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I don’t know when this distinction was first made, but for some reason, many Christians draw a line between being a Christian and being a disciple. It seems that the distinction is more a matter of degree, that being a Christian is a kind of “entry level” faith and that being a disciple is more advanced.

The Bible doesn’t make such a distinction. In fact, it seems that the early church were called “disciples” long before they were called Christians. Acts 11:26 tells us that “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” The prevailing characteristic of the early church was that they were disciples of Jesus; they were followers of Christ. To be honest, even the name Christian ought to reflect that characteristic; to be a Christian is to be like Jesus Christ, to speak and act in the manner of Christ. Jesus himself told his first disciples to go and make more disciples in Matthew 28:19, 20; that ought to tell us the importance of being disciples of Christ.

Yet today, many Christians seem to be content to be called “Christians” without much thought about following Jesus, much less making more followers of Jesus. For many it’s more than enough just to “get saved,” to claim the name of Jesus and sit tight waiting for Jesus to return and take them to heaven. And that seems to be the key to the distinction: getting saved so you can go to heaven. For many Christians, all it means to be a Christian is to have a ticket to heaven. So living as a Christian goes only as far as professing certain beliefs and doing certain actions, but only what it takes to get saved and get into heaven.

Being a Christian is more than being saved, and salvation is more than going to heaven. Certainly, at the heart of the gospel is the Good News that God sent Jesus to forgive our sins and raised Jesus from the dead to rescue us from this present evil age (Galatians 1:1, 4), but that rescue is more than forgiveness and a future in heaven. There’s also freedom and righteousness in this life, and that comes through the gospel message and following Jesus to the point of dying to ourselves and being raised to live like Jesus in the here and now (Galatians 2:20, 21).

Unfortunately, living like Jesus, even today, can be difficult, if not outright painful. That being true, many people give up on living like Jesus, even though they wear the name of Christ. But 1 Peter 4:16, 17 warns us, “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” Peter tells those who wear the name of Jesus – Christians – that if times are tough for those who wear Christ’s name, imagine what it will be like for those who do not obey the gospel.

Don’t give up on living as a disciple of Christ just because it might lead to suffering as Christ suffered. Instead, praise God when the world recognizes you as a disciple of Jesus and then continue to live as a disciple who makes more disciples who make more disciples.

Having been out of school for only a short while… I still find myself thinking of the calendar in terms of school years. Sure, I still have kids in school, but there’s something about the fall and the beginning of the school year that seems to be more of a “new year” than the first of January.

I think the appeal comes from the built-in expectations and structures for continued growth. The idea of going to school brings with it an expectation that you’re going to learn something. Going back to school keeps that expectation alive and keeps building on it; not only are you going to school to learn more, but you’re going back to build upon what you’ve already learned. It’s a natural environment built on past, present, and future.

Just as we start our formal education in school as children, we also start training ourselves to grow spiritually as children. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Those of us who grew up in a Christian home or going to church as children likely remember the Bible stories and verses that we learned through lessons, activities, and songs, and it’s remarkable how we usually remember them when we need them.

This is how God’s people began a lifelong journey of growing in their faith and knowledge of God and of God’s Word and, in the church of the New Testament, of Jesus Christ. Paul recognized that habit and pattern in the life of his protege Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:5, 6:

I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

Timothy’s faith began in his grandmother and was passed on to his mother and then to Timothy. Then Paul encouraged him to keep growing. In 2 Timothy 3:14-17 Paul told Timothy how to keep growing:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Paul referred back to Timothy’s past, when he was being raised by his mother and grandmother to know the Scriptures. He referred to Timothy’s present knowledge, which has led him to his faith in Jesus and, therefore, his salvation. Paul also looks forward to Timothy’s continued growth in his faith and knowledge of Jesus and God’s Word so that he might be “thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

It seems that Paul’s expectations for Timothy were for him to stay in God’s Word not just for his own sake but for the sake of others. That’s why he refers to “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.” Paul expects Timothy to continue what his mother and grandmother began, what Paul began, in Timothy’s life: to know the Scriptures, to be wise, to have faith, to find salvation, and to pass on those things to others.

What’s interesting, to me, is that there doesn’t seem to be any indication that this expectation for on-going growth and training ever ends. It seems that Timothy’s grandmother Lois wasn’t finished with her growth in her faith when she raised her daughter Eunice in the faith; she continued by helping her grandson Timothy to grow in his faith.

Certainly there’s something there for us to learn. Our efforts to grow in our faith and knowledge of Jesus don’t stop when we get older, and neither does God’s expectation for us to train others in learning God’s Word and growing in their faith and knowledge of Jesus. As we continue to learn more about what it means for each of us to grow in our own faith, let us “fan into flame” our own gifts and continue “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” so that all of us might be prepared to do the work that God has called us to do in this community.

The more I interact with people about their faith or just spiritual things in general, the more I find the conversations focusing on what people know and what they do. Most people, when we’re talking about their faith, describe their faith by what they know about the Bible or the Quran or certain philosophies or by what they do, like going to church, praying, meditating, and doing good works. To be honest, this happens whether I’m talking to folks who consider themselves to be Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or even Christian.

However, most Christians with whom I speak will make a distinction that their faith is more of a relationship with God, and I would agree that one of the greatest distinctions between our Christian faith and any other religion or worldview is that we are able to know God and have a relationship with God through our faith in Jesus. But when many Christians talk about their relationship with God, again, they describe it by telling what they know and what they do.

So what does it really mean to have a relationship with God? Is it really enough to know about God, to know what Jesus said and did, and to say or do certain things because the Bible “tells me so”? Does that mean we really know Jesus? I mean, just because we are aware of the fact that George Washington was born in February 1732, that he was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and that he was the first president of the United States, does that mean that we know George Washington? Would celebrating his birth by buying a mattress on Presidents Day prove that we know him any better? Certainly not. For one thing, George Washington died in 1799, and he is still buried at Mount Vernon, while we worship and serve a living Savior.

But how might we know Jesus? Paul wrote this in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” Paul’s goal wasn’t to know about Jesus – to know the details of his life and ministry, to know the content of his teaching – his goal was to know Jesus, to have a relationship with Jesus. The key is in the phrase “fellowship of sharing.” That’s not a mental exercise; it’s not something you can learn. It’s something that must be experienced.

In order to know Jesus, we need to fellowship with Jesus, to share, as Paul wrote, in the suffering of Jesus, even to the point of “becoming like him in his death.” Obviously, since Jesus walked the earth nearly 2000 years ago, we will need to learn about Jesus; so we ought to spend some time and put some effort into reading the Bible, studying it, and meditating on it, so that we might know about his life, ministry, suffering, death, burial, and resurrection. If not, how can we share in those things?

Then, as we learn about Jesus, we can fellowship with him and share with him in his sufferings. The first step would be in sharing in his death, burial, and resurrection through our own baptism. Paul explains this in Romans 6:3-5:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

That’s how we actually know Jesus; that’s how we have a living relationship with Jesus. When we share in his death, burial, and resurrection and when we share in his sufferings – struggling with temptation, being separated from friends and family and even persecuted because of our faith – that’s when we know Jesus. That’s something that we share with a living Savior and not just something we know. And when we know Jesus in that way, that’s something that we can share with others, so that they might know our living Savior.

There’s a story about Benjamin Franklin as he left the Constitutional Convention that people asked him what kind of government the delegates had developed for this new country and Franklin reportedly said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin’s response speaks volumes in a few words. Not only had the people of the former British colonies fought to grasp liberty for themselves as a nation, but they would have to continue struggling to maintain that liberty. There is a natural struggle within a representative form of government, such as this democratic republic of ours, to resist serving itself while serving the people. This is why our Founding Fathers labored so diligently to draft our Constitution and why they immediately determined to amend it with a Bill of Rights.

There is also a struggle among those people to resist creating a government that serves individuals versus the people as a nation. When governments and people serve themselves, the nation loses its liberty, and as we lose our liberty, we also lose our peace. So for the sake of peace, we struggle to maintain our liberty as a nation, which seems like an understatement in view of our current election season.

As Christians, we must do our part to maintain peace in our world, which has been true for all Christians throughout the history of the church, regardless of location or nationality. In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Paul wrote:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Paul tells us that our primary means of maintaining peace is to pray for everyone, especially for “those in authority.” He also tells us that such peace allows us to live our lives “in all godliness and holiness.” Paul says that not only does this please God but it also contributes to God’s desire for all people to know the truth and be saved. In other words, Paul tells Christians to pray for their leaders in order to maintain peace, which allows us to live our lives according to God’s truth in the view of others so that they might be saved.

This kind of prayer for worldly leaders has enabled the church not only to survive but thrive, even under the authority of leaders who have opposed and persecuted Christians. How has the church thrived despite persecution? Because the church prays for its persecutors. Jesus made it pretty clear when he said in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” There’s no doubt that there are people who have opposed and persecuted the church throughout the centuries, and even in our country where “freedom of religion” is protected within the Bill of Rights, but there’s no doubt that God expects his people to love and pray for those people.

Certainly, there are times and people that push the limits of our love – it is an election year – but that reinforces the fact that our peace and liberty are worth the struggle. With every headline that makes us wonder about our elected officials – and those who elect them – we should find ourselves more determined to pray for them. And we should pray for them not so they change their minds and be more like “us” but so we might all live peacefully. As we all live in peace, our godly and holy living ought to be evidence of the truth of God’s Word and lead our so-called evidence to trust and follow God, too.

As I write this, I can hear the low drone of the cicadas through closed windows and over the sound of the traffic. Cicadas are strange, aren’t they? It baffles me to think that the cicadas we see and hear now came from eggs that were laid 17 years ago. I suppose, as the father of three teenagers, it shouldn’t seem strange that they’ve spent most of their lives underground surviving by sucking the life out of trees. In fact, as Claire has now graduated from high school and will soon be going off to college, it probably shouldn’t seem strange to me that life is often a matter of slow growth.

And it’s the same with the church, not just our church, but any church. Healthy, sustainable growth is often slow growth. Sure, there might be growth spurts along the way, just as there are with raising kids, but for the most part, healthy growth is usually slow and steady.

Throughout the Bible, we find many agricultural references, and that ought to tip us off that God’s view of growth is likely more organic than mechanical; that is, God’s people are born and raised and not simply made. Even though we talk about making disciples (as in Matthew 28:18-20), it seems that the process is more like planting seeds, watering them, and helping as God makes them grow (as in 1 Corinthians 3:6). Even though there is a sense of urgency that ought to prompt us to share the Gospel message with others, real growth takes time. James 5:7 reminds us of this when James writes, “Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains.” Our urgency is a matter of need – everybody needs Jesus – and a matter of not knowing when Jesus will return, but growth is a natural process, and it takes time.

However, we do have some influence in how effective that time might be. First, we need to encourage one another within the church, as I preached recently from Hebrews 3:13, “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today.” That encouragement comes when we watch out for one another but also as we work together. For example, Paul suggests that older men and women need to encourage and teach younger men and women in 1 Timothy 5 and Titus 2. That kind of encouragement, over time, helps us to grow as individuals and as the church.

Second, we need to be purposeful in how we share the Gospel and make disciples. In Galatians 6:10, Paul tells the church to make use of opportunities to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” In Ephesians 5:15, 16 he tells us, “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” And that wisdom is important because we are living in a world that resists God, which is why Paul also wrote in Colossians 4:5, 6, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

And that’s what takes time: talking to people outside the church, treating them well, and answering their questions. The process ought to make us think about Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13 about the sower who went out to plant a field and the seed fell on the path, among the rocks, and on good soil. It’s one thing to read that parable and recognize that some people might not receive the Gospel message and grow; it’s another thing to recognize that we might need to put some more time and effort into preparing the field by removing the rocks or into protecting and coaxing seedlings as they grow, even if they’re “on the path.”

As we watch ourselves grow in our own faith and knowledge of Jesus, let’s not forget how long it has taken us to get where we are. Let’s work together and share the Good News and help others grow. Let’s encourage each other as we grow, no matter how slowly.

The recent series, “A Rebuilding Season,” seems to have struck a nerve with some people, especially myself – I suppose it’s a good idea that the preacher’s sermons would affect change at least within the preacher. And that’s the point; these sermons were not planned, written, or preached with the sole purpose of making changes within the church – that is, the church as a building or as an organization or as a gathering event. These sermons were focused primarily on prompting changes within each of us as individuals.

The simple reality is this: there’s no rebuilding the church if there’s no rebuilding its members. Even if all the members work together to restore old programs or to establish new ones, if the people who are the church are not solid on their own foundation in Christ, they will not succeed. For that reason, it’s at the top of my list to focus on preaching and teaching the Bible and sound biblical doctrine. For that reason, we are going to offer Bible studies and classes that focus on the Bible and sound biblical doctrine.

However, consuming good, healthy Bible lessons and sermons doesn’t necessarily mean good, healthy growth if we are not intentional about growing in our faith and knowledge. In his letter to the Colossian church, the apostle Paul told the early church that it was his prayer that they would grow in their knowledge of God, but knowledge wasn’t enough. He wrote in Colossians 1:10-12

We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

Paul wanted the early church to know that it wasn’t enough just to know about God or to know his Words but to do something with that knowledge.

The idea of rebuilding ourselves or building on a solid foundation starts with God’s Word, and that leads us to “live a life worthy of the Lord” so that we might “please him in every way.” With that knowledge, we do what it tells us are good works, and through those good works, we bear fruit. With that knowledge, we grow in strength so that we might be able to do those good works and so that we might endure any opposition or persecution to that work. And because we have that knowledge and its strength and because we have endured through the work and the opposition, we are able to praise God.

It seems that we come together as the church to grow in our faith and knowledge of Jesus, which helps us grow in our strength and ability to do good works, which leads us to praise God. So as we work on rebuilding our own lives, we find ourselves rebuilding the church. As we grow as individuals, we grow together as a body. As we work out our faith as individuals, we work as a body. As we praise God as individuals, we praise God as a body.

If you find yourself wondering what you can do to help rebuild the church, start with working on your own relationship with God. As you rebuild your own faith through the knowledge of God’s Word, through doing the good works that God’s Word leads us to do, and through your own praise to God for the knowledge, strength, and endurance he has given you, you will find yourself building up the church.

Aging is a strange process. While we are young, we can’t wait to get older; when we discover we are old, we wish we were younger. It has recently come to my attention that I am getting older, more than that: I am an adult. I discovered this upon my realization that not only will our daughter graduate from high school within two months but we will release her into the world to begin making her own way. Even though we have, throughout the years, done our best to raise our children well, we can only hope that they grow up to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually mature. Now that our daughter is technically an adult and soon to be headed off to college, I have realized that an important aspect of our own maturity is the ability to help others grow and mature.

This is especially important within the church. Throughout the Scriptures, from Old Testament through the New Testament, there is much evidence that reveals God’s plan for his people to grow and mature by the help and guidance of others, especially from one generation to another, whether there is a family relationship or not. There is no doubt that God’s primary plan for raising children in their faith and knowledge of God and his will is through the example of and teaching by parents and the extended family; this is the foundation of Israel’s identity as we read it in Deuteronomy 6 and elsewhere.

God’s message is a message for all ages and for the ages; it is meant to be taught and learned – and lived – by both young and old and for all time. So, as this was true then for God’s people Israel, it is also true now for God’s people, the Church. The apostle Paul reminded Timothy, whom he called his “true son in the faith,” to encourage the people of the church to grow in this way, writing in 1 Timothy 5:1, 2:

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.

It seems that Paul recognized that the church should also behave as God’s family and that God’s children ought to treat each other with respect and honor. However, that relationship wasn’t just for the sake of harmony within the family; it was intended to help us grow and mature together.

Paul gives us several examples of this intergenerational growth and development within the church in Titus 2:2-8. Here he encourages older men to live honorable lives of faith. He encourages older women to be good examples, teaching younger women to be good wives and mothers. Paul encourages young men to be self-controlled. In each of these relationships, Paul directs the older and younger men and women to help each other grow and mature, to live exemplary lives so that the world will not have legitimate reasons to accuse Christians of doing wrong. This is no less important today.

Unfortunately for us at Athens Church of Christ, it’s painfully obvious that we have very few children, much less younger men and women, whom we may help grow and mature in their faith and knowledge of Jesus. But not only should that give us a dire warning about the future of this church body, it should also give us a warning about our ability as individuals to grow in our own faith. Since it is important for our own maturity to teach and help others, our lack of young people – children, teens, and adults – will certainly affect our own growth. Not only will we not grow numerically, we will not grow spiritually.

Certainly, we’re missing the younger people, but whether they are here or not, we must begin to prepare for them to be here. First, we need to take Paul’s advice and continue working on our own lives, so others will be drawn to Jesus through our lives and so we will be able to teach and train others. Second, we need to be ready to welcome them, and that means we need to have people ready to rock babies in the nursery, to teach in Sunday school and children’s church, to prepare rooms and materials for classes and programs. Last, we who are here now must help each other change and grow as individuals so that we might change and grow as a body, and let me be frank, if you are not prepared to change yourself to welcome others or to help others grow, don’t be surprised if you find your own growth to be stunted. Let us be encouraged by God’s plan and efforts through this body which he has gifted, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:12, 13, “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 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.”

Many of us who have grown up in the church or who have attended a church for a while probably have a list of expectations about what “church” ought to be like – how we worship, how we teach or preach, how we make disciples, how we are organized, and so on. For many of us, most of what the church is supposed to do is supposed to happen in the church building on a Sunday morning, and much of what is supposed to be done is supposed to be done by the guy behind the pulpit.

However, ministry isn’t always what you might expect. In their book Lost in America: How Your Church Can Impact the World Next Door, ministers and church-growth experts Tom Clegg and Warren Bird wrote, “In America, it takes the combined effort of eighty-five Christians working over an entire year to produce one convert” (page 29). While Clegg and Bird point out that the average American church is largely ineffective in its primary task – making disicples – one thing that we should take from their statement is that most of what the church is supposed to do actually happens outside the walls of the church building and is most often done by someone other than the minister.

This simple fact remains: every one of us is called to make disciples; that’s what Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, 20, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Even though we read about the leadership of Jesus’ disciples throughout the New Testament, much of the work of the early church was done from day to day by the early Christians. Following the death of Stephen in Acts 7, we can read in Acts 8:1, “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria,” and then in Acts 8:4 it says, “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.”

The early Christians made disciples by preaching the word, but they also influenced the people around them through their daily lives. Tabitha, known to most of us as Dorcas, was a great example of this; Acts 9:36 tells us that she was a disciple “who was always doing good and helping the poor.” This should show us that not only do we share the Gospel through preaching and teaching, but we can also share it by what we do because of our faith. That’s why James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” and then in James 2:18, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”

Again, ministry isn’t always what you might expect. One of the greatest opportunities for ministering to the community of Athens is through our preschool. It’s unfortunate that even within our church we seem to forget that the preschool is a ministry of Athens Church of Christ and not another organization that uses the building. Not only does the preschool provide a service of preparing children to enter kindergarten, but they also teach lessons from the Bible and demonstrate God’s love not only to the children but to their families. And because many of the children are from international families, the preschool’s influence goes beyond our community and into the world. If you have an opportunity to visit the preschool, check out one of our most successful ministries. Also, be sure to thank the director, Denise Gregory; the treasurer, Toni Llewellyn; and board members Bev Guider, Penny Stout, and Dick Grinstead for their leadership in this ministry.

But more than that, find your own ministry, and remember that it doesn’t have to happen here in the building. If you need some ideas of where you can help, consider holding babies in the nursery, visiting folks who are unable to attend regularly, reading to children in the preschool, or helping with community meals on Tuesdays. There’s a lot of work to be done to make disciples in this community, and we need to work together to get it done.