God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
A healthy church has a pervasive concern with church growth – not simply growing numbers but growing members. A church full of growing Christians is the kind of church growth I want as a pastor. Some today seem to think that one can be a “baby Christian” for a whole lifetime. Growth is seen to be an optional extra for particularly zealous disciples. But be very careful about taking that line of thought. Growth is a sign of life. Growing trees are living trees, and growing animals are living animals. When something stops growing, it dies.
According to the Puritans, the law of Moses has two basic functions: as a “covenant of works,” it condemns the sinner who disobeys it; as an expression of God's holy will, it directs the conduct of the people of God. For the Christians, the first of these functions is at an end, and this is what Paul means when he asserts that Christians are not “under the law” (Rom. 6:14-15). But the second of these functions remains fully in place, as Paul also suggests when he claims that the gospel “establishes the law” (3:31).
