Week 4: Growing Together
In this series, we’ve seen the importance of running the Christian race together. Every believer is responsible for their personal walk with Christ Jesus, but the Scriptures show us that this walk, our Christian journey, is a corporate one. While running, walking, and journeying are helpful metaphors for understanding the proactive nature of the Christian faith, they don’t fully encapsulate what’s revealed in God’s Word. In this post, we’ll consider another Scriptural perspective of what it means to make progress in the Christian life and examine what the Bible reveals about the mysterious reality of how believers in Christ are related to one another.
The Old Testament records that Enoch and Noah “walked with God.” (Gen. 5:22; Gen. 6:9) And 2 Corinthians 5:7 tells us that we should “walk by faith, not by appearance.” Describing our journey of faith as “walking with God” emphasizes active participation and responsibility, consistent obedience, and trusting in God’s will. We are walking with God; as He moves, we, as believers in Christ, follow. Walking with God also implies progress and a destination, and highlights that our faith is not static but active and has a definite goal. And while all this is true, “walking with God” is not the primary way the Scriptures speak of Christian progress. Rather, the Bible emphasizes growth. Let’s examine what the Scriptures teach us about growing in our Christian life and how this understanding can reshape our walk with Christ.
What does it mean to grow as a Christian? The focus of walking is activity; the focus of growth is life. We may be inclined to think that simply knowing more about the Bible or improving our behavior is the same as growth. And while these certainly can contribute to our growth as believers, and are a kind of progress, they are not synonymous with growing in life. Colossians 3:4 says, “Christ our life.” Growth, according to the Bible, is simply the increase of Christ within us. As Christians, we spiritually grow in the same way we were spiritually born, by receiving Christ Jesus. Christ is not only the life we received once for all at our regeneration, but also our daily life supply. Once a baby is born and takes its first breath, it never stops breathing, and as believers in Christ, we should never stop contacting and receiving Him. After air, a newborn’s most immediate need is food. 1 Peter 2:2 says, “as newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation.” No one expects a baby to grow by learning or training, and likewise, spiritual growth is not merely an increased familiarity with the Bible or an improvement in outward behavior. In the Christian life, growth is not outward but inward. In Ephesians 3:17, the Apostle Paul prayed, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” And long after his initial salvation experience, he expressed his desire to “gain Christ.” (Phil. 3:8) By reading the Bible, prayer, and fellowship, we contact Christ and receive more of Him. As we receive more of Him and cooperate with Him, Christ can make His home in our hearts. As He does, the measure of Christ within us increases. (Eph. 4:13) The more Christ Jesus makes His home in our hearts, the more He is formed in us, and the more we will live Him until we are “full-grown in Christ.” (Eph. 3:17; Gal. 4:19; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:28). This is the Scriptural understanding of what it means to grow in life.
To grow in life, we must gain Christ, and to gain Christ, we must pursue Him. In Philippians 3:9 and 12, Paul says that he pursued Christ and desired to gain Him. In a previous post, we saw that the most effective way to pursue Christ is “with those.” (2 Tim. 2:22) However, we need to realize that our pursuit and growth are not solely for our benefit. As believers in Christ, we’re not merely individual Christians but part of the Church. And the Church is not merely an organization of individual believers in Christ, but something mysterious and much deeper. (Eph. 5:32) Ephesians 1:22-23 tells us that the church is the Body of Christ. This divine thought is also repeated in Colossians 1:24: “[Christ’s] Body, which is the church.” As believers in Christ, we’re not only growing together in the sense that we’re growing with one another but also growing together as the Body of Christ. Ephesians 4:16 reveals this clearly: “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” Our individual walk with Christ and growth in life equals “the operation of the measure of each one part.” This causes not only our individual growth but, more importantly, the growth of the Body of Christ. In the Body of Christ, He is the Head, and we, the believers, are His members. Colossians 2:19 tells us that “out from [Christ] all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.” How can God grow? God is perfect and complete, and doesn’t grow in Himself. However, as each believer in Christ grows, the measure of Christ increases within them. God is growing by the increase, the growth, of the members of the Body of Christ. This is mysterious, but it makes sense if you consider the growth of a child into an adult. When a child is born, it is physiologically complete but functionally undeveloped. As the members of its body grow, the child grows. The child’s distinguishable members do not become something different as they develop; they simply become their mature version. As we grow, we’re not merely becoming a full-grown individual Christian but a fully grown member of His Body. As members of Christ’s Body, we are members of one another and are growing together. (Rom. 12:5) In reality, we cannot be separated from the Body of Christ or the other members. But practically, we can be disconnected from Christ, the Head, and the members of Christ, His believers. When this happens, growth is an impossibility. The more our physical body grows and develops, the stronger the connections between our physical members become. The same is true spiritually, and in the Body of Christ. The more we mature in life through the increase of Christ within us, the deeper our connection with Christ and with other believers. We often consider independence as a sign of maturity, but in the Body of Christ, it’s the opposite. The more spiritually mature we are, the more we grow together and the more dependent we become. 1 Thessalonians 3:8 says, “Now we live if you stand firm in the Lord.” We live if you stand firm.
We hope this post has caused you to gain a deeper understanding of the Christian life according to the Scriptures. True Christian progress is not merely an increase in activity but the increase of Christ within us. As we daily receive Christ as our life and cooperate with Him, He makes His home in our hearts, and we grow. The more we grow in Him, the more we are joined to Him and to one another. We run the Christian race by our personal walk with Christ, but the goal is to grow together corporately, until we arrive at the full measure of Christ for God’s glory. (Eph. 4:13)
