Testing Our Spiritual Growth - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December 1st. New believers usually burn brightly in their devotion to the Lord, but too often that enthusiasm fades as time goes by. Let's correct that drift and challenge our commitment to Jesus with tools for testing your spiritual growth.

What is your relationship with Him? And that salvation experience is the result of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and our acceptance of that work by personal faith in Him. And God's goal for us once we have received Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, that we would begin to grow in that relationship with Him. Now there are many people who are satisfied, it appears, just to be saved.

But His goal is that you and I would be conformed to His likeness, that is that we would go on growing in that spiritual relationship that we have with Jesus Christ. Now, God the Father is greatly grieved when His children are born into the kingdom. That is when a sinner is born into the kingdom of God and then just sort of stagnates.

Now one of the primary reasons for that stagnation is sometimes it is ignorance, most of the time it is sin. And so what I want to talk about in this message is testing our spiritual growth. And that is the title of this message and the passage I want us to turn to is Ephesians chapter 4. Very clearly this passage states we are to be growing in our relationship to Him and what God has done to make that growth possible. So if you'll turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and let's begin reading in the 11th verse. He says in verse 11, And He gave some, that is He gave to the church, to His body, some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers.

That is the pastors to be a pastor teacher is to instruct the people of God. That is He gave these gifted men to the church in order that of the purpose of equipping the saints for the work of service. To the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man. That is to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. That is the sum of the qualities that make up Christ, make Christ what He is.

That's where He's headed with us in maturing us. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and cared about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. He says, But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects unto Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body, the building up of itself in love.

That's a big mouthful, Paul wrote in this division letter in this particular paragraph. What he is saying here, in essence, is that the spiritual growth of the believer is the primary work of the gifted men of God, which He's given to the church. That is the spiritual growth that is growing in our relationship to Christ is the primary work and primary purpose of the work of the gifted men God has given to the church. He says now in establishing the church, God gave to the church gifted men. That is, He gave some as apostles in those days, which Paul was writing in before.

He gave some as prophets, some as evangelists and some as pastor-teachers. That is, it is the primary responsibility of the pastors to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. So when he talks about growing up the body, that is spiritually enriching us and growing us into Christ's likeness, he's talking about the whole body of his church. That can only happen as I grow, as you grow, as he grows, as she grows, as we grow individually.

That's the way the body grows. And what he's saying in this passage is that God has, if you'll notice in verse 11, given these gifted men, in order that the body may be equipped for service and grow. So what makes it possible for us to be equipped for service and to grow? First of all, primary above everything else is that that person has a genuine ongoing personal growing relationship with Jesus Christ, which is resulting in their spiritual maturity.

And that is to happen to every single believer, no matter who the person is. And so therefore, being ready to serve the Lord does not mean going to school. It means growing in our relationship to Jesus Christ and being equipped. The primary work of the pastors, listen, he says, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. That is, it is the primary responsibility of the pastors of the church. And I want to say this to many of you who have one pastor or as in our fellowship, many pastors. You may want your pastor to run to the hospital every time you get sick.

You may want him to stroke you and come by and visit you and be your best friend and be this and be that and be the other. And I want to tell you, if your pastor obeys the Word of God and carries out the work that God has given him to do and leads you into a growing relationship to Jesus Christ by expounding the Word of God, he can't do many things other than instruct you in the ways of God because he's got to be in the Word, growing himself, understanding the Scriptures, expounding the Word, preparing the message in order to equip you for the service of God and grow you up. And I think there are many pastors in smaller churches who are oftentimes criticized because they're expected to be men about town, do everything for everybody.

And I'm here to tell you, there isn't a single verse in the scripture that implies that. Now, I say that not because I'm complaining because I don't have any complaints, but I'm saying that on behalf of many of you who are members of small churches or even large churches who expect your pastor to do everything. And I want to tell you, that isn't even a God given command. He is to be a shepherd and a teacher. He says pastors and teachers, but he can't do everything. And the most important thing he can do for you is to instruct you in the ways of God, grow you up and equip you spiritually to be a living, vibrant servant of the living God. And if he does that, then he's done his job very well now. So he says that God gives these gifted men in order that the body of the believers may be equipped.

Now, notice what he says. He says equipping of the saints for the work of service. That means the primary responsibility of the pastors is to instruct and teach, to motivate, to bring about that kind of knowledge and understanding the Word of God, that you will be motivated to go out and carry out work that a small group of staff members in a church could never do. Well, what he's saying in this passage is that God has given these gifted men, and the primary objective is spiritual growth. Now, let me define what I mean by spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is not indicated simply because you and I become busier serving God. Spiritual growth is not indicated simply because I may sharpen my skills as a servant of God in some areas. Spiritual growth refers to a growing relationship, that is a personal growing relationship with the person of Jesus Christ, because that is the most important thing in a person's life.

Foremost above everything else is a personal relationship with Christ, which should be a growing relationship. And according to the Scriptures, he says that is what God has ordained that should happen, and because it is his will. For example, he says in Romans chapter 8 verse 29 that God predestined, that is he predetermined before you and I were ever born, that every single person who is saved would be conformed to the likeness of Christ. That means shaped into his likeness, that is into his character, not his looks, but his character, his makeup. And so how does that happen?

He didn't say instantaneously and miraculously it would happen. He said that we would be conformed to his likeness. To be conformed means to be shaped into something. That is a process. It is an ongoing process.

It is a continuing process. When you and I receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, that was a one-time event in our life, and we'll never have to be repeated, saved only one time with the grace of God through faith in his atoning work at Calvary. But growing in the Christian life is a continuing ongoing thing that God desires for us. He says in 1 Peter for example chapter 2 verses 1 and 2, he says, As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word. He says when a person becomes a Christian, he says they're to desire the sincere milk of the word. That is those things in Scripture that they can understand, the milk of the word. When a baby is born you don't feed him steak and spinach, but you feed him rather milk. And so the mother's on a schedule and the baby's on a schedule to be sure that child is well fed and fed properly. What he's saying in this passage in 1 Peter is that believers ought to feast upon, meditate upon, absorb, work into their very being those things of Scripture that will grow them up.

Where do we start? Well, we start with those things we understand when we are first saved. And our understanding of Scripture is very meager when we are first saved.

That's why he says the milk of the word because after a while it'll be the vegetables of the word. After a while the real strong meat of the word and the more you and I growing our relationship to Christ, the deeper our understanding and the clearer our understanding of Scripture. And so he's simply saying that God has given the church gifted men to help make this happen in people's lives. He says for example in 2 Peter chapter 3 that last verse he says, go on growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is at no point are we to become stagnant.

Now listen carefully. The Christian life isn't like some pond that gets stagnant. In the Christian life we are either growing in our relationship to Christ or we are moving in reverse. There is no way in the Christian life to reach some level whereby there's where we are and that's where we stay. We don't go on and we don't reverse.

Yes you do. You're either growing in the Christ likeness or you're moving in the other direction. You cannot stay in one spot. Now you say well sometimes I feel rather stagnant.

Well you may feel stagnant and that you're not growing but that doesn't mean that you're just steadily staying where you are. That's just not the way the Spirit works. So what I want us to see here is that in the mind of God your spiritual growth in mind is so important he says I'm going to gift men. I'm going to set apart men in order to teach and to instruct and to lead people and to show them how to grow in their relationship to Christ. Now then he says in this particular passage if you'll notice he says not only has God given those gifted men for that purpose but then he tells us why. He tells us there's a secondary purpose for growing us up. You and I know that the primary purpose is to bring glory to God and buy a light. But notice he says here also that the spiritual growth of the believers is also for the believers protection.

Look at this. Verse 14. As a result we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and cared about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

Here's what he's saying. He says as a result of being of growing up and being equipped what will happen is this. We will develop such a discerning spirit that we can discern truth from error. He says in order that you'll not be blown away by every wind of doctrine that comes your way and listen the trickery and the scheming of men. When you and I deal with people who do not believe the Word of God who do not want to adhere to the scriptures and you get into conversations unless you're strong in the ways of faith they will trick you and deceive you.

Because their goal is to get you to believe what they believe which is not the truth. And this is what he's saying in this passage. God has given gifted men to his body in order to raise up people who are growing in their relationship to Christ and are able to stand the onslaught and the attack and the deceitful trickery sly ways of those who would get us off base into some other kind of ideas. And I think it's interesting. Not long ago I was speaking at a particular convention and afterwards we had a luncheon and these counselors were saying to me, you know, there are some groups when these people walk into a counseling session we know exactly where they come from.

We know exactly what area of the body of Christ they come from because they are so emotionally caught up in so many things but their biblical foundation is so meager. And I was watching the other morning while I was exercising and turn to happen to turn to this particular program and I thought I'll listen a little bit of this and here's what they were offering. Well, if you'll just do so and so God will answer your prayers. You will not be sick. You will learn you will be prosperous and on and on and on and on and on it went of what God was going to do.

Let me tell you something. The kind of theology that you hear that promises you if you believe enough and do enough, you will not be sick. You'll never be poor. You'll never be in need. God will always make you prosperous everything you want. All you got to do is just send me some seed money faith and I'll just turn it into something good. I'm here to tell you mark it off and I'll tell you why you mark it off because Jesus talked about the cross sacrifice dying to self and all the rest and he didn't promise to give me everything my flesh wants and thank God he doesn't because he gave us everything our flesh wanted it destroy all of us. That is not biblical. It appeals to the flesh.

It appeals to human desires. It's just not biblical. And so what he's saying in this passage is the reason God wants to grow us up is not only to give glory to himself, but to protect us from error. And I'm here to tell you that lots of people out there who are trying to side track the people of God.

Now that brings us to a third thing that I want to say and where I want to spend the rest of the time. And that is in this whole idea of the spiritual growth of the believer and how weak you and I can evaluate whether we're growing spiritually or not. I was sort of thinking about this in my own life and trying to evaluate my own spiritual growth because you see, you can't just take it for granted. Because you're a Sunday school teacher and having to study your lesson every week and and preparing a lesson and teaching it doesn't mean that you're growing spiritually. Well, just because I spend hours during the week preparing for a message and come and preach three times on Sunday, that doesn't mean I'm growing spiritually.

It doesn't mean that at all. And so I began to ask myself, Lord, I want to check up on myself. How would I do it? And so as I began to think about in my own life, how do I measure my spiritual growth?

How do I evaluate whether I'm growing or not? I came up with a series of things that work for me. Now, I want you to listen carefully so you'll not misunderstand me. I'm not saying that my list is sufficient and adequate for everybody. I'm simply saying that this list is at least a start to help you evaluate your spiritual growth in light of what the Word of God says. There are many things I could add to this. So I want to ask you to get a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper and write them down. And I'm going to say them very precisely so that there will be no commentary until the statement is made.

And then I may comment on each one of them. But what we're talking about now is how do I evaluate my spiritual growth? We know that we're growing in our relationship to Christ when we are becoming increasingly aware of our sinfulness and our weaknesses. When we are becoming increasingly aware of our sinfulness and our weaknesses.

Now, how is that true? Well, if I'm growing in my personal relationship with Him, what is happening is I'm becoming more discerning. That means I'm being able to see myself in a clearer way than I was beforehand. And one of the things that happens in the Christian life, and I used to think it was opposite. And as I read the biographies of men and women of God who've made a real difference in the kingdom of God, what I've discovered is that the older they get, not the better they think they are, not the more adequate they feel, but rather the more inadequate they feel and the more things they see in their life that they had not seen before. So growing in the spiritual life, we know we're growing when we become aware of our sinfulness, more aware of our sinfulness, and when we become more aware of our weaknesses. That is, things that we think, well, I can handle that and I can handle this. One of the signs of our spiritual growth is God, I'm going to have to trust you.

I'm totally relying upon you. That is not a sign of weakness, it's ultimately a sign of strength. But it is an awareness of our weaknesses and our inadequacies.

So I want to encourage you to evaluate that one. We are growing in our relationship with Christ when our response to sin is quick and followed by genuine repentance. When our response to sin in our life is quick and it is followed by genuine repentance. You see, one of the evidences that I'm growing in my relationship to Him is that my grief level is very low. And that is when I sin against God, immediately I'm smitten with conviction and I want to deal with it.

I don't want to wait till tonight to deal with it or till tomorrow or the next week. You see, failing to deal with sin means I am resisting God at that moment or I may be rebelling against it. And so one of the evidences of our growth is we deal with sin quickly as soon as the Spirit of God convicts us. And secondly, it is followed by genuine repentance. I don't mean by Lord, now you know we're not perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. God, I know I sin.

No. Genuine repentance. God, I genuinely repent of that. I turn away from that. I don't want that in my life and I choose not to have that in my life.

Genuine repentance means a turning about in my spirit, in my life, in my conduct that there will be a difference. Thank you for listening to Testing Our Spiritual Growth. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.