Most parents or guardians, or anyone that has intimate involvement in rearing children are familiar with the term growing pains.  This is commonly known as that stage in a child's life when they may begin to experience aches and pains in their legs during the night while sleeping.  For some, the pains generally occur late in the day or at night and sometimes can wake a child up out of their sleep. Very often, the pain can measure from just stiffness to severe aches that can last from a minute to hours depending on the child. But what we do know is that this is generally evidence that the child is growing.

 

Because the way God has fixed it in life is that living organisms are created to grow. Anything that has life ... whether it is a person, plant, animals, organization, society. All living things are expected to experience growth! So there is the expectation that you as a person grow, that your relationships grow, that your marriage grows, and even the church grows. Growth is an expectation. Now, I'm not asserting that all growth is painful, but at the minimum, it will require discomfort.

 

And it's evident in our society today that we are definitely experiencing some growing pains. Some pains that have plagued our society since its inception! We are in the midst of racial unrest that we can either grow from it and become better or succumb to it and remain divided and defeated.  Because we're not winning until black lives and white lives are treated the same. 

 

Here in our text, we can take a page out of the lives of the early church to see how the modern-day church, collectively and individually, ought to play its part in our current predicament.  There is a risk that must be taken, and something important we must remember, in order to reap the rewards of a better society.