A Call to Maturity

Listen to the word of God right now, for your life, for your spirit. Chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians, the letter to the Ephesians: it is a call from God to maturity. I could title this sermon just that: “A Call to Maturity.” A call to maturity. That is what God is calling the Lion of Judah congregation to.

In verse three of Ephesians, the apostle Paul calls this congregation—and, by extension, calls us across the centuries since this epistle was written—and says to us, the Lion of Judah congregation: “Be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” To be diligent means to be careful, hardworking, committed to preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

“One body and one Spirit, just as you were also called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” That part of the apostle Paul’s call is a call to unity: unity in spirit, unity in commitment, unity in mindset, unity in the understanding of the word of God. The unity of flowing together as a body flows in its movements, in harmony and coherence, toward a specific purpose.

God has made our church a very diverse church: all colors, different economic levels, different nationalities, different educational levels. But out of that diversity, God wants there to be unity in the Spirit. And God wants our church to flow in its commitment to God. He wants all of us to drink from the same water and all of us to receive the same baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Our times of prayer and worship are when God sends His Spirit upon us and melts the metal of different temperaments, personalities, and cultural backgrounds. And He melts all those metals of different compositions and makes them one substance of unity in the Spirit.

God wants that for this church. God wants us to love one another, visit one another, prefer one another, set barriers aside, and become one in spirit; He wants us to drink from the same water.

God wants there to be no people—with that faraway look one sometimes sees in them—when there are times of worship and the Spirit is being exalted, while a great celebration is taking place. Sometimes, for a moment, as you look across the congregation, you see people filled with the Spirit, worshiping and experiencing the glorious presence of God, while others have a faraway, empty look in their eyes.

And I do not say this to attack anyone, but to express what I believe is the Holy Spirit’s desire: that those people also enter into the same celebration and the same spirit; that there be unity and fellowship in the Spirit. God wants the anointing to be able to fall within that unity.

The word of the Lord says: “Behold, how good and how delightful it is for brethren to dwell”—how?—“together in harmony.” It says that it is like the ointment, like the oil that runs down from the head, over the beard, and continues down the garments until it reaches the hem of the garments. And when there is that anointing of God, which can flow down because there is unity and nothing interrupts it, it says: “Then the Lord bestows blessing there, and eternal life.”

So, in this season of our life as a congregation, God wants all of us to enter into the same flow and the same unity. I believe that God is preparing great things, great things—not only for this congregation, but for His entire church on earth; but unity of the Spirit is required.

Then, later on in verse 11, the Holy Spirit says through the apostle Paul: “And He Himself”—that is, God—“appointed some to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers.”

Notice something: when God poured out His Spirit upon the church on the day of Pentecost, He declared certain gifts, certain abilities, among His people so that those abilities might equip and bless the people of God. And some of those gifts and some of those functions of the body of Christ are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. They are different functions. Teachers teach and instruct; pastors shepherd, nourish, govern, lead, establish order, provide shelter, counsel, and administer.

Evangelists gather souls and bring them in—and not only evangelists like Billy Graham or Yiye Ávila; I believe that every church has people with an evangelistic spirit and anointing.

There are evangelists in the churches, people who love souls, who have an appetite for souls, and who have a special endowment for reaching souls. There are evangelists. There are also prophets; there are people with a prophetic endowment. They hear from God, receive visions, dreams, and revelation, and God wants to further activate the true, genuine movement of the prophet among His people.

Many people are like a somewhat defective antenna, like those television antennas: they pick up a little, but what appears on the screen is sometimes a little blurry, and sometimes there are lines and other things. I do not know whether that still happens with the new televisions; perhaps I am thinking of the old ones from years ago, right? I have just revealed my age there.

But God wants prophets who are properly tuned, like those High Definition televisions—high definition, with perfect resolution—who hear from God and set aside their emotions, agendas, wounds, and defects of temperament. He wants all that set aside. He wants them to receive the word of God directly and channel it to His people in a pure, clean form. And God wants to extend that prophetic anointing further. And apostles as well.

The ministry of the apostle has been somewhat sotto voce; it has been subdued among the people of God for a long time. It has been sort of soaking there. But now the Lord is raising up the apostolic ministry more and more because God needs it. The apostolic ministry is not a local ministry; the apostolic ministry is for His Church with a capital “C.” The apostolic ministry is for the order that God needs to restore in these times.

The apostle is not for a single congregation, but belongs to the church as a whole and speaks to the church as a whole, with a special anointing to proclaim the message God has for a specific time and a specific purpose. And God is also raising up His apostles.

So these functions that God declares over His people remain in effect. Now, what for? God pours out these functions. That is, He Himself appointed them. To appoint means that He “declared,” “installed,” and officially designated some to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers.

What for? Look at this; it is very important. It says: “For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry.” There are some words there that need to be refined and defined. Perfecting: that is, look, the purpose, the reason God poured out those specific gifts like drops of blessing and specific anointing upon His people was to perfect them.

What does perfecting mean? When an artist who has spent years studying an instrument goes to another country or to a conservatory—you have heard people say, “Did he go away to perfect his skills? To perfect his gift?” That expression is used in Spanish. What does it mean? To polish, to complete, to refine, to advance, to develop.

So look at that. God has decreed His supernatural anointing upon His church in the form of these ministries, not so that those ministries may display themselves or simply spread themselves indiscriminately over the people of God, but for a purpose: to be channels for the perfecting, improvement, and advancement of whom? Of the saints. Everyone say, “Saints.”

Now let me tell you, if you come from the Catholic tradition, which I respect, that word will not make sense the way it sounded to Paul. Because for many people, a saint is Saint Teresa of Ávila, or—what was the name of that last one who was in India? Mother Teresa, or Madre Teresa. People with incredible achievements and superhuman strength, or whatever; people chosen, as it were, to dwell in the spiritual stratosphere.

You know what? When Paul says “the saints,” to whom is he referring? To you, to the church. Say, “To me.” Saints means those set apart for God, those consecrated and designated. Did you know that you are a saint? There are saints whose little fangs—and their claws—still need to be pulled out, I understand; but in God’s mind, you are one... because you have been set apart.

The word saint comes from the original Hebrew—the word “hagios”—or from the Greek. It means “separated, set apart.” It is like, let us say, an instrument that has been set apart exclusively for the worship of God. The ark, for example, was holy; the temple was holy; the priests were holy because they had been set apart for a purpose.

Well, in the economy of the gospel, every believer, every Christian, is set apart by God. And that is something we have to understand, brothers and sisters: when God calls you, when you enter into the ways of the Lord, understand something, and that is that you are now supposed to separate yourself from certain practices. You live in the world, but you are not in the world—in one sense—you are not of the world. You have been set apart. Now you are supposed to be an instrument for the glory of God.

You live for Christ; everything you are exists to glorify God.

Listen, how different that is from the idea many people have of the Gospel! Their idea is: “Well, now I am an evangelical; now I have my evangelical membership card; I go to church, sing three little choruses, listen to a half-baked sermon, and go home until next Sunday”—and that makes me an evangelical. That is not the idea. The idea is the total consecration of your life; it is a radical change. And that is one of the things the Holy Spirit is saying to the people of God.

He is saying: “Lion of Judah congregation, remove your veil and remove everything that hinders a direct connection with God, and recognize that God has called you to live a life consecrated to the service of the Lord.” Because by definition, you are a saint. If you truly believe that you are a Christian, you have to be a saint; you have to be set apart for the Lord. There is no middle ground. The Lord abhors lukewarm people.

In the book of Revelation, the Lord says: “Because you are neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” With every passing day, lukewarmness becomes more and more inappropriate for the children of God. So the apostle Paul says: “God poured out His Spirit in the form of apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, and teachers so that they might perfect the people of God.” So that they might work to perfect the saints. What for, it says? “For the work of the ministry.” For the work of the ministry.

Brother, understand what it is saying here once again: God has poured out His Spirit to prepare you through those He has appointed, so that you may be perfected, so that you may continue growing for the work of the ministry. Sometimes we think that the only people in ministry are whom? The pastors. Isn’t that right? Ah! Those are the ones—he is in the ministry. But you know what? Again and again, the Bible tells you that you too are called to the work of the ministry.

You are part of it, and God wants—God has invested His power, His supernatural essence, so that you may be perfected and continue growing, improving, learning, and developing, so that this growth may then result in service to the Lord. And how does one work in the work of the ministry? One works in the work of the ministry by visiting the sick, bringing people to the knowledge of the Lord, preaching the word of God, and doing the work of personal evangelism.

One works for the Lord by visiting hospitals, visiting widows, visiting people who are lonely, and visiting people who are depressed. One works for the ministry by serving in the congregation so that every need within the community of faith to which one belongs may be met by someone who says, “I am part of the ministry,” and so that you give of your time and prepare yourself to be useful in the kingdom of God.

God uses you in the ministry when you give your tithe to the Lord so that your church may have what it needs to carry out the tasks God has assigned to it. That is also a way for you to work for the work of the ministry. So what it is saying here is that “everything that happens in the life of a child of God is designed to prepare that daughter, that son of God, to be a useful member of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.”

How many can say amen if you understand what I am saying?

Many people believe that being a member of a church means coming in and, like a wine taster, listening to the sermon and swishing it around in their mouths: “Mmm! Let me see whether I liked the sermon today or not,” whether it is too salty or too bland. And they leave and make comments: “I liked the sermon today.” “No, but it was missing this.” They are wine tasters, and they never swallow it; they listen to it the way wine tasters do.

And what God wants is for you to come to church and receive the anointing that is in the church, to receive the blessing, but then for that to be like the gasoline you use to serve in the work of the ministry; so that when you leave church, you go out to serve. There are many people who criticize what is provided in the church and demand that things be done in the church, but they do not work in the ministry. They are consumers, but God wants producers. God wants doers, God wants ministers.

And that is God’s clear message for these times in our congregation and throughout all the people of God. God is saying to the people of God: “I want an army activated for service. I want men and women out there in the streets, in the neighborhoods of my community, preaching the word of my Son, because I am coming soon.”

He does not want undercover Christians; He does not want secret agents of the Kingdom. God wants people who are openly and avowedly Christian, who come out of the closet. Many people are coming out of the closet nowadays, but many Christians are still hiding in the closet. And those who are coming out of the closet should stay in it, while those who ought to be out are not where they need to be. The Lord says, “Come out, minister, serve in My name.”

For the purpose of perfecting the saints for the hour of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. Everything that is provided in the church is for building up the body of the Lord. And to what point? When can we say, “Okay, I now have everything I need; God has now moved enough in the midst of His church”? Look, it says: “Until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”

To a perfect man, to a perfect woman, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. God wants—brothers and sisters, understand this—God does not want you to remain small. Your goal as a servant of God, whether woman or man, is to grow every day.

You know how, when children reach a certain age, they love to measure themselves to see whether they have grown another inch? How many of you have had children like that, who say, “Mom, look at me,” because they want to see whether they have grown a little more over the past few months? God wants that same mindset to be in us as well. He wants us to ask ourselves: Over the past three months, have I grown? How have I grown? Have I grown in character? Have I grown in commitment? Have I grown in knowledge of the Word?

Have I grown in the movement of the Spirit of God within me? Have I grown in discerning God’s will for my life? Have I grown in love for souls? Have I grown in understanding the mysteries of the Word of God? Have I grown in zeal for the Lord? Have I grown in holiness? Have I grown in eliminating a few more of the flaws that distort my personality in Christ? Have I grown in surrendering more and more of my life to the Lord? Have I grown in being a contagious Christian?

We have to keep asking ourselves that continually. People come to church, and many times they simply come to sit there, but there is no sense that a son of God or a daughter of God has to be continually growing. They have to be in a continual process. The only way a Christian does not stagnate is by flowing, changing, processing, evolving.

We Christians are not lakes; we are flowing rivers. The Lord said, “Rivers of living water will flow from within them.” He did not say placid lakes. The Christian who does not flow is like a well of foul-smelling water, stagnant water, water—that was the Holy Spirit saying, “Amen.”

Brothers and sisters, if a Christian does not use God’s anointing, if God’s anointing rots inside him and becomes something harmful, God’s anointing is made to flow. That is why, if you do not serve the Lord, if you do not do something with God’s anointing, God’s anointing turns hostile against you. Because God’s anointing is made to flow. God’s anointing that is not put into motion and allowed to evolve for the advancement of God’s Kingdom is like a nail that grows into the flesh. And how much does an ingrown nail hurt?

Forgive me; I would like to find a more pleasant example, but I think you are going to remember that one. Some Christians are like that: they have God’s anointing tearing into their flesh because it wants to flow, and they are not letting it because they are consuming it, consuming it, and the anointing hurts them. When a person serves God and gives to God, when a person uses what God gives them… do you know what? God gives them more. But when you do not use what God has given you, you grieve the Holy Spirit.

What does the Word say? “To the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who does not have, even what he does not have will be taken away.” God’s anointing is made—if you look at Scripture again and again, time after time, all of Jesus Christ’s teaching, all His parables, were like that. God gives you something, and He expects you to invest it in His Kingdom and return it to Him—how? Multiplied. Yes or no?

Always—search all of Scripture. And if you do not return it to Him multiplied, He is displeased, and He lets you know it. That is the only way, brothers and sisters: the Lord wants you to invest and do business with what He has given you, and return it to Him multiplied. That is why it says here: “God wants to perfect us so that we may work, so that the body of Christ may be built up, may be enlarged. So that everyone may continue,” and it says, “Until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”

How far does He want us to go? To unity. Do you remember that we began with the idea of unity? Until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Do you know what normally happens in churches? There are people who have grown tremendously, some who have stopped halfway, and some who are still spiritual little children.

And there is a tremendous inequality in the Kingdom of God. There are different levels of commitment, different levels of surrender, many different levels of knowledge of the Word, discernment, and use of gifts. It is a tremendous imbalance, and what God wants is for all of us to grow in parallel.

Brother, God is calling you. This is a time when God expects all of us to grow. I hope in the Lord that in the coming weeks we—this weekend we were at a leaders’ retreat with some ministry leaders and pastors from the church—and God is speaking to us, God is calling us to prepare, and I want, brothers and sisters, that when we issue that call, many of you will come forward to receive intensive training.

God has placed in my mind and heart the idea of an event to be repeated a few times a year over a weekend, where people who are new to the gospel, people who still need to learn and need a basic introduction to the truths of the gospel, will come, and over an intensive weekend we will introduce them to something like a basic immersion in the truths of the gospel and minister to their lives, and this will conclude with a graduation—so to speak—on Sunday and, for some, perhaps a baptism, so that this will be the beginning, and from there you will continue in the discipleship courses we offer, so that we may all grow in the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.

Because many of you need it—and I am not saying this except medically, clinically: you need it—and glory to God that you, I know, will be willing and eager. Because it is through teaching that the people of God grow. Many people among the people of God are falling behind, and God is saying to us as a church, He is saying to us, “Get ready; enter the ranks of Christian service.”

I was sharing with the brothers and sisters—and I am about to finish, brothers and sisters—our church is growing and continues to grow, and glory to God for that; many lives are being added to the knowledge of God. But there is a problem, and it is that I do not believe we are being as effective as we could be in helping those new people, as well as others who have already been here in the church for many years and who should already be at another level of service and surrender to the Lord. They should be entering that mature life of the Spirit, and… what happens?

When a church continues to grow around the edges but the people do not move toward the center, what happens then is that the church—in English there is an expression, “top-heavy”—is like a house that is very wide at the top but has a small foundation and weak columns, with more weight being added at the top every day; and if the columns do not become wider and the foundation does not become larger, the weight above causes it to collapse.

And every day more souls are added, but I believe we have to do more to help those lives become contributors to the ministry—saints who serve in the ministry of the gospel. Because otherwise, what happens? More people to baptize, more people to bury, more people to marry, more people to counsel, but no expansion of the group of pastors, the group of leaders, or the group of teachers.

Then that group that remains, which is not growing at the same rate as the needs are growing, feels more pressure every day, and the needs increase, but the supply of leaders does not increase because there are no…

These people who come with their needs do not serve the Lord as they should, do not know the Word as they should, cannot help in the ministry, and do not contribute so that the church’s foundation may grow; and so there are needs that fall further and further and further behind every day, and proportionally the church loses ground instead of the opposite happening. The more people come to the gospel, the more we prepare them, the more we equip them, the more we instill in them a mindset of service and consecration to the Lord, and therefore we have more leaders and more servants who can do more of the work of the gospel. Do you understand?

That is why God wants us to grow in that knowledge until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. To a perfect man, to a perfect woman, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may “no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men who cunningly employ the schemes of error in order to deceive.”

I am going to leave it there. Every part of that text is pregnant with teaching and meaning.

What it is saying clearly, brothers and sisters, is that we can no longer continue with so many immature children in the church of Jesus Christ. We need more leaders; we need more people who will die to the world and surrender themselves to serving the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, Lion of Judah is now reaching the point where God wants this church to explode and envelop this community. But it cannot do so until this church becomes more united in the maturity Christ desires, until we have more leaders, and until there is a militant mindset—a mindset of people radically devoted to the interests of the Kingdom of God.

And I want to do my part as your pastor, and your church wants to do its part; we want to give you the tools. But when you hear the call, we need you to come forward. Amen. That is your part.

How many here, for example…? Let us see—one question: how many here have taken the discipleship classes we offer? Please stand for a moment. If you have taken a discipleship class at any point, any one of the classes. If you look around, I believe it is no more than a quarter of the congregation, and yet that is rich food.

I was speaking with a sister who is serving as an usher and who has been here at Lion of Judah for several years, and now I am seeing that fire for the Lord in her. I am becoming aware of the gifts within her, and I stopped her—this morning, between the two services—and said to her, “You know what? God is calling you to serve the Lord more,” and I asked her, “Have you taken the discipleship classes?” She said to me, “Oh, Pastor, if only you knew! I took them, and that changed my life. That has made the difference in my life.” And then I said, “Ah, of course! Now I understand.”

Because when the Word of God begins to enter your life, changes take place. So God wants you to be trained, to be perfected for ministry. God will use you to the extent that you are trained and perfected.

And I want us, when we say, “Brothers and sisters, this is the way the church needs to go,” to unite like an army and flow in that direction, in unity. That is what God is calling the Church to—that apostolic authority whereby, when God’s leaders say, “This is the way the people of God need to go,” the people flow in that direction, receive blessing, are strengthened, and are perfected because they are eating directly from the food that comes from the mouth of God.

People of God, God calls you to maturity, God calls you to commitment, God calls you to consecration, God calls you to stop playing the little game of “yes today, no tomorrow, and then the day after that.”

God wants surrendered people, militant people, committed people, people disciplined unto the Lord, people who can worship when the worship celebration is going on, but who will also listen to the Word of the Lord and receive it because they have an appetite and know how to discern and enjoy the Word of the Lord.

May they not say, “Well, I have already worshiped. So now I am going home.” No, no—may they remain there to receive and prepare themselves, because they know they need that nourishment in order to serve the Lord as they need to. That is God’s call for this church at this time.

Let us stand. Let us make acts of consecration in our lives, surrender ourselves more fully to the Lord, and give more to God. May the Lord grant that each day we become more and more a radical people, a committed people, a people militant for God. Let us give the Lord, without equivocation, without limitations, everything He has for us.

Thank You, Lord. Thank You, God. Thank You. Thank You, Lord. Thank You. So that we “may no longer be wavering children—the Word says—carried about everywhere by every wind of doctrine, but, following the truth in love, may grow in every way into Him who is the head. This is Christ.” Let us grow. God wants a growing people, an evolving people, a people who live for God and rejoice solely in giving Him the glory. A consecrated people, a holy people, a people set apart, a people radically surrendered to the Lord.

May God grant that this spirit fill your life today.

We thank You, Lord. We consecrate ourselves to You once again, and we ask that it be Your Spirit, Lord, taking possession of the land and filling us completely. Lord, consecrating us, we ask You for a consecrated church, a committed church, a church completely surrendered to You, Lord. We worship You and bless You, God.