I was so blessed to have God fearing parents who loved Jesus more than anything else, and modelled a lifestyle of uncompromising spiritual disciplines. My parents would seldom miss attending Sunday worship services and midweek Bible studies.

In our family, it was not an option to go to church, it was not something we did if it was convenient or if something more “exciting” was happening that day.

For my parents, it wasn’t legalism or ritual, rather it was out of a love relationship with the King of Kings. It was a discipline born out of putting Jesus first in our family.  

I so appreciate that it was modelled for me from a very young age.

Gathering with the Body of Christ, is putting Jesus first. I really believe we need to rethink our priorities as a culture and prioritize the discipline of gathering on a Sunday morning. Not “attending” via YouTube but actually being in the room with other believers.

If we were to get an honest answer from many Western church goers as to why they attend church, most people want community or a social gathering, not the living and active Body of Christ. If that offends you, then how can you explain that the average church member attends worship services 1.6 times a month?

As we have been looking at these last few weeks, church health is about healthy communities, proclaiming and living around the Gospel message. The message of the Gospel is what unites us and draws us into fellowship. The word Gospel comes from the Greek translation and simply means, the Good News.

One of the clearest descriptions of the Good News is found in 1 Corinthians 15, as Paul reminds the church of why they exist. Something we need to do time and time again.  

1 Corinthians 15:1-6, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.”

That is the Gospel that Paul said is, “of first importance”.  Jesus, the sinless Son of God, died in our place, crucified for our sins. He was raised back to life, overcoming sin and death, paving the way for us to be able to stand in right relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Looking at verse 1, we have three key words regarding this message of the Gospel.

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand.”

1. The Gospel must be Preached.

The role of the Church is to preach the Good News (See Romans 10:14).

We proclaim the Gospel through the ordinances of the church, Baptism and Communion – the Lord’s Supper. To proclaim and remember the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Every time we partake of the elements of the bread and the cup, we declare the Gospel. It is anything but routine, it is a life-giving and essential part of a healthy church.

• The Gospel must be Received

We can hear the Gospel every day, but until we receive it and believe it, entering into a personal relationship with Jesus, it is not the Good News for us. The Gospel only becomes Good News when we personally believe in the name of Jesus for salvation.

• We Stand on the Gospel

It doesn’t matter what is happening in the Middle East, the White House, our bank accounts or the doctors report, we stand on the promise of the Gospel.

Writing about Spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6, Paul emphasizes the importance of standing firm (See Ephesians 6:13-14).

We stand on the Gospel of Jesus Christ because in light of eternity, it is all that will ultimately matter.

A Warning

But we must always approach communion with awe and reverence. It is remembering the suffering of Jesus, it is holy.  

Paul writes a warning to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32. We need to examine our hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, that we may repent and come to the table with clean hands and a pure heart (See Psalm 24).

How reverently do you approach the Lord’s Supper?

Maturity is not measured in years; rather maturity is a measure of emotional and spiritual health. Maturity is being self-aware and comfortable with who God has made you to be. Immature people often try to copy others rather than developing their own identity in Christ.

Depending on our life experiences and trauma, we all have some aspects of our emotions that are not mature and that have not developed the way God intended.

For the Christian, maturity is Christlikeness. It means growing more like Jesus and dying to our flesh daily, finding satisfaction in the approval of our Heavenly Father alone.

In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul encouraged the church to be unified, to use their gifts and to mature as the Body of Christ. We see in verse 12 that maturity comes from doing the work of the ministry. We make a mistake when we think that we cannot do the work until we are spiritually mature. The truth is that we grow and mature as we exercise our spiritual gifts in the Body.

In verses 13-16, we see four traits of a spiritually mature person:

1: Maturity Involves Christlikeness

In verse 13, we read that Jesus is our example of spiritual maturity. The fullness of Christ is the expression of completion of our Christian walk, exhibited by the Fruit of the Spirit that we see in Galatians 5:22-23.

Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Jesus, as our old way of thinking and acting is replaced by Christ’s through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We will only attain Christlikeness when Jesus comes again, but we need to be moving forward. If you are not more like Jesus today than you were a year ago, something is wrong with your walk with the Lord. We grow more like Jesus as we walk with Jesus.

2: Maturity Involves Doctrinal Stability

Spiritual maturity involves the mind. We must not think that Christian growth is purely an emotional and spiritual exercise and that we need to check our reasoning skills at the door. Verse 13 encourages us to grow in the knowledge of the Son of God. And in verse 14 Paul uses the example of children as the opposite end of the spectrum. Children can be gullible and easily swayed by false teaching.

We all begin our relationship with Jesus as spiritual children, with childlike faith. But we must not stay as children; we need to grow and be able to feed ourselves by reading and meditating on the Word of God.

The world is full of false teachers with false doctrines. We need to think, pray, and ask God for discernment. We have a very real enemy who will use every tool available to sidetrack us on our spiritual journey of becoming more like Jesus.

Knowing the Word is the best way to avoid being distracted by false doctrines and unbiblical teaching. We can only know God’s Word by spending time reading and meditating on it.

Sadly, the statistics show that most churchgoers do not read their Bibles, and this is why the church is prey for false teachers (see Hebrews 5:11-14).

3: Maturity involves Truth Joined with Love

Verse 15 has the often-misused text, “speaking the truth in love…” This verse has often been taken and used as a “baseball bat of brotherly love”. It’s one of those Christianese phrases that we like to use before or after saying something harsh.

This is more than simply speaking; the Greek word is complex here. John Stott describes it as “truthing”. Speaking the truth in love is truthing in love. This includes maintaining, living, and practicing the truth. We live out the truth as an example to those around us. It is the equivalent of the phrase: “actions speak louder than words.”

Mature people do not avoid tough conversations, but they speak from a firm foundation of love and not for selfish gain.

 “Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love, love becomes soft if it is not strengthened by truth” John Stott

4: Maturity Involves Contribution

In verse 16, Paul goes back to the analogy of the body when speaking about the church.

The church is like a body with many different parts and connections; it is not a social club. The church is the Body of Christ, where each part has an important part to play.

As the church, we are dependent on Christ as the head of the church, and we are dependent on each other as working members of the same body. As we grow in Christ individually, we exercise our gifts, and the Body becomes healthy.

Sadly, many churches in the world have a static view of the church. The members of the church are satisfied if the congregation stays about the same size, with the same familiar faces. They are happy if the programs can all be maintained and the budget is enough to keep all the familiar programs running. In these churches there is no vision for growth through evangelism or missional engagement. This church may have already died.

This is a tragedy and not God’s design for the church. God’s design for the church is to be the salt and the light in our communities and to be the cultural influence for the glory of God.

As we focus on being a healthy church, the natural by-product is growth. But what is church growth? Is it numeric growth?

I believe church growth is first and foremost spiritual maturity, sacrificial living, healthy evangelistic relationships, and people feeding on the Word of God for themselves. Thereafter, the numeric growth will follow.

If you have been a Christian for any length of time, who are you feeding? Are you growing?