Church Health (September 25, 2022)

Church Health is the key to church growth. All living things grow if they are healthy. You don’t have to make them grow – it is just natural for living organisms. As a parent, we don’t have to force our children to grow; they naturally grow up. As long as we as parents remove hindrances, such as poor nutrition or an unsafe environment, their growth is automatic. If you as a believer, as a Christian, are not growing in God, there is a hindrance that needs to be removed. These hindrances have been placed their by ourselves or by the devil himself.

So let’s look at what we as believers, as Christians, are supposed to be doing with our lives.

Ephesians 4:11-16 ~ “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 in 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.”

Every believer has gifts in their lives and those gifts have a threefold purpose. The five gifts in the verses we just read are gifts that involve speech, proclamation and interaction. They are very specialized gifts, gifts that are usually looked upon as being the official and professional gifts of the church body. They are not given in full measure to every believer, HOWEVER, every believer SHOULD …

• be as an apostle in that he is serving Christ in a very special ministry and faithfully using the gift God has given him.

• be as a prophet in that he is daily proclaiming God’s Word.

• be as an evangelist in that he is bearing witness to the lost.

• be as a pastor/shepherd in that he is shepherding and caring for people all the time.

• be as a teacher in that he is teaching the truths of God’s Word to all whom he knows.

What does all this have to do with church health? If the believers, Christians, of the church are doing the work of the Church Body, then the Church Health will be good; and Church Health is the key to church growth.

There is an eternal purpose for the gifts being used properly among the believers, the Christians, the church body and it can be stated no clearer than what the Word of God itself says – it says three things:

• The believer, the Christian, the minister of God works to bring about unity among God’s people. If someone is bringing about division within the church family, that is NOT of God. We are called of God to …

• bring peace and reconciliation to the church

• to lead people into perfect harmony and oneness of spirit

• to lead people out of cliques, divisiveness, murmuring, grumbling, griping, and all the other sins that militate against a perfect unity

• 1 Corinthians 1:10 ~ “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”

• 2 Corinthians 13:11 ~ “Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

• Ephesians 4:3 ~ “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

• The believer, the Christian, the minister of God is to work to bring about a perfect man, a man who measures up to the stature of Christ himself – to the fullness of His stature.

• Hebrews 5:14 ~ “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

• 2 Peter 1:5-6 ~ “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,”

• The believer, the Christian, the minister of God is to work to bring about the knowledge of the Son of God. Is what you are doing pointing to Christ?

• Hosea 6:3 ~ “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

• John 8:31-32 ~ “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Part of Church Health and Church Growth is something no one likes and that is Church Discipline. One of the purposes of Church Discipline is the obedience of the church to its mission. Very simply stated, as long as the church allows men and women to continue disturbance, the church can not and will not focus upon mission and ministry, and thus will not have good health and growth. The Church can not do its work; the Church will be disobedient to God, allowing controversy and division to rule. The fellowship will be ruined and the very purpose for being upon earth is drastically affected.

2 Corinthians 2:9 ~ “For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.”

The point is this: Paul had instructed the church to discipline any offender in order to prove its obedience to Christ.

• If the church is concerned about obeying Christ, church discipline must be present.

• If the church is not concerned with obeying Christ, the focus will be on controversy instead of on ministry.

As already stated, Church Discipline is there to free the church from controversy, allowing the Church Body to focus upon mission and ministry, thus the health of the Church would be good and the Church Body will have growth.

The final topic today concerning Church Health has to do with using Wisdom from above and that brings about peace of God. Read James 3:13-18 and you will find that many in the early day church misunderstood and twisted true wisdom. (We will be looking at these verses in our Wednesday Evening Gathered Bible Study class.)

James 3:18 ~ “And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

For our topic on Church Health, I want us to look at verse 18 and realize a few things:

• True wisdom comes from God alone.

• The usage of true wisdom from God will sow peace and bring about peace in the lives it touches.

• The word peaceable means to bind together, to join and weave together. We must be bound, woven and joined together …

• with ourselves

• with God

• with our fellow believer

Peace is the final thought this morning I want to look at on the topic of Church Health. We can’t be a healthy church without the Peace of God. If we want a health church body we must have unity, church discipline, and peace.