’t used?  God gives his church pastors who have been trained to teach, to preach, to counsel, to shepherd, etc., but how valuable are the gifts of pastors if your seat in Bible class, church, or even the pastor’s study on occasion remains empty? These gifts are so valuable because they assist us in tapping into the grace revealed through God’s Word.  God gives the gifts for you to grow, but if you are neglecting those gifts, then who’s to blame for your lack of growth?

In addition to the grace and the gifts, God also gives us the goal to grow up.  God doesn’t call us to grow up just to kill some time while we’re waiting to get to heaven.  He calls us to grow up because he doesn’t want anything to stand inff the way of our getting to heaven.  That’s his goal.  He wants us to make use of his grace and his gifts so that ultimately the goal can be realized and we don’t end up losing out because we were led astray by some distraction all because we failed to grow up.  Paul points out that God gives the gifts to his church so that “the body of Christ may be built up… Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming” (v.12,14).

I’ve been able to be at the bedside of a dying believer who clearly spent the better part of life growing up in God’s grace.  That believer had no fear and could not wait to go home to Jesus.  I’ve also been at the bedside of a dying believer who had clearly neglected the means of God’s grace for the better part of life.  That believer was uneasy.  That believer struggled with guilt.  That believer wasn’t so sure of what would come next.

I can tell you which individual I want to be, if I should ever be found at that point in life.  I can tell you which one God desires us to be, too.  He’s made it clear through the words of Paul.  Giving up on Christ is not the answer.  Growing up in Christ is.

A master sculptor just finished his masterpiece.  He looked it over, examining it carefully.  He didn’t find any flaws.  He saw nothing that needed improvement.  It was complete.  Then he started to cry.  He cried because there was no more opportunity for him to grow as far as that unique sculpture was concerned.  So long as the sculpture was a work in progress, the sculptor grew in his abilities and the techniques needed to sculpt, but when all was finished, there was no more opportunity to grow.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that isn’t the case for us when it comes to our walk with Jesus.  Our whole lifetime is an opportunity to grow up in Christ.  From the first infant cry to the last wheezing breath, God calls us to grow up.  He gives us what we need with his grace and his gifts, and he gives us the goal: that nothing would sway us and deter us from inheriting the eternal life graciously won for us by Christ.  Amen.

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)