A Mile Wide And An Inch Deep Series

The antidote to being tossed back and forth and blown here and there by every wind of teaching is to hold unswervingly to the Bible as the source of our beliefs and, like the Bereans, to test everything we read and hear against the Bible. I hope that you do that each week when I preach. You should never take anything I say as the truth until you have first tested it against the truth of the Scriptures.

• We develop our relationship with Jesus

...the knowledge of the Son of God...

As you would probably expect, the word Paul uses here for “knowledge” is a word that means to know through experience. That is consistent with what Paul had previously prayed on behalf of his readers:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Ephesians 1:17 (NIV)

The most important thing we do as we gather together as a body of believers each week is to develop our relationship with Jesus. Everything we do – the music, the Scripture readings, prayer, the “In the Bag”” message for the children, the sermon and our fellowship – is done for the purpose of pointing us toward Jesus Christ so that He might reveal Himself to us and then responding to that revelation.

But one hour on Sunday morning is certainly not enough to develop a relationship. That’s why we encourage you to grow your relationship with Jesus every day by spending time in His Word and communing with him through prayer.

• We minister

... to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up...

This brings us in a full circle to where we began last week. Paul makes it absolutely clear that God’s people are to carry out the work of ministry because that results in building up the body of Christ. Ultimately what builds up the body of Christ, both numerically and spiritually, is God’s people ministering in the lives of others. As important as it is to have solid doctrine, what really matters is putting that doctrine into practice by meeting the needs of others.

I don’t want our Christianity to be a mile wide and an inch deep. So let’s all join together in this process of maturing in our faith, so that we can become more like Christ each day. Let’s hold firmly to the word of God, focus our attention on our relationship with Jesus and put our faith to work by being ministers of the gospel. Then perhaps we can do as Artemus Ward suggested and turn on faith on its side so that it might amount to something significant.