June 14 2026 | The Church S1E3 | Maturity

In the third message of The Church series, Pastor Adam Stadtmiller takes up the third of four church purposes — Identity, Unity, Maturity, Mission — and reframes what maturity actually means. The goal of the church, he argues, is not attendance. It is conformity to the person of Jesus Christ, a distinction that sounds subtle but changes everything about how a believer lives.

The sermon’s theological center is a single reorientation: the destination of salvation is not Heaven. Heaven is the location. The destination is Christlikeness. Pastor Adam illustrates the difference with a honeymoon story — a groom so dazzled by the Ritz Carlton, the putting green, and the flat-screen TV that he loses sight of the person he came to be with. That, he says, is exactly what happens when Christians treat Heaven as the goal rather than intimacy with Jesus. Romans 8:29 frames the biblical anchor: we are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son.

From Ephesians 4:2–3 and 11–13, Pastor Adam draws five marks of a maturing believer — humility, stability, love, unity and peace, and service — and grounds each one in practical, relational terms. The stability mark produces the sermon’s most memorable illustration: rifle trigger pressure. The more you grow in Christ, the more force it takes for old triggers to fire. Things that used to set you off require more pressure — eventually the safety is on. That is maturity. The session closes with a direct challenge: identify one area where you don’t yet look like Jesus, and intentionally practice Christlikeness there every day this week.

S1E3 of a four-part series. S1E1 established identity in Christ; S1E2 addressed unity and relational reconciliation; S1E4 will conclude with mission.

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